Skip to main content

Full text of "CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE SCIENCE AND ARTS"

See other formats 


Google 



This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 

to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 

publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 
We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 

at |http: //books .google .com/I 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL 



OF 



POPULAR LITERATURE SCIENCE AND ART 






■j 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL 



OF 



POPULAR LITERATURE SCIENCE AND ARTS 



C07SDUCTED CY 



WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS 



EDITORS or 'cUAMBEfts'S EDUCATIONAL COUBSE,* ^INFORMATION TOR TIIE rEOPLE,* &c. 



VOLUME XV 



No*. 3CC-391. JANUARY-JUNE 1861. 




< 

\0 ' ' • — 






-, / 



LONDON 

W. & R. CHAMBERS 47 PATERNOSTER ROW 

AND HIGH STREET EDINBURGH 



UDCCCLXI 



li 



Edinburgh : 
rrinted by W. and K. ChAiuben. 



INDEX 



FAMILIAR SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

Baby, Nix>, - . - - 35l 
Bachelor** Prot««t, a, - 385 
Broken oq the Wheel, - - 33 
Buy Pretty Polly I - - - 161 
Can't and Can, or Dave and Do- 
only meant for Ladleii, - - 411 
CamivaU the Britiah, - - 406 
Cenans-taker, a Tolnnteer, - 289 
DenUtus the Tyrant, - - 337 
Door-steps, - - - - 241 
Douane, a Day with the, - 198 

Errata, 15 

File, Poking the, - - - 113 

Going Abroad, ... - 369 

Indian Grass Widowers, > - 145 

Inquisition, the Modem, - - 209 

London Street-noises, - - 315 
3i^ior Truefitt on Logic, Some 

Ideas of, - - - - 97 

Men and Women, Little, - - 133 

Nix's Baby, - - - - 321 

Nobody's >fcw8paper8, - - 124 

Offer of Marriage, an, - - 353 

OnGnard, 75 

Ovulation, .... 54 
Passengers, Second-class, > - 177 
Poking the Fire, - - - 113 
Polly! Buy Pretty, - - - 161 
Protest, a Bachelor's, - 385 
Railway Chances, - - - 109 
Remarka by a Person of No Conse- 
quence, Some, ... 225 
Seeond-class Passengers, 177 
Street-noises. London, - - 315 
Traefitt on Logic, Some Ideaa of 

M;«or, 97 

IVrant, Dentatus the, - - 337 
^Yery Cheap, Ladies and Gentle- 
men!' 29 

Village Wonders, the, > - 83 

Volunteer Census-taker, a, - 289 
Welsh Yams. In Two Hanka, 360, 874 

Wheel, Broken on the, - 33 

Widowera, Indian Graisa, - 145 

Women, little Men and, - - 133 



POETRY. 

Page 

Bitterness, 176 

Black bird, the, ... 384 

Bombay Sunset, a, - - - 256 

Cherry-time, the, - - - 144 
Coming Home, - - - -416 

Conjugal Dispute, a, - - 334 
Dead Love, - - . .80 

Duty, 128 

Little Florence, - ... 96 

Missel-thrush in February, the, 1 1 2 

Money-spinner Spider, the, . 192 

Our Village at Daybreak, - 288 

Quince, 320 

Rulway Lyric, a, - • . 16 

Rain, the, 304 

Sailor's Wife's Song, a, - . 240 

Sonnet, 160 

Spring, 352 

, Inscription for a, - . 32 

Violet, the, - ... 272 

* What the Hand findeth to do,' 224 
Wife, Answer to a Student^ 

Sketch of a, ... 208 

Wild-swan, the, - - - - 283 

Wintcr^timc, . - - - 48 

Work, 368 

Years, the Two, . . . <>4 



POPULAR SCIENCE. 



73 



135 

397 



Bee-world, the, . - - - 
Electric Clocks and Ship Chro- 
nometers, . . . - 
Light-houses and Beacons, 
Month, the : Science and Arts — 

62, 126, 207, 270, 335, 414 
Syrian Silk and Silk-roeUng, - 26 
Telegraphs, Undersea, - - 228 



TALES AND OTHER NARRATIVES. 

Page 

Adventure, an Ice-boat, . - 239 
Ante-nuptial Lie, the, - - 291 
Baby, Nix's, . - - . 321 
Bachelor, the Married, - - 343 
Backwoods' Trayel, an Incident ot, 316 
Can't and Can, or Dare and Do — 

only meant for Ladies, - - 411 
Family Scapegrace, Ilie. By 
James Payn — 

Prefatory, - . . 1 

I. A Family Group, - 1 

II. Fatherless, ... 3 

III. Uncle Ingram, . . 21 

IV. A Commercial Academy, 24 
V. A Cool Reception, - 42 

VI. Falsely Accused, - 44 

VII. Darkcndim Street, - 50 
VIII. Golden Square, - 52 

IS. The Last Day at Home, 68 
X. Dick Cuts the Painter, . 70 
XI. The Perils of Eave8dropping,90 
XII. Miss Backboard's Young 

Ladies, . - > 92 

XIII. Monsieur de Crespigny, 98 

XIV. The Mystery of Mc Jonea, 100 

XV. A Model to be Avoided, 116 

XVI. In Trouble, - - .118 

XVII. The Witnesses, . . 136 

XVIII. CiKxmI Samaritans, . 139 

XIX. The Excommunication, 149 

XX. Among Friends, . .151 

XXI. Out of Town, - - 167 

XXII. A I^iecture upon Natural 

History, - - - 169 

xxiiT. The Lion-tamer, - 182 

XXIV. Mr and Mrs Treidgold, - 185 

XXV. A Lodging with a Lionets, 200 

XXVI. A Man of Business and 

Pleasure, . - - 202 

XXVII. Intrigues at the Cottage, 216 

XXVIII. The Pitcher is Broken at 

Last, . - - 220 
XXIX. A Dangerous Proposition, 229 

XXX. Before the Queen, - 232 

XXXI. Ph>feaaional, - • 245 



I 



VI 



INDEX. 



Page 
Family Scapejjracc, The. By 
James Payn — 

xxxii. Reconciled, - - - 247 
XXXIII. The Begiuning of a 

Honeymoon, - - 26*2 
XXXIV. The Mouse atRtsts the 

Lion-(huntcr), - - 265 
XXXV. Married and Settled, 267 
Garibaldi, On the Rock with, - 401 
Highway, Snow-bound ou the 

KtngX - - - - 167 
loe-boat Adventure, an, - - 239 
Incident of Backwoods* Travel, 

an, 316 

Lawyer and the Love-letters, 

the, 310 

Lie, the Ante-nuptial, - - 291 
Locked In! .... 390 
Lodger, the Queer, ... 284 

Lost! 175 

Love among the Lilies, - • 10 
Maria van Oosterwyck — Love 

among the Lilies, - - - 10 
Married Bachelor, the, - - 243 
Night in the Woods, a, - - 31 
Nix's Baby, .... .321 
Offer of Marrisge, an, - - 353 
Queer Lodger, the, - - - 284 
Sohamyl in Captivity, > > 86 
Snow.bound on the King's High- 
way, 157 

Tomklns Married, ... 377 
ViUago Wonders, the, - - 83 



NOTICES OF BOOKS. 

Aylmer's Cruise in the Pacific, - 60 
Barrcra's Gems and Jewels, - «94 
Brown's Horcc SubsfcivcBt - - 276 
Browne's My Share of the Worid, 281 
Buckle's History of Civilisatiou in 

Enghiud, - - - - 404 
Burton's Autobiography of Dr 

Alexander Carlyhs, . - - 46 
Coleridge's Public School PMuca- 

tion, 8 

Du Chaillu's Explorations and 
Adventures iu Equatorinl 

Africa, 394 

Gonger's Personal Narrative of 
Two Years' Imprisonment in 
Burmah, - - - - 105 

Head's Hone and his Rider. > 19 

Hodges's Construction of the 

Victoria Bridge, - - - 114 
Hull's Coal-fields of Great Britain, 164 
Jeaffreson's Book about Doctors, 78 
King's Antique Gems, . - 346 
Lament's Seasons with the Sea- 
horses, 211 

Lockhart's Chinese at Home, 362 
Marryat's Residence in JntUnd, 
the Danish Isles, and Copen- 

hagen, 141 

Meredith's Songs of Servia, . 332 
Praed,- the Poetical Works of 

Winthrop Mackworth, . .187 
Ramsay's Reminiscences of Scot- 
tish Life and Cliaraetcr, Second 
Series, ----- 325 
Scoresby, the Life of William, 1 47 
Tyior's Anahuao: or Mexico and 
the Mexicans, Ancient and 

Modem, 380 

Vacation Tourists and Notes of 

Travel in 1860, - - - 297 
Wyntcr's Curiosities of Civilisa. 
tion, 27 



MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES OF 
INSTRUCTION AND ENTERTAIN- 
MENT. 

Pave 
About Doctors, - - - - 78 
Abroad, Going, - - . 369 
Acyutnnt, the Calcuttn, . . 40 
Adventure, an Ice-boat, - 239 

Aldemev, ----- 205 
All the ^Vorld Over, - - 297 
Antique Gems, .... 346 
Arctic Winter Two Hundred 

Years ago, an, - - 36, 56 
Aristocracy of Russia, the, - 387 
Armorial Bearinn, - • 273 
Armoury, the Old, - - - 129 
Arts and Science— 

62, 126, 207, 270,385, 414 
Australia, Central, . . - 242 
Autobiography of Dr Alexander 

Carlyle, 46 

Babv, Nix's, .... 321 
Bachelor's Protest, a, - - 385 
Backwoods' Travel, an Incident of, 316 
Bank, the Pauper's, ... .^9 
Beacons and Llght-houses, - 397 
Bearings, Armorial, ... 273 
Bee-world, the, - . . 73 
Bclvidcre House v. Uio Public 

Schools, - - - - 8 
Bost, M. J.— Favoured Idiots, 302 
Bridge, the Victoria, . > 114 
Broken on the Wheel, > - 33 
Browne, Frances, - - - 281 
Buckle, Mr, on Spain and Scot- 
land, 404 

Burmah, Imprisoned in,. - 105 
Buy Pretty Polly ! - . .161 
Calces, More Plums from the Land 

of, 325 

Calcutta Adjutant, the, • 40 

Canal-boat, the Fast, - > 88 
Cannibals and Gorillas, - Zi)-i 

Can't and Can, or Dare and Do — 

only meant for Ladies, - - 41 1 
Canton, Two Days at, - - 350 
Captivity, Schamyl in, > > 86 
Carlyle, Autobiography of Dr 

Alexander, - - - . 46 

Carnival, the British, . - 406 
Carolina, South, ... 65 
Census-taker, a Volunteer, . 289 
Central Australia, - - 242 

Chicago— A City Elevated, - 49 
Chinese at Home, the, - 362 

Commerce, . - - 4 

City Elevated, a, - - - 49 

Civilisation, the Curiosities of, 27 
Clocks and Ship Chronometers, 

Electric, - - - - 135 
Coal-fields of Great Britain, the, 1 64 
Coal-pit Cabin, in the, • * 154 

Cold, 81 

Consequence, Some Remarks by 

a Person of No, ... 
Constantino's Legacy, - 234, 253 
Co-operation, ... - 96 
Co-ops in Lancashire, the, . 409 
Cotton Countries, - > * 172 
Day with the Douane, a, > 198 
Dentatus the Tyrant, - - 337 
Derby— The British Carnival, 406 
DevirsDuRt, - • - - 103 
Diary, a Middy's, ... 60 

Dr Scoresby, - - . - I47 
Doctors, about, . - . 78 
Door-steps, - - - - 241 
Easels, RivaU . - . 327 

Electric Clocks and Ship Chro- 
nometers, . . - - 135 
English l^rivateers. Old, - - 408 
Errata, ... - - 15 

Favoured Idiots, - - - 302 
Fire, Poking the, - - - 113 
Fire-enginea, Steam-impelled, - 128 



Frances Browne, . - . 
French Prisoners — On Parole, 
Titles, 



Pa'^'e 
281 
120 
305 
Frontier, the Military, - - 339 
Garibaldi, On the Rock with, 401 
Gems and Jewels, - • - 94 

^, Antique, - - - 346 

Giving Out Money, - - S83 



00 R 



Going Abroad, - - . - 369 
Goodrich Armoury — The Old 

Armoury, - - - - 129 

Gorillas and Cannibals, - - 394 
Gougcr, Mr — Imprisoned in Bur- 

mah, . . - - - 105 

Grass Widowers, Indian, > 145 

Great Britain, the Coal-fields of, 164 

Guano Islands, the, - - - 17 

Guard, on, - - - - 75 

Hearth, the, - - - - 371 
Hexham — ^An Unknown Psge in 

History, - - - - 313 

Higln\-ay, Snow-bound on the 

King's, 157 

Holy Week in Vienna, - - 222 

Home, the Ciiinese at, - • 362 
Hoppner and Lawrence— Rival 

Easels, 327 

Horse, Sir Francis on tlie, - 19 

Horses, Pcrfonning, - - - 300 

How the Money Wears, . 1 80 

Hugh Peters, - . - - 250 

Ice-boat Adventure, an, - 229 

Idiots, Favoured, ... 302 

Imprisoned in Burmah, - 105 

Incident of Backwoods' Travel, an, 316 

Indian Grass Widowers, - - 145 

Inquisition, the Modem, - 209 

Iron Crown,' • Luke's, - - 261 

Islands, the Guano, - - 17 

Isle of Wight— llie Undercliff, ^99 
James, Captain — An Arctic Winter 

Two Hundred Years ago, - 36, 56 

Jewels and (i^rms, - - - 94 

Kissing— Osculation, . - 54 

Lancashire, the Co-ops in, - 409 

Laudsccr of Literature, tlie, > 276 
Lawrenco and Hoppner — Rival 

Easels. - . - - - 327 
Legacy, Constantine's, - 234, 251$ 

Life-boats, - - - - Oi) 

Light-houses and Beacons, - W 

little Men and Women, - - 1 33 

Livingstone, Last News from Dr, ]i)^ 

London Street-noises, - - 315 

* Luke's Iron Crown,' - - 261 
Major Tmefitt on Ix>gic, Some 

Ideas of, - . - - 07 

Marriage, an Offer of, - . .''*53 

Men and Women, Little, - - 133 

Mexicans, Modem, • • 3H0 

Middy's Diary, a, - - - tO 

Military Frontier, the, - - 'M19 

Modem Inc^uisition, tlie, - - '209 

Money, Giving Out, - - 383 

Wears, how the, - - 180 

Month, the : Science and Arts— 

62. 126, 207, 270, 3;«, 414 
More Plums from the Land of 

Cakes, 325 

Mungo— Devil's Dust, . - 103 

Newspapers, Nobody's, - - 124 

Nix's Baby, .... 321 

Norman Cross— On Parole, - 120 
Occasional Notes — 

Cooperation, - - - 96 

Life-boats, . - - - .06 

Signing Recommendations, - 416 

Street Railways, - - 416 

Old Armoury, the, • - - 1*29 

Old English Privateers, - - 408 

On GKuurd, • - - - 75 

— Parole, - - . . 120 
Oosterwyck, Mtuia van - Love 

among the Lilies, - - 10 



INDEX. 



vu 



Ptt|0 

OMoIation, - - - - 54 

PtaseDgen, Second-class, - 177 

Patronjrmicfl, .... 33O 

Fauper*s Bank, the, - - 309 

Performing Hones, . - > 300 

Peters, Hugh, - - - 250 
Plains from the Land of Cakca, 

More, 325 

Poking the Fire, - - • 113 

Polly I BayPtetty, - - 161 

Pond-iishing, - - . 348 

Portland Prison, - - - 1.90 

Poultry Show, a, - - - 13 

Praed, Winthrop Maokworth, - 187 

Privateers, Old English, - - 408 

Protert, a BaohelorX - - 385 
Publio Schools v. Belvidere House, 

the, 8 

Racking, - - - - 270 

Railway Chances, ... 109 

, the Roundabout, - 364 

Railways. Street, - • - 416 

Recommendations, Signing, - 416 

Rival Easels, - - • - 327 

Rock with Garibaldi, On the, 401 

Rosda, Serfdom in, - - 278 

, the Aristooracy oty - 387 

Schamylin Captivity, - - 86 
Science and Arts — 

62, 126, 207, 270, 335, 414 

ScoresbyfDr, - - • - 147 

Scotch Tally-trade, the, - 214 
Scotland and Spain, Mr Buckle on, 404 



Page 

Scottish Horo in a New Liglit, a, 124 

Second-class Passengers, - - 177 

Serfdom in Russia, - - 278 

Servia, the Songs of, - - - 332 
Ship Chronometers, Electric 

Clocks, 135 

Shoddy— Devil's Dust, - - 103 
Show, a Poultry, - - - 13 
Signing Reconmiendations, - 416 
Silk and Silk-reeling, Syrian, - 26 
Silver-smuggling, ... 257 
Sir Francis on the Horse, - - IJ) 
Snow-bound on the King's High- 
way, 157 

Soldiers' Wives, ... 41 
Some Remarks by a Person of No 

Consequence, - - . - 225 

South Carolina, ... 65 
Spain and Scotland, Mr Buckle on, 404 

Spitzbergen, About, - - 211 

Steam-impelled Fire-engines, - 128 

Street-noises, London, - - 315 

Street Railways, - - 416 

Swan, the, ... - 366 

Tally-trade, the Scotch, - - 214 

Tcfr--Chinese Commerce, - 4 

Teeth, Ill 

Telegraphs, Undersea, - 228 

Titles, French, .... 305 

Tourist-ground, Unknown, - 141 
Tnieiitt on Logic, Some Ideas of 

Miyor, 97 

Two Days at Canton, - - 350 



Bags 
Tyrant, Dcntatus, the, - - 837 
Undercliff. the, - - - 399 
Undersea Telegraphs, - - 228 
Unknown Page in History, an, 313 
Vcntnor— The Undercliff, - - 399 
' Very Clieap, Ladies and Gentle- 
men!' 29 

Victoria Bridge, the, - - 114 
Vienna, Holy Week in, - - 222 
Volunteer CensuR-takcr, a, - 289 
Wallace — A Scottish Hero in a 

New Light, - - - - 124 
Weapons of War, - - - 353 
Welsli Yams. In Two Hanks, 360, 374 



Wheel, Broken on the, 
Widowers, Indian GrasM, 
Winthrop Maokworth I*racd, 
Wives, Soldiers', - 
Women, Little Men and, - 
Woods, a Night in the, - 
World Over, All the, - 



33 
145 
187 

41 
133 

81 
297 



ANECDOTES AND PARAGRAPHS. 

Ancients, a Lesson from the, - 192 

Coal-oil Parish Lamps, - - 288 

Education, Effects of, - - 112 

Interests, Real and Supposed, 160 

Lost Men, 64 



ii 







S titntt aiib %xts. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 366. 



SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1861. 



Price \^d. 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

BYJAMESPAYN. 

AUTHOR OP *THB BATXVAN HOVSIHOLD.' 
PREFATORY. 

I supposs there has scarcely ever been any large 
household, at any period of the world's history, so 
fortunate as not to possess one mauvais aujet — one 
Disgrace to the Family : there Jiave been households, 
such as Jacob's of old, wherein there have been ten 
Disgraces to two Credits, but that was an exceptional 
case. I speak within bounds, therefore, when I make 
use of the words of Mr Wadsworth Longfellow — 

There is no flock, however watched and tended. 
Bat one Black Sheep is there ; • 

There is no fireside, howe'er defended, 
Bat hath one yacant chair, 

about whose should-be occupant there is a silence in 
the domestic circle, and only an unpleasant whisper 
elsewhere. Like many other whispers, however, this 
circulates much more universally than any outspoken 
report. The name which we become moiist familiar 
with when we have made the acquaintance of his 
brethren — and often enough before we have made it 
— is poor Dick*s. The Disgrace to the Family is 
generally a Dick. Godfathers and godmothers in 
one's baptism should look to this. Tom, too, is rather 
a dangerous sort of name to give a lad ; but Alexander 
is safe enough; and as for James — I never even so 
much as heard of a James going wrong, except in the 
Stuart family. Nobody ever calls Dick, Richard — 
that is, * not since it happened, you know ' — except 
his mother. * My poor dear Richard,' she says, when 
she speaks of him at rare times to his earthly father, 
and at all times when she prays for him, as she does 
continually, to his Father which is in Heaven. Dick 
has all the world against him except his mother and 
me. I always did like Dick, and always shall ; a 
weakness, which — being a James myself, and out of 
the reach of any possible sympatliy with the young 
reprobate — is not a little creditable. * Well,' say I, to 
the friends of the family, 'since you are always 
saying, " He was bom bad, you see ; " and as I know 
that he had a bad name given to him at the baptis- 
mal font, would it not have been fl3ring in the face of 
Predestination, if he had not " turned out 1>ad " also ? 
Why, of course it would.' 

Although people talk about * It,' and * That bad 
business,* it must bo confessed that the youtli is not 
often made a castaway for his first fault. His usual 
course is. to commit a long list of misdemeanours, 
culminating in some ofifcnce, which, although serious, 

VOL. XV. 



would not of itself have placed him outside the pale 
of forgiveness. I have known a yoimg gentleman's 
character to be irreproachable up to the age of four- 
teen years, at which epoch he committed an atrocious 
and unextenuated child-murder; but he was not a 
favourite of mine either Iwfore or after that event, 
and his Christian name for what is accustomed to 
pass for such in Wales, his native country) was 
Cadwallader. He, however, be pleased to observe, 
was by no means a Black Sheep — ^which may, after 
all, be merely a healthy variety of the species— but 
one that had an evil disease in him, fatal to all his 
kind — the Rot ; not in the foot, indeed, as in the 
quadruped's case, but at his heart. 

The Black Sheep proper (which, however, is an 
adjective but rarely applicable to him) is often only 
black outside ; of an external ap})earance obviously 
objectionable indeed, but, within, very tolerable 
mutton. 

I have in my time known not a few of these unfor- 
tunates, nnd my kindliness towards them has led several 
(they being confiding creatures, who always wear their 
hearts upon their sleeves, of which circumstance the 
daws take great advantage) to reveal to me the 
history of their lives. Out of which several narra- 
tives, I am about to compile the following biography, 
for the good of my species (as well as for other 
reasons which need not he here set down) ; just as 
the warning beacon-fire, lit upon some wave-fretted 
promontory on stormy nights, is not made up of a 
single tree, marked from the first for such a purpose 
by the cruel axe, but out of many. If, in one single 
bark, bearing full sail upon those fatal breakers, the 
careless steersman shall perceive its flame, and seize 
the flapping helm while there is time, thereby preserv- 
ing ship and cargo, it will be well indeed : but if, 
evoked by this tiny danger-signal, one life-boat, that 
would else have lain securely in harbour, be induced 
to put out to the driving vessel, and give her aid, ere 
she become an utter wreck, it will be better still. A 
little help is often all she needs, although she looks 
in such a sad plight to us, on land. And for endeavour 
of this sort, be sure, whether it succeed or not, 
the rescuer may coimt securely on one day getting 
salvage. 

CUAPTER I. 
▲ FAMILT GBOUr. 

Richard Arbour was the fifth child and the third 
son of parents who considered their quiver sufficiently 
stocked with that sort of missile before his advent, 
which, moreover, occurred somewhat unexpectedly. 
The wind of a not particiUarly joyful dawn blew free 
in the silken sail of his infancy, three weeks or so 



r 



2 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



. I 



before that little Bhallop was expected upon the great 
ocean of life. The hypocrisy o^ *Weloome, Little 
Stranger,' would not perhaps have been inscribed 
upon his pinciiBhion, no matter what notice of his 
arriTsl mig^t have been rouchsafed beforehand, but, 
as it was, there were absolutely not enou^ pins; 
there was a total insufficiency of flannel; and as for 
his cradle, it was a something knocked up out of his 
eldest brother^s wheel-barrow (who never forgave that 
appropriation of his property), and looked, even when 
it was fitted up, and en grande tenue, a great deal 
more like an Indian 'tikinigan* than a Christian 
bassinette. His mother, poor thing, was glad perhaps 
to look upon his little mottled carcass; out nobody 
who had met his papa at 2 A. M. on that gustv 
December morning at the doctor^s door, with his silk 
umbrella blown mside out, and one shoe and one 
|Ui>per an, would have dieamed of congratulating 

How difleiently does Paterfamilias treat the first 
and fifth of these post-nuptial incidents! In the 
former case, ' our medical man,' not yet become ' our 
family doctor,' is warned to keep himself from distant 
journeys, in anticipation of tne important event; 
while that awful woman with the bundle — for we 
never yet saw one of her class with box or bag — is 
welcomed into the house, like the monster horse into 
Troy, bringing subjugation and desolation with her for 
weeks and weeks before it is absolutely necessary. 
Then the husband — ^not yet Head of the Family — 
banished once more into Bachelordom and a turn-up 
bedstead, starts up o' nights with ni^t-cap behind 
ear, and thinks he is wanted to f eteh Dt Neversleep 
a score of times before the real occasion, which com- 
monly takes place when he is out of the way ; spend- 
ing an hour, T)erhap8, with some friend of his youth, 
and a cigar— an accident which afflicts the new-made 
father with the acutest pangs of conscience. But 
when such an affiur has happened four times already, 
Pateriamilias takes it quieter a good deal ; doesn't 
■ee any particular cause for hurry ; declines to devote 
his mansion to Lucina imtil the last extremity; and 
(as we have seen) has eventually not even tmie to 
■elect his shoes of swiftness. 

Mr Benjamin Arbour was a tender-hearted husband 
too, and in his ardent anxiety, scarcely felt the cold 
at all until he had reached home again, w^hen getting 
into a damp bed in the attic chamber — for there was 
no fire for him to sit up by anywhere, except where 
his presence was forbidden —he became conscious 
that, as a gentleman subject to spitting of blood from 
the lungs, ne hod not been doing an entirely prudent 
thing. Mis teeth chattered so when Dt Neversleep 
came up to tell him the news, that that ph3rsician 
ascribed the phenomenon to marital anxiely, and 
at once hastened to allay it. 

/It 's all right, Mr Arbour,' exclaimed he cheerfully ; 
' it 's all right, and it isu^t twins.' 

'Is it a bub-bub- bub-bub?' inquired the father, as 
though his teeth were castanets. 

* Yes, it 's a boy,' replied the doctor, in a tone of 
oommiseration. 

'That's just like my luck,' quoth the disgusted 
parent; 'they cost just twice as much as girls, and / 
nave to teach 'em.' 

Mr Benjamin Arbour might have spared himself 
this last reflection, for he was not fated to become 
tutor to his fifth oflDsprin^ at aU. The damp attic and 
the slippered foot togenier were too much for the 
poor gentleman, and he was carried off by oonsump- 
tkm within a few weeks of the birth of his third boy. 
Our hero may therefore be said to have commenced 
his career in this world by committing parricide. 
That was the view his eldest brother ana sister — 
Adolphus and Maria — always took of it. These wero 
not nice young people. Adolphus had an enormous 



mouth, without any lips, aandy hair, sandy whisk 

but that is anticipating matters— whity-brown com- 
plexion, and green eyes; or, at least, one of them 
was a good deal more green than hazel Maria had 
black hair and a yellow skin, but she had one mind 
in common with her brother, and therefore it may 
be easily imagined that they were not very well 
provided in that respect. We are but too often apt to 
speak of person's minds as being *bad,' when the 
more applicable term by far would be * incomplete.' 
Our young friends above alluded to possessed several 
mental gifts : the talente for getting and for keeping ; 
determination, perseverance, and (in particular) humi- 
lity to their social superiors; while their prudence 
was so remarkable, that although the bump of that 
organ must have been tremen£>us (if the science of 
pm^nology is worth a moment's attention) on both 
their hea^ they concealed all evidence of the matter 
from the outward world. Some other virtues, how- 
ever — not without value in many eye^ — ^were, as it is 
written in the Modem Athens, quite *amissing;' 
especially those connected with the affections, which 
were in their case confined to that powerful passion 
which some philosophers assert to be the motive cause 
of all good works — namely. Self-love. It may, we 
are aware, be urged, that these matters shoiud be 
artistically made to disclose themselves during the 
course of this histoiy, but we think that in so doing 
we idiould treat our public very scurvily ; for would 
it be right to suffer these two persons, throughout 
perhaps a couple of volumes and a half, to impose 
upon Utentf just as they tricked the world, until the 
very last, in actual life? No. No Reader, however 
Gentle, would endure, after so many weeks of prostrate 
adoration of these idols, to be informed that their feet 
wore, after all, but of the commonest clay, and (by 
a too obvious corollary) that he himself had been but 
a benighted worshipper. 

Johnnie Arbour, the second boy, with his apple- 
cheeks and beady eyes, was a good-natured lad 
enough — so long as you did not vex him. He would 
never covet or desire another boy's toys, nor permit 
another boy to get beyond coveting his. Having 
considerable independence of character, and not being 
desirous of a playmate — brother Dolly, perhaps, ha\dng 
given him an unfavourable opinion of that sort of 
article — he had not been anxious for the new arrival ; 
but since he had made his appearance, he was ]>re- 
pared to put up with him, as with the multipUcatiou 
tablQ, stale bread on Monday mornings, the transitory 
nature of lollipops, or any other necessary eviL 

But Margaret, 'rare pale Margaret,' our Maggie, 
everybody's Maggie [Ah, how Dick's manner used to 
change w'hen he six>ke to us of her and of his mother ! 
No angry scorn about him then, and with the voice 
that had grown hoarse with paying back scorn for 
scorn to half the world, become as soft and gentle as 
a woman's !] — ^Maggie, we say, hailed ' ittle buddy's ' 
advent with rapture, holding it highest treat to stand 
afar off and see him in his tub — ^poor papa's foot- 
bath — or to bo suffered to delicatdy dint his che^ 
wiih. her tiny finger. Maggie was frail as a lily, 
and almost as white; but u any mortal creature, 
from King Herod to a sausage-maker, had threatened 
to harm that baby, she would have drawn bodkin, 
and done battle with her life. 

As for our hero's mother, we are introduced to the 
sweet lady at an evil time, when the gentle eyes arc 
red with weeping, and the delicate frame is tried with 
watching ; but sue is fair, as Maggie's mother should 
be, even yet. Her only earthly consolation, now that 
the dark shadow of death has crossed the threshold, 
and pointe towards the lover of her youth — the sharer 
of life's hox)es and fears, so long, that all existence 
that has been passed by her away from him seems 
but as a dream— is her new-bom infaut. As he lies, 
after the manner of the luxurious ancients, upon his 
ivory couch, and takes his meals rccliningly, he little 



knows what eyes of holiest lore acre feeding on him 
in their turn. 

O well-defended b^he, that hast by niffht and da^ a 
sentiiiel not all the treasnres of the woim oonld bnbe 
to do thee wrong, and whose Ansdi stands before the 
Tery throiie of heaven, sleep on ^^niile yet secure, with 
thy small hand curled like a roeo'leaf beneath thy 
mother's breast J 

CHAPTER IL 
7ATHBXLKS8. 

It has been suggested to us that iHiile mentioning 
some characteristics of the Arbour family, we have 
yet been guilty of a very serious omission. For all 
that has been told at present, thev mav have belonged 
to one of the vulgarest classes ot society, and conse- 
quently have been altogether beneath human — that is 
to say, properly constii^ted himian — ^interest. Let us 
hasten, therefore, to set this matter in its proper 
li^t while there is yet time. At the risk, and mdecd 
the certainty, of cutting off electrical relations with a 
considerable number of readers, whose sensibilities we 
have no desire to shock, and whose well-cultivated 
hair we would on no account cause to stsnd on end 
by bringing them face to face with persons of ' small 
means ' — at the risk, we repeat, of dfminishing our 
aodience by emptying the Dress-circle and ihe Stalls 
at the very outset, we confess, once for aD, that the 
ArboBTS were not and never had been *eairiace- 
people.' But, on the other hand, ladies and genue- 
men of the Pit and Galleries, neither were they 
merely * genteel * or * respectable.' The Arbours were 
a rotmd or two in the social ladder above you, O 
middle dasses ! and therefore, as we conclude, not by 
any means unworthy of ffour interest and sympathy. 

Mr Benjamin Arbour, now struggling hopelessly 
with consumption, was in the receipt of five hundred 
a year or so ; but that income was, alas ! so peculiarly 
his own that it oeased with his life. He filkd also a 
periiape responsible and certainly mysterious office 
committed to him by the government of his native 
country. He was an Authorised Commissioner for 
witnessing the Deeds of Married Women. Whether the 
duties of Siis post are, in reality, so disgracefully inqui- 
sitorial as its name would imply, we do not know, 
but we may be certain tiiat Mr Arbour had his oon- 
Borfs full permission to discharge them. He had had 
probably about as few secrets intrusted to him through- 
out his life as anybody — for men composed one*half of 
quicksilver, and the other half of the milk of human 
kindness, are known to be but indifferent repositories 
lor such things — and he had certainly never had a 
single secret nom his wife. They had been married 
nearly fifteen years, and nevertheless oould scarcely be 
termed mid(Uie-aged people. It would be no exagger- 
ation to say that until now, when he found himself 
dying, he had never once seriously regretted the 
having wedded Letitia Banks. The imprudent Boy 
and Uiri, as they had been called, had been very 
happy together for those three lustrums, in spite of 
all good-natured prophecies to the contrary. 

Ingram Arbour, the merchant — elder and only 
brother to Benjamin — had even predicted th^ final 
aettiement in the workhouse of their native district 
in JOevQBshire, and he was a man who had a renu- 
tatioa for judgment too. He also had been lett a 
life-interest in a sum of money which secured him 
five hundred a year, and periiaps possessed it 
still — unless it had been advantageously disposed 
of — hat that was a mere nothing in comparison 
wiik his present possessions. He had not found 
hiMiself hampered with a wife and family in the 
seooad holidays after he had left school He had 
noi bought a cottace — ^the one redeeming circumstance 
ooDDected with which in ku eyes, was, that it was on 
the bank ol a rivef, which mi^t perhaps afford 
aecidental pmviaioa for surplas chiklren^-nor buried 



himself in the country, like a talent laid up in a napkin, 
accumulating nothing but small-change. It was the 
contemplation of that small-change that diiefly troubled 
poor Benjamin now, uid made him almost wish that 
he had remained a bachelor. He had faith in a good 
Providence, and did not doubt that a Raven of some 
sort would be sent to feed those hun^y mouths ; but 
he would certainly have preferred to nave felt hinn^4f 
more deeply connected with the £agle. That was 
the name of the Assurance Office from which one 
thousand pounds would be due to the family after 
his death, besides which there were two thousand 
pounds of Leety's own, and that was all. 

* I wish, dearest,' gasped he, as she was smoothing 
his pillow upon the very last day that she ever haS 
that loving office to periorm for him — ' I do so wish 
that it was more.' Me spoke so low that even the 
ear of love failed to catch his meaning; but Leety 
heard the word *wish,' and all her faculties were 
at once devoted to find out what this desire of ti^e 
dying man might be. 

* Do you wim to see our children, Benjv, dear?' 
She had called him by that fond title ever since 

that walk upon the purple Devon moorland far away 
and long ago, where they two had plighteil their troth. 
What a miracle of strength and b^uty he had then 
seemed to her, and now this ghastly shadow was all 
that remained of him, itself about to flit into the 
darkness of Death! Yet, be sure, he was never so 
dear to her before. Not if she could have lived her 
life again, at that moment, would she have spent it 
otherwise as regarded that departing clay. She 
would have chosen no other than he though this end 
had been foreshewn from the beginning. Not one 
of the wretched minutes which yet remained to her 
to watch that still loving face would she have bartered 
for centuries of Paradise. 

* Do you wish to see our children, Benjy, dear V 
He neither spoke nor stirred, but his eyes, which 

were yet clear and even brilliant, and that watched 
her every motion, replied : * Yes, dearest.' 

Adolphus and Maria, Johnnie and M^^e, were 
marched in therefore — the two latter handin hand, 
for thev were smitten with vague terror, understand- 
ing only that that Something was impending whose 
coming had kei)t the house so still for weeks. But 
the eyes said: * There is yet another, Leety;' and 
No. 5 was transferred from the nursery to his mother's 
arms, who for this once, however, regarded him not, 
nor sealed his infant eyelids with her lips. The two 
eldest children were tall enough to lean over the bed- 
side and salute for the last time their father's forehead ; 
an operation which they performed in a very rapid 
and energetic manner, much as a superstitious dealer 
at whist hastens to tap the tnunp card as soon as it is 
turned up, for luck. Johnnie, with his ruddy apple- 
face turned to the colour of a lemon, climbed up the 
bed, and said, * Good-bye, father,' in compliance with 
his mother's whisper, very dutifully. But little 
Maggie lay by her father's side in an agony of grief, 
and covered his grisly chin with tears and kisses. 

There was no need for any farewell between those 
two, who had been acting, saying, thinking nothing 
but farewells since Dr Ncversleep had said in his 
firm, kind voice : * I can do nothii^ further, my good 
friend, now, but pray for you ; ' but as Leety stooped 
down over him to put her baby's cheek to his mouth, 
that he too in after-years might know that his father 
had kissed him, her husband, reminded by that action 
perhaps of that which had been oppressing his mind 
before, murmured once again : * I wish, Le^y, I do so 
wish that it was more.' 

*W^hat does he mean? What does your father 
mean ?' cried she appcalingly, for nothing was more 
distant from her own thoughts than that which was 
agitating his. 

On tMs, Maria whispered something to Adolphus, 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



and straightway that young gentleman observed, in 
spite of ner evident reluctance to have her remark 
repeated : ' Please, mamma, Maria thinks papa is 
wishing that he had left us some more money. 

This young lady of ten years old did indeed possess 
a great sagacity, and even, as we have seen, consider- 
able modesty in the exhibition of it ; and yet there 
was something uncomfortably just in the remark 
which nurse Rachel subsequently made in the ser- 
vants' hall, when dcscribiiig the above scene in her 
master's death-chamber: *Twaa an odd thing for 
such a mere child to have been thinking of money, 
at a time like that, too ! ' 

The above wish was the last idea that Mr Arbour 
lived to express, and in a few more minutes there was 
no protector left to poor Leety and her offspring, save 
Him who makes the Widow and the Fatnerlcss his 
peculiar care. The bereft devoted woman would not 
easily have been persuaded, perhaps, to leave that 
precious clay— would have watched by the casket half 
the night, though her jewel lay in the place where 
thieves break not through nor steal — ^but that a tiny 
cry arose from No. 5, reminding her that there was a 
duty and a joy in this world yet. 

For a week, there was a silence throughout the 
cottage by the river, only broken by sad sounds. The 
clock ticked on the stairs more solemnly, as though it 
were discoursing upon matters graver than Time ; the 
stairs creaked under muffled footsteps ; the servants 
conversed in muffled tones. Once only a laugh broke 
forth from the kitchen, arising from some inaSvertent 
domestic, and immediately reproved by a * For shame, 
Jane, don't you remember what has happened?' and 
succeeded by tears ; and once a prolonged and hearty 
howl issued from Master Johnnie, who had been very 
foohahly forbidden by nurse Rachel to spin his hiun- 
ming-top, in consideration of the domestic calamity 
which had befallen him. 

After that weary week, the early summer sim again 
shoue into that reopened chamber, as full of light and 
warmth as ever, though it seemed not so to her who 
lay upon the widowed bed, and the memory of the 
dead man faded fast away from every heart save one, 
as the darkness dwindles before the dawn. Another 
life had begun to fill the place of that which had 
departed, and to the end that it shoidd do so worthily, 
they carried it in gorgeous cap and flowing linen, to 
abjure the pomps and vanities of the world at the 
baptismal font. In a word. No. 5, who had as yet 
been only registered, was christened, and was named 
— as Steele, and Savage, and half the scapegraces of 
the world had been named before him — Richard, the 
long for Dick. 



CHINESE COMMERCR 

When Napoleon said in his wrath, that the English 
were a nation of shopkeepers, the epithet which he 
flung in anger was repelled with scorn. It was reserved 
for a later generation to recall the words of the Man of 
Destiny, to discover involuntary praise in the apparent 
taunt, and proudly to fit upon Britannia's head what 
the original constructer meant for anything but a 
Cap of Dignity. And right is the modern reading of 
the phrase ; better is it to produce than to ravace and 
bum ; better to be a nation of shopkeepers than of 
idle beggars, of moonstruck dreamers, or of brigand 
soldiery. Britannia has surely chosen \%-i8ely and 
well. But if the original reproach had l>cen thrown 
in the teeth of John Chinaman instead of John Bull, 
even by bitterest foeman, and in the heat of the 
sternest struggle, the expression would have been 
smirkingly accepted as. praise, pure, imaUoyed praise. 
It never enters the head of a Chinese to despise 
traffic in any form. Whatever turns a penny is 
worthy of honourable mention, accord^ to the 



ethics of the Flowery Land. True, the farmer 
ranks before the shopkeeper, before the manu- 
facturer, before the mighty merchant, piling a city's 
wealth in his hang^ before even the bcbuttoned 
mandarin, for did not Confucius declare that agri- 
culture was the basis of society, and do not all 
Chinese laws class the cultivator highest in the 
scale of orders? Yet it is better to be a merchant 
in China than anything else. If the Sacred BookB 
are less eloquent in the trader's praise than in that 
of the agriculturist, the property of the former is 
safer from rebel, and locust, and greedy prefect, than 
the gamers of the other or his teeming fields. If the 
emperor pays Ceres the annual attention of laying 
his own nand on the stilts of the royal plough, and 
tracing the first furrow in the fat black plain of 
Pe-tche-li, the poor farmer is not much the better 
for this ceremony ; the Taipings and the Imperialists 
make bare the land they march over, and whoever 
prevails, his crops must nourish the victor. 

It is only of late that we Outer Barbarians have 
begun to get a glimpse of the extraordinary vitality 
of Chinese commerce, of the wonderful stir, and hum, 
and bustle of that enormous human hive, on whose 
extreme confines we have been stationed for centuries 
as tenants-at-wilL Under the old rigtine^ when we 
dwelt in Cantofn alone, and there on suff^erance, our 
most practical men had but a dim idea how colossal 
was the trade of the huge empire. In spite of the 
vast amount of our imports from China — in spite of 
our fleets of tea-laden merchantmen, of our consign- 
ments of raw and manufactured silks — it gradually 
became manifest that we were mere gleaners of the 
great golden harvest, mere outsiders and nibblers at 
the gorgeous prize. China can better spare us than 
we Chma. Our tea-pots depend upon the good 
pleasure of the Flowery Land, while to the Celestials 
we simply represent so much silver annually. Our 
cash is all they will take, hitherto, and a one-sided 
bargain we have been f orcisd to make of it ; but it is 
merely because China regards us as an ungracious and 
unwelcome customer, insists on ready -money dealings 
for such articles as we will and must buy, ridicules 
reciprocity, declines our goods, and turns a cold 
shoulder to Manchester. Why is this ? Have we, 
then, to do with a people such as may be found in 
more than one part of the map of Europe, a nation 
grudging every i)enny spent beyond its own borders, 
suspicious, hoaniing, and utterly averse to enter- 
prise? This is not a description applicable to the 
sleek Mongolians of the great double Delta. Although 
their chief traffic is the home-trade, still they buy 
and sell with many other foreigners than ourselves, 
and do business with a himdred rude tribes whose 
ideas of commerce do not soar beyond the plainest 
barter, and who have not a single ounce of silver to 
contribute to the till of John Chinaman. Tliis foreign 
trade is altogether in Chinese hands ; the merchants 
know the wants of their own countrymen to a nicety, 
and by long experience are equally well acquaintcKl 
with the requirements of the semi-savages by whom 
they are surroundecL 

Tartary and Tibet, for instance, require tea as 
urgently as we Fanquia of Enghuid and America ; they 
use millions of pounds yearly, all of which must reach 
the customer by a long and painful land-transport 
system. Within the Great Wall, men. are found to he 
cheaper than any other beasts of burden. The brick- 
tea of the province of Hoo-pe is intended for the con- 
sumption of the Mongol and Kirghiz hordes ; even as 
the chest- tea is designed to refresh British palates; 
and the sack-tea, sewn up in leathern bags, well coated 
with varnish, is destined to gladden the thirsty Russian. 
But more tea, to the best of our information, leaves 
China in the form of bricks than in any other way. 
Boxes could never be carried, unbroken, on the backs 
of men over rugged and almost trackless mountainB, 
through ravines, thorny brakes, treacherous monuues, 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



and sulleii wastes ; boxes could never scale precipices 
by pvths fit only for the hill-goat, cross ridges perilous 
wita ice and walled by snow, stru^le through storms 
and mire, and finally arrive triumphantly at the 
frontier town, where a new mode of conveyance is 
ready. No, until our en^neers shall tunnel through 
the savage defiles of the Fey-yue-lin^, and European 
skill construct railways where now me hardy ponies 
of the Tartars can scarce keep their footing, brick-tea 
will be the favourite in the markets of Lassa and 
Samarcand. The tea which is to be the standard 
beverage and daily comfort of the wanderiim millions 
of Central Asia, is chiefly, though not whoUy, grown 
in the province of Hoo-pe. A coarse black leaf is this, 
when aried, and one warranted to please the taste of 
Tamerlane's rough-riding countrymen. After drying, 
the leaves are to be squeezed into shape ; and for this 
purpose, wooden moulds are requirea, in which the 
leaves are placed, and violently stamped down by 
barefooted coolies, besides being smeared with gum, 
glue, a sort (d gruel made of rice stewed to pulp, and 
even blood, to make the component parts adhere. 
Then the brick is dried in a small kiln, and tossed 
aside, hard and perfect; hereafter to be chopped in 
pieces by Tartar natchets, flunff into a great seething 
iron calcbon, boiled alon^; with nuge lumps of butter, 
by way of a delicate reush, and swallowed in bowls 
of greasy scalding liquor around the wild bivouac- 
fires of the steppe. But the brick-tea has far to 
go before it reaches its consumers. First, the bricks 
are placed in bamboo-baskets, then tiie pair of 
baskets are slimg at either end of a balance-pole, 
and the pole rests on the brown, bare shoulder of a 
porter, or coolie. A patient race are those coolies, 
strofiiff, swift, and far m>m cowardly. They have but 
one ^ar on earth, apart from a certain irrational 
dread of the spirits of the mountains. They fear 
the mandarin — the dreadful pedant in the official 
cap, with the little round button surmounting all, like 
the great Panjandrum himself — ^the mandarin who 
deals out pillory and scour^, and has torturers at 
his beck, and soldiers withm call, and quotes law 
and philosophy for wrenching Sin-sing's thumbs from 
their sockets, or caging Lung-lung in the hideous 
canffue for many a sleepless ni^t and shameful day. 

l^Lese poor porters are gay and cheerful enough 
when out of ioe shadow of law ; they face cold and 
beat, tempest and wolves, with admirable courage, and 
approve tnemselves on their long journeys to be own 
brothers to those* sturdy coolies of the LsLnd Trans- 
port Service, who, at the capture of the Forts, leaped 
into the moat, to act as livmg props for the ladoers 
on which the French stormers crossed. The pay of 
a porter is not unduly hi^ considering his . load, 
which is never less than eighty poimds in weight. 
By government tariff, he gets a sapeck — ^worth the mth 
of a farthing — ^for every Ti of road traversed. Three li 
^ to a mile Engliah, and from twenty to thirty miles 
» a day's march, according to route and weather. 
This is mudi the same as the caravan-day of Western 
Asia, but* in the Levant the animals of burden have 
the advantage of four feet 

Brick-tea is not the only article of export to the 
western borders of .the Celestial Empire. China is to 
the vast oountries that form the heart of Asia exactly 
what England and France are to Russia. She sends 
them hixuries and fashions, as well as blocks of tea. 
The silken scar& of ceremony, without which no 
polite intercourse can take ; place in Tibet, and the 
annual demand for which is reckoned by hundreds of 
thousands, are all made in China. The white, red, 
and graen paper, so commonly used for writing in all 
BudcUiist countries, come from China too, as does the 
ink with which every Mongolian writes, and which 
we call Lidian ink. The ftms of Tartar ladies ; the 
idols coveted by bonzes far away in the rolling plains 
of Siberia and Torkistan ; the rockets that are to be 
tent qparkMng into tiie i^ ftt Scythian feasts ; the 



silken robes that Calmuc dandies are to figure in — all 
these, and many more such things, have to cross the 
mountains and deserts as best they can. Gunpowder, 
too, is a necessary which the rugged drinkers ol mare's 
milk love to buy in the Chinese market ; like most 
Asiatics in regions where the saUs petrum, the mystic 
rock of Friar Bacon, abounds, they can make their 
own powder for common use ; but that of China is 
superior for their long-barrelled matchlocks, which 
require a strong but slow-burning qiudity. Cloth 
and silk and metal, tobacco and opium and pipes, 
swell the invoice of Cathay's consignments to her 
hardy neighbours. Poreelam is too fragile a com- 
modity to pass those snow-capped ranges and dreary 
wUds that form the boimdary of the huge Chinese 
garden. It is as much as the supercaigo can do to 
carry his plump person and flowered robes through 
such a howling wildemeas ; but business can convert 
even a Chinaman into a knight-errant. A merehant 
among the Celestials, if he be truly a merchant, and 
not a mere broker and buyer on commission, is the 
centre of a system. He is much such a Mercator as 
our dear old Whittington must have been, with his 
flotilla of iunks, his host of clerks, his array of porters 
and watcnmen, and his staff of bustling aides-de- 
camp. The latter are the commereial travellers of 
China; they sail in ships, they creep along shallow 
lagoons in the most primitive of canoes ; they bump 
and swing in palanquins over every road from Mant- 
chooria to Tonquin. Nor does the Great Wall form 
the horizon of tJteir world ; they boldly mount the 
camel, and strike off into the endless plains ; they 
winter in the underground huts of Sibenau savages ; 
they ride oxen up and down the frozen mountains 
of hungry Tibet ; they make the wasp-waisted 
Persians stare as they stout in their outlandish garb 
through the Mushed Bazaar ; and they are to be 
foimd in Russia, at the Novgorod Fair, offering 
their wares for sale, and smirking in the face <3 
Christendom. 

These peripatetic gentry are of very various origin. 
Sons and nephews of their employers are some of 
them, and these, by a not unusual ne^iotiBm, get 
the best berths in the merehant's gift; they sail 
in lordly barges up and down the Rivers Blue and 
YeUow, or they drop pleasantly down over the 
summer sea to the nch Isles of Spice, or fat Siam, 
or even the Great Cinnamon Island itself. The supe- 
rior class of junks have cabins superbly fitted up ; 
and the supercargo has all the pleasures of a yachts- 
man's life combined with the profits of his own. But 
for such young aspirants as are bom with a wooden 
spoon rather than a silver one. Destiny has a tougher 
task. Corea is their destination, or perhaps bleak 
Mongolia, or gaunt Tibet, or the Land of Grass. They 
must, pass many a weary year among barbarians, 
ignorant of Confucian precepts and Chinese polite- 
ness ; they must endure the long and bitter winters 
of those high table-lands, live a hard life, brave untold 
dangers, and bear banishment from all their habits 
andnaimts, to be qualified for promotion. They set 
off, amid the tears and condolences of relatives and 
friends, in their little bamboo palanquins, or in their 
boats, until the palanquin- work begins. Theirs is a 
great responsibility, and a life of care. Those 
penniless coohes who carry them and their goods 
through rain and sunshine, over rough and smooth, 
can smg and laugh as they go, but Chang must be 
thoughtful, Chang must sleep with one eye open, that 
his goods may be safe; he must dispute about toll 
and custom with this or that Jack-in-office ; must call 
on this governor and that prefect, with gifts on a tray, 
and compliments daintily painted on blush-coloured 
paper, and taoli talk on his dulcet lips, and suspi- 
cion ever whispering at his ear. Chang has to pay 
the porters and be^rs, to keep an eye on his Ixnly- 
servants, to fee and bargain with his boatmen, to 
watch iptos aiftodeSy the very watchmen who mount 



6 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



gnard over his trcasnre in the greedy pilfering 
towns. Then there are other dangers than wolf 
and wildemeas, than tourmentes of snow, and 
slippery paths, and bottomless quagmires. Chan^ 
has to see to all — to learn if there are really* banditti 
on the road, and if the said banditti are mere petty 
larceny rogues, or brigands of the first water, the 
desperate Koan-koueny or highwaymen, at whose name 
mandarins tremble. Chang must bespeak a guard 
of soldiers, if needed ; must keep up tne courage of 
those timorous protectors when he has got them ; 
must elicit information from all. separating a crumb 
of truth from a whole bushel of lies, white, black, 
and gray. The luckless supercargo has money with 
him ; he must have money, for there are no bankers 
outside China Proper; and those silver dollars and 

f listening ingots are a perpetual blister to their 
;eeper, as he struggles on, nvith his argent fleece, 
through thorns social and thorns official 

At last he gets to the frontier, and there, on the 
borders of the Land of (»rass, or the Great Desert of 
Gobi, or the mountain- slopes of Tibet, his future escort 
meets him. There they are in their sheep-skins, the 
uncouth shaggy Tartars, with their tall 8{)ear8, their 
train of camels, lean horses, and wild accoutrements. 
There are the fur-clad men of Tibet, in lambs-wool 
caps and fringed vests, with their active ponies and 
■addle oxen, those sure-footed yellow-haired yaks 
that bear man and bale over the gigantic Himalava 
glaciers. And among them is a civilise<l creature, by 
contrast, at least, a Chinaman bom, and a brother- 
supercargo, who comes forward to offer Chang the salu- 
tation of welcome. He is a real Chinaman, lb Ching, 
and in honour of his compatriot has jmt on a smart 
blue or green gown, edged with delicate fur, boots 
of black satin, a decent cap, and a vest of figured 
satin, ^ith girdle and fan ; but yet Chang, fresh from 
city-life, eyes him as a tame dog would regard a 
half-reclaimed dingo. He has a rough face and a 
bronzed skin, has Ching; his beard and eyebrows 
are shaggy and Tartar-like; his nails are short and 
unpolished : the whole man has a fierce, roving, ogreish 
look, caught from nomadic comrades. Chang has but 
a low opinion of his comrade Ching. But it is his turn 
now to jump upon a pony and ride off into the 
boundless ])astures, and sleep under the tent, and live 
with rude truth -telling robbers, strong of hand and 
bhiff of speech. Ching goes homf^ to be smoothed and 
pohshed in Nankin or Kioimg-tcheou, to recall for- 
gotten accomplishments, and to cultivate literature 
and his own fortunes. Chang has eight or ten years 
of voluntary exile to get tlirough, to learn new ways 
and languages, to sell in the dearest market, and to 
make afi he can out of the credulous Scythians. His 
salary is handsome. He will probably marry a ' large- 
footed * woman, and become quite a domestic char- 
acter in the camps of the nomades, but he will be 
careful to leave behind him wife and children when 
his probation is over, to pronounce his own divorce, 
and go home a bachelor. There are no real ties for a 
Celestial out of the Central Land. 

The Chinese land-traf!ic is in most peril from the 
encroachments of Russia. Every year sees the elastic 
border of the czar's empire stretch to the south-west, 
every year beholds a new band- of Muscovite explorers 
hovering on the borders of Khiva and Turkistan, a new 
steamer on the Aral Sea, the Oxus, or the Jaxartes, and 
the arms and trade of Russia j>ushing on into the centre 
of the once mighty Turan of the Tartars. But still 
Chang is busy; the cloth and cotton of China are 
more welcome to the Scythians than the cloth of 
Leeds and the calico of Manchester; Chans knows 
what his customers like, has fathomed the depth of 
their ])urses, anticipates their whims with re8|)ect to 
trinkets and silk, and makes a fortime out of their 
flocks and herds in his slow quiet way. Cattle and 
sheep fetch money in North China ; camels are almost 
the currency of Mongolia and Mantchooria ; and horses 



are constantly imported into China from the steppes. 
There are a mat many horses kept by mandarins 
and other wealthy persons, as a matter of luxury ; the 
Chinese are scMny grooms and not very liberal masters ; 
the ftnimftla die fast, and new droves are continually 
rei^uired. Furs, wool, rhubarb, tallow, butter, arc the 
chief importations from the wild west. Besides this 
collection of raw material, Tartary sends iron ore, fur- 
boots, fur-pehases, feathers, eider-down, and charcoal ; 
Tibet offers sword-blades and leather ; some shawls and 
spioes from Lidia, some rare wild animals for Celestial 
menageries, dried venison and jerked beef. Both 
countries send a little silver, a metal which China 
absorbs and retains, never parting with an ounce, 
save in payment of the Malwa opium, or to make up 
a war indemnity. The southern trade, carried on as 
it is by junks, is a profitable barter. China must 
have amber and ambergris, edible nests, sea-slugs, 
weed, coral, spices and scented woods, copper and 
tin, gold, silver, and gems; and she pays for these 
in manufactured gooos, sold at great profit, and 
produced by the untiring industry of myriads of busy 
hands. The north trade is for ore and caviare^ for 
sturgeons and wild-fowl, fuel and timber; and tea, 
wooUen fabrics and delicacies from the south, pay for 
these. 

This mighty aggregate of human beings may be 
pardoned for oelieving that commerce, like charity, 
begins at home, and that a third part of Adam's 
progeny can find plenty of buyers and sellers there. 
It is the home-traae which absorbs the chief industry 
of the non-a^cultural portion of the community. 
This is no insignificant traffic, no petty transfer from 
the right hand to the left. Three hundred and 
more are the millions who have to be fed, clothed, 
tauffht, sheltered, amused, and buried within yellow 
Catnay. The * articles of primary necessity,' to quote 
from a French tariff^ are grain, fish, oil, and tea. Man in 
China is a consumer ol fiurinaceous food, not a mutton- 
devouring camifex, as in Central Asia. The north 
eats millet, and beans, and wheat ; the south calls rice 
its staff of life ; and both require fish and pork, oil for 
the stew-pan and oil for tne lamp, arrack and tea. 
China is probably the only country where cold water — 
Adam's ale—the oldest and cheapest of beverages, 
finds no drinkers. Cold draughts are poison, according 
to Chinese domestic medicine. The poorest cannot 
dispense with hia scalding tea, his boding rice-wine, 
his corn-brandy simmering in the cup. ferhaps this 
universal mania for hot liquors helps to corrode Celes- 
tial teeth and to undermine Celestial constitutions; 
they soon get old, ugly, and toothless. At an3rrate, 
the demana for tea is as constant and certain as the 
demand for ^ain itself; and tobacco is nearly ia equal 
request, for m China all are smokers, whether men or 
women; vast <][uantities of the Nicotian leaf are grown 
in every province, though the finest qualities come 
from Yun-nan, in the south. 

The great arteries of commerce in China are those 
gigantic rivers, the Hoang-ho and the Yang-tsze-kiang, 
which, with their tributary streams, the chains of 
lagoons to which they afford access, and the grand 
system of artificial canals, supply an amount of water- 
carriage unequalled in the woruL Bat all this wonder- 
ful organisation has felt the decay inherent in the 
fatal Mantchoo polity. Under the Toke of the Tartar 
sovereigns, the noble canals of the Song dynasty, 
and the Imperial highways of the Ming, have been 
suffered to fall into ruin and disorder. Even the 
embankments of the Blue and Yellow rivers are 
seldom kept in efficient repair, and floods like those 
of Friesland spread ruin and famine over the rice- 
fields at every period of very heavy raina The great 
Imi)erial Canal itself, that boast of the empire, is choked 
and shallow in many places, and its traffic only exists 
on paper, in those respectful memoirs with which 
the dutiful prefects annually deluge the emperor's 
chancery. But still, where man's work has decayed, the 



huce watery roads, the Blue and Yellow Rivers, pour 
th6ir waves through fertile lands, and waft a hundred 
thousand keels from the interior to the ocean. No 
other country can shew Each aqueous Titans as 
these, to which Rhine and Rhone are but brooks, 
yellow Ganges a thread, and endless Missismppi a 
narrow stream with a dangerous channel But the 
Blue River, three hundred miles from its mouth, is 
seven miles across from shore to shore, and deep enough 
to accommodate an armada. Both rivers have their 
fleets of junks of every size and class, their squadrons 
of lorchas, their flotillas of barges, their swarms 
of canoes and of sampans, and their floating towns 
as well, where millions dwefl amphibiously in arks of 
strange shape, moving down with the tide, or anchored, 
like an aquatic villagje, in some favourite bay. Half 
the merchandise of the empire finds its wa^ up and 
down these great rivers, from city to city, from 
province to province, paying toll and excise as it goes, 
and affording employment to m^ads. Before the 
sanguinary insurrection of the Taipings scourged the 
land, the porcelain trade alone reqnir^ thousands of 
junks ; Nankin had a million of operatives employed 
in the potteries, and another million of skilful workers 
toiled at Khioung-tcheou-fou, to fabricate jars and 
vessels of every pattern, from the famous clays called 
kaolin and pe-tim-ye, long believed to be peculiar to 
Saxony, though since cuscovered in France and 
OomwalL But Celestial Virtue and his plundering 
hordes have held Nankin for more than two years, 
have ruined its trade, and butchered its people, have 
wasted Khioung-tcheou, and have made desolate that 
smaller rival of theirs, Song-tcheou-fou, where the most 
delicate fabrics of porcelain, silk, paper, and eotton 
were wrought by the most cunning hands, and the 
finest taste that China could produce. Every branch 
of industry, from the coal-pits and petroleum wells of 
the north, to the vineyards of Yun-nan, has suflered 
from the civil war ; for the Taipings bum and destroy, 
but produce nothing, and even the industry of careful 
practical China languishes under the ¥rxthering blight 
of this strange army. 

Still the buyers and sellers are le^on, still ^e fields 
beyond the baleful sway of the Taixnngs are cultivated 
and productive to an extent which our market-gardens 
but faintly realise, and with few cattle and awkward 
tools, the most amazing husbandry contrives to feed a 
third of humanity. With all the trembling caution, the 
▼igilant suspicion, with which the Mantchoo emperors 
have ever contemplated clubs and combinations among 
their subjects, tne most entire licence has been 
extended to merchants in carrying out their opera- 
tions. They form and break partnerships ; they 
establish companies, small and great ; they carry on 
their trade according to their own good pleasure. A 
Chinese company needs no charter; it conducts 
gigantic affairs unmolested ; it requires no private acts 
of parhameat, and fears no opposition in committee. 
Nor is insurance unknown to the Celestials; they 
have firms that will underwrite anything you please, 
from a rich cargo, or a steamer, to a field of pumpkins. 
They have their bankers and discounters, even as we 
have; and if they have no state bank-paper, their 
chief merchants issue bills, or, to use an Indian term, 
hoondees, which are payable on demand, and will be 
cashed at any city of note throughout the empire. 
Indeed, such a contrivance is rendered needful by 
the great weight and bulk of Chinese coin. The 
strings of cash, which form the real money of the 
Flowery K inborn, are enormously weighty ; those 
perforated coins, rudely struck in an alloy of copper 
and lead, and called cash, sapecks, or tchengs, are 
small in themselves, but for extensive purchases they 
are as cumbrous as the iron pennies of Sparta. 

A very good criterion of the cheapness of a country 
is the value of its most fractional coinage, and here 
China bears the belL A penny English is worth 
twenty cash, or sapecks ; and fcr legitimate money, 



one can hardly go lower than five pieces to tha 
farthing ; even the cowrie-shell of India is worth that. 
A sapeok will buy something : it will buy a porter's 
labour for the third of a mile ; it will purchase a meal 
of some sort, a fish, or a slice of melon, or a handful 
or two of rice stewed in oil, or a few succulent stalka 
of the Chinese sugar-cane, or Hokkua wrgfmm. It 
conynands luxuries, a seat in a theatre, let us say, 
or a brace of whifb of the opium-pipe, or a pinch ol 
tobacco, or two or three cups of hot tea or corn- 
brandy. But when you wish to deal with reputable 
shopkeepers, still more, if you want to chaffier in. 
some of the endless fairs and markets that go on 
perpetually all over the empire, you require a plurality 
of sapecks. The merchant must have porters to 
carry nis coin ; so must the small-footed lady, as she 
totters gracefully on her lackered boot- heels into the 
marts oi fashion ; so must the yawning dandy, who 
turns over the poems and treatises in the bookseller'a 
with his eagle claws, curved, and lone, and as polished 
as pumice-stone and unguents can ma^ethem. Sapecks 
are the recognised medium, and though there are 
higher denominations of the root of evil, such as 
candareens and pistareens, mace and taels, these only 
exist in the imagination of mankind. A string of ten 
cash goes to a candikreen, for example, and a thousand 
to a taeL Now, as our war indemnity amounts to the 
trifling amount of eight millions of taels, it might be 
a curious speculation to discover how long it would 
take to count up the billions of demicentimes reouired 
of the Brother of the Sun by the barbarians of Fran* 
gistan. And of what conceivable use would all that 
copper alloy be to us, unless to mould into Mini6 
rine-balls, or sheet the bottoms of steam-frigates 1 
Happily, however, China makes great payments in 
metal of a more convenient assay. In considerable 
transactions, mercantile and national, the Celestials 
resort to silver in bars and in^^ts; and in silver of 
perfect purity — Sycee silver, as it used to be called in 
Canton — the cost of this war will be paid by the 
loser. Scales are continually required in a Chinese 
bargain on a great scale ; every merchant, pedler, or 
supercargo has these with him, and the wei^t of .the 

Sure metal is established by a scrutiny worthy of 
hylock. To save the inconvenience of cutting bars, 
some great merchants are accustomed to stamp their 
seals on both ends of an ingot, which, thus guaranteed 
in weight, passes from hand to hand like a bank- 
token. Gold is weighed out too, and sold at so much 
per ounce, but only during a dearth of silver, which, 
with copper, is the staple of national currency, while 
gold is regarded as jewels are esteemed elsewhere, in 
the light of an ornamental luxury, to be used up in 
embroidery, gilding, and decoration. 

The bankers are not. the least important denizens of 
the Central Land, but they do not confine themselves 
to legitimate bank business ; they are tea-merchants, 
distillers, silk-factors, cotton-factors, or the lords of 
many kilns ; they lend money on security, but they 
do not love to talk of their advances, for the great 
mandarins may be exjtected to ask for a loan any 
day, and mandarins are not fond of taking a denial 
A good deal of Chinese trade goes on with borrowed 
capital, but not in proportion to the credit-system 
of Europe. The hign rate of interest required by 
a Chinese banker — 90 per cent. — is an unfailing 
index to the risk which attends pecuniary loans 
in a country of civil wars and capricious govern- 
ments. In the England of the Stuarts, in spite of 
rebellions, plots, and disquiet, 10 per cent, was the 
habitual value of money lent on mortgage. Poor 
John Chinaman pays thrice as much in the second half 
of the nineteenth century. But he is a thrifty fellow, 
and seldom becomes bankrupt except from some 
extraordinary pressure of adverse circumstances. He 
never gluts a market, or sends goods to an over- 
stocked province. His correspondence is enormous, 
and he makes Hima^lf acquainted, by letters and by 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



oE e 



joumeyB. wilii tho wanta and i 

of the empire. Then he hoBtenB to load thoae bi >.»u- 
bottomed junks that you may see cravfliag up every 
river and lake, with bamboo-matting sails iind ^aAy 
flags, laden gimwaJe-deep with prociuus bales, and 
bound for the dearest market, one may be sore. The 
Chinaman knowa his art and myitcry welL He has 
anticipated the choicest doctrinra of political economy. 
Save liini from Taiping and pirate, from mandarin 
' squeezoa ' and servile wars, and he will pay hia way, 
M^ pursue his course, tat and content as Dr PangloaB 
bimself, with what is to him the very best M all 
possible worlds. 



BELVIDERE 



1b there any spectacle at once more louchinc and 
more ludicrous than to bear a grown man^and it is 
ftlwrnfa a pretty fuQ-grown one — dilate upon the 
delij^ta of his old School ! He deals, indeed, some- 
what in generalities ; he does not dwell upon the 
domestic care expended upon him at Belvidere House, 
upon the salubrity of ita situntdon, upon the liixari- 
ance of the foliaf^ about its playground, nor on the 
eicellcQce and plenty of ita repaats— all which were 
set forth with such enjpging minuteness in ita pro- 
spectus. He contente himgelf with aaserting broadly 
—with a shake of the head and a sigh— that Pogers's 
(L. C. P.) was a happy place indeed, where he first 
Iinew and loved poor Harry Binks, now dead and 



buried (as 



lough 



the latter circumstance ' 



peculiarly deploratilc), and Harris, and Moore, and 
a score of others, the like of whom he ahall never 
see again. But observe how very little the School 
has really to do with these regretful reraiDiacencca. 
He might just as well bewail the youthful time 
he pused at the PenitentiMy, or the revohing 
hours DOW jniue for ever which he spent with Hany 
Binka and the rest of them upon the patent Tread- 
milL It, however, we look closely into the matter, it 
will be found that the ancient disciples of Belvidere 
House, and other claaaical and commercial establish- 
ments of that ' limited ' nature, are not ao addicted 
to glorifying their seminaries, but leave that aort of 
sentiment, in its more exaggerated form at least, 
to the pnblio-Bchool men. For, as it requires a toler- 
ably sized country (such as Scotland or Switzerland] 
tor the inhabitants to get disagreeably patriotic about 
it, while those of a Uttle strip like the Republic of 
Swn Marino do not venture to go about boasting of 
their ridiculous territory, so it is left to the old Etonian, 
the Harrovian, the Rugueao, and so on, to bewail them- 
Bsives about their nundng-places, while the private- 
school man holils his toneiie, or puts it in his cheek. 

There ia no case in which Distance lends ao much 
enchantment to the view as this of school -enthusiasm. 
We sec our own yonng ones delighted to come home 
for the holidaya, and averse to go back again ; we 
hear them narrate circumstances connected with 
'taggingi,' 'switchings,' 'impositions.' and getttng- 
up-apon-cold-momiuBB, which certainly do not make 
111 envious of becoming subject to them again our- 
■elvea ; we ore poutively informed upon all hands — 
and indeed take a uugnlarly inconsistent pride in 
owning so much — that the proent drawbacks and 
ineonvcniencea of School are yet aa nothing compared 
with those of our own time ; and still we go maun- 
dering on with tears in oar eyes about that blissful 
InttitutiotL Our school tpodi — the palmy days of 



School itself ia to confuse time witJi place. We 
do not believe that one of us out of one hundred 
liked even Eton itaelf. The bullying other boys 
may have had some delights for us. but so had 
not the btiog bullied by them; if the being 'in' 



at cricket was Paradise, the having constantly 
to ' fng out' in the snn without an inninge, 
was as certainly the other place : and though 
picnicking under the umbrageous elma might have 
fjeen very pleasant, a charm was lacking, maamuch 
oa wo had to kindle the fire and boil the eggs for 
the benefit of others— the hoy-tyranta (or whom wo 
' fagged.' Notwithstanding any convictions upon this 
point, however, it beconies ua public- school men, who 
would be respected by our old compauions, to koep 
them to ourselves. As Wiey say in the melodramas, ' We 
must dissemble.' We must not foul our own nests by 
laying a flager upon a single blemish of that hallowed 
semicary of which wo were once an inmate, l'--* 
ainit de fuiyw of this sort, though admirable in ma _ 
reapects, lias also its disadvantages. The bleiniahes 
remain ; for no old disciple ventures to point out 
what is amiss ; and a stranger who takes upon liim 
the thankleaa part of refonner, being sure to err in 
some unimportant matters of detail, is pooh-poohed at 
once. 'Here's an ignoromos,' exclaim the Champions 
oE Let-alone : ' he affects to understand all about us, 
and says that our first school-time is at seven o'clock ; 
when ever nncc the blessed acceauon of Edward VI. 
it has been at half-past six \ ' 

All honour, then, be to Sir John Coleridge,' who, 
public-school man though he bi>, haa ventured to 
point out— tenderly and apologetically enough — some 
of the defects of that syslem. He is himself an 
Etonian, and feels for Eton almost the affection which 
a child entertains for hia parent ; but he is oddresaing 
many who have never even seen that beautiful spot. 

' 'rho situation, the buildings, the park-Iika play- 
grounds favour tiie system. On the bonlu of the 
Thames, where, ot least to EngHah eyes, the river is 
of ample m^nitude, yet with water* pure aa thow 
of the moorhmd brook, winding round the Home 
Park, and beneath the towera of Windsor, the 
CoUm, and it« Hall and Library, its Cbapel and 
School, stauil- a group of bnildinaH imposing in sixe, 
venerable tor ontiijuity, and aingiuariy appropriate in 
their character to the purposes far which they have 
been erected. I cannot hope to convey to those who 
have never seen them a perfect impression of them 
in this respect; perhaps I may say that this fitness 
of character depends on their size, ample, yet not so 
great aa to do away with a certain domestic feel- 
mg; on their great simplicity, which yet escapes any 
approach to meanness ; on Uieir obvious antiquity, 
entirely free from decoy: all suggests a notion of 
something beyond a mere school ; of role and order 
not pedantically sldS; of liberty, yet within the reach 
of wholesome restraint .... The pU^CTOunds skirt 
the river ; and, with ample apace for cricket and foot- 
bidl, they atiU have room for venerable trees, solemn 
avenues, and walks full of etudiona asaociaUons. No 
stranger of ordinary fcehag can see the outside of 
Eton without a feeling of acuniratton that has a char- 
acter of tenderness mixed with it; and when he sees 
the river thickly studded with skiffs and row-boats 
— the cricket-grounds with their playeiB, fleet and 
active, quick-eyed and ready-handed, playing the 
game with the eameatuess of youth and the conduct 
of manhood, hilarious with a winning score, and not 
dejected with a losing one — while among the intent 
spectator! around he perceives here and Uiere a 
master, not amongst the least intent, imposing no 
check on the boys, but animating their exertiims — 
be may well confess that he is beholiliag boyhood 
under ita happiest aspect Well, then, may the old 
Etonian feel Au bosom glow within him.' 

Ah, well indeed I Let Tom Browuiam be rampant 
as it wiU. it movea not us one whit IKs need uo 
eulogy from any man's pen to swell our mustcr- 
rolL At the present WTiting there ate over aght 

• PKblie Sdual Eii4calKn. A LtcIsTF, by Ue UiE>il IlBl- Sit 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



9 



kwndrtd jroutha at this boy-anivenity— many of them 
of the best blood in England ; all of them gentlemen ; 
moat of them destined to be rulers of the land and 
people when they be men. Never, surely, under the 
harsh name of school, existed such a 'glorious place. 

Ab, happy hills — ah, pleasing shade — 

Ah, fields beloved in vain, 
Where once my careless childhood strayed, 

A stranger yet to pain. 
I feel the gales that from ye blow 
A momentary bliss bestow, 

As, waving fresh their gladsome wing, 
My weary soul they seem to soothe, 
And, redolent of joy and youth. 
To breathe a second spring. 

FtareeU Etoncu* But the Latin, alas ! reminds us of 
its Latin verses ! In the Paston Letters, we find that 
so eaiiy as 1478, the custom of versifying in that 
dead langua^ was a part of the Eton system. ' As 
for my conung from Eton,'' writes Master William 
PastoD, * I lack nothing but versifying, which I trust 
to have with a little continuance;' and then, says 
Sir John Coleridge, he adds a miserable couplet, 
boasting, *and these two veraes aforesaid be of my 
own making.* 

But what miserable couplets toe made, and what 
miserable couplets everybody else made, except, 
Xierhaps, Coleridge minor, as Sir John was then, and 
some half-dozen others. Unhappily, no argument 
is ponible with these sticklers for Gradus <m Par- 
nasntm, for they have two ingenious theories, which 
are both unanswerable. First, they affirm, that by 
this borrowing of other people's ideas, and the look- 
ing oat for longs and shorts in that big book, in 
Older to express them in Latin measures, that we 
have imperceptibly benefited. It is impossible to 
contradict thisw It is pleasant to learn that we have 
been benefited by an^rthing; and one might have 
been worse, perhaps, if it haa not been for the Oradtis, 
Secondly, Iney assert that in cultivating Latin verses, 
we have, by some mysterious means, laid the foun- 
dations of all learning, and are now fit to educate 
oursehres. To the pnneBsional student this may be a 
most comforting reflection ; but then how vexy small 
a proportion m the human race do educate tiiem- 
selves, after they have been once emancipated from 
their tutors! 

Then there was the Chapel (the little bell of which 
used almost continuously to be going), ' enriched with 
stained glass,' remarks our author, * and many touch- 
ing mcjmorialL* To this he attributes an excessive 
amoont of advantage. The good old judge has 
surely forgotten his wicked school-days. Many an 
Etonian have we heard ascribe his present disinclina- 
tion for chnroh to his having hadf so very much of 
it while at schooL What are saints' days to Eton 
boys— wiiat they ougfU to be is another question into 
wnich there is no need to enter — that they should 
attend extra and longer services because of them? 
What a nnisance they seemed to be, when we wanted 
to be over the pleasant meadows — trespassing — or on 
the shbunff river! What an unnatural halo does our 
antfaor bdokl shinmiering around every youthful 
head. We were, not such very good boys, at loist in 
oor time; nor, indeed, very bad boys either, although, 
as for iliose chorister-lads, I well remember that it 
was thoa^t excellent fun to mve them nuts, in order 
that their voices should fail uiem during the coming 
poformanoes in the chapeL How a simple fact (» 
this kind — and really not a very distressing one — 
dissipates those misty illusions which even the wisest 
men, in 'their old age, are prone to entertain respect- 
ing their own youth ! Am yet Sir John Coleridgo 



* Our esteemed eontribotor here leems to be himMlf slightly 
o v sr c Bwe wttb that weakneas of lohool fiuoatieltm whioh he fo 
sUraly rtprohatcs tn others. 



has not a word to say against * fagging,' an institu- 
tion which has effected far more ham — although 
kept within more moderate bounds at Eton than 
elsewhere — than can ever be set right by choral 
singing; nor against the system of public flogging, 
practised at Eton, and at Eton only, in a manner 
disgusting and indecent in a very high degree. 

Againrt the present absurdity of electing the masters 
solely from the body of old Etonians — and not long ago 
they were chosen out of King's College, Cambridge, only 
— Sir John is energetic enough; and he is Dold in 
attacking one very crying evil, common to every well- 
filled public school — the madequate number of tutors. 
Every master at Eton is also a tutor, and receives as 
many boarders as he can accommodate into his own 
house. * Each master has his separate class in school, 
and in this there may be few or none of his own 
pupils — these last may be scattered among every class 
in the school ; but over his own pupils, as their tutor, 
he is boimd to exercise a peculiar care in eveir branch 
of their education.' A popular tutor, therefore, like 
the old woman who lived in her shoe, has often so 
many pupils that he does not know what to do vrith 
them, and of necessity does littie or nothing. The 
present average proportion at Eton of boys to tutors 
IS more than/or^ to one! Now, what should we say 
of Pogers (L. C. P.), if he received forty young gentie- 
men at Belvidere House without keeping a single usher 
to help him? Almost all the baa cases of cruelty 
occumng in public schools, and that are made pubUc 
— and they must be very bad to get that length — are 
owing to this paucity of masters, this inadequacy of 
personal supermtendence. The system of Monitors — 
which Eton, however, to her credit, has never adopted 
— that places excessive power in hands necessarily 
unfitted to wield it, arises entirely from this lack. 
Since the constituted authorities are insufficient (and 
since to get more would be unsatisfactory to those 
existing, for certain pecuniary reasons which it would 
be vulgar to speak about), amateur masters — Monitors 
— are appointed in many public schools, selected from 
the boys then:isclves. An increase of tutors is some- 
times aenied, even upon the groimd that the Statutes 
of the Schocl contemplated no such innovation, but 
the sticklers for vested intereste must indeed be sore 
put to it before they adopt that line of defence. Sir 
John's eye must have slyly twinkled when, with rela- 
tion to tins subject, he quotes one of the Eton statotes 
by which the Head and Lower Masters are bound 
to teach all who come from any part of England for 
noUiing at all: 'gratis, absoue pecuniee aut alterius 
rei exactione.' And it woula be a very pleasant sight 
to see them at it. 

Eleven-twelfths of the present school — ^that is to 
say, the whole of the Oppidans — were never contem- 
plated in the founder's scheme at alL Only seventy 
Eton boys — familiarly termed, in our time, * Tugs ' or 
'Tugmuttons,' from the circumstance of that food 
being placed, with a too great frequency, upon their 
conunon table — are ' upon tiie foundation,' or 
entitled in any way to share its privileges ; and 
these, to say truth, are held socially in some con- 
tempt by the others, who are, of course, the richer, 
though not necessarily the better-bom. Yet observe 
how these poor young gentiemen win all the educa- 
tional prizes ! The I^^wcastie scholaiahip and Medal 
has existed thirty-two years, to be cont^ded for by 
the entire schooL * In tne first twelve there were ten 
Oppidan scholars to two Collegers, and six Medallists 
to SIX. In the next ten years tiaere were four Oppidan 
scholars to six, and seven Medallists to five. In the 
last ten there were three Ompidan scholars to nine, 
and three Medallists to nine. Considering the immense 
superiority of numbers of Oppidans to Collegers, and 
that the former have the advantage of being, if they 
please, private pupils, which is denied to the latter, 
this difference of numbers is remarkable ; but the 
gradual decrease of the successful Oppidans, in later 



10 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



yean reaching almost to their extinction, ia a still 
more significant £act.' Sir John Coleridge cannot 
tmderstand why tlus should be, and yet it seems to us 

lite easy of solution. The Collegers work, and the 

>pidans don't work ; and for the simplest reason. 

le former know they have need to do so, being poor 
men's sons ; and the latter know they have no need. 
As to lads, who are as forty to one to their masters, 
being made to work, it is sin^)le impossibility, nor 
indeed is it ever attempted ; and it must be remem- 
bo^ that at almost all other public schools where 
Collegers exist at all, a similar disproportion exists 
between them and the Oppidans as at £ton ; while 
the majority of public schools are composed entirely 
of Oppidans. The instances of * bodily frames not yet 
matured,' which have broken down under the labour 
of school-work at Eton, must have happened — if 
they ever did happen — among the Collegers. We are 
sceptical about even that matter ; although there may 
have been un pleasantries about 'Tug' life, even in 
the way of hard study, as there most certainly were 
in the experiences ot that * Long Chamber,' where 
there were about five fags to sixty-five masters, and 
which was not a place to identify with the Elysian 
Fields in any respect. We enjoyed ourselves at Eton 
very much — though by no means so much as at home 
during the hoUdays — but we have no recollection of 
anythmg approaching hard work, even at that Latin 
and Greek which was the only literary pabidum in 
those days set before us. Now, it seems, there are no 
less than three boon of the vxek devoted to mathe- 
matics ; or a full half hour per diem ! 

In a word, whatever may be said about their supe- 
riority in other respects, we cannot believe that public 
schools are the best places for intellectual education. 
It is scarcely possime, with their small amoimt of 
school-hours, their limited supply of masters, and the 
extent of their actual vacations, that they should 
compete in this respect with private establishments, 
where lads work very much hxurder, and are far more 
closely looked after. If a boy is to make his own way 
in the world, and has little beyond his mental faculties 
to trust to, it certainly seems more reasonable to send 
him to Belvidere House, if that establishment have a 
tolerable character, than to an expensive pubhc schooL 
It is true, that lads in such a pli^t are sometimes 
sent to Eton and elsewhere to ootam * a good connec- 
tion,' with a view of hitching themselves on, that is, 
to others in a superior station. But, setting aside the 
cruelty of thus making boys into toadies and tuft- 
hunters before their time, and the *snobbiBm' of the 
wh<de transaction, such unequal friendships do not 
stand the wear and tear of life; they rarely last 
beyond adolescence. 

It is unfair to Belvidere House to point to the dis- 
tinguished names at the universities — although it holds 
its own, and something more, even there — because the 
great majority of pubUc-school lads go to college as a 
matter of course, while with those at private schools it 
is not so ; still less justly can we ooast of public- 
school men being stars of parliament, or leading men 
in power, since, as boys, thev were, by birth and posi- 
tion, already half-wav to the great^ social prizes; 
while the lads more numbly educated, in accordance 
with their humbler station, have to go double the 
distance — and the most difficult part of the road is 
that first half — ^to obtain them. If they started fair, we 
have no doubt but that the young gentleman with his 
head full of Latin verses would lag behind the other 
(of equal powers), who has receiv^ a more general, 
although not necessarily a superficial education. We 
have known an Etonian to be a by no means despi- 
cable classic, and yet to be quite unable to spell, or 
to inform you in what the Reformation in England 
differed from the Revolution. 

We are far from intending disr^pect either to public 
schools or classical education. They effect, at Eton 
at all events, the very thing? which, considering the 



fine material they have got to deal with, it is desirable 
that they should da Tney turn out better cricketers, 
foot- bail players, and oarsmen than private schools 
can da They produce healthier and higher-spirited 
young men. Not only in mere behaviour and 
* deportment * do they turn boys into gentlemen, but 
their tone is often so high and manly, that it even 
supplies the gentlemanly feelings that are sometimes 
lacking. There is generally neither pertness (except 
in the case of monitors) nor mauvaise lionte about 
public -school men, and they are fitted to mix in any 
society, with a polite independence, which Belvidere 
House for the most part fails to impart These are 
surely no mean advantages. Let, then, the admirers 
of public schools be content, even if in addition to 
ruder health, better manners, and happiness in greater 
proportion than is found in private seminaries, they 
fail to impart an education so well fitted for the 
ordinary walks of life. Each system has its excellen- 
ces and its faults ; each is adapted for its own class 
of disciples. That would be an evil day for the Upper 
Ten Thousand of England, on which Eton and her 
sister-seminaries were abolished; but, on the other 
hand, science and commerce would languish sadly 
from the hour when all our middle classes were 
forced to send their sons to public schools. 

LOVE AMONG THE LILIES. 

Lkx a prisoned poet inscribing eloquent odes to 
Liberty, Maria van Oosterwyck, pent in Uie centre 
of grim old frowning Delft, strove passionately to fix 
upon her canvas the glorious flowers and fruits of a 
far-off country, from which the town's every canal, 
lock, street, wall, and rampart combined to sunder 
her. By aid of memory, scrap-sketches made on 
hurried visits beyond .the gates, and cut flowers 
sickening and dying as she drew them, the pale 
eamest-Kx>king lady worked on. With quite a lily's 
whiteness in ner face, and fair waving hair, that 
seemed sprinkled with the gold-dust from the lily's 
cup, pushed back carelessly, so as not to hinder her, 
and m sober dark woollen dress, only reheved by 
the large plaited-mnslin ruff collar, Maria bent her 
lithe fragile figure before her easel ; poring over one 
of those small cabinet paintings whose trans(iarent 
colour, refined taste, and delicate mechanism, shall 
make them, years and years after thou art dust, 
Maria van Oosterwyck, cherished possessions even 
in the choicest collections. She loved her flowers; 
she loved her art; for these she was content to 
spend her life : it was no toil, at least it was a toil 
free from irksomeness, and full of joy, to be true to 
such love as this. Over her canvas, the flowers at 
her side, studying the wondrous variety of their 
hues, tracing their every exquisite curve, and change, 
and diversi^, till she could almost deem that in their 
marvellous sei>arate loveliness dwelt an individual 
soul, Maria could well forget the cloomy surround- 
ings of her studio. It was not a pleasant abode for 
an artist, and least of all for a flower-artist That 
murky shadow on the wall is the reflection flung 
there by the sun, sinking in a Dutch fos, of the 
church tower which shelters the remains of William 
Prince of Orange, murdered close by, on a summer's 
day in 1584, by Balthazar Grerard the Burgundian; 
that mist upon the window rises from the narrow 
stagnant poisonous canal below; that smoke beat- 
ing away in circling clouds comes from the pottery 
manufactories — for are we not just midway in tbie 
seventeenth century — and must not the great demand 
for Delft earthenware be met in thorough commercial 
spirit ? True, there are trees edmng the canals ; but 
no wonder they have lost all ch^m for Maria ; no 
wonder she can look wyon them with eyes of pity 
only ; they are trimmed, and cut, and clipped mto 
fanciful shapes, in execrable Dutch taste ! Heartless 
mutilation of natural loveliness; one might as well 



CHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



11 



look for hnmaa beantj in a aoldieT^s hospital after a 
battle. 

Through the mist, throufih the smoke and the 
shadow, and over the trees, were were eyes searching 
ont the light form of Maria van Oosterwyck in her 
studio ; and these — ^y, bright, pleasant-looking eves 
enough — ^were iized m the head of Wilhehn van Aalst, 
a painter aim, and a denizen of Delft, whose studio is 
exiactiy opposite to Maria's, on the other side of the 
street He has set up his easel, and has work before 
him — a clever enough artist, painting still-life subjects 
dexterously, and in good repute for his dead game, 
scraps of armour, and gold and silver cups. But not 
a rerv sedulous worker ; unable to devote himself to 
his labours, unable to forget — as the genuine student 
ever does — ^that there is a world going on outside his 
studio walls. Half-a-dosen touches, and he looks out 
of the window, down the street towards the market- 
place, or over the way at Maria ; then another few 
touches, and a look in the glass at his own handsome 
&ce, and a twirling of his moustache, a pulling at his 
beard, or a tossing about of his long thick chestnut 
locks. He makes up his mind at last; and perhaps 
he hasn*t much to operate upon, for that matter. He 
flings away his pallet and brushes, arrays himself 
in a handsome velvet doublet, blue with narrow silver 
edcing, dons a hat and feather, buckles on his rapier, 
and struts from his studia No more work for to-day. 
He will pay visits ; it is really quite a long time since 
he has seen his friends — twelve hours or so — he will 
call on Maria van Oosterwyck, and see how her lilies 
are getting on, and then he will dine — well, perhaps 
at the Golden Calf round the comer, and finish the 
evening there. 

Absorbed in her lilies, her thin white hand sup- 
ported by her mahl-stick, with the smallest, finest 
brush ever seen, defining hair-lines of light upon the 
onter rims of the flowers, Maria heard not the knock 
at her door-- heard not the step upon the floor — knew 
not that any one had entered the room — was lost to 
all but her art, until a hand was laid gently upon 
her arm, and a voice murmured, accenting tenderly : 
* Incomparable Maria ! ' 

She started up with quite a little scream, paler than 
ever, and her soft blue eyes open wide with alarm, 
like flowers beaten by a storm. She was a lovely 
specimen of the thorough blonde, flaxen even to eye- 
brows and eyelashes — a very human lily herself, so 
pure, and delicate, and lovable-looking. 

' You frightened me, Wilhelm,* she said, her first 
surprise a little passed off, and with just the slightest 
tone of reproval traceable in her voice. She was about 
to give her hand with the brush in it, but a glance at 
Wilnelm's gay doublet, and the thought of however 
80 little a streak of cream- white would soil it, stopped 
her. 

'EnthnsiaBt !' Wilhehn wtot on — ' devotee f you 
have no thought but for this ! ' and he pointed to 
tiie panel on the easeL 

*lait& fault ?' she asked. 

' No ; but it is a reproach to the less devout.' 

• To yourself, then f Wilhelm, when will you work ? 
When will you cleave to your easel, and be loath and 
sick at heart to leave it ? So you have quitted work 
for to-day, and there remain five more good hours of 
dayhght!* 

Wuhelm blushed. He was a little crest-fallen at 
his reception. Had the bhie velvet and the silver 
edging so small effect as this ? 

* I nave nearly finished the picture of the dead 
fiJooQ and the jewelled goblet.* 

Maria shook her head sorrowingly. 

'YoQ have not finished as you should finish it, 
Wilhehn. You may leave off work — you may let 
it go from your easel — you may barter it for a ^ood 
price — bat you will yet know in your heart that it is 
not a work such as should bear the name of Van 
AakL Why will you paint only for to-day, for the 



present hour, to supply your mere needs, and heed 
tor nothing else ? You must wish to live, Wilhelm, 
to be something in the future, to have 3rour name 
honoured, and your works cherished. You owe this 
to yourself. Paint fewer pictures, and work more.' 
' I have not your talent, gentle Maria.* 
' You have more than my poor talent, Wilhelm, a 
thousand times. With nil my labour, pouring ont 
my life at the foot of my eaisel, I know I cannot 
approach the genius yon possess, if yon wonld but 
render it justice.* 

* I have not your devotion, Maria.' 

* You loved your art once, Wilhehn ; you had higih, 
grand thoughts about it once.' 

* Boyish dreams.* 

' They might have been the facts of your manhood, 
had you chosen so, good friend.' 

It was hard upon him — who had come to create a 
sensation, to win the admiration of the fair enthusiast 
— to meet so chilly a welcome, such a lecture upon 
his shortcomings. Maria herself began to thinlr go 
at length, and changed the subjects 

' Do you like my lilies ?* 

'They are exquisite, they are inimitable — ^full of 
your own grace, and subtlety, and expression. Yon 
have nearly completed them.* 

* No, there remains much to do. See, these leaves 
are hardly touched ; this bud is mere raw colour.* 

There was a pause. He looked from the panel to 
her. Standing so humbly and gently before a most 
marvellous effort of painting, how coidd he help 
great admiration and love pcwsessing his heart ? How 
could he hinder them from s^mrkTing in his hand- 
some eyes? His one hand rested on his hip, the 
other toyed gracefully with the silver tassels of his 
cloak. He was in his most winning attitude. Maria 
looked up at him innocently, read something of his 
thoughts in his face, and then turned away, a little 
frightened, perhajis. 

*You remember,* he said, at length, in his most 
musical voice — * you remember, Maria, my first coining 
here? — ^my assumed bearing, my affecting to be a 
dealer, come to purchase your works, when my real 
aim was to see you, to become acquainted with you ?* 

* It was a trick, Wilhelm, a shameful trick ; ' and 
she moved away h-om him. 

* It was fair, for 1 loved you.' 

She put }ier hand to her heart, as though she had 
been struck there. She could not speak, but she 
waved her hand, by her gesture imploring him to 
desist 

* I loved you then, Maria, and from that day I have 
loved you more and more. If I have neglected my 
art, as you say, may not love bo my excuse ? Let 
that plead for me. Do not jud^ me too harshly.* 

She heard him like one in i>ain, trembling, and with 
closed, quivering eyes. He was about to continue; 
she placed her hand j;ently upon his. 

* Cease, Wilhelm, I entreat of you.' 

'You don't love me, Maria?' The question was so 
musically, wilingly, fervidly breathed, it was almost 
irresistible. For some moments, Maria could not 
speak. Her breath came and went so hurriedly, and 
sne trembled sa 

* I dare not ' — in a low broken whisper. 

*You doubt me?' She bowed her head aflinn- 
atively, and to hide her blushes and her tears. 

Wiihelm had had Uttle experience in failure. He 
was puzzled, amazed. Could it be that his love was 
rejected? He was about to break out into expos- 
tulations, into passionate oaths and entreaties ; but a 
look from Mana stopped him. 

* You, who are false to art, can I hope that yon 
will be true to me ?' 

* But I love you.' 

* You loved art once, Wilhelm : you neglect it now.* 
' But I will never neglect you, dearest. I swear it.' 
'False in one, false in alL* 



12 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



* Maria, this is cruelty.' 

*Let it be so, Wilhelm, and let us part. Leave me 
to my IQies ; they can never be to me less good, and 
pure, and true. I cannot quit them, to give my troth 
to one who may one day turn from me, his love fallen 
from him like a withered leaf. If I surrendered 
them, Wilhelm, for you, and the time should come, as 
it would, doubt not, when you would cease to love 
me — when I should be to you a poor frail woman, 
charmless, lustreless— I could not Dear it Wilhelm, 
it would be death.* 

* But this is a nightmare, darling ; it never shall be 
truth. I love you; I love art; I have never ceased 
to love art. I will always love you both.' 

But Maria only shook her head sadly, murmuring : 
' False in one, false in alL' 

*But try me. These are not mei"e words — idle, 
vain : test them ; they will bear it.' 

She looked at him earnestly ; there seemed honesty 
in his face and in his speech. 

* First, then : You will be true to art.' 

* I swear it' 

* You will work honestly ; you will be at your easel 
for six hours a day at least, continuously; painting 
scrupulously, rendering faithful account of the objecte 
you paint, as they seem to you; not trickily, or to 
produce rapidly, or to sell quickly. You will shun 
low company; you will not be seen with Heil, or 
Brocken, or Vander Noove. You will avoid the 
Golden Calf ; you will cease to make Delft ring 
with your dissipations. You hear me, Wilhelm ?' 

' I will do all this, Maria.' 

' And for six months — mark that ; you will do all 
this for six months.' 

* I may see vou the while, may I not ? 

' No, Wilheun ; it is better not ; it is better not, for 
both our sakes. At the end of six months, come to 
me. Tell me you have done all this faithfully ; tell 
me you have been true to yourself — to art — to me. 
Tell me that you love art truly, and as you love art, 
love me.' 

* And if I do this, you * 

She gave him a httle white hand. He pressed it 
passionately to his lips. 

* You are mine, Maria ! ' 

' Six months have yet to pass, Wilhelm.' 
He hardly heard her; he was dashing down the 
stairs mad with joy, and hope, and love. In five 
minutes, his blue doublet was off^ and he was hard at 
work before his easel 

The poor lily-lady, pressing her hands upon her 
head, was too shaken and bewildered to resume her 
pencU immediately. Soon, however, she turned 
towards her flowers, exclaiming with passion : ' True 
or false, my lilies, I cannot love you less. I am 
still yours, and you will still be mine ! ' 

There was a thick crust of snow upon all the cable- 
roofs of Delft ; the canals were frozen ; thick ice 
blocked. up the river. The six months had passed. 
Maria was still at her easel. There were no hlies to 
be had now, only those upon her panel, perfected ; so 
close were they to nature, it seemed not possible to 
carry imitation further. She was employed in paint- 
ing a folded drapery of stamped puce-coloured velvet, 
the background of her picture. She seemed paler 
than ever now, and an air of fatigue and suffering 
haunted her face ; yet she worked on in her ola 
placid, simple, hearty way; the tiny pencils moved 
to and fro as steadily and perseveringly as ever. 

'Six months to-day,' she murmuj^ once, hfl-lt^^g 
but for a moment, only to resume again with a 
redoubled energy. But a step on the stairs soon set 
her hand trembling and her heart beating. She was 
compelled to desist Wilhelm entered splendidly 
hanosome in green. velvet, with a thick studding of 
■mall gold buttons, a sweeping white featiier in his 
hat, a glittering sword-belt^ and heavy fur-trimming 



on his cloak. There was a triiunphant flush upon his 
face as he walked rapidly towards Maria. 

* You have come, then, Wilhelm,' she said. 

* To claim fulfilment of your promise, dearest' 

She fixed her glance earnestly upon his face, gazing 
into his eyes, as though to read the truth in them. 

*You have fulfilled your promise, Wilhelm; you 
have been true to art ; you have worked sedulously, 
for six hours a day at least, uninterruptedly without 
quitting your studio ; you have shunned low company 
and the tavern ; you nave been true to yourself and 
tome?' 

Wilhelm bowed his glossy head affirmatively before 
her. He looked very superb indeed. Maria turned 
away her glance; she was shivering with nervous 
agitation — not cold, as he thought 

' And I may trust my happiness to your keeping ?' 
she continue<l, still looking down. 

* Dearest Maria, I swear that you shall never repent 
so doinff.' 

And ne twirled the ends of his ample moustache, 
and dusted his beard with a broidered kerchief, which, 
tucked in his doublet, had been adding to the curve 
of his massive chest 

Maria started back from him, and an angry light 

f;leamed in the blue eyes wontedly so soft and gentle, 
t was like forked lightning breaking out suddenly on 
a calm summer sky. 

'Wilhelm, you woidd scorn to play with cogged 
dice ; you would beat to the earth any one who said 
you tricked at cards ; you would condescend to dupe 
no man. Why, then, do you come here to me with a 
lie upon your lips ? — why seek to cheat me ? What 
have I ever done that you should turn against me 
thus ? Is it because I am weak, and a woman, that 
I am to be treated wiih falsehoods — won by fraud?' 

Wilhelm, amazed, puzzled, embarrassed, looked at 
her. He put forth his hand imploringly ; he sought 
to speak ; she waved back his approaches by an angry 
gesture. You would not have thought such fury 
could have possessed her. The lily was whirling in a 
tempest 

* 1 ou know that you have broken every letter of 
your promise ; you know that your every act of late 
has been a falsehood to me ; you know that I dare 
not confide my happiness in your hands ; that you are 
utterly unworthy such a trust This is nothing. You 
have a ri^ht to act as you wilL To stain your name, 
your gemus, your art, with mire, if you will ; it is not 
for me to call for an account But to act thus shame- 
fully, and crown that shame by a lie, to me, to me, 
who, God knows, never would or could have done you 
wrong — Wilhelm, Wilhelm, it is too much ! * 

There were tears now upon her cheeks, like rain- 
drops on a lily. 

Wilhelm stood speechless, abashed, and angry. His 
position was humiliating enough — ^to cheat, and to be 
found out too ! Yet he tried to pluck up heiu*t ; and 
sturdy lying seemed his safest course — so his weak 
false mind suggested. 

* You wrong me, indeed, indeed.' 

' Stop ! ' she crieid, putting her hands to her ean to 
shut out his words. ' T^o more ; you have lied enough. 
Look here ! ' and she pointed to the window-post : there 
were hundreds of streaks of lily white. *^ach' time 
you have failed in your promise, I have registered the 
failure here. You have oeen absent from your studio ; 
you have been idle; you have been gaping at the 
window, or idling at the door ; you have spent days 
and nights at the Golden Calf. Heil has been with 
you, and Brocken, and Vander Noove, and — O Wilhelm 
— others who never should have been ! ' — and a blush 
crossed her cheek ; it was as a sunset on a lily — 
I and you have painted worthless pictures. You know 
it — none better. Oh, in a thousand ways, you have 
been false ; and here, see, here's the record.' 

In Wilhelm's culprit face, 'midst all his shame and 
confusion, yet lingered an intenx^gative : * How did 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



13 



yon know all this ?' She read it in his looks, without 
needing his words. 

*My studio is opposite to yours; I can see you 
from here as well as you can see me from there.' 

' Tet your hack was always turned 7' 

She could not help smiling, it was such a wretched, 
pitiful, school-boy plea. 

• You forgot the mirror ! With that in front of me, 
I had no need to turn.' 

Wilhelm stamped on the ground with ra^ and 
disappointment, cursing a thousand times his own 
stupidity. 

* Adieu! Maria van Ooeterwyck.* 

• Adieu ! Wilhelm van Aalst* 

Utteriy crushed and mortified, he moved to the 
door. Inhere he stood for a moment, rallied a little, 
and with a feeble broken swag^r, with an attempt to 
conjure back something of ms old grand manner, 
whispered softly : * And there is no hope, Maria ?* 

* None ! ' said the lady stoutly. She was deaf to the 
voice of the charmer, and he went out bauj^g the 
door, never to return. The poor girl, her trial over, 
broke down completely; she fell into a ch^, weeping 
copiously. 

' Heaven help me I And I so loved that man I ' 

With a strange curiosity and weakness, she sent her 
servant on the following morning to make inquiry 
conoemmg him. She learned tlutt he had quitted 
Delft ; it was said for ever. Paris was thought to 
be his destination. Then Maria was on her knees 
once more before her panel : * O my lilies ! I am 
yours iot ever — only yours. I will love but you.' 

And she kept her word, devoting herse^ to her 
art, and glorifying it by her devotion. And Eturope 
«tmgcled for possession of her works ; not nimierous, 
but aU perfect. And Emperor Leopold, and Louis the 
Magnificent, and England's great monarch, William of 
Orange — all bought from her easeL 

In 1093, she painted her last lily — never having 
seen again the faithless Wilhelm— never having loved 
again — still Maria van Oosterwyck. 

A POULTRY SHOW. 

AvAUNT, all ye featherleas bipeds, to whom poultry is 
suggestive of spread-ea^e, pigeon, of pie, and rabbit, of 
fricassee ; we have nothing for yon to eat ! Our poultry 
is not plucked, our pigeons are raiy with' plumage, and 
our rabbits wear their skins. They have been under- 
going a competitive examination at the Crystal Palace, 
and nave given great satisfaction, which is more thim 
can be said for candidates in general, to their several 
examiners. Nevertheless, they may be said to have 
been crammed for their examination, and to be argu- 
ments in favour of the universally condemned cram- 
ming fljrvtem. It is true that they were subjected to 
a course of something more substantial than arith- 
metic, mere nourishing than geography, more fatten- 
ing than mathematics ; but emi. tiieir progress reflects 
great credit upon those under whose filtering care 
they pursued their studies; and very distinguished 
tntom wad governesses some of them appear to have 
had— Bight Honourable Earls, and Most Honourable 
MttrchkmesBes, and Lady Julias ; and plain (and very 
likely pcetty) Mistresses, and Misses, and Honourable 
Mistsn ; and Esquires by right, and Esc^uires by cour- 
tesy ; and Majors, and Captains, and simple Misters. 
Wnai code. wouldn't crow at the bidding of an earl? 
What hen wouldn't cackle at the sight of a mar- 
ebionesa? What chicken wouldn't faUen under the 
glance of Lady Julia ? What pigeon wouldn't thrive 
under the tutelage of a major? VThat rabbit's ears 
wofokLa't lengthen imdcr the drilling of a captain? 
We were not surprised, therefore, at the triumphant 
coelL-ardoodle-doos, and the impertinent clucks of the 
fowls, as we inspected their several pens ; we under- 
stood, perfectly the strut of the pigeons, and tiie 
impcrtiirbable self-possession of the rabbits. There 



were no fewer than 704 candidates entered, though 
they did not all come to the scrateh — the pupils of not 
less than 224 ladies and gentlemen. There were five 
examiners, of whom two were professors of poultry, 
two professors of pigeonry, and three professors of rab- 
bitry. The competitors were divided into 104 classes, 
43 consisting of jMultry, 52 of pigeons, and 9 of rabbits. 
The candidates in the 43d class of poultry, and in all 
the classes of pigeons and rabbits, were allowed to be 
of any age — ^though we thought it a pity to idlow any 
of them to grow to toughness — but in the other ^ 
classes, they were obli^d to be chickens of 1860. 
Seeing, therefore, the short time which had elapsed 
since their egg-hood, we could not but be astonished 
and edified at the immense progress which they had 
made. We are not aware of the precise age at which 
chickens arc considered patmis^ but there was a very 
edible appearance about all but the cocks and the 
ganders. 

The first three classes of poidtry were what are 
called Spanish chickens ; the next four, Dorking ; tiie 
four after these, Cochin- China. Then came two classes 
of Brahmapootras ; after them, five of Game Fowls ; 
three of Gold or Silver Pencilled Hamburgs ; three 
of Gold or Silver Spangled Hambium Classes 25, 26, 
27t and 28 were nllea by Polish Fowl, whereof the 
cocks wore mops instead of combs by way of head- 
dress ; 29 consisted of Malays ; 30 of other district 
breeds, as Crbvecoeur, Black Hamburg, Andalucian, 
and Cuckoo Cochin-China ; 31, 32, 33, 34, and 35 of 
spiteful-looking Bantams ; 36 and 37 of our relatives 
the Geese, both White, Gray, and Mottled; 38, 
39, and 40 of Ducks and Drakes; 41 of Turkeys 
or Gobblecocks; and 42 should have consisted of 
Guinea-fowl, but we didn't observe any, and therefore 
put them down as ' absent.' 

The Fowls underwent at the hands of the pro- 
fessors a severe examination in 'high condition,' 
'quality,' 'beauty of plumage,' 'uniformity in the 
markings,' * combs,' and * weight* The Spanish were 
declared to be not up to the average of former years : 
this we attribute to an overweening confidence in 
their own powers, upon the part especiaUy of the 
cocks; we particularly noticed one which evidently 
held the same views with respect to the rising of the 
sun as Mrs Peyser's famous oird. They muirt recol- 
lect that, without due attention to the regula- 
tions which their tutors and governesses have laid 
down for their ^dance, and without a tittle of the 
difi&dence so suitable to their tender age, they can 
hardly expect to attain excellence. We recommend 
to their notice and imitation the dignified demeanour, 
and proper regard for his feathers, displayed bv tiie 
White Dorking cock, which, in company with its 
two kin pullets, won the second prize m Class 6. It 
is true tnat tins cock had been under the care of a 
reverend gentleman, and had therefore the advanta^ 
of a reUgious education ; but this is by no means indis- 
pensable for the proper development of chickenhood. 
The Cochin-Chinas were highly complimented by the 
examiners, as were also the IBrahmapootras, and wo 
have no reason to doubt that the honour was deserved. 
Still we must plead guilty to a strong prejudice i^ainst 
Cochin-Chinas ; their personal appearance is by no 
means prepossessing, more especially when they are of 
a cinnamon or buff hue : both in colour and in atti- 
tude they then remind us (when they throw up their 
heads) of a feathered giraffe vrith his front legs cut 
off. There always appears to be something the matter 
with their tails; they are decidedly knock-kneed; 
the feathers on their drumsticks have no business 
there, and look as though they were stuck on with 
mucilage ; their cock-a-doodle-doo is hoarse and 
discordant ; the flavour of the hen's eggs is certainly 
roughish, and the chicken's leg we had for dinner 
one day was toughish. The commendations bestowed 
upon the GameFowls we hereby beg to endorse, and 
at the same time to express our opinion that, in the 



14 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



event of distiirlMuices arising between Cochin-China 
chickens and the Game Fowls of this oountiy, the 
superior qualities evinced by the latter will achieve 
for them the mastery. Gold-laced and silver-laced 
Kftnt^wm were a novelty to us in point of nomen- 
dature : we had heard of gold-Uced and silver-laoed 
ooats and waistcoats and hats, but gold-laced and 
silver-laced birds we had not in our vocabulary : how- 
ever, we were very gUd to see them ; they acquitted 
themselves admirably, and went through tiieir evolu- 
tions with remarkable elegance. The same may be 
said of their white and black, and mixed cousins ; and 
we were not at all surprised to find that the tiunily 
group in No. 264 was * highly conmiended* by the 
examiners. They also, like the well-behaved Dorking 
cock to which allusion has already been made, were 
brought up in a clergyman's household, and conse- 

?[uently observed the strictest propriety. The Polish 
owls elicited the loud approbation both of the 
examiners and the visitors; there was a soberness 
about iJieir black and silver plumage peculiarly 
appropriate to exiles ; their 'mops* were dishevelled 
ana gray before their time; a touching melancholy 
was m their glance, and they shook their heads in 
a mournful way, as though they knew what happened 
*when Kosciusko fell.' The geese were welcomed 
fraternally, and lauded abundantly. Two Sebastopol 
geese, who were present, not for competition, but out 
of curiosity, were very much admired; and it was 
maintained that, had they chosen to become candi- 
dates, they would, on measurement, have turned out 
greater geese than any of the £nglish present. The 
size of the Aylesbury ducks was a proof of the 
attention paid by their trainer to the physical wants 
of his pupils ; and a lady in our neighbourhood, for- 
getful of stereotyped femininities, declared them to 
be not * little ducks,' but * great ducks.' The solem- 
nity, too, with which they reiterated their 'quack, 
quack,' was hijdily edifying, and evinced a philosophical 
qnrit. The Turkeys, moreover, behaved extremely 
well, and betrayed no signs of temper when subjected 
to the ordeal of a red handkerchieL 

The first two classes of the Pigeons were formed 
from the families of Pouters and Croppers ; the third 
and fourth, from the indefatigable race of Carriers ; 
the fifth, ^m the rein^sentatives of tiie Almond 
Tumblers; the sixth and seventh, from the noted 
Dragons ; the eighth, ninth, and tenth, from the 
Stkort-ituxd Motues; the eleventh, twelfth, thir- 
teenth, and fourteenth, from the Short-faced Bald- 
heads (the fifteenth was * absent ') ; the sixteenth, 
■eventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth, 
from the Short-faced Beards ; the twentieth, twenty- 
first, twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fourth, and 
twenty-fifth (vrith the exception of the twenty-fourth, 
which had no members present), from the Short-faced 
Tumblers ; the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, and 
twenty-eighth, from the Jacolnnes ; the twenty-ninth, 
thirtieth, Uiirty -first, and thirty-second, from the Owls ; 
tiie thirty-third, thirty-fourth, and thirty-fifth, &om the 
pensive Nuns ; the thirty-sixth, thirty-seventh, thirtv- 
ei^th, and thirty-ninth, from the Turbits ; the fortieth, 
forty-first, and forty-second, from the expansive Fan- 
tails; the forty-tlurd, forty-fourth, forty-fifth, and 
forty-sixth, from the Barbs ; the forty-sevenl^ forty- 
eighth, and forty-ninth, from the Magpies; the 
finieth, from the Tnimpeters; and the fifty-first 
and fifty-second, &om Spanish and Lechom Kunts. 
We have the authority of the examiners for declaring, 
that the fifty-first was ' an extraordinary good class,' 
and the fifty-second 'a very interesting class;' 
whilst classes three and four were pronoimced ' very 
excellent classes ; ' and we hope that the commenda- 
tions of the examiners will encourage the Most Hon. 
Marchioness and others commended to persevere in 
uromoting the great cause of education amongst the 
fowls of the air; for, doubtless, a well-emicated 
pigeon is plumper thui one whose education has 



been neglected. We are sorry that, in the discharge 
of a public duty, we are reluctantly comjielled to 
announce that it seemed good to the examiners to 
withhold the third prize from the first class, the 
single pri^e from the tenth, from the thirteenth, and 
from the sixteenth. We hope this public exposure will 
be a warning to Pouters and Croppers, to the yellow 
Short-faced Mottles, and to the red Short-faced Bald- 
heads, and will also excite the ladies and gentlemen 
whose province it is in this life to exercise their talents 
in the bringing up of young pigeons, to renewed 
exertions, remembering the awful resixmsibUity which 
they incur if, by their fault, a single pigeon be a 
fraction below prize-weight. Everything which is 
worth doing, is worth doin^ well ; if, then, the fatten- 
ing of AwimnJa be worth doing (which we by no means 
assert), by all means fatten them welL Attendance 
upon the pigeon-examination did not impress us with 
any very high notions of the intellectual powers of 
that bird : it is apparently a very amiable and affec- 
tionate creature, but, except when undergoing the 
process of examination in the hands (literally) of the 
professors, it spent its time in strutting up and down, 
cooing very softly, and inserting its beak into the 
beaks of its brethren. It seemed vain of its gorgeous 
plumage, and we were rather shocked to see Nuns 
fianntmg in red, yellow, and blue. The Carriers had, 
as they should have, the most work-day appearance, 
but were as usual disfigured by hu^ waurts upon their 
noses. The Jcocobines looked nice httle things (to eat), 
but a guinea a head is rather expensive, ana we didn't 
observe any under. One young gentleman, a trainer 
of pigeons, had the conscience to ask L.50 fen* each of 
his — this is almost as good as L-IOOO for a cock and 
two pullets — but the price, be it known, is fancy ; for 
the competitors are hable to be sold into slavery or 
cookery, should any visitor take a liking to them, and 
the high prices are put on lest a himgry spectator 
should long for savoury meat. 

To proceed to the Rabbits. The first class was a 
collection of candidates for prizes on the ground of 
long cars ; the second was composed of black and 
white specimens ; the third, of yellow and white ; the 
fourth, of tortoise-shell ; the fifth, of blue and white ; 
the sixth, of gray and white; the seventh, of self- 
colour; the eighth were examined in weight; and 
the ninth consisted of foreign rabbits — Himalajraa, 
Chinchillaa, Angoras, and Chinas. What decided 
the prize in the last class, we are not able to state ; 
whether climate or distance, or peculiarity of name, 
or singularity of shape, we did not find out, but we 
rather suppose that a combination of weight, colour, 
and length of ear was looked for; at anyrate, a 
Chinchilm won the first prize, and a Himalaya buck 
and doe were jointly found worthy of the second. 
As we have said, the first class boasted of the length 
of their ears ; and so long were the ears of those who 
gained the prizes, that it was a wonder the owners 
didn't get taripped up by them in their perambula- 
tions. The prizes for weight were conferred upon 
two does, each twelve montns old — one being gray in 
colour, the other white and yellow. Their J4>petites 
were considered very praiseworthy, and the myod use 
they had made of their gastric-juices met wiui much 
approval The other closes were placed, not accord- 
ing to meritorious feeding, but according to their 
natural gifts of colour. A tabby stood no chance here ; 
in black and white, the bucks were triumphant; in 
yellow and white, a buck was first, and a doe second ; 
m tortoise-shell, the docs had it all their own way ; 
in blue and white, a doe and a buck were respectiyely 
first and second; in my and white, a buck stood 
first, and a doe second ; and in self-colour, again, a 
buck and a doe were respectively first and second. 
To attempt a description of the happy pride with 
which the gifted guardians of the successful candi- 
dates regaraed the objects of their care, is a task 
beyond our power : we might hope to give some faint 



0HAMBER8^ JOURNAL. 



15 



idea of tiie feeHngs of a parent wbose darlinjo; aon had 
non aa Indian appointment; of tfao laborious tutor 
whow favoiurite papil had paned fint in the examin- 
ation for the ran College; of the mathematical 
' eoach' wfaoae exertions hM been rewarded by seeing 
a ' pup' Senior Wran^er — but we must leave to the 
imagination to portray the joy of him who has ^- 
tened a rabbit to the fullest extent compatible with 
a whole skin. For poultry, pigeons, and rabbits, the 
prises ransed from L.5 to L.1, and ' silver cups, or 
other articfes of plate of the value of L.6 and L.^ and 
silver medals of the value of L.2,' mi^ht be obtained 
'in lieu of money-prizes, when desired.* What a 
noble reward for taking care of a rabbit ! It is very 
little less than a man gets for preserving life from 
fire. 

Now, it strikes ns that we have made use of some 
terms, especially in the case of the pigeons, which may 
puzzle a few of our readers as much as they did our- 
selves, imtil we took the trouble to ascertain their 
meaning, and the reason of their ^^cation to the 
various specimens. Pouters, thep, are so called from 
having a sort of pouch below the beak, which they 
can distend, by filung it with air, at pleasure. Crop- 
pers — which have also a |X>uch like Pouters— owe their 
name to the size of their crops, which, especially in 
the Butch croppers, are unusimlly large. We regret 
to state, on hifii authority, that both Croppers and 
Pouters are bad parents, and neglect their offspring 
terribly. The Carriers explain uiemselves; but we 
may peihape be allowed to record, that a good bird of 
the carrier kind has been known to travel at the rate 
of more than twenty miles an hour ; and to warn all 
who mean to train carrier-pigeons, to begin with them 
as soon as they are full-fledged, exercise them gradu- 
ally, and always feed and water them before starting, 
lest thev wander in search of refreshment, or drop 
before finishing their journey. The Tumbler's pecu- 
liarity it is easy to guess : he turns somersaults in 
the air, both when ascending from and descending 
to the ground. The word Almond-tumbler (in German, 
Hermdmtaube) appears to be a corruption of ermine- 
tumbler; the plumage of this pigeon is marked like 
ermine. Dragons, or, as they are sometimes called. 
Dragoons, are a cross between a horseman-pigeon and 
a tumbler-pigeon, and are possibly so called because 
dragoons were originally half-inmntry half-cavalry. 
Short-faced Mottles, Short-faced Bald-heads, Short- 
faced Beards, and Short-faced Tumblers, of course, 
need no explanatioiL Jacobines have a range of 
feathers upon the back-part of the head, forming a 
sort of hood like the cowl of a Jacobine monk, or 
monk of the order of St Dominic Owls, it is sup- 
pcsed, owe their nomenclature to a fancied resem- 
blance discovered in them to the tu-whit — tu-whoo-er. 
Nuns have a tuft of white feathers rising from the 
back of the head, and arching over like a hood, whence 
their name. Whether Turbits derive their title from 
the shape of their heads, which are top-like, or from 
their flight, or ^m some other peculiarity, we regret 
to confess that we are quite unable to state. Fantails 
is a word of which every one can see the meaning ; 
but Shakers is also anoUier name given to this style 
of pigeon, and they are divided into broad-tailed 
shakers and narrow-tailed shakers. Barbs are (origin- 
ally) importations from Barbary. The Magpie-pigeon 
is mdebted for its name to the colour and appearance 
of the wings, which resemble those of a magpie. 
Trumpeters nave been so dubbed irova. the noise wnich 
they utter under certain exhilarating circumstances, 
particularly in the spring, when the pigeon's * fancy 
lightly turns to thoughts of love.' The trumpeter, 
let us observe in passing, wears feathers upon his 
l^s, which give him a gaiteriah, churchwardenly 
appearance. Hunts, we imagine, have, or ought to 
have, their name from the shortness of their legs ; runt 
meaning stunted; and a little old woman being called 
in Scouand, we believe, a runt^ With reject to 



rabbits, it will be snfl^cient to ezi^ain that sdf-ooUmr 
means the wme cciour nU over. 

And now, we think enoo^ has been said to give 
a tolerable idea of the canoidates ior prizes in this 
competitive examination. So much pleased were we 
with their conduct, that we begged for them a holiday, 
in order that they^ mi^t see the big fountains play, 
and share our ediflcation at the unwonted sight of a 
whole regiment of Tipperary Militia Artillery perfectly 
sober afiir dumer. We are sorry to say that our 
request was not complied with, and we are the 
more grieved, as the opportunity is not likely to be 
repeated. We don't mean that the Tipperary boys 
wul never be sober again, but that the candidates 
will never have another chanoe of seeing them. 

ERRATA- 

A GENTLEMAN of our acquaintance, rudiing for the 
first time into print, was greatly dismayed when he 
had his proof-shps sent him, to observe a marginal 
note in pencil, which he naturally took to be a critical 
remark upon the sentence opposite to which it had 
been written. The note was m one word only, and 
that only in one syllable, but then that syllable was 
— 'Bald. Our friend was unaware of the ways of 
prints^ He did not know that — the work of 
' setting up ' a manuscript being divided — each com- 
positor 8 name is written on the margin of the proof, 
just where his portion begins. In tms case, it hap- 
pened that the name of one particular compositor 
was the- syllalde in question, so that its appearance 
on our friend'^ article was perfectly innocent. But 
he understood the word by wmj of scornful comment 
or rebnke, and instantly bqa^an to supply an imagined 
deficiency of epigram. We are aware that the same 
story is told of Theodore Hook, with the mere differ- 
ence, that * Twaddle,' and not * Bald,' appeared against 
a passage on the neat turn of which he had especially 
plumed himself. 'Hang it!' said Hook, *I don% 
deny the fellow's right to criticise, but he might have 
had the decency to wait till I had publish^.' Our 
own story, however, has truth to recommend it, 
although no novelty. 

There are equally good stories to be told in con- 
nection with proof -slips, on ^diich are detected by far 
the greatest number of printers' errors. Mistakes of 
the press, in these days, are wonderfully few — ^that is 
to say, such as escape observation in the printing- 
office, and are sent forth to puzzle or amuse the 
general reader. Not only does an author, in most 
cases, revise carefully his own work, but it is after- 
wards read for press by a competent person, assisted 
by a sharp readmg-boy, who goes through the ' copy ' 
in a rapid but distinct manner, hammering off 
syllable after syllable with just as much em^uuds 
on one as on another. Still, it is impossible to pre- 
vent blundera occurring now and then. A book was 
pubhshed, not long a^, in which some modem 
example of pablic spirit and good citizenship was 
brou^t into comparison with uie conduct of * Cato 
and Brutus.' The words quoted were the last of 
one of the chapters, and were no doubt intended 
to produce an excellent finishing effect. But unfor- 
tunately this ridiculous blunder passed scrutiny; 
the two Roman names were pnnted 'Cats and 
Brutes.' 

The daily newspapers, considering the short time 
necessarily given to the woridng of several depart- 
ments, are marvels of correct tjrpography. It is in 
the parliamentary debates that errors of the press 
might be most looked for, and certainly would be 
most pardonable. But we do not think the proportion 
is much greater in this than in other parts of the 
pajier. Hedf, and more than half, the mistakes in the 
parliamentary columns consist of simple transpositions. 
This is easily understood. The distribution of labour 
increases towards the late honzs, with the xeporting 



y-r 



16 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



staff as well as among the compositors, and much 
piecemeal-work has to be joined together. One of the 
ordinary pecautions taken to prevent mistakes did 
actuallv lead once to one which must have been 
perfectly bewildering to many readers. Each reporter 
writes at the end of his work the name of the 
centleman who is to come after him, thus : ' Brown 
fols.' And Brown, in turn, writes, at the beginning, 
his own name and that of his predecessor, coupled 
thus : 'Brown fols Robinson.' The compositors * follow 
copy* with respect to these names, which further 
serve as a guide in putting the portions of type 
together in the * galley.* xtey should be removed, 
of course, before the columns are made up for press ; 
but on the occasion of which we are speaking, this 
removal of the private guide-marks was not effected ; 
and it consequently happened that a not very eloquent 
harangue was further marred by the intrusion of 
these two brief and enigmatical lines : 

Doolahan fols. 
Doolahan fols Trotter. 

Many an eye was doubtless attracted to this queer 
couplet as to a classical quotation ; and many must 
have been the failures to perceive any good reason for 
embelH^iing prosiness with sheer absurdity, instead 
of using the more familiar, but not much more 
appropriate illustration, of 'Hinc illaa lachrymse,* or 
' limeo Danaos et dona ferentes.* 

A remarkable displacement once happened in a 
weekly miscellany. A long paragraph became divided 
down the middle, and one half was pushed up for the 
space of a line. The half line that was thereby in 
excess at the top was lifted down to fill up the space 
left at the bottom. Considerable intellectual exercise 
was thus imposed on persevering readers, as may be 
easily seen, if anybody curious to witness it, try an 
experiment with a paragraph on this page. 

Sometimes the mistakes of printers have a grotesque 
fitness, and the fun is, of course, superior to that 
which belongs to mere incongruity. The reflection 
upon a public officer, that he nad been ' tired in the 
balance and foimd panting,* was very likely as true as 
if it had been correctly printed, ' tried in the balance 
and found wanting.* A similar coherence charac- 
terises that little change of orthography in the title 
of Lord Momin^n's glee, Here in CoolOrot, which, 
as the composition is a great favourite in convivial 
assemblies, was appropriately rendered, Here in Cool 
Grog; while the *mtemal arrangements' at Chelsea 
College, at the time of a certain xmlitary investigation, 
might have been with truth — as they were literally — 
styled, * infernal arrangements,* although the first 
reading must be admitted to be the right one. 

A case of this sort — unique so far as our expe- 
rience goes, and, in all probability, no blunder at 
all, but merely a well-meant attempt on the part of a 
prosaic compositor to bring a poet's hyperbole within 
the range ox ordinary understanding — occurred in the 
printing of one of Mr Alexander Snith's poems. A 
line describing a lover's triumphant state of happi- 
ness, runs magnificently thus : 

I seemed to walk on thrones. 

Substitute 'thorns* for * thrones,* and enunciate it 
with the majestic and sonorous dignity which the 
rhythm and the whole spirit of the verse require, 
and we think the change will be admitted to oe a 
grand achievement of weakness. 

The errata of the law-stationers, and even of short- 
hand writers in transcribing their ovhi notes, or the 
notes of others, would, if a tithe were recorded, suffice 
to keep the compositors in countenance. We will try 
to remember a lew of many which have paraed under 
our own eyes. The scientific evidence given before 
select committees of the House of Commons is very 
productive of such errata. The statement that 
' deoomiKwitions take place in great rivers, which 



resolve the elements, and completely change them,' 
might have been more precise, but it certainly gained 
noSiing by being altered to the surprising assertion 
tiiat these fluviid phenomena, instead of * resolving* 
the 'elements,* and completely 'changing* them, 
'result in eels, and completely eat them.' In 
another parliamentary inquiry, the nature of which 
was agricultural, a vdtness was made to bestow a 
high encomium upon KnigMs Oil as a manure. Mr 
L&ouchere was once irreverently and preposterously 
mentioned as ' Our Butcher ;' and, in the same com- 
mittee, a mistake occurred of which we are able only 
to recollect the nonsense. The answer of a witness 
to some common-place question was thus reported: 
* Policemen buttoned up ; they were terrific' What 
the exact question was, or what the reply ought to 
have been, we cannot now even guess ; all we know 
with absolute certainty is, that neither question nor 
reply had the remotest bearing upon the terrific 
ns^^ed of the constabulary. 

* Li your father a partner in the Low Moor Works?' 
was the very harmless question put to a highly 
respectable witness, on another occasion. The gentle- 
man must have been greatly amused and deSghted 
at reading the question thus, in the report of his 
evidence : * Is your father a pauper in the Low Moor 
Workhouse?' 

The Sebastopol Committee, as was but right and 
proper, produced a very splendid crop of blunders. 
We offer a particularly fine specimen. It was stated by 
an officer, m giving an account of the advance of the 
allies, that 'the troops marched across the Belbec, 
and drew up in front of the North Forts.' This 
intelligible statement was turned into the following 
mass of absurdity : ' The troops marched across the 
Baltic, and drew up in front of the North Foreland.* 

•In the committee on Kajah Brooke's Borneo matters, 
some years ago, 'war-canoes' came frequently into 
question ; antj^ catching fatuously at the sound, the 
law-writer, to whom the government reporter was 
dictating, wrote ' walk and ooze,' over ana over and 
over again ! 



A RAILWAY LYRIC. 

Four hundred miles, Love, lie between, 
Four hundred miles 'twixt thee and rco, 

Of purple moor and mountain green. 
Of teeming town and lonely lea ; 

But since I know these iron lines, 
Unbroken, stretch to thy dear home, 

My aching spirit less repines ; 

For, kin to Comfort, there doth come 

A pleasant Pain at sight of them. 
When, ere, at mom my toils begin, 

Or late, at the Day's garment-hem, 
I seek the Station and its din. 

With patience then I mark the throng, 
Who, whither thou dost dwell, do go. 

Though ruthless Fate, inflicting wrong 
Unconsciously, doth chain me so. 

' They fly, they will be there anon, 
At this or that o' the clock,' I say ; 

' So soon ; and these long lines run on 
From me to thee, Love, all the way.' 



Emkrixvs. 



Printed and Published by W. & R Chambers, 47 Pater- 
noster Row, London, and 'X^ High Street, Edinburgh. 
Also sold by William Robertson, 23 Upper Sackville 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 



Scitnct anb §irts. 

COyDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 367. 



SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1861. 



Price 1^. 



THE GUANO ISLANDS. 

FiFT££X miles from the land, with the islands 
enveloped in a haze, and the shipping still invisible, 
and yet a strong *Paracca' breeze blowing off the 
coast, carried out to sea such clouds of fine im- 
palpable dust, and brought 'with it such a strong 
anunoniacal odour, as left no doubt in our minds 
that the Guano Islands were close at hand. The 
sea, too, even at this distance from the shore, was 
covered with innumerable pelicans, engaged in their 
piscatory avocations, who seemed to have become so 
accustomed to the shipping, that they scarcely shifted 
their course to avoid it. As we drew further in, the 
outline of the islands, and some two hundred ships, 
became well defined ; and nearer still, we could see 
most distinctly with a glass a multitude of human 
beings like so many ants going to and fro, as they 
moved their load from one spot to another, where it 
was more accessible for shipment. The Chincha or 
Guano Islands are three in number ; the largest,' opj)©- 
site which we lay, was covered with the greatest 
amount of this deposit, and had been most worked ; 
the second was somewhat less, but scarcely any guano 
had ever been removed from it ; and the third was by 
much the smallest, and contained very little of this 
substance. 

Besides these, we noticed at a short distance 
the San Gallan group, having similar deposits, and 
the little island of Blanco, deriving its name from the 
glistening white appearance which its surface presents 
in the sim. As these islands are distant from twelve 
to fifteen miles from the shore, and rise so abruptly 
from the deep, that large vessels, over 1000 tons 
register, can be brought close alongside them, there 
is, with the exception of one spot, no shelving 
beach, and, consequently, the mode of access to the 
island is very peculiar. Over the face of the rock, 
some thirty or forty feet high, is suspended a chain- 
ladder, exchanged above, where there is no friction, 
for a stout hempen one. To the foot of this the 
boat is brought, and each party in his turn grasps 
hold of the chain, and mounts to the landing-place 
above. This is easy enough when the sea is perfectly 
smooth, but on this coast there is not unfrequently 
a tremendous surf, which, rising and falling several 
feet in a minute against the steep face of the 
rock, demands great agility in leaping fi*om the boat 
on to the ladder. At the landing-place, two of the 
soldiers of republican Peru kept guard, in 'order to 
prevent any of the convicts, who are sent hero for 
penal servitude by their government, or the Chinese, 
who are nominally free labourers, but actually in most 
abject slavery, from escaping ; and a little to the side 



stood the guard-house, or relieving quarters of these 
troops. 

From this landing-place, we ascended a wooden 
ladder to that part of the island where operations are 
at present carried on, and at the head stood a wooden 
erection, the house of the commandante of the island 
and his sub-officials, who receive all dues levied on 
vessels anchoring hei'e, and regulate the order in which 
each shall ship its cargo; and this order, which 
should be regulated by the date of arrival, the quiet 
suggestion of a sovereign or two has a wonderful 
effect in altering. Leaving these head-quarters of 
the government, we strolled over the island ; not a 
blade of grass, not a vestige of anything green, was 
visible; nothing but a dry parched surface formed 
the soil, and a dusty ammoniacal air the atmosphere, 
of this ancient dunghill. A little to the right, we 
came upon a collection of low miserable bamboo huts, 
tlic odour from which perfectly overjwwered the 
much more pleasant effluvia of ammonia. 

Peering into one or two of these wretched dwellings, 
we readily recognised, in all their squalid filth, the 
deluded subjects of the Celestial Empire, who, seduced 
from their own country under the belief that they were 
engaged to work among sugar-canes or on gold-fields, 
for a fixed term of five years or so only, after which 
they would be free, are here prisoners for life. Now, 
though we ourselves were eye-witnesses of this oppres- 
sive servitude, we would wish our readers to accept 
with caution such facts as did not come imder our 
immediate observation, since they present features as 
apalling as any mentioned by Mrs Stowe in her vivid 
delineation of negro slavery. None can object to the 
Peruvian government turning its convict population 
to account, by making them quarry the deposits on 
these islands ; but when a Chinaman sets foot here, 
we are assured he never returns to his own country, 
and that no less than 4000 have been tnmsported 
hither at one time or another. They receive as pay a 
realj or sixpence a day, of which, however, one half 
is paid to the commandante of the island, and they 
are supposed to live and clothe themselves on the 
remainder. The labour exacted for this remimeration 
is a ton-weight of guano, excavated with the usual 
pick and shovel, since this deposit becomes from long 
exposure, the imbibition of night-dews, &c., tolerably 
consolidated. Removing it in barrows, these are 
again emptied into trucks, which are run on an 
extemporary rail to tlie edge of the cliff, where 
they are capsized, and their contents shot down 
a long wide tube into the hold of the ship, or her 
long-boat. Whenever the prescribed amount has 
been removed, the. subject of the Celestial Empire is 
at liberty for the day ; and many a time have we 



18 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



watched these unfortunate beings, when the allotted 
task was done, come down to the edge of the water, 
and, stripping off their cotton tunics, immerse them- 
selves in the sea, and strive to wash themselves free of 
the powdery filth of the day's work. 

It was currently reported that, a few days prior to 
our arrival, the commandante of the island had three 
of these refractory diggers flogged so severely that 
they died in a few hours after ; and it is well known 
that, to escape so galling a bondage, some have poisoned 
themselves with opium, some have allowed them- 
selves to be buried alive in the very material they 
were working in, and others, choosing a more easy 
form of death, have jumped off the rocks into the sea, 
and drowned themselves. Whether owing to a know- 
lec^e of these sad facts, or from an experience of the 
fri^tful massacres so often occurring on board ships 
freighted with Chinese emigrants, we know that at 
one time her Majesty's government declared that they 
should not be carried in Sriti^ bottoms, consequently, 
most of the Celestials whom we have seen arrive m 
Australian ports, en route for the ^old-fidds, have 
been brought thither in American ships ; and during 
the passive it has frequently happened that the crew 
were obUsed to retreat to tiie after-end of the ship, 
and ooula only trim the sails, or work the vessel, by 
goinff forward in a body, provided n^th cutlasses and 

HstSs, while the front of the poop was armed with 

Louble-shotted caironadcs. 

At a little distance from these wretched dwelling 
was situated another wooden erection, the hospitu, 
sapported by the Peruvian government, probably 
more from the nohtic principle of losing as few 
workers as possible, than from any charitaue feeling 
far their simerin^ Introducing ourselves to the 
medical superinteiment, a German, ne shewed us round 
his ward, which constituted the whole hospital, com- 
prising about ten beds, occupied mainly by patients 
Buffenng from indolent sores, produced by poor diet, 
a fever case or two, and one accident, where a truck 
had run over a man's leg. The buildinc was of the 
most primitive kind possible, and tiie wholenntemal 
airangements were of the most niggardly description. 
As we extended our walk, we came round to the 
back of the island, where the deposit is much less in 
thickness — that on the side next the shipping being 
roughly estimated at fift^ feet deep, comprising 
awards of seventeen nulhons of tons — and fell in 
with a gaily^ decorated wooden shed, htmg with silks, 
and dis^ymg brilliant fla^. We did not go in, but 
saw that the entrance, which was adorned with cur- 
tains, WHS occupied by a counter, behind which were 
standing two Uhinese ^rgeously dressed, evidently 
masters of the ceremomes ; the rest of the building 
was in like manner filled with counters and forms. 
At first, we supposed that this was a joss-house, or 
place intended for the celebration of the religious 
services of the Chinese; but a gentleman who was 
with us, and had often been on the island before, 
informed us that it was a gambling-house, and that 
the proprietor had amassed no less a sum than two 
thonsaad dollars out of the miserable pittance paid to 
his brother- workers. 

At one end of the island is set apart an acre or so 
of guano, under the designation of a cemetery, intended 
for the use of sailors who may die here, but without 
the sli^itest endoeure, either wooden fence or stone 
walL It was certainly the most wretched necropolis 
we ever saw : not a ia-ee, not a vestige of adornment 
of any kind distinguished this hallowed patch ; nor is 
it certain that the Peruvian government wHl respect 
the spot when the supply of guano becomes scarce. 
Would it not have been beUer to have adopted 
the plan followed when at sea, and committed the 
dead to the deep, instead of bmying them in a heap 
of manure ? Or, better still, to have interred them in 



the hold of the diip, as was done with the body of 

the captain of the A during the time we lay 

there, since the antiseptic qualities of the guano wiU 
keep the remains entire for months, until they can 
obtain more decent burial As we stepped over one 
or two mounds which alone indicated tne presence of 
the dead, we noticed at the head of otners amall 
wooden tablets, carved with the name, age» and 
occupation of the deceased, which was always that 
either of a petty-officer or common seaman. 

It is a well-known fact, that guano may be met 
with in nearly all parts of the world, but that when- 
ever the rain faUs, it is washed away. Much of Peru, 
however, is situated in what geographers call the 
rainless region of the earth ; consequently, this 
deposit has been accumulating for ages, probably 
several thousand years, and rain never fadling, or 
else so sparingly as to be hailed by the inhabitants 
as agua benedita (holy-water), has never been 
swept off On inspectmg the surface, this sub- 
stance appears to be of a light brownish hue ; lower 
down, the colour deepens U> a dark brown, and the 
layers next the rock are generally of a dusky red. 
The bones of seals, the wings, and even entire birds^ 
are often met with while excavating — occurrences 
which have ^ven rise to the idea among those who 
freouent the islands, that guano is not so much formed 
of tne excrement as of the decomposed bodies of these 

As a manure, ffuano has been but comparatively 
recently employea in England, but it would seem to 
have been used as such oy the Peruvians from the 
age of the Incas downwards. In 1839, the govern- 
ment of Peru sold to Messrs Quiros, Allier, & Co., of 
Lima, for the trifling sum of about ten thousand 
pounds, the sole right to ship guano during a period 
of nine yeais. As they, however, soon after saw that 
they had committed a grievous error towards the 
state in thus willing away a privilege of the value of 
which -they wero totally ignorant, they cancelled this 
contract in 1841, and for several years the trade was 
free, till they again gave a monopoly to the Messrs 
Gibbs & Sons oi London. Much attention having, 
however, of late been bestowed on the manufacture of 
artificial manures, the demand for this substance has 
not been so great. In order that the continuance of 
deposit may not be interfered with, the Peruvian 
government strictly forbid the use of firearms in the 
vicinity of the islands; but the number of men 
now employed upon them have completely driven 
the birds away, who now resort to the islands 
of San Gallan and Blanco, and the mainland. This 
cessation of feud between man and the lower animals 
of creation is still more extended in its effects, for 
the seals, which here abound in thousands, and receive 
the benefit of this act of grace, as supposed co- 
labourers with the birds in the formation of this 
valuable material, come bobbing up around the boat 
in dozens at a time, while immense whales gambol 
about among the shipping, spouting their water on 
board without being the least afraid of their sworn 
foe. 

As the Chinchas rise most abruptly firom the sea, a 
peculiar method of shipment has to be adopted. From 
the top of the cliff, a long and wide canvas shoot or 
tube, called a manffiierra^ one hundred and fifty feet 
long, by six to eieht in diameter, is securely fastened, 
ana the lower end placed in the hold of the long-boat. 
When the word is given that all is in readiness, two 
or three truck-loads aro shot down, until that boat 
has received its quantum ; when, as it shoves off, 
another party lay hold of the end of the canvas shoot, 
and when they have received their load, another, and 
another, till all aro filled. If, however, the hieher 
officials of the Peruvian government on the island 
do not scruple to rogulate the order of supply to each 
vessel by the amount of the bribe given, ncitiier does 
the man who has charge of the manguerra forget to 



GHAMBSBS*S JOURNAL. 



19 



suggest tbat ke, too, has Ini prioe ; for 'when the lonff- 
boatof the ship we were in w^ for their ^aiigo, thon^ 
first si the snoot, they were put off to the last, and 
made aware of the reason by avoice shouting down 
the tnbe : * What for master not send me old coat, 
boots, and hat?' Sometimes, howeTer, a much more 
expeditious method of shipment is adopted. The 
v^sel is hrouflht quite close alongside, some thirty or 
f oity yaids m>m tiie rooks, immediately under the 
mansuena — a matter of no difficulty as regards the 
depu, here generally from fiftem to thirty J»thoms — 
and bein^ securely swung broadside on to the island 
(thoufih m such a precarious position, that with each 
r(^ of the Borf ^le swavs to and fro so much that the 
tope of her maste nearly touch the rocks), the lower 
end of the shoot is received into the hold of the ship, 
and bein^ fed all day long with tracks of guano from 
abo^e, will take in (we are tdd) lour hundred tons 
in a day. Thus, in three or four days, a fourteen- 
hundred ton ship is filled and despatched. 

The delay, however, occasioned by inefficient means 
of 8im|^ is very great, so much so, that three or four 
montns is no unusual period of detention. During 
this time, masters and officers of slups amuse them- 
selves by catching £sh, winch used to be so plentiful 
as to be obtainable in boat-loads, and -^i^di of 
course oonstitnte the food of the innimierable millions 
of birds which swarm akmg this coast, and literally 
daricen the sky. 

We svrselves having been detained there a foort- 
ni^it, waiting the amval of the Pacific MaQ Com- 
put's steamer, took the opportunity of visiting the 
mainland at Pisoo, a miseranle collection of bamboo 
stuocoad huts, situated nearly oppositie the islands. 
Not fc nisU i ^g to the accommodation to be found in so 
rechevoh^ a Pouvian city, noted, however, for its 
wine, we took a tent with tis, and camping imder 
some pahn-trees at a well, situated like an oasis in tiie 
middle of a sandy desert, made sundry excursions 
along the coast, destroying large numbers of birds, 

{)rinoipally of a duck species, which proved excel- 
ent eating. On one occasion, extending our journey 
into the interior a little, we came upon a mound of 
dead bodiea, evidently those of coloured people, as 
betokened by the skin of the hands and feet, which, 
thou^ parched and dry, were still entire. The skulls, 
made perfectly brittle by long exposure to a burning 
sun and dry atmoqihere, lay on the surface in dozens ; 
and the cotton tunics of the former wearers were 
fluttering about in the air, where the wind had drifted 
them bare of sand ; but whether this was only the 
hurried entombment of those who hod fallen ^actims 
to the plague, or been killed in some of their intestine 
strugsles, we oould not learn. 

A xarouiite exonrsion was to the islands of San 
Gallan and Blanco, whither the birds and seals, 
formedy inhabiting the Chinchas, have now repaired. 
The latter are nearly as numerous as the former, and 
may be seen basking on the rocks in thousands, 
affording subject of sport for an expert shot, as they 
come ahdingi slipping, and splashing into the water 
in dosens on the report of a lifie. We reserved the 
skin and fat, the latter being turned into oil, and 
left the carcass to be consumecf by the turkey vultures 
and others of that species, who form the scavengers 
of Pern, as the adjutants do of India. 

Unimportant as Pisco ii, the fleet around, and the 
labonners of the Guano Islands, could not exist 
without it, since every morsel of food, and every drop 
of water required by them, has to be brought from 
these — a dvtance of twelve miles — ^by lar;^e boats, 
which start in the morning, and return agam in the 
afteraoon. It is almost impossible, withmxt visiting 
these i«l— KJOj to form an idea of their unique appea]> 
ance. This barren rock, whose soil — ^the sohoified 
excnmeni of myriads <^ sea-fowls for many ages — 
prodnceB not a blade of grass, nor gives origin to a 
riQ of water, im certainly a fitting spot in which the 



convict may eke out his lifetime of servitude; but 
also one where the tyranny of man may oondemn to 
perpetual slavery his fellow-man, without fearing the 
mquiries of the philanthropist. 

SIR FRANCIS ON THE HORSE. 

It has of late become the fashion with not a few of 
those authors who have earned -a great and deserved 
reputation amon^ us by their wit and htunour, tiieir 
eloquence, or their powers of stoiy-telling, to take to 
didactic writing, or, in other words, to lecturing the 
British public pretty severely. The offices oF the 
parson and the political economist are usurped by 
these lay-preachers. The cap and beUs are laia aside, 
the white bans decorously adopted, and Mr laston 

Slays, at length, with greater or less success, his long- 
esired part of the Prmce of Denmark. S^ Francis 
Head of the Brunnen and the Emigrant^ of the French 
Sticha and of Stokers and Pokern, is tiie latest addition 
to this band of volunteer Teachers. Other authors 
have confined themselves to teaching, after various 
fashions, the young idea to shoot; £ut the baronet 
has ^ne a step further .in his present volume,* by 
teaching both old and yoni^ among us how to 
ride. There is a portrait, we suppose of Sir F^rancia 
himself, but which exceedingly resembles Mr Bright, 
M.P., prefixed to these pages, and representing a 
gentleman crossing the Andes mounted upcMi a fied 
Indian, with the not unnatural query written under 
it, * Which is the savage?^ but in the letterpress, our 
author confines himself exclusively to the Horse. 
This animal has been an inhabitant of almost every 
region of the earth, and in all ages. His teeth lie in 
the polar ice, not for anaesthetic purposes, but because, 
when he was alive, he dwelt there in company witii 
the Siberian mammoth ; in the Himalaya with 
lost and only lately obtained genera ; and in the 
caverns of Ireland. His bones rest, unless when the 
geolofidst sacrilegioualy disturbs them, with tiiose of 
the Mastodon and the colossal Urus. Unlike these, 
however, he remains on the earth's surface as well as 
under it. He is found in all history, sacred, profane^ 
and modem; sharing in the conquests and defeats, 
the occupations and amusements of man. When the 
famine yrns sore in the land of Egypt, the Egyptiana 
gave him unto Joseph in exchan^ for bread. He 
was overthrown with his rider m the Red Sea. 
He was rampant at Nineveh and in the Acropolis 
of Athens, as we see in the friezes ) and we have got 
him in half the squares of London with a kine on his 
back. He is the current raft of friendship which is 
offered to one another by kings up to this day, and 
he is worthy to be so. And yet how vile^ the 
majority of men, from kings to tailors, treat him in 
return ! It is true such persons are not aware of the 
cruelty they arc committing, and it is to remind the 
thoughtless, and to instruct the ignorant, that Sir 
Francis Head has written this book. 

There is no subject, says he, connected with this 
matter so worthy of consideration, most especially to 
any man wearing the name of a gentleman, as the use 
and abuse of Spurs. Whatever is to be said — ^and that 
is very little — in favour of spurs in the case of animals 
that have been roaming in a state of nature, that 
have never tasted com, or been excited to race against 
one another, and, consequentiy, tiiat cannot be induced 
to exliaust in man's ser\nce the whole of their strength, 
except by punishment, with Engliah horses the con- 
ditions are quite different. *Tied to mansen, in 
which they feast ou dry oats, beans, and hay, no 
sooner do they leave their stables than the very sight 
of creation animates them ; every carriage that trots 
by, and every rider that passes, excites tnem. When 
brought into condition, and then encouraged to 

» The Hone and hie Rider. Bj Sir FraxiciB B. Head, Bart. 
Murray, London. 



20 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



1 



compete against each other, their physical strength, 
though artificially raised to the maximum^ remains 
far behind their instinctive courage and disposition 
to go till they die in almost any service in which 
they may be employed. 

'Under these circumstances, the vse of the spur is 
to enable man to maintain his supremacy, and, when- 
ever necessary, promptly and efficiently to suppress 
mutiny in whatever form it may break out. If a 
restiff horse objects to jiass a particular post, he must 
be forced to do so. If he refuses to jump water, he 
must, as we have described, be conquered ; but in 
every case of this nature, a combination of cool deter- 
mination, plenty of time, and a little punishment, 
invariably form a more permanent cure than a pre- 
scription composed only of the last ingredient ; for 
as anger, in a horse as in a man, is a short madness, 
an a-mmal under its influence is not in so good a state 
to learn and remember the lesson of obedience which 
man is entitled to impart, as when he has time given 
to him to observe that the just sentence to whidi he 
is sternly required to submit, is tempered with mercy. 

* But if the uses of the spur are few, its abuses are 
many. On the race-course, the eagerness and impe- 
tuosity of thoroughbred horses to contend against 
each other are so great, that for a considerable time it 
is difficult to prevent them, especially young ones, 
from starting before the signal is given. As soon as 
they are " off^" it becomes all that the best riders in 
the world can do merely to guide them : to stop them 
would be impossible. Occasionally, their very limbs 
" break down " in their endeavours to win ; and yet, 
while they are exerting their utmost powers and 
strength — ^to the shame of their ownei-s, and to the 
disgrace of the nation — the riders are allowed, as a 
sort of show-off, to end the contest by whipping and 
spurring, which, nine times out of ten, has the effect 
of makmg the noblest quadruped in' creation do what 
is technically called shut up^ which means that the 
ungenerous and imgrateful pimishmcnt and degra- 
dation that have been unjustly inflicted upon him 
have cowed his gallant spirit, and have broken an 
honest heart ! ' 

The hunter — nay, the horse of whatever kind who 
is taken to the hunting-field — will follow the hoimds 
till he drops, and to his own great physical detriment ; 
so that after having, with apparent cheeHulness, 
brought his rider home with a good appetite, secured 
by some ten or twelve hours' exercise, his own 
exhausted stomach remains for hours, and sometimes 
days, without the smallest desire for com or beans. 

* If this plain statement be correct, leaving humanity 
entirely out of the question, how ienorant and con- 
temptible is that man who is seen, during a run, not 
only to be spurring his horse with both heels, when- 
ever he comes to deep-ploughed ground or to the 
bottom of a steep hill, but who, just as if he were 
singing to himself a little song, or, " for want of 
thought," whistUng to himself a favourite tune, 
throughout the run, continues, as a sort of idle accom- 
paniment to his music, to dangle more or less severely 
the rowel of one spur into the side of a singed hunter, 
who all the time is a great deal more anxious to live 
with the hounds than he is ! ' 

Again, how many men, calling themselves spoiia- 
men, do we see m the hunting-field, after long severe 
runs, lighting their cigars, and taking their ease upon 
the backs of the very creatures whose exertions have 
enabled them to be in * at the finish,' and whose 
qualifications may even fonn the tlieme of their talk. 

* In the army, when a soldier who has committeil an 
offence is sentenced to crawl, for several hours, up 
and down a parade " in heavy marching order," it is 
justly called " punisfinient drill.'' In like manner, if 
an unruly horse were to be sentenced merely to stand 
in his stable for ten houra with a sack of heavy oats, 
weighing (at forty-two pounds the bushel) exactly 
twelve stone, the punishment or pain his muscles 



would undergo in bearing such a weight for so long a 
time woidd be so severe that by ahnost everybody 
it would be termed *^ cruel." But if, instead of being 
quiescent, the sack of oats could, by mechanicnl 
contrivances, be continually lifted up, and then by a 
series of heavy blows dropped down upon verteune 
which have nothing but muscles to support them, the 
punishment woidd be condemned as excruciating; 
and yet this excruciating punishment is quite unneces- 
sarily inflicted upon hunters by a lot of good-humoured 
heavy men, simply from neglecting to reflect that if 
they would, only even for a minute or two, occasion- 
ally unload their saddles, to walk a little, stand still a 
little, or while the hounds are drawing, sit placidly 
upon the stile or gate that is often close beside them, 
they would not only perform an act of mercy, bnt 
they would im])art, or rather restore strength, tone, 
and activity to muscles which, if vigorous, can cany 
them safely, but which, if exhausted, must inevitably 
fail when tested by a severe run.' 

Sir Francis Head's athdce, as a practical horsemani 
is not at all less valuable than the part of the volume 
which may be called its 'humanity lectures.' A 
horse accustomed to road-travelling, whose head 
— through the use of the curb-bit — is raised above the 
natitral level, and who has good action, conunonly 
earns the character of being a capital hack. ' Kow, to 
metamorphose " a hack " mto " a hunter " is princi- 
pally effected by the bridle, and yet the great dimculty 
of the art is to learn not how much, but how little to 
use it ; in short, a considerable portion of what the 
bridle has done has to be undone. Accordingly, 
instead of being encouraged to travel on his haunoies 
with his fore-legs lightly touching the groiuid, the 
latter must be reouired to bear the greater portion of 
the burden, whicn it is the duty of the hind-legs to 
propeL The head has to be brought down to its proper 
level ; and to induce or rather to oblige the horse to 
make his eyes the Jantem of his feet, to study geology 
instead of astronomy, he should be slowly ridden, 
with a loose rein, over every little hole, grip, or heap 
that would bo likely to throw a hack down. When- 
ever he can be made to stumble — if the rider feels that 
he will not actually fall — the reins should instantly be 
dropped. In like manner, he should be walked for 
several days over the roughest groimd that can be 
found, particularly land that has been excavated to 
obtain the sulistratum, and left in hol^k With a 
perfectly loose rein he should be gently trotted, gently 
cantered, and gently galloi)ed over a surface of this 
description, the rider always dropping the rein when 
he blunders.' 

The cause and cure of Shying was certainly never 
treated of with greater judgment and humour than in 
the following sentences. ' It often happens ^at a 
horse, brimfid of qualifications of the very best 
description, is most reluctantly sold by his master 
^* because he shies so dreadfully ; " a frolic which, to a 
good lidcr, is ])erfectly harmless, and which, if he 
deems it worth the trouble, he is almost certain to 
cure. A timid horseman, however, not only believes 
that his horse is frightened at the little heap of stones 
at which he shies, but for tliis very reason he becomes 
frightened at it himself; whereas the truth is, that 
the animal's sensations in i)assing it are usually 
compounded as follows : 

Of fear of the little heap, . • • tV 
- » whip and spur, . . . tV 

*■ Now, if this be the case, which no one of experi- 
ence will deny, it is evident that the simple remedy 
to 1>e adopted is, first, at once to remove the great 
cause of the e^dl complaine<l of, by ceasing to apply 
either whij) or spur ; and, secondly, gradually to 
remove the lesser cause by a little patient manage- 
ment, which shall briefly be explained 

* When a horse has i)een overloaded with a heavy 
charge of oats and ))cans, which may be termeii 
jumping powder, and primed by a very short allowance 



J 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



21 



of work, his spirits, like the hair-triffger of a rifle, 
are prepared on the smallest touch to cause a 
very violent explosion. In fact, without metaphor, 
on the slishtest occurrence, he is not only ready, 
hut exceecunely desirous to jump for joy. The 
casus belli which the animal would pemaps most 
enjoy, would be to meet a temperance runaway 
awnmg-covered wagon full of stout, healthy young 
women in hysterics, all screaming ; or to have a house 
fall down just as he was passing it. However, as a 
mreat conqueror, if he cannot discover a lar^ excuse 
n>r invading the territory of his neighbour, is sure to 

Eick out a very little one, so does the high-mettled 
one, who has nothing to start at, proceed under his 
rider with his eyes searching in all directions for 
something which he may pretend to be afraid of. 
Influenc^ by these explosive propensities, he cocks 
his ears at a large leaf which the air had ■ gently 
roused from its sleep, as if it were a crouching tiger ; 
and shortly afterwards, a fore-leg drops under him as 
suddenly as if it had been carried away by a cannon- 
shot, because, in the hedge beside him, a wren has 
just hopped from one twig to another nearly an 
mch. 

*Now, of course, the effective cure for all these 
symptoms of exuberant, pent-up spirits is a long, 
steady hand-gallop up and down mil across rather 
deep ground. Before, nowever, this opportunity offers, 
man can offer to the brute beneath him a more 
reasonable remedy. The instant that a horse at a 
walk sees at a short distance before him, say a heap 
of stones, at which he pretends to be, or really is 
afraid, instead of forcing him on, he should be 
allowed, or, if it be necessary, forced to stop, not 
only till he has ceased to fear it, but until, dead 
tired of looking at it, he averts his eyes elsewhere. 
Whfle advancing towards it, so often as his fear, 
or pretended fear, breaks out, by instantly bringing 
him to a stand-still, it should in uke manner be over- 
appeased.* 

The serious advice in this volume is pleasantly 
interspersed with anecdotes of le premier chasseur 
{PAngUterre, as Napoleon called him, or le grand 
chasseur Smityaa he was termed by the Parisians, that 
prince of f oxhunters, Thomas Assheton Smith. Many 
a time has the writer of this notice seen that fine old 
English gentieman among his favourites at Tedworth, 
where every hunter — and he had often as many as 
tifty in first-rate condition — had a loose box to nim- 
sel/. At sixty-four, he brought his hounds for one 
day, by invitation, to Leicestershire, which he had in 
old times hunted himself, and no less than ttffo 
ihouaoMd-honemeiL, one-third of whom were in pink, 
attended to do him honour. Until eighty years of age, 
this veteran continued to hunt, alwough his meets 
were curtailed to four a week, to vault on horseback 
as usual, blow his horn while his horse was carrying 
him over a five-barred gate, and with a loose rein, 
gallop down the sheep-fed hill-sides with all the 
alaonty of a boy. Since Mrs Smith's health was 
delicate, ' he had ** brousht Madeira to England," by 
constructing for her at Tedworth a magniScent con- 
servatory or crystal palace, 315 feet in length, and 40 
in width, in which, enjoying the temperature of a 
warm climate, she might take walking-exerdse diiring 
the winter months. A Wiltshire farmer, on first 
seeing this building, observed, he supposed it was for 
the 'squire to hunt there whenever a frost stopped 
him in the field. ** It was a melancholy spectacle," 
writes Sir JT. Eardley Wilmot, '* to see Tom Smith the 
winter before hla death, when he could no longer join 
his hounds, mount one of his favourite hunters — 
Euzines, Paul Potter, or Blemish — with the assistance 
of a chair, and ti^e his exercise for an hour at 
a foot's pace up and down this conservatory, often 
with some friend at his side to cheer him up and 
while away the time until he re-entered the house, 
fov he wae not allowed at that period to go out 



of doors. Even in this feeble condition, quantHm 
mutatU8 ah iUo Hectare^ once on horseback, he 
appeared to revive ; and the dexterity and ease with 
which he managed, like a plaything, the spirited 
animal under him, which had scarcely left its stable 
for months, was most surprising." ' 

All that a man could do, with intention, upon a 
horse's back, Assheton Smith could do ; but the 
present Major-general Yorke Moore did, unintention- 
ally, even a greater thing than he. He rode a horse, 
at Dominica, in the West Indies, down a sheer preci- 
pice 237 feet high, and is now alive and well to tell 
the story, which we regret there is no room for in our 
columns. The man recovered from the shock, the 
horse it was that died. 

It is not gen^erally known that the practice of lasso- 
draught has been in vogue in the British army, as the 
following extract from the Queen* s Regulations informs 
us. *In order that the cavalry may, upon emer- 
genci^ be available for the purposes of drau^t, such 
as assisting artillery, &c., through deep roa£^and in 
surmounting other impediments and obstacles which 
the carriages of the army have frequently to encounter 
in the course of active service, ten men per troop are 
to be equipped with the tackle of tiie lasso.' The 
Royal f^gmeer Train — who have also adopted the 
South American system of ' hobbling ' t^eir horses, at 
the instigation of our author — ^have demonstrated by 
public experiments in this country, that with this 
simple equipment of the lasso, ' which would injure 
neither the efficiency nor the appearance of the cavahy, 
any number of horses, whether accustomed to drau^t 
or not, are capable of being at once harnessed to any 
description of carriage, not only in front to draw it 
forward, but in rear to hold it back, or even sideways 
to prevent its oversetting — in short, that it is a power 
which can be made to radiate in any direction.' There 
need be, therefore, no more heavy guns sticking in 
quagmires, with friendly cavalry looking on, with 
plenty of power to help them, but no means, as was 
so often the case in the Peninsular War. 

Finally, Sir Francis appeals with just indignation 
against the inhumanity of burning a horse's sinews, 
and cutting out his nerves, without the merciful aid 
of chloroform. 

* You are a man of pleasure^* says he — * save your 
horse from unnecessary pain. You are a man of 
business — inscribe in that ledger in which every one 
of the acts of your hfe is recorded, on one side how 
much he will gain, and on the other, per contrd, how 
very little you will lose, by the evaporation of a fliud 
that will not cost you the price oi the shoes of the 
poor animal whose marketable value you have deter- 
mined, by excruciating agony to him, to increase.' 
The excellent sense and judgment, indeed, which 
distinguish Sir Francis Head's advice throughout this 
volume, are not more worthy of consideration than 
his enlightened humanity, which deserves a special 
medal horn the Society for the ]^:evention of Crudiy 
to the Brute Creation. 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

CQAFTX& III.— VKCLB ISOBAK. 

Mr Ingram Arbour's estimation of his sentimental 
brother^s prudence and sagacibr had not been, as 
we have seen, a high one ; and he had expressed an 
unpleasant foreboding concerning that family, between 
whom and the workhouse of their native parish only 
some three thousand pounds did now in reality 
intervene : but the astute merchant had miscalculated 
matters in one very important particular. He had 
taken it for granted that Benjamin, who was his 
junior by many years, would outUve him. He had 
prophesied future misfortunes with all the unction of 
a Mettemich, under the comfortable impression that 
the Deluge would take place after hia own time. But 



S2 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Benjamin being dead, Uncle Ingram was become the 
natnral gomrdian of Iub widow and children ; a posi- 
tibn which his stnidj sense of right caused him to 
accept at once and unsolicited. This resoectaUe 
duistian merchant, therefore, found himself in a 
worse predicament than any of those ancient Jews 
whose piety compelled them to marry their childless 
Bsten-m-law. He had to maintain Mrs Benjamin 
Artwmr withont marrying her, as well as her children, 
from No. 1 to No. 6 indusive. Except, therefore, 
for his great reputation for caution, he might just as 
well have married when his brother did, and haye 
pbssessed half-a-doaen children of his own. 

This reflection was scarcely a soothinff one, even if 
Mr Ingram Arbour had been capable of being soothed 
by a refleetioDi — which he waa not He was a man 
who did his duty, but wil^out, hj any means, denyins 
himself the pleasure of grumbhng afe it He would 
mve, and laigely, to whomsoever he judged to have a 
just churn upon him, but he could mot be said to be a 
ebeerfol giver. Benevolence was with him a mere 
business transaction, effected out of office-hours, and 
any act of it had no more accompaniment of delicacy 
or kindness from him, than if it had been the dis- 
oonnting of a bill. He took things, in general, and 
pridsd mmself in doing so, for 'what they were worth ' 
>^4>y which he meant rather what they would 'fetch,' 
if exposed for sale. He waa not, in short, quite the 
man to be selected to say grace before an indifferent 
dinner, and far less after one ; and that he openly 
thanked Ood for having blessed him in the basket and 
in the store, was the more praiseworthy, since he had 
a secret conviction that his success had been entirely 
owing to his own sagacity. 

Sodi was the man who was seated in the little 
dzawing-room of Rose Cottage on a certain July 
•vening after Dick's christening ; and we are intro- 
duced to him at a most favouraJble time, for he had 
Tvst dined, and dined weU, and had within him a 
bottle of poor Benj^s best port, which the widow 
had carefully selected for him. She had done so 
witib. no intention beyond that of hospitality, but 
Unde Ingram was far too clever to believe it. ' Mrs 
B. is not such a fool as ^e looks,' was the doubtful 
compliment he had conferred in his own mind upon 
that lady; although he did not spurn the supposed 
medium of conciliation by any nleans. On the con- 
trary, he had set the last glass of it between the light 
and his own eyea in an admiring manner, with various 
ffuttural noises expressive of approvrd, and only quah- 
fied a satisfactory smack of the lips when it waa 
done, by muttering an anxious hope that his deceased 
brother had paid for it . After which, he had risen 
from tiie tabte, pulled up his shirt-collar, cleared his 
throat, in peparation for the business statement he 
was come down from town to enter upon, corrugated 
his eyebrows, in order to forbid contradiction, and 
joinea his expectant sister-in-law in the drawing- 

XOODL 

This was a bow- windowed apartment, with the three 
sashes at present thrown open — ^for it was. a somewhat 
oppressive, though lovely evening — and the pleasant 
breeae from the river farou^t through them the beat 
of oars, from the frequent pleasure-boats coming from 
or returning to the neighbourins town, and even the 
•piaah of tSe firii, as tiiey les^Md out of the smooth 
but n^id current A little island, fnnced with 
willows, immediately fronted the cottage, hioGnff from 
it the main channel, the noise of whose passing db 
and bargees came mellowed and expurgated 
distance ; while in the near stream, a punt lay moored, 
filled with quiet angers ; and three milk-wMte swans 
BOW pruned tiieir feathers, and now exhibited them- 
aslvBes with their heads under water, and their opposite 
eoctnamities, like gigantic lily-bods, jierpendicularly in 
air. In the f oiegiound, six dean stone steps led from 
the mid- window to a sloping lawn, terminating in a 
ipooden terrace, on whkdi were some half-do9D^^wer- 



baskets full of red geraniums, and a sun-dial, cmiousily 
carved. It was a charming scene, but one fdiick did 
not jar the less on that account on him who now 
beheld it He did not see it for the first time, it is 
true, since he had more than once visited the cottage 
— ^under protest, and always with sundry expressions 
of contempt for that fairy bower — but its quiet beanty 
had never strudc him so deeply before. 

*What ri^t,' thought he, *had that brother of 
mine, with his large family and small income, to have 
such a place as tms ? How much better it ia than 
that great dingy house of my own in Golden Square. 
Those flower-baskets must liave cost a pretty penny 
when they were new, I reckon. If / had the right of 
fishing in this water, I'd startle those poaching 'vaga- 
bonds out in that punt there, pretty quick. T£at 
island must be wortn something when it isn't under 
water, which it is six months ci the year or so, I 
believe; but it's no good asking Mrs K whether 
osiers are up or not just now, i daresay. If that 
swan has cygnets on it, I should like to know who 
claims, the proprietor of the land, or the London 
Company? I daresay, Benjamin never tried that 
question.' 

' Brother Ingram,' observed a musical but melan- 
choly v<nce, breaking in upon these romantic Medita- 
tions, ' will you tal^ a cup of tea now, or will 3rou 
smoke a cigar ? Yon must not mind me, yon know : 
my dear Benjy often used to smoke here im evenings 
such as this.' 

*So much the worse for him, madam,' returned 
Ingram Arbour ; * I daresay he hastened his end by 
th^ deleterious practice. I am sure he helped to 
ruin himaftlf by it-— to ruin himself, madam.' 

By the repetition of the word * nun,' and by oon- 
jurinff up b^ore his mind's eye a vision of poverty 
and oestitution, Mr Arbour contrived to convince 
himself that he was behaving with a sternness only 



proportionate to the circumstances of the case ; just 
as one might call up the atrocities of Delhi or Cawn- 
pore, to justify one's sdf for committing an unprovoked 
assault upon a Hindu crossine-sweeper. 

The idea of impecunioeity Mways stirred Mr Ingram 
Arbour's bile, just as that of cruelty or oppression 
arouses the indu;nation of leas commercial persons. 

* AVhy, good Heavens, madam,' continued ne, worked 
up into a sort of temporary jaundioe by these judicious 
reflections, * that man ought to have died worth five- 
and-twenty thousand pounds, if he had not been an 
idiot That is to say, I mean,' added he, observing a 
faint flush to rise in his sister-in-law's chesioB, * if ne 
had not been so unbusiness-Hke and careless. It waa 
not my affair of course, and I always make- it a point 

not to meddle with other pecmle's af Hi, you 

fellows in that punt,' roared Mr Ingram Arbour, inter- 
rupting himsdf with a jerk, and approaching the 
window, * how do yon dare to use a net in ibuf water, 
YOU poaching scoundrels ? Upon my sacred word of 
honour, Mrs Arbour, they are using a net I' 

' Hush, Brother Ingram,' entreated his sister-in-law ; 
' pray, be quiet ; it 's only a landing-net ; it is only to 
pull the fidi up after they have been hooked.' 

* I don't clu:e what sort of a net it is,' stonned the 
stickler for the rights of property ; ' the law says " a 
net," and they have no ri^t to use a butterfly-net 
there, without your permission. What is the soonndrel 
Sfmng, madam — ^the poacher in the white straw-hat ? 
what is he saying in re^y to my question ? ' 

* I can't heur quite distinctljr,' replied tiie widow, 
bitinff her lips ; *lmt it is something about the Emperor 
of ll£>rocoo, I am afndd, and their most respectful 
compliments.' 

' Then they are afasohitely lau^iing at m^' quoth 
Ingram Arbour, ' are they ? The^ have chosen me, of 
all men, to be the subject of their senseless ribaldry. 
Will jrou kindly favour me with the name of one of 
those individuals, madam? Any one will do.' 

' I dont know the person in the stzaw-hat, Brother 



Ingrsm,' replied his sister-in-law with heeitntioii; 
' thejr mre doubtleas towns-people, who have taken the 
boat for the eveninff/ 

* Yon know the ndiennan — the man who owns the 
boat,* returned the other stabbomly. ' I must kaye 
that fisherman's name, if you please, and at onee.' 

'It was not his fanh, brother,' urged the widow 
pleadingly; *he could not preyent the persons who 
nad emp» jed him from bemg impertinent ; he is a 
veiy weil-oondncted' 

' One moment, if yon please,' replied her brother-in- 
law, inteimpting her cordy. ' Come heiej Adolphns ; I 
want to spMik to yoo.' 

Th& boy was ducking his brother and sisters with 
the garden-engine, but desisted from that occupation, 
and came obcwdent to his unck^s call, with dowvcast 
eyes. 

'Please, sir, it wasn't me }iegan it,' whiii^ ke, 
in a deprecating yoice ; ' it was Johnnie and Maria» 
especially Johnnie' 

* That 's a lie,' returned Undo IngraDi with com- 
posure, ' for I 'ye been watchingyou : and, mind you, 
neyer tell fii« a lie again. Who is that fishetmaa 
yonder, and where does he liye?' 

'His name is John Wilson, and he Hyes in our 
cottage down the stream yonder.' 

'A yery hard-working honest fellow, with a large 
hmalj* added Mrs Arbmir. 

*B«t ke ain't paid his rent, yon know, mother,' 
obseryed Adolphus cunningly ; ' because I heard you 
tell kim yesterday that ne^ month would da' 

* That's a sharp lad,' remarked Uncle Ingram 
app r u t in ^y; ' the preof of the pudding is in the eating, 
am't itk K»y ? You maj go away now, lor your mother 
and I are going to haye some talk — ^thst is to say, if it 
be agreealMe to you, Letitia ? ' 

' My ears are at your senrioe, brother, to reeeiye 
whateyer you may iJease to say ; but I haye little to 
tell Miu, I fancy, which you do not already know.' 

' I know a few things relating to practical matters,' 
retmied the otiier, with a fiiile mollificatioa of 
manner; 'and I generally manage to obtain what 
infotmatioii I am m want of;' imd he entered the 



name of John Wilson into his pocket-book, and shut 
the clasp with a snap. ' Now, then, to business, 
madam. One thousand insurance, and two thousand 
in the tkic^ per cents, is, I belieye, the total figure 
wlueh represents your property — all in the wvrld 
which ymi and your children haye to look to — with 
the exception et this cottage and garden, yonder 
island, aad right of fishing (I'll net thiem, the seoun- 
drels, as sure as my name is Ingram Arbour), and the 
cottage of tbait man Wilson (I 'fi eoUage him, I reckon, 
in a mamier that shall astonish him), with three or 
four himdred lest d osier-bank thereto appertaining.' 

'That, I befieye, is all, brother.' 

' Excuse me; yon don't beliei^ it ; yon 're smreol it 
Theie^ nothing Kke positiye oertaitt^ in mattets oi 
thas kind. You are mre that this is all that lies 

beti Pe u i yon and the Well, yo^ may thank your 

Stan that there was but one fool in my uunily I If I 
died to-aorvow, there would be sometSmtg like ten 



bis bemriy pittance left for my widow; that 
is t» a^, if inad been weak enough to possess one. 
New, I dave say, you think me an unsympathising 
bear, mmkasok — a rode, mercantile old hunks, without 
the lostt gOMTOus or charitable feelings about ham. 
New, dont say you don't, Letitia, because I know you 
dbt. I say you would muck rather see me dead and 
wtO. " cot up," with my mone^ neatly divided aoKmg 
my nephews and nieces, than sitting here, with soy feet 
upon yoar sofa, giving you unpahstable advice ; and 
yon Bssdnft say yon don't, because such a remark 
wovli BflA tmpess me with an idea of your good 
eense or yeraoty. Well, notwithstanding all this, 
yoB will find me behave as handsomely, perhaps, in 
the main, and practically, madam— prarfica% — as any 
mmtinietitiJ beiieyoleDoe-monger of yo«r or any ottier 



woman's acquaintance. I am come down here 
expressly to accept the guardianship of yourself and 
your fanuly.' 

'God bless yon. Brother Ingram,' murmured the 
widow tremuleusly. * My dearest Benjy always told 
me' 

'Then, if he did, madam,' interrupted the ether, 
' although I do not know what he told you in this 
particular instance, take my advice, and forget it 
from this moment. Benjamin was not the sort of 
man to make obeeryati<His to be remembered. The 
chances are fifty to one that the remark which you 
were about to r^eat is destitute of practical tnzfiL' 

' He always told me, I was going to say, brother, 
that y oil hiid a flood heart at oottom, although yon 
took a strange jMeasure in concealing the fact from 
yovar fellow-creatures.' 

'Then all I can say, madam, is,' replied the un- 
abashed merchant, 'that such a statement of your 
late husband regarding me was a most unwarrantable 
impertinence. However, what I hav^jgot to ny is 
this : These children of yours must not he brou^^ up 
in idleness. Yon must be content to live in a style 
quite different from that to which yon have b^n 
hitherto accustomed. I daresay, you will think it 
yery hard if I say, you must leave this cottage, this 
scene, these comforts, and exchange theuLfcr iiutiffiBr-' 
ent quarters — in the neighbouriioodof €k)lden Square^ 
for instance.' 

' I am prepared for any sacrifice, Broiiier Iqgram.' 

' Saerioce ! madam — ^why, the woman's mad I — ^I 
speak ef a nec^Mity. When starvation lockM in 
at the window, ana the sheriflPs effioer conies to 
the back-door, the debtor is not said to make a 
sacrifiiee, I reckon, although his goods are generally 
sold at one.' 

Mrs Benjamin Arbour was not in sufficiency good 
spirits to appreciate Hm jeu d'emrit as it deserved, 
but her brother-in-law enjoyed it hugely. When dull 
men do make a joke, however feeble, they are net apt 
to let it escape in a hurry, but mouth it about as a 
diild dees a lollipop, until the observers are some- 
times a little sick of the exhibition ; but^ on the other 
hand, its effect is molli^^g to the dull man. Mr 
Ingram Arbour was positively dianned with this Asa- 
mot of his, whidi was not tne fimt by one which he 
had indulged in for the last five-andrforty years. 

'You kAow goods are said to be sold at a tremen- 
dous 9€urifioe^* observed he in explanation. 

Whereat Mrs Benjamin, good nring woman, affeotod 
to see the matter in its proper humorous light, and 
laughed after a fashion that nature doubtlesB resented 
bitterly. 

* What I was going to say,' continued she, * was, that 
I would leave the cottaoe to-morrow, if you thought 
it right or exx>edient tnat I ^ould do so, Brother 
Ingram ; although, of course, the memories and asso- 
ciations tiiat ha^ around this place ' 

' Well, madam, lor my part, interrupted the mm- 
chant, *I only believe in tiiose sort of fiztorca of 
which the house-agent can make some yahiation. It 
may or may not he as you say ; but tiiese sofae are 
better than horse-hair ones, and it is pleasanter te be 
your own mistress than at the mercyn semedmidben 
lodsii^-housekeeper, anyway. Thmf ore, I say, stop 
at Kose Cottage if you will, madam, and keep year 
girls and younger boys about you. Nay, Letitia, I 
want no tlianks ; and, indeed, you might have stofped 
here without my permission, as far as that soes, until 
your tluree thousand pounds had dwindled a,WKj to 
nothing. However, 1 11 see that that doesn^ li^W^ 
if 3^a']l only leave matters entirely in my haodft 
Adolphus shall return to town with me, and begin 
work in my office at once ; and the other boys maf 
follow him in time — if you are not too proud, that is, 
to permit the young gentlemen to engage in mercan- 
tile pursuits. You £ive a hundred a year of year 
own to spend, mind, and if yonr ontgoingr ahrndd 



come to doable that siim, or even a little over, I will 
pay the snrplcis, Letitia — as your nearest relative 
and natural protector — out of my own pocket. Nay, 
madam, I am not a guardian angel, nor, as I should 
imagine, anything like it, and I tell you honestly that 
I had much rather that every person should support 
his own wife and children, by personal exertions when 
alive, and by bequest after his death ; but, however 
others have neglected their duty, madam, you wiU not 
find me shirk mine.' 

It may be easily imagined that the widow grate- 
fully accepted this proposition, and gladly intrusted 
to Mr Ingram Arbour the treasurersnip of her little 
fortune and the control of her affairs. This matter 
finished, her brother-in-law was proceeding to give 
her his views concerning the management of her 
household, which, as emanating from a bachelor who 
had been under the conduct of housekeepers for a 
quarter of a century, would doubtless have proved 
original and interesting in a high degree, when he 
beoune suddenly conscious that uie attention of Mrs 
Benjamin Arboiu* — in spite of the engrossing nature 
of the topic — had wandered somewhere else. 

* Doubtless, madam,* he interposed, with an offended 
air, 'you know your own affairs best, and perhaps 
after all, I have been only officious in meddling with 
them ; but .1 do think some little outward respect, 
some semblance of attention, is due' 

' Dear cood Brother Ingram,' cried poor Mrs Arbour, 
clasping her hands in terror, but still with an air of 
distracted preoccupation, *I meant no disrespect to 
YOU, our benefactor. Heaven knows ; but I thought I 
heard my poor dear Dicky calling for his food.' 

* And is it possible,' broke forth Mr Ingram Arbour, 
in a passion, * that what I have to say, nuidam, upon 
any subject, can be of less consequence than your 
confounded canary and his chickweed ! ' ^ 

'Cananr, brother! chickweed! why it's my poor 
little Dick wanting his mamma. Don't you hear nim 
setting up his tiny cry ?' 

* Since you call my attention to it, madam,' growled 
the affectionate uncle, * I am sorry to say I do. But 
what on earth did you give it such a name as Dick 
for? Luckily, we have got through all oar more 
important business, or I do not doubt yon would 
have left me for that little brat at any time ; as he 
grows older he must, however, be taugnt to wait for 
his betters. — By the by, Letitia,' added Mr Ingram, 
as his sister-in-law was leaving the room, ' since you 
have given me the control of your affairs, remember 
that wat man Wilson leaves his cottage if his rent 
is delayed one hour beyond the 3 1st of next month. 
I '11 £mperor of Morocco him, trust me ! ' 

CHAPTER IV. 
A COMMKBCIAL ACADIUT. 

From babyhood to childhood, Dicky Arbour grew 
up the pet of the Rose Cottage housdiold, and that 
notwithstanding what Nurse fiachel was wont to 
designate his * Bttle tantrums.' He was accustomed 
when provoked — ^firom the age of two till four or 
thereabouts — ^to stiffen himself out like a ramrod, cast 
himself backwards upon the floor, without the least 
regard for the shock that was thereby inflicted upon 
his youthful head, and, in that recumbent position, to 
scream like a locomotive. The best cure for this 
malady was found to be the giving him a very soft 
and comfortable pillow to lie upon, and treating him, 
in all respects, like an elderfy invalid of irritable 
temperament. He would then presently get up, 
toddle to his mother, and, hiding his curly head m 
her lap, observe in smothered tones : * Me so torry, 
mammy ; me dood now : me won't do it never no 
more ; me won't indeed.' 

Everybody said — save Sister Maria, who merely 
observi^ that he wanted whipping, and Brother 
Johnnie, who never expressed an opinion upon any 



subject imconnected with himself — that Dicky was a 
charming child, and only required a little manage- 
ment. Doctor Neversleep in particular — who had 
been pressed into being his godpapa, since the vein 
of natural and kindred sponsors had Ions been 
exhausted in the Arbour family — ^took vast deught in 
him, and taught him many things which his mother 
would scarcely have thought of. From his dictation, 
the infant pupil learned to express astonishment and 
admiration in such terms as, * O my doodney ! ' (for, 
O my goodness!), *Idn't it dolly?' (for. Isn't it 
jolly ?) and ' Here 's a bessie dark, upon my oiror ! ' 
(for, Here's a blessed lark, upon my honour!) At 
which lisping wickednesses, mamma would h(^d up 
her finger reprovin^y, and look supematurally 
solemn, till the offendu^ party destroyed her gr a vity 
by recommending Doctor ifeversleep for corporal 
punishment instead of himself. *Ip my niuighty 
godpa, mammy ; don't ip me.' 

In due course arrived that dark hour, inevitable, as 
it seems, to civilised childhood, when the government 
of love is superseded by that of fear, and home and 
friends are left for school and strangers. Dick — 
whose knowledge of foreign languages had been con- 
fined to a littie French, laid on upon him so lovingly 
and lightly by Sister Maggie, that it was more like 
French polish — was not sent to the same seminary 
where Adolphus had had his mind ennobled and 
refined by the rudiments of classical literature, but to 
the commercial academy of Messrs Dot and Carriwon, 
of which Johnnie had been already an alumnoB for 
several years. In establishmejits of the former class, 
the As in prauenti is perhaps the most hateful task 
that is imposed upon a reasonable boy, while in 
those of the latter the abominable rule called Practice 
distracts the youthful mind most painfully. W^ 
sings the Poet of Educational Life : 

Multiplication is vexation ; 
Addition is as bad — 

for although the second statement is an exaggerated 
one, it is obviously only introduced with an eye to the 
final line, wherein lies the whole gist of the stanza : 

The Rule of Three does puzzle me ; 
But Practice drives me mud/ 

It almost drove poor Dick mad, and certainly set him 
violently against the profession to which such a 
stumbling-block was declared to be a necessary step. 
He would sit and suck the sponge which was attached 
like a horrid parasite to every suite, for hours, di>eain- 
ing of his mother or foot-ball, until the cane d the 
wrathful pedago^e would awaken him to the real 
miseries of his situation — to life and aliquot parts. 
This * Practice ' — w^ch never made Dick perfect — ^is 
certainly worse than the As in prcesenHy vndch there 
is no absolute necessity to understand at aU. The 
scratch and spurt of pens, too, that pervade the 
school-room devoted to the more liberal studies, are 
far less ofiiensive than that perpetual grind of the 
slate-pencils, which, greasy with tears and perspira- 
tion, have to be sharpened with the knife contimudly, 
an operation which they resent with hideous screeches. 
There was another method of doing this which Dick 
much preferred, since it was an excuse for leaving his 
work — retiring from Practice — and approaching the 
fire in cold weather : he would spit upon the end of 
his pencil, and grind it upon the hearthstone with 
mucn persistency, until it acquired the finest possible 
point ; when it would break off suddenly, and then 
he would be^;in again. 

What noises, what smells, what an atmosphere 
filled that entrance-chamber of Oommercial Learning, 
and what a splendid vision to many young mincb 
must have been the Junior Clerk's office that would 
one day receive them into its bosom, where the peda- 
gogue ceases from troubling, and the lazy read tiieir 
newspapers, for ever, over pots of half and half I 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



25 



Viewed from the mercantile ^int of view, Richard 
Arbour was rather a lazy boy, it must be confessed ; 
but beheld from the loftier elevation of Muscular 
Christiamty, he was dilisent and assiduous to a very 
high degree. If the ^ytime of boys — as is the 
modem faiUi — is of equal consequence with their 
schooltime, there was certainly nobody who made a 
more profitable use of his than Dick. H^ was the most 
distinguished foot-ball player, for his height and 
weight, in the establishment, and the most dr^ided by 
the foe ; for, as in medieval warfare, the very noblest 
knights in armour of purest gold were liable to be 
miserably discomfited bv half-naked wretches who 
would creep under their horses' bellies and stab them, 
so the taJlest of his opponents were not seldom 
hurled to earth by this pigmy inserting himself 
between their lees. Moreover, as the aforesaid canaille 

E'Ued life and limb (although, because they were not 
i-bom, the snobbish chroniclers of the time make 
^ t of . that circumstance) at least as much as the 
mailed kniehts, so Dicky Arbour would recklessly 
cast himseS down, like some Juggernaut devotee, 
between the ball and any titanic foe who was about 
to take a good high kick at it, and receive the iron com- 
pliment in his own ribs. This is a species of devotion 
rarely appreciated except by one's own side. 'The 
ranks of Tuscany ' — for school-boys are not a generous- 
hearted race by any means — not only 'forbear to 
cheer' such acts, but sometimes cherish an ignoble spite 
against the heroic little Roman. 

Thus, Mr WiUiam Dempsey, a young man of 
seventeen, and the captain, upon a certain occasion, 
of the opposite party, took it very Ul that he was 
not only balked of his kick, but toppled headlong all 
his live feet eleven of length by the intrepid and 
horiasontal Dick. When the battle was over, and 
nothing beyond a little brown paper and vinegar ought 
to have been required by a magnanimous foe, the 
heart of Dempsey desired vengeance, and his hand 
(in a quiet way, and with no reference to foot- 
ball« of course) was not slow to take it upon the 
very first opportunity. This ^rannical conduct was 
resented by poor Dick, by dee<u, which, measured by 
the indignant feelings of the doer, were tremendous, 
but whicn, physically considered, did not much hurt 
Dempsey, and only provoked further cruelties; and 
by words of the most outrageous character, which 
were overheard (easily enough— for Dick had the best 
of longs) by the schoolma^er, and TOocured him a 
sound caning. This second wrong (as Dick considered 
it) smote the victim in a more sensitive part than that 
on which the mere blows had descended. The imf ortu- 
nate lad had not a logical mind — as we have seen in his 
difficult of deling wi^ aliouot parts — and was, more- 
over, too amply provided witn the savage instinct called 
Sense of Justice, which, in the case of Na 5 of a poor 
family, is not a ^ift which a good-natured fairy would 
biin^ to a baptisuL It seemed to him because Mr 
Camwun had caned him for swearing without inquiry 
into the previous circumstances, which were sucn as 
to have made a saint swear, as poor Dick thought 
— wiko know less about saints than if he had been 
brought np at Eton, where they are greatly revered, 
and produce half -holidays — ^that authority was arrayed 
upon the. side of tyranny, and perhaps even that it 
was only another name for it. Mr Carriwux^ imagined 
that he was caning bad words out of the lad, when he 
was in reality caning bad thoughts into him. We do 
not say that he should not have caned him — it was 
bitterly cold weather, and even a schoolmaster must 
needs warm himself when the opportunity offers — but 
that he should have done something else as welL 
The matter being unexplained, Dick Arbour became 
a bad. boy in the eyes of the master, while his resent- 
ful oandnct against the Titan Dempsey earned him a 
reputation, scarce less unenviable, for 'bumptiousness' 
among the boys.. His impatience of a tyrumy under 
which they liad all of them suffered, more or less, 



without complaint, was naturally distasteful ; village 
Hampdens are rarely popular; and to be so, it is 
above all things necessary that they should be 
successful and uncaned. 

Matters being in this unfavourable position, a match 
at snow-balling between one-half of tne school against 
the other half, with Dempsey commanding the oppo- 
site faction, was the very thing for Dick to enter mto 
with ardour. For us, who are getting on in years^ 
and who wear spectacles, there is, however, scarcely a 
more repulsive amusement : next to being inadvertently 
launched upon a slide on the foot-pavement, and 
beholding, as our legs are leaving us in different 
directions, a crowd of miscreants bearing down upon 
us with a hideous velocity, there is nothing more 
objectionable than to find ourselves in a snow-ball 
scrimmage. The extreme hardness of the missilefl 
themselves is one consideration; but that is trifline 
(in the eyes of a philosopher), compared to the exhi- 
bition of vindictive passion wliich accompanies their 
flight : the visage of each combatant betrays a wish 
that he were throwing Greek fire or Armstrong shells 
instead of snow, and seems to grudge every moment 
that is spent in the manufacture of his diabolical 
weapon. We have seen one of such savages so maddened 
by tne artificial avalanche, as to rush npon a small 
boy who had had nothing whatever to do with it, and 
rub a handful of snow into the back of his neck with 
an energy which, if it had been frost-bitten, would 
have been benevolence itself. Not a few dogs — whose 
characteristic, as the poet teUs us, is delight in strife 
— are similarly stirred to the depths of their brutal 
nature by snow, and will roll and srowl in it, with 
evident regret that the formation of their fore-paws 
forbids their using it as an engine of destruction. It 
is probable, if certain theories be true, that these 
animals may have once bee& school-boys, who have 
perished in their early youth in a snow-scrimmage. 

' They've been and broken my nose,' cried Johnnie 
Arbour on a sudden, exhibiting that feature to hia 
brother ii) a flattened condition, and with a percep- 
tible dint where the snow-shell had exploded and 
burst in all directions over his face, like the radia- 
tions of a broken window : ' they've broken my 
nose, Dick, and I am sure they're putting stones in 
their snow-balls.' 

' The deuce they are ! ' cried Dick, whose caning 
had not cured him of strong language — ' then two can 
play at that game, Johnnie ; so here goes.' 

The brothers threw together. 

A great cry immediately arose from the opposite 
ranks. A scanty mizzle succeeded to the storm of 
snow-balls, and then altogether ceased. General 
William Dempsey had fallen backwards, as falls on 
Mount Avemus the thunder-smitten oak, and a 
crowd gathered around him, exclaiming : ' Dempeey's 
eye's out!' 'Dempeey's blinded with a stone!' 
* Dempsey 's dead !' 

Johnnie Arbour turned as white as his shirt-collar 
— and indeed whiter, for the occurrence happened 
upon a Saturday — ' I threw no stone, Dick,' said he. 

Dick lost his colour too, as he replied : ' I 'm very 
Sony, I'm sure, but I didn't aim at him in par- 
ticular.' 

'Who put a stone into his snow-ball?' cried the 
captain of Richard's side. 

'I did,' responded the lad sturdily; 'the fellows 
upon Dempsey s side began it though.' 

An indignant hiss broke forth from those about the 
injured youth, and especially from such as had been * 
guilty of the practice complained at The rest were 
naturally angry that poor Dempsey should have been 
even alluded to by young Bumptious, at such a time. 
He had been often heara to vow that he would be 
even with Demi)sey, and he had now, it was evident, 
taken advantage of a public scrimmage to avenge a 
private wrong. Even those of his own side who were 
yet about hma, fell away from him ; and preaentlyf 



96 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Brother Johmue, after a few momtntB of vadllatioii, 
hjma his head down, and alinked away, leaving poor 
JDdcK standing alone. 

There was much hardship, and wron^ and aonow 
lymg between Richard Arbour and that rest which 
at last befalleth t^ most weaiy oi us ; but perhi^ he 
was not doomed to experience a moment so intensely 
wretched as itat present one, when friend ana 
Iffother had forsaken him, and he stood alone in the 
^yground of Messrs Dot and Camwun — the Black 
Sheep of that you&ful fold. 

SYRIAN SILK AND SILK-REELING. 

Did you ever, in the streets of London, obserre some 
of the retinue of the Turkish ambaasadDzs with candy 
■ilk boehecLS or handkerchiefs girt round their heads, 
or rich shawls encircling their waists ? Both these are 
mostly the produce of Syrian labour ; for, of a truth, 
ailk is the staff of life to all cIsssph and creeds inhabit- 
ing that land, from tiie ancient shores of Trre, over 
Leoanon, right sway to the fertile and lovely plains 
of AatiodL A universal patron-saint amongst all 
tlwse people would be that stout-bearted old mook 
— if th^ nad ever heard about him, whieh they have 
not — who, witii hollow staff in hand, well piled up 
with silk- worm eggs, at risk of life, wended his weary 
way ixum. distant China over HSnte bleak steppes of 
TlBitary, and oo conveyed to Europe the muck-trea- 
snrod secret of the avaricioos Celestiala. Then only 
monarchs revelled in the luxury of silk garments ; 
now the poorest and most ill-usea peasant in labanon, 
and in the plains o£ North Syria, would deem, himsdf 
a disgraee to the village if his wife could not sport a 
new silk draw at least once a year — on Easter Day 
— and he himself a girdle of the same material ; veiy 
gav, indeed, as regaids variety of coloun. 

No sooner has the short-lived winter blown its 
last gale from the westward, which, occurs early in 
Februaiy, than the whole of animated nature seems 
to wake up by conmion oensent into life and activity. 
Peasants who, like their cocoons, have been ahnoiit 
hermetically sealed up in Uteir huts for the last three 
months, enter vifiorouslv upon the labours and the 
duties necessarv tor the forthcoming spring and sum- 
mer. The birds, who have never quittea the {dace, 
although so long silent, now burst forth into songs of 
praise, and trees and shrubs are covered with. buds. 
Amongst the earliest of the latter is the mulberry, 
which is no sooner clad with delicate leases, so 
appropriate for their food, than the mites of silk- 
worms issue by countless thousands from the egra, 
Mid are immediately plaoed in small nmnd &bt 
baskets covered with clay, where they are forthwith 
supplied with the tender leaves of the mulberry. The 
peasant and his family have now conmienced the 
duties <^ the year. As day l^ dtay ibe leaf increases 
in size, so the silk- worms rapidly grow in proportion, 
till from having been abnost invisiue mites, md then 
the sise of ants, in the course of a week they attain 
to neariy half an inch in lencth, and have to be 
transferred to baskets of donbfo l^e sine of the £rst 
ones. Meanwhile the peasant and his wife have had 
no sinecures. Whilst the former has been busr in 
remedying what damages the khooka may have 
received auring the winter gales, the latter, aided by 
her children, has mthered at intenrala the necessary 
supply of food for ue womis ; being careful first that 
the leases should be perfectly dry, becaoae one drop 
•of dew amongst the leaves would be fatal ta a whole 
basketful of worms. The khooks above referred to 
are lon^, narrow, sli|^ structures of twigs and laarres 
intertwmed, and supported at intervals by stout stems 
of old and useless mulberry-trees ; while the roofing 
is composed of thick laycn of ruiiies, so plentiful in 
the marshy lands, which are perfectly impervious to 
lain ; for, on the one hand, whilst the worms must be 
effMstoally protected from, rain «r dews, on the other 



hand, they require a free circulation of air^ a point 
which is attained by the net- work slrucUip e <» the 
aides of the khook. The interior consista of a nnm- 
ber of shelves on either side, whidi are made oi a 
species of sUt-reed matwork, and rise one above 
another in tiers of from three to four, according to tiM 
size of the khook, the lowest being at least two £eei 
from the fioory and the uppermost about a foot fran 
the zoof. These shelves are called hatoar%f ' and 
according to their number is reckoned the wealth of 
the proprietor, and the quantity of silk they will pn>- 
duoe ; thus, in speaking ol any particular smlbeoy- 
plantation, the natives, in bargaining, regulate its 
worth by saying : ' Oh, it has omy so many botoon, 
and. can therefore only produce such a number of 
rcUiloa of silk;' the lotolo being equivalent to five 
and a half pounds Enriish. 

To these khooks, aner the expiration of two weeks 
or so, tiie worms are removed, and spread upon Ae 
batoors above alhided to, which have first beoi care- 
fully and thickly lined with mulbenrv-leavea, to 
prevent the worms from falling through. There is 
no fear of their straying over the sides, or nl-hwihWig 
frem one shelf to another; silk-wonns an instinc- 
tively home-loving creatures, and will never sf their 
own accord budge an inch from where thoy are first 
plaoed, until the time arrives when they are about to 
become oocoons. Soon after this final transfer of the 
worm, commences thatstrange phenomenon e€ apparent 
utter lifelessness, which lasts for foriy-eight noaia, 
durinff which interval the creature is ^^u^ging its 
first uun, having outgrown its india-rubber oapaaitie& 
The natives calllhis the first aoante, or fast; and the 
Christian part ol them, eiq>ecially the Greeks, look 
upon this as a certain indication that the worms are 
of the same creed as themsdves. During these 
seauiffiij which are three in number, at intervals ol 
about a fortni^t each, the worms require no food, 
and the peasant occupies himself in the tillage c^ 
the grouiul, whilst' his family devote themselves to 
domMtic pursuits. As they approach maturity, the 
appetite of the worms becomes prodigions, and eariy 
and late has the peasant to labeur, kipping down 
huge branches of the mulberries, till wnat was a 
verdant and beautiful plantation some six weeks 
before, is now a wild^neeB of leafless stems and 
brandies. Bat so coa^^enial is the cHmate, and so 
fertile the soil, that in less than a month after- 
wards, fresh sprouts are covered with tender leaves, 
so that in autumn so tiiick is the f (^age, so stout the 
brmohes, that the stranger would never guess how 
recently they had been lopped. When the first leaves in 
winter beu^ to fall, then are the trees anin denuded 
of their foliage. This time, however, uie branches 
are spared, and the leaves gathered by hand, and 
storea up a^ninst winter, when, with the manure of 
the worms, mey serve as fodder for the oxen, which 
would otherwise staxvei The branches Ioi^>ed off at 
fint form a vast and jdcntiful supply of firewood for 
tfaepeasanfa family. 

Tne third and last soame, or fast of the worms, 
is the signal for the peasant to bestir himself, and 
proenre as much brusnwood as he can, which, when 
dried in the sun, he throws lightly upon tiie batoors. 
During thia intorval, the worms have become of a 
tranflparsnt golden colour, and the moment they 
wake up again, for the first time in their lives assume 
a migrata^ disposition. Up they crawl actively 
over this bramble, down tho next, until each one 
has selected a fitting spot amongst the twigs for 
forming its ooooon ; and very wonderful is it to watch 
the nicety and care with whidi they weave round 
themselves that impenetrable texture which consti- 
tutes the cocoon. I say very wonderful is it to watch 
them, but the peasant won't allow m so to do : the 
BfritByeiBYoaaTeadSjalotae; so, to guard against thii, 
he locks the door, and ffings against it from outside 
a huge mass of clay. From ths act he also divines 



J 



OHAMBBBffS JOURNAL. 



wbetber the hBirrat will be jiropitioiia or otherwise.'. 
If the day adhercB en matte, it lb a gnvl omen ; ii it 
drops off partly, a bod one; if the iMals falla to the 



And now. whilst the little industriaua worms are 
luu-d at work weaving their own wimliDg-alieeta, the 
peatajitty are not one whit less busy prepcu^ag for 
them a cniel death. Huge, aotiquc-IonluQg, duEt; 
old Wheels, which have been hidden for the last twelve 
numtha, are bronght to light again, and bnubed iip ; 
the temporary fomace of last year ia repaired, the 
reteryoir of w&t«r fresh lilted with clay, tlie whole 
neonth appantns set op, and the peaaaut's rickety 

. ofeed 
At last the aoipicions morning urirea, 
and with many praysn and ceremouies, the door of 
the khook is (qiened, when men, women, and chililren 
«t to woik, deiinding the briers of the cocoons, which 
are piled in scores upon scores of baskets. Then the 
moutoom, or silk-harTeB^ conunenoea in lif^it-down 
earnest. 

It i9 n glorioui and a happy sight, in that plea- 
sant numtry, at this peculiar ncntin of the yaar, to 
witnen Oa smile thwt all nature siirnMi to wear. The 
whole air is redolent with the odoma of oountlees 
iweet-aceoted Sowers, the whole earth cajpeted with 
cnwrald, brilliantly bespan^ed witii tiny flowaa of 
vuisua hues ; suidy botterflieB are fUtting to and 
fro from WDodmne to woodbine; fruit-treea are in 
bloBem, and myrinds of song-birds are waking the 
■riinna in ralley and dale ; and here, seated under the 
ihai Una cuopj of heaven, are jncturesque groups 
liralting tine birds in their rrasrlw song^ and accom- 
fsnying theniaelvsi with the whii cf the huge wheals 
^on Wdeh thn' are wiadini; off the alk-womu. One 
taiBB the wheel with nnaoiiui handle ; anotiur feeds 
it wiUi the woima ; another stin up the woDna, besng 
reeled with something like a iohoclniastar's birch-md ; 
a fourth feeda the fire ; a fifth aripplies the baain with 
water as it becontes exhanated ; a aicth rmovatea 
tiia basket with freah cocoons; whilfit near W, 
seated on a mat, are two or three occupied in pick. 
tng the atuff from off the ontaide of the cocoons; 
and thiH nulterial is known as eotton-silk. They 
laboor hard and long, bat with good-will, during the 
tlrBl week after the cocoons are formed, since they 
obtain 30 per cent more silk now than they wifl 
after that date, because then the cocoons hove to be 
atifled, to prevent the mothg— into which they are 
n^jidly being convirted— boring throngh the cqcoqdi^ 
and so rendering them utterly valnelens and unavail- 
able. The proceis of stifling is with the cocoon as 
simpis as is Ute system of reeling. Spread oat npon 
mats, the oocoons are exposed to the fierce best of the 
mid-day sun for a, day or two, being carefully turned 
at intervals dorins tJie process, and Saa answcis 
quite as well as the ovens so indispensable in less 
congenial olimca where the silk-worm is n.'ared 
After this ]iroceai, the lilk-reelem take it more easily, 
and relapee into their uiental apathy. They know 
now tint were they to work ever so hud, they cannot 
afaalnct one thread, more of silk from the auffocatcd 
onrnana, and there 19 no fear of the moths boring 
Hot way tbnnigb. Day by day, however, the soene 
hmtTwa moro picturesque, u ^den feetoooB of 
newly reeled silk are austiended from branch to 
brwQCh to dry, and set off the beantifol folioce of tlie 
amige and the lemon trees. The atench, however. 
bcorawi intolerable from the heaps of dead and 
reeled-off cocoona, and Bwaliows np all the swBet 
odonrs that nntuic has planted sroand. By this 
vuthod of reeling, they are supposed to obtain about 
one pound of silk from irvery five am) a haU of live 
cocoons, and just half that amount from thoae that 
h*ve been stifled The silk is all reeled off by the 
middle of June, when it ia immediate s<^ on tiie 



Kjiot U' lirnkcrs, who have been hovering about like 
vultures lor the last few weeks, and these again 
dispose ot it to merchants, who ship it for Lyon and 
othiM European porta, where, under flkiliul hands, it ia 
Boon convertud into that costly material which 
ladiea love to wear. In the interim, the oocoons 
left for seed have been perforated by the beantifnl 
short-lived, whito, velvety-lookinH moths into which 
the Bilk -worm has been converted. By instinct, the 
males and females come together ; the former die off 
within an hour or so ; the latter may hnger on for a 
day, io which inCa-VHl, on linen spread for their tape- 
cial behoof, they deposit an incredible SBiannt of 
egga. which conatitute the peasant's supply of seed 
for the next scoBon. When these an perfectly dry, 

auapf^niled from ti 

they will wmain undiatorbed 

e bam 
le quantity and quality of Syrian ailk by 
toe ereonon of £uriipean mctoHes and the introdnc- 
tion d( European machinery. At one of these—the 
factmyof a t^endmaQ (^L de Fortales) — thooaanda 
of mihappy and tiiBtive Maronitts fbtind refuge 



THE CURIOSITIES OF CIVILISATION. 
Teat wonderful economy of manufacture which is 
rapidly depriving the word ' rubbish ' of its m p^f iin g , 
and which puts the moat apparently hopeless material 
throogh so many pniceaaea, until not even the paper- 
manafactnrer can make anything out of what is left, 
haa cl late extended iteelf to periodical Ittatatoie. 
Formerly, iriien a profenional man contributed to a 
review or a magivdne, be either concealed the fact 
altogether, as likely to prejudice hia clients against 
bijn, or was content witli that limited cyclone of 
reputatioB— Uio likeliest, however, of all, to sink an 
JU-baLaated ciaft — which blows only from one's own 
relatives and acquaintance. But now Ijial society 
has grown wiser, and a lawyer is not thm^t much 
the woree of for giving us a Biography, or a physiciBn 
for recording his Notes of Travel, all men are hasten- 
ing to acknowledge their intimacy with literature, 
and to publicly recognise their neglected o&pring. 
which aforetime were snSered to stray asiong the 
periodicals, nameless, and even fathered upon the 
wrong penooi. Pcriuips that last reason has been 
the most efficient ia compelling tho soft self- 
impeachment fnm 80 many professional bosoms. 
They could have stood by calmly enough and seen 
their little ones treated with contempt and con- 
tumely, for they invited sach possible treatment by 
tlieir pubhc a^ipearauce, but, valueless or not, they 
were still Oieirt — a poor thing, hut mine own — and to 
bebdd a staikngar patting then on their heads witli 
paternal complacency, was more than they could bear. 
Oar system of anonymous publication is exceedm^y 
prolific of this sort of literary pretender. Within our 
own private range of acquaintance, we know more than 
one inteUectaal-lDcking individual, who, thanlcs to a 
hiifh forehead, and an artistic manner of knitting it, 
1ms a reputation for writing articles in the Timet, the 
Ediidmrg/L, and (especially) in the Watimntbrr StBieic, 
which the edtturs themaelvea by no means identify as 
his. It ia not neceBary for a person thus gifted by 
nature to assert himself categoEioally as the author of 
this or that article — although even such Btatements 
are not nnexampled, and wben a man once begins to 
make tbcm, he rarely stops, until he meets with tiie 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



real Simon Pure, when there is a 'ditliciillj ' - /"f ti 
■hake of the heoJ, nith u amile C« fallow, will uiswer 
the SBmfl purpoie ; or, still better, & Bemi-depre- 
eaXmry veriral deui-iL Wc should toy, judging frum 
oar own p^perience, tliat in the case of all anonymous 
literary auctPawB, there are, to evt-ry work, at least 
a Boore of sappfflUtitiouB authors. Uutil the Reprint 
cornea out, with the writer's name, anybody, is of 
coorie at liberty to aiaume its paternity, aad if none 
does cmne oat, to keep it But in the meantime, all 
kinda of unpleasant things take place. 

The practices of tbe«e impootoni create auapicioua 
ot the dum of the real iiroprietor. We remember to 
have heard of some clever amateur-dniughtai 
had an ■ - ^ ■ » .■ ^ ^- r , ■ 

derahl 
Life i; 

in that very joumaL One particular picture, 
jedged by the gentleman himself to be his v 
eicessivcly extolled, so that in it his provincial fame 
may be said, to have culminated. Consiiler, therefore, 
his inilJAnant dismay, and the ill-concealed delight of 
his goiM-natured fnenda, when the Great Deiinentor 
pnbluhed his collected sketches with this very draw- 
mg included among them '. ' This humbug, then. 
has never drawn a pioture in Punch in bis life,' was 
the univerMil verdict upon the unhappy amateur. 
Whereas the fact was, he had really been a can- 
trihntor— although not to the eitent which was 
believed at home— and the work of art in question 
bad beea included by mistake among the Great 
Contributor's own. Such a, case as this, however, is 
elceedingly rare, and the repntations which are blasted 
by the reprints of what were previously anonymous 
wticles, for the most part, ooly get their just deserts. 
The appearance of the Curioiiliai of CiBUimtion ' will 

?it an end to a good many famous folks of this sort, 
he hand that has lightened the Qiiarterli/ for the lost 
five yean, and kept it afloat upon the ocean of popu- 
larity in spile of the general density of tta contents, 
ii at hut known. Those articlGS of present attraction 
upon Advrrtitenirnla. the Zoologiaii Oanteni, the 
.London CominiMarial, the Electric Tete^mph, and the 
Plaice ami the Thieta, which have brought it abreast 
of the age. may now all be safely attributed to Dr 
Andrew Wynter. For our own parts, we generally 
prefer a profeiiBional to an omateor writer, and rather 
mistrust such essays as are composed ' in the intervals 
of buainees ; ' but certainly these could hanily have 
been better done. Dr Wynter has accomplished the 
diflicult task of writing fretihly and vividly upon 
subjects familiar to all, and on which everybody has 
had their thought, and very many of us uieir ' say.' 
He has spared, too, neither time nor pains in acqiur- 
ing the most minute information. What reams of 
ancient newspapers must he have dived into— among 
notices of runaway Negro boys, such as Hogarth 
pointed ; of mounted guides to point the way to 
Bristol, such as Fepya writes of ; of apprenttoes miss- 
ing, and ' si^>poscd to be shun in some of those tights 
in Surrey ' during the Commonwealth ; and of that 
new Uquor 'called by the Chinessus 'Tcha, and by 
other nations Tay, also Tee'— before he uamo upon 
this dog -advertisement of the time of Charles II., 
in the Mrrtiiriiu PolUiciu, and written, there seems 
little doubt, with his own royal band. It is the second 
notice of the loss of the animal, and is printed very 
prominently in large Italic ty^te. 

' We must adi upon gou agiiin/or a Blaek Don, beticeea 
a Orey-hovtul «nd a SpanM, no ahife ahout him, oeeit/ 
1 ilreat oa hU Brett, and Tagl n lUOe bolbft. It t» 
nU Majentitt own Dog, and doiilitlaf im* tlotn, /or 
Us Dog tnu not bom nor bred in England, and would 

• Curioiiliti of Cicilaaliim. Beprlnud from t>ie Uwirlirly 
and OliKlmrgh giana. 67 Aadieir W;Dlcr, M,D. Uardirlcllc, 



II- 1- r j'or^ikf l-i-f iliutei; ll'Ao»o«¥r jfnrfes /lim may 
oejiiaiKi any ai WhU^iaS.for tiieDog lEiubettrrhnown 
at CouH than thow alio «lt^e him. iVUi thry nerxr iexwe 
robbing IJtt MajeiUs} mint he not ierp a dogf Till 
Doyi flan {Uioit^i betlrr Hum aome tniof^c) ia tie 
only jJact vrliieh nobody offer* to brg.' 

Dr Wynter's intention in his first essay is to 
draw out, as a thread from some woollen fabric, a 
continuous line of advertisements from the earlieat 
age of the newspaper press til] the present : and by 
BO doing, to shew how distinctly, from its dye, the 
pattern of the age throngh which it mns is rc^^- 
sented ; and in uis he more or less succeed!. We 
should be astonished now-a-days to see in the 7'imra 
a notice from the Gazrtif, headed Buckingham Palace. 
such as this in the Public Inl^ligfonr of 1664 : 

'Whstkoall, Slay 14, 1664. His Sacred Majesty, 
having dcobireJ it to be his Itojal will and pnrrose 
to continue the healing of bis people for the Evil 
during the Month of ^Sy, and then to give over till 
MichaelniBs next, I am commanded to give notice 
theieof. that the people may not come up to Town 
in the Interim and lose their labour.' 
In the next year, the jiapera advertisi' quackeries 
less magniticent, for the cure of the Plague, which ia 
then devastating the capital. There ore no more 
inquiries after lockete and iieriiuned bags, and 
'tadyes' pictures set in gold;' no more publicatian 
of amorous songs ; no more offering of ten shillings 
the ounce to tempt any who are nappy enough to 
possess long daicn hair to part with it, in order that 
' perrywigges ' should be made for persona of condi- 
tion. In the time of the first George, we were a 
nation none too nice and delicate in onr tasteo, if 
we may judge from our public tsxhibitious. 'Tryals 
of 8kiU ' at his majesty's bear-garden were oommon 
bctn-een such champions as these. ' Edmund Button, 
master of the nobW science ot defence, vthu liatk laieiy 
aU down Mr Hasgit ond the Champion of the West, 
and 4 btMdet, and James Harris, on Ilerefordahiro 
man. master of the noble science of defence, who has 
fought 98 prizes and never was worsted, to exercise 
the usual weapons, at i o'clock in th» afternoon pre- 
cisely.— Posdunn, July 4, 1701.' Worse than this, wo 
encouraged pugilism among the fair sex. In a public 
journal of I72£ wc liud the following gage of battle 
thrown down and accepted : 

■ ChaLLESCE.— I, Eli/abeth Wilkinson, of (.Terhen- 
wcll, having had some words with Hannah Hjlield, 
and requiring satisfaction, do invito her to meet nie 
upon the stage, and bo» me for tbrre gnineaa; each 
woman holding lialf-a-erown iu caob hand, and tbo 
first woman that ilro]>s the nmney to lose the battle. 

' Aahweo. — I, Hannah Hylield, of Newgato Market, 
hearing of the resoluteness of Klizabcth Wilkinson, 
will not foil, Qo<l mllinq, to give her mure blows than 
words, desiring home blows, and from her no favoor : 
she may expect a good thuni]>ing ! ' 
The half-crowns in the bands were to prevent the 
ladies from scratohing one another, should uatnnJ 
disposition got the better of scientilio training. 

Let us hurry out of such times aa these into m 
softer atmosphere, and listen to tbc sedoclJTe voica 
of Mr George Robins, which charmed the oariy part 
of this present century. On one occasion, in puffing 
an estato, be ia said to have described a oertain 
ancient gallows which chanced to lie upon it as 'A 
hanging wood;' on another, he bod made the beantiea 



chanting, and found it necessary to blur it by a fault 
or two, lest it should prove ' too bright and good tor 
human nature's dady food.' ' But there are two draw- 
backs to the property.' sighed out this Halis of the 
Mart — * the litter of the roee-leaves, and the noise of 
the nigbtingalea.' 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



29 



After laying before wi a selection of the strangest 
advertisements he can pick out of the Times news- 
paper, and malicioasly disclosing the ciphers under 
Mrhich young people are sometimes accustomed to 
make love in that romantic organ, Dr Wjmter startles 
us with the sums per annum spent by certain adven- 
turous dealers, in advertising. * Professor' Holloway 
(whose modest self -commendations we remember 
to have lately met with even in an obscure Spanish 

faper) spends no less than L.90,000 ; Moses and Son, 
1.10,000 ; Rowland and Son (Macassar oU, &c.), 
L.10,000; Dr De Jongh (cod-liver oil), L. 10,000 ; 
Heal and Sons (bedstead and bedding), L.6000 ; and 
Nicholls (taUor), L.4500. 

Next to the essay to which we have been referring, 
that upon the supply of food for London is perhaps 
the most interestme. The article of greatest miport- 
ance (next to strawberries) which is produced by the 
market-^urdeners is pease. The dealers, in order to 
consult the convenience of hotel-keepers, and such as 
require a large supply for the table, keep them ready 
for the sauce-pan. There is no wonder that at mid- 
day, in Covent Garden, we see that army of amazons 
encaged in shelling pease, when we read that one 
salesman often employs four hundred at this occupa- 
tion. ' The major part of these auxiliaries belong to 
iiie poor-houses around; they obtain permission to 
go out for this purpose ; and the shilling or eighteen 
pence a day earned by some of the more expert, is 
gladly exchanged for the monotonous rations of the 
]ttirish. In the autumn, again, there will be a row 
of poor creatures, extending aloi^g the whole north 
side of the square, shelling walnuts, each person 
having two basKets, one for the nuts, another K)r the 
sbeUs, which are bought by the catsup-makers. The 
poor flock from all piuts of the town oirectly a job of 
the kind is to be had. If a fog happens in November, 
thousands of link-boys and men sprmo; up with ready- 
made torches ; if a frost occun, hunclreas of men are 
to be found on the Serpentine and other park waters, 
to sweep the ice or to put on your skates : there are, 
in the busy part of the town, half-a-dozen fellows 
ready of a wet day to rush simultaneously to caU a 
cab " for your honour ; " and ever^ crossing when it 
grows inuddy almost instantly has its man and broom. 
A sad comment this upon the large floating popula- 
tion of starving labour always to be found in the 
streets of London.' Of foreign pine-apples, nearly 
300,000 are consigned to one London house, and a 
fleet of clippers is appropriated solely to the carriage 
of this single fruit. Water- cresses do not grow neces- 
aari^ in * purling brooks,' it seems. The extensive 
Cainden Town beds are planted in an old brick-field, 
watered bj the Fleet Ditch, and owe their unusually 
luxuriant appearance to a certain admixture of the 
sewerage. Khubarb, it appears, was introduced into 
London only some forty years since by Mr Miatt, 
who sent his sons to the iBorough Market with five 
bunches of it, whereof they omy sold three. He 
continued their cultivation, however, despite the 
nniyenal sneers at his * physic pies,' and hundreds of 
tons of it are now sold in Covent Garden yearly. 
Sometimes, although very rarely, London cannot eat 
quite all that comes to its table. * As we gazed, on 
one occasion, upon the solid walls of baskets extend- 
ing down the market, crowned with parapets of peach 
and nectarine boxes, we wondered in our own minds 
whether it would ever be all sold, and the wonder 
increased as wagon after wagon arrived, piled up as 
hi^ aa the second-floor windows of the piazza. 
Venturing to express this doubt to a lazy-looking 
man who was plaiting the strands of a whip, " Blessee, 
nr," he replied, without looking up from his work, 
** the main part on 'em will be at Brumma^m by 
dinner-time. True enough, while we had been 
guessing and wondering, a nimble feUow had run to 
the telegraph and inquired of Birmingham and a few 
distant towns whether they were in want of certain 



fruits that morning. The answer being in the affirma- 
tive, the vans turned round, rattled off to the North- 
western station ; and in another hour the superfluity 
of Covent Garden was rushing on its way to fill up 
the deficiency of the midland counties. Tlius the 
wire and stesun, both at home and abroad, cause the 
supply to respond instantly to the demand, however 
wide apart the two principles may be working.' 

If some sensitive persons may have received a shock 
in learning the manner in which their water-creeses 
are grown, they will, on the other hand, be comforted 
to learn that the popular notion which ascribes the 
flavour of London porter to Thames water, is a vulgar 
error. * Not even the Messrs Barclay, who are upon 
the stream, draw any of their supply from tnat 
soui^ce, but it is got entirely from wells, and those 
sunk so deep, that they and the Messrs Calvert, 
whose brewery is half a mile distant upon the oppo- 
site side of tne river, find they are rivals for the 
same spring. When one breweiy pumps, it drains 
the wells of the other, and the mms are obliged to 
obtain their water on alternate days.' Certainly, if 
any man ever deserved the thanks of his fellows for 
purveying knowledge pleasantly, and not in that 
indigestible mass of facts and figures with which we 
are so often treated, it is Dr Andrew Wynter. He 
imderstands exactly how to pick for us the plums 
out of the mince-pie, and may with justice be entitled 
the * Little Jack Homer ' of Lif ormation. 



*VERY CHEAP, LADIES AND 

GENTLEMEN!' 

* Very cheap, sir, remarkably ; best French silk hat, 
glossy as the raven's wing ! The genuine article ! ' 

I ventured to observe that it was, if anything, a 
little too glossy. 

• All the beauty of it, sir ; exquisite finish, delicate 
polish! We are making an enormous sacrifice, of 
course, in offering them at the price ; but the fact is 
wo are so determined to clear off the whole stock 
— enlargement of premises — extension of businesa 
Where shall I send it, sir?' 

* Why, I am not quite determined ' 

. * Oh, of course, certainly. We have no necessity to 
entreat custom; but it is scarcely usual, when a 
gentleman has looked over our whole stock, to ' 

In short, I took out my purse, paid for the glossy 
best silk hat, and putting my travelling-cap into the 
crown, walked away under it Certainly, it was 
very cheap. 

' And if, sir,' said the bowing shopman, * any little 
accident should happen, a damp cloth and a cool iron 
— new again, quite ! Mudi obliged.' 

I do not think any 'little accident' happened to my 
purchase; I was not aware of anything of tiie kind, 
but certainly the bloom of the peach was transitory 
and perishing. I examined it. I caused the experi- 
ment of the damp cloth and cool iron to be tried. 
Worse and worse. I shook my head at it, and under 
it; I consulted an obscure member of the hatting 
profession, who lived in a dull court through sundry 
back-streets, and he shook hit head at it even more 
grimly. There was nothing to be done. 

My hat had but one fault : it was bought in a 
moment of weakness at a ticketer's shop — a bargain ! 
Of course, my case must be the exception, not the 
rule ; if every one's first bargain turned out to be 
suffering so unmistakably from chronic weakness, and 
a general flabbiness of constitution, as mine did, I 
opme it would be, as mine assuredly will, the last as 
well as the first But—* a bargain ! ' There is some- 
thing so delightfully suggestive about the word, so 



beautifaMy undefined, and pitnwcatiTe oi cnrionty. 
* Oh, let me see it Where did yon get it? What 
did you tdve ? I do so dote <m bargains ! * 

And if I {Hresume to tell the * doter ' tiie -stoiy of a 
hat^ I get fmubbed, and told that * it serred me light 
Tor beniff ao gnllibk.' There may be aomething in 
that, to judge from the marveUons fasdnadoQ whidi 
seems to hai^ about the word; there muM be some- 
thing in it. 

Look st the lady deeoending from her carriage with 
her friesid, at the door of Swan and Edgar^a; fnxn 
her dress and tiie air there is about her, you woidd 
never suspect it, but she is an inveterate barsain- 
hunter. She goes with her fiiend to Swan and Eagar, 
and her brougham stands mot unfreqnently b^iare 
Lewis and Au^by's, but she does her own private 
shopping in other quarters. She has a tact, too, in 
her management of these affidrs, which you would not 
suspect from her msouciaiU remarks u^on the oostlv 
silks amongst which her friend is lingermg undecideo. 
3ie Hkes to stumble u^on an estabHshment recently 
opened ; she will exanune the articles produced by 
the anxious young paroprietor with supreme indiffer- 
enee, and raise her eyebrows superdlioinly at the prioe 
indicated. Then she lifts her gold-rimmed eye-glass, 
and looks through it all round, as though she were in 
a state of bewiMerment at finding herself in such a 
place. She 'doesn't remember a meroer's house in 
this locality.' And then the proprietor says nervously, 
that it is only very lately established ; to which she 
repUes, * Indeed ! ' with a significant, * And the price of 
this embroidered robe is actually' 

infatuated youn^ tradesman! blindworm! 
He fancies this noble lady may perhaps give him her 
custom, so he sells the embroidered robe, and after 
that another valuable article, and another — ^for she 
is not satisfied with a moderate spoil — at or even 
under cost price, for the sake of securing her patron- 
age ; and a little later in the day she is to be seen 
exhibiting her bargains, and triumphing over them. 

' I shaU be ruined pretty shortly, at that rate,'' s^ 
the younff feUow, with a bluish look about the I^ 
But my hhdy did not hear that, nor perhaps woiild 
it have much distressed her if die had. 

There is another side of the bargain-question to be 
looked at. ^ 

1 should like you to come with me, my lady, and 
just glance into a place which I shall point out to 
you. Ay, gather up the nineteen flounces, and take 
out the essence-botfcle ; you will need it, I promise 
you. Take care also of these monstrous circular 
def onnities which rub so unyieldingly upon the legs 
of unfortimate foot-passengers. Put down your v^ 
— not that it is of much use, a poor flimsy thing — 
keep the vinaigrette to your nostrils, and do not 
put up the eye-glass, for you will see only too well 
without it. 

I imagine you behind me in tiiis horrible neighbour- 
hood — you, fresh from scented Belgravia — ^m this 
horrible atmosphere of all uncleanness, where the 
stohd children croudi on dirt-heaps, poking after 
some impurity which was edible once, and cramming 
it in their mouths, dismally. ThesCj children ? You 
think of the rosy little lips and the prattie, the fresh 
bright eyes and downy cheeks; of the dmnty little 
robes, the pretty kid-shoes you love to hear pattering 
about you — theM^ children ! — ^keep up the vinaigrette. 
Blood trickles from under the doors of slaughter- 
houses, scenting the air ; the reeking odours of tiie 
gin-palace min^ with it, and meet your shuddering 
seiBse ; and the very black-browed houses are rotting 
down in filth to their decay. Look at the drabbled 
women who enter those doors, and come out minus a 
gannent, but with fieiy breath and aoddened face, 
out of which the lacklustre eyes stare at you with 
a dull wonder : look at the very babies all muddled 
with gin, which the mothers pour down their throats 
to 'comfort them,' from their squalling weazened 



birth {I was going to ny * cradle]'): think of tbe 
miasmata flying on from ^le combined heaps of stale 
vegetables, nutrefying fish, flesh both stale and 
freshly killed! What marvd that disease should 
lm>od darkly over the festering allev ? 

But what has all this to do with bargains, you ask ? 
Patience, madam. I have lingered unwarrantablv 
amoottst the horrors of the Iocm we are in. This la 
the ^koe I meant you to peep into — the house oppo- 
site the gin-palace. It is not a pleasant house by any 
means; there is nothing inviting about its anpect; 
and you peroeive, on entering that the staircase xoms 
a commoii sewer for the £fferent sets of lodgers. 
Look into this room — large enough, certainly, but 
low, ill-ventilsAied, desolate, and miserable b^ond 
description. Four familiefl in this one room — ^thirty 
human beings swelterix^ here together. You hear 
the inoeasant dick of the needle, varied by an occa- 
sional oou^ and a dull moaning cry from some one 
stretched on the floor ; you sicken in the foul air of 
the place. Some of these creatures have clothes, some 
rags; some have had food to-day, some have not; 
bat they are all hungry. 

Look at them — ^f^ their arms, and wonder. Are 
they flesh and blood, or old bones covered with a 
dry, unhealthy skin ? 

'O Lord,' cries out one of these girls, 'he says 
people won't sive the prioe ! He lets them have 'em 
bargains, and ne must lower my pay. Lower it ! ' 

(9i, think what a girlhood this is ! 

-^y* you may weU gasp at the pestiferous atmo- 
sphere ; but ilunk what it is to hve in it, to slave in it^ 
to huncer, and stitch, and die in it ! 

Min^ I am not saying that all tiiis is your faulty 
my lady, or even that it is remediable, but I do say 
that every time you squabble and chaffer for bargains* 
you lay a finger heavily cm the weight, which is great 
enough already for the backs that bear it; and I 
think if you — ^representing that one half of the world 
which is at its ease and hixurious, whose great com- 
plaint is that it has nothing to do — could know 
now the other hidf lives, you would find the excite- 
ment of bargain-hunting dearly purchased by its 
possible results. 

^ To leave the sentimental — though. Heaven help 
them, it ia no sentiment to the sufferers — ^hcre is 
another species of the same tribe, a lady rather lower 
in the social scale than you, madam, of the uncount- 
able flounces. You may recognise her by the way in 
which she looks in at the shop- windows ; she exammes 
the tickets inquisitively ; she is always on the qui vive 
for an opportunitv. ff it strikes her that something 
is cheap, she will buy it, even if it is perfectiy useless 
to her. ' Such a bargain I Couldn't let that slip, you 
know.' So she wastes a lot of money by way of being 
economical. 

She i» not aristocratic in her tastes, nor particular 
about the style or locality of the shops she goes to ; 
she will even snap greedily at a window aU 'vdiite- 
washed, and with a huge 'selling off' daubed on it; 
and she is in the constant habit of bantering the 
shopkeepers, only it is done in a less polite and 
elegant manner than yours, my lady. 

'Of course we must bargain,' you say. 'Other 
people do it, and we must.' 

l5ear ladies, if that is to be a rule, you may as well 
get intexicateid. Other people do it. 

But besides the evil consequence of hurried and 
ill-paid work-peo^, do you believe in bargains ? 

1 don't a bit. There are exceptions, of course ; but 
in a general way you will be better treated, and quite 
as eoonomicaUy, if you are satisfied to pay a fair price 
for your articles, and get them because they are 
neoessary, not because they are bargains. 

I have no intention oi advocating cheating and 
trickeiy, but I confess that when i see casually a 
littie fluttering exhibition of drapery, and hear a 
' Qot it so cheap,' and then a whisper ; knowing what 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



31 



the wbkper u, I woiidevoQtfy— I oaa't hdp id^—^at 
the barrain, whatever it is, may tim out like aiy 
* gkMsy, lughly poliahed, genuine best nlk hat' 

I , -* - 

A NIGHT IN THE WOOD& 

Thb events whidi fiorm the subject of the following 
sketch oocnired during a sojoun of three months 
with a surveying-party in one of the wildest districts 
of Canada. We were occupied in tracing the course 
of a hitdierto unexplored nver, which unfolded to us 
a succession of scenic effectSy such as would havei 
delighted an artist and poet, and which they only 
coukl descnbe. 

It would be diflficutt to convey to the reader who 
has not bivouacked out in the woods, the luxury cf 
those evenings around the camp-fire. 

After a deal of story-telling, we aH turned in for , 
the nifl^t — ^that is, we rolled ourselves in our blankets, 
and f d asleep with our feet towards the fire. 

The stories told upon the evening I have in mv 
mind, had all been about wolves, some o£ which 
rapacious creatures were said to be then in our nei^- 
bourhood. Owins, perhaps, to my imagpnahion havmg 
been excited by these tales, I had a temble ni^^itmare. 
I dreamed that wdhres were pursuinx^ me ; I knew they 
weve gaining on me : I could hear their howls crowing 
more and more distinct. There is a point of agony 
at which all dreams must have an end — I awdce 
with a terrible start, and found mysdf bathed in 
a cold sweat, and a prey to a sense of terror for 
which I could not account. Instead of the cheerful 
blase which I had seen ere I fell asleep, all was 
now cold and dark. The fire had sunk to a heap 
of red embers. I could not distingnish one of wj 
sleeping oompanicms. Good Heavens ! can I be still 
slumbering? There, a^aln, is the long low wailing howl 
which I heard so distmctly in my dream. 

I ait up erect, and list^ What is that sound ? a 
rustling among the brushwood — some of the party 
stizring ? Na All are silent as the grave. I am the 
only one awake in the camp. Once again i Surely I 
am mistaken. I thought the fire was nearer to me, 
just in front; and so it is. What, tiien, can be those 
two glimmering li^ts a few yaids off? Now they 
are moving 1 I awake the nearest sleeper — an 
American named Silas Wood. The man starts to his 
feet, rubs his eyes. * What is it ?' * Look there, Silas.' 
He looks, and as quick as lightning, seizes a burning 
fagot, and hurls it witii all his force and an uneninff 
aim. The gU^Jtming lights dlEoppear'with aiusUe m. 
the brushwood — a warp short bark close at hand, and 
then in a minute or two, the long low wail in the 
distance is heard. 

Silas then stirred and raked the burning embers, 
and throwing on an immense heap of drv brush, in a 
second the &yptian darkness is dispellea by a bright 
flamte which leaps up six feet into the air, and brings 
the sleeping figures and the nearest trees into full relief. 

* Silas, mat does it all mean ? ' I asked. 

' It means, squire,' replied the American, speaking 
with his usual deliberate drawl — * vwlves ! ' 

' Wolves ! ' I re-echoed. * Then these two gleaming 
h'ghts that I took for glowworms, were ' 

*A wolfs eyes, sc^uire; and I ^css his friends 
wam't fur oS, awaitm' kinder anxious to hear tell 
of their scout. Haik! if the darned things ain't a 
groanin' and lamentia' «over their disappintment, as 
sure as my name 's Silas Wood.' 

Once more the l(nig low howl, inexpressibly sad 
and fearful, was heara at a greater distance. Now 
that I knew what it impUed, it made the blood curdle 
in my veins. 

' I shall never forget a wolfs howl,' I exclaimed ; 
' I heard that accursed sound in my dream as plainly 
as I hear it now. But are we not in danger ? and I 
began mechanicaDy to pile up more wood on the 
biasing fire. 



* No fears now, squire^' replied the Yankee oqdUv ; 
* the cowardly critters daran t come anigh a fire like 
that. Besides, I reckon the feller I scared so with 
that 'ere burning chip, has told *em it 's no go by this 
time. They're as cunning as humaaE^ is them 
critten. Ay, be off, and a good riddanoe to ye^ ye 
howling varmints ! ' he added, as the low waU was 
once more heard dying away in tiie distance. 

Notwithstanding the assurance that the wolves 
were retreating, I took great pleasure in seeing the 
fire blazing up brightly, for I knew that in that 
consisted our protec^OD. * I suppose we have had a 
narrow escape-?' I said to my cooqxuiien, who, beeddea 
myself, was the only one a^^e in the camp. 

* I reckon I 've seen a narrower, then,' replied 
he. * Why that 'ere skulkin' scout daran't nave 
^ve warning to the rest of the' pack as long as a 
single red ember remained. The critters is dreedful 
afeared of fire.' 

* Well,' I rejoined, ' I am not at all sony I awoke 
when I did. But as we're the only two awake, sup- 
pose you tell me this narrow escape you allude to— 
that is, if you don't feel sleepy.' 

' Me, s<|uire? I ain't sleepy, not a mossel. I couldn't 
sleep a wmk, if I tried. I feel too kinder happy like 
to have cotched that dmoied aiealdn' scout sich a 
lick ; ' and the Yankee laughed, quite tickled at the 
recollection. ' I guess he had it rifiht sUck atween 
the eyes. I knowed he felt it by the hark he gave. 
Well, squire, it '11 give me considerable sati^Eaction to 
narrate to you my adveofcure with the tamal critters. 
I guess, squire, it be a matter of ten year agone that 
Deacon Nathan had a raisin' away down to Stoc^viUa^ 
in Varmount, where I was rearei' 

'What is a raising?' I asked. 

'Well, I guess it's a buiMin' bee,' rejoined the 
Yankee. 

'And, pray, what is a building bee?' I inquired, 
' for I am as wise as I was before.' 

' You see, squire, when you wants to get anything 
done up rmht away in a hurry all to oncet like^ 
whether it^ flax-beatin', or apple-parin', or com- 
husldn', and the neighbours all round come and help 
work, that 's a bee ; and a buildin' bee, or a raisin', is 
when they want to sottip the frame of a house or a barn.' 

' Oh, that 's a buildii^; bee : now I understand.' 

'Well, I guesB it w&re pretty big bam that 
Deacon Nathan was agoin' to raise, and so we had a 
considerable sight of boys, and a regular spree ; and 
when it came to draw towards night, the deacon he 
says to me : " Silas," says he, "I don't kinder feel 
easy leavin' this here bam unmotectod during the 
dark watches of the night. The heart of man is 
desperately wicked, and. there's some loafers in the 
village, and there's no end to boards and shingles 
lying about ; and so, Silas, what '11 you take to iSx>p 
here aU night?" 

" Deacon," says I, " what Tl you give ?" 

'Well, you see the deacon was everlastin' dose 
where money was concerned; so he puts on a long 
face, and screwed his lips together, and he says very 
slow : " Would a dollar, Sihe, be about " 

" Deacon," says I, " hain't worth my while to stop 
for that; but i you like to make it four, I don% 
mind if I do." 

" Silas Wood," says the deacon, " ain't you unreason- 
able ? How can I rob my family to that extent ? " 

' You see the deacon was a remarkable pious man, 
and whenever he sold the men sperrits, or shoes, or 
flannel, or other notions out of nis store, for about 
three times their vally, and stopped it out of their 
wages, he always talked about his duty to his familv. 
W^ we chafrered and chaffered for a considerable 
spell, and at last we concluded to strike a bargain for 
two dollars and a pint of rum. The boys was a 
pretty well a'mcst cfsared out, when Dave Shunyser 
comes to me and says : " Silas," says he, " be it true 
you 're agoin' to stop here aU night ?" 



32 



CHAMBERS*8 JOURNAL. 



" I reckon I ain't agoin' to do nothin' else," I says. 

" Take a fool's advice," says Dave, ** and do nothin' 
of the sort." 

"What for?" says I. 

" 'Cause," savs he, " there 's several refused ; and the 
deacon knowea you to be a kinder desperate chap, or 
he wouldn't have axed you." 

"Why, nmn alive," says I, "whar's the danger to 
come from ?" 

" Why," says Dave, " ain't you aheerd there 's been 
wolves seen in the neighbourhood? Didn't the 
deacon tell you as how he lost two sheep only the 
night afore last ? You darsn't make a fire, cause of 
the shavings ; and the bam ain't boarded up." 

" Dave," says I, " don't you think to pull the wool 
over my eyes that fashun, and then have it to say 
you circumvented Silas Wood. I reckon I can read 
you as easy as a book. You'd like to am them two 
dollars yourself. Well, now, I'll tell you what I'll 
do with you. Two 's company : if you like to stop with 
me, and help me to drink the deacon's rum, you 're 
welcome ; and I don't care if I share the brass into 
the bargain." 

* Says Dave : " I wouldn't stop a night in this here 
bam as it is, not for a five hundred dollar bilL 
Remember, Silas, I've warned you as a friend;" 
and away he went. 

* Well, squire, I wan't goin' to let Dave scare me, 
'cause I knowed he was sweet on a gal called Kini 
Parkins, that I were keepin' company with, and 
woidd have been considerable rejoiced to have it to 
tell how I had funked ; and as I hadn't heerd tell of 
no wolves in them j)arts, I jest thought he said that 
by way of banter. 

* Well, I made myself comfortable in the bam. It 
was all boarded up on three sides, and partly on the 
fourth ; only there was a gap left for the door, big 
enough to let in a wa^on-load of hay. It wasn't 
cold, oein' a fine night m the Indian simmier. So I 
kept a stroUin' njt and down, takin' a look out now 
and agin, to see if there was anybody lurkiu' about 
with an eye to the boards and the shingles, but there 
wam't a soul stirrin' but myself. Every now and 
agin, I'd mix myself a little grog, till the rum was 
aU gone, and then I began to feel most everlastin' 
sleepy; so I thought I'd jest lie down awhile on a 
big pile of shavings there was in one comer of the 
bam. Well, squire, I dropped oflf, as you may sup- 




huntin' about, jest like a dog, snifiin' here and there, 
till at last he came to the pile of shavings where I was. 
*Well, squire, I can't call to mind how I woke 
exactly, but the fust thing I remember I was sittin' 
right up on the pile of shavings, tryin' to make out 
as well as I could in the dark if there was anything 
in the bam or not It was about a minute before 1 
could see clearly ; but at last I heard a slight rustle, 
and thought I saw somethin' move. Thinks I, that's 
Dave Shunyser, or some of the boys, come back to 
frighten me. They shan't have it to crow over me. 
So I sings out : " Is that you, Dave ?" There was no 
answer, but I heard a rustlin' and a patter jest like 
a dog's paws, and I could ,8ee the critter, whatever 
it was, crawlin' towards the gap in the boards. Then 
it stopped, and kinder turned its head, and I cotched 
sight of two twinklin' lights, and, thinks I, it's a stray 
dog ; when the critter give a spring out of the bam, 
and sot up a howl. Squire, I shouldn't have ben 
scared with one wolf, &«/ that howl was answered from 
the xooodsy maybe a quarter of a mile off, b}/ another, 
which I knowea could only have come from a padc of 
not less than fifty hungry devils. Well, squire, I was 
awfid scared, and that 's a fact ; but I guess if I 'd 
a lost my presence of mind, it would ha* been all 
up with me in about five minutes. I knowed I 
hadn't a moment to lose, 'cause I heerd the howl 



comin' nearer and nearer ; and the yelp yelp of the 
sentinel-wolf outside calling them to their prey ! My 
first idea was to set fire to the shavings. I out witn 
my flint and steel ; but the spunk wouldn't light, and 
not one of the shavings would cotch. The howla 
kept comin' nigher and nigher. Then I begui to 
think I was gone. Th^re was an axe in the bam, 
but what could I do agin fifty wolves ? and in the 
dark, where they couldn't see my eyes to daunt them. 

* I clenched it, however, and aetermined to sell my 
life dearly, when all to oncet, jest when I'd given up 
all hope, I feel something touch agin my head — it 
was a rope as had ben made fast to one of the 
rafters. I guess, squire, if that 'ere rope had ben a 
foot shorter, I 'd not a ben here now tellm' this story ! 
The way I went up that rope, hand over hand, was a 
caution. And I 'd barely swung -myself on to the 
rafter, and begun lashin' myself to the beam with 
the rope, when — squire, it makes my blood run cold 
only to tell of it — the bam was alive with wolves, 
yelpin', leapin', and fallin' over each other. I could 
hear them roufcin' among the shavings; and in a 
minute they had all spread over the bam-fioor. Then 
they began to nuzzle in the earth and scratch up the 
mould with their paws. 

* At last one of em scented me, and told the others 
with a yelp. Then of all the yells I over heard ! 
— squire, I most swooned away ; and if I hadn't 
lashed myself to the rafter, I 'd ha' fell right down 
among 'em. Oh, such a yell I never heerd afore, and 
hope 1 'U never hear agin ! Though I knowed they 
couldn't get at me, it was dreedful to be there alone 
in the dead of the night, with a pack of hungry 
wolves lickin' their slaverin' jaws, and thirstin' for 
my blood. They ran round and roimd the bam, and 
leaped on to each other's backs, and sprang in to the air ; 
but it was no use ; and at last I began to get kinder 
easy, and I looked down on the nowlin' varmints, 
and bantered them. Squire, you 'd ha' thought they 
understood a feller. Every time I hoUered and shook 
my fist at them, they yell^ aud jumped, louder than 
ever. For all this, I wam't sorry wnen it begun to 
grow a little lighter ; and about an hoiur before dawn 
they begin to see it was no use ; so they give me one 
long, loud farewell howl afore they went. But, squire, 
the most cur'ous part of tlie story has got to come. 
Some time afore they went, it had grow^ so light, I 
could see 'em quite plain ; and an ugly set of deinls 
they was, and no mistake. Well, I noticed one wolf 
separate himself from the pack, and trying to slink 
away. He had his tail at ween his legs, lest like a 
dog when he's beaten, and had a cowed look, as if 
he were ashamed and afeared like. All at oncet, he 
made a spring out of the bam, but the rest of the 
pack was after him like light nin'. 

* Squire,' concluded the Yankee, laying his hand 
impressively on my sleeve, *you may b^eve it or 
not, jest as you please ; but beyond some hide and 
bones, they didn't leave a piece of that 'ere wolf as 
big as my hand. He was the scout as give the signal 
to the others, and they devoured him out of himger 
and revenge, 'cause they couldn't get me ! ' 



INSCRIPTION FOR A SPRING. 

Whoe'er thou art that stay'st to quaff 

The streams that here from caverns dim 
Arise to fill thy cup, and laugh 

In sparkling l>eads about the brim, 
In all thy thoughts and wordn as pure 

As these sweet waters marnt thou be. 
To all thy friends as firm and sure, 

As prompt in all thy charity. 



G. 



Printed and Published by W. k R. Chambers, 47 Pater- 
noster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh. 
Also sold by William Robertson, 23 Upper Sackville 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 



Scitntt anb ^rts. 



CONDUCTED BT WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 368. 



SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1861. 



Price l^^d. 



BROKEN ON THE WHEEL. 

The grim old wheel of torture nms no longer ; that 
ill-omened engine is out of gear now and for ever ; 
and the crowding spectators gaze no more with pitiless, 
curious eyes, as the huge wheel turns, and the iron 
crow-bars rise and fall, smashing bone and flesh, and 
muscle and sinew, and aU of humanity that cruelty 
had power oyer, into a mass of crimson pulp. Heaven 
be praised, that gory blot is wiped away from the 
codes of civilised Etirope, for good and all ! Even the 
crowned tormentor who last wore the sullied diadem 
of Naples, seems to have left the wheel out of his 
frightful list of secret barbarities. In Britain, the 
roue, that ugly invention of the middle ages, so fertile 
in new punishments, never seems to have disgraced 
the soil ; but there are old folks still amongst us who 
were living when the hideous instrument was last 
used in Paris, and who were verging on middle age 
before Germany gave up the grisly plaything. Once, 
it was a panacea for the cure of aU audacious crime. 
Murder, sacrilege, highway robbety, espial of state 
secrets, the theft of a few pennyworths of the property 
of mother-church — these, and many another o£fence, 
black, or white, or party-coloured, according to the 
mood of the judges, brought the wheel into action. 
It did not alwa3rs spare men of high birth, allied to 
sovereign families, as witness the Coimt de Horn. 
Wisdom and talent, and great services could not 
avert it, as in the case of Perez, prime-minister of 
Spain. It was not prone to spare youth, or innocence, 
or untaught ignorance that was below the instinct 
brutes possea& And it was a joyous holiday for the 
demoralised people, when Monsieur of Paris, or Mon- 
fiieur of Ratiabon, or Monsieur of Cologne or Madrid, 
had arranged the scaffold of dull red planks, and 
bound the victim, neck and heels, to the fell engine, 
and stood by in his scarlet cap ^nd serge dress, crow- 
bar in hand, and his muscular arms bared, ready to 
strike the first crushing stroke, as the heavy wheel 
ran round. 

All that is over now. Crime is lessened; the 
ghastly scarecrows, the dreadful sights of suffering, 
by which our ancestors tried to tame the stubborn 
nature of mankind, are given up as worse than 
useless ; and Society is none the less secure because 
the hearts of judge and jailer, and honest folks, 
and offenders, too, maybe, are softer than they were 
in the dark days that are gone. Why, then, have 
I resuscitated that dead and buried Palladium of 
ante-revolutionary Europe ? Why dragged that ugly 
phantom out of the darkness of oblivion? It is 
because certain potentates, whose dominions lie in 
the £air and frequented Bhineland, adhere to ancient 



practice, and have revived the old institution, the 
old wheel, in a new form, and one more adapted to 
the refined age we live in. It is true tht^ the 
multitudes who gather to witness the executions are 
not brutalised or shocked by horrid sx)ectacles, by 
fearful sights and lacerations, by groans and dying 
agonies. No; the tyrants are wiser; their hecatombs 
of captives are crowned with flowers, seated at gay 
banquets, and immolated to soft music. 

The victims, too, are not the grossly ignorant, the 
starving, the wretch nursed in vicious ways, and who 
never learned to look on Law except as a scourge pre- 
pared for him, and a trap to catch him; they are self- 
sentenced, self-selected ; they come smiling to where 
Juggernaut sits leering in his flower-adorned car, and 
throw themselves imder the gigantic gUt wheels, from 
which all previous stains have been carefully removed 
by the officiating Brahmins. Cranch ! go their silly 
bones, and the car rolls on, and the priests whisk 
away the betraying spots ^Hth their cambric 
kerchiefs, and apply a layer of fresh gold-leaf, and 
Juggernaut still leers with the old wooden smile, and 
see! how the victims troop merrily to the sacrifice. 
These Rhineland princes that I speak of, these 
revivers of the wheel in a new and improved form, 
warranted to break hearts, bruise spirits, and utterly 
destroy prospects, character, and fair fame, without 
damage to externals or violation of the proprieties of 
life, are just as cruel as their predecessors the French 
provincial parliaments, the judges of Pans, Hamburg, 
Geneva, the grafs and bishops of Westphalia. Nay, 
they are more cruel, for what the old society of 
Europe inflicted out of rank cowardice, out of bull- 
headed blundering, out of that want of sympathy 
that makes children torture an insect or maltreat an 
animal, these modem rulers perpetrate for profit's 
sake. It is all done for so much per cent. — a very 
handsome percentage, I grant ! One of these poten- 
tates is called Prince Benazet, and he reigns over the 
beautiful vale of Baden-Baden; another, still more 
renowned, is Prince Blanc, Lord of Homburg on the 
Mounts, and to ftit wheel resort more culprits than 
to any other. There are minor wheels at Ems, at 
Kissingen, at Wiesbaden, at Spa, and elsewhere. At 
Aix-les-Bains in Savoy, at Aix-la-Chapelle in Prussia, 
at Lucca, and at Paris, similar princes, now dethroned, 
held a lucrative, if ignoble sway. Lastly, the pettiest 
of all petty sovereigns, he of Monaco, has consented 
to share the rocky garden he caUs his dominions, 
down by the violet Mediterranean, with a princeling 
of the same description. But the genuine successors 
of the old robbers of the Rhine are their Highnesses 
Benazet and Blanc, knights of the Order of the 
Fleece, and commanders of the fraternity of Mammon. 



u 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



These magnates, ruthless rulers both, and equally 
renowned for breaking men, body and soul, ^n their 
wheels of torture, are yet rivals of each other. If 
one of them accomplices some ghastly execution, 
the other will strive to ecliiwc it. These two run a 
race of mischief over a course paved with gold and 
strewed with the bones of victims. 

Prince Benazet has the fairest domains ; his sceptre 
extends over the sweetest valley that Rhineland 
boasts, for Baden is ihe Paradise of Germany, and 
the capital of this modem despot is pitched in the 
midst of an amphitheatre of encircling hills, clothed 
from base to simmut with rustling oaks, black pines, 
ereen birches, and great ehns and sycamores, whose 
boughs murmur afar off in simmier with a pleasant 
rippling sound, as of running water. Heavy and rich 
woodlands lie below, almost cumbering the vale with 
the teeming abundance of gnarled stems and massive 
foliage ; the stream that wanders past, tinkling over 
the pebbly bed, is spanned by pretty bridges, urged 
over pret^ cascades, trained to wander through still 
prettier gardens, treasured up and made the most 
of, for purposes of pure ornament. No sordid useful- 
ness, no politico-economic drudgery, is demanded of 
that stream that flows from Lichtenthal to Baden and 
the Oos. The gentle slave has no mills to turn, no 
toil to undertake, and needs but to serpentine grace- 
fully among deep woods, and blooming flowers, and 
white paths made for the tread of laughing children 
and fair women, and to bear milk-white swans upon 
its limpid surface. It is a show-stream. The forest 
is a show-forest. The mountains, even, have been 
pressed into service, and are show-mountains. There 
IS something theatrical in their sharp volcanic cones, 
and bold peaks, and exuberantly timbered sides. 
Then see ! how tastefully the hill-tops are crowned, 
here by a temple of ApoUo, there by a gray Gothic 
SchlosSf an old, old wreck of the feudal times, when 
castles were, and clubs were not The emerald 
meadows, so bestarred with the silver and gold of 
daisies and butter-cups, are show-meadows — ^^the 
browsing kine are the handsomest of their sort; 
the rustic villages have quite a stage- effect in their 
wondrous trimness of porch, and gable, and garden ; 
their matrons and white-bearded patriarchs seem 
furnished from the property-room; tneir maidens to 
be stage RoMires in impossible bodices and tight 
shoes; and their pet goats to be the highly trained 
pupils of some Howes and Gushing. The same 
remark applies to the roads and paths laid out 
through the umbrageous forests, shaded from the sun 
by the interlacing boughs. They are too smooth, and 
broad, and white, too carefully shaded and screened, 
for common use ; every pebble seems selected, the sand 
smooth enough for the feet of Amphitrite, the trees 
thinned away judiciously at intervals to give a frame- 
work to some point of view; here a Swiss cottage, 
there a rural shrine of the Madonna, before which, 
when the Angelus or Vesper sounds, peasants clad 
in operatic attire kneel and pray, with bowed heads 
and shaded eyes. The little town itself might almost 
be the product of a stage-carpenter's industry, with 
its pavilions, more or less sumptuous, where strangers 
are lodged; its gay booths, rather stalls than shops, 
elitterin^ with trmkets, gaudy wares, and general 
finery; its fountains and groves; its gardens and 
tinselly palaces, where the marble and stone look 
like cunning imitations in paint and canvas; nay, 
the hoary C{»tle on the hill tnat rises above the roofs, 
looks beautifully unreal — a clever exemplification of 
Mr Brush's talent for scene-painting. 

But this toy-town is filled, for some three months 
of summer, with real Ixmd-Jide men and women from 
the great flesh-and-blood world, the working, full- 
sized, downright world, that hes beyond the fairy 
realms of this Prince Benazet, where everjrthing 
leems to be for ornament, and industry has no place. 



And here we are at Benazet's palace — a long low 
building, of little architectural beauty, and we feel a 
little disappointed at first. Benazet has not shewn as 
much gorgeous taste in his dwelling as some of his 
brother-prmcelings. Blanc, who rmes at Hombui^ 
on the Mounts, has built him a palatial residence, 
splendid to look upon, quite a Golden House of Nero 
in its way ; and has forced the rugged hill it stands 
on to bloom into acres upon acres of parterre, and 
terraced shrubbery, and velvet lawn. The potentate 
who governs Wi^baden, turn and turn about with 
His Transparency of Nassau, has a sumptuous abode 
also, with gardens worthy a king's dwelling-placei 
and a pretty lake which stretches past the palace, 
with its snowy swans, and fat golden carp, ever on 
the watch for eleemosynary biscuit, and colonnades 
beneath whose majestic shadow the jewellers and 
dealers in gimcracks exhibit their temptations, and 
wonderful beds of many-coloured flowers, from, amid 
which, out of masses of blossoms, and green moss, and 
rock- work, and marble statuary, spout fantastic foun- 
tains, that fling their liberal spray over moss and 
marble, and shine like liquid rainbows in the wester- 
ing sun. Yet Prince Benazet of Baden has a pretty 
puace too, and fair gardens, and the forest sets off 
the one and the other by the dark green of its massy 
framework. Then, too, what chagrining avenues of 
perfumed lime-trees stretch in front of the prince^ 
residence ; and under these trees saunter, or lounge, or 
stand, great crowds of the gayest, and the richest, and 
the idlest, and most noble, as well as of the worst, and 
wickedest, most desperate and ;ieedy, of the dwellexB 
in European cities. There they are, peer and prince, 
and adventurer, and high-bom dame, and actriess of 
the Variit^Sf and warrior, and chevalier cTindustrie, all 
gathered by the same mighty magnet, all candidates 
n)r a place at the Baden torture-wheeL A superb 
band is playing the sweetest music of Italy with all 
the correctness of taste and tune that Germany can 
boast. No niggard is Benazet to his motley guests. 
He culls talent far and near, he spares no cost to 
make up his admirable orchestra, and his victims are 
at anyrate soothed by the mc^t dulcet strains of 
Mendelssohn and Rossini. One day, the Austrian 
military band from the fort of Rastadt supplies the 
Uberal modicum of harmony; the next, the ears of 
the company are tickled by the musicians of tbs 
Guards from Oarlsruhe ; and then comes the turn ol 
the prince's own band, veterans of the orchestra 
combined with panting, wild-eyed, long-haired young 
enthusiasts, who blow their very hearts and socus 
through the resounding brass. Certainly, if Benazet, 
like the giant Blunderbore, grinds tne bones of 
Englishmen, and others, to make his bread, his bone- 
miU grinds to very soft, sweet, spirit-stirring music ! 
We may cast a lingerixig glance, if we {dease, at the 
broad promenade, dazzling white, and heavily shaded 
by the linden, where the gallant company sweep up 
and down, displaying their bravery, like a peacock 
its plumaged train. There is much there worthy 
of note, certainly ; for are not the lions of Psans 
there, with lackered boots and cambric shirts, and 
a general gloss and sparkle about them that makes 
the despair of Young Germany yonder, with his 
yellow beard, and flowing locks, and dreamy blue 
eyes, and absurdly puckered coat ? And are not the 
lionnea of Paris tnere as well — those astonishing 
ladies who can smoke cigars, ride or drive hi^- 
mettled horses, talk slang, and write novels too, as 
well as any given Frenchman ; and yet who are able 
to dress with a richness of good taste, innate in them, 
which rivals the Russian archduchess 3ronder, and 
puts all those New York belles to their mettle? 
There arc, too, not a few high-born English, calm and 
disdainful of the foreigner, as usual ; and nobles from 
Spain and Vienna, who in their hearts consider the 
above-mentioned English as mushrooms, and the 
French as insolent upstarts, and the Russians as 



r 



CHAMBBRS'S JOURXAL. 



35 



wMhtd TMrtara, and the Yaakeet as pecrax rouges, and 
no rank or oonditiom as gennine exo^ their own. 

Let xm enter the pauice. From ifea oool marbled 
hall, we can enter many apartments. Here is the 
little ballroom, called the Ballroom of Flowers, from 
its brightly painted roof; here the grand ballroom, 
looking shadowy and vast in the dim hght, now the 
shatters are closed. Here is the reMaurant, inferior 
to that which Prince Blanc provides at Homboi^, but 
not despicable. In this room, as you see, at £df-a- 
dozen wlee, are chess-playeis bnsy with their ivorv 
warriora. lliey are always to be fomid in sncn 
palaces ; theirs is a cheap diversion, but it engrosses 
their thopghts imtil they forget where they are play- 
ing. It is cnrions to see them, absorbed, thon^tfnl, 
over their combinations and mimic warfare, uncon- 
scions of the real huily-barly, the real battle-royal, in 
the gamblinfi-rooms so near them. Prince Benasset 
encoaraces them — ^theae harmless chess-pla^rers, these 
philoso^ers who ponder, like Archimedes, m the roar 
of sack and sieee. He gives them tables, ivory-men, 
wax-lights. They act as an involuntary advertise- 
ment, and inspire a sort of confidence. True, they 
bring no grist to the mill, but there is a respectabilily 
in their very calmness. 

Now we approach the Chamber of Horrors — not 
waxen, Baker-Street horrors — ^but flesh-and-blood 
horrors ; now we go where real hearts throb, genuine 
nerves quiver, bosoms ossify, honour turns to shame, 
and hope to deqMdr — ^the torture-chamber. Do you 
hear no groans ? no sounds of wailing and pain ? Ah ! , 
that is because fashion forbids complaint. The 
sufferers wince inwardty, but are cool and smiling as 
Tndians at the stake. We enter. A fine room — large, 
lofty, decorated, full of well-dressed folks. That is 
the dread instrument there, in the middle, affixed to 
the long table covered with green doth. There is the 
wheel of torture, spinning, almost noiseless, on its 
delicate pivot, omshing its prey daintily. We push 
on till we get a place among the bystanders who 
surround the dread mstrument, and behold the execu- 
tioners and the culprits, seated in double row. 

In another room, Pimce Benazet is wrindiug the 
heart-drops of another set of captives, by a difrcrent 
punishment, called rouge et notr, artfully inflicted by 
pieces ol painted pasteboard. But this is a graver 
g^uno, slow, deocHXKiB, and without the excitingvariety 
of the roulette wheel we have come to see. behold ! 
the green board is parcelled out into nimibered 
squares, and has compartments decorated with a 
lozenge of black, and a lozenge of red, and others 
inscrioed with j^t letters, *odd' and 'even,' *high' 
and * low,' and so on. In the middle is the wheel, of 
polished rose-wood, with its eight-and-thirty numbered 
niches, black or red, and the gallery where the ivory 
baU runs round, while the wheel spins below, till at 
last, snap! down goes the ball, and settles in a niche, 
and decides the question of gain or loss for that turn. 
Then the executionerB, culed politely Croupiers, 
■tretdi out their adroit wooden rakes, claw up the 
baak^ winnings, toes over, piece by piece, the coin 
due to those who have been successful ; and with a 
daxterouB hand the operator sets the ball flying one 
way, the wheel twirling the other, and the game goes 
on. There is little speech. The executioners, always, 
dingy dttk-horowed men, in black, like ravens, sitting 
two and two on either side the wheel, with gold, silver, 
notes, and rakes, in a heap before them, have a for- 
mnla that they croak out in their monotonous voices : 
'Faitea votre jeu, Messieurs!' The ball twirls, the 
wheel wgasmn Gold, and silver, and notes are sown all 
over the board by the ea^er hands of those who hope 
for a j^recious harvest. The bsdl totters in its gallery. 
* Nothing more I ' cries the croupier, breathless. Down 
comes 'Se bidL 'Red wins, colour loees, even, and 
hig^ 90,' croaks the bird of ill omen. Claw, claw go 
the xttksa, tweenng up all lost stakes. Pat, pat goes 
the moaey tossed to the winnen. 



Then on goes the game, like the scythe of Time 
itself. There are players of all degrees — men of hi^ 
rank, branded rogues, mercfaaiits and bankers whose 
very word is worth much gold ; knaves who, if th^ 
lose the coup, must rob or starve ; virtuous British 
matrons; titled dames from Paris, St Petersburg, 
Madrid; actreeses, whose salaries had need to be 
handsome, considering the costliness of their lace and 
jewels ; gallant soldiers, whose breasts are galaxies of 
decoration, and sham ditto still more gorgeous ; self- 
dubbed counts, mock marchionesses, reu and ficti- 
tious nobihty, wealth, beauty, virtue, aU equal for 
the moment There are plenty of stalwart young 
Britons, with the neatest hair and whiskers, the best 
fitting garments, and the most t^f^yW-ng watch-chains 
of any there. Clean of person and Imen, honest of 
mien, manly of make, they are quite refreshing oases 
in the midst of yonder mob of greasy Poles, dusk 
Spaniards, and flashily attired Jews, who arc dbowing 
them. 

At the end of the table sits a jovial portly gentle- 
man, with a flowing auburn beard and a konine 
face, who plays high, and whom the croupiers treat 
with marked respect— His Royal Highness the Prince 
of Ischia, a Neapolitan Bourbon. His Royal Highness 
is as well known as most scions of kingly houses, and 
has been out at elbows these many years. London, 
Paris, and the gambling-houses of each especially, 
know him well. He lives on such part of ms 
confiscated patrimony as his royal brother allows 
him (or did allow him) when in good-humour; he 
spends half his time and most of his coin at such 
palaces as Benazet's; he lives royally, and is sold 
up about twice a year; and I dare wager there is 
a bailiff or two among the liveried vcUetcaUe, who 
will wait on His Royal Highness at dinner this day. 
Yet he is popular, and none the less because he 
incurred disgrace at home for marrying an English 
lady — ^Miss Hecuba Brown — the Princess of Ischia, 
for whom His Royal Highness went to the trouble of 
compiling and publishing a family-tree, tracing the 
Browns m)m Leo the Isaurian, Julian the Apostate, 
Charles the Fat of France, and other dignitaries. 
Next to the prince are an old Englishwoman and her 
young daughter, just eighteen. The mother is a 
character ; she has a passion for play, and a small 
income ; throughout the season, you see her, in the 
same chair, for ten hours a day, I believe, her patient 
offspring beside her, playing with siujgle florins, value 
two shBlings. She plays a peculiar game. Her 
raptures are purchased cheaply. Prudent and slow, 
she is too tough a customer for the dread wheel. She 
loses a little on Monday, wins a Httle on Tuesday. I 
have heard her say, that at the end of the season she 
is but a pound or two the richer or poorer. So she 
goes through the mill, and comes out whole, and the 
wonder is where her pleasure resides ; but she is lame 
and corpulent, and likes play better than books. As 
for the daughter, she merite pity, as she site idle, with 
a blank, pale, stupid face, waiting tiU her mother has 
finished. Next to this pair sit three men of the true 
gambling type, Greeks, Russians, Spaniards, it matters 
not whidL Each has his card and pin, to note the 
runs of luck ; each has his heaps of gold, his piles of 
silver, his book of bank-paper, and his infallible 
system of winning. These systems are called, techni- 
oally. Martingales. They are based on calculations, 
sometimes very simple, sometimes awfully abetrose. 
Every true gambler makes his own, but uiey are to 
be bought, ready printed, at the libraries. They all 
end in ruin and beggary — mathematics and practice 
unite to prove that — ^but it is amazing witn what 
faith each player hugs hie martingale to his heart, and 
witlf what scorn he sneers at the dupes around, who 
fancy they, too, have the grand secret— they, the 
idiots ! Ihese martingales lutve one eopomon feature 
—doubling when you £se, and then again, and so on. 

It is in this way that Princes Benazet and Blano 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



suck the marrow o£ their victiins. They chuckle 
over those [lUny apells to bind Fortune. It ia out of 
znartiiigiiieK, iufaJliliTe m&rtiD^alefl, that the ahare- 
holders o£ the bank draw their 400 per cent. I once 
saw ■ young Cantab lose L,200 in Hve minutes by 
doubling. ID the vain hope <>F getting back a, lost five- 
franc jiiece. The lowea begin U> grow like the nails ta 
the horse's shoes, in the Eastern tale ; and the wheel 
makes from 90 t« 120 turns per hour, cruahiag, 
grinding body nnd bones. I remember well, at 
Spa, a French prefect came to try his might agunst 
the wheel. He brought a confederate, ^so a well- 
stocked purse and a system. He won, day after day ; 
he broke the banlc, as the phrase goes, more than 
once. His luck seemed wondrous, or hia Bystem 
sound, for thousands after thousands of golden coini 
flocked into his pockets. I asked the prince wht 
presided over the torture at Spa, whether he felt fear- 
ful of ultimate defeat. The old white- whiskered rogue 
smiled like an ogre. ' It will all come back.' he said. 
So it did, with interest. ThoPactoluBebbedBufast.tbnt 
the prefect hod to sell carriage and horses to pay hU 
inn bill, and sneaked back to his prefectOTc, a ^om 
sheep that came to fleece. So it is with almost all men. 
Of courae, a few win. not decoys, but real punters. 
Prince Napoleon, for inatauca, Mr Baring at Paris, Ijord 
Hertford, rich men, always, who can outbid the bank. 
The strangest thing la, thnt when a croupier has save ' 
a little money, he often gets a holiday, goes off 1 
another play-table, and loses every sixpence : and yi 
if any men should know the worst of play, it must 1 
these, the eiecutionera, who ply the greedy rake all 
day. See, while we talked, three infallibfe syi 
have broken down, three bubbles have burst Those 
smooth-looking, bard-eyed men, have hardly a eoii 
left. They vacate their chsiis ; others eagerly taki 
them. Yet yon hear no croans, no gnashing of teeth ; 
you see no glaring eyeballs, none of the signs of 
despair novelists love to tlescnbe, are here in the Hall 
of Itoin. If a beggared gambler were to lament, 
and curse, and stamp, as they du in three-volume 
romances, those numerous footmen in blue and c 
■on would hustle him oat in a moment. Fair and 
smootlily, is the rule. I recollect when a man shot 
himself at Wieabadcn, so cloae to the table that his 
blood and brains were apattered over board, and 

Etnyers, and over the scuursed gold that had lured 
ini. Ahl how quickly was the bleeding witness 
huddled away, the dark pool of gore wiped from the 
floor, the clujn pushed back, the play resumed I 
' Faites votre jeu, Measieura I' croaked tile croupier, 
ero the body was well across the threshold. I could 
tell many a tale of those who have laid down life 
where they had lost means, and fame, and honour. 
But there is a grim sameneas in the incidents. They 
shock few, except the English. The French can jest 
on them. One tale is worth a record. A Paris 
banker had sent bis only son on n tour ; the young 
man loat nil he had at Bailen, and waa in debt besides. 
The prodieial wrote a full confession, promised to be 
steady in future, asked for meana to leave the place. 
The father, merely to frighten him, sent a harsh 
refusal, writing by the same post ia a Baden hanker 
to pav hia son's debts, supply him with funds, and 
send bim on to Paris. But when the correspondent 
called at the hotel, it was joat sixty minutes too late : 
the poor foolish bd had cut his throat on hotu- s^. 
Let the wheel spin '. The music is giving an expiring 
flourish, and the promenadcrs aro gomg home t^ 
dinner. At night, there -mil be a grand ball. The 
great saloons blaze with light, tiie waxed floor, 
slijipery aa glass, tempts the dancers ; and jewela ond 
lacea, and silks, feathers, gay dresses, no lock of 
beauty, and rank, and wit, and mirth, and music, are 
there. There, too, are the white-coated Austrions 
from Rastadt, the best of waltzera, scanning the foir- 
liaired daughters of Albion, oa they select partners for 
tile dance just beginning. It is the high noon of 



play, too, and people of all degrees, 
creeds, ore gathered round the wheel, and round the 
rouge-et-noir table& Floods of wealth run here uul 
there, but the tide sets steadily for the coffers Ot the 
bank. The bank's victories are many. Yonder yooog 
Guardsman has lost a thousand Napoleons. Oooat 
Seckendorf twice as many, Airs Higgs of " ' 
buiy has been mulcted of 8s. 4d. in English ci 
and the last-named player seems to fe^ her li 
most bitterly. But why chronicle all the miahaps of 
yonder gay crowd, of fashion and psuudo-faahion, 
folly and craft combined ^ The scene looks 
enough, in the heyday of the season, -with i 
enjoymenta, new pleaaurea, revels for evety day. 
But think it over in the late autumn, when tit 
crowd has flitted away, and the trees are bare, and 
the flowers withered, and the palace silent and dad; 
and the cold wind drives along the dead brawa 
leaves, blighted like the hopes that were bndun OD 
Prince Benazet's tortore-wheeL 



AN ARCTIC WINTER TWO HUNDEED 
YEAliS AGO. 



One of the must marvellous of all chapters in tbg 
history of maritime discovery, is that search for tbs 
NortU-west Passage which lias been underbikai bj 
numbers of intrepid navigators, generatioa after 
generation, from the reign of Elisabeth to that of 
Victoria. We have a number of quaint narratives 
of early arctic voyages, but the most remarkahle, 
spirited, and generally intereatiDg, is the one which 
mbutely yet graphically describes the daring roy^e 
performed in a little vessel of seventy tons, hj 
Ca)itain Thomas James, in the years 1631, 163S. 
It ia line reading o' winter oighto, when the nor1& 
wind howls, and the deep sea roars, and the chimney 
rooks and rumbles ; when tho Rre sparkles bti^t, 
and the kettJe hisses cheerily on the bob^ aad Oa 
cat purs dreamily by the fresh-swept hearth I One's 
own sense of security and comfort then gives a apecUt 
zest, perhaps, to tho curious and es:citing details d 
the dangers and suficriags of othels. 

' The Worshipful Company of Merchant Adven- 
turers of tho City of Bristol ' being desirous of solving 
the problem of a uorth-weat passage into the South 
Sea, especially because they understood that Charlea L 
had ' an earnest deeire to be certiHed whether there 
were any passage or not,' undertook the expeditioD 
in question. They 'did fit and set forth a choice, 
well- conditioned, strong ship, called the Henrietta 
liana, of the burden of seveuty tons, victualled for 
eighteen months,' and Captain Thomas James was 
appointed commander. The choice both of ship aad 
capt^ proved a good one, so far as the prodigious 
strength of the former, and the maiitiine skill, per- 
severance, and undaunted courage and endurance of 
the latter were eooeemed. We incidentally learn 
that Captain Jamea had previously been in the arctic 
regions, and, as we shall find at the conclusion of hia 
narrative, his heart was thoroughly in tho euterjsise, 
'~i aid in the auccesa of which he brought practical 
[perience and all the knowledge of tiie localitia 
which he had gathered by painstaking research for 
years. We shall not offer any opinion concerning fail 
judgment in prosecuting the search in tho direction 
did, aa hia own narrative amply shews that he wu 
lorly wrong ; but we must bear in mind how compa- 
jvely limited aud imperfect geographical knowled^ 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



37 



was in his time, and that only actual experience 
could set him right. In other respects — that is, as 
regards indomitable pluck and patient endurance — he 
has never been excelled by any succeeding explorer; 
and when we reflect how inadequately — according to 
our modem notion»-he was supplied with the means 
of wintering, and how he ana his handful of men 
returned home in their battered bark, we rise from a 
perusal of his Toyaee with profound respect and 

There are some shrewd remarks in the old mariner's 
introductory passages. He says he was always of 
opinion — and the experience of our own times proves 
he was right — ^that the voyage he proposed could be 
best effectied by a single ship, and that of small size. 
He resolved to take only twenty-two hands, all told 
— ^nineteen being 'choice able men, two younkers,' 
and himsell ae would not have any married men. 
Another fact bears witness to his judgment. * I was,' 
he observes, ' sought to by divers that had formerly 
been in places ot the chiefest conmiands in this 
action [that is, in arctic explorations], and others 
also that had used the northern icy seas ; but I utterly 
refused them all, and would by no means have any 
with me that had been in the uke voyage or adven- 
tures ' — his object, doubtless, being to avoid the evils 
of a divided command or authority on board. 

On the 2d of May 1631, Capt^ James embarked, 
accompanied by the * merchants adventurers,' who 
had fitted out the ship, and by the Rev. Mr Palmer, 
who preached an appropriate sermon to the crew. 
These visitors having taken their leave, the vessel 
sailed next day on her lone and daring voyage, and 
on the 4th of June made we coast of Greenland, in 
very thick foul weather. By the IQth, they were 
abreast of Gape Desolation, ana the compass had then 
16 degrees of westerly variation. The ice was as high 
as the maintopmast-head, and * the weather was for 
the most part a stinking fog, and the sea very black.' 
A week subsequently, ike K>g was ' of such a piercing 
nature, that it spoiled all our compasses, and made 
them so heavy that they would not traverse.' They 
drifted and struggled luong for some time, and were 
nearly driven ashore more than once, and it ' snowed 
hard all day and nieht, and blew a storm at west, 
which drove in all uie ice out of the sea upon us.' 
On the 21st, great floes of ice forced the vessel on a 
rock, and notwithstanding the utmost efibrts of the 
crew, she heeled over tiU they could not stand on 
deck, so ' we all went to prayers upon a piece of ice, 
beseeching God to be merciful unto us.' Every 
instant they expected she would capsize, but the 
water unexpectedly flowed, and she righted, ' where- 
upon we all on our knees praised God for his mercy.' 
Kb sooner was one danger overcome than another 
presented itself in the shape of accumulated masses 
of ice, through which they broke their way by the 
22d. * This oay,' says the gallant and pious narrator, 

* I went ashore, and set up a great beacon with stones 
upon the highest part of the island, and putting a 
cross upon it, named it the Harbour of God's Provi- 
dence.' The next day he found where the * savages,' 
as he caUs the Esquimaux, had encamped, who 
had 'made hearths, and left some firebrands about 
them, with some heads and bones of foxes, and some 
whale-bones.* From this time to 29th July, they 
experienced much the same fortune, battling almost 
daily with the ice, and already perceiving that it 
would not be possible to prosecute their mtended 
discovery that year. As early as 6th July they were 

* put on half allowance of bread on flesh-days. The 
latter part of the month, the fog was again so thick 
that they could not sec a pistol-shot ahead. On the 
29th they were once more so imbedded in packs of 
ice, that although it blew a veiy hard gale, the vessel 
moved * no more than if she had been m a dry dock.' 
The ice was all flat, and Captaui James said he 
measured some pieces 1000 paces across. The entry 



in the worthy captain's journal that day is naive and 
significant. ' This was the first day our men began 
to murmur, thinking it impossible to get either for- 
wards or backwards. I comforted and encouraged 
them the best I could ; and to put away these cogita- 
tions, we drank a health to his majesty on the ice, 
not one man in the ship, and she still under all sails. 
I must ingenuously confess that their murmuring 
was not without cause. And doubting that we should 
be frozen up in the sea, I ordered fire to be made but 
once a day, the better to prolong our fuel whatsoever 
should happen.' The foggy weather lasted till the 
11th of August,* when they saw open water to the 
north-west. 

On the 12th, they were in latitude 58'' 46', and the 
next day, they struck on some rocks, a fresh gale 
blowing ; but some heavy seas fairly lifted the vessel 
over; and although she had thrice struck very heavily, 
she made no water. Thereupon they anchored, ami 
sent out their boat to reconnoitre, and find a better 
anchorage among the rocks and beaches. Sailing 
onward, or, in modem seamen's parlance, 'feeling 
their way,' on the 20th they saw a very low flat lan<C 
which the captain named The New Principality of 
South Wales, ' and,' says he, ' drank a healtn in the 
best liquor we had to Prince Charles, whom God 
preserve.* In the evening, they anchored in a short 
chopping sea, which caused the ship to labour exceed- 
ingly, so that at times her forecastle was buried. The 
first real calamity of the voyage now occurred, which 
the captain thus graphically relates : 

' At nine at nignt, it was very dark, and blew hard. 
We perceived by the lead that the ship did drive, 
wherefore bringing the cable to capstan to heave in 
our cable — for we thought we had lost our anchor — 
the anchor hitched again, and upon the chopping of 
the sea, threw the men &om the capstan. A small 
rope in the dark had gotten foul about the cable, and 
about the master's leg too, but with help of God 
he cleared himself, though not without sore bruising. 
The two mates were hviTt, one in the head, the other 
in the arm. One of our lustiest men had such a blow 
on the breast with a [capstan] bar, that he lay 
sprawling for life ; another had his head betwixt the 
cable, and hardly escaped ; the rest were flung, and 
sore bruised. But our gunner, an honest, duigent 
man, had his leg caught between the cable and 
capstan, which wrung off his foot, and tore all the 
flesh from his leg, crushed the bone to pieces, and 
sorely bruised his whole body — in which nuserable 
condition he remained crying, till we had recovered 
our memories and strengths to clear him. Whilst we 
were putting him and the rest down to the chirurgeon, 
the ship drove into shoal water, which put us all in 
fear ; but it pleased God the anchor held again, and 
we rode it out all night. By midnight, the chirurgeon 
had taken off the gunner's leg at the gartering-place, 
and dressed the others that were hurt and bruised, 
after which we comforted ectch other as well as we coukU 

August * ended with snow and hail, and the 
weather as cold as at anytime I have felt in England* 
Onwards worked the stout-hearted mariners, sorely 
baffled by terrible winds and raging seas, whicn 
made clear breaches over the labourmg bark, and 
wetted the bread in the store-room. No one * slept a 
wink in thirty hours,' and the boatswain was very 
sick, and fainted two or three times, so that they 
'verily thought he woidd presently have died.' On 
11th September, the sick men were put ashore on an 
island to search for sorrel-grass, or any other herb ; 
but in the evening, ' they returned comfortless.' The 
next day, the vessel struck on a rock 'out of mere care- 
lessness' of the watch on deck, who did not keep a 
proper look-out nor heave the lead, and who might have 
seen ihe land 'if they had not been blinded with self- 
conceit, and been enviously opjwsite in opinions.' To 
get the craft off, they furled sails, and laid out an 
anchor to heave her astern, passing the cable through 



38 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



the stem cabin on to the capstan. To lighten the 
yessel, the captain caused all the water-casKs in the 
hold to be staved, and the water pumped overboard, 
* and,' says the poor captain, ' I did intend to do the 
like witli our beer.' Ine coals were all thrown over- 
board, and the cables coiled in the long-boat, the ship 
beating so fearfully all the time that some of the 
sheathmff floated past. On heaving at the C2^)6tan, 
the anchor broke, and another was carried out. 
Thinking the vessel had got her * deatii's- wound,' 
they put arms and provisions in the boat, to be pre- 
pared for the expects emergency. For five hours, 
the vessel beat heavily, and at hust got off in a very 
leaky state. Being among rocks and shoals, a course 
was shaped northward, and Captain James now 
resolved to pass through the straits into Hudson's 
Bay, *and see,' said he, * if I could discover a way 
into the rivers of Canada, and if I failed of that, then 
to winter on the mainland.' On the 14th, they lost 
their shallop, or long-boat, and had only one poor 
boat left, in a shattered condition. For days, it 
snowed and blew heavily, and on the 19th, they 
anchored under lee of an island, which the^y named 
the Earl of Bristol's Island. By this time, it was so 
cold that the rigging was frozen every ni^t, and the 
snow half a foot thick on deck in a monung. On the 
21st, they stood to the southward, and coasted along 
till 2d October, when they anchored near an island 
which they named the Earl of Banb;^ Island, situ- 
ated at ihe southern extremity of Hudson's Bay. 
They found that people had been on the island, and 
that it was well wooded. On the 6th, they moored 
the vessel nearer the shore, and prepared to winter. 
The real interest of the narration may be said to 
commence here. Our adventurers had not pitched on 
a place to winter one day too soon. 

'The 7th, it snowed all day, and blew a storm 
withal; it froze so, that all the oows of the ship, with 
the beak-head, were all ice, and the cable was as big 
as a man's middle. The bows of the boat were frozen 
half a foot thick, so that we were fain to hew and 
beat it off. The sun shining very clear, we tore the 
topsails out of the tops, which were hard frozen in 
them, and let them hang a sunning all day, in a very 
lump, the sun not having power to thaw them. 
Seeing now the winter to come so extremely upon us, 
and fearing that we should not be able to go to and 
a^ain with the boat, we rowed ashore with much 
difficulty, and filled the boat with wood, and sent the 
carpenter and others to cut wood, we having but little 
aboard. It was miserably cold already aboard the 
ship, everything freezing in the hold and by the fire- 
side ; and since we could now no longer make use of 
our sails, we began to fear that here we must stay 
and winter. . . -. . The sick men desired that some 
little house or hovel might be built ashore, whereby 
tiiey might be sheltere(^ and recover their healths. 
I took the carpenter and another, and choosing out a 
place, they went immediately to work. In the mean- 
time, I with some others wandered up and down in 
the wood to see if we could discover any signs of 
savages, so that we might the better provide for our 
safeties against them : we found no appearance that 
there were any on this island or near it. The snow 
by this time was half-leg high, and stalking through 
it, we returned comfortJess to our companions, who 
had wrought hard upon our house. .... Tlie 12th, 
we took our mainsail from the yard, and carried it 
ashore to cover our house, having first thawed it by a 
great fire. By night they had covered it, and had 
almost hedged it about, and the six builders desired 
to lie in it that night, which I granted, having first 
furnished them witn muskets and other arms, and 
charging them to keep a good wateh all night They 
had also two greyhounds, which I had brought from 
England, to kill us some deer if we should see any.' 

Three days later, a small deer was captured, and 
others were seen, and this encouraged another party 



to hunt for came on the 17th ; but one of tlie number, 
the gunners mate, crossed some weak ioe, 'which 
ffave way, and he disappeared for ever. Tius &8t 
total acodent was gloomily felt by his Burviving 
shipmates. The greater part of this month the 
wind blew hard, and snow f eU with little ceBaation. 
Captain James, on the 1st of November, had a 
reckoning with his steward about the provisioiia, for 
they had now been out six months — one-third of the 
period for which they were victualled. They sent 
some beer ashore to the house, where it froze, and 
had to be thawed in a kettle. Near the house, they 
sunk & well, and got veiy good water, 'flattezing 
themselves that it tasted uke milk.' By the middle 
of the month, they were obliged to keep up a great 
fire night and day, smd it snowed and froze exces- 
sively. The slup became so incrusted with ioe as to 
resemble a small Ix^ and the captain spent loo^ 
ni^te aboard, pondering and tormenting hrmaelf with 
thmking how the vessel could be saved. We now 
find a sad and striking entry. * The 19th, onr gannflr, 
who, as you may rem^nber, had his leg cut on, grew 
veiy weak, desiring thai for the little time he had to 
live, he might drink sack aUogetker, which I ordered he 
should do» The 22d, in the morning, he died; an 
honest and a strong-hearted man. He had a dose- 
boarded cabin in the ^unrooin, and as many clothes 
on him as was convement, with a pan of ooaLs con- 
tinually in his cabin; notwithstanding thia, his 
plaster would freeze at his wound, and his bottle ol 
sack at his head. We put him in the sea at a good 
distance from the ship.' A second man gone for ever 
from the little crew ! One score is now the limit of 
their muster when all hands are called. Need have 
they of their stout hearts and iron frames !, 

Large sheets of ice now drifted around the ship^ 
and she was in great danger of being swept from her 
anchorage, which made the captain resolve the next 
day to ground the vessel in shoal water; bat this 
proved a difficult task, on account of vast sheete ol 
fresh ice driving against the bows, and dragsiiig the 
anchors. They had to set their sails, anoDreak a 
way through the ice to near the shore. 'Here,' 
remarks Captain James, ' Sir Hugh Willoughby came 
into my mind, who without doubt was driven out of 
his harbour in this manner, and starved at sea ; but 
God was more merciful to us.' When the vessel 
grounded at last, she rolled and beat so that they 
expected her to go to pieces. The next morning 
finding her aground, they consulted together, aiS 
resolved to land their provisions, and then heave ht^ 
the vessel in deeper w^er, and sink her for the winter. 
Immediate preparations were made, and on the 29th, 
they sank uie Henrietta Maria — a tedious task, for 
her sides were so fuU of nails, owing, we suppose, to 
the quantity of sheathing, that it was difficult to 
bore or cut holes. In setuing down, she beat ofiT her 
rudder, and the crew were obliged to sink the greater 
part of their bedding and clothes, and even tae sur- 
geon's chest. When they landed from the boat, they 
were * so frozen all over, faces, hair, and apparel, that 
we could not know each other by our habi& or voices.* 
This affair of sinking the vessel seems at first ai^t a 
suicidal act, but admits of easy explanation. &ey 
had reason to fear that the violent storms which pre- 
vailed woiUd dash the bark to pieces before she 
became frozen immovably, and tnat even in the 
latter case, she would sidOfer much more from the 
weather than if she were below the surface. Never- 
theless, much contrariety of opinion existed among the 
crew on the subject, the carpenter expressing his 
belief that the vessel would never be seaworthy again ; 
others, that the ice would rend her to pieces as she 
lay; and a third set of croakers intimated their 
conviction, that they never could get her off again, even 
if the ice spared her. Captain James cheered and 
encouraged them by many arguments, reminding them 
that if their worst forehodmgs were realised, thqr 



^ 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



39 



might build a pinnace from the wreck laij^ enough 
to sail homewstrd in ; and to inspirit that miportant 
personage the carpenter, promised him a present gift 
of plate to the valoe of L.10 sterling, and if they 
eventually went home in a pinnace, L.50 farther 
lewiurd, besides the pinnace itsdf . 

The bark appears to have been sunk on a sand-bed, 
BO shallow that the high-water barely reached the 
upper-deck, and aU han£ set to work to recover from 
her their clothes and provisions at low-water. The 
early days of December were chiefly spent in this 
wn^ce, L men sufferiog extremely 6om the ice and 
snow, and from having to wade ashore t^hrough the 
half-frozen water, as &ey could not force the laden 
boat nearer than an arrow's shot of the beach. ' As 
they waded through,' dolefully observes Captain 
James, 'they seemed like waUdng pieces of ice, 
most lamentable to behold.' By t£e 4th, the boat 
could no longer be worked from the ship to the shore, 
8o was secured alongside the former. On the 5th and 
6th, the poor fellows converted their 'store-shirts' 
into bags, and filled them with ' loose bread,' which 
they carried on their backs over the ice. * We also 
^gg^ our clothes and new sails with handspikes of 
iron out of the ice, and carrying them ashore, dried 
them by a great fire.' By the 19th, the cold had 
increased to such a degree uiat they could dig nothing 
more out of the hold, and had to leave all their beer, 
and five barrels of beef and pork, and other things, 
which were firmly frozen in the vessel — all the water 
in her hold being now converted into ice. On the 
23d, they tried to get the boat ashore by sliding her 
over oars, but such a fog came on that they had to 
desist, and got back to their house miserably frozen. 
We will here give a striking extract : 

' The cold had raised blisters upon some as big as 
walnuts : our well was now frozen, so that dig 'as 
deep as we could, we can come by no water. Melted 
snow-water is unwholesome, either to drink or to 
dress our victuals ; it made us so short-breathed, that 
we were scarce able to speak. All our sack, vinegar, 
oil, and everything else that was liquid, was now 
frozen hard as a piece of wood, and we must cut it 
with a hatchet. Our house was all frozen on the 
inside, and it froze hard within a yard of the fireside. 
When I landed first upon this ishmd, I found a spring 
nnder a hill's side, and caused some trees to be cut 
for marks to know the place again : it was about 
three-quarters of a mile irom our house, and I sent 
three of our men, who had formerly been with me, 
who, wading through the snow, at last found the 
place, and shovelling away the snow, made way to the 
very head of it. They found it spring very strongly, 
and brought me a can of it, for which I was very 
joyfuL ^uiis spring continued all the year, and did 
not freeze so much, but that we could break the ice 
and come to it.' 

They laid in a good stock of wood, and settled 
their mode of life, and kept Christmas Day holy, and 
solemnised it in as jojrful a manner as they could ; 
' so likewise,' adds uie narrator, ' did we St John's 
Day, upon which we named the wood we wintered 
in, Winter'a Forest^ in memory of that honourable 
knight. Sir John Winter.' The site they had selected 
for this house was the most sheltered spot they could 
find in the vicinity of the ship, an arrow's flignt from 
the beach, amid a thick clump of trees. They would 
have had an imderground haoitation, for the sake of 
warmth, but water sprang up when they dug to a 
moderate depth. The foundation was a fine white 
tand. Here is a description of the house^ which, like 
Several other passages m the narrative, may almost be 
imagined to have suggested to Dofoe certain x)ortions 
of his immortal Bobinson Crusoe: 'The house was 
about twenty feet square, as much as our main-course 
would well cover. First we drove strong stakes into 
the earth, which we wattled with boughs as thick as 
might be, beating them down very <Joee. This, our 



first work, was six feet [high] on both sides, but at 
the ends almost up to the very top [of the roof], where 
we left two holes tor the light to come in, and let out 
the smoke. At both ends we stuck up three rows of 
thick bush- trees, as close las possibly might be. Then 
at a distance from the house we cut down trees, pro- 
portioning them into lengths of six feet, with which 
we made a pile on both sides six feet thick, and as 
many high. We left a little low door to creep into, 
and a portal before it, made with piles of wood, that 
the wind might not blow into it. We then &^iened 
a rough- tree over all, upon which we laid our rafters, 
and our main-course over them, reaching down to the 
finx}und on either side, and so much for the outside. 
On the inside, we fastened our bonnet-sails round 
about ; then we drove in stakes, and made bedstead 
frames, which bedsteads were double, one under 
another, the lowermost being a foot from the ground. 
These we first filled with boughs, then laid on soma 
spare sails, and then our bedding and clothes. Wo 
made a hearth or causeway in the middle of the 
house, laying some boards round about it to stand 
upon, that tne cold damp should not strike up into 
us ; with our waste clothes we made us canopies and 
curtains. Our second house was not past twenty feet 
distant, and made much after the same manner, but 
less, and covered with our fore-coursa It had no 
piles on the south side, but instead of them we piled 
up all our chests on the inside, and, indeed, tbe reflex 
of the heat of the fire against them, did make it 
wanner than the mansion-house. In this house we 
dressed our victuals, and the inferior crew did refresh 
themselves all day in it. A third house, which was 
our store-house, we built twenty paces from this, for 
fear of firing. This house was only a rougb-tree 
fastened alof^ with rafters laid from it to the nound, 
and covered over with our new suit of sails. On the 
inside, we had laid small trees, and covered them over 
with boughs, whereon we laid our bread and fish, 
about two feet from the ground, the better to preserve 
tiiem. .... Long before Christmas, our mansion- 
house was covered with snow, almost to the very roo^ 
but our store-house all over, by reason we made no 
fire in it. We made paths of snow about the length 
of ten steps, and one of them was our best gallery 
for l^e sick men, and for my own ordinary walking.' 

During January 1632, they worked at the frame of 
their pinnace, and laid in a store of wood. By the 
commencement of that month, the sea was all firmly 
frozen over, and no open water in sight. We must 
pass over a long and curious dissertation which here 
occurs in the captain's journal, concerning hia opinions 
of the origin of the ice in vaist masses, only quoting 
his remark, that they ' fotmd it much colder to wade 
through the water in the beginning of June, when the 
sea was full of ice, than in December, when it [the ice] 
was increasing. Our well, also, which yielded water 
in December, had none in July.' In February, the 
ground was frozen ten feet in depth, and so extreme 
was the cold that many of the men complained, * some 
of sore mouths, all their teeth loose,' and divers othen 
serious* aibnents. Two-thirds of the crew were under 
the surgeon's hands, and yet they had to work daily 
to the utmost of their power, in getting wood and 
timber. Their feet were shoeless, for tiae fire had 
scorched their wet shoes so that they could not ^ 
them on, and their spare shoes were sunk in the ship. 
When they occasionally visited the latter, the cold 
would freeze their eyelashes together, so that they 
could not see ; and even in their house the clock and 
watch, although kept well wrapped up in clothes in a 
chest bv the fireside, * would not go.' Icicles hung 
inside the house ; hoar-frost covered the bed-clothee, 
even in the immediate vicinity of the fire. The suiv 
gcon's liquids were all frozen, as well as tbe small 
casks of vinegar, oil, and sack, kept in the hous& 
The cook's tubs, for steeping the salt-meat, stood 
within a yard of the fire, and in the course o£ m 



40 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



night-watch would freesze to the very bottom. The 
cook then steeped his meat in a braas kettle close to 
the fire, yet one side woold be warm, and the other 
aide frozen an inch thick. 



THE CALCUTTA ADJUTANT. 

A STRANGE interest, and very often considerable 
edification, resolts from a careful study of the habits 
and eccentricities of animals. 

The Adjutant, so generally associated with Calcutta, 
is one of the quaintest birds in its habits I have 
ever met with. I recollect having quite a strong desire 
to see this bird the first day I put my foot on Indian 
soil ; and in the evening, while crossing the Maidaun 
of Calcutta, towards the laree Bhurrumtollah Bazaar, 

my friend B , knowing (3 that desire, pointed out 

a row of these remarkable creatures to me. There 
they stood, like birds hewn out of stone — silent, fixed, 
and motionless. Nothing remains a novelty long. I 
have seen the Pyramids, and don't care to see tnem 
again ; I have seen Mount Sinai, and notwithstand- 
ing its venerable associations, I would scarce leave 
my cabin to size upon it a second time. What are 
flying-fish? Did one not fly into my cabin one night, 
in the Red Sea, when we were sailing over Pharaoh's 
host, and did I not throw its corpse away when it 
died, sick and tired of flying-fish and the eternal 
talk about them on board ? Water-spouts, snakes, 
lava — what, short of a mermaid or luucom, would I 
care to see twice? Boots at the HoUy Tree Tnn ! 
teU me whither went the imicom which you know 
you saw at the fair? Novelty is the shortest-lived 
thing on earth. There are dozens of Pompeys' Pillars 
to be seen in the factory chimneys in a railway 
ride from Hamilton to Glasgow ; the Irish Sea is 
as green, and deep, and wet aa the beloved Mediter- 
ranean ; Gibraltar Rock reminded me of the Bass ; 
Portobello bears a strong resemblance to Melita, 
where St Paul was shipwrecked; and the ugly 
Sphinx would disappoint the poet who writes so 
reverently of its * calm eternal eyes ! * 

The reader must imagine a large square of ground 
— say a quarter of an acre — covered with one-storied 
builoings, and intersected geometrically by several 
narrow pathways, and he has the principal European 
bazaar in Calcutta before him. On the roofs of tnese 
stalls, in the ' rainy season ' of India, are generally 
from twenty-five to forty adjutants, who seem to 
regard that bazaar as freehold property, to be held 
by them for perpetuity. There are hundreds of other 
adjutants within a circle of two miles diameter ; but 
the arrangement appears to be, that Calcutta shall be 
parcelled out like the London postal districts, and a 
certain number of adjutants posted in each division, 
for, after careful observation, I have never detected 
an intruder. 

These birds vary in size — I fancy, merely on account 
of age, for all the old members seem to be precisely 
the same in length of body, wing, and limb. They 
stand about five feet or five-feet-six high, have a long 
straight broad bill, much depressed, the upper man- 
dibles flattened, and terminated by a very strong hook, 
the lower formed by two bony branches, which are 
flexible, and united at the tip ; from these branches 
is suspended a naked skin, in form of a pouch ; face 
and throat naked; nostrils basal, in the form of 
narrow longitudinal slits ; legs long and thin ; all 
the four toes connected by a web ; and wings of great 
dimensions. These wings, when closed, vary some- 
times in colour, and some are nearly black, others of 
quite a fashionable mauve colour, ninged by under- 
teathers of a much lighter hue. There is a look of 
frailness about their legs ; and the owners of them 
move about with such a slow, statelv, dimified gait, 
that they make one believe that their Knee-joints 
are no better than they ought to be. The flaccid 
membraaoua pouch or bag under their throat is very 



different to the one possessed by the speciea of 
pelican shewn in English zoological gardens. Tbis 
appendage of the adjutants has a very good model at 
home in those burnt-sienna coloured colossal sanBagai 
— if they are sausages — exposed in the cheesemongen^ 
windows. They are about eighteen inches long, and 
capable of great distension, as I can bring an illus- 
tration to prove. I was standiujg the other day xa 
a verandah, which flanked one side of an mrasuially 
extensive and picturesque garden, when I heard a mar- 
vellous declamation pour forth from the harsh throats 
of nearly two hundred crows. They were perched oq 
cornices, balustrades, copings, trees, in short, every- 
where. The subject of this mighty tumult was a raw- 
headed old adjutant, who, by causes and for reasons 
unknown to me, had provoked the indignatioii of 
his feathered neighbours. Leaving their perches, 
they descended upon him, until, as he who penned 
Hiawaiha describes it, Hhe air grew dark witlt 

Sinions.* The adjutant is in nowise organised for 
efence; he shuns man and beast (never jostling 
in the street-crowd, as insinuated in many comic 
engravings), and the impertinent crows had by iar 
the best of this recluse. They attacked him prin- 
cipally about the head, which has at all times a Dare 
and sore appearance. At last, driven to desperation, 
the adjutant, by a manoeuvre, possibly more by 
accident than good managem^t, succeeded in seizinff 
one of his bold foes with his large and powerful bilL 
The black victim fluttered and struggled strenuously 
for a minute or two, during which time its captor 
was engaged in making his nold of his enemy more 
complete. The hour of that bird's dissolution had 
arrived, and he was not to die as other crows have 
died from time immemorial ! There were two or three 
violent efforts made on the part of the adjutant, and 
in a moment more, the crow, body and lunb, claws, 
feathers, and bill, was in the sienna-toned pouch of 
the great avenger ! He who writes it saw it done. 

A friend of mine, whose cat had presented who- 
ever chose to have them with a family of five kittens, 
resorted to the customary mode of annihilation, and 
submitted them to a watery grave. At the end <^ 
this sad affair, the corpses were thrown upon a heap 
of offaL An adjutant descended, and with the gusto 
of Vitellius over a Brundusium or Lucrine oyster, 
d^osited the whole in his convenient receptacle. 

This respected scavenger-bird is often made sub- 
servient to that basest of alT uses — a practical 
joke. The editor of Major Anderson's Siege <^ 
LvcJbiow informed me, that he had repeatedly seen 
* griffs ' (raw cadets) fill an empty marrow-bone 
with gunpowder, then attach a slow fuse to it; 
and place it on the ground in sight of an adjutant. 
Quick would be the descent, and the disappearance 
of the fatal bone. Another moment, and as the 
bird flapped loudly through the air, came the catas- 
trophe — a loud report, a general explosion, and the 
mangled adjutant was a scavenger no more. There 
was another equivocal shape which the griff's drollery 
assumed. Two such bones, without the oeadly powder, 
would be attached to each other by means of a long 
rope, and two adjutants — each swallowing one bone — 
would often find an attachment formed between them 
hkcly to last through life. 

Yet harmless to an extreme are these strange 
eccentric birds, never-wearied scavengers in a city 
where disease is rife, and where he who dined wim 
us yesterday may never sit at another table again. 
Br^, potatoes, or other vegetables, afford no charm 
whatever; but after you mive cast away the most 
contemptible fragment 'of flesh, flv-eaten and heat- 
tainted, ten seconds do not elapse before an adjutant 
has disposed of it. Now ana then arises a faint 
struggle among them for the same morsel, but they 
are not obdurate ; their maxim is, * Each one for 
himself,* but also, * Live and let live.' 

So useful and necessary are these birds to Calcutta, 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



41 



that ft heavy penalty is levied upon any person who 
is the direct or indirect means of causing the death of 
one of them ; and I have found considerable difficulty 
in obtaining a deceased one for my small museum. 
Thejy' are pre-eminently the head of the *scaYen|B;er 
&mily,' wnich here mdudes vultures, and white- 
tippeted hawks, myriads of white-breasted crows, and 
troops of howling jackals — ^the last of which, how- 
ever, only make their appearance in the night-time. 
The adjutant's 'cry very much resembles water 
flowing from a narrow-necked bottle ; and it invari- 
ably utters it when about to swallow a piece of offaL 
When they fly, their immense wings naturally cause a 
loud rushing sound ; and I grieve to say that in these 
flights over your head, it too often happens that 
vermin of an exceedinslv repulsive genus drop upon 
you, for the adjutant, uke the vulture, has its body 
covered with such parasites. I have seen a crow 
dance slyly up to a 'viilture, and under tiie very nose 
of that august presence, peck at the tenants of his 
bosom. 

A remarkable instance of death, caused by an adju- 
tant, occmred at Berhampore a few years aga A 
youn£ officer was on paraae-ground, and when in the 
act 01 tummc a somewhat abrupt comer, an adjutant, 
flyings rapidfy with great impetus from an opposite 
direction, passed his nuge bill through the miiortu- 
nate officers head. With such means ol travelling, 
it is no wonder that in the hot season there ia scarcely 
one adjutant to be seen in Calcutta ; and when these 
birds return, they are sure heralds of the coming 
rains, the worst season in India. The scene (3 
their rustication is the remote and secluded swamps 
and marshes of the North-west Provinces, where, m 
the grassy nest amid the sedges, they first emerged 
from th^ shelL The eggs, generally two, are 
white, and of equal roundness at each end, and the 
mother has the power of lifting them in her bill, 
when alanned or intruded upon, and flying with them 
to another retreat ; occasionally, too, she hides them 
beneath the water. If, as is sometimes the case, she 
deposits her youn^ in a dry or desert region, she 
brings them water m her gular pouch, which contains 
about twenty pints of liquid. In the same degree as 
the crow is impertinent and presumptuous, so is the 
adjutant stolid and shy, seemmg to regard mankind 
as a mischievous invention. As he stands on one 
leg, his other foot resting on his knee, he reminds 
me of the stork in Raphaers cartoon, to which 
memorable bird Topham Beauclerc likened his hmky 
friend, Bennet Luigton. 

It was with the ancient people of India that 
metempsychosis, or transmigration of the soul, first 
gained credence ; and with this doctrine is connected 
the regard which the Indians have for animalfl. 

Abandoninff one's self to this belief for awhile, it 
is no difficiut task to euess who the 'Calcutta 
adjutant' really is. As I was being borne across 
the Maidaun to-day in a palanquin, I as distinctly 
met Aristotle advancing towards me — in the out- 
ward form of an adjutsmt— «s I have strength now 
to record the incident. He was in such a brown 
study, that my bearers nearly upset him in their rapid 
course. He was not standing still, but keeping up 
the old peripatetic system, and was evidently wrapt 
deep in his aosbrusest logic— whether applied to appe- 
tite or volition, I cannot telL He only honoured me 
with a slight look, not a furtive or cowardly glance — 
far from it — but as if he saw from my appearance 
that I iDOuld not help him in his difficulty. Had my 
head been covered, I might have uncovered it, in 
sudden respect and admiration for him. I r should 
like to have asked him how he got on under the 
metemp^chosis system; if he thought as highly of 
it practically as he did theoreticafiy ; or whether 
be had heard how the school he founded became 
so famous ; how Theophrastus had written some 
channing works on natural history; how the dogmatic 



tone and subtle distinctions of his own philosophy 
pleased more than Plato's doubts and aUegoncal 
language ; but there was present tiiat divinity about 
the bird which is said to hedge kings, and which 
completely sealed my lips. 

He walked away witn the most absorbing stateli- 
ness, his venerable head — scudding as he was under a 
bare poll — shining in the hot sun. I would have 

fiven a lac of rupees, if I had had it, to have known 
is thoughts; but as that was impossible, I merely 
murmur^ * Juldee jao ' (Go quickly) to my bearers, 
and consoled mjaeii with the unalterable conviction, 
that my exile to India had given me a distinction 
high above my fellows — that of meeting face to face, 
with time to notice him carefully, the immortal 
Aristotle. 

Returning by the same route two hours afterwards, 
and in good spirits at the thought of seeing the 
philosopher again, I naturally looked out for him 
with eagerness. To my disappointment, however, 
I espied nim on the uppermost oomice of one of the 
Chowringhee palaces, calmly occupied in taking a 
bird's-eye view of the world below. There arose a 
loud cry &om a fashionable residence in the vicinity, 
that a splendid stratum of offid had been discovered 
there in a heap of kitchen refuse, and the adjutant, 
master now over the tenant of his bosom, raised his 
wide-reaching wings, and flapped with noisy heaviness 
through the air, unidl he swooped upon the newly 
found repast, to secure his portion. 

SOLDIERS' WIVES. 

As public attention has of late years been drawn to 
the condition of soldiers, a few particulars respecting 
their families, and what is done for them by govern- 
ment, may not be uninteresting. 

First, then, no married man, unless in some special 
case, as that of an armourer, &&, is enlisted for the 
army ; but as many married men desire to enter the 
service, they frequently declare themselves single, 
are attested as such, in #hich cases their wives are 
shut out for periods of indefinite duration from the 
privileges accorded to those who are on the establish- 
ment of a regiment. Again, when a soldier wishes to 
marry, he should make application to his commanding 
officer for leave to do so ; in many cases, the officer, 
from considerations of the man's youth, inability to 
maintain a family, or from the number of soldiers' 
wives permitted to be on the strength of the corps 
being suready complete, declines to sanction the step ; 
but the authorities having no power to prevent a 
soldier's marriage, it often occurs that a man marries 
without permission, and his wife remains for many 
years unrecognised in the regiment as a married 
woman, and unless able to obtain employment, 
suflers great privations. 

For obvious reasons, a commanding officer is invested 
with the power of selecting soldiers* wives for the 
privilege of being placed on the strength of his corps 
when vacancies exist. 

The terms * on the strength,' or * on the establish- 
ment,' mean participation in the following benefits — 
namely, when at home, quarters in barracks with their 
husbands, or in lieu thereof, an allowance of 4d. a day 
for lodging ; carriaj^e free on the removal of the regi- 
ment from one station to another ; education for their 
children ; and partial employment in re^mental wash- 
ing. The proportion of women admitted to these 
privileges has lately been increased. In addition, a 
marriea man is sometimes permitted to be *out of 
mess' — that is, to receiving his pay without stoppa^ 
for ration, to supply himself with provision, or what is 
more usual and economical, to receive the ration for 
consumption with his family. 

The soldier and his wile participate, with other 
classes, in the social and economic advanta^ra of the 
times ; thus, the stoppage for a soldier's daily ration 



42 



CHAMBEES'S JOURNAL. 



formerly 6d., but since tha adoption of free-trade 
principleB, by which the cost of the ration to the public 
18 lessened, the stoppsffe has been reduced to 44d. 
Quarters for mamed s^diers have been j^vided at 
several of the principal military stations, m place of 
their families odng compelled to live in ordinary 
barrack-rooms. 

When a reeiment is sent abroad, not on active ser- 
vice, the families obtain passages ; quarters, or allow- 
ances for lodginff ; half -rations for each woman ; and 
quarter-ratiomi For each child. The proportion of 
soldiers' wives permitted to accompany troops to 
India, China, and Australia is 12 per cent, and to 
other stations abroad, abput 9 per cent, beine 6 per 
cent for the drummers and rank and file, with some 
advantages to the sergeants. But when, as in the 
case of the late Indiui Mutiny, troops embark for 
active service, and the famihes cannot be permitted to 
accompany them, allowances of 6d. a day have been 
granted to each woman, with 2d. a day for each child, 
until circumstances admitted of their being sent out ; 
and in consequence of the numerous reinforcements 
sent to India m 1857 and 1858, a great number of sol- 
diers' fiimilies who had been left behind, were paid 
such allowances. 

In 1859, the state of afiSairs in that country admit- 
ting di their being sent out, upwards of 2000 women 
ana neaxiy 3000 children were embarked in thirteen 
vessels, under arrangements made by the authorities 
at the Horse Guards and the Emigration Commis- 
sioners ; and in the last autumn, nearly 600 women 
and 700 children were forwardeid in tive ships to 
India. These families were brought from their homes 
to a port of embarkation — Plymouth, Southampton, 
Birkenhead, or Gravesend — by passage and railway 
warrants, documents issued by the quarteivmaster- 
general, which enabled them to travel at the pubhc 
expense ; and were placed in the emigrant d6p5ts at 
the three first-mentioned places, and in lodgings at 
Gravesend, on arrival, by staff-officers of pensioners, 
who also embarked every person after medical exami- 
nation, and xMud a sum of twenty shillings to each 
woman, with ten shillings ior each child, granted by 
the Indian government towards providing necessaries 
and outfit for the voyage. In addition to this, the 
Society for Improving the Condition of Soldiers' and 
Sailors' Wives Idndly placed a lan^e sum of money at 
the disposal of the military authorities, to provide 
clothing for the most destitute of the families. One 
woman, probably from fear and excitement, jumped 
overboard before the vessel left her moorings, but was 
immediately picked up; another was detected in 
selling her embarication-order to a woman who was 
not entitled to a passage, but who was to personate 
the other until arrival in India ; while, as an instance 
of the extreme destitution of some of these poor 
women when separated from their husbands, it may 
be mentioned that one of them arrived at Liverpool 
from Ireland for embarkation with no other article 
of clothing than a man's greatcoat, for a soldier can- 
not be compelled to allot any portion of his pay for 
the purpose of his wife's support 

It could hardly be expected that so large a number 
of persons would reach their destination without 
casualties. In some of the vessels, a great mortality 
occurred, principally among the children ; and one 
vessel (the Conway) was so shattered by ^cs as to 
compel its abandonment, the passengers, without any 
loss of life, but minus baggage, having been taken on 
by another vessel, and landed at Madeira, this for- 
tunate result being in a great measure due to the 
efforts of an officer. Quarter-master Neville, 70th 
Kegiment, and a few soldiers, each vessel having been 
furnished with a party of married soldiers — accom- 
panied by their families — to assist in preserving order 
cm the voyage. 

One of the women who were landed at Madeira, 
was recalled to England, by an official letter, as after 



her departure, information had been reoeived of her 
husband's death in India; and of those wbo axzxved 
in other ships at their destination, some fdmid that 
their husbands had proceeded with their ccMps to 
China ; a small portion of these last weare retaniad 
to England, others remained in India, awaitmg tiis' 
tennination of hostilities in China ; but in either cam^ 
the allowanoes were resumed. 

Such are some of the vidssitudes attending tiis 
families of an army whose duties call it to all qnarten 
of the globe. 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

CHAPTKS T. — A COOL XSCSPTIOX. 

It had lona been customary wiiii Mr Ingram Arbour, 
since his brother's death, to leave Golden Sqoan 
upon Friday afternoons for the cottage by the riveiv 
wnere he would remain till Monday morning, when 
the earliest train from the neighbouring town would 
convey him back refreshed to the haunts of conuneroe. 
On these occasions, his nephew, Adolphua, woidd 
accompany him, except when business of any preaomg 
nature detained him in the city ; and upon the Satar- 
day evening we have in our mind, these two gentle- 
men were sitting in the widow's drawing-room witiii 
the rest of the family circle, exclusive of Johnnie and 
Dick, who were at school Thirteen yean or so had 
passed over them since we first made their acquaint- 
ance, biinmng change to each, although in dmeient 
measure. The lines upon the merchant's brow wers 
now as numerous again, as th(mgh they were mled 
for double entry, and although his eyes lacked nothing 
yet of their stern determination, the * hateful crow*^ 
had set its footmarks round them. Mrs Benjamin 
Arbour had suffered a severer change than he. Time, 
which had spared to mark her still smooth brow, had 
frosted her brown hair, and driven the lifeblood ^m 
her cheeks, and weighed her eyelids down ; they 
seemed to droop as those of some traveller in the 
snow, to whom Death whispers, mocking the sweet 
tones of Sleep. Her gentle voice was weary; her 
smiles were rare and faint, and died away as swift 
as dip of oar from face of river. Except for the 
girl beside her, almost a woman now — ^Iden-haired, 
angel-featured Maggie — standing beside her mother's 
chair, and as thoughthat was not near enough, nor gave 
sufficient assurance of her protecting love, with one 
arm round her neck, and one lily hand clasped in ha» 
so tenderly — except for her little Maggie, the mother 
must have died. ' My sister-in-law,' Mr Ingram 
Arbour would sometimes remark to common friends, 
'is just like one of those creepers which require a 
stick to hold on to life by, and can't stand up of 
themselves.' To which Mrs Arbour might nave 
retorted — if the i)oor lady had had such a thing aa 
a retort left in her by this time, which was not the 
case — that her brother-in-Liw was one of those peculiar 
sticks which no creeper can ever be trained to ding to, 
although some few may submit to be bound to them 
by the Dass of self-interest. 

Adolphus, too, whose mouth had increased with 
his years till it almost sought for refuge in the 
sandy tracts of his whiskers, entertained but a poor 
opinion of his mother, and was continually woxuier- 
ing to himself from whom his own exceeding sagacity 
could have been inherite<l ; while Maria, who had 
taken tfie whole household management out ol 
the widow's hands, was for ever contrasting the 
improved state of domestic aff&irs with that of the 
ola regime under her predecessor. The relation 
of that person to herself could have been scarcely 
unknown to her, but so completely were her private 
feelings under control, and so paramount was her 
sense of truth and duty, that, hearing her inveigh 
against the extravagance, weakness, and even £e 
irreligion of a certain late head of a family, you would 







nerfer hsve gofiBoed that she was speakixiff ftU the 
time ef her own mother. She it wa» to wnom the 
disooyery wbs due that the maids were sLugmuds in 
winter, and who canaed her bedroom fire uToe lit by 
half -past six A.3L, in order that one of them, ai least, 
shoald not lie too long. YeUow-Bkinned Maria was 
ci a snaky temperament, and wanted a good deal of 
warming but sne was IxkelT to be oold enough — as 
I>r Nereraleep once observed of her, with no kss force 
than freedom — if her caloric depended upon her being 
taken to anybody's bosom. Indeed, how Adc^phns 
and she ever managed to keep up an allisjiflft, as they 
did (offensive in every sense), is a mat mystory, since 
there was scarce half a trowelfu of social cement 
of any sort between them. He oertaaily did not 
sympathise with her doabline the cnstomaxy length of 
the evening devotions, whi(£, in the exercise of her 
domestic sapremacy, she had seen it ri^t to do. That 
voong man always kndt down with his face well over 
the newspaper, while his sister, the priesteaB, delivered 
ber denunciatioDS as if she cDioyed them, and even 
rasped oat the benedictions thonselves as though 
they were steel-filings. Uncle Ingram's devotional 
attitade was the leaning back on his ann-chair as 
far as he could go, with his hands cAasped upon his 
lap, and his legs crossed one over the oilier; while, 
doubtless to conceal the force of his penitential 
emotions, his pocket-handkerchief was modestly cast 
over his head and fBce. 

Maggie and her mother knelt together with their 
heads over one cushion; and the two maids were 
stationed as far from the rest of the household as the 
Ibnite of the little drawing-room would permit, between 
the windows, and in a thorough draught. Neverthe- 
less, woe to Jane or Bachel if a cough from either 
of tiiem should interrupt their spiritual pastoress; 
while it would have been positively * as much as her 
place was worth,' had either of them Uown her 
nose. 

Imagine, therefore, the scene that ensued upon the 
evening of which we write, when, immediately upon 
the commencement of praye^^ the back-door bell was 
heard to tinkle with a sort of guilty indecision. Miss 
Maria read on as though there were nothing audible 
beyond the breathing of Uncle Ingram, whicb always 
began to be stertorous coinddently with the com- 
mencement of family deyotions ; but she had more 
than a smpician tnat it was the baker's youn^ 
man comix^ surreptitiously after Jane, and she took 
one eye off the sacred page, and set it to watch the 
behavioiir of that unfortunate domestic Again the 
bell sounded through the house — this time with a 
more decided intention of making itself heard, and 
Jane turned round imploringly to entreat perminicm 
to answer it, with a face like a tomato from confusion ; 
but upon meeting the sentinel eye with a decidedly 
forbidaing expression in it, returned, more like a Jeru- 
salem artichoke in hue, to her cane-bottomed chair. 
A third time the back-door beU sounded, and pulled 
upon this occasion by so impatient a hand, that you 
could hear the wire rattle, and the bell-metal beat 
against the skirting-board. 

* Wbj the devil don't somebody answer that bell ? ' 
broke forth Uncle Ingram, awakened by the tumult, 
and not being able to call to mind, upon the instant, 
the nature of the occupation in which he was sup- 
posed to have been engaged. Jane rushed out of the 
room at a permissive signal from Miss Maria, while 
the rest of the household awaited, in positions half 
expectant, half devout, whatever catastrophe chanced 
to be impending. They heard the lock turned, and 
the chain unfastened, and a *Lor' bless me ! ' from the 
absent cook ; then the door was banged to by another 
hand, a hasty step came along the passage, and there 
presented himself — Master Dick ! 

'Ton young scoundrel,' roared Uncle Ingram, 'what 
do you mean by breaking in here like a bursar at 
sncn a tune as this?' 



' He has run away from Mhool,' suggested Mr 
AdolphaB Arbour, msliciously. 

* We are at prayersy sir,' emphasised ICss Maria, 
loo^g like Torquemada in pettmoats. 

' What is the matter, love? ' cried Maggie tendedy, 
running up to the hag^ud-looking lad. 

'I am expelled, dear mother,' exclaimed he, in a 
miserable voice. ' I 've cut Bill Demmey's eye out 
with a snow-ball, thou^ I 'm sure I didn't mean itL 
They expelled me, and so I thou^t I'd c(mie away 
at once.' 

' You young ruffian! ' exclaimed Uncle Lupnom 

'Hell come to be hung!' observed XdolphMK 
reflectively. 

' And then the devil will get him,' added Maria, 
with the air of one who foresees the future without 
dissatisfaction. 

'Mother, won't you speak to me?' asked the 
wretched boy. ' I don't care for what the&e say; but 
do, pray, speak to me.' 

'You don't care for your eldest brother^ {hen?' 
demanded Maria, severely. 

'No; nor for you either,' responded Dick, bestow- 
ing one fiery ghmce upon his mteriocutor, and tlMH 
fixing, as b^re, his appealing eyes upon his mother 
only. 

'You don't care for your Uncle Ingram, thent' 
remarked the crafty Adolphua 

'Come to mamma,' interposed Maggie, judiciously; 
' I am sure she will never condemn you witiiout a 
hearing.' 

Mrs Arbour was sitting in her chair with her hands 
before her weepine eyes, and was dad enough to 
buiy her face in me boy's curls as lie knelt down 
before her. 

'Hush, Dicky dear, don't sob, don't sob,' she 
whisx)ered; 'I don't believe yon are so bad as they 
make out' 

*I did not mean to cut BiU Dempsey's eye out,' 
murmured Dick, hysterically; 'but tney all believe 
I did' 

'It doesn't signify what you meant, you little 
blackguard, if you did it,' observed Uncle Ingram, 
taking his usual practical View of things. ' It 's my 
belief your mother will be your ruin. Letitia, what 
does the Bible recommend us to do with boys like 
these?' 

' Whip 'em,' observed Maria, with conciseness, and 
in order that the advice mi^t not be lost in Eastern 
metaphor. 

* I nave been whipped,' cried the lad, lifting up his 
head. ' Mr Camwun beat me till his cane frayed oat 
at the edges.' 

* Not enough, sir,' returned the implacable Maria. 
' If I were your mother ' 

' Yes, but you ain't,' interrupted the victim sharply; 
'you're nobody's mother, miss, and Dr Nevenueep 
saya that you 're never likely to be anybodjr's either. 
Don't you eo bullying me, now, or I 'U begin saying 
things, mind you.' 

The lad's whole body trembled with passion in 
every fibre; his eyes aarted fire as he spoke, and 
there seemed to be every probability of his 'saying 
things,' and of a very disagreeable character too; 
when, at a si^ from Uncle Ingram, Adolphus picked 
Dick up, and tearing him with not a little violence 
out of his motiier's arms, carried him out of the 
room. 

Then there was a total silence, presently broken by 
' thuds ' — blows struck with a stick against an unre- 
verberating body — from a neighbourmg apartment, 
but not one cry. 

* I cause it to be done for his own good, Letitia, 
and for your §ood,' observed Uncle Ingram, in explana- 
tion, and with composure, but keeping his eyes 
averted from the object of his benevolence never- 
theless. 

' Mamma has fainted ! ' cried Maggie with a piercing 



44 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



shriek. * Tell Adolphua to stop— Bomebody. You'll 
kill her amongst you, at last, I do believe.' 

' Good Heavens ! ' cried Uncle Ingram, frightened 
out of his wits by an occorrence so entirely out of 
his own experience, *why doesn't the fool stop? 
Run, Maria.' 

Maria did not stir; but Rachel ran into the dining- 
room straightway, and almost upset Mr Adolphns, 
who was coming out with a face whiter than usuaL 

* I want a poultice,' observed he to the astonished 
domestic ; and indeed he did, for Master Dick — ^whose 
hands he had taken the precaution of securing — ^had 
made his teeth meet m the fleshy part of his 
corrector's thimib. 

CHAFTSB VL ^ 

FAL8BLT ACCV8SD. 

The next day, being Sunday, was passed, by Maria's 
directions, in total silence as reeardea the events of the 
preceding evening. It was to be ' a day of rest for all,* 
observed that young lady with an air of charity ; and 
it was occupied by nerself and faction in contriving 
severities applicable to Master Richard's case upon 
the morrow. To Dick it was rather a cUiy of suspense 
than rest, which are not identical things by any 
means ; and to his mother, it was twenty-four long 
hours of agony. This lady had obtained Uncle 
Ingram's protection for her ofBipring at a considerable 
sacrifice. She had never had much of that female 
peculiarity popularly, or unpopularly, known as *a will 
of her own, for the deceased Benjamin had given way 
to all her gentle wishes in small concerns, while 
in important matters the two always lovin^y 
agreed ; and now, finding herself crossea and demed 
upon all occasions under the new dynasty, she had 
for many years ceased to express her feelings in public, 
and only now and then lightened her breaking heart 
to Magae, who slept in me same chamber. Sie had 
taken Richard's hand in hers under her shawl at 
church that day, feeling safe from reproof within that 
sacred building, and mother and child had thus inter- 
changed all sorts of affectionate thoughts together, 
merely by the pressure of their fingers. 

Maria bad regarded them with lofty scorn, and on 
one occasion even contemplated the rapping of Dick's 
disengaged hand, which^ lacked a prayer-book, but she 
thought it upon the whole more prudent to resist that 
temptation; so she contented herself with pitching 
her nymns at him (not of course her hymn-book), and 
of repeating with peculiar stress sucn parts of the 
service as might be strained to apply to an unre- 
generate youth of his description. Adolphus secretly 
trod upon his toes during we anthem, and upon his 
brothers resenting that indignity without tne like 
precautions, jgave an appealing look to Uncle Ingram, 
who instantfy made a note of the o£fence in the 
memorandum tablets which he always carried about 
with him, and used without the slightest reference to 
time or place. ' 

' I'm afraid, Maggie,' whinpered the widow, sobbing, 
when she and her younger daughter had retired to 
their chamber on Sunday nigh^*I am afraid that 
they will send our poor dear £chard to sea.' 

'Surely not, dear mother, answered Macgie quickly ; 
' he is but a child, you know ; and besio^, they will 
not dare to do it unless you give consent.' 

Mrs Benjamin Arbour signed ; if ahe had not had 
a little speck of pride still left within her, she would 
probably have sx>oken; but Maggie understood her 
all the same. 

*Why, what has our Dick done, mother, beyond 
his being a little mischievous and unruly ? He does 
not treat Maria and Adolphus respectfully, it is true, 
but they on their parts are veiy far from und to him. 
This snow-baJl business is a very sad one, of course, 
but it is not clear that he is to blame, or even certain 
that he did the misdiief.' 






' Bless you, my dear Maggie,' returned her moth e r, 
* for saying what all day long my heart has yearned 
to say, fmd dared not ; but you see, my child* your 
Uncle Ingram is so haid and stem, and your brother 
and sister ' 

'Nay, mamma,' interrupted the young girl gently; 
' you surely know far better than they what la good 
for Richud ; and as for Uncle Ingram, he means us all 
well enou^ I 'm sure. If you will let me q)eak to 
him — in your name, as it were, for, in vour pr^ent 
state of health, such an excitement would be ' 

*No, Maggie, no,' cried the poor lady, *I must 
shrink from nothing for Dick's sake, and for the sake 
of liiTu who left him in my charge. Uncle Ingram 
may take all away except my boy, but he must leave 
me him — he must leave me Richard. O child, you 
know not how his baby-face once comforted me, 
when Death was in this room, and misery everywhere. 
He shall never, never, never go to sea.' 

We are aware that an apology is due, on the part of 
this poor lady, for the display of this unreasonable 
abhorrence of the maritime profession. It is probable 
that her thoughts were not directed towards Her 
Majesty's navy, or even to those celebrated Al vessels 
in ike proprietorship of Messrs Green and others ; she 
merely looked upon the sea as a huge separator 
between herself and him committed to it, and her 
view was, so far, a correct one. 

* Mother, mother dearest,' replied Maggie, * if you 
will allow me to go down alone to-morrow morning, 
I promise you that what you fear shall not take 
place ; and if there is any chance of its taking place, 
that you shall be sent for. Will you not trust 
me, mother? Promise me that you will not rise 
to-morrow, or, at least, not come down stairs.' 

Good Maggie, cunning Maggie, serpent and dove in 
one, that was well said. Mrs Arbour wisely assented 
to be more unwell than usual upon the morrow. 
When tjrrants rule, there is no resource for us but 
dissimulation. 

Accordingly, upon the next morning, the arm-chair 
— svmbol of empty state — ^that stood beside the tea- 
maKer, was vacant, and the company was quietly 
informed by Maggie that mamma was not coming 
down. The who& armoury of offensive weapons, 
therefore, which had been stacked in more than one 
bosom, in readiness for the expected discussion, became 
at once next to valueless — old stores to be parted with, 
at enormous sacrifice, even if they foimd any market 
at aU. 

Yellow Maria slipped from the apartment, and came 
backpurple. 

*Wnat is the meaning of this, Margaret? I can't 
get into mamma's room. 

*No, dear,' replied that young lady with great 
sweetness; 'she is not well this morning, and must not 
be disturbed. I locked her door myself, and have got 
the key. Dr Neversleep says it is not good for ner 
to be made to faint.' 

' I don't understand your languxure, Margaret,' 
quoth Maria with asperity. ' Who ms^es her faint, I 
snduld like to know ?' 

'Adolphus did it on Saturday,' returned Maggie, 
with the quiet air of a narrator of facts ; * but nobody 
will do it to-day, at all events.' 

* Look where he bit my thumb ! ' observed Adolphus, 
apologetically, and exhibiting the injured digit. 

'You had better keep it covered up,' remarked 
Ma^e drily ; ' the air will only make it worse ; and 
bes^s, it isn't pretty to look at.' This yoimg lady 
was a lamb in all matters that concerned herself, but 
now that she had mother and brother to defend, she 
was a lioness with cubs. 

Adolphus and Maria quailed before her, and the 
more so because they knew that Uncle Ingram loved 
her. Under her protecting wing, Master Dick dipped 
largely into the muffin d6pdt intended for his seniors. 
Mr Ingram Arbour's coimtenance exhibited an 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



45 



indednon not beooming to it. 'I don't understand 
tluB, Miarsaret,' <^uoth he at last ; ' to hear you talk, 
one would imacine that this bov had deserved no 
punishment at aU. He has actually cut another boy's 
eye out — a most respectable lad.' 

'Son of the banker,' inteipolated Adolphus, in a 
tone adapted to the description of a sacrilege. 

* I didn't mean to do it/ retorted Dick with indig- 
nation, and Ins mouth indecorously f ulL 

'Hold your tongue, sir,' observed Miss Maria 
solemnly. 

*I shan't,' responded Dick with improved dis- 
tinctness. 

'Silence, Dick: please to be ouiet,' said Maggie. 
And Dick became as mute as a fisn. 

' It may have been quite an accident, imcle, as he 
asserts,' continued the peace-maker; 'nor is it even 
fully proved that he did it at alL' 

' Au the boys say he had a grudge against Dempeey, 
and threw at him on purpose/ observed Adolphus. 

' It is not tmusual for some persons to believe the 
worst of their fellow-creatures.' 

'But Johnnie says so himself, and he's his brother,' 
retorted Adolphus. 

'His brother r repeated Maggie scornfully, without 
farther rejoinder; but a less sagacious man than 
Uncle Infipun could have read in her flashing eyes 
i^e rest of her reply. 

' Tes,' answered he, 'there is certainly a bad 
feeling, Adolphus, between you and RicharcL There 
is something in what Margaret saya^ after alL I do 
not thhik I should be quite justified in sending 
him' .... 

Maria held her finser up forbiddingly; it was for 
a sin^e instant only, but* Maggie caught its reflection 
in the mirror opposite, and turned upon her instantly, 
as the faithful sheep-dog on the woll 'No, Maria, 
he is not to be sent to sea. His mother told me to 
say that mudL Not to sea.' 

' She must have been listening/ said Maria to her- 
self, ' when I and Uncle Ingram talked it over in the 
dinmg-room last night. How careless it was of me 
not to have thought of looking into the china-closet 
first, as I generally do ! ' 

'I have made up my mind to give him another 
dianoe,' said Mr Ingram Arbour; 'although I much 
doubt whether he deserves it. I shall put him at 
once into my own office, in some capacity where he 
will be pretty sharply looked after. You know your 
aritfametio pretty well, I suppose. Mister ?' 

The thought of Practice flitted momentarily over 
poor Dick's mind, casting a bat-like shadow ; but he 
answered, ' Tes, uncle,' with tolerable cheerfulness. 

'Then that's arranged,' quoth his new proprietor 
decisively ; ' and you will pack up at once, and 
accompany your brother ana me by the mid-day 
train io town*' ^ 

'Not to-day, uncle,' repliraDick with finnness, 
although he looked terribly frightened. 'I wiU go 
to-morrow, but not to-day.' 

* Yon — ^will — ^not — go ! ' exclaimed the merchant 
witii awful distinctness and solemnity. ' Did I tmder- 
stand yon to say, sir, that you — will — ^not — go ? ' 

This recaldtrancy, so far exceeding the hopeful 
expectations of his eldest brother and sister, slruck 
those worthies dumb ; even Maggie could but whisper : 
* Richard, Richard, you will rum yourself, in spite of 
all that can be done for you ! ' 

* I must see William Dempsey before I go,' explained 
the lad, hanging down his heao, and bliming. 

* LttUe hypocrite ! ' ejaculated Maria. 

* It 'a nnr belief, he wants to put his other eye out,' 
obserrad Adolphus. 

'Jf<^ I go, please, uncle?' reiterated the boy 
appeaNagly, and without taking any notice of these 
aspenious. 

' Please to let him ^o,' pleaded Maggie, taking the 
merchaat's not unwillmg hand in hers. 



' I must be at my office this afternoon,' ejaculated 
thatsentleman wi^ decision. 

' Ete shall go by himself, to-morrow, by the very 
first train,' urged Margaret 

' I can't trast him,' thundered Uncle Ingram ; 'it's 
the mail-train, and he will rob the post-bags. At all 
events, he would not come to work, I 'm sure.' 

' Adolphus can stay behind, and go with him, unde.' 

' Yeiy well, then, so let it be. But mind, young sir, 
you do not get another holiday for six months to 
come.' 

Mrs Arbour was glad enough that matters had 
turned out no worse. for Master Richard, but yet 
could hardly sp&re him out of her sight even to pay 
this p^iuseworthy visit to his injured school-fellow. 
He found Mr William Dempsey at his father's house, v 
and in a darkened chamber, in a frame of mind very 
different from that for which he had been hiUierto 
distinguished. The lad had come prepared for 
reproach and upbraidiii^, not for the qmet nush of a 
sidL-room, and the forgiveness of one who felt himself 
stricken for his evil deserts. A terrible misfortune 
was overhanging and likely to fall upon the poor 
young man ; uie sight of his other eye was threatened, 
nor <ud the doctors give much hope that total blind- 
ness could be averted. 

Richard received this news with a burst of tears. 

'I shall never bully anybody any more,' said 
Dempsey, smiling fainuy, and feeling about for his 
enemy's hand. 

'Don't take it, Dempsey/ cried the other in an 
agony ; * I wish from my heart that it had been cut 
off long ago ! But you don't, you can't believe I did it 
on purpose. Pray, pray say &at.' 

* X on never meant to do me any such harm as this,' 
answered the poor fellow — ' of that I am quite certain, 
Dick.' 

' No, nor any harm, upon my soul. I did not throw 
at you^ Dempeey. I told my mother so at church, 
yesterday, and I wouldn't tell her a lie there, I 
wouldn't, indeed. I put the stone in because your 
side were doing it.' 

' It wasn't a stone,' replied the sufferer peevishly ; 
'although it doesn't matter now what it was. All 
the school knows it was a piece of bottle-glass ; the 
snow-ball in which it was, was picked up close beside 

me with my blood upon it I saw them Ah me,' 

broke forth the unhappy youth, ' I shall see nothing 
more ; I shall have to feel my way about for ever. I ^ 
have laughed at blind men often and often, and it 's 
come to my turn now. Don't cry for me. Arbour ; I 
deserve it That 's Dr Neversleep's voice in the front 
hall; I wonder whether he will do me any good. 
Why don't you speak. Arbour ? You should always 
spe£UL to a fellow that can't see.' 

' O Dempsey, Demnsey,' cried the boy, in a voice 
so altered, that the otner called from the bed to know 
whether it was he indeed ; * listen to me just one 
moment ; I have something to say you, Dempeey, 
worse than all that has happeaied yet ! Promise me 
that you will never tell, for it can do nobodv ^ood 
now, but only harm ; and yet I must set myseu right 
with you and Maggie.' He came close beside the 

fillow, and whispered : * It was not me at all, Willy, 
threw a stone, I know ; but Johnnie — ^my brother, 
you know, my own brother — he threw the broken 
glass : I saw him making up the snow-ball with that 
inside ! ' 

'The sneaking villain!' ejaculated the sick lad 
angrily. 

' Hush, hush, Willy ; say nothing about it ; but only 
now you know it wasn't me. I couldn't hdp telling 
you that, you looked so ill and changed.' 

Dick stood upon tiptoe tenderly, and kissed the poor 
lad's forehead above the bandage that was round his 
eyes. ' I am going away to London, and shall not be 
able to come and see you again for months.' 



46 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



* Johimie has narer been to ask after me, Dick,' 
groaned the other bitterly ; * all the achool have been 
except that * 

*Huah!' cried Richard; *here is Dr Ncvereleep; 
htish, for Heaven's sake ( ' 

The doctor looked at his quondam favoozite with 
a very seyere face: 'I am slad to see you here, 
Richard; although it is the least that you can do 
after what has happened ' 

* Don't say thaiC doctor,' interrupted the patient, 
with a touch, of his old arbitrary manner ; * I won't 
have* Dick abused. God bless you, Dick, and forgive 
me all I 've done to you.' 

Richard Arbour ran home throu^ the snow with 
venr different feelings from those with which he had 
amved some fifteen minutes before. ' I used to think 
Dempsey was all bad, poor fellow,' thought he ; ' and 
though our Rachel always said that Johnnie was all 
for himself, and a regular Number Wunner, I never 

dreamed of his being such a ' and Dick shook his 

ourly head again and again, for want of a term of 
sufficient reprobation. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR ALEXANDER 

CARLYLE. 

It has long been known that a memoir concerning the 
SoottiiBh literati of last century existed in manusoript 
in the possession of Principal Lee of the Edinbui^ 
University, beinc the composition of the Rev. Dr 
Alexander Carme, minister of Inveresk, who is 
alluded to in Humphry Clinker as the companion of 
that brilliant set of men, and as ' wanting nothing 
but inclination to figure with the rest on paper.' The 
very reverend principal, as last surviving trustee of 
Canyle, entertamed scruples about giving his manu- 
script to the world, as containing many remarks 
calculated to give offence to individuals; but since 
his death in m&y 1859, his representatives, consider- 
ing tiiat the work generally refers to men of a century 
aso, have v^ry reasonably judged themselves it 
liberty to lay it before the public It now appears in 
a handsome octavo,* under the editorship of Mr John 
H. Burton. 

The book is a highly entertaining one ; not merely 
because it in great part relates to interesting and 
lemarkable men, but because of the freedom and 
breadth, so to speak, of the style in which the author 
paints lus associates. Possessed of a tall and hand- 
some person, with an aspect often likened to the 
Jupiter Tonans, the minister of Inveresk was a man 
of vigorous general talents, a shrewd observer and 
student of human nature, and a oonversationaliBt 
and diner-out of the first grade. The parish to 
which he acceded in 1748, and which he held for 
fifty^even years, being within six miles of Edinburgh, 
he was enabled to mingle freely in the society 
of the city. To the same cause it might in part 
be attributed that he was able to exercise a ls£ge 
share of influence in the Scottish church. The 
establishment had at that time culminated in what 
was called moderatism, and Carlyle was the most 
moderate of the moderate. To one, who marks the 
opposite strain of the present time, it sounds strange 
that he frequently speaks of having dinner-company 
on Sund^, and of arranging the most important 
church affairs in taverns. jSis latitudinarianism was 
strongly marked in 1757, when he braved the censure 
of his presbytery by taking a leading part in Hie 
preparation of the tragedy of Douglas for the Eidin- 
Durgh stage, and attending in a box on the third 
night. Nor did he fail, in we very next year, to take 
a nm of the best theatrical performances in London. 
There was, of course, a party of stricter views; but 
he takes care to make us aware that these were not 

* BlMkirood sad Som, Edinterg h and LoDdon, 



wholly of an ascetic character. Dr Alexander Webstei; 
who headed his opponents, and tried to get loBi ooi^ 
demned for attendmff a play, was a fioe-boUie iiiaR» 
aocustomed to spend hiuf the ni^^ in oo n v i vi a l 
company. Of him is the anecdote tdd that^ as ks 
was reeling homeward in the dawn ol a summer 
morning a friend asked what his oon^gatioii would 
think n "Uiey saw him thus ; to which he replied : 
* They would not believe their own eyes.' 

By accident, we suppose, Carlyle was faroughi in 
contact in early life with several men who united 
great licence in some departments of self-indulgence 
with the most serious professions. A remazKaUe 
example was the judge, tfames Etskine, Lord Orange, 
whose house was in the parish of Prestonpma, fli 
which Oarlyle's father was minister. We leun that 
Grange and the minister used to have meetingB aft 
which profound theological questions and mnoli 
claret were discussed. His loraship had a detached 
library in his ^^;arden, where pleasures more material 
than those of hterature were enjoyed. Sometinies he 
was lost to the world for months at a time, and it 
was the belief of the minister that he was then going 
through a course of reckless debauchery in Edinbnz]^ 
The common report was, says Carlyle, *• that he and 
his associates passed their time in alternate sceiMe of 
the exerciMB of religion and debauchery, spending tba 
day in meetings for prayer and pious oonvenatioB, 
and their nights in lewdness and revellins.' Then 
our autobiographer adds a profound remark : ' Sobm 
men are of opinion that they could not be equally 
sincere in both. I am apt to think that they wen^ 
for human nature is capable of wonderful freaki* 
There is no doubt of their profligacy ; and I have 
frequently seen them drowned in tean, during tba 
whole of a sacramental Sunday, when, so far as raw 
observation could reach, th^ could have no rational 
object in acting a part. The Marquis of Lothian of 
that day, whom I have seen attending the saorameBt 
at Prestonpans with Lord Grange, and whom no man 
suspected of plots or hypocrisy, was much addicted te 
debauchery. The natimd casuistry of the pnasinni 
grants dispensations with more facility than the 
church of Kome.' 

The famous Lord Lovat, who was really ti hypocrite, 
but not one of a religious complexion, came to Preston- ! 
pans in 1741 to plaSs a son under the preceptorship of I 
the parish schoolmaster, named Halket ; and Garble, 
then nineteen, was invited to join his lordidiip^ 
party at a dinner in Lucky Yint's, a celebrated taven 
m the west end of the town. He gives us a Dutch 
sketch of the entertainment. The coxnpan^ con- 
sisted, besides Lovat himself, of Mr Ersldne of 
Grange, with three or four gentlemen of the name of 
Eraser, one of whom was his man of business, togetiier 
with Halket, his son Alexander, and young Cazlyle. 
The two old gentlemen * disputed for some time 
which of them should say grace. At last Lovat 
gelded, and gave us two or three pious sentenoee 
m French, wnich Mr Erskine and I understood, 
and we only. As soon as we were set, Lovat asked 
me to send him a idiiting from the dish of fldi 
that was next me. As they were all haddocks, I 
answered that they were not whitings, but, acooniing 
to the proverb, he that got a haddock for a whiting 
was not ill off, This saying takes its rise frooi the 
superiority of haddocks to whitings in the f^rth of 
Forth, upon this, his lordship stormed and swoare 
more than fifty draooons : he was sure they must be 
whitings, as he had bespoke them. Halket tipped 
me the wink, and I retracted, saying that I had out 
little skill, and as his lordship had bespoke them, I 
must certainly be mistaken. Upon this he calmed, 
and I sent him one, which he was quite pleased with, 
swearing again that he never could eat a haddodc all 
his life. The landlady told me afterwards, that as he 
had been very peremptory against haddocks, and she 
had no other, she had made her cook carefully scrape 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



47 



I 



out St Peier*B mark on the thooldera, which she had 
offeA done before witii sucoess. We had a Teiy good 
jdam dinner. As the claret was excellent, and dr- 
onlated fast, the two old gentlemen grew very merry, 
aiuL tiieir eonTersatkm became youthful and gay. 
What I observed was, that Orange, without appearing 
to flatter, was tbt^ observant of Lovat, and did every- 
thing to please him. He had provided Geordy Sym, 
who was Lord Dnmmiore's piper, to entertain Lovat 
alter dinner; but though lie was reckoned the best 
piper in the comitry, Lovat deejnsed him, and said he 
was only fit to play reels to Grange's oyster-women. 
He grew frisky at last, however, and upon Kate Vint, 
the landlady's dau^ter, coming into the room, he 
inmsted on her staymg to danoe with him. She was 
a handscmie girl, with fine Uack eyes and an agree- 
able person. .... Lovat was st this time seventy- 
five, and Grange not much yomicer; yet the wine 
and the yomig woman emboldened tiiem to dance a 
reel, till £ate, observing Lovaf s legs as thick as 
posts, fell a-lauffhing, and ran ofL She missed her 
second coarse of kines, as was then the fashion of 
the country, though she had endured the first This 
was a scene not easily forgotten.' It was, however, 
not quite done yet. llovat ' conveyed his son to the 
house where he was to be boarded, for Halket had 
not taken up house ; and there, wlule we drank tea, 
he won the heart of the landlady, a decent widow of 
a shipmaster, and of her niece, by fair speeches, inter- 
mixed with kisses to the nieoe, who was about thirty, 
and such advices as a man in a state of ebriety 
could give. The coach was in waiting, but Gran^ 
would not vet part with him, and insisted on his 
accepting of a mmquet from liim at his house in 
Prraton. Lovat was in a yielding humour, and it 
was agreed ta The Erasers, wli^ were on horse- 
back, were sent to Edinburgh; the boy was left 
with his dame; and Lovat and Grange, and Halket 
and I, went up to Preston, only a quarter of a mile 
distant, and were received in Grange s library, a cube 
of twenty feet, in a pavilion of the house which 
extended into a small wilderness of not more than 
half an acre, which was sacred to Grange's private 
waJks, and tp which there was no entry uat through 
the pavilion. .... In this room there was a fine 
collection of fruit and biscuits, and a new deluge of 
excellent claiet. At ten o'clock, the two old gentlemen 
moun'tod their coach to Edinburgh, and thus closed 
a very memorable day.' 

Garlyle witnessed much of the series of transactions 
known as the Porteous Riot, and took part as a loyal 
volunteer in the i^air of the Forty-five, He gives us 
animated detailed accounts of these transactions ; but 
we have no room to so into them. There is more 
interest for the ^enenu reader in what he tells us of 
the history of his friend John Home's tragedy of 
Douglas, The author of this famous play was a minis- 
ter m a neighbouring presbytery, and an intimate 
friend of Canyle, who assisted in revising the manu- 
script. When all was ready, Home resolv^ tojproceed 
to London, and lay the tragedy before Mr (rarrick. 
Six or seven friendly Merse ministers, besides Carlyle, 
resolved to give the poet a convoy part of his way. 
It was on a snovnr morning, in February 1755, that 
the i>arty set out uom Polwarth manse, where half of 
them had spent the night 

' Before we had gone far, we discovered that our 
bard had no mode of carrying his precious treasure, 
which we thou^t enough of, out hiuxlly foresaw that 
it was to be pronounced aperfect tragedv by the best 
judges ; for when David Hume save it tnat praise, he 
sp<£e only the sentiment of the whole republic of 
belles-lettres. The tragedy in one pocket of his great- 
coat, and his clean shirt and ni^t-cap in the other, 
though they balanced each other, was thought an 
misue mode of conveyance ; and our Mend — who, like 
most of his brother-poets, was unapt to foresee diffi- 
culties and provide against them — ^had neglected to 



buy a pair of leather bacs as he passed through 
Haddington. We bethought us that possibly James 
Landreth, minister of Simprin, and clerk of the synod, 
would be provided with such a convenience for the 
carriage of nis synod records ; and having no wife, no 
aira ctf no, to resist our request, we unanimously turned 
aside half a mile to call at James's ; and, concealing 
our intention at first, we easily persuaded tiie honest 
man to join us in this convoy to his friend Mr Home, 
and then observing the danger the manuscript misht 
run in a greatcoat-pocket on a journey of 400 miles, 
we inquijred if he could lend Mr Home his vaUse dhly 
as far as Woder, where he would purchase a new pair 
for himself. This he very cheerndly granted. But 
while his pony was preparing, he had another trial to 
go through ; for Gupplee, who never had any money, 
wough he was a bachelor too, and had twice the 
stipend of Landreth, took the latter into another room, 
where the conference lasted longer tlum we wished 
for, so that we had to bawl otS for them to come 
away. We afterwards understood that Oupples, hav- 
ing only four shillings, was pressing Landretn to lend 
him haJf-a-guinea, that he might be able to defray the 
expense of the journey. Honest James, who knew 
that John Home, if he did not return lus own valise, 
which was very improbable, would provide him in a 
better pair, had frankly agreed to the first request ; 
but as ne knew Cupples never paid anything, he was 
very reluctant to part with his half -guinea. However, 
having at last agreed, we set out, and I think gallant 
troops, but so-and-so accoutred, to make an inroad on 
the English border. By good-luck, the river Tweed 
was not come down [in fiood], and we crossed it 
safely at the ford near Norham Castle ; and, as the 
day mended, we got to Woolerhaughhead by four 
o'clock, where we got but an indiflerent dinner, for it 
was but a nuseraole house in those days ; but a 
happier or more jocose and m6rry company could 
hardly be assembled. 

'John Home and I, "who slept in one room, or 
perhaps in one bed, as was usual in those days, were 
distun>ed by a noise in the night, which being in the 
next room, where Laurie and Monteith were, we 
f oxmd they had quarrelled and fought, and the former 
had puaheid the latter out of bed. After having acted 
as mediators in this quarrel, we had sound sleep till 
morning. Having breakfasted as well as the house 
could ainord, Cupples and I, who had agreed to go two 
days' journey further with Mr Home, set off south- 
wuds with nim, and the rest returned by the way 
they had come to Berwickshire again. 

* Cupples and I attended Home as far as Fenyhill, 
about SIX miles, where, after remaining all ni^t with 
him, we parted next morning, he for London, and we 
on our return home. Poor Home had no better 
success on this occasion than before, with still greater 
mortification ; for Garrick, after reading the pla7» 
returned it with an opinion that it was totally unfit 
for the stage. .On this occasion, Home wrote a pathetic 
cop y of verses, addressed to Shakspeare's image in 
Westminster Abbey. 

* Cupples and I had a diverting journey back ; for 
as his money had failed, and I had not an oveiriSow, we 
were obliged to feed our horses in Newcastle without 
dining ; . . . . but in those days nothing came wrong 
to us — youth and good spirits made us convert ^ 
maladventures into fun. The Virgin's Inn, as it was 
called, being at that time the best, and on the south 
side of the bridge, made us forget all our disasters.' 

Home, as is well known, gave up his chai^ as a 
minister, in order to escape ecclesiastical censure for 
writing a play ; and the Earl of Bute then took him 
up, as nis confidant and friend. We learn with some 
surprise that the poet, thus secularised, was engaged as 
second in several affairs of honour, which did not quite 
ripen into hostile meetings. Very shocking, no doubt ; 
but who could be severe with a man essentially so 
innocent and amiable as John Home, and one of whom 



48 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Carlyle delights to tell that, by his influence with his 
patron, he advanced the interests of scores of friends, 
Dut never asked anything for hbnsdf. Our author, 
visitinff London in 1758 for the marriage of a sister, 
fonnohis friend Home in terms of intimacy with 
Garrick, notwithstanding the rejection of Douglas, 
This led to an invitation from the great manager to 
Carlyle, and others of Home's Scotch friends, to an 
entertainment at his villa near Hampton. Somehow, 
Garrick had become aware of Carivle's proficiency 
in ihe Scotch game of solf (which doubtless he had 
acquired on Musselburgn Links), so ' he told us to 
bring golf clubs and baBs, that we mi^ht play at that 
game on Molesly Hurst. We accordmcly set out in 
good time, six of us in a landau. As we passed 
throueh Kensington, the Coldstream regiment were 
changmg guard, and, on seeing our clubs, they gave 
us three cneers in honour of a diversion peculiar to 
Scotland; so much does the remembrance of one's 
native country dilate the heart, when one has been 
some time absent. The same sentiment made us open 
our purses, and ^ve our countirmcn wherewithal to 
drink the "^ Land o' Cakes." Garrick met us by the 
way, so impatient he seemed to be for his company. 
There were John Home, and Robertson, and Wedder- 
bum, and Robert and James Adam, and Colonel David 
Wedderbum, who was killed when commander of the 
army in Bombay, in the year [1773]. 

* Immediately after we arrived, we crossed the river 
to the golfing-ground, which was veiy good. None of 
the company could play but John Home and mjrself, 
and Parson Black from Aberdeen, who, being chaplain 
to a regiment during some of the Duke of Cumber- 
land's campaigns, hiM. been pointed out to his royal 
highness as a proper person to teach him the game of 
chess : the duke was such an apt scholar that he never 
lost a eame after the first day ; and he recompensed 
Black for having beat him so cruelly, by procurmg for 
him the living (n Hiunpton, which is a good one. We 
returned and dined sumptuously ; Mrs Garrick, the 
only lady, now grown fat, though still very lively, 
being a woman of uncommon good sense, and now 
mistress of English, was in all respects most agreeable 
company. .... 

* Garrick had built a handsome temple, with a 
statue of Shakspeare in it, in his lower garden, on the 
banks of the Thames, which was separated from the 
upper one by a high-road, under which there was an 
archway which united the two gardens. Garrick, 
in compliment to Home, had ordered the wine to be 
carried to this temple, where we were to drink it under 
the shade of the copy of that statue to which Home 
had addressed his pathetic verses on the rejection of 
his play. The poet and the actor were e<|ually ^ay, 
and well pleased with each other, on this occasion, 
with mucn respect on the one hand, and a total 
oblivion of animosity on the other; for vaniiy is a 
passion that is easy to be entreated, and unites freely 
with all the best a^ections. Having observed a ^recn 
mount in the garden, opposite the archway, I said to 
our landlord, that while the servants were preparing 
the collation in the temple, I would surprise him with 
a stroke at the golf, as I should drive a ball through 
his archway into the Thames once in three strokes. 
I had measured the distance with my eye in walking 
about the garden, and accordingly, at the second 
stroke, made the ball alight in the mouth of the gate- 
way, and roll down the green slope into the nvcr. 
This was so dexterous that he was quite surprised, 
and begged the club of me by which such a feat had 
been performed. We passed a very agreeable after- 
noon ; and it is hard to say which were happier, the 
landlord and landlady, or the guests.' 

The book contains snatches of poignant remark and 
shrewd observations of character, sufficient to justify 
the esteem in which the author's society was held — as 
where he speaks of George Bell, provost and political 
leader of Dumfries, * who was governed by his wife, 



who was swayed by her niece and Frank Paton, sur- 
veyor of customs, who was a very able man, and who, 
with my sister, were the secret spring of all the pto- 
vosfs conduct;' or describes his assistant, Andersao, 
'reckoned an excellent preacher by the commoii 
people, because he got his sermon faithfully by heart 
(his father's, I suppose), and delivered it with a loud- 
ness and impetuosity surpassing any^ school-boy, with- 
out making a halt or stop from beginning to end ; ' or, 
better stil^ sets forth Sir Geoi^e Suttie, as * thou^t 
to be a great patriot, because he wore a coarse c»at 
and unpowdere^l hair, while he was looking for a port 
with the utmost anxiety,' and as * reckoned a man of 
sense because he said so himself, and had such an 
embarrassed stuttering elocution that one "was not 
sure but it was true.' We in like maimer obtain frtm 
the book some insight into the pleasantries w^hich 
irradiated the intellectual society of Edinbiirgh in 
those days — as where the author introduces us to Mr 
Robert Cullen, advocate, celebrated for his powers of 
personation. 

* One day,' says he, *■ in the General Assembhr of 
1765, a student of physic was seized with a convaJnon 
fit, which occasioned much commotion in the home, 
and drew a score of other English students around 
him. When the Assembly adjourned, about a dosen 
of us went to dine in the Poker club-room, at Nichol- 
son's, when Dr Robertson came and told us he must 
dine with the Commissioner, but would join us sood. 
Immediately after we dined, somebody wished to hear 
from Cullen what Robertson would say about the 
incident that had taken place, which he did imme- 
diately, lest the Principal should come in. He had 
hardly finished when he arrived. After the comjianv 
had drank his health, Jardine said slyly, ** Principai, 
was it not a strange accident that happened to-day in 
the Assembly ? " Robertson's answer was exactly in 
tibe strain, and almost in the very words, of Culkn. 
This raised a very loud laugh in the company, when 
the doctor, more ruffled than I ever almost saw him, 
said, with a severe look at CuUen, " I perceive some- 
body has been ploughing with my heifer before I 
came in." 

Considering that it records the life of a Scotch 
clergyman, l£ere is in this book a surprising amount 
of space occupied with convivial dinners, and pleasant 
jaunts, and droU anecdotes — giving altogether the idea 
that life in that rank in the &ist century was far from 
being dull, or even tame. Dr Carlyle entertained and 
acted upon a theory that an open, moderate enjoyment 
of the ordinary pleasures of society was a safeguard 
against hypocrisy and fanaticism, and their many 
attendant evils. And this view he was enabled to cany 
out, because the church then depended little on the 
common people, and enjoyed much of the countenance 
of the gentlefolks. We have changed all that now. 

WINTBR-TIME. 

Though Winter reigns, Beauty still holds her throne ; 
She moolds the snow-flake to its lovely form, 
And the fev crinkled leaves that mock the storm, 
And laugh and chatter while the sad winds moan. 
Beauty hath stained with mingled gold and brown. 
The patches of bright sky between the i^owers, 
The Robin's breast, and moss-floors of lone bowers, 
For naked trees and funeral-clouds atone. 
Beauty dies not, she walks through Forest dim 
With feathery feet, when the strange cuckoo-note 
Like a friend's voice on the calm air doth float. 
And lisping zephyrs chant Spring's advent-hymn ; 
With the swarth Summer and brown Autumn dwells ; 
And marries Winter in the ice-flower dolls. J. E. 



Printed and Published by W. & R Chaubebs, 47 Pater- 
noster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh. 
Also sold by William Kobebtson, 23 Upper Sackville 
Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers. 



Siicnct 3nb ^its. 

COMDCCTCD BT WILLIAU AMD ROBERT CHAHBZBS. 



SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1861. 



Price I^. 



A CITY ELEVATED. 
The vast apacp of the United StAtcs of America, and 
the prodigious humim force provoked eveiywbere into 
excrcine by the almost indefinite cnpaljilities o! the 
country, have caused many things which are here 
icen on a sraoU scale, to wniuiie, in that port of tlie 
TTorld, gigantic proportiona. Another consequence 
is, on Hudafity in gnppting with physical <Ii£culti«a 
such ■« the generality of British engineen would 
ihiiDk from, cren if supplied with ample funda, 
to be used at diseretion. An Ameiican is so 
mnch tccustoined to see wonderful things accom- 
pliihed, that he becomes prepared ingtantancoualy tn 
HDttT Upon and eacoorago prDJect« which we should 
feel to be a hundred years ahead of our pre»ent 
powers. 

There is a city in the west which even Americana 
will flometuues advert to oa aomething of a wonder ; 
and that ia Chic^o, on LaLe Michigan. You enter, 
by a capital railuay, on agglomeration oE itrectH and 
tquoreK, which appears not much less in extent than 
the city of Dublin, and you are told Chat it has all 
come into existence since the British Reform Act was 
paned. It is no rode collection of wigwams or log- 
housea, bot a city of lofty and elegant atruoturea, with 
churchca, state-house, and all other siutable public 
buildings. Long terraces of liandsome mansions, 
looking out upon the lake, attest the presence of a 
wealthy and luxurious class of inhabitants. Well, 
there was nothing of the kind there in 1S30. When 
the hiatoiy of the spot is traced Sfteen ur eighteen 
years further back, yon Hnd that it then boasted of 
nothing but a trading-atation with a small fort The 
writer woa introduce)! to a middle-aged citizen, and 
learned that bis wife has written an interesting book* 
on the romantic perils which she underwent in her 
girlhood, as daughter of the sole merdiant here traffick- 
ing with the Indiana. More marvellnns still, there is 
now a university far to the VKgt of ThicBgo — one 
graced by many accompliohed ]>rofessora~among the 
rest, by Dr D. B. Bcid, long known in this country oa 
a tcacber of ohemisby, and as the superintendent of 
the operatiooa for regulating the temperature of the 
HmiBes of Parliament 

This dty hod grown up to be the dweUing-plact 
hundred thousand inhabitants, before the people hod 
well become aware of a radical fault in its construc- 
tion—namely, that it had been built Upon thu surface 
a! a plain so little elevated alxive the lake, tliat there 
was no proper outf.iU for drainage. InconrenieDcea 



wcro PTporienceii, and groaned over mildly, as usually 
happens when inconveniences appear irremediable ; 
but they were inconveniences, nay, dangers to health 
and life, for all that ; and when at last some one swd 
they might be remedied, the sense of their importance 
was fn>ely expressed. To cut short a long tale — the 
municipality gave ear to a scheme for elevating the 
city through vertical apace t« the extent of from four 
to ten feet, aecordin;; ta the needs of voriooa districts, 
by which it waa shewn that good drainage might be 
secured. Here he iroold be a bold engineer indeed 
who shonld bethink liim of such a process as possible ; 
but it does not appear that the man who proposed to 
hoist up Chicago wal looked upon there as anything 
extraordinary. The irriter, when at Chicago in October 
ISaO, could gather little more than that he was a 
person of the name of Brown. The bnainess was 
quickly set about, fnr the Americana do not, like i 
consider and talk of in one century what thi 
descendants are to accompliah in the next. Once 
satisfied that it was the right thing to do, they — 
to nae one of their favourite phrases — went ahead, 
and did it. 

I should rather say, they began to do it: they 
began, and are now going on with it ; for aa Roma 
was not built, so neither could Chicago be hoisted up, 
all in one day. The stranger visiting Chicago at 
present, linds himself moving along streets of different 
levels ; sometimes his to ascend, sometimes descend, 
a trap-ladder of a few steps which strangely inter- 
rupta the pavement Nor may it be for a year or 
two to come that oil will be adjusted according to 
the plan. 

But the process ! —how is a heavy building (a good- 
sized house nill he as much as four thousand tons 
in weight) to be lifted ! how, if there be means of 
merely liftins;, is the rise to be kept so equable, that 
the walls will not rend and crack— in short, go more 
or less to ruin ! Stnnge to say, the lifting is not only 
done with ease, but it is done so equably that no 
such thing as a crack results, nor even so much 
OS a iliike of plaster falla from the walls. And it ii 
not merely a single house which ia so dealt with, but 
whole blocks of bouKs, masses like a side of Belgrave 
Square, or a section of Regent Street, the fact being 
that individual bouses are in general so connected 
with others, that it is seldom or never they can h 
elevated singly. 

To give some idea of the ' house-raising business,' as 
a local journal atyles it, let oa note o tew particular 
of what was done with a block of buildings so lately 
as April 1S60. Be it premised, this block extended to 
320 feet in Utigth. with a breadth of from 140 to 91^ 
and on areragc height of 70 feet It included a lar{^ 



50 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



bank, and eight other massive stmctures, the basement 
story of which was divided into thirteen shops. The 
entire weight was estimated at 35,000 tons. Three 
firms contracted for the work at 18,000 dollars, or 
about L.3500, engaging that for any damage that 
might arise, they alone would be responsible. It was 
also arranged — and this is perhaps the most surpris- 
ing feature of the undertaking — that there should 
be no interruption to the business of the various 
concerns accommodated in the building. 

The first step is to scarify away all the ground, or 
fabric of any kind around the base of the building, 
supplying, however, jirovisional galleries and gang- 
ways for the use of the public during the process of 
elevation. Then the earth is dug out from under a 
portion of the foundations, and strong beams inserted, 
supported by rows of jack-screws set together as 
' closely as possible. When this is properly arranged, 
another piece of the foundations is removed in like 
manner, and so on till beams with jack-screws are 
under every wall of the mass of building. In the case 
of the block in question, there were in all 6000 screws 
employed. 

The next step is to arrange for pfiitting the screws 
into action. To every ten a man is assigned, furnished 
with a crow-bar. At the signal of a whistle, he turns 
a screw one-fourth round, goes on to another, which 
he turns in like manner, and so on till all are turned. 
The screw having a thread of three-eighths of an 
inch, the building has thus been raised a fourth part of 
that space throughout, or exactly 3-32d of an inch. The 
whistle again soimds : each crow-bar is again applied 
to its series of ten screws, and a similar amount of 
vertical movement for the whole building is accom- 
plished. And this operation is repeated till the whole 
required elevation is accomplished. I have a large 
lithographed print before me, in which we see the 
block in question, with its base laid bare, so as to 
shew the range of workmen operating upon the 
screws, while the shops above are all in full business, 
and the carriage-way displays its ordinary crowd of 
coaches, wagons, and foot-passengers, as if there wore 
nothing particular going on. When the desired 
elevation is attained, the beams are one by one 
replaced with a substructure of masonry, and the 
pavement is restored on the new leveL In this case, 
the elevation of four feet eight inches was accomplished 
in five days, and it is stated that the cost of new 
foundations and pavement was from forty to fifty 
thousand dollars. The block, which was full of 
inhabitants, contained much plate-glass, elegantly 
painted walls, and many delicate things ; but not a 
yane was broken, a particle of plaster or paint dis- 
placed, nor a piece of furniture injured. The writer 
deems it not superfluous to say, that he saw and partly 
inspected this mass of building, and certainly found 
nothing that could have led him to surmise that it 
had originally rested on a plane nearly five feet below 
its present leveL 

Let us English people i>onder on these heroic under- 
takings of our American coiisins. They are well 
worthy of imitation. It is the misfortune of many 
of our cities that large portions of them are built 
on ground so little above the level of an adjacent 
river as to be but imperfectlv drainable. Southwark 
is a notable example, and Belmvia, with finer build- 
ings, is no better off in this important respect. 
Sanitary considerations point out how desirable in 
these cases it is that the buildings should be raised a 



few feet Chicago, a town of yesterday, scarcelT yet 
to be heard of in geographical gazetteers, baa shewn 
that it can be done, and, comparatively speaJking, at 
no great expense. 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

CHAPTBB Til.— DAEKIKDIM STBBIT. 

Early next morning, Richard Arbour had taken 
leave of his dear mother and of Sister Maggie — 
to whom alone he confided the secret of his innocence 
in the snow-ball matter — and was upon his road 
with his big broker to the railway station, to whi^ 
the cart containmg his small supply of luggage had 
already been despatched. He looked back more thaa 
once, upon his way, on the little home wherein he had 
passed his happy child-life with regretful eyes, and 
the bUnd of that chamber- window over the dining- 
room was always held aside by an unseen hand, and 
two unseen faces were, he well knew, being pressed 
there a^nst the frosty pane. Ho would be a good 
boy, and obey his uncle, for their sake, thought he; 
and waved his cap as he entered the clump of trees 
that shut the cottage finally from view. ^ 

*Now, then, what are you stopping for?' growled 
Adolphus. * None of your cunning tricks with me, my 
man ; you may keep them for the women-folks, I & 
assure you. You aon't suppose / 'm going to nund 
about such a chap as you. Besides, / ain^ going to 
part with you just yet, youne shaver, so my feehnfli 
are not so overcome. You '11 be in my department n 
the office, mind you, and you'd better oe precioiii 
careful what you're about. Come, sir, you've got 
"Runaway" written on your face, I see, so we'll 
just walk hand in hand, if you please.' 

Mr Adolphus Arbour^s views upon what fraternal 
behaviour shoidd be, were, as wc have seen, somewhat 
peculiar, and his idea of what walking hand in hand 
miplies was not less orimnaL It consisted in clutch- 
ing hold of the cufif of Dick's greatcoat, and dragging 
him thereby along with him, as a folio-poUoemsn 
drags a duodecimo-pickpocket. In another moment* 
the greatcoat was traihng in the snow, and its pro- 
prietor, having withdrawn from it as in a pantooume 
trick — having sloughed it as a seri>ent ia a hurry might 
slough his skin — ^was already some twenty yards on 
his road home again. Equipped only in the short 
school-boy jacket, so excellently adapted for pedes- 
trian exercise, as the boy was, Adolphus could never 
have caught him, and he knew it. 

' Hi ! ' roared he, *■ you stop ! Do you hear me, yoo 
younc scoundrel ? You stop ! ' 

Dick did hear him, and stopped accordingly, upon a 
heap of flints, intended for tne repairing of the road, 
from which having selected those best adapted for his 
pur]K)se, he commenced a ParthLan war, now retreat- 
mg from, now advancing upon, the enemy, and now, 
Deucalion-like, casting ms weapons behind him, at a 
venture, as he flew. Adolphus, m deadly fear of these 
missiles — the fate of Mr William Dempsey occuiring 
to him with peculiar force under the circumstances — 
was constrained to hold the greatcoat shield-like 
before his face, which of course prevented hun from 
making anything save a blind charge upon his assail- 
ant, and compelled him to remain, upon the whole, in 
a condition of inglorious inaction. 

' I will not take hold of you any more, Dick,' parieyed 
the besieged party from behind his curtain or ramparl 

' I know that ; thank you for nothing,' returned the 
enemy, dexterously smiting the kneecap of the foe 
with a flint. 

* I won't hurt you, I won't bully you, I'U be good to 
you,' roared the limping Adolphus. 

'I muH throw tnese three more stones,' rej^ied 
Dick, * and then we'll have pax.^ 

The which, accordingly, this master of the situation 
actually did, and one of them with effect ; and theii 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



61 



ttte two forces condnded an anniiticei and reached the 
railway station only just in time. Adol])ha8 took 
adrantaee of the hnrry to famish Dick with a half- 
price ticket instead of a whole one, pocketing the 
surplus fare with which his unde had intrusted him, 
and laying the burden of the imposture upon Richard 
himself, who was more than thirteen years of age, and 
looked fifteen. The latter never dreamed but that 
this was done by his imcle's orders, and recdved the 
reproofs and expostulations of the tidcet-yiewers all 
the way to London with a magnanimity which is only 
borne of a sense of duty. His thoughtB were mainly 
fixed upon that metropolis, so wondrous and vagody 
promismg to the soul of youth, from the days of 
another Dick — who was the scapegrace of his family 
also— even until now, and on the new manner of me 
upon which he was about to enter. His ideas of the 
mercantile profession — de8i[)ite his residence at Messrs 
Dot and Carriwun's — ^were principally derived from the 
information affcmded b^ the Artzlnan Ntghii Enter- 
iainmerUSy which led hnn to believe that sales were 
effected by means of purses of gold coin, and that the 
diief article of conunerce consisted of predous stones — 
some of which perhaps, being rubbed smartly, mi^t 
produce attendant ceniL He made a pretty good guess, 
nowever, in concluoing that his future Old Man of the 
Sea would be no other than the individual now oppo- 
site to him, over whose countenance, whenever he had 
occanon to rub his kneecap— whicii was rather fre- 
^|iiflntly — there passed a decidedly malevolent expres- 
■ioD. As to Undo Ingram, there had certainly been 
nothing about him identical with those splendid per- 
flonaces who were wont to purchase a thousand bales 
of suk at Balsora, or to furnish Haronn Al Raschid 
vriih those young ladies of surpassing beauty, so full 
of reminiscences of the king tneir father, and their 
august mode of life at home. But then Dick fdt that 
TJnde Ingram in the country mi^t be a very different 
man from Unde Ingram among his wares — for business 
znatters were never referred to at the cottage except 
in such tones as befitted their sacred and mysterious 
character — and he did not altogether despair of finding 
that relative sitting cross-legged under a dome of great 
magnificence, and selling £ainonds in sacks by dry 



As a matter of fiust, however, Mr Ingram Arbour 
was a china and earthenware dealer, and sold dinner- 
services, jugs, basins, and so on, by the ton, in Dark- 
endim Stoeet, City. He was a sort of commercial 
Pandarus, a go-between 'twixt the manufacturers and 
retail dealers; and, if he had not been a Londoner, 
WDuld perhaps have been called a Manchester ware- 
houseman. The Darkendim Street establishment, 
although of vast extent, was very ill lighted, and had 
rather the air of being underground tnan otherwise. 
The two brothers went direct to this emporium, and 
threaded their way among mighty crates, with musty 
hay peering throndi their ribs as if from a manger, to 
the sanctum of Mr Ineram Arbour, which was like 
one of those boxes, and not much larger, in which 
private watchmen keep guard at night over banks and 
other bmldin^i, wherein it is essential to persuade the 
public that tiiere is money lodced. Uncle Ingram 
ndd out a finger to his little nephew, by way of wel- 
come to commercial life ; and Dick, having taken hold 
of it respectfully, bent it slightly — ^having found it 
impoBsibis to shake it— and retimied it to its x^ro- 
pnetor. 

* Yon had better take him to Mr Mickleham, Adol- 
phns, for the present, and he will set him to work at 
once. And mmd jrou're a good boy, sir, from hence- 
forth—d'ye hear? — and whatever you do, don't throw 
my china about into people's eyes.' 

With which not very encouraging remark. Uncle 
Ingram turned to the newspaper that was lying 
above his ledger, as it sometimes does, I have 
obserred, with the best of budness men, and Dick 
and hia oonductor, like Dante and his guide 



m 



another place, resumed their way throng the g^oom. 
This time, however, they ascended a flight of stairs, 
and returned across another floor to a room which 
overlooked the narrow street. A benevolent-looking 
old gentleman, with gold spectades and slightly hala, 
sat at a huge desk with an enormous book before 
him, lisping with his mouth almost shut, not in num- 
bers, but in figures, to himself. It struck Dick that 
he must have been always doing this, and wondered 
within himself whether it could have been this very 
individual who had invented * Practice ' for the con- 
fusion of youth. So soon as he spoke, however, it was 
evident that he was far too good-natured a person to 
have done anything of the sort. 

*Grood-day, Mr Adolphus,' said he in a cheery 
voice; 'and is this your brother Dick come to be 
lord mayor of London, and I don't know what 
bedde ? Let us shake hands, my good younc sir.' 

Mr Mickleham descended cautiously from his 
perch, by help of a cross-bar let into the legs of his 
lofty stool for that very purpose, and gave Dick a 
hearty -welcome. *I think,' continued he, as the 
little fellow squeezed the friendly hand as ti^tly as 
ho could, *we shall get on very well together, we 
two.' 

* If you do,' observed Adolphus grimly. * you '11 be 
about the first that has done it with that young 
gentleman.' 

* Pooh, pooh, pooh — hush, hush ! ' cried the old man ; 
' I know nothing of all that, and I won't hear any- 
thing about it. When such little lads as these get 
into trouble, there are always faults on both sides.' 

* Well, well,* returned Adolphus, * time will shew ; 
only, ii I am not very much out in my calcula- 
tions ' 

•That's just what you're making me be,' inter- 
posed the old gentleman. * If the lad is to be under 
my care for awhile, I cannot be distracted by anything 
else, if you please. I shall have to begin again wiw 
Oockspur and Triangle's accoimt, as it is.' 

The heir-presumptivc of the house walked off with a 
grating laugh, and left the old man and the boy 
togctb^. Mr Mickleham looked at Dick without 
speaking, until the echoes of the departing footsteps 
had di^ aWay ; then he drew him nearer to the 
light, and patted his curly locks approvingly. 
* Kichard — your name is Kichard, isn't it ? — ^Richard, 
my boy,' said he in a tender tone, *do you under- 
stand book-keeping ? ' 

Dick modestly replied that he was afraid he was 
not very good at it. 

* Have you ever heard of B^tteher, Richard — of the 
great Bottcher?' 

Dick rather thou^t that he had heard the name 
(or something very hke it) before. 

* Of course you have,* replied the old centleman 
with enthusiasm ; * who has not heard of the famous 
Bytteher? Who does not feel regret that such a 
genius was not our own fellow-countr3nnan ?' 

* Ah, who indeed ! ' murmured poor Dick, who fdt 
that he was getting credit somehow for knowing 
something or other of which he was profoundly 
ignorantb 

* Here,' continued the old man, delighted at finding 
a willing listener, if not a sympathiser with his pu^ 
ticular hobby — ' hero is a piece of Meissen porcelain 
that has once been in the great Bdtteher's own fingers. 
You remember, doubtless, how the idea of making 
the white porcelain was suggested to him by the 
hair-powder which his valet put on his wig ; how pre- 
cious became the earth from which it was made, and 
how it was forbidden to be exported, and was brought 
into the manu factory in sealed oanrds by jiersons sworn 
to secrecy. The whole history of pottery can be read in 
those shdves yonder, Bichard.' He pointed to innumer- 
able specimens of porcelain and earthenware amoved 
like pictures upon the wall, and carefully classified. 
'This is the pattern-room, and in these drawers are 



TT 



52 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



bundredB of specimenB of the modem ware ; bat those 
are the ancient gems, the priceless treasures.' With as 
great a reverence as Ultramontanist ever paid to relic, 
ne took down a misshapen and black brown some- 
thing out of a sort of iron net on the extreme left of 
theiine of shelves, and exclaimed with an air of 
triumph : * Now what do you think of this, 
Richard?* 

*It's very ugly, isn't it, please, sir?' said Dick, 
determined to speak plainly this time, and not to be 
misunderstood aeain. 

* Ugly ! ' cried Mr Mickleham in a tone of the 
most undisguised horror. * Why, I begin to think that 
what has been said of you must be true. Ugly ! Why, 
you young reprobate, this was found in a tomb at 
Thebes, and must have been manufactured nearly 
fifteen hxmdred years before the Christian era. It was 
made, perhaps, by the very father of the art. Ugly ! 
Why, what on earth were those bright eyes given you 
for?' 

* I beg your pardon, sir,' replied Dick with sincere 
contrition ; * I reallv am no judge at alL I 'm only 
thirteen years old, although I look so tall. I daresay 
it is a very pretty jug indeed.' 

* Jug ! ' echoed Mr Mickleham with a shriek ; * it 's a 
bottle, sir ; a bottle of Chinese stoneware. Here is a 
sun-dried brick from Babylon, with a cuneiform 
inscription on it, telling us that it was made at the 
establishment of the Messrs Cockspur and Triangle 
of that epoch. That straw and clay, sir, were put 
together three thousand years ago. Here, again, is a 
clav-book from the private library of Sennacherib, 
and contains the inventory of the furniture of his 
palace. Descending to modem times, here is a beau- 
tiful rustic figure from the hands of Bernard Palissy 
himself, he who, being unable to pay his assistant his 
wages, gave him the coat off his own back, and after 
sixteen years of poverty-stricken existence, triumphed. 
This rose-coloured Sevres Cupid was made for the 
famous Madame Dubarry, whose exquisite taste in 
porcelain must not, however, be permitted to blind us 
to the impropriety of her behaviour ; she was as frail 
as her pink china. This splendid vase was one of 
a set purchased by Augustus III. at the price of a 
whole regiment of dragoons, and to my mind was 
worth a squadron ; while this tea-cup, made by Charles 

III. of Nor Goodness Heavens ! look, boy ! you 

have younger si^ht than I : can this, by any possi- 
bility, be a crack in the handle ? Come here ; I would 
not venture to take it off its nail for half the treasures 
of Dresden.' 

* It's only a cobweb, sir,' observed Dick, examining 
it ; * just let me blow it away.' 

* Not for vour life, boy, not for your life ! ' exclaimed 
Mr Mickleham in unaffected terror. *0h, the rash- 
ness and foolhardineas of youth ! Just run your eye 
over this accoimt for me, and tell me what you make 
it. What a turn you have given me, lad ; I shan't be 
fit for work for the next half hour. There 's the bell 
going for the workmen's dinner, luckily, so I can 
conscientiously devote the interval to limcheon.' The 
old gentleman opened a cupboard, and produced some 
sherry and biscuits. * You must be hungry, lad, after 
l)eing in the country-air this morning. I remember it 
gave me a tremendous appetite the last time I was in 
it — between thirteen and fourteen years ago.' 

* Do you stop in this place all the year round, sir ? ' 
inquired the lad with astonishment. 

* Pretty much,' retumed the old gentleman, laugh- 
ing. * I very rarely go far away, at all events ; and 
don't you tmnk it 's a very nice place too ? ' 

*I like this room, sir, and I like you,' answered 
Dick ; * but I don't like Darkendim Street, nor that 
smell of old straw down stairs.' 

* Smell of old straw ! ' replied the other. * Why, what 
a strange boy you are. I never smell any old straw. 
What fancies lads do take into their giddy heads ! 
You must dismiss all that, Richard, you know ; for 



the 



after a day or two, when I have seen what sort of an 
accountant you make, you will be put in the packing 
department under your brother Adolphus. Lior^ bless 
you, lad, you will get to like the old house in tixne so 
much that there will be no getting you away from it^' 

Dick thought within himself, that aluiouffh he 
should get to be as old as the Babylon brick, this 
would never happen, but he kept the reflectioo 
within his own bosom. 

*And now, my boy, we must not waste our time 
any longer ; please to add up all these several sums in j 
that sheet yonder, and see if you can verify **" 
amounts which I have in my desk.' 

So Dick was set to work, and laboured on 
duously till four o'clock, at which hour Mr Ingram 
Arbour came in with his hat on, and after having 
received a favourable account of his nephew*8 exer- 
tions, bade him get ready, and come along with him 
to Golden Square. His uncle and Adolphus walked on 
rapidly together, and the boy trotted benind them, con- 
fused by the unaccustomed throng and din, and keeping 
to the heels of his unanxious relatives only with the 
greatest difficulty. After a most exciting run of forty 
minutes, diversified by perils of crossings, stiipendons in 
Dick's Arcadian eyes, he arrived at h^ new homa 

Golden Square, as most people know, is not a very 
cheerful spot, from whatever pom t of view it ia regarded ; 
but when approached from the Regent Street aide, as 
it chanced to be in the present instance, it appean, 
by contrast to that thoroughfare, more especially 
sombre. The scanty snow too, which still lay here 
and there on the spouts of the houses and on the 
brinks of the gutters, intensified the general gloom ; aiad 
the whole impression given to poor Dick, fresh from 
Rose Cottage, was, that Golden Square was little better 
than Darkendim Street. A pretty waiting-maid 
opened the door, and a nice-looking, and rather statdy 
old lady received them in the hall with a cartsy, and 
kissed Kichard's cheek. * Excuse the liberty, young 
sir,' said she ; * but I have been a great many yean 
in your good uncle's house, and my heart is dlrawn 
towards those that are of his kith and kin.' 

Dick retumed the salute with cordiality, as became 
his genial nature, and was about to extend the sphere 
of his benevolence to the younger female, when 
Adolphus, touching his uncle's sleeve, drew his atten- 
tion to that circumstance, and Mr Ingram Arbour 
roared out : * What are you about, sir ? ' and * How old, 
in the name of all the vices, is that boy ? Take him 
into the housekeeper's room, Mrs Trimming, and let 
him have his tea and cold meat with you — that is to 
say, if you are not afraid of the young dog. It will 
never do for a child like that to be dining late everv 
day.' 

With this somewhat inconsistent speech, the miu^sr 
of the house and his myrmidon ascended to the upper 
floors, and the old lady having conducted the lad mto 
a comfortable little sitting-room below the level of the 
street-pavement, set before him a handsome piece <A 
cold beef and a jug of ale ; after which she surveyed 
him admiringly, through her silver spectacles, for the 
space of a minute, and then deliberately kissed him 
again. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

OOLDBN SQCAEX. 

For the first week, Richard Arbour bore his tnuu- 
portation to town with equanimity; he liked Mr 
Mickleham and Mrs Trimming, and saw httle of his 
uncle and brother. When they went down, at the 
end of the week, to Rose Cottage, leaving him in 
(rolden Squai-e, he thought it ra&cr hard; but the 
old housekeeper was so kind, and Betsy so tender, 
that he was not so very miserable after alL But 
after this exile had lasted for some ten weeks or so, 
and shifted from the pattern-room to the packing 
department, he had been exposed day after day to 
the insolence and cruelty of Adolphus, he began to find 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



53 



life in Darkendim Strecdi irksome indeed. Appeals to 
the head of the firm — who was of opinion that 'all 
complaints from inferiors against their superiors were 
alike frivolous and vexatious — he soon found were 
utterly fruitless ; and as for praise from that quarter 
for the things that he did well and dutifuUy — he 
might as well have looked for apricots upon a 
clothes-prop. Mr Ingram Arbour, who was oy no 
means loth to receive the harvest of a well-spent 
life himself fpom the general public, in such titles 
as Ptudent, Well-to-do, Independent, Respectable, 
and the Uke, had never been known to bestow a 
grain of it in the way of encouragement of other 
people. He prided himself too mucm upon his prac- 
tical character to have any respect for the value of 
fair words. He had become possessed of a foolish 
saying against them in the connection with the 
buttmng of parsnips, and thought himself rather a 
philosopher in its application. Most men who are 
much addicted to proverbs are mentally short-sighted, 
and our seller of chinaware was in that way a ]^rfect 
Solomon at second-hand. *■ A straw will shew us which 
way the wind blows,' says the commonplace sage, and 
never takes into account the place where he finds the 
straw, and the thousand eddies wherein it is like to 
be whirled by currents of which he never dreams. 

Uncle Ingram and Nephew Richard drifted further 
and further away from one another daily on the freez- 
ing sea of mutual discontent, and we may be sure 
that a breath from a certain quarter was not wanting 
to make matters worse between them. 

Dick, who was a sharp lad — for all that Messrs 
Dot and Carriwun thought — could unlock a ward 
or two of his brother's character already, and Avith 
the imprudence of his years had made Adolphus 
aware of this proficiency. He had been so indiscreet 
— in a certain altercation at the office concerning the 
breakage of some little Etruscan pitchers— as to 
remind that young man of Betsy's having boxed his 
ears one day, within Dick's hearing, and doubtless 
for provocation received ; and that in a tone of voice 
which might have been heard in the sentry-box, 
had Uncle Ingram chanced to be on guard there. 
Adolphus smiled contemptuously upon the absurd 
libel at the time, but two chinamen who had been 
heard to giggle behind a crate, lost their situations, 
for misconduct, within the we^ nor in the end was 
the disclosure a laughing matter to anybody. Mr 
Joseph Surface never likes that decent screen to be 
thrown down which so often stands in the comer 
of his apartment, whether Lady Teazle be really 
concealed behind it or not. 

On the second Saturday that Richard was left alone 
in Qolden Square, Mrs Trimming entertained companv. 
The respect which Mr Ingram Arbour eviaently 
had for that lady was so high, that Richard never 
doubted but that the dining-room was used b^ her 
that night instead of her own apartment with his full 
permission ; and, indeed, she looked so ' superior ' and 
* genteel' on the evening in question, tmit nobody 
would have ventured to dispute her privilege to sit 
wherever she pleased. She had a black s3k gown 
on, which stood out in its own right without the aid 
of crinoline, like cardboard; and the lace that she 
wore voluminously about her was of that faded, not to 
say dingy complexion, which is known (very familiarly) 
as Old Point. The expression upon Mrs Trimmini^s 
features, too, was gala-like to an extraordinary degree 
upon this night of her reception. Dick hardly recog- 
nised the staid and stately housekeeper in the 
animated and joyous dd lady who superintended 
Betsy as she set out supper upon the mignty dining- 
table — for three. One person only, then, was to come 
to supper. The boy had expected a dozen guests at 
leasts so tremendous had been the preparations. Who 
could this distinguished visitor be? thought he, for 
the sake of whom he Bad been adjured to put on his 
Sunday clothes, and in whose honour Betsy wore 



as nmny ribbons as would have served a recruiting 
party — which, indeed, {lerhaps she was. 

When all the arrangements were completed to her 
satisfaction, and the dock struck 9 p. m., Mrs Trim- 
ming seated herself before the fire with her feet on the 
iender, and her silk gown furled like a banner on her 
lap, in the attitude of expectation. 

* Betsy,' said she, with great distinctness, * when Mr 
Jones — ^Mr Jones, you know — knocks at the door, tell 
him who is here; tell him, before he enters, that 
Master Richard does him the honour of supping with 
him to-night.' 

Dick looked at the raised pie and the lobster upon 
the well-furnished table, and protested with sincerity 
that for his part he esteemed it a real pleasure to sup 
with Mr Jones. His politeness had hitherto prevented 
him from speaking of the expected visitor, but mention 
having thus been made of him, he ventured to ask 
whether Mr Jones was a nice man. 

* A nice man ! ' ejaculated the old lady, with a 
sudden flush upon her wrinkled countenance. ' Oh, I 
forgot ; you do not know him ; how should you, my 
poor boy? Well, he is generallv considered rather 
nice, I lielieve ; is he not,^tsy ? 

*0 yes, ma'am,' replied that domestic; * he is so 
beautiful, and so genteel-like, and so kind; and then 
there's nothing luce pride about Mr Jones neither, 
who has been everywhere, and done such a many 
things. In fact, for my part — though I'm only a ser- 
vant, ma'am, and no judge — I never set eyes on any 
person to at all come up to Mr Jones in any way.' 

Mrs Trimming rubbed her white hands softly 
together, and nodded her head, as if keeping time 
with these commendations ; and when they were con- 
cluded, looked at Dick with sparkling eyes, as though 
she would ask him what he thought of Mr Jones now. 

It is a little difficult to be enthusiastic about people 
that we have never seen — although, judging from the 
expectations of many persons in all classes of society, 
it would seem to be one of the easiest performances of 
the human mind — and Dick could only reiterate his 
satisfaction at the opportunitv which was about to be 
afforded to lum of making the acquaintance of this 
pai^on. 

*'niat'8 his step, Betsy,' cried the old lady sud- 
denly : * nm to the door, Betsy ; quick.' 

* Please, ma'am, I think it's only the pleaceman 



as 



The old lady shook her head with a smile as a 
double rap at the door, which seemed to shake the 
house, and ^ve the Square assurance of a gentieman, 
cut short this incredulous speech. 

'I think I ought to know his step by this time,' 
quoth Mrs Trimming tenderly. 

There was a littie whispering in the hall, intemipted 
by a * Never mind, Betsy ; who the dickens cares ?' in 
ringing cheery tones ; and in strode the guest of the 
evening. He was a handsome well-built young man 
enough, of some nine-and-twenty years of age — unless 
his gemal maimer lightened him of a year or two — 
but not of such a surpassing loveliness, as Dick 
thought, as to excuse Mrs Trimming, at her time of 
life, for throwing her arms round his neck and kissing 
him on both his cheeks. 

* Mr Jones is a very old friend of mine,' observed 
she in extenuation, and when she had got back her 
breath again. *I daresay you thought it very odd 
that I should do such a thing as that. Master Richard, 
and odder still that such a handsome young fellow 
should salute me again.' 

Dick gallantiy hastened to say, that he saw nothing 
out of the course of nature in the proceeding, at all, 
for that he himself cherished the remembrance of that 
embrace which had been bestowed upon him by Mrs 
Trimming on the day of his arrival most warmly: 
whereat Mr Jones observed, approvinely, that he was 
a jolly littie chap, and the three sat down to supper, 
excellent friends. 



54 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



~\ 



There was, however, one disturbing thought in the 
mind of Dick that came between his appetite and the 
raised pie, and interfered with his acquaintanceship 
wi^ the lobster again and again ! Where had he seen 
this Mr Jones before, and under what previous circum- 
stances ? He could not have been the medical gentle- 
man who had ushered him into the world thirteen years 
ago and more, for that would have presumed hmi to 
have obtained the right of exercising that delicate 
function at the early age of fifteen or sixteen ; and 
b<^des, Dick had always heard that Dr Nevcralecp 
had been the master of that situcation : and yet it was 
somehow with a baby that Mr Jones was associated 
in Dick's mind. With a baby and with a baptism — 
yes, so far so good ; but not with hia baptism, for the 
parson of the parish — as he had a silver mug with that 
reverend gentleman's name upon it to prove — had 
'stood' for him, as second sponsor, and not Mr Jones. 
Dick was endeavouring to remember whether he had 
ever been at the christening of anybody else except 
himself, when the mysterious stranger cut short his 
meditations with, *Come, young gentleman, let us 
have a glass of wine together.' 

The voice was entire^ strange to him, and seemed 
to break the spell — to loosen and throw into confusion 
the links out of which his memory was striving to 
construct a connected chain. It was good, however, 
to listen to Mr Jones for other reasons. For so appar- 
ently youns a man, his experience was amazingly 
larse, and whatever he hod to tell of, he narrated well, 
ana even brilliantly. He had been a sailor ; and he 
made Dick long for the blue expanse of ocean lyinc; 
dreamy under the tropic sky, and anon, wild with 
fury, climbing, white-lipped, up the reeling vessel's 
side ; he spoke of the islands of the West, ^xiiere fruit, 
and flower, and bird were, as Dick's literature led him 
to believe, as they ought to be, till the lad longed for 
those Eden bowers, and loathed the tether^ and 
inadventurous life that he himself was doomed to lead. 
Betsy, who had tacitly obtained permission to remain 
in the room, drank in these wonders with open mouth 
and e^es ; and Mrs Trinmiing listened to them with the 
delighted look of one whose admiration is too great to 
give place to iuterest, and who draws her proudest 
dleasuro from the nwt faces of h&r fellow-ustencrs. 
Thus the time swiftly passed, and it was nigh mid- 
nieht when Mr Jones suddenly rose up, exclaiming : 
* Y ou have made me chatter so that I have clean for- 
gotten my pipe. I suppose I may go down stairs as 
usual?' 

Master Richard Arbour took up his chamber candle- 
stick with a sigh. 

* Would you like to keep me company, young 
gentleman? observed the visitor, perceiving his dis- 
molination to depart. *■ When I was your age, 1 smoked 
a pipe myself. Let him sit up ror me, instead of 
Betsy, madam, and lock the front door after me ? We 
shan t be tweniy minutes altogether.' 

*0h, please do let me, Mrs Trimming,' entreated 
the lad. 

To which the old lady replied, first, that nothing 
could induce her to suffer anything of the sort to be 
done, and that if it was done, she would be unworthy 
to fill the responsible situation which she occupied in 
that house for ever afterwards; and secondly, that 
she could never refuse Mr Jones anything, and that 
his young friend might do as he likecL 

So the two retired to Mrs Trimming's ordinary 
sitting-room ; and Mr Jones not only fiUed his own 
piiK) with a pleasant but iwwerful mixture of tobacco, 
but endowea Master Richard with another, furnished 
with Turkish Latakia, or, as he himself expressed 
it, * mother's milk.' Under the influence of this 
novel narcotic and Mr Jones's stirring narra- 
tions, the lad passed much such an evening as an 
imaginative yoimg Persian may be supposed to 
do on his first introduction to hashis. Only 
whenever Mr Jones made pause, if it were but 



to take a momoitary sip at his gin and 
and the voice of the charmer ceased, agun Dick's 
brain would revert to the inquiry of. Where Acme 
I seen this man before, and how is it that I know 
that face so well ? He had certainly seen him duia- 
tened, or cU& christening — that was a settled matter, 
and might be put aside ; but had he not also seen hnn 
being married, or giving in marriage somebody else ? 
Nay, at a funoral, too— it couldn't hkve been at papa^s 
funeral, for Dick had been but a baby when mat 
hi^penad — ^but at some funeral, somewhere, he had 
most certainlv beheld Mr Jones, with his hat oS, 

standing by the grave-side in the open air 1^ 

front door was open, and the cold ni^t-wind hlowiag 
freely upon his brow when Dick got thus far. 

* You feel better now, lad?' Mr Jones was sayini^ in 
the voice that was so stranfie to the lad's ear — ^* yon 
feel better now, don't you? You should never swalknr 
your smoke, my young friend, nor drink your gm and 
water out of the spoon. Grood-night, Dick ; I ahall 
see you again soon. Now, mind, when I shut the door, 
you must put up the chain directiy. There ! ' 

A tremendous bang echoed throu^ the house — ^6 
protest of a respectable door, bearing such a name at 
Ingram Arbour upon it, at being unmwfully shunmed 
at three o'clock upon a Sabbath morning — and "Umf^i* 
Richard reached his sleeping-apartment by a Mries of 
tackings and lurches, and got into bed with hia boots 
on. 



OSCULATION. 

When a fair correspondent inquired of the * 
Apollo,' why kissing was so much in fashion, what 
benefit was derived from it, and who was its in^en^ 
tor, the oracle answered : ' Ah, madam, had yoa a 
lover, you woidd not come to Apollo for a solution ; 
since tiicre is no dispute but the kisses of mutual 
lovers give infinite satisfaction. As to its inyentum, 
it is certain Nature was its author, and it begam 
with the first courtship.' Apollo was li^l We 
indignantiy scout the assertions of those unromantio 
individuals who maintain, that in the desire of the 
suf^icious ancients to test their wives' and daog^ifcfln^ 
sobriety, orisinated a practice reprobated by Soflnates 
the ])hiloflO{mer, CaA> the censor, Ambrose the saint, 
and Bunjran the tinker, and lauded by lyzisfes and 
lovers from the beginning of time. 

Our tattooed pro^nitors must have been haxlttriiM 
indeed, if we are to believe the Scandinavian traditian, 
that kissing was an exotic pleasure introduced into tibu 
island by Kowena, the beautiful daughter of Hengist 
the Saxon. At a banquet given by the British monaich 
in honour of his allies, the prmcess, after p 
the brimming beaker to her lips, saluted the 

ished and d^ghted Vortigem with a little kii ., 

the manner m her own x)eople. So well did tUs 
novel importation thrive under the cloudy akiea of 
England, that from being an occasional luxury, it rnxm 
became an everyday enjoyment, and the 1<ingii«ii 
were celebrated far and near as a kissixig people; 
and not without reason, for our ancestors did nothing 
by halves. In Edward IV. 's reign, a goest was 
exjpected on his arrival, and also on his departure, to 
salute not only his hostess, but all the ladies of the 
family. This pretty piece of civility not a little 
astonished a Greek visitor to the court of bluff King 
HaL So widely spread was the osculatory reputation 
of Englishmen, that when Wolsey's biographer visited 
a French nobleman at his ch&teau, the mistress of the 
mansion entering the room with her bevy of attendant 
maid^iB, thus accosted her husband's guest : ' ForaS' 
much as ye be an Englishman, whose custom it is in 
your country to kiss all ladies and gentlewomen 
without offence, and although it be not so here in 
thiB realm, yet will I be so JSold as to kiss you, and 
so shall all my maidens.' A promise no sooner made 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



than redeemed, to the inezpnBsible satisfftction of 
Cavendish. 

How prettily does Shakspeare*8 Helena beg a kiss of 
her uncouth, churlish husband ! 

' I am not worthy of the wealth I own ; 
Nor dare I say 'tis mine ; and yet it is ; 
Bnt, like a timorous thie^ most fain would steal 
What law does Touch mine own.' 

*What would you have?' 
* Something ; and scarce so much ; — ^nothing, indeed — 
I would not tell you what I would, my lord — &ith, yes — 
Strangers and foes do sunder, and not loss.' 

From the conclusion of the poor damsel's appeal, we 
might infer that some degree of intimacy preceded 
admission to the sweet privilege, had we not con- 
temporary evidence to uie contnur. In a story 
founded on the same plot as Oymbdiney we are told 
how the lachimo of the tale lay at Waltam a whole 
day before he caught sight of the lady ; when, seeing 
her in a field, he went up to her, and kissed her — * a 
thing no modest woman can deny.' The practice was 
in fnH vigour when Erasmus sojourned m the land, 
and wrote enthusiastically in its commendation : ' If 
yon ^ to any place, you are received with a kiss by 
all; if you depart on a journey, you are dismissed 
wiUi a kiss ; you return — kisses are exchanged ; they 
come to visit you — a kiss the first thing ; uiey leave 
you — ^you kiss them all round. Do they meet you 
anywhere? — kisses in abundance. Lastly, wherever 
you move, there is nothing but kisses — and if you had 
but once tasted them ! how soft they are ! how fra- 
srant! on my honour, you would wish not to reside 
Here for ten years only, but for lifel' Ladies then 
used kissing-comfitB of amber-grease to sweeten tiieir 
breath I When the Constable of Castile visited i^^ 
English court after the accession of James I., proud 
and pompous as the Spaniard was, he was right well 
pleased to bestow a kiss on Anne of Denmark^ pretty 
maids of honour, 'according to the custom of the 
country, any neglect of which is taken as an afiront.' 
Clever Chnstma of Sweden, taking her ladies to dine 
with Cromwell's ambassador, commanded him to 
teach her suite the Engliah mode of salutation — an 
order readily obeyed by Whitelock, who, after a few 
coy and * pretty defences,' found his pupils apt scholars, 
their lipe readily obeying hii instructions. Tom 
Oarew, one of the mob of gentlemen who wrote at 
ease, and very free and easily into the bargain, 
dedfues kissing an infallible cure for the toothache. 
It was then a common salutation between men, 
aHhouffh we do not suppose Tom's prescription 
referred to male kisses. It was also a oonmion 
civility in Paris, according to St Evremond, because 
kisses were conunodities costing nothing, never 
wearing out, and always to be had in abundance. In 
Englai5, it gradually declined, not in consequence of 
the ^orbs of the inspired tinker, who abhorred the 
VDcomely pnctice, and who was wont to put down 
those who urged in defence that it was merely a 
civility, by asking them, *Why they made baulks? 
Why they salutea the most handsome, and let the 
ill-favoured ones go ?' but because it grew unfashion- 
able in France. It was still in some vogue under 
William and Mary, but we find Rustic Sprightly 
complaining to the Spectator^ that since the unhappy 
arrival in his neighbourhood of a courtier who was 
contented with a profound bow, no young gentle- 
woman had been kissed, though previously he had 
been accustomed, upon entering a room, to salute the 
ladies all round. 

In olden time, a kiss was the fee exacted by every 
gentleman from his partner in the dance : 

What fool would dance 
If that, when dance is done. 
He may not have at Iruly's Up 
That which in danoe he won ? 



Ariel sings : * Curtmed when you have and kissed ;' 
and Henry says to Anne Boleyn : 

Sweetheart, 
I were unmannerly to take you out. 
And not to kiss you ! 

Then there were * kissing dances,' in some of which, 
when the fiddler thought the dancers had had enou^ 
music, he sounded two notes, which all understood to 
mean *kiss her!' In others, the kissing took place 
while the dancers were in full career, when the gentl*» 
men were compelled to dwell on the lips of their 
partners almost a minute, or they would be too quick 
for the music, and dance ^uite out of tune. Custom 
still warrants stealing a kiss from a sleeping beau^ 
at any season, and from waking ones under the 
Christmas misletoe. In Russia, kisses are Easter 
offerings. There ev^y member of a family salutea 
eveiy other member ; acquaintances greet each other 
with a kiss; public employes salute their princ^als 
and one another ; the general embraces the officers of 
his oor{)s; the colonel those of his regiment and « 
deputation from the ranks ; while the captain kisset 
aU the soldiers of his company. The czar salutes his 
family, retinue, court, and attendants ; pays a similar 
compliment to his offioers on parade, the sentinels at 
the palace gates, and a select party of private soldienk 
In some parts, anybody may he compeUed to kiss any- 
body else ; the poorest serf meeting a hig^-bom dame 
in the street has but to say : * Chnst is risen,' aikl ha 
will receive a kiss, and ' Me is truly risen,' in reply. 
In Finland, if Bayard Taylor is to be credited, the 
women have a curious aversion to what the sex usually 
receive with complacency, if not pleasure. A Finniw 
matron, on hearmg thi^ it was a conmum thing in 
Eogland for man and wife to kiss, expressed greai 
disgust thereat, declaring emphaticaUy that if her 
husband dared to take such a liberty, she would give 
him a box on the ears he would feel for a month I 

In the e^es of our law, kissing a lady against her 
will, or without her permiasion (terms not exactly 
synonymous), is a common assault punishable l^ 
fine or imprisonment ; penalties not always sufficieift 
to deter susceptible men from yielding to roqr 
temptation. 

In France, by the code of regulations by which the 
theatres are governed^ any actor kisedng an actrea 
without her consent is liable to a fine of so maegr 
francs. The husband of a popular fVench actreai 
brought the sti^e-lover before the tribunal for 
having comzmtted the offence to a most alanning 
and unwazrantable extenl The defendant at fin* 
pleaded consent of tl|e lady ; this being disproved, he 
audaciously offered to settle the matter by retumiog 
the kisses : 

'Dearest beauty, you oomplain 

That I killed you with a kiss ; 
then, take it hack again, 

Lest I justly curse my bliss ' — 

a mode of payment of course indignantly rejected by 
the plaintiff We do not know what the Londoa 
green-room law is on this pleasant question — ^the 
practice on the stage varies considerably. In general, 
stage salutes are most palpable make-believes; one 
popular comedian never trusts his face within kissing- 
range, but then his wife generally plays in the same 
piece, so he may have good reason for his caution ; 
others we could name, who, providing the lusser be 
fair, take the benefit of the act ; ana we remember 
seeing an actor, taking advantage of a favourable 
opportunity, salute a pretty actress, although there 
was no stage direction to justify him — a piece of * gag ' 
which the lady very properly accepted as the cue tor 
as unequivocal a box on the ear as ever fair handa 
administered. 

Every one knows how Margaret of Scotland kissed 
the ugly and sleeping Chartier, and how she justified 



I 



56 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



her taste by declaring, that a mouth from which such 
a profusion of wit had proceeded needed no other 
grace to make it beautiiuL Voltaire, too, had the 
honour of being publicly kissed in the stage-box by 
the young and lovely Duchess de ViUars; but in his 
case the lady gave the salute not of her own free-will, 
but in obedience to the commands of the pit, mad 
with enthusiasm for the poet's Merope, 

Kissing the pope's toe was a fashion introduced by 
one of the Leos, who had mutilated his right hand. 
Kissing hands was a regal ceremony practised at 
least as early as the days of Caligula. When the 
gallant cardinal, John of Lorraine, was presented to 
the Duchess of Savoy, she gave him ner hand to 
kiss, greatly to the indignation of the irate church- 
man. * How, madam ! ' exclaimed he ; * am I to be 
treated in this manner? I kiss the queen my mis- 
tress, who is the greatest queen in tne world, and 
shall I not kiss you, a dirty little duchess ? I would 
have you know I have kissed as handsome ladies, 
and of as great or greater family than you ! * With- 
out more ado, he made for the lips of the proud 
Portuguese princess, and despite her resistance, kissed 
her thrice on her mouth before he released her with 
an exultant laugh. Cardinal John was apparently 
of one mind with Selden, who thought * to kiss ladies' 
hands after their lips, as some do, is like little boys, 
who, after they eat the apple, fall to the paring.' 
When Charles 11. was maiung his triiunphal pro- 
gress through the land, certain country ladies who 
were presented to him, instead of kissing the royal 
hand, in their simplicity held up their own heads to 
be kissed by the king — a blunder no one would 
more readily excuse than the Merry Monarch. 

Kisses, says Sam Slick, are like creation, because 
they are made out of nothing, and are very good. A 
countryman of the dockmaker conjugate the verb 
thus: Buss, to kiss; rebus, to kiss again; pluribus, 
to kiss without regard to number ; sillybus, the hand 
instead of the lips; blunderbuss, to kiss the wrong 
person; omnibus, to kiss everybody in the room; 
erebus, to kiss in the dark. Kissing one's own sister 
has been aptly likened to eating a veal sandwich; 
carrying out the comparison, kissing one's cousin — 
unless snc be a particular cousin, one coming imder 
the denomination 'dangerous' — may be considered 
equivalent to discussing a beef sandwich ; and the 
chaste salute snatched from the lips of the lass we 
love, to the piquante, appetite-provoking combination 
of hain, mustard, and bread. 

It \b upon record that the woods of Madeira, or at 
anyrate the people in them, once trembled at a kiss ; 
and that the Scotch parson kissed the fiddler's 
wife, and could not preach for thinking of it, a 
notable instance of sweetness long drawn out. An 
old treatise on the Pleasures of Matrimony and its 
preliminary Courtship, assures us that when a lady 
condescends to treat her lover by letting him taste 
the charming cherries of her lips, and suck .from 
thence the fragrant breath tiiat tar exceeds Arabia's 
rich perfume, the privilege wraps the happy man in 
such pleasure that he imagines he is in Elysium! 
But tms is flat, stale, and unproiitable, compared with 
the effect of a kiss upon the hero of a modem Grerman 
novel — * Sophia returned my kiss, and the earth 
went from under my feet ; my soid was no longer in 
my body; I touched the stars. I knew the happiness 
of the seraphim ! ' Poor fellow ! it must have been a 
sad thing for him when he landed on the terra firma 
of matrimony. 

Kissing, like the rest of the good things of life, 
should be indulged in in moderation. The ruddiest 
lip cloys with too much kissing. Young ladies may 
iustly hold in contempt the man who can number his 
kisses, and take the poet's word for it, that he will be 
content with few ; but we agree with the lassie in the 
play, that ' waste not, want not, appUes to kisses as 
weU as to siller;' and such a prodigal as the jovial 



vicar, who, not satisfied with obtaining a kiss, 
the lady to add to that a score — 

Then to that twenty add a hundred more ; 
A thousand to that hundred ; so kiss on 
To make that thousand up a million ; 
Treble that million, and when that is done. 
Let 's kiss afresh, as when we first begun ! 

deserved never again to taste the cherry ripe he lo 
prettily sang. 

Since kissing for good-manners' sake became a 
fashion of the past, kissine has gone by favour ; ao if 
any of our fair readers wiU blow a kiss to us, we will 
blow a kiss to them, and they may do so with perfect 
safety, for we never kiss and telL 



AX ARCTIC WINTER TWO HUNDRED 

YEARS AGO. 

IN TWO CHAPTERS. — CHAPTER II. 

Our brave old adventurers seem to have been very 
loyal, and great observers of saints' days. The Ist of 
March, being St David's Day, was kept as a holiday, 
and they ' prayed for his Highness Charles Prince of 
Wales.' In the course of the month, several attempts 
were made to capture deer, but on each occasion the 
hunters returned without success, and almost dead of 
cold. The carpenter was by this time very sickly, yet 
persevered in setting uj) the framework of the pin- 
nace, and Captain James gives a vivid idea of the 
extreme difficulties under which wood was procured 
for the purpose of making floor and futtock timbers. 
The men who *were appointed to look for crooked 
timber did stalk and wade, sometimes on all-four, 
through the snow, and when they saw a tree likely 
to fit the mould, they must heave away the snow, to 
see if it would fit the mould ; if not, they must seek 
further. If it did fit the mould, they made a fire to it 
to thaw it, otherwise it could not be cut. Then they 
cut it down, and fitted it to the length of the mould, 
and dragged it a mile through the snow.' Although 
they lived in a wood, they seem to have had hard 
work to keep up a good supply of fuel, owing princi- 
pally to the lack of suitable tools for cutting down 
trees. The 1st of April was kept holy, being Easter 
Day, and the weak and diminished crew 'reasoned 
together' about their condition. There were five men, 
including the carpenter, quite helpless ; the boatswain 
and others very infirm ; and of all the rest, only five 
could cat of their ordinary food. The season had 
advanced, but it was cold as ever. The pinnace was 
not in a forward state, and the carpenter was shelved. 

* After much arguing,' they resolved to dig the ice out 
of the sunk vessel the first warm weather that came. 
On the 6th, was the deepest snow they had hitherto 
had ; and until the 16th the weather continued 
extremely severe, and the spring was frozen harder at 
its source than ever before. Then came a comfortable 
sunshiny day, which enabled them to clear the upper 
decks of the Henrietta Maria of snow, and to make a 
fire in the great cabin, and to dig the anchor up out of 
the ice. They also dug to find the missing rudder, 
but without avail On the 19th, the master and two 
others asked leave to sleep on board, by which they 

* avoided the hearing the miserable groans and lamen- 
tations of the sick men, who endured (poor souls) 
intolerable torments.' By the 19th, they had dug so 
far do\vn in the hold, that they saw a cask, and some 
water; and five days later succeeded in getting out 
the cask, and found it full of very good beer, * which 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



57 



did much rejoice us all, especially the sick men, not- 
withstanding it did taste a little of bilge- water.' This 
gave them heart to work away at clearing out the ice, 
and stopping the holes which they had cut to sink the 
yesseL By continually pouring hot water down the 
pumps, they melted the ice in them, and got them to 
work. As a drawback to this cheering labour, the 
poor carpenter was now beyond hope of recovery, and 
several of the men in a most miserable state. 

It rained all day long on the 29th, which they hailed 
as a sure sign tnat winter was about to break up. 
The next day, however, was very cold with snow and 
hail, and it pinched the sick men more than at any 
previous time. It is pleasant to learn that they 
remembered it was May-day Eve, so * made a good 
fire, and chose ladies, and did ceremoniously wear 
their names in our caps, endeavouring to revive our- 
selves by any means.' Poor fellows ! much had they 
yet to endure ere they saw Old England again, and 
that was the last May-day Eve some of them were 
ever to spend. 

The Henrietta Maria was amply provisioned on 
sailing with beef, pork, fish, &c., and Captain James 
gives an interesting account how they had dieted 
uiemselves all along. But after Christmas, many of 
the crew were un^le to eat any solid food, and 
subsisted on meal fried in oil, and pease boil^ to a 
soft paste. Water was almost the sole drink through- 
out the winter. It is noteworthy what a few animals 
and birds were trapped and shot ; in all the winter, 
only a few partridges were shot, and about a dozen 
foxes were trapped. One of the latter was taken 
alive, and being killed and boiled, *made broth for 
the weakest of the sick men, who ate the flesh also.' 
Several of the crew were helpless as babes, and all 
suffered more or less from scurvy, which they had no 
remedy against but such herbs and grasses as they 
could picK up. 'I ever feared,' says the narrator, 

* that we should be weakest in the spring, and there- 
fore had reserved a tun of Alicant wine unto this 
time. Of this, by putting seven parts of water to 
one of wine, we made some weak beverage which was 
little better than water, the wine, being frozen, having 
lost its virtue. The w^dter sort had a pint of Alicant 
a day by itself, and a little dram of such poor aqua 
yitsB as we had, every morning, next their heaits.' 
The first few days of the * merry month o' May ' it 
snowed and blew, and was unexpectedly cola, so 
that the sick men got worse and worse, and fainted 
when taken out of bed, and it was *much ado to 
fetch life in thenu' On the 4th, the captain and 
surgeon went forth to try and shoot some wild-fowl 
for the sick men, but they found the birds so 
extremely shy, that * they would not endure to see 
anything move' — a peculiarity we should not have 
expected in such a locality. 

On the 6th, John Wuden, chief-mate, died, and 
was buried in the evening ' in the most Christian 
manner we could, upon the top of a bare hill of sand.' 
On the 9th, l^ey got up five barrels of beef and pork 
from the vessel s nold, and f oimd their four butts of 
beer, and one of cider. These liquids had lain imder 
water all winter, but proved nothing the worse on 
that accoimt, and, devoutly remarks Captain James, 

* God make us ever thankful for the comfort it gave 
TUk' By the 12th, they had cleared all the ice out of 
the hold, and found the spare shoes, the temporary 
loss of which had caused them much suffering. They 
lowered into the hold the cables, and a butt of wine 
which had been on the upper deck all winter, and 
BtUl remained firmly frozen. They began to refit the 
ship, hoping she would yet prove stench and sea- 
worthy — an opinion which tne carpenter strongly 
controv e rted, arguing that in the spot where uie 
reposed, the ice had filled up her leaks, and thus 
k^it oat water for the present, but that when she 
was in motion again, they would doubtless open : in 



fabt, they could even now see through her seams 
between wind and water. 

The 13th being the Sabbath, the diminished crew 
solemnly gave tlumks to God for 'those hopes and 
comforts we daily had,' and on this day they saw 
some bare patches of land where the snow had dis- 
appeared — an exhilarating sight to men in their 
position. They were now chiefly concerned for the 
missing rudder, and the reflection that, as their bark 
lay in the very strength of the tideway, the floating 
ice, whenever it broke up, might complete the des> 
truction of the already shatteml vessel They next 
looked up the rigging, which was much injured by 
the ice, and the cooper prepared casks to help to 
buoy up the ship, if necessary. Some of the men 
were sent forth to try and shoot fowl for the sick 
men, who were worse and worse. 

There is a brief yet interesting entry in the 
captain's journal on the 15th. *I manured a little 
patch of ground that was bare of snow, and sowed 
it with pease, hoping to have some of the herbs 
[leaves] of them shortly to eat, for as yet we can 
find no green thing to comfort us.' The next entry 
is a melancholy one. *The 18th, our carpenter, 
William Cole, died, a man generally bemoaned by us 
all, as much for his innate goodness as for the present 
necessity we had for a man of his profession. He had 
endured a long sickness with much patience, and 
made a very godly end. In the evening, we buried 
him by Mr Warden, accompanied with as many as 
could go, for three more of our principal men lay Uien 
expecting a good Iwur* The poor carpenter, we leam» 
b^ore he became too weak for any exertion, had 
made the frame of the pinnace ready to be bolted 
and treenailed, so that the survivors xnight plank her 
after his death. Thi9 pinnace was twenty-seven feet 
long, ten feet breadth of beam, and five feet of hold ; 
buraen, twelve or fourteen tons. 

A very singular discovery was made on the evening 
of the carpenter's burial It will be recollected that, 
many months previously, the gunner had been com- 
mitted to the sea, in deep water, and a ^ood distance 
from the ship; but the master, retummg on board 
the evening of this 18th of May, discovert what he 
believed to be some portion of the gunner's body 
alongside, just under tne gun-room ports. The next 
day, they dug the corpse out of the ice, the head 
being downwuds, and the heel upwards, * for he had 
but one leg, and the plaster was yet at his wound.' 
The body was perfectly fresh, and time had * wrought 
this only alteration on him, that his flesh would slip 
up and down upon his bones, like a glove on a man s 
hand. In the evening, we buried him by the others.' 
The fact that the dead body of the gunner had drifted 
a great distance, and finally settled and froze fast 
close under the gun-room ports (his special station 
aboard in life), seems a most remarkable incident, 
although Captain James makes no comment what- 
ever upon it. 

*■ The snow,' says Captain James, ' was by this time 
pretty well wasted in the woods ; and we having 
a high tree on the highest place of the island, which 
we (^led our Watch-tree, from the top of it could see 
into the sea, but saw no appearance of breaking-up 
yet. The 20th, being Whitsunday, we sadly solem- 
nised. The next day was the warmest sunsfhiny day 
that came this year. I sent two a-fowlin^; and 
myself, the master, surgeon, and one more, wiiJi our 
pieces and dogs, went into the woods, and wandering 
eight miles from the house, returned comfortless, not 
finding an herb or a leaf that was eatable. Our 
fowlers had as bad success. The snow in the woods 
was partly wasted away, and the ponds were almost 
unthawed, but the sea appeared all firm frozen. The 
snow doth not melt nere with the sun or rain, 
and so make land-floods, as in England, but is exhaled 
up by the sun, and sucked full of holes, like honey- 
combs, so that the land whereon it lies will not be at 



58 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



all wetted. We obserred, also, that let it rain never 
BO much, we had no land-floods after it. The 22d 
we went aboard the ahip, and found that ahe had 
made so much water that it was now risen above 
the ballast, which made us doubt again of her sound- 
ness. We fell to pumping, and pumped her quite 
diy. We had now sometimes sucn hot, glooms that 
we could not endure the sun, and yet in the nidit it 
would freeze vety hard. This unnaturalness <S the 
season tormented our men, that the^ grew worse and 
woise daily. The 23d, our boatswain, a painful man, 
having been long sick, which he had heartily resirted, 
was taken with such a pain in one of his tm^hs, that 
we verily thoucht he would presently have died. He 
kept his bed all day in great extremity ; and it was a 
maxim amone us, tiiat if any one kept his bed two 
days, he coula rise no more. This made eoery man 
strive to keep up for lifeJ 

May 24th proved a very warm sunny day, which 
melted the ice along-shore, and caused the frozen 
surface of the bay to crack all over with a fearful 
sound. In the afternoon, the captain i>erceived that 
the ice ebbed by the ship, and to save her from 
injury, he instantly ordered the master to sink her 
again (in a wa^ previously airanged), and to look out 
tSr the still missing rudder. The latter was found by 
a man pecking up tiie ice, and hoisted on board. The 
drift-ioe meantime rose into high heaps, and they 
were forced to cut away twenty &thoms of cable, 
which was fast frozen in the ice. After awhile, the 
ice settled agam. 'This,* ejaculates the wOTthy 
captain, ' was a joyful day to us all ; and we gave 
God thanks for the hopes we had of it' On the &th, 
the captain and the surgeon went to the bay where 
the seaman, John Barton, had been drowned the 
previous year, bv iucautiously walking over weak ice, 
noping to find his body ; but in this they were dis- 
ap]>ointed. The 29th was Prince Charles's birthday, 
i^ch they loyally kept as a holiday, hoisting their 
colours berth on board the vessel and ashore, and 
named their houses ashore Charles Town, * by con- 
traction Charlton, and the island Charlton Island.* 
Hie next day, the ice had so far melted tiiat the boat 
could freely pass from the shore to the grounded ship. 

We will onoe more let our fine, quaint, old mariner 
speak for himself : * The last of this month [May] we 
found on the beach some vetches appearing out of 
the ground, which I caused to be picked up and 
boiled for our sick men. This day we had filled all 
our rigging and sails, and it beinjo; a very hot day, we 
dried and new made all our fish in the sun, and aired 
all our other provisiona. There was not a man of us 
at present aole to eat of our salt provisions, but 
mysdf and the master of my ship. It may be here 
nmcmbercd that all this wmter we had not been 
troubled with any rheums or phlegmatic diseases. 
June, the four hrst days it md snow, hail, and 
blow very hard, and was so cold that the ponds of 
water did freeze over, and the water in our cans did 
freeze in the very house. Our clothes, also, that 
had been washed and hung out to dry, did not thaw 
all day. The 5th, it continued blowing very hard on 
the broadside of the ship, which did make her to swag 
and wallow in her dock, and much shake her although 
she was sunk ; the ice withal did drive against her, 
and give her many fearful blows. I resolved to 
endeavour to hang the rudder, and when God sent us 
water (notwithstanding the abundance of ice that was 
yet about us), to have her further off. In the 
afternoon, we under-run our small cable to our anchor, 
which lay astern in deep water, and with some diffi- 
culty got it up The 6th, we went about to 

hang our rudder, and our young lustiest men took 
turns to go into the water, and take away the sand ; 
but they were not able to endure the cold of it half a 
quarter of an hour, it was so mortifying, and would 
make them swoon away. We brought it to the stem 
post, but were then fain to give it over, being abie to 



work at it no longer. Then we plugced up the upper 
holes within boaro, and pumped oi^uie water aoam.' 
By the 8th, t^ey had got tne vessel to float at ni^- 
water, though idie was stiU ' docked ' in the sand to 
the depth of four feet. This necessitated faeavinff 
overboard the ballast to lighten her, which they didC 
and also sent all weighty articles ashore. The bene- 
ficial effiaots of the green vetches was now v&cj 
apparent, the feeblest of the sick men beinff 
able to walk about. Twice daily they gatheraa 
the leaves of these herbs, and ate them boiled, with 
the condimento of oil and vineear, or raw with 
bread, according to their individual taster The 
16th June was 'wondrous hot,* so that the men 
bathed in pools on shore, *yet was the water veiy 
cold stilL' By this time, bears, foxes, and iipild-^ywl 
had all disappeared, and immense swarms of anti 
came forth. The air was full of fiies of various kinds, 
and there was an * infinite abundance of bloodthirsty 
mosquitoes,' which grievously tormented the mea 
Frogs also appeared in the ponds, but * we durst aot 
eat them, tney looked so speckled like toada.' A 
French crew would have ventured ! Taking advant- 
age of a high tide on the 17th, they succeeded in 
getting their vessel fairly afloat ; and after they had 
moored her, *went all to prayers, and gave God 
thanks for giving us our ship asain.' They sot her 
off in a happy hour, for it was uie highest tiae th^ 
ever experienced. 

Climbing the Watch-treo on the 19th, the captain 
was delighted to see open '\K'ater for the first txme^ 
which nu^e him reckon the icy sur^u^ would soon 
break up for good and all They were still unable to 
heave the vessel into deep water on account of the ioa 
In the midst of entries about the ice and shippini 
stores, we light on a very ciu*ious passas& ' Whei«as7 
saith the matter-of-fact writer, 'I haid formerly cot 
down a very high tree, and made a cross of it, I now 
fastened to the upper part the pictures of the kutf 
and queen, drawn to the life, and so closely wnnpea 
in double lead, that no weather could hurt thesL 
Betwixt them I affixed his majesty's royal title. .... 
On the onteide of the lead I fastened a aKillmg and a 
sixpence of his majesty's coin; under that we lis- 
tened the king's aims, fairly cut in lead, and under 
that the arms of the city of Bristol ; and this being 
Midsummer Day, we raised it on the top of a bars 
hill, where we had buried our men.' The vessel now 
was for awhile in great danger of being lost l^ ^ 
masses of ice that a hard wmd brought acainst hoc 
By the 25tii, all the provisions were on board, and 
they began to rig the snip for her homeward voyage. 

An extraordinary and unlooked-for accident hap- 
pened at this period, which jeopardised the oaptaiiri 
Ufe. It is worth ffiving in his own words : 

* At ten at night, when it was somewhat dark, I 
took a lance in my hand, and on6 with me a musket 
and some fire, and went to our Wateh-tree, to make a 
fire on the most eminent place of the island, to see if it 
would be answered. Such fires I had formerly made, 
to try if there were any savages on the main[laQd], or 
the islands about us. Had uiere been any, my pur* 
pose was to have gone to them, to get intelligence 
of some Christians, or some ocean-sea thereabouta 
When I came to the tree, I laid down my lance, and 
so did my consort lus musket, and while I climbed 
up to the top of the tree, I ordered him to put fire 
to some low tree thereabouts. He tmadviseoly 
fire to some trees that were to windward, so that 
and all the rest being very dry, took fire like flajc, 
the wind blowing it towards me, I hastened down the 
tree ; but before I vraB half-way down, the &te took 
in the bottom of it, and blazed so fiercely upwards, 
that I was forced to leap off the tree, and witn muck 
ado escaped burning. The moss on the ground was 
as dry as flax, and would run like a train along the 
earth. The musket and lance were both burned. 
My consort at last came to me, and was joyful to 



I 




JOURNAL. 



me^ far he thoaf^ Terily I had been bamed; mad 
thus we returned together, leaving the fire mGreaimg, 
and fltill burning most furiously. At break of dvr 
I went again to the hiUs, from whence I saw it stm 
homing most vehemently both to the westward and 
northward, but could see no answer of il Leaving 
one upon the hills to watch it, I came home imme- 
diately, and made them take down our new suit of 
sails, and carry them to the sea-aide, ready to be oast 
in if occasian were. About noon the wind shifted 
northerly, and our sentinel came running home, 
bringing us word that the fire did follow hurd at his 
heels like a train of powder. It was no need to bid 
ns take down and carry all away to the sea-side. The 
fire came towards us with a most terrible rattling 
noise, bearing a full mile in breadth, and by that time 
we had uncovered our houses, and laid hand on our 
last things, the fire had seised our town, and in a 
trice burned it down to the ground. We lost nothing 
of any value, having brou^t all away into a pLace m 
secunty. Our dogs, in this combustion, would sit 
doi^'n on their tails and howl, and then run into the 
sea ou the shoals, and there stay. This night we lay 
altogether aboard ship, and gave God thanks that 
had shipped us in her again.' 

From this time to the end of June, the now 
inspirited crew worked with a will, jireparinff their 
recovered bark for sea, and their present confidence 
in her sea- worthiness is curiously shewn by the inci- 
dental remark, that they cut to pieces the unuDoework 
of their unfinished ninnaoe for firewood 1 And another 
significant s^ of we increased heartiness of the crew 
is the captain's bitter complaints of the mosquitoes,* 
which, he avows, tormented them worse than ever the 
extreme cold weather had done. To protect them- 
selves from the mosquitoes, they toie up an old ensign, 
and made bags of it to put their heads in ; * yet, i^t- 
withstanding, they would find ways and means to 
sting us.* The ice had now cleared out of the bay, 
and Ciq>tain James gives an intelli^ble and interesting 
explanation of the manner in which ice accumulates 
to a vast thickness. * First,' says he, *■ you must know 
that it does not freeze naturally above six feet, as we 
lound by experience in dignng to our anchors : the 
rest is l^ aocident, snch as uiat ice here which is six 
&thom thick. When the heat increases in May, it 
tiiawB first on the shoals by the shore-side, and then 
the courses of tiie tides do so shake the main ice that 
it cracks and breaks ; and having thus mt room for 
motion, one piece of it runs upon anomer, until it 
oome to a vast thickness. The season in this sandv 
oonntry is most unnatural, for in the da3rtime it will 
be so hot as not to be endured in the sun, and in the 
ni^t again it will freeze an inch thick in the ponds 
and tubs in and about our house, and all this towards 
the end of June.' The first day of July was quite an 
era to the isolated mariners. We shall quote Captain 
James's own simple, touching statement, only remark- 
ing how he and others before him had anticipated the 
Biodem system of arctic explorers in leaving records 
of their progress for the information of any who may 
come after them. 

'July the 1st, being Sunday, we adorned our ship 
the best we could, our ensign on the poop, and the 
king's colours on the main-top. I had provided a 
short narrative of all the passages of our voyage to 
this day, in what state we were at present, and how 
I intended to prosecute the discovery both to the 
westward and the southward, concluding with a 

3 nest to any noble-minded traveller tluit should 
» it down, that if we should perish in the action, 
then to make our endeavours known to our sovereign 
loid the king ; and thus with our arms, drum, and 

* It U a popular error to imagine theae most bloodthirKty 
insects to be only in viproor in tropical latitudcu. The far North 
vwarma with them in summer, and eren in the vicinity of the 
North Capo of Lapland they are ferooioiu, as ve can personally 
attest. 



eoloma, eook and hetUe, we went ashore, and first 
marched up to our eminent cross, adjoining to which 
we had buried our dead fellows, where we read morn- 
ing-prayer, and then walked up and down tLU dinner- 
time. After dinner we walked to tiie highest hills to 
see which way the fire had wasted ; we decried that 
it had consumed to the westward 16 miles at leart^ 
and the whole breadth of the iBluid; it could not 
oome near our cross and dead, bcdng upon a ban 
sandy hill. After evening-prayer, as I widked akog 
the beach, I foimd an herb resembling scurvy-gras% 
which we boiled with our meat at supper: it was 
excellently good, and far better than our vetches. 
After supper we all went to seek and gather more o( 
it, and got about two bushels, which much refreshed 
us ; and now the sun was set, and the boat come ashore 
for us, whereupon we assembled and went up to take 
the last view of our dead.' 

On Monday, the 2d day of July 1632, all prepar»- 
tions being completed for the final depaitnre, the last 
anchor was tripnped, and the crew went to prayen, 
* beseeching God to continue his mercy to us, and 
rendering nim thanks ior having thus restored 



The H^ridia Maria ajpneared l^t, and was yet 
abundantly supplied with the provisions she had 
brought out fnmi England. She was steered wea^ 
ward until they saw the mainland, all ice-bound, and 
then stood off to the northward. On the 4th, the fbff 
was so dense that they could not see a pistol-shcS 
distance, and from that time to the 22d, they beat 
about, not knowing where they were, nor where to 
steer, so beset and baffled were they by foes and ioe. 
The poor old bark struck the ioe daily, and cracked 
as though going to pieces. Sometimes, when they 
had moored her for the night to a great sheet of ioe^ 
storms broke it up, and tli^ were driven to and 
&0, and beat fearfully about; at other times, the 
ice accumulated high as the poop — and a couple of 
centuries ago, vessels were built with marmloua 
lofty poops — and huge masses would strike the 
bilge of the vessel wiu such force as to make her 
lefuL The worst waa, the crew began to grow 
dispirited, and muzmured, saying, writes the intrenid 
old captain, 'that those were haj^y that I had 
buried, and that if they had a thousand pounds, they 
would give it, so they lay fairly by tnem; for we 
(said they) are destined to starve upon a pieoe of ioeu 
I was foioed to endure all with patience, and to oom&stt 
them again when I had them m a better humour.' 

On uie 22d they sighted a oape they had pre- 
viously named after iheir vessel, and hmded on ii^ 
witii their arms and dogs. They set up a cross on an 
eminence, with the royal arms, and those of Bristol, 
and then hunted about a dozen deer, *veiy goodly 
beasts;* but the latter ran away from the dpgi * A 
pleasure.* The dogs were tired out, and the men 
also, for the fleet deer never pomitted them to 
approach within gunshot All they got were a few 
young geese, caught by wading to them in nods, and 
their anger waa excited against the dogs, wnich they 
had k^ all the year at a great inconvenience, ' and 
had pudoned them many misdemeanours (for they 
would steal our meat out of the steeping-tubs), in 
hopes that they might hereafter do us some service, 
and seeing they now did not, and that there was no 
hope they could hereafter, I left them ashore.* They 
made sad to the north-west, and suffered much from 
drift-ice, which made the vessel veiy leaky. The 
danger from ice increased daily, until Augiist 9, so 
that the captain prepared the vessel for si nkin g 
again, if he should deem that extreme measure neces- 
sary to insure her safety. In drifting about, they 
broke their sheet-anchor shank on the rocky bottom, 
being compelled to creep along shore, because the ioe 
was so thick in the offimr. that they could not force a 
way through it. They continued battling with the ice 
for the space of six weeks, for it melted so slowly 
that they could haidly notkie its diminution. In ths 



.1 



60 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



month of August the captain made an experiment on 
the ice, by cutting out pieces two feet square, and 
placing them in the boat, where the sun shone 
strongly on them, and yet they did not melt in less 
than eiffht or ten days. 

By tne 26th of the month, ice appeared in every 
direction, which induced Captain James to hold a 
consultation with the surviving officers as to whether 
they should continue to prosecute the object of their 
voyage — ^the discovery of a North-west Passage — or 
at once to make the best of their way homeward. 
These officers gave their joint opinions in a wordy 
written document, which runs up to ' seventhly and 
lastly,' containing many weighty reasons for abandon- 
ing the search. Captain James admits that he could 
not controvert their arguments, ' wherefore,* says he, 
' with a sorrowful heart, God knows, I consented that 
the helm should be borne up, and a course shaped 
for England, well hoping that his majesty would 
graciously censure [judge] my endeavours, and pardon 
my return, although we have not discovered populous 
kingdoms, and taken special notice of their magnifi- 
cence, power, and policies, brought samples of their 
riches and commodities, pryed into the mysteries of 
their traffic, nor made any great fight against the 
enemies of God and our nation.' Cm that night it 
snowed heavily, and was bitterly cold, so that the 
rigging and sails were frozen. They did not get clear 
of the strait until the 8th of September, when they 
experienced such a heavy sea that they expected the 
masts would be rolled overboard, and the sbip leaked 
very much, requiring pumping every half -hour, and 
her top seams were so open that the berths were 
drenched. But this day brought its peculiai* comforts, 
for they saw ice for the last time, and had a favour- 
able wind. * For England ho ! * was now their cry. 

The patient, much-enduring captain gives at length 
his reasons for finally coming to the conclusion ^at 
no North-west Passage exists. Captain MHDlure, and 
Franklin himself, solved the problem in the affirma- 
tive, yet the following remark of our ancient mariner 
is as iLoteworthy and applicable now, as on the day 
when it was written. Supposing, he argues, that, 
after all, there is a passage, ships cannot * endure the 
ice without extraordimuy danger. Moreover, 1000 
leagues is sooner, and with more safety, sailed to the 
southward, and about the Cape of Good Hope, where 
the winds are constant, than 100 in these seas, where 

Sou must daily run the hazard of losing ship and 
ves; neither is comfort for the sick, nor refreshment 
for your men, to be had in these parts.' 

The Henrietta Maria arrived, after a stormy pas- 
sage, at Bristol, October 22, 1632, having been 
absent nearly eighteen months. When she was 
brought into harbour, and careened, it was found 
that fourteen feet of her keel, and much of her 
sheathing, was carried away, and that many of her 
timbers were fractured, and her bows broken; and 
that the rocks had cut her bottom all over ; * so that 
it was miraculous ' for her to have brought them safe 
home again. It is pleasing to learn that in the spirit 
of manly piety which haid distingui^ed the crew 
throughout the voyage, they all, on landing at Bristol, 
went to church, and devoutly returned thanks to the 
Almighty for preserving wem through so many 
dangers. There is a touch of real pathos in the 
concluding words of the captain. * I very well know,' 
saith he, * that what I have written will never dis- 
courage any noble spirit that is minded to bring this 
so long tried action [the search] to perfection, to 
whose aesigns I wish a happy success. Now, although 
I have spent some years of my ripest age in procur- 
ing vain intelligence from foreign nations, and have 
travelled to divers honourable and learned persons of 
this kingdom for their instructions ; have bought up 
whatever I could find in print or manuscript, and 
what plan or paper soever conducing to this business, 
that poosibly I could procure, and have spent above 



L.200 of my own money ; yet I repent not, but take i 
a great deal of comfort and joy that I am able to 
give a reasonable account of those parts of the world, 
which heretofore I was not so well satisfied in.' 
Valiant heart, farewell ! 



A MIDDY'S DIARY. 

We wonder whether, among all the Philosophen^ 
Divines, and even those Political Economists i^no can 
calculate happiness to the hairsbreadth, whether 
there is any who enjoys life so completely as a mid- 
shipman in her Majesty's navy. His existence seems 
to be liable to none of those ills that other flesh is 
heir to ; while his peculiar griefs, such as the beinf 
cut down in his hammock, or the impossibility (2 
getting his things washed very regularly, appear to 
his indomitable, if somewhat invert^ mind, m 
capital jokes. He fears nobody, not even his captaist 
who is always spoken of in that trap for cockioache8» 
the midshipmen's berth, by some designation Ion 
respectful than familiar ; he hates nobody, except^ 
perhaps, the lieutenant of his watch, whom, how- 
ever, ne forgives at once upon his own promotion; 
and he loves every human being that wears a petti- 
coat, including a good many met with in his outlandish 
voyages who wear no such thing. His very language 
is a tongue of itself, compoimded of sea-terms and 
school- taSi, made agreeable, if not intelligible, by the 
healthiest laughter and the most facetious emphask. 
In his becommg cap and well-looking uniform, like 
Cupid in the gmse of Mars, no female heart can lesiat 
him ; and he is permitted a greater freedom with ths 
fair sex, on account, as they say, of his charming 
simplicity, than any other male creature extant. For 
our own parts — though this may arise from jeidousy — 
we are not so perfectly satisfied about his simplicify, 
but of his canaour and openness there can be no doiwt 
whatever. He hesitates not to describe all TmiTiVifw^ 
who do not suit his marine fancy, from bishops down- 
ward, as * lubbers' or * swabs,' while those he approves 
of receive his eoually peculiar eulogiuma. 

A Cruise in tne Pactjic* ia a curious and noteworthy 
example of midshipmen's literature. Edited by a 
captain, it yet bears the most evident traces of having 
been written by one of his ' young gentlemen,' and is 
as different from any of the ordinary Voyages and 
Travels which invade us at this season, as donkey- 
racing from land-surveying. Instead of the grave 
accounts of exports and imports, of population, crime, 
and public edifices, which the man who travels with 
an eye to Paternoster Row presents us with, oni 
midshipman regards the whole of the uncivilised 
globe, mcluding the island of Juan Fernandez, frooi 
what may be called the picnic point of view — ^with 
respect, tnat is, to its capabilities for rollicking enj(^- 
ment. Lovely women, to whom crinoline and bash- 
fulness are alike unknown, and whose decorations are 
confined to a human thigh-bone worn in their badL- 
hair ; gentlemen whose native hideousness ia not 
much redeemed by the most profuse tattooing ; tigen 
and armadillos; the Southern Cross, mosquitoes, 
niggers, and tropical vegetation — are the ordinaiy 
materials out of which our author makes two by no 
means ordinary volumes. If his animal spirits occa- 
sionally * carry him away,' they at least carry the 
reader along with them ; while they lend a vigour to 
his descriptions which many a better writer fails to 
impart to far more moving incidents. What a picture 
is nere presented to us of the method of locomotion 
used in the streets of Rio ! The traveller gets into a 
nondescript sort of omnibus, which in that part of the 
world is entitled a gondola, with no greater reason, 
for all that appears, than we should have for calling 
an Irish car a pinnace. 



* A Cruue in th« Pacific. From the Log of a NtuHtl Qffuer, ' 
Edited by Captain Fenton Aylmer. Hurst and BIack«tt. J 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



61 



*A gondola! Shades of Venice, how ye would 
have stared ! Imagine an overgrown lumbering omni- 
buB dragged along at a floundering zallop by four 
demons of mules, who every now ana then take it all 
their own way, and dash down a narrow street at full 
speed, then stand stock-still at the foot of a hill, only 
replying to the whips, oaths, and persuasion of the 
driver and bystanders by angry squeals, bites at each 
other, and wicked kicks—pleasant, is it not ? — ^particu- 
larly if you are, aa I was, crammed half-way up the side 
with a fat priest (yery hot and odoriferous) on one 
side ; and an old woman in a terrible fright, and giving 
yent to her feelings by pinching me and saying her 
prayers, on the other; wmle the rest of the passengers, 
my friend among the number, sat perfectly indifferent 
as to whether we proceeded or were turned over, no 
one appearing to dream of such a thing as lightening 
the 'bus. There we remained till the driver bribed 
some slayes into giving us a long and strong push, 
when, with a proportionate number of shouts and 
lashes, off we went, and finally were deposited at our 
destination.' 

Omnibuses are not the only things which are 
known by different names in Kio frran those they 
go iindcr elsewhere. Arterial and yenous drainage 
are still in their infanc^^r in that fairy city, and its 
spicy gales are sometimes laden with other than 
Arabian odours. 'Before us ^lows the Southern 
Cross ; while Orion, familiar with old home-scenes, 
just peeps over the horizon to remind us of other 
Isolds. Thousands of new and bright constellations 
rem the marvellous blue sky, which here, even in 
the deepest night, is blue ; while on sails Diana in 
her halo of light, paving silvery roads over the heav- 
ing bay, the long booming dash and ripple of whose 
waves steal over the listener's senses like the yoice 
of song ; while now and then the sound of the harp or 
piano is mingled with the air, or the distant peal of 
evening-service in some of the numerous churches. 
A fresn earthy perfume pervades the air, with 
now and then uie sweet breath of jasmine or roses. 
You stand enchanted. Suddenly a cry of " 'Kgers!" is 
uttered. New-comers are thunders^ck. "ngers in 
Bio! Impossible — ^no one will believe it. "Then 
stay and lookout!" shouts an old hand as he closes 
the windows, and leayes you eagerly watching, half 
fancying they are hoaxing you. A moment more, 
and you, too, rush franticly at the window, hammer- 
ing with one hand for admittance, while the other is 
busily grasping your nasal organ, lucky if you can 
escape without parting with your dinner. Then 
amidst roars of laughter, as ^ou inhale £au-de- 
Cologne, cigars, anytning one is used to, you are 
mformed you have smelt the Rio "tigers," finding, on 
examination, that this is the local name for the shives 
employed in oonyejriug the contents of what would in 
other plxu^es be confined in a sewer, to the beach, 
where the sea carries all away.' 

Our author does not linger long in any place, but 
literally wanders * on from island unto island at the 
gateways of the day,' going ashore on leave of greater 
or less length wherever he can. Eight-and-forty hours 
were thus permitted to him to explore the solitary 
home of Rooinson Crusoe, where the goats — ^notwith- 
standing what Defoe tells us — ^were aosolutely uneat- 
Able, even when you called it lamb, and ate it with 
mint-sauce. ' The quantity of mint growing wild is 
Biarvellous ; whole acres are covered with it, and as 
the breeze passes over, the perfume is wafted miles 
out to sea. Most of the ships carry off large quanti- 
ties to dry, and make into tea, as an anti-scon>utic ; 
our men tried it, but owing to the comparative short- 
ness of the voyage to Piteaim's, they did not make 
much use of it, except to drown the smell of fish, with 
which the whole ship was pervaded, while enormous 
cray-fiah walked about in all directions, and lasted 
us until within a couple of days of our arrival at 
our next place of refreshment.' 



At Otaheite, our middy finds much favour with 
Queen Pomare, a motherly yet majestic female, with 
her hair wreathed with blossoms from the arrowroot- 
tree, whose husband is a mere nonentity, who wiU 
wear a cocked-hat upon all occasions, and whose 
eldest son is a confirmed drunkard. She came on 
board our author's ship, and insisted upon her young 
favourite forming one of t^e rubber at whist whi^ 
was got up for her majesty on the quarter-deck. 
She sSbo expressed her royal opinion, that he would be 
y^y handsome when his whiskers ^w. 

The midshipman's famous verdict upon a savage 
people of ' manners none, customs disgusting,' does not 
hold good in respect to the Feejee islanders. Although 
clothmg is almost unknown among them, etiquette is 
in the nillest vigour. One of the strongest examples 
of this is the * bale mari,' by which it is enacted that 
if the master makes a false step and tumbles down, 
the servants must do likewise. * The great men were 
particularly fond of coming on board and dining with 
us ; and as many of them could get on pretty well 
with a sort of broken English, and, moreover, were 
very jolly fellows, alwa3rs giving us something to 
laugh at in their queer ways and blunders, we were 
seldom a day without one or two. One old gentle- 
man came pretty often ; he was, I suppose, a great 
swell among the Feejeeans, as he brought a couple 
of servants with him on every occasion. It so hap- 
pened one day when he was dining with us we had 
champagne ; our friend took to it kindly, imbibing 
glass after glass with a gusto it did one's heart good 
to see. The result may be imagined; he got very 
much excited, yolunteered a dance, &c., and finally, 
when a party of us who were going ashore landed 
him, he would hear of nothing but our accom- 
panying him home. Nothing loth to see the end, 
three of us went, and I certainly never regretted it, 
or laughed so much in my life. We had not gone 
two hundred yards, when his highness capsized and 
came down with a nm head foremost. What was 
our astonishment when down went the two followers 
also inprecisely the same manner I Then up staggered 
the chief — ditto his servants. A few steps further on, 
up went the old fellow's toes, and this time he lit 
upon his beam-end. It was ditto with the followers 
too; and we, after assisting the dignitary to rise, 
kept half an eye behind, watohing the movements 
gomg on, expecting the Jacks had been plying 
the servants with rum ; but no — they rose with the 
greatest gravity, and marched on as steady as grena- 
diers, only going down as often as their master came 
to grief, ^ow I began to see the real state of the 
case, and every muscle in my face ached, the day 
after, with the constant roar of laughter we had 
kept up during our wonderful progress. After 
sundry falls and risings again, the chief subsided into 
a slignt hollow, out of whidi he made one or two 
efforts to rise; then quietly crossing his legs, and 
smiling benignly, he began reciting a long story, 
containing, 1 have no doubt, the narrative of the 
mighty deeds he had done. We watched him a short 
time, and then, tired of laughing, wished him good- 
night The last thing we saw, on looking back, was 
the recumbent forms of master and men.' 

We not only envy our young author his varied 
experiences and the wonderful good spirits that 
enabled him to enjoy them so thoroughly, but the 
honest hearty pathos that now and ti^en exhibits 
itself in his little volumes, and of which he does not 
seem at all ashamed : in later life, it is too probable he 
will hesitate to pen such a passage as the following 
upon tiiiose sacred pleasures to the trayeller — letters 
from home : * It is a great thing getting a bundle of 
home-letters, some from anxious, patient papas, with 
directions how much money you can draw, a terrible 
account of an outfitting-bill he knew nothing of, 
winding up with a capital nm with Lord '" 



s 



hounds, or a glorious day's fishing. The dear old 



CHAMBERS'S JOURITAL. 



lady's, too, with tender advice to keep your feet warm, 
take care ol the dews, be sure to have the cholera 
nuxtare always at hand, and a postscript with some 
more advice, which sets your eyes watering, and 
makes yon say, **Dear mother!" to yonrsell Then 
come more letters from college and school, such 
fan to read and recount to your messmates. Of course, 
your budget lasts a week ; every one has something 
to tell ; and every one listens, laughs, and rejoices as 
warmly as if he knew each memmr of ytmr family. 
There is another sort of letter I have not yet 
mentioned, partly because it is private property, and 
partly because it is kept quietly outtoned up in your 
pocket-book, and read whenever you can steal a quiet 
moment. Sometinies the letter is from a sister, 
detuling as tenderly and lovingly as only a sister can, 
-tiie tiioughts, actions, and general conduct of some 
one with whom vou spent most of your last leave, 
and who, after joking and laughing the months away, 
suddenly got very grave when you said, " Good-bye," 
and left a photograph of trembUng lips and dewy eyes 
deq)ly engraven on your heart. Of course you 
cannot write to her ; her mamma or aunt make dis- 
agreeable innuendos about sailors, and call midship- 
men bovs ; so your dear sister, who knows all about 
it, comforts your heart and somebody else's^ Heigh- 
ho! is not this often the way, messmates? Few of 
us are sure of setting the honest letter from the 
darling franked by the jovial old squire, or a tender 
message added by the favouring mother; such is a 
rare blessing; and perhaps it is better, after idl, that 
a sailor shoidd sail fancy-free, leave his tenderest 
affections with those nearest by right, and never 
change nor mistake, and wait for the blL3s of a wife 
and wife's love imtil he need not be torn away for 
long years of restlessness and suspense.' 

^ere must be some steriing stuff in a lad who can 
write as naturally as this, fi the occasion presents 
itself, we have little doubt that his name will oe soon 
found in dispatche& In the meantime, let us hope 
that his chrysalis state of mate may be as brief as 
possible ; and that within a very little, a full-blown 
lieutenant, with those whiskers whose growth was 
the subject of congratulation from her majesty of 
Otaheite, he may be entitled to speak with the usual 
complacency of his present companions of the mid- 
shipmen's berth as * the yoimgsters.' 



THE MONTH: 

SCIENCE AND AETS. 

Thb year opens with renewed conviction to many 
minds, that the accomplishment of many good works, 
though long desired, still remains to be striven ^ter 
by philosoimers and savants. The lamentable loss of 
life by the fearful colliery explosion at Bisca, and at 
Hetton, indicates very emphatically what one of the 
first of tiiese much-desired good works should be — the 
discovery or application of a method by which mining 
operations may be carried on free from the terrible 
nsk to which miners are now subject. We cannot 
believe that Science has come to the end of her skill 
in this matter: Mr Gassiot's experiments, shewn 
before the Royal Society, demonstrate that a bril- 
liant electric hght is producible within a glass ^obe 
or cylinder from which the surrounding atmosphere 
is perfectly excluded. May not this i^t be accepted 
as proof that some safe application of the electric ught 
is x>oa8i1^l6> e'v^cn in the most dangerous workings? 
Moreover, something was said a few years ago about 
a means for burning the choke-damp as fast as it 
accunralated, whereby explomons would become impos- 
sible. Has this notion ever been put into practice ? 
Let us hope that 1861 will not pass away wiuiout the 
removal of what may be regarded as a reproach on 
our national character : the oft recurring sacrifice of 
human life in the pursuits of industry. 



We want pure eas to bum in oar houses ; i^e want 
the purest of drinking-water ; we want a way to save 
the thousands of tons of good fuel which are now 
smoked off to waste in the air; we want a simpla 
and effectual method of ventUataon applicable to all 
aorta of buildings; we want a sure way of passing 
signals to the guard of a railway^-train Tvnile m 
motion, whereby passengers may give timely warn- 
ing of fire, breakage of wheels, and the like; 
we want improved means of vehicular locomo* 
tion in streets which shall entirely prevent tlie 
numerous fatal accidents which now occur every 
year in London and other large towns of busy traffic. 
Is it not an opprobrium to our civilisation to be able 
to cross a street only with risk of life? We want 
wider applications of the electric telegraj^ in lai^ 
towns, as well as to all parts of the r^lm, for social 
as well as commercial purposes. The District Tde- 
graph, wherever available in London, is found to be 
singularly useful A friend of ours who left his home 
in Islington one morning with anticijiationB of a 
supper-party in the evening, discovering at 4 p.il 
that his exjyected guests would not be able to 
appear, immediately flashed the infonnation to his 
wile, and thus, by a payment of fourpence, saved 
materfamilias from useless trouble. We could fill 
a column with desiderata ; but if 1861 should accom- 
phsh those we have pointed out in addition to its 
promised Great Exhibition, and the realisation of the 
superb scheme of what is now the Koyal Horticultursl 
Society, it will be a year exceedingly memorable. 

So far as gas is concerned, there is prospect of relief 
from those impurities which at present render the 
brilliant light so prejudicial in a dwelling-house. A 
paper by uie Rev. W. R. Bowditch, read before the 
itoyal Society, describes a series of experiments under- 
taken for the discoveiy of a method of purification, 
and the results. Heated clay appears to be a valuable 
purifier, as it removes many injurious products from 
the gas ; but the greatest success is obtained by lime 
at about a temperature of 108 degrees, as it com- 
pletely neutralises the bisulphide of carbon which, 
with another sulphurous product, are felt so oppres- 
sively in the atmosphere of a room where gas has 
been burning a few hours. Seeing that, generally 
speaking, 200 grains of sulphur are given off oy eveiy 
thousand feet of gas consumed, the oppressiv^ieaB 
complained of is not to be wondered at, nor that 
gildmg and the binding of books are spoiled. No 
means were known by which this sulphur could be 
got rid of, and even the ablest chemists regarded it 
as an inevitable eviL But Mr Bowditch, to whom 
gas-makers are indebted for the introduction of day 
as a purifier, animated by his success, made further 
experiments, and found, as above stated, the desired 
means of purification in lime, and without any loss of 
h^ht-giving constituents from the gas. When once 
his process shall have come into general use, some of 
the objections now made to the lighting of picture- 
galleries, museums, and hbraries by gas will no longer 
apply. We assist the more willingly in making ^is 
subject known, as it is one of mucn imx)ortance from 
the domestic as well as the commercial point of view. 
Some readers will perhaps take interest in the fact, 
that the clay used in the purifying , is afterwards 
valuable as a fertiliser. 

A hajipy result of the attempt made to ^n.mi1ii^ri«ft 
seaside-folk with a scientific iastrument deserves 
notice. The fishermen of Cullercoats, one of the 
villages where a barometer was set up at the cost of 
the Duke of Northumberland, observing a fall of the 
mercury during their preparations for sea, put off 
their departure, and thus saved themselves from a 
gale, which came on a few hours later. — An appara- 
tus has been invented for pumping a leaky ship : a 
two-bladed screw, placed in the water behind the 
stem, turns a rod and crank shaft, which keep the 
pump working; and the faster the vessel suls, the 



il 



!i 



CHAMBERS'S JOCTRNAL. 



ea 



more water will be pumped out, and without £attflnn 
to tiiie crew. — An American inyentor now Irauda 
boats hj machinery, and turns out a cutter 36 feet 
long, in ten. hoars ; a task thftt, by the usual method, 
takes eight days. — ^And now the much-talked of iron 
frigate Warrior is fturly launched, the largest ship in 
the world except the OrecU EaMern ; and by and by 
we shall know whether a yessel cased in ponderous 
armour is, like the iron-clad kni^ts of the olden time, 
too heavy to be useful 

Mr David Forbes, brother of the late Professor 
Edward Forbes, has read a paper before the G^eo- 
logical Society, jnving the results of his geological 
expknations of Bolivia and Southern Peru, where he 
has spent some years, and met with much adventure. 
Examination of the Peruvian coast leads him to the 
conclusion, that it has undergone no elevation since 
the Spiuiish Conquest, althou^ along the neighbour- 
ing coast of ChiB a remarkable uplwaval has taken 
place. The saline formations extend over 550 miles 
of the rainless r^on, and contain prodigious quan- 
tities of nitrate of soda — a valuable article in com- 
merce, besides considerable deposits of borate of lime. 
Among the fossils brought home by Mr Forbes are 
certain Silurian species, which were collected on the 
mountains at great heights above the sea ; and geolo- 
gists are much interested in the fact, that perhaps a 
hundred thousand square miles of the great chain of 
the Cordilleras are now known to comprise Silurian 
rocks, which yield fossils even at a height of 20,000 
feet Notwithstanding the risks, and wounds received 
during revolutionary contests, Mr Forbes intends 
returning to Bolivia to resume his explorations, and 
to climb, if possible, to the highest of the mountain 
summits. — The iron-sand, whicn covers many miles of 
country in New Zealand, to the great annoyance of 
settlers in windy weather, is likely to become a con- 
siderable source (^ profit; for analysis of samples 
brought to England shews it to be composed of a per- 
oxide of iron, with 12 per cent, of titanium — a rare 
combination. It is, moreover, readily convertible into 
steel of singularly good quality ; and sundry manu- 
factured specimens which have been put to the test 
as razor-blades, and other cutting instruments, shew 
proof of a keen edge, a surface less easilv tarnished 
than that of ordinary steel, and unusual hardness. 
Hence, in their so-caUed sand, which is attracted as 
readily as steel-filings by the mamet, we may believe 
that the New Zealand colonists have a metalliferous 
resource valuable to them as gold-fields; that is, 
should * Taram^ steeT maintain its present reputation 
among manufacturers. — In a communication to the 
€reological Society of Dublin, Mr Alphonse Gages 
announces his discovery of the structure of certain 
mineral substances : he immersed a small piece of 
fibrous dolomite in dilute sulphuric acid, ana found, 
at the end of some days, that certain parts were dis- 
solved out, leaving only a skeleton form. In other 
instances, he finos one skeleton . superposed on 
another ; and he is now trying to discover tne origin 
of serpentine, which is composed, perhaps, of three 
skeletons, whose interstices are ^ed up by another 
substance. 

The Geographical Society, desirous to promote 
African discovery, are raising a subscription of L.2000 
wherewith to equip Mr Petherick for another explor- 
ation towards the head-waters of the Nila — From 
Australia the news of Mr Sturt*s expedition to 
explore the interior has surprised alike colonists and 

Geographers ; for instead of the vast traditionary 
es^ the scorching wilderness, and source of the 
suffocating * brickfieiders,' he found a fertile and 
well-wat^ed country, suited for pastoral purposes. 
At the last accounts, he had returned to the settle- 
memts to report progress and replenish his supplies, 
bat intended to repeat his endeavour to solve the 
nyiterj of tibte unknown interior. The happiest dis- 
covery he could make would be a chain of monntains, 



but huling that, it is gratifying to know that grassy 
plains ana woods exist where, according to t£eory, 
nothing was to be met with but IxuTen sand. 

Not fewer than 500 pages of the last published 
volume of Mimoirea of the Academy of Sciences at 
Paris are filled with a dissertation on the silkwonn 
disease, comprising facte observed up to the latest 
available period in 1859. The history and phenomena 
of the disease are set forth, the causes and means of 
cure are sought out and explained; and the prims 
conclusion is, that the best remedy oonsiste in, 
hy^^ienio means, and that the visitation is temporary 
in ite nature. The importance of this question to our 
neighbours may be inferred from the fact, that in 1853 
Fnmce raised 26,000,000 kilogrammes of cocoons, 
worth 130,000,000 francs ; and that, owing to the pro- 
gress of the disease year by year, the quantity was less 
m 1856 by 7,500,000 kilogrammesL As we mentioned 
some time since, attempte have been made to intro- 
duce new species of silkworms, among which the 
most succesuul is the Bomipe arrmdia,we silkworm 
which feeds on the Palma CknaUy or castor^oil plant. 
It was brought first from China about four j'ears 
ago ; was reiutKl and propagated at Turin ; has been 
found to thrive in Algieria, and to survive the winter 
of the south of Francs; and is, besides, remarkably 
productive, for, to quote Professor Milne-Edwards, it 
yields six or seven broods within a year. It is of the 
silk of this worm that India liMi^lrAiY»>iiftfe^ aiiQ 
mada 

Great surprise was manifested a short time since at 
a statement laid before the Soci€t6 d^Ebcouragemenl^ 
concerning the enormous quantity of albumen con- 
sumed b^ the dyers of cotton-printe in tiie manu&u> 
turing districte of Francs; for it was shewn that 
33,000,000 of egss were requirsd every 3rear to supply 
the demand; me quantii^ {noduced being 125,006 
kilogrammes, and each lulogramme worth twelve 
francs. The yolks of all these egrai were for the most 
part wasted,' until it was found 'uiat they were con- 
vertible into soap ; but even then, it was felt that to 
consume the eggs as food would be better than 
employing them in the preparation of mordants. 
There is no fear of lack of customers while F^n^«h 
porte are open for all that France can send. ^^Ths 
question would be solved if an artificial albumen 
could be produced from some substance not of prime 
importance as an aliment \ and for some time past the 
Soci6td Industrielle of Mulhausen has ofiiered a prize 
of 17«500 francs for the discovery of a material which 
will not require the use of eggs. The same problem 
has been seriously studied at Manchester, and not 
fruitlessly ; and we now see that the Abb6 Moigno 
announces in his weekly journal, a discovery made by 
M Hannon, a miller and oaker, that the waste gluten 
of starch-factories yields the substitute for albumen 
which has been so long desired. "By a process of 
fermentetion, and subsequent drying m moulds, and 
in a stove, with certain precautions, cakes are pro- 
duced of what the inventor caJls * ^buminoid glue,' 
which is applicable to other uses as well as those of 
the dyer: it answers as a glue for carpenters and 
cabinet-makers, for workers in leather, pamper, and 
pasteboard, for menders of glass, porcelam crystals, 
shells, and so forth, for clarifiers of beer, for the 
finishers of silk and woollen goods, and in the fabrica- 
tion of gums ; and witii all ^is utolity ite price is but 
one-fourth that of the albumen of eggs. 

A pamphlet lately published under the titie. Why 
the Shoe Frndiea^ deserves a word of notice here, and 
claims the attexition of aU who wear shoes, because 
of the importance of ite subject. It is a translation 
of Dr Hermann Meyer's short treatise on the best 
form of shoe for the human foot, regarded from the 
anatomical point of view ; the which point, we take 
leave to say, is the primary one in the question. Let 
those who fear to wear a comfortable shoe lest 
their iset should be thought ' big,* read Dr Meyer's 



64 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



explanations and examine his engrayings, and they will 
Bee the evil and sometimes fatal consequences of deny- 
ing fair-play to the six-and-twenty bones of the foot. 
They will see such deformities wrought by fashion, 
that leave us but little to boast of in the treatment 
of our feet over the much-wondered-at ladies of China. 
They will learn what are the true principles on which 
the foot-covering should be shaped, and many a 
mother will perhaps rejoice that they have been saved 
from the cruelty of distorting their infants* feet. It 
is scarcely possible to convey the description without 
the aid of engravings; but the essential particulars 
are that, in forming the sole, a straight une drawn 
from ti^e ball of the great toe — the toe being in its 
natural position — shall pass exactly through the 
centre of the heel ; that the edge of the sole uiall be 
straight bIous its inner side frt>m its foremost extremity 
to the base of the great toe ; and that none but what 
are called 'rights and lefts' should be worn. We 
recommend penisal of the pamphlet to all concerned — 
and they are not few ; and especially to shoemakers, 
who are commonly so apt to be dogmatic, and fancy 
tiiey have nothing to learn, and who torture their 
customers without remorse. 

Of the gorgeous Christmas-books, the perfection of 
whose type, mustrations, and binding seems to merit 
a notice m this our record of the Arts as well as the 
Sciences, these two are especially commendable — ^the 
new edition of the Lyra Cfermanka (Longmans) and 
the Ore-seeker (Macnullan). The h3rmns contained 
in the former were perhaps some of the firsl compo- 
sitions produced in types at the dawn of printing, 
and the Dook before us is probably the best specimen 
of modem art The means employed are nearly the 
same, both being the production of the hand-press ; 
but how wide the difference between the black- 
letter folio and the result which is now attained, itself 
a record of the progress of civilisation ! The iUus- 
trations, which are engraved under the superintend- 
ence of John Lei^hton, F.R.S., are as excellent and 
appropriate totheir subjects as can be conceived. The 
Ore-seeker is aJso an admirably executed volume, 
concerning whose charming stoiy and beautiful illus- 
trations &e only thing to be regretted is, that the 
author and artist are both anonymous. 



LOST MSN. 

In a Yczy interesting paper, pablished in the Medical 
Times and Oaaette^ Dr Conolly says : ' The diversities of 
life in London furnished occasional cases to Hanvell 
scarcely to be met with in asylums remoter from the 
capital — the cases of men more or less educated, and who, 
from some imperfection of mind or infirmity of dispo- 
sition, had fallen out of their own rank in lUe, and, by 
slow degrees, had sunk into destitution ; or, after long 
contention with the troubled currents of town existence, 
were wrecked and cast ashore like things unregarded 
and valueless. Ingenious and ambitious men, not very 
systematically educated ; or men of imagination and feel- 
ing, but wanting self-government ; and also some who 
had studied at the universities and brought away some 
fragments of learning, and perhaps a cultivated taste, but 
no solid acquirement — sometimes appeared among the new 
arrivals from the workhouses, where misery had made 
them acquainted with strange bedfellows. The situation 
of men of this kind, when first shut up with pauper 
lunatics, clothed like them, taking their meals with them, 
conforming to the general hours of rising and going to 
bed, often very different from those to which they have 
been accustomed, could not he regarded without a sort of 
commiseration. A full sense of the condition to which 
they have sunk becomes to some of them then only a 
reality. The illusions kept up by various speculative 
undertakings, or by wild companions, or by successive 
vicious stimulants, are suddenly extinguished, and thoughts 
of^ other days, when they were younger and full of pro- 
mise and of hope, revert to them painfully, after long 



foxigetfulness of what dissipation, and idlenesB^ and achemcs 
innumerable seemed to have obliterated from their mind. 
Some of the unfortunate men thus situated — ^for women 
seemed less conscious of their position in 804^ eircom- 
stances — became desponding and disposed to snicnde ; hot 
the greater part sustained themselves with fortitude. Is 
reality, the life they entered upon on becoming paticnti 
had many compensationa There were ready for them oa 
arrival a supper of bread and cheese, with wholesome beer ; 
no ardent spirite could be obtained, but then no night- 
wanderings awaited them. There was the comfort of a 
clean bed. The morning light no longer awoke them to t 
sense of uncertainty of breakfast and sufficient food fx 
the day. They walked out in pleasant grounds ; they had 
an ample and wholesome daily dinner ; and iJiey heard 
simple and beautiful prayers read in the chapel, ol wYoA. 
the words had once been familiar to their ears. Kor 
were minor consolations wanting. They generally excited 
sympathy in the store-room and in the shops of the work- 
men ; and slight additions to the fashion of the asylum 
clothing, a book now and then, and pens, and ink, and 
paper, filled up the measure of their unwonted contont.' 

THE TWO YEARS. 

Thx summerless Old Year is dead — 

Gk>ne, gone for evermore ; 
Many a storm of tears he shed ; 

His face but few smiles wore. 

He struck the fanner*s heart with fear. 

He thundered o'er the wheat, 
And trod the spiral golden ear 

Down quivering at his feet. 

He rent the blushing rose's breast. 

Tore green leaves from the tree, 
And swamped the early skylarks nest 

Out on the windy lea. 

He swelled the streamlet o'er the mead, 

Above the daisy's frill, 
And the wind-wrinkled mirror spread 

From island-hill to hill. 

But his strange pranks are ended now ; 

He 's left his stormy throne ; 
And who will grieve, or care to know 

Where the old rebel's gone ? 

New Year ! we will have faith in thee. 

Bring us sweet spring-tide hours ; 
Baptize with beauty grass and tree ; 

Breathe softly on the flowers. 

Bring us a summer warm and bright, 

With sweetest smiles from God, 
And happy flowers, enrobed with light. 

To beautify the sod. 

Bring us a glorious autumn, rich 

With golden orchard-store ; 
And that unanxious calmness which 

We 've felt so oft before. 

Bring us a poor man's winter mild ; 

For the storms pinch him sore, 
Who cannot bar a winter wild 

Outside a golden door. 

Bring us these God-gifts ; and when thou 

GJently resign' st thy breath, 
We'll chant a requiem sweet and low, 

In honour of thy death. J. B. 



Printed and Published by W. & R Chambers, 47 P*ter* 
noster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh. 
Also sold by William Bobertson, 23 Upper Saokvillo 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 



S titntt VLXiln ^ris. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 370. 



SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1861. 



Price l^d. 



SOUTH CAROLINA- 
WHILE Italy attracts our attention on one hand by 
the determination of its long severed states to unity, 
and while we know that such is the process by which 
both Britain and France have acquired their present 
importance, we are startled in another direction by a 
cry as if a great realm were about to be violently 
rent asunder. The Southern States of America, indig- 
nant at the election of an anti-slavery candidate tp 
the four-years' tenure of the office of President, 
threaten to sever themselves from the rest, as if imion 
were no longer to be endured. In this headlong 
movement, South Carolina takes the lead. 

It must be obvious that, in point of extent and 
population, this state has no true pretensions to 
leadership. Of all the thirty-three republics clustered 
together in North America, she is one of the smallest, 
her area comprising only .^,000 square miles. Her 
population amounts to 700,000, of which number con- 
siderably more than half are of negro descent, the 
slaves alone outnumbering the whites by 100,000 per- 
sons, without reckoning the free blacks. The number 
of these has been estimated at 10,000 souls, a number 
imusually small for a territory so largely peopled by 
the coloured race ; but few as they are, they cause an 
amount of iU-feeling, jealousy, and turmoil which it is 
happily difficult for an untravelled Englishman to 
gauge or appreciate. South Carolina, which, accord- 
ing to the last census, is the only state in which the 
slaves outnumber the white freemen, is also notorious 
for the most extravagant theories on the vexed sub- 
ject of slavery, and for an absolute negrophobia of 
hatred and contempt for the dark-skinned oflbpring of 
Canaan. In no other part of America is the black 
man so despised ; in no other quarter do his claims 
to the ordinary privileges of humanity meet with so 
scornful a reception. And this is the more remark- 
able, because downright physical cruelty is less 
common in South Carolina than in the swampy delta 
of the Mississippi The landholders of the territory 
are 'southern gentlemen* (so styled, like those of 
Virginia), and estimate themselves as a different order 
•of beings from the rough Kentucky farmers, the 
rugged * Hoosiers,' and the sallow planters of Alabama 
and Mobile. Better educated, more refined in manner, 
and more amenable to public opinion than the slave- 
owners of less aristocratic provinces, the gentry of 
Carolina consider the maltreatment of slaves as an 
ill-bred proceeding. 

Any habitual reader of American journals must 
have observed, that of the acts of hoirid barbarity 
which occasionally are dragged into daylight to shock 
aU Christendom, but few are laid to the score of South 



Carolina. Burnings alive, torture, and fatal floggings, 
so common in Texas and elsewhere, are extremely rare 
in that pugnacious little state, now bidding defiance 
alike to the federal authority and the opinion of 
Europe. On the other hand, Judge Ljmch is a regular 
and i)ermanent Khadamanthus thi*oughout the twenty- 
nine districts ; and the missionaries of the Abolition 
Society are dealt with as unmercifully as ever were 
heresiarchs in the Italy of the middle ages. The same 
planters, who may probably be mild and indulgent to 
the slaves on their own land, are willing and fiercely 
eager to inflict on the preachers of emancipation the 
customary sentence of sfoipes, and tar, and feathers, and 
for a second offence, the halter or the flames. The truth 
is, that a Carolina citizen contrives to thoroughly per- 
suade himself that his negroes are as wholly and right- 
eously his property as his horses and dogs ; and though 
he may be a kind master, in the absence of provocation, 
to both bipeds and quadrupeds, he regards any attempt 
to deprive him of his living chattels as the greatest of 
sins, which even death and ignominy can scarcely 
atone for. It is in vain that argument is wasted upon 
him — if, indeed, he will listen to it, which he seldom 
will. Brooks, that famous representative of the state, 
who actually received the thanks of the citizens for 
his brutal assault on Mr Sumner in the very hall of 
legislature, was a type of his countrymen. Those 
who have known Mr Brooks in private life, are accus- 
tomed to speak of him as a hospitable and agreeable 
person ; the questioning of man^s right of property in 
man had alone the power to raise the fiend in him. 
So it is with the whites of South Carolina. They 
have many advantages over the other denizens of the 
South. Not only is the country a long settled one — 
judging by an Ainerican standard — but there exists a 
numerous class of proprietors comfortably off, and in 
possession of that happy mediocrity of fortune which 
seems to admit of the greatest amount of lettered 
ease ; while education nowhere — not even in studious 
New England itself — is held in higher esteem. 

The colleges of Columbia and of Charleston are 
famous throughout the cotton-growing portion of the 
Union ; and while Georgia is renowned for gouging 
and duels, and Virginia for debts and drinking. South 
Carolina makes it her boast that she rears scholars 
and men of cultivated taste. The hard-headed Yankees 
are apt secretly to look down on the lounging * gentry' 
of the South ; and nothing so much astonishes a New 
Englander who has only visited Mobile with its hybrid 
French jKjpulation, and Virginia with its decayed and 
dissolute cavaliers, as to find in what high estima- 
tion learning is held in the very metrojpolis of slave- 
holding. Although the land in Virginia is almost 
exhausted, though buckwheat and Indian com are 



66 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



growing where the finest tobaooo once flonrisbed, 
though the clearings are fast being absorbed by bushes 
and canebiake, and the properties by mortgages and 
barrenness, still Virginia maintains between eighty 
and ninety packs of hounds. There are not six packs 
in all South Carolina, and those are in the hilly 
country to the north of the state, among the spurs of 
the Appalachian mountains, where the primeval forest 
is not utterly felled, nor its savage denizens eztinctw 
Indeed, the style of housekeeping in Carolina is more 
refined and less prodigal than that which has obtained 
for the Old Dominion its character for exuberant 
hospitality. 

But although the higher classes in the state 
pride themselves on their education and accomplish- 
ments, their acquirements are necessarily imperfect, 
and the whole tone of their minds is warped and dis- 
torted into the ignoring of the simple truths of justice 
and the natural rights of man. No professor at 
Columbia, no bookseller, no schoolmaster, ever ven- 
tures to forget that the theory of African inferiority 
must be maintained at any cost. In the boasted land 
of freedom, the liberty of opinion is more shackled, 
and speech moro restrained, than in the most 
despotic countries of Europe. All books aro sub- 
jected to the scrutiny of self-appointed censors, whose 
toil is a labour of love, and who have the scent of a 
Uood-hound for any expression that may be wrested 
into a condemnation of negro slavery. The news- 
papers never venture, however faintly, to impugn the 
worst excesses of the monstrous system of which 
their province is the champion and the apologist. 
From the pulpit are heard eloquent denunciations of 
the abolitionists, as * those who trouble Israel,* and 
learned arguments founded on the curse of Canaan, 
and the predestined servitude of Ham's posterity. 
The theatres, as well as the churches, aro under the 
eye of the vigilance committees. It is not surprising 
that Masianiello, Touasaxnt VOuverture, and the like 
inflammatory pieces, should be sternly forbidden, but 
it is more remarkable that even Othello is expunged 
from the list of plays that a Charleston audience may 
behold, the reason given being that it would * demoral- 
ise' the negroes. In the bordering state of Georgia, 
the public representation of Desdemona's woes and 
lago's treachery is also tabooed, but for a different 
reason— <nirious enough, and illustrating the sentiments 
of the white freemen of America towards those who 
are unlucky enough to dififer from them in colour. 
Many 3rears ago, Othello was acted at Savannah city, 
the pa^ of the jealous Moor being enacted by a 
northern performer of some celebrity, Paul Dickson. 
It was a gala-night, and the chief actor's benefit; and 
the theatre was crowded, the governor going in a 
kind of state, and the mihtia attending in uniform. 
During the latter part of the play, one of the soldiers 
in the pit was observed to be much excited, and when 
the Moor proceeded to smother his spouse with the 
fatal pillow, the militiaman actually levelled his piece 
and shot the unlucky actor through the heart, 
declaring that *he would not sec a black man 
murder a white woman.' Since this tragical termina- 
tion of a pageant, Othello has been a forbidden play 
on the Georgian boards. The same ultra-caution 
which watches the pulpit, the platform, and the 
stage, extends itself into every department in South 
Oarolina. The fear of a rising of the black race, and 
of a repetition of the St Domingo massacres, is the 
nightmare never absent from a Southerner's imagina- 




tion. But there are more whites than blacks in 
every state but two, and the former are infinitely 
bolder, more adroit, and more accustomed to act 
promptly and in concert Then, too, every white 
citizen is armed, and many of them have saoh a 
tincture of soldiership as the somewhat alovealy 
discipline of the American militia can afford. It it 
true that the privates in these provincial 
very few in comparison with the officers 
township has its crop of majors and captaina, baft 
simple sentinels are less frequently to be met 
with, while the best of the Southern corps are £sr 
inferior in zeal and steadiness to our own volnnteen ; 
but still a very little martial skill goes a long way m 
overawing negroes. If a general insurrection wvn 
to take place to-morrow, many isolated familiei^ 
dwelling in remote plantations thronged by hundreds 
of field-hands, would certainly be cut on in detail 
and individual barbarities might very likely be 
committed, but the great bulk of the slaves woaU 
probably succumb to the fate of the revolted sepo^ 
and pensh in masses. 

So perfectly are the negro's best friends, the aboli- 
tionists of the North, aware of the danger ol any 
hasty outbreak, not to the masters, but to their 8er£l^ 
that they are always earnest in deprecating any such 
ill-advised step. Even Captain Brown, tne hottest 
zealot in America, declared on his scaffold that he 
had no intention, when drawing the sword, to ezeito 
the negroes into a disastrous revolt. No one whe 
knows the South, dreams of the success of each a 
struggle, of which extermination, not liberation, most 
be the certain result : the emancipation of the blacks 
must be a work of peace and compromise, not of war 
and revolution, ana this is felt bv those who have 
most of all devoted their lives to tne task of wi 
away that foul blot from the shield of the 
republic. However, certain it is that the 
owners of South Carolina, surrounded by a very lam 
black population, live in apprehension of a serrus 
war. To them, such a movement, on anything like a 
general scale, would be ruin. Even conquest, aUeaded 
as it must be by acts of rigour, would be destructiyey 
for the slaves are most valuable property, and withoul 
labourers, of course the land must become a dc e er ft i i 
But at first sight, however alarming to unquiet minds 
may be the fact that the free population is outnum- 
bered by the slaves, it wo\ild appear impossible that 
the great bulk of the whites should bo mterested in 
koe|)ing up the present system. In 1850, there were 
274,000 white inliabitants, and of the slaves 384,0001 
The freemen of European stock cannot, therefore, be all 
slaveholders. Moreover, as one or two estates employ 
five hundred hands, and many need from two to tores 
hundred, it is evident that a good many families in 
Carolina must be without even a single slave for 
domestic purposes. Such is indeed the case, not only 
in Carolina, but in every slave state. The gntA 
majority of the whites have no direct claim upon the 
enforced toil of the blacks. The entire number of 
slaves in the Union, in 1850, was 3,200,000 (now a^at 
4,000,000), and these were owned by 346,048 slave- 
holders, but if wc deduct all who owned fewer thatt 
ten slaves, the whole number of slaveholdete wsB 
only 92,215. It seems that a large number of whitas 
in the Southern States own only one or two house 
n^roes, or farm-hands, or groom-boys. Such is tbs 
case, especially in Texas, Missouri, and other roadi 
frontier territories. One thine is certain and patent to 
every traveller, that most of the poorer whites in a 
slave state own no negroes, and that South Carolina is 
no exception to this rule. It may seem stranse that 
slavery should find partisans among a lai^e dass of 
men who, to all appearance, profit by it not at alL 
The poor whites in the South aro not, in general, too 
prosperous. They eat each other up, metaphorically, 
for there are more artisans, more taveni-keepen» 



CHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



67 



pnttehen, doctors, and to forth, thantmn set a decent 
jUtuu^ ah arts and trades are theirs: &ey are the 
dominant caste, the Spartans of America; and yet as 
thsj lounge about tne weed-grown village streets, 
fierce^ hagsard, and shabby, they must often envy the 
plmnp co^ition and childish merriment of the black 
neLots wbo surromid them. The whites get little or 
no agricnltural employment. For oyerseers and 
bookkeepers, Yankees ore generally preferred to 
Southrons. There are not so many lucrative situa- 
tions, fit for half-educated persons, in the South, as 
elsewha«^ and therefore the large class of needy 
citizens fonns the store-house of mlibusteiing adven- 
turers, ever ready for a desperate dash at theHispano- 
Ameriflan Republics of the Mexican Gulf. Yet, 
curiously enough, the most vehement upholders of 
slsrvery are these landless whites, who &el more keenly 
on the subject than the large proprietors themselves, 
and who are ever ready to support their axguments 
by knife and pistoL Indeed, supposing the slave- 
holders to entertain a wish for emancipation, it is 
doubtful whether the^ would have the courage to 
confront the indignation of their poorer fellow-citi- 
zens. Pride and prejudice mainly contribute to cause 
this violent pro-slavery mania m those who rather 
saSer than gain by the negro's servitude. The poor 
white, with nothing to boast of except his vote and 
his colour, is vain of both. Compared with the 
negro, at anyrate, he is a pexsonage of importance, 
one of Nature's aristocrats. 

To acknowledge the blade as his equal, nay, as 
having any riehts at all, though only to personal 
freedom and the power of forming family-ties, would 
be in the white man's eyes to degrade himself to the 
level of the despised race. He really and truly does 
lo<dL on negroes as animals, as an inferior species, not 
meriting to share in the common privileges of human- 
kind ; uiis belief with them is no hypocrisy, but a 
serious engrained faith, which they imbibe horn the 
cradle. Moreover, since every man may himself one day 
become a daveholder, he is inclined to do battle for 
an inatitntiQn that may at a future time be convenient 
to himself. Again, slave-labour keeps out the immi- 
grants from Gennany and Ireland, with whom no 
Southern American loves to be forced into contact or 
competition, while the white man has a monopoly of 
many eooployments for which education might tit the 
black. These various causes, but pride of race in 
especial, render the poorer citizens advocates for negro 
bondage. The proprietors of land are, of course, 
slave-owners, since neither rice nor cotton can be 
cultivated without the aid of black labourers. Those 
who are without daves, are obliged to limit their 
agricultoral operations to cattle-graring, or wood- 
cutting, or something else not requiring continuous 
toUintiM open air; f or there is no use in oQsguisinc the 
fact, that a white man is innately unfit to hoe and dig 
under the burning sun of that semi-tropic climate. 
Hie abolitionists, indeed, contend that tne lands of 
the rice and cotton states can be perfectly well 
cultivated by European labourers, ind anticipate 
the day when Irishmen shall do for wages what 
^^'■HffFf now do under fear of the whip; but this 
can haidly be. Virginia has a cooler climate than 




per cent,, a mortality equal to that of British 
piisoaeis in Jamaica itself. As matters stand, the 
averagi of white life is not nearly so high in the 
Sontb as in the North or the wild W est, and exposure 
to the son is much to be dreaded, jMuticularly by 
immigrsotB from cold countries. Carolina is not 
reckoned unhealthy for a cotton-growing state. The 
latter part of summer and beginning oT autumn are 
the periods wlwn country fevers — swamp fevers as 
they are called — are most prevalent ; but the sea-breeze 
prevents the coast from being as unhealthy as its low 



and moist character would otherwise render ii^ and 
the northern part of the province is kept cool hy the 
snow- winds from the great Appalachian range, where 
all the higher Qiountams retain much of their winter's 
covering through the hot season. The cotton grown 
in Soum Caronna ia of superior quality, and mgher 
priced at New Orleans than most staples of that pro- 
duced in Alabama. The excellence of the rice is well 
known, and rice is indeed the chief exx>ort of the 
state, while its cultivation renders it necessary to 
keep a great deal of land in a wet condition, to the 
consequent prevalence of miasma. 

Escaped negroes from South Carolina usually 
attempt to secrete themselves on board some vessel 
at Charleston or Beaufort, unless they have white 
friends, in which case they are enabled te make use 
of what Americans call the Underground Railway. 
The imderground railway merely implies a system for 
enabling negroes to escape to Canada, by the co-oper- 
ation of white agents of the Abolition Society. These 
latter are located in various towns and cities throughout 
the South, and a runaway is often transported under 
cover of night from house to house, like a bale of con- 
traband goods, until he reaches British territory. On 
the Canadian side of Erie, several villages have been 
founded by these sable exiles, who contnve to subsist, 
though they su£fer much from the severe winter of 
the great lakes. Of course, the office of abolition 
agent is a most dangerous one. Mob-venseanoe unites 
with legal severity to punish any one aimi^ or coon- 
selling the escape of a slave, and the more so, as South 
Carolina has need of more negroes than even her large 
black population affords. To explain this, it is neces- 
sary to bear in mind that South Carolina is classed 
among the 'breeding' states — ^that is, a state where 
the marriage of blacks is encouraged, where they are 
cared for m age, and where they are usually treated 
with the some interested humanity that renders a 
fanner thouj^tful for the welfare oi his cattle. But 
the breeding states vary one from another. Virginia^ 
Tennessee, and Kentucky rear slaves merely to sell 
them for plantation-work to some of the provinces on 
the borders of the rich and unhealthy Mississippi — 
states where adult labour is in demand alone, where it 
answers better, as the calculating cotton-growers say, 
to * buy niggers ready grown,' ami where the Virgima 
and Kentucky blacks arc 'used up' annually in fearful 
numbers. But although exhausted Virginia and 
rough Kentucky can ^il slaves at a profit, fertile 
South Carolina wants all she has, and more. She 
keeps her own coloured people — she buys a few from 
Virginia ; but New Orleans outbids her in the Rich- 
mond market, and hence comes the fierce outcry for 
reopening the African slave-trade. No other topic 
excites such interest in Carolina, save abolition alone^ 
as this. Other states repudiate the Guinea trade, 
while retaining slavery : but South Carolina, reckless 
of scandal, ia impatient to draw her supplies direct 
from the Gold Coast once more, to cheapen slaves, 
now immoderately dear; and while stimulating the 
tn^c in human ficsh, to bring her waste Lands 
under the hoe. There is but one district where the 
sugar-cane thrives — ^namely, that of Beaufort, and 
the state can never export much Muscovado, but 
the yield of cotton and rice might be increased 
considerably, were able-bodied negroes as cheap as 
they were half a century ago. 

'rhe slaves brought over by the yacht Wanderer^ 
belonging to a Carolina gentleman, were sold at an 
average of 5CM) dollars ; and those taken in a captured 
slaver a year since, and lodged by the United States 
naval auuiorities in Charleston jail, narrowly escaped 
being confiscated and brought to the hammer at the 
demand of the municipality. It is a well-known law 
of this state, that any negro or mulatto seaman, on 
board on American or foreign vessel, coming to a 
Carolina port, shall be lodged at once in jail, there to 
remain until the ship is ready to put to sea again. 



68 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



This vexatious edict often robe a BritiBh merchant- 
captain of the temporary services of some of his best 
hands; and as ahnost all vessels have a black cook 
and steward, the inconvenience resulting from such a 
measure mav be imagined. This precaution is dictated 
by a fear of any increase to the free-coloured popula- 
tion, a class regarded with the utmost jealousy and 
aversion. The tree black of Carolina has no enviable 
time of it. The law, less humane than his master, 
throws all kinds of difficulties in the way of his manu- 
mission. Law and custom debar him from many 
occupations. He is forbidden to assemble with his 
fdlows for almost any purpose, imder the displeasure 
of the sheriiF and of Judge Lynch. Education, denied 
to the slave by penal enactments, is refused to the 
free black by prejudice. Any schoolmaster teaching 
a South Carohna free negro, his letters, may look to 
undergo the roughest usage that the Re^pilators can 
inflict. Neither slaves nor citizens, and without rights 
or prospects, the free blacks find themselves in con- 
stant danger of slavery. Every year some zealot 
proposes that the liberated negroes shall be ap- 
propriated to masters, or sold by auction; and 
sucli may indeed be their fate, now that the check 
of northern opinion has been repudiated. There 
are but two other features in the state worthy of 
notice — the Indians and the vinos, both called by the 
name of Catawbaw. These Indians are but some 
ninety families, the broken remnants of a once re- 
nowned and powerful nation, before whom the first 
settlers trembled, and whose warriors were thirty 
thousand strong. Those who still exist are the 
* Green Bird' Catawbaws, who lead a precarious 
life, hunting and fishing, weaving })askets for sale, 
and camping like gipsies around the edges of the 
broad plains of which their ancestors were undisputed 
proprietors. The Catawbaw vine is foimd wild in 
wonderful quantities all over the north of the state. 
It is easily brought into cultivation ; and the wine 
which it affords, though hitl|erto of anjrthing but good 
quality, might, by care and skill, render Soutn Carolina 
a richer country than slave-grown rice and cotton will 
ever do. 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

CUArTER IZ.— THK LAST DAT AT UOME. 

It is not necessary to set forth how, day by day and 
hour by hour, the manner of Dick's life in London 
grew more and more repulsive to him. Judgment 
will probably be given against him by those who read, 
as it was by those who saw, for the world's sympathy 
for young gentlemen in 8imil<'ir plight is rarely to be 
awakened by any medium short of that of the police 
courts. That Kichard was not treated by Uncle 
Ingram, or even by Adolphus, as the apprentices of Mrs 
Brownrigg were by that famous lady, is true enough. 
He had plenty to eat and drink, and a great-coat in 
the winter-time. There were many thousand lads in 
the stony metropolis very much worse off than he, 
who yet remained patiently in that station of life to 
which the guardians of their itarish had bound them. 
We are neither advocates of nor apologists for our 
young friend, although we take leave to pity him. 
Since the Dicks of flesh and blood have faded since 
the commencement of society to justify themselves in 
the eyes of mankind, it is not probable that this pen- 
and-ink creation of ours ^^nll fare any l)etter. When 
Dick suspends relations with China, as it is clear he 
will, he must needs afford to the public eye the very 
improper and unmitigated H}>cctacle of an apprentice 
miming away from his indentures. Maria, with her 
uiiiversal panacea of * Whij> him, whip him well ! ' 
Avill be supj>orted in that recommendation by the 
general voice ; and there is no help for it. 

Still, if we were great orators to move men's minds, 
like Messrs Edwin James or Montague Chambers, 



we would fain plead something for a little nmawvr 
lad scarce thirteen (gentlemen of the juiy), a luuMl- 
some curly-haired youth (good ladies), brouglit m 
hitherto almost at his mother's apron-strings, and 
lo\'ing her and Sister Maggie, and all "who wen 
decently kind to him, transplanted from hia home- 
garden, and set among a wilderness of s^Wn-xip 
trees, bringing forth fruits of Assiduity, £00110117, 
Punctuality, after their kind, but with only som 
three blossoms of Goodwill among them, and not one 
bud of Love. Against which blossoms, too — ^namdy, 
Mrs Trimming, Mr Mickleham, and Mr Jonea — nrasi 
be set a couple of Upas-trees (for when our hearts are 
touched, gentlemen of the jury, our tongue naturally 
flies to metaphor) — the cold dislike of Uncle Ingram, 
and the malicious hatred of Brother Adolphua. 

When June came in, in fact, and set np her hideooi 
parody of leaf and verdure in Golden Souajre, Did[ 
could not stand it any longer. He could not have 
stood it so long but for two things. One of these wac, 
that every Saturday and Sunday his natural relativei 
took themselves away, and left him, and Mr Jones, tiie 
inscrutable, came to sup, and sometimes dine with Mn 
Trimming. This gentleman was DicVs ideal of whai 
a man should be, and he sat at his feet with nevei^ 
tiring ears, learning to smoke, and improving in hit 
method of drinking gin and water. Mr Jones, too^ 
liked Dick in return, and gave him not a few practioJ 
proofs of his regard, although, of late, these had oer 
tainly been getting rarer. He took him on one 
occasion te the Pantomime — passing by the box-ofSoe 
without payment, and thereby increasing his 3^001^ 
protC'g6's admiration for him te the highest d^:ree ; 
and when the spring arrived, he introduced him to 
Cremome, where Mr Jones seemed to have a laige 
circle of acquaintances, and to be esi)ecially a favourite 
among the ladies, though we are oound to say that 
the evening in question was not that famous one upon 
which no female was admitted beneath the rank of a 
baronet's wife. On Sundays, t<x), Mr Jones weald 
sometimes take both Mrs Trimming and Dick to the 
Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park, where the lad 
most thoroughly enjoyed himself. Except tiiai tiie 
animals were in cages — which he secretly thought 
ought te Ix? disj)ensed with — he deemed the place quite 
comparable with the garden inhabited by our first 
parents. His dream of life was te be en^loyed upon 
these premises, and to live in the charming Uttle 
cottage by the turnstile all his days. The cottage had 
eaves, but at that period of his Ufe, Dick did not see 
the necessity for one of these. 

*How is it, Mr Jones, that such few people seem to 
come te this delightful spot?' observed he one day, 
when after a long cessation from such treats, the two 
were in the monkey-house, employed in the ^uuritable 
distribution of nuts te the most deserving objects of 
that pitiable tribe. 

'Nobody can get in on Sunday without a ticket,* 
replied Mr Jones, *and the number of tickets is 
limited.' 

* Are they very expensive ? ' inquired Dick, with a 
secret determination of hoarding up his sixpence a 
week of pocket-money until the required sum should 
be amassed. 

* They are not to be bought with money,' anawered 
Mr Jones : * that gentleman in the comer yonder pre- 
sented me with my free admission-card.' He pointed 
te an enormous a|)e swinging by his tail from a cross- 
bar, and apparently fast asleep. Dick opened his 
mouth — not from ear te ear, but the other way : he 
was astonished, but he had too much respect for his 
patron to lauch at him. 

* That gentleman, did you say?' said the boy, pcant- 
ing to the oscillating but benevolent donor. *How 
curious that seems ; dear me ! ' 

Mr Jones tapped the cage-bars with his ombrella 
handle, and crieci : * Ralph, Ralph, how are you?* 
Tlie ai)e undid a coil or so of his tail, and so let 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



69 



>ii^flAlf down to the ground with a speed that would 
have put to ahame the smartest sailor in her Majesty's 
fleet He stretched out the black paw at the end of 
his long brown arm as far as it would go through the 
bars, and his teeth rattled like a dice-box while Mr 
Jones shook hands with him. 

'He is saying that he is very well, and that the 
weather is beautiful, although a little close/ observed 
that gentleman. Dick's delight at the familiarity 
of this specimen of the brute creation was irrepres- 
sible. ' Even the animals like Mr Jones,' thought he, 
* and no wonder ; ' but he did wonder, nevertheless. 

'The fact is, Dick,' explained his friend, 'I gave 
this creature to the Zoological Society, and they gave 
me a free ticket to admit friends, by way of acknow- 
led|mieut.' 

'Did you give this poor fellow away?' cried the 
lad, quite scandaUsed at the sacrifice. 'What could 
have mduced you to part with such a charming, good- 
tenipered ' 

'Take care,' cried Mr Jones, 'or he'll have vour 
finger off in half a second, young gentleman : I have 
seen him snap a finger off just as though it were a 
radish. I came to possess him in this way : when I 
was a lad not very much older than you, Dick, I was 
left a menagerie.' 

'Dear me !.' exclaimed the lad in a tone of sympathy, 
and imder the impression that a menagerie was some 
fine name -for an orphan. 

'I found myself the owner of a travelling wild- 
beast show — a lord of the fowl and the brute to an 
extent never dreamed of by Mr Alexander Selkirk. 
Eleidiants and guinea-pigs, ostriches and hunmiing- 
biros were mine, Dick, besides a glass-box crammed 
with boa-constrictors. It was a case of Noah and his 
ark-full, and I did not keep my live-stock very much 
longer than did that patriarch. I went to smash in 
a very few weeks, mv lad, and found myself .with 
nothing in the world but a CercopUhecua Engythilhia^ 
or Long-tailed Grivet^— otherwise my talent^ friend 
Ralph n^re^— whom no creditor was so hiurdy as to 
seize. • I had no place to keep him, however, except 
my greatooat-pocket, bo I made a vutue of necessity, 
and forwarded the interests of Science, by presenting 
him to the Zoological Society. Never was ape more 
sifted, never was Society more charmed. He can 
hold more nuts in his check-pouches than you could 
win at a shooting-barrow at a fair in luuf a day. 
There is no denying that he bites, but we can't 
expect x)erfection in this world. We ain't i)erfect 
ourselves, Dick,- are we ? ' 

Dick humbly replied that he himself was certainly 
not perfect, but tnat Mr Jones appeared to him to 
approach the apex of the moral pyramid as nearly as 
was humanly possible. To which Mr Jones replied : 
' PerhiWB so, lad ; perhaps I do, my boy ; ' and patted 
hLs head approvingly. 

That paternal action reminded the lad at once, as 
by lightning-flash of recollection, that he had seen Mr 
Jones in full canonicals performing in some sacred 
edifice the ceremony of confirmation, but when or 
wh^re it was, as usual, he was quite unable to recall ; 
the desire of doing so, however, was so strong upon 
him, that he took no more interest in animiEhl life 
for the rest of the day, but passed it in a sort of 
vertigo of reminiscence. 

The one other thing which — besides the mitigating 
influence of Mr Jones — had hitherto prevented Dick 
from bidding adieu to commercial life, was the pro- 
mise that had been held out to him of revisiting 
Rose Cottage in six months from the bennning of his 
banishment. It was a cruel edict that nad mvorced 
him firdm home and Mends so long; but it had 
certsinlv heightened the fervour of anticipation with 
which he now looked forward to the holiday. Mr 
Ingram Arixmr rather took credit to himself for 
having thus conferred a gratification at an exceedingly 



cheap rate, and in his rare moments of humour 
would even banter his nephew upon this very point. 
He did not understand how anv subject should be 
kept sacred unless connected with religion or money- 
matters, and treated poor Richard's tears as pigs 
treat pearls. Attacked by his uncle, there was of 
course nothing left for it but to submit ; but if 
Adolphus launched a dart of satire at him — a temp- 
tation that yoimg man could rarely resist — Dick 
would up with whatever material weapon in the way 
of book or inkstand lay nearest to his hand, and. there 
was a considerable fracas in the house, with whipping 
and disgrace to follow. Dick was not of the sort of 
stuff to oe made a butt of ; and as he grew older and 
stronger, this pastime of his elder brother began to 
have something of the danger as well as the excite- 
ment about it of a bull-fi^ht or a tiger-hunt. 

The long-promised Fnday, however, did at last 
dawn upon Dick in all its July glory ; and he found 
himself once more at his old home, and in his 
mother's arms. She waited for. him up in her bed- 
room, not that she was much more imwell than usual, 
but because she could not open wide the doorways of 
her heart with the imimpulsive Maria looking on. That 
yoimg lady still ruled at Rose Cottage, a virgin queen 
as yet without a suitor. Johnnie was away from 
home, having been articled, at his own request, to an 
attorney in the neighbourhood, and was said to be 

Eursuing the study of the law with a relish ; his joy 
eing somewhat mitigated, however, by the presence, 
in the same ofiice, of Mr William Dempsey, blind — 
and that but physically — only of one eye. Uncle 
Ingram and Adolphus had some particular business to 
trsmsact, and were not to come from town until the 
next morning ; and Maria, who never knew where to 
stop when among buttered toast, had got one of her 
tremendous bilious headaches. .Everything, in fact, 
was as it should be for Dick's one holiday. ' I tell you 
what, mother — I tell you what, my Maggie,' cried he 
in his school-boy jargon, ' let us have a lark on the 
water — let us spend the livelong day on the dear old 
river. I will row you both up to the grotto. Put on 
your things, darlings, now, do; and, Maggie, don't 
forget some cold meat and so on, because it will be so 
jolly to picnic in the wood, and I 'U go and get the 
boat ready this minute.' 

Dick, having saluted Jane and Rachel, ran out 
into the garden like a young horse who first feels the 
turf beneath his heels ; and when he had got the skiff 
in order, went over all the miniature domain again 
and again : he crossed the bridge into the rose- 
garden, and plucked a nosegay apiece for his mother 
and sister, and climbed up and swung himself on the 
same willow-tree branch that had borne him a hun- 
dred times before ; he tried to cateh the minnows in 
the diteh with his pocket-handkerchief, but found he 
had lost some of his dexterity in that savage art since 
his residence in town ; he caught sight of the brown 
back of that identical rat which he had watehed in 
and out of the same water-hole for the last half-dozen 
years ; and when he threw the stone at him, missed 
him, by half an inch, as he had always done before : 
he marked again the small blue butterflies with 

rkled under-wings, wheeling about the comer of 
osier-bed, and &e dragon-lies that lit upon the 
heads of the tall water-plants, like flames of hre, and 
while endeavouring to reach them, got into the mud 
knee-deep, and had to change his trousers — all as of 
old. 

By that time, his passengers and cargo were ready, 
and off they started in the reverse order to that 
indicated by the poet, Youth at the Helm— for Maggie 
steered, as she sat by her mother's side — and Plea- 
sure, in the person of Dick, at the Prow, or nearly 
so. With those dear faces shining full upon him, and 
all the sighte and sounds which he loved b^ in 
nature upon all sides, he was indeed a happy boy, and 
scarce the less so because he knew what short-lived 



70 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



joy it necdB must be to him, for his dispontion 
wai one that soffered him to make the most of plea- 
sure while its sun was shining; and not to feel the 
shadow of the coming woe. Under the huge span of 
tiie red railway-brioge, while the iron train above 
them thundered and shook it as it flew, and past the 
osier-beds, and in and out the islands at their leisure, 
paddled the happy three : it seemed as thou^ with 
Maviug land they had left all sombre thoughts and 
memories behind ; Dick laughed as he had scarcely 
done for half a vear, and now and then, with sudden 
access of affection, would almost upset the boat in 
crawUngr to kiss mamma and Maggie. Mrs Arbour 
ffppeareSi to come once more, after years of submer- 
sion, above the surface of existence, and to have her 
being again, as lonff ago, in the atmosphere of love. 
When they'enterea the great lock-gates, and the 
boat simk with the sinking waters, she even volun- 
teered one of those old, old songs which she had once 
been accustomed to sins within that echoing place; 
but recollecting on a sudden in whose dear company 
it had last been sung in that very qx>t, her voice 
broke down, and Maggie had to help her through 
with it. There are few pleasanter minutes in a river- 
voyase than those spent within the four walls of some 
cool dark lock, with the blue sky only to be seen, and 
when the song mingles with the falling waters with- 
out, as with an instrument ; nor afterwards is the 
chsjige less grateful, when the great gates part, as if 
by magic, noiselessly, and the world is once more let in 
upon us in its summer splendour. 

On the other side of tiie lock, and up a back-stream, 
above a foaming lasher, they perceived the fisherman 
Wilson, whom the widow would have gladly passed 
nnseoi ; but he called out to Master Ri<mard, and the 
lad rowed towards him as to a friend and teacher of 
blithe sports, of old. 

*I am glad to see you, sir,' he said, *afid Miss 
Maggie, and good Mrs Arbour also. I know that it 
was not of her kind heart that I was obliged to leave 
her cottage, and that I now fish from shore because I 
have no punt. Here is a fine trout that you will please 
to accept, sir, in token o| my respect for you and 
yours — or at least some of yours.* 

Wilson was right in saying that it was not of 
Mrs Arbour's will that he had had notice to quit 
his cottage ; but he did not know that she had 
kept him in it for many years bv paying his rent 
for him whenever he was behindhand, until Maria 
found it out ; whereiipon she told her uncle ; and 
that gentleman, who had not forgotten the manner 
in which he had been once associated with the 
Emperor of Morocco, turned the poor fisherman 
out of doors. This meeting somewhat dashed the 
spirits of the party for a time, but presentiy they 
came upon another nlcasure-boat, wita which Dick 
raced, and beat it, and then quite a fleet of swans sur- 
rounded them, and gave them mimic battle, and in a 
little all was joy again. Thus the three reached the 
grotto in the wood, whence welled the crystal spring, 
and there they dined, with more enjoyment than ever 
yet did alderman at feast ; and thus, more leisurely, 
they drifted home, their skiff half -filled with water- 
lilies, and the feathery heads of rushes, and all the 
river spoil It was a golden day, not likely to be soon 
forgotten by any of those three, and to be treasured 
up by one of them for ever — a home-picture hung in 
the inner chamber of his soul, evoking, like the image 
of a saint, all purest thoughts whenever he looked 
upon it ! 

CHAPTER X. 
DICE OVTS TUE PAIIfTKa. 

Mr Ingram Arbonr had set the space of three 
months between Dick's present holiday and his next 
enfranchisement from Darkendim Street; but it 
would have been all the same to that young gentle- 
man if the appointed limit had been three years 



instead, or even thirty. He had made vp his umid, 
in short, so soon as he should reftom to Gokkn 
Square, to run away from it, and upon the Trwday 
morning after his vint to Rose CoUa^ he pot thit 
plan into execution. His nreparations y/ntce not 
extensive, but they were complete. He packed up all 
his necessary clothing in a carpet-bag, along wnh s 
Bible which his mother had given him, and earned it 
a couple of streets off before he called a cab. He hid 
seven-and-threepence in his pocket in hard caeh ; a 
capital knife, with six blades, given to him by Dr 
Neversleep at his baptism, in tl£ charact^' ol spon- 
sor, as being a more useful present to a young man 
in the end than a silver one ; and three-quarten d 
an enormous cake which Jane had made for ha 
especial benefit. He possessed money, arma, and pn>- 
visions, in short, as a thoroughly equipped expionng- 
party should do, and startra. m tiie nighest spiriti 
in pursuit of that shifty thing — a London liTelinood. 
Once only, when he stopp^ the cabman to drop 
a letter into a post-omce, his face wore rather 
a grave expression ; but leaving the solitude of ths 
interior of tae cab, and climbing up beside the driver, 
he soon recovered, in that cheeilul comjiany, coniidB* 
ably more than equanimitv. No wonder that tiie 
thought of that letter made him sad : it was ■ihlnwil 
to his mother, and ran — in by no means p^^i^lWI liiM 
— to this effect : 

*My Deabest Mother — ^I have run away fam 
the crockery business, and turned my hand to another 
profession which I hope to like better. I ooidd 
not stand it any longer from Adolphua and Uaefe 
Ingram — especially Adolphus — I could not '"dwA I 
cannot write what I have suffered for the last az 
months ; but if you knew, oh, I know you would pily 
and forgive me, mother. I have got a new « t^ »^«« , 
so don't fear, azid I wiU write to you sometimeSy I will 
indeed. And whatever you do, dearest mother aad 
Maggie, do not ^>elieve what Adolphus uid Unde 
Ingram say against me. I have got your Bible witii 
me, with your dear handwriting in it. Yon wSl 
never, never be out of my thoughts, you two. — Beliefe 
me, in spite of this, dear mother, your loving atm—K 
Arboub.' 

The appointment which Dick thus spoke of was 
not a government one, but had been, oonloaed 
upon him solely upon his own merits, and in oon- 
sequence of his personal application. He had seen, 
some days ago, a neatly executed placard in a hair- 
dresser's shop-window near to Leicester Sqnaie, 
stating that a Genteel Youth of Good Addreaa was 
wanted within, to assist in the Cutting Department, 
and he had implied for the situation upon the spot 

* Why, you are not much past fifteen, my lad ?' had 
been the expostulation of Mr Tipsaway the proprietor. 

' Not much,' replied Dick, not thinking it neoessaiy 
to state that he was even short of that age of dis- 
cretion ; * but I am exceedingly genteel, I do assure 
you.* 

'And you've got a good address too, I rappeeet* 
observed the barber saraonioally. 

Dick only shook his curly hair and shewed his teeth 
—as the poor Italian organ-boys do when we wa;fe 
them away with our savage British hands from the 
summit of our dining-room Venetian blinds — and* as 
it happened, no verbal reply oould have served ^m» 
better. 

'He has some modesty, then,' observed the perru- 
quier to hie consort. 

' I think he wiU do very well to send out to the 
Ladies' Schools,* observed Mrs Tipsaway critically. 

Whatever Mrs Tipsaway thought, Mr Tiiisaway 
always acted upon, and Mr ^BiiSiard Arbour had 
ther^ore obtained admittence into their fashionable 
establishment upon trial He had promised to be at 
his post — whatever that might mean — ^upon the 
ensuing Tuesday, and he arriv^ there with nis cake 
and caipet«bag at the appointed houz; 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



n 



The barber and his wife were perfectly well aware 
tiiat Master Richard Smith, as he called himaftlf, was 
a joung centlemaa who had nm away from home, and 
were au we more glad to have him firom that drcum- 
ftance. Such an escapade on his part was of more 
^ue to them than toe most resi>ectable references, 
of which of course he had none : if, they argued, he 
was found out and taken back a^ain, they would 
either obtain hitth-money from his family, or the 
afiair would be made public and their establishment 
advertised; if not, his appearance in their Saloons 
would be certainly advanti^reous. 

The apartments thus dtnominaked were three 
chambers of small extent, funushed with that pecu- 
liar skimpiness and inefficiency which diBtin£;uish 
tite saloons of diminutive steam-boats, and wiUi an 
enormous basin upon wheels — in two of them — in 
lieu of a table, which carried out the nautical 
parall^ still further. The fireplaces in ull these 
zooms smoked throofihout the winter — although Mr 
Tipsaway would dec&re tqran his word of honour, 
when any complaint was made, that it was only 
a particular quarter of the west wind or the east 
wind, as the case might be, which caused that 
miprecedented misfortune ; and in one of them the 
customers were allowed to smoke, a large propor- 
tion of whom happened, for oertain reasons, to be 
foreigners, who would not otherwise perhaps have 
patronised the jilace. 

*In that comparatively small apartment, sir,* 
observed Mr Tii)saway to ms youne recruit, on intro- 
docing him to the premises'— * in uiat comparatively 
small apartment, are not seldom to be seen some of 
the most exalted personages in the history of Euro- 
pean politics, the bulwans of continental liberty, 
tha i^postles of that sacred gospel of Equality between 
and man What the deuce do you mean. 



Frizzle, by running against me in that fashion?' 
Maculated Mr Tipsaway suddenly, as a pale young 
man, in a white apron and shirt-sleeves, and carrying 
an enormous can of water, stumbled upon them in the 
daik and narrow passage that shut on the shop from 
(he saloons. *Do you juiow who you art, sir, and 
who / am ? A pretty example of respect and subor- 
dination, Friaszle, you are setting to this young 
man here. Why isn't this gas-jet lighted, which I 
have ocdered to be done every morning without fail ?' 

' Please, sir,' explained the trembling Frizzle, * Mrs 
^npeaway said ' 

* Silence, sir,' thundered the proprietor; *how do 
you dare to interrupt me when I am speaking. Go 
along with you, and be more careful in future not to 
turn your cans over your betters. — ^Where was I, my 
voung friend,' added the barber, dropping his voice — 
'where was I, when that idiot ran up against me ? ' 

*At the sacred gospel of £(|uality between man 
and man,' suggested Dick with simplicity. 

'Exactly so,' rejilied Mr Tipsaway, whose oratory 
bad been a good deal quenched by the cold water. 
' WeU, the short and long of it is, the refugees and 
Boch like meets here pretty often, and talks all kinds 
of lingo. One of 'em can't talk at all, however — 
Count Ootsuchakoff, the Russian gent — here he is 
a coming through the shop at this instant. Now, just 
yon look at him.' 

^ Pick did look at him, as at the first Count whom 
hia hitherto unprivileged eye had ever beheld, and 
this is what he saw ; a tall dark sallow man, of about 
fifty years of age, without a vestige of hair upon his 
face, and that upon his head cut down to mere gray 
brisUe : he had that painful look of enforced watch- 
fulness about him wnich only belongs to the deaf 
and dumb, as though they were solicitous not to lose 
the play of a sin^e muscle in the coimtenances of 
their more fortimate fellow-creatures : upon the left 
breast of his hi^h-buttoned black waistcoat, there 
depended about Siree-haifpenny- worth of red ribbon, 
tho termination of which--doubtlMi tha ordtrof the 



Golden Eagle, or other costly bird of his native land — 
was lost in a little side-pocket. As he walked throueh 
the shop, he lifted his hat to Mrs Tipsaway, who 
stood behind the counter, an act of condescension 
which delighted Dick, and even elicited from Mr 
Tipsaway — who was accustomed to it — a cordial 
expression of 2)rai8e. 

* He 's the politest beggar, is the Count, Smith, as 
ever you see. He 'II bow to me, and even to you, 
now, when he comes in, just as though we were 
counts ourselves.' 

In another moment the Russian nobleman had 
entered the smoking-room, where the two were 
standing, and saluted them in the mamiificent and 
courtly manner which had been predicted 

*How are you. Old Starch-and-Stiff?' observed Mr 
Tipsaway, tlu*owing, however, a most marked respect 
into his features. 'Will vou have a dass of the same 
tipple as usual, and smo&e jrour cabbage-leaf till the 
other noble swells make their appearance, eh? — Yon 
see. Smith,' remarked the bs^ber, observing the 
extreme dismay depicted in Dick's countenance, *it 
don't signify tuppence what one tays to a deaf-and- 
dumb cove like this ; one may just as well call him 
" Old boy" as " Your excellency ;" in fact, it would be 
throwing fine words away, and putting one's self out 
of one's usual way for nothing.' 

Upon this explanation the unfortunate count 
smiled a smile of the most courteous approval, and 
seating himself at the table, ^iroduced a little parcel 
of tobacco and a small volume, consisting of thin 
1)rown paper, out of which raw materials he began 
constructing cigarettes. 

' How deuced sharp he is with his fingers I * observed 
^Ir Tipsaway admiringly. 'I'm hanged if he ain't a 
precious deal more like a monkey than a man. You 
should see him presently when the others come in 
and talk their lingo; here he'll sit for hours, bless 
you, smoking and rolling, rolling and smoking, and 
making believe to listen, just as though he were all 
right, you know. He 's a very patient chs^, that I 
must say for him. Here's your Hodervee, count — 
that 's what he would call brandy, if he could speak, 
you know — and do keep to the spittoon, there's a 
good creature — he's an awful creetur for tiiiat, is 
the count, and vexes my wife most amazing. They 
say he can spoctorate over his own head, as he sits in 
his chair, but I can't say as I ever saw him do il 
But now we must clear out of this, for here comes 
Monsieur de Crespigny, and Herr Singler,. and the rest 
of the foreign gents, who like to be by themselves 
here, and have no fancy for listeners.' 

This delicacy on the part of Mr Tipsaway must not 
be estimated at too high a rate, considenag that if 
he had applied his ear to the keyhole of the smoking 
saloon witn ever so great an assiduity, he would never 
have heard anything but tongues which he did not 
happen to be able U) translate. It would have beian 
a dangerous method of studying f orei^ pronundatioi:^ 
too, for the barber was right enough m describing his 
guests as impatient of eaves-droppers. In that small 
smoky backroom of the unconscious hotrcutter, 
certain determinations were now and then arrived ai^ 
important enoush, and the divulging of which would 
have brought deatib. or ruin on many an innocent 
head hund^ds of miles away. That wretched room 
had been the hatching-place of many an abortive plot 
for the confusion of Tyrants, and even the nursery 
of more than one rickety Constitution. It was less 
convenient for the cnjoymeot of social life, it is true, 
than for the arrangement of conspiracies, but those 
who used it had been driven — as they thought by an 
arbitrary and vindictive hand — from country, and 
home, and friends, and all things that give life a 
wholesome relish, and had their minds solely set — 
firmly xuid savagely as a man sets his teeth--upon 
wrongs to be rioted, and cruelties .to be avenged. 
Ko foreign spy vould have dreamed of laradiog Mr 



72 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Tipsaway's quiet emporium, for it is notorious that 
mouchards are entirely without sense of humour, 
which, and which alone, might have led them to look 
with grave suspicion upon the fact of a number of 
gentlemen, whose close-cropped heads had the appear- 
ance of stubble-fieldB, frequenting, almost daily, an 
establishment devoted to cutting and curling. 

These men, so scant of linen, so saving of soap, had 
yet, in Richard's e^es, a certain dignity about them, 
which Englishmen, similarly stricken oy poverty, would 
perhaps have lacked. When we islanders grow poor, 
we are apt to cease from being polite, and to regard 
our feUow-creatures with bitterness ; nor do our 
shabby hats grow shabbier through too much cour- 
teous salutation of the general puolic. A handsome, 
merry, young face like that of Richard Arbour, was 
as much a passport to the heart of M. de Crespigny 
— melancholy as it had grown to be — as when he 
had been a prosperous gentleman, and leader of the 
extreme left m the Chamber of Deputies. 

He congratulated Dick upon his new appointment 
at Mr Tipsawa^s, iust as though he had been some 
cadet of noble family just gazetted page to the French 
king ; and thus in a couple of minutes won more of 

gratitude from the impulsive lad than Uncle Ingram 
ad been able te earn by thirteen years of practical 
benefits. Oh, great and wonderfid powers of human 
look and speech, that can confer such gracious happi- 
ness upon the hearts of others bv a mere smile or 
tone ! and oh, still more wonderful human blindness 
and arrogance, that spare to bestow a gift that costs 
the donor so little ! 

Although, however, M. de Crespigny — who con- 
versed with Dick in English, of course, never imagin- 
ing that a lad in his position -^oiild undcrstend 
any other language than his own — and our young 
runaway did become fast friends in a few days, 
it is not to be supposed that the barber's boy had 
nothing else to do but to cultivate the acquaint- 
ance of foreign noblemen. On the day after his 
arrival, he was taken in hand b^ Mr Frizzle, a feeble 
young man, much bullied hy Tipsaway, and with an 
expression of countenance piteous as that of a hunted 
kangaroo, to which animal he bore a further resem- 
blance in an enormoiis linen pouch, which he always 
carried about with him, iilled with the implements of 
his profession. Whether Mr Frizzle had real genius or 
not, is a question only to be decided — or rather to be 
fought about, for they never decide — bv the psychol- 
ogical metaphysicians ; but that he had, at all events 
* a turn * for music, there is no denying. Like other 
eminent persons in obscure circumstances, however, 
who have been attached to that divine calling, he 
pursued it under many disadvantages; his principal 
instrument of melody being the comb kept for the 
general use of the customers, by help of which and 
some thin brown curling-paper, he would perform 
curious pieces of his own composition — muffled 
oratorios: extracting music from tne tortoise-shell, 
like Orpheus and the earliest masters of the art. 

* Frizzle, why don*t you stop that infernal twanging ? * 
roared Mr Tipsaway at 11 a. m. from the front ^op, 
on the morrow of Dick's arrival. * Don't you know 
that it's the last Saturday in the month, and that 
Mr Smith must be taken to school this morning?' 

Dick thought with a shudder of Messrs Dot and 
Carriwun's, and his heart sank within lest the study 
of the mathematics should be indeed necessary for 
the hair-cutting line of business, as it seemed to be for 
everv other. 

* To school, sir ! * cried he ; * I have been to school, 
Mr Tipsaway, and learned up to vulgar fractions.' 

* You will see more of them to-£y, lad,* grinned 
the barber, in intense enjoyment of the coming witti- 
cism, * than you ever saw in your life before. It is a 
charity school you are going to this morning, where 
aU the boys may be said to be vulgar fractions. It is 
the experimentum in corport vUi, as my classical friend 



Herr Singler once observed. You are about to leani 
hair-cutting upon paupers' heads, Mr Richard Smith. 
The parish authorities have such a belief in oxor 
accurate knowledge of the prevailing mode, tiiat 
they place one himdred and twenty neads at our 
disposal every six weeks. Frizzle, give him the 
bluntest pointed scissors that we have in the shop^ 
lest he should abuse the confidence thus reposed in 
us; and don't take any combs there, mind tha^ 
for you know what happened once, in cosBcqu^ioe, 
to Mr Camellair, the artist, who has never nnoe 
visited our establishment.* 

Thus it was that Mr Richard Arbour mastered tiw 
rudiments of the science of hair-cutting. His oncnlti- 
vated fancy was jUlowed to sow na wfld-oati in 
charity-schools and workhouses, among locks for 
the nourishment of which no Polar bear is slain, no 
Pommade de Tipsaway is concocted; nay, if troth 
must be told, he was even lent out gratis upon 
Sunday mornings to inferior establishments in low 
neighbourhoods, nor imtil he had disfigured many 
himdreds of the working-classes with his ignorant 
shears, was he judged worthy to try his 'prentice- 
hand upon a gentleman. That time, however, did 
at last arrive, and the genteel youth of good addrees 
drew customers to the house, as Mr Tipsaway had 
anticipated. The lad was a considerable relief to 
those who had hitherto only exjwrienced the nervous 
attentions of Mr Frizzle. That young man — ^besides 
his introduction of the foreign body we have already 
hinted at into the luxuriant tresses of Mr Camellair — 
had been guilty of enormous indiscretions. He had 
almost driven Major Bantam into an apoplexy by 
whistling a melody — softly but quite perceptdbly — 
upon a bald spot on that indicant ofiicers heed, 
as he stood behind him *thinnmg his top,' as tiie 

Ehrase goes ; and when Miss Comely Fettigrew 
ad ask^ him whether he thought that he had a 
pair of whiskers to suit her — meaning, of comve, 
those artificial yW^f^^^ used for distending the side- 
hair — he had fairly spluttered with laughter, and 
rushed out of the room. Moreover, his conversation 
— a most important matter with gentlemen of his pro- 
fession — was feeble to quite an extraordinary degree. 
Beyond *The weather is distressingly 'ot to-day, mem,* 
or, * 'Ow that chimney do smoke now, to be sure, air, 
don't it ?* he had absolutely nothing to say; while, in 
place of introducing the subject of purchases warily 
and delicately, he would come out with : * Now, buy 
a pot of our pommade, sir — cto,' as though he were 
appealing to the pity rather than self-interest of 
the customer. 

The forei^ gentlemen, in particular, whose inex- 
plicable pohteness affected the nerves of Mr Frizzle, 
were exceedingly glad to be waited upon by Dick 
instead of him: they did not think it necessary 
to break off their conversation when the lad chanced 
to have occasion to enter their room; and it must 
be confessed that he took advantage of that circnsn- 
stance to drink in as much as his Knowledge of ths 
French ton^e, imparted to him by Sister Maggie, 
would permit him. He could not imderstand very 
much, of course — even when he could translate it — 
of their talk about the Solidarity of the Peoples, or of 
the Moment being Supreme for down-trodden Nation- 
alities, but he knew that they were talking eecreti^ 
and that he was listening to them, unknown to them- 
selves, which is a state of affairs gratifying to most 
people. 

Moreover, he was deeply interested in the scenes 
themselves, and the persons who composed them : in his 
friend and patron, M. de Crespigny, so eloquent and 
so enthusiastic ; in Herr Singler, so auiet and yet so 
weighty, that no man put in a wora while he was 
speaking; in Signer Castigliano, so scornfully indigo 
nant in nand, and voice, and eye ; and of the ten or 
a dozen conspirators who assembled, all or some, in 
that little saloon daily, especiaDy in the silent, snDen 






CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



73 



Oount Grotsuchskkoff, who sat in that stormy parlia- 
ment, sipping his brandy, and smoking his tooacoo, as 
though he were the sole occupant of the apartment. 
Now and then, a slip of paper would be handed to 
him with some pencilled words, requesting his advice 
on this or that matter, and he would write his reply 
on a leaf of his little cigarette-book, with incred- 
ible speed. The conspirators had evidently a high 
opinion of his jud^ent, and indeed, for five-and- 
thirty years this exile from St Petersburg — banished 
perhaps for writins what he might have spoken 
with mipunity, had he been able to speak at all — 
had been prompter or participator in half the revolu- 
tions (d £urope. There was a great attraction and 
mystery about this man for Dick, who had never 
chanced to see a deaf-and-dumb person before, and 
his sharp young eyes were often fixed upon him 
when the count was by no means aware of it. That 
sentleman would sometimes stay behind when his 
uiendfl departed, finishing his eau de vie, and on a 
certain occasion, the lad surprised him in the perfor- 
mance of a rather singular action. 

Dick had opened the saloon-door with unusual 
quietness, and without the draught or other accom- 
panying circumstance, such as generally attracted 
the count*s attention at once, announcing his 
presence, and behold, there was the Russian arrang- 
ing the slips of paper that had been ^ven to him 
during the conference in his volummous pocket- 
book 1 This struck Dick as being remarkable, 
because he had heard M. de Crespigny say that he 
would warn Coimt Gotsuchakoff to be purticular 
in destroying them, and the count, on receiving the 
written suggestion, had apparently done so — folding 
each slip as soon as he haa perused it, and consuming 
it in the gas-jet that was always aUght in the room 
for smoking purposes — not only on tlmt occasion, but 
ever afterwards, as the lad had seen him do many 
times. This contradictory circumstance would not, 
however, of itself perhaps have awakened Dick's 
suspicions, had not the Russian suddenly started up, 
thrust the pocket-book into his bosom, and seizing 
the lad by the throat, uttered in unmistakable French, 
and with a rolling of the rs beyond the reach of most 
articulate-speaking men — not to speak of a deaf-and- 
dumb gentleman — ^that one tremendous rage-laden 
continental shibboleth — * Scure !! ' 

THE BEE-WORLD. 

We happened to be overhearing but yesterdajr a 
nursery-lesson adnunistered to our youngest child, 
aged six, and the superiority of knowledge exhibited 
by that infant compared with any which we were 
poBseased of concerning the subject in hand, com- 
plete confounded us. 

' miat do we know, my little dear, about bees?* 
inquired the governess, in that insinuating tone by 
wmch information is supposed to be most easily 
extracted from the young. * What do we know now 
about bees? ' It waa surprising, we repeat, how much 
that HtUe cirl did ^ow about them, of which her 
learned father, as he was called in court, was pro- 
foundly ignorant; and yet there was Huber in our 
library, and even a pamphlet just published upon the 
Management of Beea lying on our desk. We reiterated 
to onnelves tiae question of the governess : * What do 
vou know, Mr raterfamilias, about bees?' and we 
bluahed in the solitude of our study as we answered 
thus. 

We know that Dr Watts inquires — no, remarks 
with admiration — 'How doth tne little busy bee 
improve each shining hour ! ' and that a previous 
poet, Virgil, has paid that insect many deserved 
comjdimentB. But we also remember a rather alarm- 
ing picture in one of. Virgil's books of a certain ox 
lymg dead with a swarm of bees about him, who, it 
IB our strong impression, had stung him to death. 



We know that bees do sting, since we have a 
distinct recollection of having in our childhood 
suffered from them, when our beloved parents placed 
our nose in a blue bag, with the mistaken idea of 
allaying the irritation: it did not allay it, but 
increased our terror and distress very much. We 
thought that the colour would never be washed 
away — like Shakspeare's celebrated fast and indelible 
red, which would see the multitudinous seas incarna- 
dined first — and that we should have a blue nose for 
life. We did not learn, nor have we done so to this 
hour, why that bag was blue. 

We know that one of the prettiest ornaments in 
the cottagers' gardens of the village at home were 
bee-hives, which somehow gave us the same notion of 
comfort and plenty in their case as was afforded by 
the more ungainly wheat-ricks in the farmyard ; and 
justly so, for those persons who kept bees were them- 
selves a provident class, and always laid something 
in store against their winter. 

We know that the bee inserts himself into very 
curious places, after a silent and burglarious fashion, 
although doubtless with the best intentions. The way 
in which he comes booming out of the bell of a flower 
which one has gathered m ignorance of his being 
there, is exceedmgly startling; and we have some 
faint notion that he manages to get into bottles of 
very old port wine, and to leave his wings there. 

Finally, we know that there is such an insect as 
a queen-bee, but what she does, except (we suppose) 
reign, we have no idea ; and this last piece of pro- 
fundity completes our knowledge upon the entire 
subject. 

Honest Reader, can you lay your hand upon your 
heart, and protest that you luiow anything more 
than this about bees? If so, you may be even an 
Apiarian — ^in which case we have nothing to say to 
you, €rO to ! We are addressing ourselves to simple 
Christian folk; to them who were ignorant, as we 
ourselves were yesterday, and whom we would make 
as wise as we are to-day. We have found a poem — 
the Romaunt of the Bee — the existence of which we 
had never dreamed of ; an epic we had never looked 
into, although it has stood on the shelf in the garden 
opposite for many a summer, and thou^ we knew ite 
title — the Bee-hive — perfectly welL Let us turn it 
over (in our mind, tnat is, for practically it would 
be dangerous), and extract the honey (the poetry and 
the humour), leaving the wax and other glutinous 
material (the desperately scientific and statistical 
information) for those of stronger digestions. 

Even Science herself, however, discards her harsh 
appellations, and grows almost musical when speak- 
ing about bees. She calls them ArUhrophUa and 
MeUtfera, the flower-loving and the honey-bearing; 
albeit she is greatly at fault for a fit title for that 
golden down which they delight to pilfer from the 
swinging flower-bells, and terms it pollen. * I 'd bo 
a butterfly, bom in a bower,' sings an unknown 
poet, but probably one cursed with the improvidence 
of his race, and whose opinions were certainly at 
variance with those of Mr Thomas Carlyle. How 
much better would it be to be bom in a nice warm 
hive ; to be swathed in silk, or some substance 
equsdly pleasant, and less expensive, termed ' cocoon ; ' 
and to be fed on honey-dew, like hun who beheld the 
palace of Kubla Khan ! How happier far must be the 
hour when the bee first * feels his feet,' than that 
enjoyed by the infant Homo under the same circum- 
stances, for such members are economically denied 
to bees until they are absolutely wanted ; and how 
still more delicious the day on which he first emerges 
upon lus silver wings into the summer air I 

At the same epodi when the pur^e-coloured 
child is squalling m ite nurse's arms, objecting to 
its strait-waisteoat, and nervously apprehensive of 
pins, the infant bee is drinking in all the glories 
of earth and air. He sings to himself for very 



74 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



happiness. In eveiy flower he finds odours, and 
di^dous sweetmeats, and enjoys them both, accom- 
panied by the most delightful nuition, like that 
of a school-boy in his swinA or a sailor in his 
hammock. In a cowslip's bell he lies, or under the 
blossom that hxuigs on the bou^h; and this is his 
Vfork, mind you. The bee, in addition to these ravish- 
ing pleasures, has the crowning satisfaction of the sense 
of toil — of doin£ his duty to others as well as to him- 
Belt When he nas eaten enough, he proceeds, in con- 
tempt of a polite rule to the contrai^, which trammels 
most human children, to fill his httle pockets. He 
has a ba^ into which he puts the precious honey-drops 
nntil it is quite full, and he has also two side-recep- 
tacles in his legs for the palleiL If it has been showery, 
he saves himself the trouble of making this up into 
homoQopathic golden pills, and by pocketing them, 
idling nimself bodily among it wherever it is found ; 
he thus acquires a coat of many colours — ^red, white, 
yellow, or blue — so that the intelligent flonst who 
observes him thus decked out, can telTthe very flowers 
from which the vagrant has been thieving ; and when 
he returns home, which he does as stoucht as an 
arrow, after a flight upwards at the rate 3. a mile a 
second to take its bearings, his friends are not too 
proud to brush him caref uBy down, and put away all 
the pollen into the granary. It is this which mokes 
what is called bee-bread ; for bees are not so ^p-eedy 
as some little boys, who will eat their honey without 
any bread to it. Perhi^M the queen, whom we read 
of in the nursery tsongs as eating bread and honey in 
her parlour, was after all but a oueen-bee ; but this is 
a question suitable only for tne antiquarian com- 
mentators. The indoor work of bees is as light as 
their open-air avocations. The hive being limited, 
and the number of bees continually increasing, a 
thorough system of ventilation becomes necessary. 
The workers are therefore * told off' by sixties or so 
at a time, and accomplish the desired object by stand- 
ing on their feet and * making believe' wiui their 
wings to fly. This is certainly no exhausting labour, 
such as we humans always find * raising the wind' to 
be; and some old bees of lethargic temperament prefer 
to stay at home, and puU the punkah, to wander- 
ing about gardens ana roaming over the heathery 
hills with their comrades. What vulgar outside per- 
■ons may choose to say about their increased weight, 
and of how that less than five thousand (in conse- 
quenoe of these sedentary habits) are now going to 
uie pound, is nothing to them ; since they nave no 
sense of hearing, or if they once had it, it has been 
dazed and destroyed by the continuous buzzing going 
on aroimd them. For consider — you that have but 
one bee in your bonnet — what it must be to have 
fifteen thousand bees (which is not a lai^e hive-full) 
all under the same straw hat I It is useless, then, for the 
unscientific man to bring out his tongs and warming- 
pan with the idea of attracting bees to swarm. They 
are mercifully denied by nature the organs for the 
i^preciation of that music. Thieves, of course, are 
not to be feared by such courageous householders, 
but the moth breaks through at night sometimes, and 
steals after a very singular manner — namely, by 
giving. She lays her eggs in the hive cuckoo-fashion, 
and their voracious larvcB devour the honey. No 
wonder, then, that the bees fear moths— ^tti^iU banaos 
gt dona ferenUa, a scholarly quotation which we have 
not often so good an c^portunity of introducing. 

Hitherto, we have spoken only of Working-bees, 
who form about four-fifths of a swarm. The oUier 
fifth is composed of those who neither toil nor spin, 
nor gather into hives, and who are therefore — by 
peasants and other rude persons oonoemed in thie 
management of bees — somewhat contemptuously 
tarm^ Drones. Did ever lover pass by such a name ? 
These live for love, and die for love too — as we shall 
presently hear — and it is no wonder perhi^^ that 
they are despiMd by soulless drudgeiL They are, 



every one of them, passionately in love with tke 
queen-bee. These twothousana or so are aH ena- 
moured of the one solitary female who exists in tbis 
blessed community. She is wooed and won. in ^ 
air, miles and miles away above mortal ken ; and jittk 
as in the grand old fairy tales, the favoured lovecs ol 
this enchanting princess never live to boast o£ their 
happiness. You may see hundreds of them whidisg 
up m>m the entrance of the hive into the blue emm^ 
rean, and pr^wntly the ^ueen-bee herself — ^like the 
monarch of Lilliput, conspicuoua by her length, sJbon 
her fellows — majestic, Junonic, takes her mystexioiB 
fli^t skyward alsa She knows not whicn of her 
smtors will be waiting for her— doubtlesi wiA 
bended knee, althoush there is nothing to pat it on— 
nor the spot where uie will meet with him, for then 
is no making tr3rsting-place in the realms of spaoa 
Zephyr alone, remembering perhaps his young da|n 
with Aurora, conducts her to some happy bee m 
viewless air. Is not this a true poem? And tib 
voung courtier that never comes back to hive agpin— 
by which alone the rest know whom to envy — is not 
he a fit and tragical hero ? But better so, Maybe(e), 
than to live on an unfavoured drone until the late 
autumn, then to be stung to death by the labonring* 
claases, lest one should help to eat that winter stors 
which one has been too high and mighty to help t» 
gather! 

These democrats, however, are to their soveremi 
lady the queen, loyal to their backbone, or 'wouldoe 
so, did they not happen to be invertebrate *»']**t*i^ 
The very emblem of royalty in old Egypt was » beig 
by reason, doubtless, of this very devotion. Whenew 
the queen moves about the hive, she is attended by a 
volunteer body-guard, as tiny, but as assidnous as 
they who waited upon Titania's self, and who tsks 
chsirge of her majesty's ^ggs as soon as tiiey an 
deposited. Even if a strange queen-bee is introduced 
into the hive, their respect for her office is so gres^ 
that the inhabitants do not dip their stincs in her 
royal blood, but content ihemselves with hedginff htf 
closely round until she is suffocated, or else they nuin 
her to death like another Duke of Albany. The oueesr 
bee herself, however, brooks no rival near her UkronSi 
Immediately after her election, her first idea is to put 
to death, after the oriental example, all other membeis 
of the royal family. The very infants in the cradles 
are not spared, and unless the w^orking-bees prevent 
it by incessant watchfulness, the cocoons of the royal 
babes are made their winding-sheets. Even while 
employed in thus curbing the despotism of their 
sovereign, however, her subjects are as deferential to 
her as any policeman to an intoxicated M.P. Thof 
merely stimd round the cells, and remark : ' Kot this 
way, your maiesty. We are very sorry, but most 
perform our auty. No admittance to tiie nurseiy 
even on business. Infanticide is resi)ectfully pro- 
hibited.' Even if this murder of the Innocents is 
accomplished, however, there is no lack of succsssocs 
to the crown, or royal leaders to an emigrant swam 
The bees not only elect but make tneir queem 
They have only got to enlarge an ordinary cell, whidi 
an infant workmg-bee woiud otherwise have been 
bom into, and, lo I out of the common egg a prinosss> 
royal makes her appearance. Thus, as in chei% 
a pawn may be exchanged for a queen. The 
faculty for government all depends upon the dimen< 
sions of the cradle. In the bee- world, therefore, thsrs 
are no incapables at the head of affairs, as we see is 
Austria, Spain, or Na])les, but the talents accompany 
the titles. What a grand House of Lords misht be 
composed of such a hereditary peerage as t£is, ol 
* senators bom' and produced wholesale by some 
beneficent hatching apparatus ! A comparison of the 
bee- world with our own, seldom turns out» alas! to 
the advantage of the latter. 

Hitherto, we have been, as it were, in fairyland* 
settling, like the bees themselves, only upon the 



J 



CHAMBERS'S JOUBNAL. 



TO 



objects that meat please ms ; bnt, uuieeii. nil bee 
matters are cliarmliig, except their stings, Bad the 
nberest facts about them seem to partake oE the 
marvcttouB. Let us end with a woaderfol statement 
culled from the namphlet we liav« already mentianed, 
bj Dr Mackeone upon the ilanai)emenl of Bas.' 

' And DDK- we come to the eitraordiaoiy and 
iovaluable discovery of M. Gelien, a Swiss clergymiin 
^namely, that should we add ercD four stiwks of 
bees to oar hive No. 1 in October, Oiejfiw stockj will 
consume no mora honey than No. 1 would h»vB done 
if left alone 1 

' 1 was myself quite incredoloiu in this matter, till, 
by many an experiment, I proved it to be positiveiy 
and always trae. 

' The reasoa of it will piobsbty erer ramun a lecret, 
hardly to be solved by tbe iii^gntioa that the nev- 
comers feel a acmple ai to eatiDg the honey tliey had 
no hand in collecting. 

' But, whatever be the reason, the conseqiieDca 
that if there ever was ao excuse once fbr kUling 
bees, oasnredly there can be none noin; ance, e 
if no single hive has enough of honey, we can easily 
feed it to the proper weint, and then add to it the 
beca from hives that womd otherwise have periabed 



hunger. 



■We 






. the woiBt hooey-j^ears, 

always insure one or more rtnina bives, certain to 
do well and Bwarm early, when aU others, neglected 
as asusi by their owners, who have never baud of 
this management, will havB died.' 

And we wonder what the Political Economist will 
bave to say to iJiaL 



ON GUAED. 
I coDTia that on the night wliea the Knndred-and- 
cinth dined with na, I took a great deal more alcoholic 
drink thau I «heu]d have done. Mr Gongh wonld soy, 

that was veiy wrong ; I reply, that he is very right. 
Mr G. might add, that if there was no such stiiff as 
beer, wine, or spirits to be had, I could uot have so 
erred, and tlut| therefore, we should pass a Maine 
Liquor Law. I reply that, by the same reasoning, all 
hoises sbonld bo converted into sausages, to prevent 
people from ruining themselves on tiie turf ; 
money, which is the root of iJI evil, should at one 
plucked out of hnmiD institutionB ; that if there 
nn such thing as marria^, there could be no such 
thing as divorce ; and that a conununjty of goods 
would prevent the possibility of theft. 
I plead eitenuoting circumstances : my present life 
I was so new to me. Sii rnonths previously, I had beto 
a qaiet, dreamy, middle-aged married man, living in 
the country, and devoted to entomology, when there 
Came that telegram from the heights of Alma, which 
rave the combative bnmp of every man and boy in 
England such a macnetic thrill that it has not left off 
tingling yet, and a bint from onr lord -lieutenant made 
me accept a commission in the militia. I was now a 
smart, ^y, young bachelor lieutenant [I hod still a wife 
■omewfiere, but was there not a sentry on the barrack- 
gate?], one of the garrison of Eddystone, and, on this 
particular evening, president of the mesa. Our guests 
were officers of the line, who had just returned from 
India, and were soon going out to the Crimea, and I 
had to drink champagne with every one of litem; and 
I appeal to the soberest of men — to you, sir — whether 
you could allow a cold, reasonable, heairtleas, heeltap 
to rcmaiit in your glass when you were drinking to a 
man who, in a few weeks, was to be shot at in your 
gnarreL And, after all, I was not very far gone ; 
it is tme that I sang a song: but I went to bed 
Tmaadsted, wound up my watch, and pulled off my 
boiTtB. I also remember my last thonghts before 
gobg to sleep, which were, that I was ^ad there was 



■ BlickwcKxl, ZdlalnrKh. 



uo e;irly parade neit morning, hut sorry that the 
room woald co round and round, and round ""1 
round, like d dry Maelstriim. 

I had two leniarkable dreams that nigbt Fiist, I 
sat in a tower in Jerusalem, which was being battered 
by the Romans, and at each huvy tJiud, tliud of the 
ram, I felt the wails tremble and shake, but did not 
care how soon they fell, for we had been out of water 
for a month. Then I was onco more a Uttle boy at 
school, and very thirsty ; at a short distance off, I 
could see the pastry -cook's, with 'Iced Lemonade' 
written in letters of gold npon the window- jiaije. and, 
lo 1 a thrice happy youth was draining a goblet thereof 
with an engeroeas which raised my dSaire for drink to 
madness ; but between the spot where I stood and the 
coveted draught wasa blank wall, and at liftccn paces 
therefrom stood a row o£ tifth-fam boys, with teouis- 
balls in their hands. Thump, thump, whack, thump 
came those balls about my ears, aa, crouched against 
the wall, I — 1 woke, and discovered that some one 
was knocking, with the regular single punch of a 
Nosmyth hammer, at the door, and that my mouth 
and throat were too j)anihed to tell him to come in. 
However, I managed to utter oome inarticulate cry, 
which was properly nnderstood, and Sergeant Thom- 
son entered the room, closed the door, iiroiigbt his 
heels together, and saluted. Like on old soldier and 
an intelligent man as he is. Sergeant Thomson rightly 
interpreted my ghinoe at the cupboard, and g<ung 
thither, he proiduced a bottle of soda-water. 

Pop I wobble, wobble, fisach !— and the sensalaoai of 
years were crawded into the time it would have taken 
to count five ; for those few seconds, I was in Paradiae, 
but the sergeant soon dashed me to the earth. 

' Yon are for guard, sir,' said he, taking ths empty 
tumbler from my hand. 

'For gimid!— I !' 

' Yes, air ; Mr Arundel was taken ill last night, and 
yon vome next. The adjutant aays you must be oo 
the square in half an hour.' 

'But, but — I have never been on guard; that is, I 
have only been as supernumerary.' 

' Moat make a beginning, sir.' 

' I hope 1 am under a captain. Is it the Dock-yard ! ' 

'No, sir, Lockman Dook — the Magazine, as '''~ 

' Ah, well, the sergeant will tell me what to 
who is he ! ' 

' Don't know, sir ; we don't find the guard.' 

■ What 1 and who do, then !' 

■The marines, sir, 1 believe;' and he salntsd and 

Giddy and ill aa I was, I had to be on the square 
in half an hour — /, who generally take an hour t< 

Oar adjutant, who looked after his officers as a ca 
after her kittens, or the captain of a coUcge-boat after 
hil orew, joined me as I left the barrack-gate; and 
poured advice and encouraeemeat into my ear. " 
told me that I knew all I had to do, becausa we '. 
practised it previously, reminding me how we ', 
gone about our own barrack square rcLcvine ii 
ginary guards and visiting fancy sentries; tnen 
explam^ everything minutely, iniormod me that I 
could not moke a mistake, it was all so very aimple, 
but dam;>ed this encouraging assurance with the 
reminder, that the general was very mrticular, and that 
any blunder of mine would be a disgrace to tlie jegi- 
mont ; and so we arrived at the paiade. There stood 
the difcrent guards in a long red line ; there v/ens the 
colours, and the band, and the brigade- major ; and 
there, in the distance, overwatcliing the nroceedinea 
like a grim Jnpiter, the awfol general ; and there, too, 
were a select body of bdiea. nursery -maids, and chil- 
dren, who bod turned out thus early to see the show, 
which was pretty enough to those who were not actors 
who, being such actora, knew their ports, 
-' - -'- ' - J- ->-— I fell in, and the band 




played, and the colours were paraded up and down, 
and I got on pretty well until we arrived at a part of 
the performance where the officem had to march ri^ht 
across the square, in slow time, to their respective 
guards. Now, I can keep step very well when in the 
ranks, because I move my legs when the others do, 
but my bump of time is, or ought to be, a dead-level ; 
and stepping with the band, now that I was all alone, 
was to me as physically impossible as waltzing had 
always been, so that, whenever I glanced at the 
officer of the adjoining guard, I foimd I was out of 
step, and changed feet ; and as this happened pretty 
often, my progress became one continuous chass^t 
which must nave given me an air of dancing across the 
parade. But this was not all : my head was in such 
a whirl that I could not march straight to my front, 
so that when at last I reached the red line before me, 
I found that I had somehow ed^ed off to the wrong 
guard, and the howls of the bngade-major, while I 
was running ignominiously about, trying to find my 
place, were something frightful to listen to. 

At last, the trooping was over, and as all the guards 
marched off, I felt happier; nobody could bmly or 
interfere witli me now, for I was in command ; and as 
we tramped through the streets, I felt at least two 
inches taller, especially on passing a bow- window 
where three of the loveuest 

*Howl-l-lt!* roared a voice of thunder, which 
brought us up as sharp as if an iron wall had suddenly 
sprung up before us. 

I jiunped so that I dropped my sword. 

When I had picked it up, I discovered that an 
individual with a red face and gray whiskers, dressed 
in uniform, with a cocked-hat and a brass scabbard, 
and mounted on a powerful big-boned horse, was 
louring at me. 

*Why the orcus did you not carry arms to me, 
sir-r-r-r? eh?* 

It is impossible to convey any idea of the accent he 
gave to that * eh ? * I nearly dropped my sword again. 

* I beg your pardon, sir,* said I ; * I did not see'- 

* Then you ought to have seen, sir,' he . barked, 
and dicing his spurs into his horse, vanished like a 
flash of lightning. Who he was, what his rank, or 
whence he came, I know not, neither do I care. 
But a glance at the bow- window shewed me that 
my discomfiture had proved a source of mirth to the 
occupants thereof, and I felt bitterly towards tiie 
individual with the gray whiskers and powerful 
voice. As I could not sink into the earth, a course 
I should certainly have preferred to adopt, there was 
nothing for it but to march on, and in due time we 
reachea the gates of the Lockman Dock, through 
which we stepped in slow time, with carried arms, the 
adjutant's directions coming into my head one by one 
as I wanted them. The guard-room was situated on 
the right, just inside the gates, and the old guard was 
posted at open order in m)nt of it ; I knew that the 
new guard must be drawn up facing them, so I led 
my men solemnly on. 

' To the right form, sir ! ' cried the sergeant in a 
loud whisper, but I did not quite catch his meaning, 
and so thought it simpler to go on a little further. 

* Halt — front ! ' cned I, and they halted and 
fronted ; but, alas, their backs were turned to the old 
guard, in whose ranks, I think, I heard an insubor- 
dinate giggle. 

However, I coimter-marched my men, and then the 
old guard presented arms to us, and we presented 
arms to the old guard; and some of the new guard 
were marched off to relieve the sentries, and I 
apologised to the old guard officer, a youth of 
eighteen, who graciously patronised me, and told me 
that I should do better another time. He also kindly 
^ve me a tip for the Cambridgeshire Stakes, and 
imparted other valuable information, until, all his 
sentries being gathered in, he marched his party off, 
and behind him were closed and barred those gates 



beyond which it was unlawful for me to pass for 
twenty -four hours. 

As a general rule, the fact of being confined in any 

I)articular place, however pleasant, would make me 
ong to get out of it, but at present I had no audi 
wish, for the novelty of the position had a romantic 
charm about it which quite reconciled me to tite 
imprisonment. Twenty-two marines, some of then 
bronzed and decorated men, who had braved for 
several years the battle and the breeze, ifvere under 
my command ; and it was my first taste of power, for 
being a quiet man and a hen-pecked, it bad neFcr 
occurred to me to exercise authority at home. Tliei 
I was in a responsible position; no one could come 
into the dock-yard without my permission, and if he 
insisted on forcing his way by climbing over the wall 
or otherwise, I might — might I order bim to be 
bayoneted ? Yes ; 1 might certainly do so, and the 
sentry would probably obey me, but should I be hnxig 
forgiving such an oraer ? 

TmB being a point worthy of serious consideration, 
I took the Doaixl of orders down from the mantel- 
piece, and "seating myself on a truckle-bed, which, 
with a table, two chairs, an inkstand, a pen, a grate, a 
coal-scuttle, and a broken poker, formed the fumiture 
of the guard-room, commenced an investigation of the 
duties of my position, which led to a further revezie 
upon my present dignity, and the magnitude of tiie 
interests confided to my charge ; one ot them being a 
powder-magazine of so ticklish a constitution, thai 
the smoking of a pipe in the guanl-room, a quarter d 
a nule off, could not be indulged in without running 
the risk of blowing up half the town, with a fur 
proportion of those gun-boats and frigates for which 
we pay such a tidy littie bill every year; and the 
idea of the bare possibility of thie taxes of the countiy 
being increased by any such negligence of mine, made 
me Judder. While cogitating in this way, I be^an 
to experience certain uneasy sensations in the region 
of the stomach, which by and by resolved themsSvoB 
into a yearning for tea, and bread and butter, and in 
due time it occurred to me that I had not break&stcd. 
What was to be done ? I had not seen my servaat 
before leaving the barrack square, and as I had 
selected the laa for his honesty rather than his intd- 
li^nce, I knew he woidd never come to look after me 
without express orders to that effect. I must have 
patience; but yet, what was the use of that? Patience 
IS a very good thing for the toothache, because one lives 
in hopes of its going off ; but hunger never * goes o£' 

Well, well, it was no great hardship after idl to go 
without breakfast for once. The worst of it was, that 
the difficulty would recur at dinner-time. 

These dismal reflections were broken in upon by 
the sergeant, who appeared at the doorway, ana aaked 
if I would choose to visit the sentries, which I forth- 
with began to do; and as I varied the amuaement j 
by investigations of all the objects of interest in 
the place, it took me a couple of hours to go the 
rounds. First of all, I came to a large building where 
boiler-plates were being drilled roimd the edges with 
small holes for the rivets, and I stood for a long time 
watching the punch pressing out the littie circular 
bits of iron with that case and neatness peculiar to 
the irresistible force of steam, till a workman of 
whom I asked some (question remarked, that 'one 
would think it was gomg into so much cheese,' and 
the mention of that comestible was too much for a 
famished Welshman. Not far from this worki^op^ I 
came upon my first sentry, who ported arms and 
proceeded to repeat his orders, which were printed vug 
m his sentry-box. There were under his care a crow- 
bar, which he was to give up when requested to the 
dock-yard police, and a life-buoy, which he was to 
throw to any one whom he saw struggling in . the 
water. He was also to challenge any one who 
approached his post after dark ; to fire off a blank 
cartridge in case of fire ; and above all, to aUow no 



li 



w 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



77 



L 



one to smoke either on the wharf or on board the 
shipping moored off it. All this he repeated in a 
breath, like a child saying its catechism ; and I passed 
on, and spent half an hour in watching the prodigies 
performed by a Vulcanic hammer, though, if Vulcan 
can hit half as hard as that, I pity poor Venus when 
he cornea home jealous and nectary. Then came 
mi interview with another sentry ; then I watched 
the process of razeeing a three-decker that would 
not sail into a frigate that would : after which 
came more sentries, all of whom told their little 
tale so exactly in the same way, that I g[pw weary, 
and determined to * dodge' the next. This was a 
tall, sturdy, red-faced lad, evidently not long from 
the plougn, who, when I came upon him round 
a corner, was standing gazing into his sentry-box, 
reading the orders there printed up, evidently cram- 
ming tor his approaching examination. On hearing 
my footsteps, he faced about, and ported his arms. 

* Do you know your orders ?* said I. 

* Eessir,' he replied. 

* Well, then, if a man fell off that vessel into the 
water, and you saw that he was drowning, what 
would you do ? ' 

Poor fellow ! I never saw more utter and hope- 
less bewilderment expressed on mortal face. I 
repeated the question in as clear and simple a way as 
I could. 

* Give 'un the crow-bar !' he at length replied. 

I tried to explain to him the inutility of a crow-bar 
to a drowning man. 

* Fire a blank cartridge at 'un ! ' was his second 
guess, and I gave him up in despair. 

Only after that, I did not walk so close to the edge 
of the quay as I had been previously doing. 

At some httle distance from the workshops and 
dzy docks, but close to the water-edge, stood a square, 
low, windowless stone-building, encompassed on the 
land'Side by a dry moat, in which perambulated a 
marine. This stone-building was the Magazine, and 
as my board of orders directed me to examine whether 
there were any marks of lucifer-matches on the 
walls, I descended into the moat, and conmienced a 
careful scrutiny. 

* The door is round here, sir ! ' cried the astonished 
sergeant, eyidentl^r thinking that I was searching for 
the entrance, which was certainly small On my 
rejoining him, he pulled an iron handle, which pro- 
duced a distant ^ostly tinkle, and it was not with- 
out a certain trepidation that I heard a footstep, and 
the jingling of many keys, for I expected, on entering, 
to find myself in a low dark vault piled with loose 
fftmpowder, as a granary is with com, and was rather 
disappointed although relieved, when the guardian of 
the place ushered me into an open coui^ard, sur- 
rounded by stone cells with iron doors. 'Wnen I had 
interrogated the sentry who was pacing this court, I 
was condacted througn two ^tes, which were care- 
fully locked behind us, to a dismal place where were 
a fiiffht of steps leading down to the water, and here 
anouier sentiy was j^wted, whom I pitied; for I 
should not myself like to be locked out from the 
wcnid by three doors in such a place. But what of 
the man with the keys, who let me in and conducted 
me round? Does he Hve in that place ? Has he a wife 
and family anywhere? Is his life insured; and if so, 
is it in a fire or life office, and what premium does 
he pay? Has he ever known the joys of tobacco ? Is 
ii'la^md for him to feed upon anjrthing more inflam- 
matory than the Bevidenta Arabica? ^ 

I own that I breathed more freely as, stepping out 
of the Magazine, and taking my sword, which I had 
had to leave outside, from the sergeant, I bent my 
st^ back to the guard-room. 

The walk had been highly interesting, but it had 
sharpened my appetite wofully. 

I had no books, but my predecessor had fortunately 
left behind him a plentiful supply of writing-paper, 



with which I ])roceeded to draw up the report which 
had to be sent in on the following morning, culling 
the different parts of it from various forms which 
were hung about the room, with a glorious uncer- 
tainty about what was for my own private instruc- 
tion, and what for the official information of my 
superiors. This whiled away some time, and then an 
admiral came into the yard, and the guard had to be 
turned out in his honour ; alter which it was time to 
revisit the sentries ; and so the day wore away. Night 
came, and I was left alone with two taUow dips, and 
my own reflections, which were those of a pike. Yet 
I might have sat down to a dinner d la Husse, for was 
it not open to me to devour those tallow dips? True ; 
but I am a man who thinks slowly, and must confess 
that the idea did not occur to me. I was now tired 
as well as hungry, which would have been the greatest 
of boons, could I have gone to sleep, but this l dared 
not do, for the field-officer might come on his rounds 
at any minute, and I had made mistakes enough in 
the morning, without adding to those misdemeanours a 
lack of vigilance, which would keep a superior wait- 
ing at night ; so I selected the hardest chair, placed a 
pebble on it, laid my sword and shako on the table in 
such a position that they could be caught up at a 
moment s notice, and commenced a ^ame at tit-tat- 
toe, single-handed ; but finding that this pastime of my 
childhood was not so exciting as memory had painted 
it, I exchanged it for the solution of veiy long and 
hard sums, xhe officer I had relieved in the morning 
had informed me^ that the F. 0. generally came at 
about midnight, so that there was not so much time 
to kill; and though the hours seemed to be paying 
me the compliment of approaching in slow time, 
twelve o'clock came at last. No rounds. 

One o'clock. No rounds. 

I then remembered that there was a ball going on 
at the port-admiral's, and that, most likely, tne field- 
officer was there, and would take me on his way 
home; so, with a sigh at the thought that at that 
moment he was probably sitting down to supper, I 
began another sum. 'If a major who has dmed at 
seven, and danced till one, can eat two wings of a 
chicken, three oimces of ham, four plovers' eggs, and 
a roll ; how much can a subaltern, who has fasted for 
thirty hours, eat ? ' 

Two o'clock. The pebble beginning to make itself 
unpleasant, I unwisely removed it, and almost 
instantly lost sight of paper and figures. 

* Guard, turn out ! ' cned the sentry. 

I jumpied up, overturned the taole, grasped my 
sword and shako, which I put on hind-side before, 
rushed out of the room, and just reached my place 
in time to receive the F. O. proj)erly. 

* All right, sir ?' said he. 

* All right, sir,' said L , 

* All present?' 

* All present.' 

* Good-night ;' and he turned his horse's head. At 
that moment, an unlucky marine who had been unable, 
on first waking, to fina his musket, came tumbling 
out of the guara-room, and took his place in the ranks. 
The officer turned upon me like a wasp. 

* I thought you said they were all present, sir I ' 
said he. 

* I did not see' I began. 

* Then you ought to have seen ; mind you are more 
careful another time.' 

This was the second time, in twenty-four hours, that 
I had been told, before all my men, that I * ought to 
have seen ; ' and this time the reprimand came from a 
man at least five years my junior, for I had recognised 
an old school-fellow who had been my fag. However, 
I was too sleepy to suffer much from shame or indig- 
nation, so I paid one more visit to my sentries, and 
threw myself on the truckle-bed, where I slept hard 
until roused in the morning by an orderly wno had 
come for my report. 



78 



GHAMBEBS^S JOUBNAL. 



Alas, alas 1 in knockm;^ orer the table the night 
before, I had spilt the ink all over that unhappy 
document, and there was no time to copy it 1 It was 
hurried away, like poor Hamlet's father, with all its 
blots uix>n it, and was consequently doomed, like that 
famous ghost, to wander about and haunt me ; for, as 
it turned out, I had by no means seen the last of that 
orderly, who kept bringing me curt messages aad 
rejected manuscnpts all day. However, he went ofif 
for the time, and shortly i^terwards, the new guard 
arrived, and soon I was wending my happy way to 
barracks and to brbakfast. 



ABOUT DOCTOR& 

On entering the chamber of a French marquis one 
morning, whom he had attended through a very 
dangerous illness, Dr Bouvart was thus accosted : 
' ** Good-day to you, Mr Bouvart ; I feel quite in 
spirits, and think my fever has left me.'* 

** I am sure it has," replied Bouvart, dryly. ^ The 
very first expression you used convinces me of it" 

*• Pray, explain yourself." 

** Nothing is easier. In the first days of your 
illness, when your life was in danger, I was your 
dearest friend ; as you began to get better, I was 
your (^x)d Bouvart ; and now I am Mr Bouvart : 
depend upon it, yiou are quite recovered."' 

It is but too certain that the behaviour of a large 
class of society towards their Doctors affords a parallel 
to that of iJiis French nobleman. Our * county 
families' cannot make up their minds even to visit 
their doctor in the country, through which neglect he 
is often thrown upon the companionship of farmers 
and other persons of no education, to whose condition 
he sooner or later assimilates himself, and is thereby, 
with reason, placed out of the * gilded pale' of society. 
But when sickness comes to the * Park,' and the doctor 
visits thenif there are no bounds to the friendly 
demonstrations of the county families. The * best 
circles' exhibit their want of good sense as well as of 
good taste in indulging in this haughtiness. Even if 
the doctor be a dull fellow, skilled in nothing but his 
profession, he has an advantage over the soldier, 
sailor, clergyman, and lawyer in the same melancholy 
position. What he does know must needs be interest- 
ing to his hearers, not only since they may themselves 
be victims to the very miseries he describes, but 
because his experience of life, however prosaically 
narrated, must needs awaken interest in any heart 
that can feel for others. The professor of Healing 
has a claim to the respect and honour of every man. 
His object, unlike that of everybody else, with the 
exception of the minister of religion, is unmixed benevo- 
lence ; and even the minister does not sptroad, as Ae 
does, his benefits broadcast over Christian and 
Heathen. It is true that there are quacks, and 
pompoiis fools, and bears, and flatterers of the great 
to be found among medicine-men, as elsewhere ; but 
if we would know how gentle, and kind, and generous 
the majority of them arc, we must ask the Poor. 
However unjustly, though not unnaturally, jealous of 
the Bich the poor man may bo in his hour of deepest 
want, his wrath excepts the doctor, who has been his 
friend when all the world deserted bim. A stin^ 
or grasping doctor is exceedingly rare, although 
there is no obvious reason why such should not hug 
his money as closely as the attorney or the Ebrew 
Jew ; he certainly works as hard for it as any man. 

The famous Dr John Lcttsom b^gan life in the 



accepted, and over the child's grave, in Oovent Garden 
Churchyard, was placed a stone sculptured with the 
figure of a child laying one hand on his side, and 
saying, " Hie ddor," and pointing with the other to 
a death's head, on which was engraved ** Ibi 
medicus.'" 

There is a long period, however, in the early career 
of all medical practitioners, when no man takes tiie 
trouble to libel them, and success seems far off indeed. 
It is, however, above all thinss neoessary to appear 
to have success, and to be in brilliant circumstanceik 
'Who has not heard,' says Mr Jeafieson in the 
amusing volumes now before us,* *Qf the «iarliwg 

*A Bock abotd Doctors. By J. C. Jcaffh»on. Hurtt and 
Blaskttt 



West Indies by liberating all his slaves, who formed 
his sole fortune ; he was the founder of more than 
twelve of the principal philanthropic institutiona of 
London ; and in spite of the immense ineouEie derived 
from his profesnon, he had to part, at the eloee of hit 
life, witii his beloved country-seat, because he had 
impoverished himself by lavish generosity to tfa* 
unfortunate. *As Lettsom was travelling in the 
neighbourhood of London, a highwayman stopxied hii 
carriage, and, putting a pistol into the window, 
demanded him to surrender his money. The falter- 
ing voice and hesitation of the robber shewed that he 
had only recently taken to his perilous vocation, and 
his appearance shewed him to be a young man who 
had moved in the gentle ranks of life. Lettsom quickly 
responded tiiat he was sorry to see such a well-lookiiig 
young man pursuing a course which would inevit* 
ably brine him to ruin; that he would give him 
freely all 'uie money he had about him, and would try 
to put him in a better way of life, if he liked to call on 
him in the course of a few days. As the doctor said 
this, he gave his card to tiie young man, who turned 
out to M another victim of the American war. He 
had only made one similar attempt on the road 
before, and had been driven to lawless action by 
unexpected pennilessness. Lettsom endeavoured in 
vain to procure aid for his prot6g6 from the com- 
missioners for relieving the American sufferers; bat 
eventually the queen, interested in the young man'i 
case, presented him with a commission in the amv ; 
and in a brief military career, that was cut short by 
yellow fever in the West Indies, he distinguished 
himself so much that his name appeared twice in i^ 
Qcaette: 

So great a success as Lettsom's, although com- 
bined with such benevolence, was not to be f o rg i ven 
by the rest of the Faculty — ^who form, by the by, 
by far the most quarrelsome and scandalous fratemitf 
extant — and the good doctor was, of course, accused 
of copious manslaughter ; to this charge, he good- 
humouredly replied m the well-known lines : 

When patients comes to I, 

I phyaica, bleeds, and meats 'em ; 
Then — if they choose to die, 

What's that to It—I lets 'cm.— (I. Lkttsom.) 

The celebrated Dr Kadcliffe outdid his brethren in 
the manufacture of scandal, by uttering a libel upon II 
Dr .Gibbons (whom he alwa3rs called Nurse Gibbons) 
not only in words and printer's ink, but in endurinc 
monumental stone. *John Bancroft, the emin^ 
surgeon, who resided in Bussell Street, Covent Garden^ 
had a son attacked with inflammation of the lungi^ 
Gibbons was called in, and prescribed the most violent 
remedies, or rather the most virulent irritants. Tlie 
child became rapidly worse, and Badcliffe was eent 
for. "I can do nothing, sir," observed the doctor, 
after visiting his patient, ''for the poor little hofm 
preservation. He is killed to all intents and purpoeec 
but if vou have any thoujghts of putting a stone over 
him, I 11 help you to an inscription." The offer 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



7» 



dtxsior who taught smging mider the moustachioed 
and bearded guise of an Italian oount) at a yoong 
ladies* school at Clapham, in order that he might 
make his daily west^end caOs between 3 t.il and 
8 p.H. in a well-bui^ brougham drawn by a Beiy 
steed from a hreiy-stable T There was one noted 
case of a young physician who provided himsetf with 
the means of figuring in a brougnam during the Msy- 
fair morning, by occupyine the box, and condescend- 
ing to the carb and duties of a flyman during the 
hours of danmess. It was the same carriage at both 
periods of the four-and-twenly hours. He lolled in 
it by daylight, and sat on it by gadight The poor 
fellow's secret was disoorered by forgetting himself 
on one occasion, and jumping tn when he ought to 
have jumped Ol^ or jumping an when he ou^t to 
have jumped in,* 

The doctors who made the neatest fortimes in 
old times were mostly fashicmable quacks, such as 
St John Lon^ but now and then some very vulgar 
practitioners indeed came in for a share. Mrs Mapp, 
the bone-setter, was enabled to pay her professional 
visits with four horses and outrideis; and Joanna 
Stephens, the 'wise woman,* actually obtained five 
thousand pounds from parliament for divulging the 
secret of her famous powder — made of calcined e^- 
shells and snail-shells---althoiigh the time was comm^ 
when it grudged a reward to Jenner, and hag^ed 
about the purchase of Hunter's Museum. I^he 
Elizabethan surgeon, Bulleyn, must have been as 
great a quack as either of these, although he may 
not have bean so wdl aware of it, since he believed 
in pearl electuaries, and even had a famous recipe of 
his own for the concocting of them. * ElecttLorium de 
Oemmia. — Take two drachms of white perles; two 
little peeces of saphyre ; jacinth, comeline, emerauldes, 
cranettes, of each an ounce ; setwal, the sweate roote 
doronike, the rind of pomeoitron, mace, basel seede, 
of each two drachma; of redde ccorall, amber, shaving 
of ivory, of each two drachms; rootes both of white 
and red behen, ginger, long peper, spicknard, folium 
indicum, saffron, cardamon, of each one drachm; of 
troch. diarodon, lignum aloes, of each half a small 
handful; cinnamon, salinga, zurubeth, which is a 
kind of setwal, of each one drachm and a half ; thin 
pieces of gold and sylver, of each half a scrujJe ; of 
musk, haS a drachm. Make your electuary with 
honey emblici, which is the fourth kind of mirobalans 
with roses, stxained in cquall partes, as much as will 
sufl&ce. This healeth cold diseases of ye braine, 
harte, stomack. It is a medicine proved agunst the 
tremblynge of the harte, fayntin^ and souning, the 
weaknes of the stomacke, pensivenes, sdituines. 
Kings and noUe men have used this for their com- 
fort. It causeth them to be bold-sprited, the body 
to smell wel, and ingendreth to the face good coloure.' 
Mr Jeaffireson justly remarks, that Dr Bulleyn was 
quite as worthy of bein^ suspended from practice as 
that unfortunate physician of modem tunes, who, 
during the railway panic in *46, thus prescribed for 
a nervous lady: *A Qreat Western, 350 shares; 
Eastern Counties, North Middlesex, a— a 1050; Mft 
fiaust. 1. Om. noc. cap.' 

The ladies have been always great admirers of the 
doctors, and have married two or three of the more 
fashionable ones, in spite of themselves. Bt John 
Lon^ scarcely saved himself upon the plea of having 
a wife already; Sir John £hot painted a death's 
head upon the panels of lus carriage to scare away 
his patronesses, in vain; and XS* Cadogan was 
espoused to a lady he did not like. She was very 
jealous, of course, and entertained besides the agree- 
able idea that her husband would one day poison her. 
*0n one occasion, when surrounded by her friends, 
snd in the presence of her lord and master, she fell on 
ber back in a state of h3rBtezical spasms, exclaiming : 
" Ahi he has killed me at last I am poisoned 1 " 

** Poisoned I " cried the lady-iriends, taming up the 



whites of their eyes. " Oh! gncioas goodness I — yoa 
have done it, doctor ! " 

**What do you accuse me of?" asked the doctor 
with surprise. 

**I accuse you — of — ^killing me — ee!** responded the 
wife, doing her best to imitate a death-struggie. 

"Ladies," answered the doctor with admirable 
nonchalanoB, bowinc to Mrs Oadogan's bosom sbso- 
ciatea, ** it is perfectly false. You are quite welcome 
to open her at once, and then you'U discover the 
calumny."* 

This adoration of the fair sex was never paid, how- 
ever, until the object of it had achieved eminence and 
jiopularity, and were were many humiliations to be 
undergone before that pinnacle was to bo attained: 
not the least of these (and they occur unto this day) 
were those encountered in the canvassing for medical 
appointments. * While a candidate for a place on the 
staff of St Bartholomew's Hospital, Dr Barrowby 
entered the shop of one of the governors, a grocer on 
Snow-Hill, to solicit his influence and vote. The 
tradesman, bursting with importance, and anticipat- 
ing tiie pleasure m getting a yery low bow from m 
gentieman, strutted up the shop, and, with a mixture 
of insolent jiatronage and insulting familiarity, cried: 
" Well, friend, and what is your business ? " Bitfrowby 
paused for a minute, cut mm right through with the 
glance of his eye, and then said, quietly and slowly: 
'* I want a pound of plums." Confused and blushinff, 
the grocer aid up the plums. Barrowby put them m 
his pocket, and went away witiiout askmg the fellow 
for his vote.' This same aoctor is the hero of another 
electioneering story. Lord Trentham and Sir Geoige 
Vandeput were contesting Westminster. * Barrowby, 
a vehement supporter of the latter, was then in 
attendance on the notorious Joe Weatherby, master 
of the '* Ben Jonson's Head," in Russell Street, who 
lay in a perilous state, emaciated by nervous fever, 
^urs Weatherby was deeply afflicted at her husband's 
condition, because it rendered him unable to yote for 
Lord Tr^tham. Towards the close of the pollings 
days, the doctor, calling one day on his patient, to 
his great astonishment found him up, and almost 
dressed by the nurse and her assistants. 

"Heyday! what's the cause of this?" exclaims 
Barrowby. •* Why are you up without my leave ? " 

** Dear doctor," says Joe in a broken Toice, '* I am 
going to polL" 

" To poll I " roars Bairowby, suj^posing the man to 
hold his wife's jpoHtical (Opinions; "you mean— going 
to the devil ! Get to bed, man; the cold air wiS kiO 
you. If you don't ^ into bed instantly, you 'U be 
dead before the day is out." 

" I '11 do as you bid me, doctor," was the reluctant 
answer. ** But as my wife was away for the momins^ 
I thought I couldget as far as Covent Garden chnrcE^ 
and vote for Sir Cwoi^ Vandeput." 

"How, Joe! for Sir George?^' 

"0 yes, sir; I don't go with my wife. I am a 
Sir Ckorge's man." 

' Barrowby was struck by a sudden change for the 
better in the man's appearance, and said: "Wait a 
minute, nurse. Dont puU off his stockings. Let me 
feel his pulse. Humpn — a sood firm stroke! You 
took the piUs I ordered you ?^' 

" Yes, sir ; but they made me feel very ilL" 

"Ay, so much the better; that's what I wished. 
Nurse, how did he sleep ? " 

" Charmin'ly, sir." 

" Well, Joe," said Barrowby after a few seconds* 
consideration, "if you are l>ent on going to this 
election, your mind ought to be set at rest. It *s a 
fine sunny day, and a ride will very likely do you 
good. So, bedad, I'll take you with me in my 
chariot I " 

• Delifffated with his doctor's urbanity, Weatiieihy 
was taken off in the carriage to Covent Garden, 
recorded his vote for Sir George Vandeput, was 



80 



GHAMBEBS'S JOURNAL. 



brought back in the same vehicle, and died two hours 
afterwards, amidst the reproaches of his wife and her 
friends of the court party.' 

A vote was once gained in the House of Lords in 
even a still more singular fashion. The practice of 
phlebotomy was very general in the middle of the 
last century, and the Lord Radnor of that time had 
an ezceedine fondness for letting blood from his 
friends with nis amateur lancet. Far from accepting 
a fee, of course, he was willing to remunerate such as 
were courageous enough to submit themselves to his 
treatment. Lord Chesterfield actually suffered this 
nobleman to bleed him — there being nothing what- 
ever the matter with him — ^f or the purpose of gaining 
his vote as a peer on the same evening, and his sel^ 
sacrifice was rewarded as it deserved. ' I have shed 
my blood for the good of my country,* said he, with 
literal trutL 

Of the slow promotion in medical ranks, even in the 
case of the most skilful and deserving, the earnings of 
Sir Astley Cooper afford a striking example. * In the 
first year, he netted five guineas; in the second, 
twenty-six pounds ; in the third, sixty-four ]X)unds ; 
in the fourth, ninety-six pounds ; in the fifth, a hun- 
dred i>ound8 ; in the sixth, two hundred pounds ; in 
the seventh, four hundred pounds ; in the eighth, six 
hundred and ten pounds ; and in the ninth, the year 
in which he secured his hospital appointment, eleven 
hundred pounds.' The highest amount he ever 
received in any one year was L.21,000, but for many 
years his average income was over L. 15,000. For 
going over to St Petersburg and inoculating the 
Empress Catharine and her son, in 1768, Dr Dimsdale 
received L. 12,000 down, a pension for life of L.500, 
and had the rank of a baron of the empire conferred 
upon him. A more recent emperor, of Austria, put 
down an equally royal fee in payment for his death- 
warrant. * When a-dying, the Emperor Joseph asked 
Quarin his opinion of nis case ; the physician told the 
monarch that he could not possibly live forty-eight 
hours. In acknowledgment of this frank declaration 
of the truth, the emperor created Quarin a baron, 
and gave him a pension of more than L.2000 per 
annum to support the rank with.' 

It is probable that none of our successful surgeons 
have been in reality so rude and discourteous as 
they are represented to have been, and that the im- 
pression was rather produced by the contrast of their 
independent and confident manners with the insinuat- 
ing address of their less fortunate brethren ; but cer- 
tainly Abemethy must have had a terrible reputation 
to have reduced a patient — and a female one — to such 
a state of taciturnity as this : 

'A lady on one occasion entered his consulting- 
room, and put before him an injured fincer, witiiout 
saying a word. In silence, Abemethy dr^ed the 
wound, when instantly and silently the lady put the 
usual fee on the table, and retired. In a few days 
she called again, and offered the finger for inspection. 
"Better?" asked the surgeon. "&tterl" answered 
the lady, speaking to him for the first time. Not 
another woid followed during the rest of the interview. 
Three or four similar visits were made, at the last 
of which the patient held out her finger free from 
bandages and perfectly healed. " Well ? " was Aber- 
nethy^ monosyllabic inquiry. " Well! " was the lady's 
equally brief answer. " Upon my soul, madam," 
exclaimed the delighted surgeon, **you are the most 
rational tooman I ever met torn ! " ' 

It is beyond all doubt that Abemethy, as well as 
certain other stars of the Faculty — ^both alive and 
dead — have given themselves most unnecessary airs, 
and especial^ in their intercourse with the junior 
branches of their own profession. A medical student, 
naturally audacious, or armed perhaps with the reso- 
lution of despair, did, however, under examination, 
once get the better of the great surgeon in a tourna- 
ment of words. *"What would you do," bluntly 



in<mired the surgeon, ** if a man was brought to you 
¥dth a broken leg ? " 

" Set it, sir," was the reply. 

" Good — very good — you re a very pleasant, witty 
young man; and doubtless you can tell me wiut 
muscles of my body I should set in motion if I kidoed 
you, as you deserve to be kicked, for your imper- 
tinence.' 

" You would set in motion," responded the youth 
with perfect coolness, " the flexors and extensors of 
my right arm ; for I should immediately knock yon 
down." ' 

To Abemethy's credit as an appreciator of humoar 
as well as courage, be it recorded, he passed tk 
candidate triumphantly, when a baser man wooM 
probably have pmcked him for his impudence. 



DEAD LOVE. 

We are face to face, and between us here 
Is the love we thought could never die ; 

Why has it only lived a year ? 
Who has murdered it — you or I ? 

No matter who— the deed was done 

By one or both, and there it lies : 
The smile from the lip for ever gone, 

And darkness over the beautiful eyes. 

Our love is dead, and our hope is wrecked ; 

So what does it profit to talk and rave, 
Whether it perished by my neglect, 

Or whether your cruelty dug its grave 1 

Why should you say that I am to blame, 
Or why should I charge the sin on you ? 

Our work is before us all the same, 
And the guilt of it lies between us two. 

We have praised our love for its beauty and gnoe, 
Now we stand here, and hardly dare 

To turn the face-cloth back from the face, 
And see the thing that is hidden there. 

Tet look ! ah, tliat heart has beat its last. 
And the beautiful life of our life is o'er, 

And when we have buried and left the past, 
We two, together, can walk no more. 

You might stretch yourself on the dead, and weep^ 
And pray as the Prophet prayed, in pain ; 

But not like him could you break the sleep, 
And bring the soul to the clay again. 

Its head in my bosom I can lay, 

And shower my woe there, kiss on kiss, 

But there never was resurrection-day 
In the world for a love so dead as this ! 

And, since we cannot lessen the sin 

By mourning over the deed we did, 
Let us draw the winding-sheet up to the chin, 

Ay, up till the death-blind eyes are hid ! 

Phcbbe Ca&i. 



Printed and Publislied by W. & R Chambers, 47 P*te^ 
noster Row, London, and :^59 High Street, EdinbuboB. 
Also sold by William Robertson, 23 Upper SaokviOe 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 



S tit net anb ^rls. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



1. 



SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1861. 



Price 1^. 



COLD. 

anticipate a coming winter with various feel- 
ne dreadfi the Christmas bills ; another, the boys 
or the holidays; another, a new year anxious 
last ; but all men dread the cold. I know they 

I am a surgeon, and see much of its effects 
my poorer patients ; and for that reason I have 
ider how we ought to treat cold. Treat it ! you 
y — shut the door, poke up the fire, put your 
I slippers, and your body in an easy-chair, 
t like any other unbidden guest, and shut it 
'. was thinking, however, of a great class of our 
countrymen who go down to the sea in ships 
lals and whales, or up mountains to gather in the 
aced sheep, or wander about the s&eets of our 
and arc picked up stiff, senseless bundles of 
f the night-police. 

nch it matters but little that our natural phil- 
rs deny the existence of cold — ^that it is merely 
tstraction of a certain quantity of the heat 
is indispensable to animal life — ^that warmth 
ites to vitality — and that if the temperature is 
d, it may at last reach a point when it ceases 
a any effect ; but, nevertheless, these facts are 
ting. 

atmosphere is always robbing us of our 
L heat, which has an average temperature of 98 
s. If it did not do so, if the atmosphere were 
}8 degrees, we should feel it disagreeably warm, 
refer one much lower — say 60 or 65 degrees, 
low the temperature of the body may be 
d to sink with impunity, is doubtful, and seems 

7 with the individual; the robust and lively 
volving plenty of heat, enjoys a degree of cold 
makes a lean, pink-nosed, blue-lipped woman 
i miserable spectacle. Tooke, in his view of the 
n empire, says that drivers and horses suffer 
onvenience with the thermometer at 20 — 24 

8 below zero, and women stand for four or five 
with their draggled petticoats stiff with ice. 
have been noticed, however, some circumstances 

would go to shew that national hardihood 
not be always relied upon; for instance, in 
reatest experiment of the effects of cold on 
the French retreat from Russia— the Dutch 
8 of the 3d Regiment of the Grenadiers of 
ruard, consisting of 1787 men, officers and 
«, nearly all perished, as two years after, 
forty-one of them, including their colonel, 
&1 Tindal, who was wounded, had returned to 
b; while of the two other regiments of Grena- 
composed of men nearly all of whom were 
Q the south of France, a considerable number 



were saved. The Germans lost, in proportion, a 
much larger number of men than the French. 
Though many of the latter were reduced almost to 
nudity by the Cossacks having stolen their dothes, 
they did not die from the effects of cold in the 
same numbers as the Northerners, whom one would 
have expected to brave out that dreadful cam- 
paign with greater impimity. There is a singular 
mystery about the effects of cold— mysterious as 
these countries round which it consolidates its im- 
penetrable barrier. When your great natural phil- 
osopher calculates with extraordinary nicety the lawB 
of heat, we cannot follow his calculations ; how much 
more difficult, then, must it be for us surgeons to 
determine how much, not a whole body, but perhaps 
some patch of tissue, may be reduced in temperatiu^ 
with hope of its recovery. 

Take as an example now, Napoleon's army as it 
returns from Russia, and let me quote from the 
great surgeon, Baron Larrey, no less soldier than 
siu-geon : 

' The death of the men struck by cold was preceded 
by pallor of the face, by a sort of idiocy, by hesita- 
tion of speech, weakness of sight, and even complete 
loss of sensation; and in this condition some were 
inarched for a shorter or longer period, conducted by 
their comrades or their friends. Muscular action was 
visibly weakened ; they reeled on their legs as if intoxi- 
cated; weakness progressed gradually till they fell 
down, which was a certain sign of the complete extinc- 
tion of vitality. The continuous and rapid march of the 
soldiers collected into a mass obliged those who could 
not keep up to leave the centre of the column, and 
keep to the sides of the road. Once separated from 
the compact body, and left to their own resources, they 
soon lost their equilibrium, and fell into the ditches 
filled with snow, from whence it was difficult to 
remove them; they were struck suddenly with a 
painful choking, passed into a lethargy, and in a 
few seconds ended their existence. When on the 
heights of Mienedski, one of the points of Russia 
which seemed to me most elevated, many had bleeding 
from the nose. .... The external air hMd undoubt- 
edly become more rarefied, and no longer offering 
resistance to the action of the fluids, of which the 
movement is constrained by the internal vital forces 
and the expansion of the animal heat, these fluids 
passed off by the points of least resistance, which are 
generally the mucous surfaces, especially the mucous 
lining of the nose. This dei^ (from cold) did not 
seem to me a painful one; as the vital forces were 
gradually extinguished, they drew after them the 
general sensibiHty to external agencies, and with 
them disappeared the faculties of special sensation. 



82 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



I 



We found almost all the persons frozen to death 
lying on their stomachs, and with no sign of decom- 
position.* 

How did any escape? One would think that 
what was cold to one must have been equally so 
to the others. We see in a garden, after some severe 
frost, particular species of plants aSocted by it, but 
we say thd others were more hardy ; but here is one 
species of «.Tiima.l suffering so unequally, as r^ards its 
individual members, as to strike the most ordinary 
observer with surprise. 

Now, it would seem that cold affects in only two 
ways — it predisposes to the death of tissues, and it 
hUla. In the first case, the part is not more affected 
than that it is very cold ; its temperature is greatly 
lowered ; the contracted blood-vessels allow but little 
of tiie vital fluid to pass. At this moment, it seems 
that but a small increase in the temperature may 
endanger the life of the part> or even of the whole 
body. Let us quote again from Baron Larrey. 
' Towards the end of the winter of 17d5-96, when I 
was with the army of the Eastern Pyrenees, we passed 
suddenly from an extremely intense cold to an 
elevated temperature. A great number of the soldiers, 
especially those who were at the siege of Rosas, then 
had their feet frozen ; some advanced sentinels were 
even found dead at their post in the first hours of 
the thaw; and although we had passed fifteen or 
twenty days under the influence of the severe cold, 
none of the soldiers of the advanced posts of the si^ 
presented themselves at the ambulances of the in- 
trenchment, of whidi I was director-in-chief, until the 
date of the thaw. So in Holland, the soldiers who for 
the sake of le petit caporal stood patiently in the 
snow, did so with impunity till the nrst thaw, when 
they were attacked by gangrene. And what is this 
frost-bite ? It is a part in wmch the power of evolving 
heat and the circulation of the blood has been entirely 
destroyed ; and this most easily occurs in situations 
at a distance from the seat of circulation — ^Uie toes, 
fingers, nose, ears, &c The part, if thin, like the 
ear, may be crisp and hard, ready to break off; but 
still these frost-bitten parts are not actually irre- 
coverable ; they may be thawed, but, strange as it may 
seem, the cold man's greatest enemy \a the heat he so 
earnestly prays for. After the battle of Eylau, the 
thermometer had fallen to fourteen and fifteen dc^prees 
below zero, but not a single soldier complained of anv 
accident from the effect of cold, though, till the 9th 
of February, they had passed the nights in snow, and 
exposed to the hardest frost* General F6vrier, find- 
ing his enemies unaffected by his usual weapons, 
changed his tactics. In the night of the 9th, up went 
the temperature to three, four, and five degrees above 
zero, and the ever-active French soldiers felt them- 
selves heavy and their feet numb, troubled with pins 
and ne^es ; and on pulling off their shoes and stock- 
ings, behold ihe toes were black and dried, and a 
red blush on the instep told them that the increased 
temperature had been too much for their chilled 
extremities, and that their feet were mortifying- 
rotting off them ! They were suffering in large what 
we do in small, when we stick our cold toes to the 
bars of the grate in this cold wintry weather. We 
get some small patch of skin inflamed by the heat, 
which, in its cc4d condition, it cannot stand, and we 
call the patch a chilblain. 

John Hunter froze the ears of rabbits, then thawed 
them rapidly, and they inflamed. Woe, says Larrey, 
woe to the man benumbed with cold, if he enter too 
suddenly a warm room, or come tbo near the fire of a 
bivouac ! We lately saw a fine-looking Scotch girl with 
her feet gangrenous from cold ; she haid been damping 
linen in a tub, and feeling them cold and numb, she 
stepp^ from it into another tub which held warm 
but not by any means hot water. 



With Teard to the treatment of frost-bitten person^ 
the part affected should be rubbed with cold water or 
snow, and tiben with fluids of a medium temperature, 
in a cold room ; cautiously bring the patient into i 
warmer atmosphere, and administer sinall qnantitiei 
of cordials or warm tea, then cover him up in bed, 
and encourage perspiration. Even where the patiesl 
seems quite dead, or has Iain as if dead for days, ym 
must sive a fair trial to these remedies. When poor 
BoutiUat^ the French peasant, who awoke crying osft 
for drink after his fbur days' sleep in the snow, wm 
In^ught to his friends, they wrapped him in wem 
linen dipped in aromatic water, and this was but tio 
probably the cause of the poor fellow's feet morilfjiM 

Now, we have said that cold may not o^ 
predimoM to the death of animals or portions i 
animal tissues, but it may kill them. How ii 
slaughters its victims, we do not exactly know : wm 
sav it paralyses the heart; others think that ti» 
cold, to use a popular expression, drives the blood 
inwards, and kills by apoplexy. The irresiBtiUi 
sleepiness that creeps over a person 'lost in Iki 
snow' is well known, and has been often described; 
if once it is yielded to, death, under the forkzn ob> 
cumstances usually present, is sure to result BiBk, 
undoubtedly, it may kill at once. Persons hafe 
been found stone-dead standing upright at their 
posts, all the machinery of life having stopped at <mtb 
— the mouth half open, as it was when the last groa 
was uttered; the limbs still in the jKmtion tibfr 
assumed during life, and having undergone, throqp 
the peculiar antiseptic nature of the col^ none o£ wt 
changes we find aner other forms of death. 

Captain Warems reports to the Admiralty thai: 
' In the month of August 1775, I was sailing aboot 
77 decrees north latitude, when one morning, about 
a mue from my vessel, I saw the sea entudy 
blocked up by ice. Nothing could be seen, far as tiie 
eye could reach, but mountains and peaks covsied 
with snow. The wind soon fell to a calm, and I 
remained for two days in the constant expectation d 
being crushed by that frightful mass of ice which titt 
slightest wind could force upon us. We had passed 
the second day in such anxieties, when about mid- 
night the wind got up, and we immediately heazd 
horrible crackling of ice, which broke and tossed about 
with a noise resembling thunder. That was a tenibk 
night for us; but by the morning, the wind haviiig 
become by degrees less violent, we saw the baxm 
of ice wmch was before us entirely broken up, aad 
a large channel extending out of sight between its two 
sides. The sun now shone out, and we sailed away 
from the northward before a light breeze. Suddenly, 
when looking at the sides of the icy channel, we nw 
the masts of a ship ; but what was still more suipriflBg 
to us, was the singular manner in which its sails w«e 
placed, and the oismantled appearance of its wftn 
and manoeuvres. 

' It continued to sail on for some time, then sUip fO g 
by a block of ice, it remained motioiiJess. I ooald 
not then resist mv feeling of curiosity ; I got into HJ 
gig with some of my sadors, and went towards tlui 
strange vessel 

' We saw, as we drew near, that it was very im^ 
damaged by the ice. Not a man was to be seen oa 
the deck, which was covered with snow. We shouted, 
but no one replied. Before getting up the side, I 
looked through a port-hole which was open, and saws 
man seated before a table, upon which were all the 
necessary materials for writing. Arrived on the deck, 
we opened the hatchwav, and went down into tlie 
cabin ; there we found the ship's clerk seated as ire 
had before seen him through the port-hole. Ba* 
what were our terror and astonishment when we ssw^ 
that it was a corpse, and that a green damp moeld 
covered his cheeks and foreheads and hung over bis 
eyes, which were open ! 

' He had a pen m his hand, and the ship's log Uy 



j 






CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



83 



before him. The last lines he had written were as 

follow : 

<* nth N^oemher 1769. 

** It is BOW seventeen days since we were shut up in 
the ioe. The fire went out yesterday, and oar captain 
has since tried to light it a^rain, but without saccess. 
His wile died this morning. There is no more 
hope" 

* My sailon ke^t aloof in alarm from this dead body, 
iHiich aeemed still li\'ing. We entered together the 
■tate-room, and the first object wliich attracted us 
was the bodr of a woman laid on a bed, in an attitude 
of great and perplexed attention. One would have 
■aid, from the treumess of her features, that she was 
•till in Hie, had not the contraction of her limbs 
told us that she was dead. Before her a young 
man wis seated on the floor, holding a steel in 
one hand, and a flint in the other, and having 
befisre him several pieces of German tinder. We 
passed on to the fore-cabin, and found there several 
aailoin laid in their hammocks, and a dog stretched 
out at the foot of the ladder. It was in vain that 
we sought for provisions and firewood: we dis- 
covered nothing. Then my sailors began to say that 
it was an enchanted ship ; and they declared their 
intentions of remaining but a very short time longer 
€■ board. We then, after having taken the ship^s 
log, set out for our vessel, stricken with terror at the 
nought of the fatal instance we had just seen of the 
peril of polar navigation, in so high a degree of north 
uttitude. On my return, I found, by comparing the 
documents which I had in my possession, that the 
vessel had been missing for thirteen years.* 

Now, although these are extreme cases, and but 
seldom heard of, don't think that will excuse yoa» my 

K)d reader, if you see any even in this comparatively 
aperste country, for instance, cold or likely to be 
coldC and you ao not your best to warm them. 
^Diink, while you sit over the fire, or turn in the 
warm blankets, or button up your over-coat — ^think, 
whoa you have a warm grasp of a friend's hand, or 
fed your child's warm cheeK nestle against yours — 
think ol the heat-abstracting powers of door-steps, 
and common stairs, and east wmds, and parish-officers, 
■ad cold shoulders, and, if you will take my advice ; 
lit the cold of winter exhibit one of its characteristic 
nnren on you — let it drive the blood inwards to your 
ImiL Do what vou can to diffuse warmili and com- 
ioft among your less fortunate neighbours. 



THE VILLAGE WONDERS. 

Lnuc one greater than cither of us, 'we woke one 
BKaniiig, and foimd ourselves famous.' We had waked 
the previous morning very humdrum, ordinaiy speci- 
mens of the feminine gender, in Edinburah ; this 
mflming, we found ourselves at a Hiuhlamr village, 
and as I have above said, famous. Who are they ? 
Ihsfe was the question that absorbed the postmaster 
and the toll-keeper — it perplexed the minister and 
the hotel-keeper — it interested the visitors at the 
hotel, and the cotters by the loch-side —the very dogs 
and birds inquired in their mute language, ' Who are 
they ?' It's a piW we were not young men, for we 
ooud haye enjoyed ourselves much more even than we 
did. Knee we should not have needed to be so proper 
and qniet. That was what we were not ; but what 
we weie^ was the question. All that was known was, 
that two ordinary-l(K>king girls had suddenly appeared 
in the village at that dnuny faiiy-time, a Highland 
mnaefc — ^that they had no luj^gage but what they 
carried in their hands — that wey had immediately 
endeavoured to secure lodgings anywhere but at the 
hotel, but in the scarcity of ' rooms to let,' had finally 
floi accommodation at Mrs Stewart's small cottiige ; 
uereapon Mrs Stewart became as one of the lions 
—the mouthpiece of the wonders — the oracle of the 
village. Opinions of us varied, as the following 



conversations will shew. It was not Mrs Stewart's 
fatdt that she could not supply them with definite 
information ; for, amiable and kind-hearted though she 
was, she was not free from that invarijJble failing in 
country villages, especiallv Hij^iland ones — the love 
of gossip. We ^isily saw how the different results of 
her conversations swayed her opinions, and the 
[tleasurc we found in confusing her 1a*ansparent 
mind was quite piquante. The second morning 
after our amval, the postmaster and his wife found 
it necessary to visit Mrs Stewart. 

*Sae ye\*c gotten twa leddies bidin' wi' ye, Mrs 
Stewart. Wha arc they?' 

(Mrs Stewart's mind was not made up yet, and 
she took care not to express herself too strongly at 
first) 

*Ay, but I kenna wha they are. Thev havena 
tcllt me as yet ; but leave me alane for nndin' out 
funny things !' 

' Ye mav wed say that ! Hoo lang are they gann 
to bide wi ye?' 

* Anc o' them tellt mc the day that they liket the 

Elace sac weel, the^ wad stay a fortnight, if I wad 
oej) them ; and I said, ** Yes," so I 'm supposing they 11 
stay.' 

* Can ye no find oot their names ?' 

' Na ! 1 hear theirsels ca'ing Ally and Carry, and 
homctimes Oranu^r; but ony mair I canna tell — I've 
had nae opportunity o' wilm' it oot o' them ; and I 
dinna like to ask dounricht, ** What 's your name ? " * 

' Wlien their letters come, we shall see ; if they get 
ony?' 

' They 're writiu' away this momin' at ony rate.' 

'We^U see then. But what kind o' folk cl' ye think 
theylUbe?' 

' The faitiier o' ane o' them 's a hoose-penter, that 's 
certain, for the lassie 's brocht a bit brod to try her 
haun' upon ; and I 'm thinkiu' the ither ane maun be 
the dochtcr o' a miller or comdcaler ; for they've some 
bits o' prent stcekit tiiegither wi' yallow paper; it 
maun be on that trade, by the picturs ootaide; and 
it 's ca'd the Cornhill Maggaeen.* 

* What has Maggy to do wi' Com ? ' 
' I dinna ken.* 

'I'm thinkin' they'll be dressmaker or milliner 
budies theirsels,' suggested the postmistress. 

' Dressmakers ! l£ey are no that weel pitten on ! ' 
resjKjnds her si>ou8e. 

* Sure certam, they hae just the claes they staun 
in, and puir eneugh trash it is. But ye ken cobblers' 
shoon are aye doun at the heeL' 

* 1 'm thinking they 're no leddies, ony ^te — leddies 
wad hae mair to say aboot theirsels,' said the post- 
master. 

* Ay, then they 're aye talkin' andhaverin' aboot ladsi' 

* Whilk is a sure sign o' a milliner.' 

' There 's ane that I think they maun be baith wantin', 
for they 're kind o' fechtin' aboot him — ^they ca' him 
Garry Banldic. I think he maun be some great 
catch, for they speak maist and langest a])oot him — 
ye see they dinna ken that Hieland wa's are sae thin, 
and just speak out their mind — ^but they've a deal o' 
havering aboot some Brownie or Browning (ill-faured 
set a' thae brownies are), and aboot Curry Bell and 
Dickins. Ye see I mind the names, to see if they '11 
he of ony use to me afterwards.* 

* They maun be glaikit hizzics.' 

'Yet I dinna think they're that a'thegither; 
they 're sae quiet i' the house, and respectf u' to me, 
and very Uttle trouble — that's ae thing maks me 
think they're no leddies. And when they're no 
cbshmaclavering o' nichts, if I 'U gang in by accident, 
they're reading cither aboot the grain-trade, or oot 
o' a buik whaur ilka sentence gangs jump wi' the 
ither, for a' the warld like a see-saw. Pou try, they 
ca'd it — l)ut why pou'try, I dinna ken, if it 's no that 
the jabbers o' a bubbly-jock or a clockin'-hen hae 
mair sense in them.' 



84 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



'Mavbe becauBO lume but geese or itber fouls read 
them!^ 

A hearty laugh and my appearanoe dosed the 
important colloquy for the time. That afternoon the 
carrier, in the same mysterious manner in which we 
i^ypeared ourselves, brou^t two portnumteaus for us. 

'Here, Mrs Stewart, nere *s something solid for 
your leddies.' 

' Which leddies ? What's their names?' 

* I dinna ken — no more than yerseL I was tauld 
to leave them for the leddies at Mrs Stewart's.' 

*Wharfrae?' 

* Callander.' 
•Whagie'dyethem?' 

< The s^tion-master.' 

* What did he say?' 

< Naething but what I 've tellt ye.' 

This was a terminus, so she knocked at our door. 

* Here 's some luggage com'd ; but we dinna ken if 
it should be for you. What name should be on it ?' 

' Oh, it 's all right. We expected them. Ask tiie 
man to bring them in.' 

She did so with evident unwillingness, but we 
parted with tiie carrier on the best of terms. 

Passer-by loq. *Hoo are ye gettin' on wi' your 
lodgers?' 

*Kne.' 

' No fund oot their names yet ?' 

* No yet' 

' I wonder if they 've ony. I 'm thinkin' they 're no 
that canny— mayl)e fairies, or elfins, or witcmes. I 
wadna be you, Mrs Stewart, for something. They 
came in a flicht o' sunlight, and they'll gang in 
a puff o' smoke. Mair by token, when Nanse was 
down wi' her water-stoups to the loch, she saw them 
lookin' into the water likcra couple o' fules, and she 
went gev near them on pirpose ; and the fiur-haired 
one, Allv, said to the ither : '* Hasn't that a. fine 
effect, that glorious green on the water?" "Ay, 
Ally; but I love all water-scenes so much: mind 
vou, I'm half a mermaid 1" And yrhat she meant 
by that, but something unearthly, I wad like to 
know.' 

'Na,na! Bather owre substantial for ony imearthly 
bein', especially the Carry ane — she 's aboot as braid 
as she's lang— and there nane o' them that bonny 
either ; and mv ! what hearty meals they take— that 's 
no fairy-like ! 

'Faither says they're some gamblin' be^s^gars, but 
mither thinks tiiey maun be practised gipsies. They 
hinna seen them yet, but they're comin^by to get a 
peep o' them tiie mom.' 

' Come early, then, for I never ken what they '11 be 
after : they generally bang out i' the momin' without 
rhyme or reason, and sometimes come back to dinner. 
At ither times, I 'U find them landed in their room at 
the dusk, and they'll tell me they've been some 
score o' miles. I duma like to misdoot them ; but it 
looks funny, for they 're evident toun lassies, and that 
set are aye puling things. Now, how a toun lassie 
could waliL round the loch, and come in to tea as if 
naethinff had happened, I canna mak oot ; and they 
proved Shey'd be^m round.' 

'Nae toun body could do that. But thae lassies 
maun be either witches or practeesed trampin' gipsies. 
I'm hopin' tiiat whan they ganff awa', thsy'll 
leave you some sicht o' a note, and no just let ye 
whistle for 't.* 




* We '11 see. Good-day.' 

Mrs Stewart, popping in her head, and then 
herself: 'Are ye gaun oot the day for a stravaig, 
leddies?' 

' Not to-day. We will just be about the doors. We 
have had one or two tolerably long walks since we 
came here, haven't we ?' 



' Ay, that ye have ! Ye 've surely been aocua 
towaUdn'?' 

' Yes ; bat not so much as we have done here 

< Ye 've done wonders then. I 've gotten your 
brushed, but I wad like hers. What am I to ca' 

Hub was addressed to me, on behalf of my i 
I was fairly caught, unprepared, and answcnlc 
looked paimully at her. 

' Never mind a name for me, Mrs Stewart ; ; 
hear some time ; but we 11 be like the Queei 
not tell you till we so awav!' She pretend 
enjoy it veiy much, but, I have no doubt, i 
vengeance. 

That evening, Mrs Stewart commenced the i 
again. 'It's a cauld nicht; vdll ye no oome 
imd warm yersels, and hae a bit crack, leddies? 

We were cold, and much amused with her, 
went. Ally took off her thin house-boots, and p 
forward her feet to the fire. * I 'm so cold,' she 

' No wonder,' said Mrs Stewart ; ' they 's sud 
shoes ; they 11 no keep heat in them, I 'se wana 

' I never wear anything else.' 

'Where did you get them?' 

' London.' (Item for Mrs Stewart.) 

'Ye'U no be sisters?' 

'No ; we have no relation to each other.' {lU 

<I didna think ve were, for ye 're no likf 
another ; but the tcJl-wife thocht ye maim be.' 

* The toll- wife must be interested in us. — ^But 
any nice old witch-stories to tell ub. 



rou 



Stewart, or thin^ about the places here ?' 

' Hundreds. Have ye ever been in the Hi^ 
afore?' 

' Often ; but never at this place.' 

' And do ye like this counlry ?' 

' Very well ; and we 're so much amused wit) 
people, they all stare at us so, and seem so 
astonished. Do they think us wild beasts ?' 

' Everybody 's aslun' me wha ye are ?' 

' And what do you tell them ?' 

' Jist that I diima ken mysel,' said Mrs Stew 
little crest-fallen ; * and they say it 's gey queer t 
folk bidin' in the house, and no be able to tell 
names.' 

' So it is — I never thought of it,' exclaimed L 'H 
elevated into curiosities, lions, and everything ; 
we shan't let out our names at all, to keep up tL 
We should lose our romantic interest if tneyj 
out "the nameless lassie's name." ' 

' But surely you can tell them something t 
us?' said Ally. 

' Naething but that ye 're frae the south ; and 
o' pentin', and walkin', and readin' ! ' 

' That is idways something ! Are they not oo( 
with it?' 

• Not they.' 

' I wonder if they 'U find out much more,' said 

Mrs Stewart turned to me : * What kind o' tc 
has she — it 's no Scotch, nor Edinburgh, nor Em 
that I've heard?' 

Hereupon sundry particulars were entered 
which leit her as much in the dark aa ever. 

' If it's a fair question, what pairt do ye lif 
leddies?' 

We explained, with a similarly wide miM-gin. 

' Ye '11 have a gay time in the south. Do ye \ 
many balls?' 

'Not to balls. Neither are we very gay— i 
too busy.' 

' Busy — ^what business have ye ?' 

' We are both eldest daughters, and that 's a pc 
labour in itself.' 

' What ye 11 ca' labour — ^tooming the money o 
your purses upon counters, among silks, and vel 
and things.' 

' No, no, Mrs Stewart, not that exactly.' 

' What kind o' queer letters are they ye had t( 
frae hame ? Was yon your names ?' 



}». 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



85 



' No. To amuse the village, we bade them just put 
on our initialB.' 

She was called to the door by an inquisitive neish- 
boor, who, of necessity, was marched in to criticise 
VM, we bearing the inspection with the most unaffected 
aortlesBness. Such was only a specimen of Mrs 
Stewart's tactics ; for to go through them all, and our 
answers, would make a tSerably well-sized volume. 

* What ladies are these you have with you ?* said 
the minister. 

'Idinnaken.* 

* What are their names at least ? ' 
' I canna find oot, sir.* 

* Why don't you ask them ?' 

* They winna tell.' 

' That does not look well,' said the minister ; and he 
ever afterwards honoured us with a broad scrutinising 
stare, in right of his cloth. 

Another person, smitten by the general curiosity, 
was a dqft boy belonging to the village. Everywhere 
we went, far or near, we saw him some time or other 
during the day. No matter how early, or how 
privately we set out, he knew, and set out too. 
Sometimes he would walk past us, and then sit down 
for a lon^ time, and again overtake us. At first, we 
were a bttle alarmed and uncomfortable, but when 
we knew more about him, it only added to our 
amusement. He never spoke once to ns, and never 
pietended to notice ns. No doubt the little spy 
greatly edified his mother and eranny. 

* Isn't it queer for a toun-body to look doun into a 
lodi, when they're no accustomed t'it, and see the 
water wavin' away?' We were thus accosted by a 
most peculiar, snuut, dark -eyed, elderly woman. ' Do 
ye like the Hielands ?' 

' Veiy much ; there are such beautiful places to be 
teen.' 

'Yell hae seen near everything a'ready? Ye '11 
bae been walkin' aboot a deal ?' 

' Yes, a good deal' 

' ffiv ye seen the glen fa' ?' 

'Na Where is it?' 

' Wad ye like to go ? I 'm gaxm there the noo. It 's 
nud bonny.' 

We assented. 

* Ye 11 be the leddies that's stoppin' doon at Mrs 
ofesnart s? 

We acknowledged it 

* Div ^ like her ?' 

'She 18 very kind and obliging.' 
'She's a fine body.' 

'Is she your sister?' she whispered once to me, 
indioating Ally witii her thumb. 
' No ime is not my sister.' 
' Is die ony relation ?' 
' None in tiie world.' 
'What's her name?' 

* I 'm afraid you must ask her that yourself.' 
' What 's yours, then ?' 

' It's such a long one, you could not pronounce it, 
and it is not worth trying to.' 

When we had seen the really beautiful falls, and 
were on level ground again, she turned to Ally: 
'What's your name now, miss ?' 

' People always forcet names among these hills ; I 
don't believe you comd tell me your own now, if I 
were to ask you ! ' 

With many a long screed of confidential gossip, 
she tried to tempt us to break our resolution, but m 
vain. 

The innkeeper 'daundered' down also to Mrs 
Stewart's once. 'Have you never fund out your 
leddies* names?' 

' Ne'er hae L They winna tell me them, Jenny nor 




been sae lang wi' 
they get nae letters?' 
'Yes ; but they hae^ist some o' the A B C on them. 



and " Care o' the Postmaster." Such a daft-like thin^. 
It *s one o' the things I dinna like aboot them, as if 
they couldna spelL' 

'I 'm thinkin' they can do that richt weeL' 

'I ken that; for the postmaister shewed me twa 
letters they had addressed to Edinburgh to freends 
there, and a richt black dashin' hand they baith 
write; and they helpit me with my accoimts the 
ither nicht, and richt grand figures they are, for 
certain.' 

' I 'm thinking they 're baith bom ladies I ' 

*No— divye? Why?' 

* Because Lord and Lady and Miss Fitzbohn, they 
askit me the ither day what was their names, and I 
tell't them naebody could find oot. And they kind 
o' laughed, and Miss said : " I 've got a great feuicy to 
find out myself." And I said r " My lady, you'll find 
them any day you like by the loch-side, for they 've 
begun sketches there." And she and her mother did 
go, but I don't know what thev said, only they bow 
to them now, when they meet them, and I heard Miss 
say : " They are uncommon in everything." ' 

Again: 

* What kind o' lodgers are they ye have ? ' 

* That's mair nor I can telL' 

* Hoot^ nonsense ! What 'U be their names then ?' 

' I never was so beat in all mv life. I askit the ane, 
and she said : "We'll be like the Queen, and not tell 
our names till we go away ; and when I speered at 
the ither ane, she says : *' What's in a name, Mrs 
Stewart? Peppennint by any ither name would 
smell as sweet. ' But I never can be angry with 
them, however much I'm provoked at them. We 've 
gotten gey intimate noo ; and I like them raal weeL 
They've been twice butt at nichts wi' me warming 
theirsels at the fire, and they 're raal cheery bodies.' 

' Why did ye no speer at them then ?' 

' Ajr did I ; but a that I 've fund oot is, that they 
were in Edinburgh before they cam here, and that 
maist o' their freends are there. I've heard them 
speak o' this one's carriage and that one's corriafle, 
and this hotel and that hotel, and Sir This and Lady 
that, and Honourable Something Else; and they 
couldna hae kend thae folk unl^» they were gey 
stunnin' theirsels.' 

* I dinna believe in them. What made them come 
here?' 

* Jist to see the places, and learn to pent things f rae 
natur.' 

* Daft-like leddies.' 

' The Garry one says to me the ither day : " Now, 
Mrs Stewart, you must let me wash the tea-cups, and 
make the beds and sweep the floor, for it 's such fun ! " 
And I 'm no thinkin' that if she *d been obliged to do 
it, she wad hae thocht it fun.' 

' Na, na ; leddies wad hae brawer dresses !' 

* Ay, but they 're aye neat ; and their dresses are 
made sae funny, like what my mither used to wear ; 
and wi' belts round their waists, like wee laddies. 
But I suppose it maun be the fashion.' 

*Ouybody can get the fashion in Edinburgh. 
They '11 be shopkeepers ! ' 

* Ay, but onybody canna get beautiful goold 
watches. And I had to wash some o' their linen, and 
it was sae bonny, wi' dabbit holes worked a' round 
their things, and lace ayont it ; and I 've heard say 
that ye ken leddies by that mair than their out- 
dresses.' 

* If I were a leddy, I wad wear silks every day.' 

' And they've got initials on their letters, and is na 
that the thing omy grand folk hae ! And the leddies 
at the hotel bow to them whan they meet them ! ' 

* They 're no to ken nae better ! But cude-bye the 
day. I dinna tak them for cospel, mind. 

A Highland lassie had oec^ listening for some 
time to the conversation. * Sae ye havena fund oot 
their names yet?' 

* No ; and I 'm no gaun to try it nae mair, for I 'm 



GHAMBEBffS JOURNAL. 



o\ and I 'm tamin' to like them, and I winna 
botlier ti^em.' 

'Theyweredoun the loch-side this manung againl' 

*Ay, at their sketching; and beautifid slutches 
they make, the AHy ane wbL* 

'Some folk said they werena canny; but dogs 
and bairns dinna tak to nnoanny folk; and if ye saw 
oor Baffler— erery time he sees them far away, he 
flees like wnd, aiid*ll hardly leave them; and tiiey 
bring bits o' biscoits and bread to him. And Miss 
Bobson up there says her dog Boy is the same, and 
he 's a snappy thing. Do ye think they 're weel aff ?' 

' They maun be ; or how could ther hae come a' 
this distance for nae busineBB. Ana they're raal 
genteel wi' me. I'm sore I could cheat them, if I 
fiket, bat they dinna lose onything wi' being free. 
And, forby, they're sae thankfal to me for everything 
I do; it's a peneot pleesure. They canna be aooos- 
tomeA to lodmnos.* 

' I was nu3 ^ad that I cam in and saw them the 
ither nicht wmm they were batt wi* you— they're 
nice canty leddies, ony gate. And if they're sae wed 
aff as ye think they are, I wish oor Donald woold fa' 
across ane o' them, for he 's every bit a gentleman, 
bonin' the money, and that he canna win muckle o', 
for a' his hard wtA at the tailorin'. Poor man, he 's 
goid enoojg^ to be amarrow for onybodv! ' 

' Deed is he. He 's a perfect jewel of a man 1 ' 

Thus was oor past and future mapped out for us 
by the villagen — not that their eueeses came near the 
tnith. ITieir ignorance was iSiss; their ignorance 
was the mother of admiration. 

The ni^t before oor departore, we were very confi- 
dential and friendly wit£ Mrs Stewart before her 
fariffht blazing fire. We had been direotinf her how 
to tOTward oor luggage, and gave her labeb with the 
long-coveted names and addrMses. ' You see they are 
not much worth knowing, after alL Bat hasn't it 
been a good joke ? What a deal of fun and clatter 
it has given both the people and usi What do they 
think of us? Do they think we are cracked — or 
what?' 

*Ka Howshooldlknow? We don't, I say' 

*I miderstand. l^t ^pou know quite well that more 
than half of these Gaehc harangues were about us.' 

' Such nonsense. Fdk are sae conceited as to think 
wd 're speakin' o' them, when we talk in our mither- 
tonffue.^ 

* Maybe I know more of your mother-tongue than 
you are aware of — so take care.' 

*NoI Do ye?' 

< What do tiiey say about wiV 

'They think ye 're raal, fine, honest, sonsy lassies, 
o' the rieht cut, and no feared lor a Highland peat- 
moss.' 

'And I think they're quite correct; don't you? 
Will you keep up the mysteiy about us when we 're 
gome, for yoor jnnvate amusement ?' 

•Deed will I? 

*T own will be a great change to us, Mrs Stewart 
Will you miss us?' 

' Ay, won't I though I And won't ye mus me and 
my in|de-cheek, and my bit crack? ye'U no get the 
Hke in £idinburgh I' 

'No. We wont cet such fan l^B;ain for a long time, 
for they keep us in &im order at home.' 

* Pair things I' 

' But I 'm so sleepy, and we 're to be up so early — 
we must ga' 
I drew out uxy watch 

' What a fine watch ! Is it a motionless one ?' 
'Na Listen!' and die examined it amid our hearty 

lA TIghwig- 

*Gooa-night, Mrs Stewart. It's the last time 
we 11 say that to you.' 

'Dinna break my heart, lassies. I hope it'll pour 
rain like the mischief the mom ! ' 

'That's not a kind wish, Mrs Stewart, for we must 



leave in any weaOier. Good-bye, in case wa Iwi | 
before you are up in the morning.' 
< Do you think I wad let ye Imvb my hoDM 



linng tit any hour to mak Vcr btvakfaatst' 
And tnieenoQgh Mn Aeinoiwas i^ 



nsoally an eaily riser; sod when the inhaUlHliif 
the vfllaflD wen all astirxin^^ 'the nameleaa Jmhi' 
had vaniSied. in the same mysterioiis maanor aitiiv 
had come. 

I believe Mrs Stewart kept up Ihe talk a fiilj 
while even after we left, for her own amammt^L 
They need it all, poor thmgi ; for I knom tint mm \ 
when we were there, we h^ud them talk aboife fi 
visitors of the preceding sammer; and as to hmrhm 
we would last them in that line, I cannot prstadi 
guess. But as a secret when told is no aeoi^ ii{ 
won't tell it now, and let oar readers make tha mtk 
of it, as our Highland neighboors did. 

SCHAMYL IN CAPTIVITY. 

In the straggle of Brnrna to sabdue the GaoflM^ 
Schamyl Imam was the last of the powerfol fras flhib 
who held out. Prinoe Dadian, the Prince of AlMj^ 
and one or two others, may indeed piussiPB tUr 
shadowy rank, but thffv are in reality only wf/LmM 
vassals of the csar. The embers of war may atflti 
here and there smooldering sulkily, as amflmli 
Shapsooghs ; but the flame which omy a few nail 
ago burned so fiercely is extingniahed ; and liM 
Schamyl at last laid down his arms, the Ifmg, hfj^ 
less struggle of the wariike tribes who acknowfa^ 
him as their chief was felt to be ended. 

There is no doubt that a great deal of the pMMl 
importance which attached to Schamyl was ii !• 
first instance attributaUe to the ignofaaoe dfii 
enemies. A man perhajM of very little pnsiM 
account among his tribe is often at onoe iMii ti 
supreme power when mesaenflers from a lis hPK 
general are sent to treat withnimu But the pat^ 
soldier whose wars have just closed ao gdh^ 
was no drivellinff marabout or fooatio dtfW 
Thoufldi it is difl&ult to see clearly ibnmifk Ai 
thick naze which shrouds political events aasptAl 
wild mountains and defiles of the Caucaan% w flM* 
enoo^ to excite our interest, and even ear imptdi/t 
him. Bv paths unknown to European aahflMtr 
by dauntless courage, an aostere simpiiQi^, iva m^ 
denial, great firmness of purpose, and proo^ptHnliil^ 
action ; by some intriffoes, and some cnmaHit ^ 
raised himself from the humble rank ef 
the Imam Kaay Moullah, to a position of 
authority among his eountr^en; and he 
believed to possess that samtly chancter 
usually ascribed by the populace to l^e 
supreme power in the East. 

A touching and romantic incident made m U 
acQuainted with his personal appearance and MB** 
of life when at home among his mountains, il ii * 
story of as chivalrous an Mt as that said lo ftf** 
passed between Bichard Hie lion-hearted and BtUt 
eddin in the time of the third Crusade : a tili ^ 

ceneroos enmity on one side, and noUe 

the other. Many years ago, the Imam'a eUM 
Djemmal Eddin, was taken prisoner by the Ban 
His mother, Patimate, died of grief for his Umj W 
the boy was carefully educated by the late W^ 
and loaded with fovours. He grew up witii aB ^ 
ideas of a Russian noble and a oourtier. Bat f^ 
last his father obtained his exchange for the Bia- 
cesses Orbeliani and Tchawchawadz^ whoae tamtfi'^ 
imprisonment at Veden made so mwAk noaae. fli 
young man returned to his native mnnntsJBj Ut 
soon sickened there. He fell into a state ol l9P^ 
chondria, which pnazled all the mediome-BMB w 
charm-chanters; so at last Schamyl sent a mtm/^ 

Ser to ask aid of the Bussians. Oolond the friD0> 
lyrsky was fortunate enough to reoeiva this haii^ 



d 



reqaett, and to hia undying honour, immediately 
deyatched Dr Petrofisky, the best srugeon of hiB 
ngonent, to the young man's aid ; but in vain. 

According to the most trustworthy inforxnation 
obtainable, Schamvl is now probably about sixty 
yiMS of age, thou^ he himself not knowing exactly, 
ifaia is mflre coniecture. He does not look more than 
foi!^. He is tall in stature. His countenance is soft, 
calmi, imposing. Its principal characteristic is melan- 
choly ; but when the muscles of the face contract, it 
espresses great energy. His complexion is pale, his 
ey ebro ws strondly marked ; his eyes are of a dark 
9my, and usuaUy half shut, like those of a lion 
iTpoaJng. His beard is dyed a reddish brown by 
hama» and very carefully kept ; his mouth is cood ; 
lips, red ; teeth, small, even, white, and poiutea; his 
hands small, white, and scrupulously attended to. His 
walk is slow and srave. He looks like a hero. 

When at Veo^, his ordinary costume was a 
Leiguian tunic, white or green ; a nigh-pointed cap of 
aheep>skin, white as snow, round which was wound a 
torban of white muslin, the ends falling behind. The 
point of the cxp was in red cloth, with a black 
fasifll. Embroidered ^ters, and boots of yellow or 
lad leather, covered his legs and feet On Fridays, 
when he went to the mosque, he wore a long white or 
green robe over his ordinary dress ; and in winter, a 
crimson pelisse, lined with black lamb-skin, protected 
him from the cold. In war-timei, hia arms were a 
sword, a dagger, a pair of |>iBtols, and a ^un. Two 
attendants uao rode oeside him, each oanvmg another 
pair of pistols and a gun for the Imam s use. This 
post was looked upon as one of high honour among 
the mountaineers ; and if one of these attendants was 
kiUed, another immediately replaced him. Schamyl 
waa said to be the best horseman among a race of 
honemen, and his horses were the strongest and fleetest 
which could be procured. 

Ihc qualities of the Imam's mind belong to the 
fflfy highest kind of Asiatic excellence, ae prided 
hiwBfilf upon his truthfulness. He was sparing of 
wcvda, patient, samdons, clear-sighted, politic, charit- 
ahle; oiM in his Maring, but tender-hearted, when 
his i^ections were roused. He used no titles, but 
gmo and took the ' Thee and Thou * with the simidest 
jaassnt He was abstemious, and always ate atone. 
SBm food was flour, milk, fruit, rice, honey, tea ; he 
nvdy touched meat. He tried to suppress every 
kiad of luxury ; and his influence, where that of the 
^Mitest potentates of the earth have been proved 
pofwlesf, was still supreme. Smoking was long as 
MBoh a necessity to the Circassian as to the Tm'k ; 
iMit Schamyl forbade it, and ordered that the money 
Ulierto apent in tobacoo should be used to purchase 
gu^wdcor. He was obeyed. His morals were pure, 
aad he would not tolerate any weakness in othera A 
Tbitar woman, a widow, and childless, lived with a 
Ta^flnisn who had promised her marriage. She 
became preonant. ochannrl had her interrogated, 
cad the truSi being made clear, he cut off the heads 
belli of the woman and her paramour. The axe which 
did eiecation on this oocssion is kept as a curiosity, 
and is in possession of Field-marshal the Prince 
Bariatusky, viceroy of the Caucasus. 

Schamyl had four wives: but of these Patimate 
diad lA 1839, and another he repudiated, because she 
him no children. He silowed his wives no 
of rank or distinction. He was a master rather 
a husband. 

Ftam 1834 to 1859— for twenty-five years— this 
aMMmtain-chief waged war with the most distinguished 
imptajns of Kussia, and made the countiy over which 
he mled one of the sternest military schools in the 
wcrid. His enmity was one which no defeats, losses, 
qr privations could diminish, which no offers, how- 
amer splendid, could hill to sleep. Till at last, chased 
firam cue fastnses, hitherto deemed impregnable, to 
fondly thought more inaiccessible still, he 



looked his farewell at hope from the heights of 
Ghounib, and surrendered, ro save the lives ofa mero 
handful of devoted followers, whom misfortune and 
disaster had left stall true to him. Happily, even 
war&ffe has long ceased to be wantonly cruel or 
vindictive. The captive Imam has been allotted an 
ample pension and a residence in the town of Ealousa. 

Kalouga pleased Schamyl, on account of uie 
woods, hUls, and ravines, which remind hhn of the 
Caucasus. The house hired for him has three stories. 
He has kept the upper story for himself, siven the 
middle story to one of his sons, and the lower to 
another. Of the six rooms on the upper story, four 
aro occupied by his daughters, who five with Viiwi — 
that is, two rooms aro occupied by each younff lady. 
These six rooms aro very simply finmished with lam 
sofas or divans, and aro not ornamented with a singM 
picturo, or even a looking-glass. The Imam's private 
room serves as study, oratory, and bedroom. A large 
divan, an arm-chair, a writing-desk, a card-table, a 
book -stand, a basin, and a cushion to kneel on at 
prayer-time, complete ita furniture. The middle 
story, destined for Basy Mahomet and Ids wife Keri- 
mate, who is said to be very beautiful, is adorned 
with classes, draperies, carpeta, and bronzes ; ita mis- 
tress has not yet arrived, but Schamyl has reclaimed 
Prince Bariatinsky's interoession to obtain permis- 
eion for her to jom her husband. On his arrival at 
Kalouga, Schamyl visited some of the authorities, 
conversed much with the arohbishop, interested him- 
self in the daily details of the life of Russian soldiers^ 
and visited with much attention the barracks of the 
regiment in garrison. The contact of this son of 
naturo, endowed with a vast and lucid mind, kept in 
check only by native superstition, with our artificial 
life, is very mterestiug, as aro idso his patriarohal 
manners, and his curious sympathies and antipathies. 
Strange to all things, knowing nothing of the circum- 
stances which surround him, lie shews much tact in 
his actions ; and the words he addressed to M. Rou- 
novsky (to whom we aro indebted for some of these 
particulars), when that officer was entering on his func- 
tions, are curiously illustrative of the tone of his mind. 
*When,' said the Imam, 'it jpleases God to make 
a child an orphan, to replace ita mother is given to 
it a nurse, who ought to feed, dress, wash, and keep 
it from harm. If the child remains in good health, 
^y, dean, and happy, every one praises the nurse: 
it is said the nurse does ner duty, and loves the 
child. But if the orphan is aiUng, dirty, slovenly, it 
is not the child we blame, but the nurse who has 
neglected it, left it untaugjht, and who does not love 
it I am an old man ; but I am a stranger hero. I 
understand neither your language nor your customs ; 
and so I fancy that I am no longer the old man 
Schamyl, but a little child, become, throu^ God's 
wiU, an orphan, having need of a nurse. Yon aro 
this nurse, and I pray you to love me as a nurse 
loves her child. For my part, I will love you not only 
as a child loves his nurse, but as old Schamyl can 
love a man who does good to him.* 

He frankly shews his sympathies and antipathies. 
He is very fond of music, and when asked out, first 
inquires woether any one will play the piano at the 
house to which he is invited. M. Kounovsky bought 
him an organ, which defighted him exceedingly. But 
a conjuror is the person who seems to interest him 
moro than can be conceived. An individual of this 
class having apparently chanced a piece of money, 
enveloped m a pocket-handkerchief, into a plume 
of feathers, the Imam was so improssed that he 
declared the mero remembrance of the trick had 
trouMed his thoimhta even at prayers. ' Nevertheless,' 
he added, ' had we man been broudit before me at 
Veden, I would have had him hanged.* 

A crab, M'hich the Imam saw for the first 
time in his life at Kalouga, excited his utmost 
aversion. Taking it in one hand, he examined 



88 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



it attentively, till the crab seized a finger in its 
claws. He then threw it down, but continued to 
watch it eafi^erly. Having remarked the animal's 
mode of waudng, he became indignant, kicked it 
from before him, and ordered Khadjio, one of his 
suite, to drive it out of the room. It was long before 
he recovered from the disagreeable sensation produced 
on his mind by the crao. *I never saw such a 
cowardly animal,' he said ; ' and if I ever fancied the 
devil, it was in that likeness.' 

At first, he went a great deal into society, and 
liked balls, though he disapproved of the dress-coats 
worn by European eentlemen, and also of the bare 
shoulders exposed by ladies ; the latter being a 
tcmT)tation wnich mortal man, sayB the Imam, is too 
weaK to look upon. He liked the theatre too, and 
especially the dancing ; but the imcovercd faces of so 
many women troubl^ him, and he soon ceased his 
attendance. Now, when invited anywhere, he asks 
if ladies will be present. If the reply is affirmative, 
he refuses. His religion, he says, teaches him to object 
to imveiled women. But he is not bigoted on the 
subject, and is quite willing to discuss it. 

The captive Imam still excites some curiosity, but 
it is rapidly dying away; and he will soon be as 
little talked of or thought about as Timour Meerza, 
or Abd-el-Kader. 

THE FAST CANAL. BOAT. 

The other day, I was one of a party of more or less 
scientific persons who made a tnp from the City Basin 
to Paddington Stop, on the London Grand Jimction 
Canal. Our object was to note the success of an 
experiment which has already gladdened the hearts 
of canal proprietors, and which promises a large boon 
to that portion of the public in tne habit of intrusting 
goods to the hands of carriers. 

When it is said that the experiment in question 
was neither more nor less than the application of steam- 
power to the boats and barses employed in carrying 
various kinds of merchandise on canals, it may 
probably occur to many readers that such an im- 
provement on the old mode of propulsion is ver^ 
obvious, very simple, and very easy. Were this 
the sase, steam would long ago have superseded 
horse-power on canals; but when the subject is 
practically considered^ many difficulties arise, the 
chief of which is the swell of the water caused by 
the action of paddles, and even W that of an ordinary 
screw. The narrow channels of these watery high- 
ways are confined bv artificial banks, which would 
be seriously damaged by any considerable displace- 
ment of water, and in some parts quite washed away. 

Before describing what 1 ventture to call an inte- 
resting journey, I wiU beg my reader's kind indul- 
gence for a few statistical f<£te relating to canal traffic, 
and also to canals regarded as property. There are 
in the United Kingdom nearly five thousand miles 
of canals, representing a capital of certainly not 
less than L.40,000,000, and perhaps a good deal 
more. Before railways were invented, cantQ proper^ 
flourished exceedingly, and a nominal hundrea pouncis 
in canal scrip may have meant three hundred or four 
hundred, or even five hundred poimds in actual 
money. Those were brave days, at least for canal 
proprietors ; but their light has faded to such a mere 
glimmer, that a share in the Grand Junction Canal 
Company, nominally worth a hundred pounds, cannot 
be viewed by brokers and capitalists as anything 
more than seventy pounds, if so much. It need scarcely 
be said that the railway system, which has driven the 
time-honoured stage-coach and post-chaise off the 
road, has likewise proved the Nemesis of canal stock. 
And yet, strange to tell, the enormous depreciation 
in the value of shares is by no means justified by a 
falling off in the way of business. Canals are more 
in use now than they ever were. According to the last 



returns, 25,000 tons more merchandise are conyeyed 
by canal in the course of a single year than in aiij 
year previous to the commencement of railway oper^ 
tions in Great Britain. Excepting where a npd 
transit is desirable at all hazards, the safe caixii^ 
by canal-boat is even preferable to the gooda-inta, 
which has rather a bad character for getting in ik$ 
way of other trains, particularly express ones; nd 
the trifling advantage of five per cent., Tvhioh is aff 
that the canal companies offer below the railwaj 
scale of goods-carriage, is even worth oonsidenw 
by persons who have any very large dealinn wia 
earners. Of late years, canal sto«k may be add 
to have suffered from panic and prejadice man 
than anything. It would indeed be five thoosaai 
pities, should those five thousand miles of waiar 
way prove at last the road to ruin. A townaaaaB 
has little idea of the beauty which the artificial 
rivers of a flat country add to the face of nature. 
He thinks of a canal as he sees it — a stnd^t, fonnal 
cutting, filled with water of a sooty tince, and a 
greasy lustre; nor does the vision of &at aama 
stream winding clear through flowery meads and 
pleasant woodlands, ever occur to him. Yet then 
be places which our canal-boatman wots of, when 
the trees meet overhead; and parks come akpb^ 
down to the water. On this account, the psr> 
manent way of a canal has one great adyanbiga 
over that of a railway ; its presence, fertilising at 
well as ornamental, is in tne majori^ of caaet 
rather courted than repelled, and exorbitant cbaam 
of compensation have been rare in canal history. 

Unm the year 1848, canal companies were jtO" 
hibited by law from being carriers; but id iht 
parliamentary session of ^t year, an aot war 
passed removing the disqualiflcation. The eflbct hm 
oeen, of course, to increase very materially tha 
revenue of these bodies, which formerly depended 
solely on tolls. The Grand Junction Canal Compafly 
has now about two hundred and fifty boats of iiv 
own. Another leoslative act, of no further dair 
than last year, forbids the amalgamation of laihray 
and canal property, and insures to the pahiic tkr 
benefit of a fair competition. 

These matters have furnished part of our talk on tkr 
wharf of the Grand Junction Canal Comnany, dt 
which is lying the steam fly-boat Pkmeer. Oar Kiila 
party seems a large one when we have all emhaxlDed, 
and are forced to eH^w one another for standinff-rooak 
A fly-boat, my readers will bear in mind, is ton hmg 
narrow bai^ not more than seven feet wide as^ 
where, and approximating to seventy-five in leBM, 
which contrasts favourably in shape and general hte* 
liness of appearance with the black, flat, broad, tad 
immensely ugly coal-barge, also employed in enal 
navigation. A fly-boat carries her cargo *i™nf^ ar 
high above her hold as deep in it. Toe goods aie 
piled in a heap that narrows to a fourteen-inch plaak 
at the top ; and the whole is covered with ttirpaaHi 
Along the top ridge walks the baxveman, this foot- 
way Doing his only means of bodify commmucsslMB ' 
between uie stem of the boat and his calnn in thr 
steerage. A queer little hole is that same cabin, thr 
effect of entering which is to make yon feel likr 
Gulliver in the ^^linbus Flestrin stage of his adven- 
tures. It is a Lilliputian interior, not after iiv 
model of any one room in a house, but like the 
cobbler^s establishment celebrated in song — a con- 
densed hotch-()otch of parlour, and kitehen, and aH 
By simply turning round once upon your heel, yon mi^ 
scorch your clothes against the stove, sweep down 
everything on the opposite side of the cabin, knodc 
yourself a^nst the door at one end, and finish bf 
tumbling mto bed at the other. The decoration oi 
the cabin is cheerful, and, in the brightness of its red 
and yellow panelling, pleasantly^ recalls the Dutdi 
toys of infancy, and the mysterious domesticity of a 
travelling show. It may be superfluous to add, thai 



OHAMBBRS*S JOURNAL. 



89 



the apartment is decidedly stnfi^, the Atmosphere 
being that of a tailor's workshop over an oven. 
Some canal-boats are family-boats — a man, his wife, 
and four or five children oocnpying the toy-house 
which I have attempted to describe ; but the com- 
panies do not own any such boats as these, which all 
belong to private proprietors. 

Chir steam fly-boat, the jPtoneer, presented some 
features of mo<ufication which may be briefly noted. 
Her boiler and engine occupied vie usual space of 
the Dutch cabin, which was removed forward, thus 
diminishing the room for stowage. The Pioneer is a 
new boat, expressly built for iSe purpose of steam- 
traffic ; but neither boat nor machinery appeared to 
me so trim and ship-shape as their newneas would 
have augured. It seems, however, that great improve- 
ments are to be made, now that the success of the 
main experiment has been placed beyond question. 
For instance, the ordinary tiller, which takes up a 
^reat deal too much room to work in, will give way 
m favour of a wheel ; the machinery will thus get 
more space, and the cabin will be built over it. Of 
course, the wheel by which the boat is to be steered 
will be placed before instead of abaft the cabin and 
engine, just as it is placed on the deck of large 
veraels, before the poop. All these things are to 
come. 

We will take the Pioneer as we find her, which 
is thus — ^the helmsman has a space in the stem 
just laige enough to work his tiller in ; then there is 
ft small raised scrap of deck, with a lidlit iron railing 
at each side, and tine cone-shaped boiler cropping up 
IB the middle ; then comes the cabin ; and in advance 
of that is the piled-up cargo in its tarpaulin case; 
far I should state that this trip of the Pioneer is a 
real business trip, with no nonsense about it, but, 
on the contrary, a large amount of timber and heavy 
nooeiy ^^oods, which are very serious affiurs. The 
Pkmeer is going all the way to Wolverhampton, 
'tiiondi we amateurs are bound no further thsji to 
the &nige House at Paddington Stop. 

It is as oM a day, and as mucn like winter at 
last, as the most determined stickler for old-fashioned 
seasonable weather could wish at the close of the 
Knglish year. It is freezing sharp, and, after having 
been delightfully bright and bracing till noon, is now 
making up its mind to snow. It (foes snow a little, 
just as the PioMer starts, at half-past one o'clock, 
from the Company's wharf. The assembled porten, 
boatmen, and other servants of the Company, stan^ng 
on the quay, ^ve lusty cheers for the Pioneer, 

Off we 00, very steiEidily, but at a speed which is 
nnid to ^at of the ordinaiy locomotion on canals ; 
i na e ed, we are travelling just twice as quickly as we 
duNiId travel by horse^ulage. Our way lies for 
■cms distance where no horse can tow barge or boat, 
bat iHwre boats and barges are usually propelled by 
kamaa power. We are going imderground, throu£^ 
a brick tunnel no larger than a sewer. The Pioneer 
ham anoQier fly-boat in tow, laden with a similar cargo, 
solid some extraordinaiy precautions are requisite on 
tins BOYel occasion. We Keep one side of tlie water- 
way, and the second boat keeps the other ; so that, 
IB. case of the Pioneer having to slacken speed, and 
Kiimber Two getting too much way on her, she shall 
sot ran into our stem. Boats are taken through this 
tennel so slowly 1^ the old fashion, that they meet with- 
out aBy danger, though each keeps midway till hailed 
h^ iBbe vessd coming in an opposite direction. The 
Bm|i]e but arduous process of * legging' has hitherto 
beeB in practioe. A board is placed out from either 
side of the fly-boat, and on this board lies a man, with 
bis feet acainst the slimy wall of the tunneL In this 
pontion, ne walks horizontally, and so, by great exer- 
tion, moves the boat. Two men are employed in the 
operation, and it seems wonderful that they should 
mid time, on hearing the signal of an approachinjg 
bo«t^ to rise firom theur recumbent attitude, ship their 



planks, and get the boat to one side of the tunnel, so 
as to pass in safety. The Pioneer will have done good 
service, if only in having led the way to an ab^tion 
of this dreadml duty of 'legging,' which so exhausts 
the men that, on their qmtting a long tunnel neatr 
Birmingham, they are as wet from perspiration as if 
they had juErt been dragged out of the cuiaL 

Our Cockney tunneVnowever, is not so tediously 
protracted an affair, though long enough, I should 
think, to suit the majority of tasites for odd ways of 
travelling. For a little while after we have entered 
it, the water has a dark, clear look, and the sharp 
edges of its ripples catch the distant light with a 
rawer solemn effect. The yellow atmosphere, seen 
through the round arch of our narrow tunnel, takes 
the shape and appearance of a moon half set in gloomy 
waves. Its large semicircle is obscured presently by 
the smoke from our funnel, the Pioneer bemg so incon- 
siderate as to bum coal that emits the densest clouds 
of carbon. Much to the discomfort of our helmsman, 
we are now compelled to crowd Mb little cockpit of a 
lower-deck, for the upper space is not sufBdent for us 
all to stand upright in. Even with the care taken to 
prevent mishaps, a few of us have been brought in 
rough contact with the slimy brick- work. iOl the 
time of our underground passage, we are being half- 
stifled with the undigested fuel already mentioned. 
We get into daylight again, in ten minutes or so 
from the moment of entering this length of Stynan 
perspective; and, having got into da^ight, we find 
that we have also got into Agar Town. A sort of 
very * vulgar Venice, indeed, is Agar Town. 

Our gondola seems quite a state-barge, worthy to 
carry Cleopatra, or the Lord Mayor, as we glide 
silently through this dismal spot, in which crime, and 
want, and ignorance herd in desperate citizenship 
together. The A.ata townsmen are mostly abroao, 
plying a questionable livelihood ; but the Agar towns- 
women shew their faces at squalid windows, and over 
tumble-down walls and rotten palings, and grin at us 
as ^we go past The stone-yard of a worjehouae is 
bounded on one of its sidcus by our water-way, and 
the puish Sisyphus pauses in lus weary task to gaze, 
but not to grin. Men sunk deep in wretchedness are 
for the most part stupified, and their faces wear a 
blank rather tnan a pamfid aspect. But it is other- 
wise with the abased and outcast daughters of the 
great family. In the progress of our fast canal-boat, 
we light upon this moral difference of the sexes. 
After the stone-yard comes a cinder-heap, a black 
mound, with several smaller black mounds, which are 
the siftings of the great one. It is a black wharf on 
which this heap stands, and a wild troop of black- 
faced women, in rags like sooty cobwebs, are working 
on it ¥dth great black sieves. The sight is painful 
enough, its utter poverty appearing as a fall ot many 
degrees from the low estate of the stone-yard; but 
the dust- women are not, as the stone-breakers were, 
moodily silent. These poor creatures, who look as if 
they had neglected to go out of mourning for the hope 
that died bSore they knew it, shriek and gibber at us 
voyagers, and point with weird motion and shrill 
laughter at the strange craft steaming by. 

The locks that we pass through are five. Both the 
Pioneer and her satellite go sioe by side when these 
impediments occur. In the time of stoppage, we have 
leisure to observe the people on the quays, and we do 
observe that they are not at all the same kind of 
people whom we see in our streets. Their dress, their 
manner, their language are foreign to the Londoner. 
They are Warwickers, mainly, these boatmen and 
lock-keepers of the Grand Junction CanaL Though 
some of them are metropolitan fixtures, and all are as 
much in Middlesex as m the north-western counties 
of England, there is not one who wears a London- 
made suit of clothes, or a London hat, or a London 
behaviour. For them, the obsolete act of parliament, 
forbidding any buttons but metal ones, appears to be 



90 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



still in force. For them are flat aeal-akiii caps o£ 
0reat ciicuxnfereDce especially mamifactured ; for 
thfiDDL Shakspearian phrases, which puzzle the aimota- 
ton^ bat which Warwickshire has popularly retained, 
do still exist. I heard two of these men, an old 
and a yonn^ one, talking together, like the grave- 
diggera mMeunUl, or like olaGobbo and Laonoelot, 
or like any pair of Shakspeare*s clowns you may 
mention. Will this loose-dad, brass-buttoned, fur- 
capped population of the canal and its banks continue 
to regard our fast canal-boat with the placidity which 
at present characterises their view? Or will the 
temble fact dawn upon their understandings, that 
this same ' intr'doocahun o* stea-am on canaiUB ' may 
tend to the getting rid of a conaid^ble amount of 
loose-clad, fiir-capjped, brass-buttoned human labour ? 
Politick economy teaches us, and truly teaches us, 
that everv saying of toU, or rather every step by 
which toil is dir^sted iuto more profitable channels, 
is a uniTersal gain in the long-run ; bat the ran is, 
imforfconaiely, a little too long for those who have 
cakmlated only on that common distance from hand 
to mouth ; and while improrement's crop of grass is 
flTOwin^ certain steeds are but too liable to starve. 
There is hope, however, that the increase of the Com- 
pany's busmess, consequent on the fresh advantages 
thev are now preparea to offer to the public, will 
enable them to retain all their servants, distributing 
Hbem. over a greater number of boats. As for those 
real ' steeds,' nitherto employed to tow the vessehi on 
the Grand Junction Canal, there is no fear of their 
starving — horse-flesh never does. 

It is freezing hard, and snowing gentiy, as we steam 
onward past the locks of Can^en Ix>wn, Kentish 
Town, and the Han^Nrtiead Eoad. Our pale faces, 
streaked with black, our red noses and blue lips, make 
op a wobegone picture. The banks of the canal are 
now getting more and more desolate ; it is a dreary 
ioame;^ along the Befi»nt's Park, and the ^;ardens of the 
Zoological Society. Our fast canal-boat is the slowest 
of alow steamers, considered as the chosen vessel of a 
pleasure-trip. Tbat tbe timber and the heary aocery 
goods are tovelling at twice the speed whidi they 
would attain in a barge hauled along by a horse and 
a rope, is true enough; but that uie more or less 
soientifio gentlemen in tiie steerage find this doubled 
sate of transit somewhat under the reasonable require- 
ments of deck-passengers, compelled to stand in one 
nanow i^iot, on an mtensely cold day, I think is 
equally a matter of fact. Philosophy itsedf could not, 
onder the circumstanoes, feel proper gratitude towards 
Mr Burch, of Macclesfield, who invented the screw 
for propelling the boat that carried the ^^oods that 
lay on the wharf that the Grand Junction Canal 
Company bmlt hj the City Basin. 

It IS a dreaiy joamey, stUl, along St John's Wood, 
with the sloping gardens of North and South Bank 
on either hand. The backs of the houses in NorUi 
and South Bank have a raw look, and the gardens 
are not very cheerful, at anyrate, on this D^ember 
day. On we go, with paler dieeks, and redder noses, 
and bluer lips, till we have ezchansed St John's 
Wood for Paadingt<m, and have struck a few sparks 
of life out of that lees forlom-lookiuff r^on. Here 
the canal is made ornamental, with iuan<u and plea- 
sure-boats, and terrace-Uke banks. A very pretty 
entrance to this vicinage is formed by a short tunn^, 
the outer arch being covered with ivy. 

Arrived at the Gauge House, we transfer our 
numbed feet from ^e deck of tiie Pioneer to the 
little wharf, where we have the pleasure of seeing 
tibe cargo weighed by a very simple process. The 
weiffht of the ooat beinfi j^viousiy ascertained, all 
that the flauger has to do is to find, by a long mea- 
■oring-ro^ the depth from her water-line to her ked ; 
and a calculation by figures will then enable him to 
tell the exact weight of the cargo to a fraction. 

Three cabs convey the party S more or less scientific 



gentlemen to St James's Hall, at the entzmnoe to 
which place of various entertainment we all alighi^ 
and are taken b^ the idle crowd for an exceeding^ 
dirty vestry. Dinner has been ordered, a day or two 
before, amd we are happily in tune not only for tfai^ 
bat for soap and water. 



THE FAMILY SCAPBQBACB. 
eHArraa zi.--thb rsaxu or lAWDBorrafa. 

The modesty of talent— provided that it be 
panied Mrith a stock of patience — ^is always suit 
of its reward. If Master Bichard Arbour had «nr 
chanced to plume himself among the iox&ffk ensto* 
mers of Mr Tipaaway upon his knowledge of the 
French tongue, it is not unlikely that the momeiit 
which fouid him in the grasp of the Baasian coont 
would have been his last. Bage and fear contended 
in the man's evil eyes, and blanched his cheek» white 
his wicked fingers tij^tened about the poor lad^ 
throat, as thoi:^ their trade was murder. Dick's 
coimt^ianoe was rapidly growing black, when ha 
bethougjht himself oi tnrowing an expressive i^btaoe 
at the table, and of making as though he would reach 
with one of his hands the pencil that still lay there. 
He felt convinced that his life depended on the 
count's imagining that his secret was yet ud£s- 
covered — ^thxre he was a deaf and dumb man still in 




for discovering: that you are an impostor;* he judi- 
ciously confim^ himself to making si^ns. 

The count relaxed his gripe to consider a little, and 
then released the lad altogether, though takixig cars 
to stand between him and the door. Dick took 19 
the pencil and wrote: *I am very sorry to have 
disturbed you, sir ; I thought ^u nad all left tha 
room, and was oominff in to put it straight.' 

' Tou lie ! ' returned the county in the most ^^fmtt 
and microscopic handwriting that ever was seen. 

* I also came to see if there was any brandj left,' 
wrote Dick. 

This did not happen to be in the least the caasb bol 
it was more in accordance with the Busaian'a notton 
of what was probable, than the simple broth of the 
other answer. 

'What did you see?' inquired G^otsuchako^ aniliin^ 
do^wn the words with his practised finders, while he 
kept his lynx eyes fixed upon the tremflmg yoollL 

* I saw you, count.' 

* What eUe, boy; what else ?' 

' Please, count, I saw that you had drunk all ths 
brandy.' 

Gotsuchakoff was evidently at a nonplus. He did 
not know whether to believe the boy or not. His 
hesitated as to whether he should push him farther, 
afraid, in case of lus being unaware that he had really 
spoken, of impressing him too much with the import- 
ance of what had happened. 

* And did you not near anythin^g ?' wrote the oounL 
imable to bear the horrid uncertainty which consumed 
him. 

This was the most perilous moment of all to Dick, 
and luckily the lad was by this time fully aware of iL 
HLb features expressed toe most extreme bewilder- 
ment, and even a touch of drollery. ' Hear^ oount ?* 
wrote he, in rather a shaky hand, it must be con* 
fessed; *how should I hear anything, with nobody 
butyou in the room ?' 

The Russian was looking him throus^ and throo^^ 
with a terrible distrust, but the sndle which the ladhad 
conjured up seemed completely to disarm him. He 
drew a lon£ breath of intense relief, and wiped away 
the drops that stood imon his pale forehead. He haa 
but uttered a single French word, after all, reasoned 
he, which, even if distinctly heard* might very well 



OHAMBBBS'S JOURU AL. 



91 



hsn aoniided to tiw lad's Ei^^ak em Uke tiM man 
gHtkosl <«plmTnatioa, «l a duib maa exoited to 
Bfitm At afl erente, if ninrder were not ta be 
done, it was bettv to believ« thia, and to e£Eaoe t^ 
recollection of tiie wbide Matter from the boy's mind 
as toon as possible. 

' I beg your pardon, joirag sir,' wrote he ; ' I am 
afraid mA I have ben taking a little more drink thni 
ia good for me. Let as ahake hands, and forget this 
stqpid business.' 

The RniwiaTi, to irhom a hehe appeared no mora 
nnroasonshle— and probabl|r maoh ieas so— 4faan a 
friendly present, or a fur oommeroial exchange, 
nreasea a crown-ineoe into the hand of iSbe harbors 
boy, whoee fingen closed on it mechanically, and 
afaarnptly kft the room. He had prok>nfled the inter- 
Tiew to the ntmost limzts onmria t wit wx& Ishs other's 
safebr, for the unnatnxal tenaioa of Diok'a facnlties 
conld be maintained no lonfier; he heard i^B ooont'a 
heavy footsteps passing tutni^ the front shop — 
who probably sarated its proprietor with his aoons- 
tomed oomrfcesY, for Mr Tipsawmy'a Toioe replied: 
'Good-bye, old dnmmy;' doobtless with a smile of 
creat obseqnipiisness— and he heard no more, but fell 
down, iauoe on the table, in a fafnting-fit, thereby 
upsetting the brandy bottle. 

The crash of the breaking daas brought Mrs 
Tipsawa^, who had a hoosekeeper^ ear for twit parti- 
colsr noiae, directly into tiie smoking-room; and her 
raised yoice, for wnich Mr T. had a mnband's eai^ at 
once sommoned that gentieman to her a— istanre 

'What do yon think of <*ts, Mr Tqisawayr cried 
she with bitterness, naturally, thon§^ somewhat 
unjustly, directinff her anger against the only animate 
c^eet ' What nave yon g^ to say for your pet 
apprentice now V 

Kow, it was well known tiiat Dick was rather the 
pet of the lady than of her hnaband, but when the 
female mind is excited, it not unecanmooly spurns 
the tiymmels of ynlgar &ot ; and Mrs Tipsaway kept 
her own mental powers parftwoladiy free uid fetterless 
in that respect 

'He's as dmnk as a young lord,' confessed Mr 
Tip sa wn y j^rnkgetieally ; 'iiiere is not a donbt of 
that.' 

' And i^ist do we want of yopr young lords here ? ' 
inquired the lady with indignatinm, ' Why mnst yon 
be piddngnp a yoong sweu like Ihis, who mnst have 
best Inaoh fanmdy, forsooth, and destroy the 
bottle aftst w aid s, when we mi^ hayie had a 
boy as cheap, or cheaper' 




ISpnway polled herself short np, when she had ^ 
thns fir, to emit an fiTprwisinii. of astonishment, whieh, 
in the month of a less genteel lady, mi^^ hare been 
Bustaken for a whistla 

'Look here!' cried she, exhibiting the boy's neok, 
tte erayat of which she had been fooaeoing ; ' some- 
body has been trying to throttle the lad. Here are 
tiie marks of four fingers and a thumb.' 

' Qotsadiakofi^ aotere/' mnimured the lad, with his 
eyes stin closed. 

The barber and his wife exdianged looks of pro- 
Boond terror. 

*That lad has been iniwlting the coont, and the 
teefgnjgentlemen will never coma here again, pethaps»' 
yoaa ecrMr Tipsaway, to whom the refugees paid a 
ymaj tolerable sum for the ecxdusive use en the 
SBMong-saioon. 'What have yon been doing, jrou 
yooBg rascal?' inc^aired he, at the same time ynng 
ms genteel apprentice a tremendous shaking. 'What 
hays you htem at, sir, eh !' 

*I saw nothing, I heard nothing^* replied poor Diok, 
who imagbied that the Rnsaisn was still cross- 
eacamsninghim; 'I only came to put things to rights 
Oh, it's you, Mr Tipsaway, is it?' 



'Tee, it's mi^ jwx. drunken young yagabond» and 

' Why,here's some money that tibs oonni 1^ ma to 
pay for the broken f^i^! quoth Dick, whose wita 



were reawakening * He was awfully dmnk though, 
for aU tiiai^ I do aasurs yon. He set on mc^ just 
because I could not understand his telegraphing like 
some wild animaL' 

' He went through the shop very steadily,' observed 
Mr Tipsaway, peroeptibly mollified by the silver, but 
still a tittle incredulous. 

'Hat may do for Mr T^ observed the better^hatf 
of that gentleman to herael^ ' but not for me^ yomtt 
gentleman : I heard the g^ass break tfier the eo^ 
left the house.' 

'Anyhow, he nearly choked me,' dbsenred Dick 
pettishly, and adjusting his neckcloth ; ' and I had 
ra&er not have anvthmg more to do with CSovil 
Gotsuohakoff, please.' 

' Pooh, pooh I he 'U forget it the next time h(9 corner' 
returned Mr Tipsaway ; ' and, besides, von are goina 
to-morrow, Smnh, to Miss Backboard^ instead^ 
Frizzle, who, she coomlains, ujiU giggle all the time he 
is cutting her young ladies' hair. The count will no4i 
certainly remember his drunken frolic for eig^tt-and« 
forty hours.' 

Ihok thoufi^t within himself, that if Mr Ti^wiy 
had felt the Russian's fingers at his own windpipe, he 
woukL not have deacriMd the occurrence quite so 
playfully; but since he had no desire to make tha 
barber nis confidant, he affected to be satisfied, and 
made no further complaint. 

Mr "Upaaway, who had heard the muffled oratorio 
in full performanoe in the &x>nt-shop for several 
minutes, nere rushed away to deprive the musician of 
his instrument, which he justly deemed was one that 
required a curtain or other means of concealment 
between the player and thenaieral pablie, at least as 
mudi as any organ. Mrs lipsaway st^ed behind to 
lay her hand upon the lad's shoulder confidentially, and 
to observe in a motherly tone: 'Gome, Dick, you musk 
teU me the truth, my lad, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth.' 

Diok knew enough of the dacacter of Mm Tips- 
away to be aware, that the commission of a aeeret to 
her ears would be about equivalent to advertiunnff ik 
in tiie eolnmns of any local newspaper of tol^uda 
circulatien; so he anuled sweetly — a tning Dick eonld 
always do when oonverang witn a lady>-«iid readied 
w^ nm^licity : ' 13ie whole truth about whstti 
ma'am?' m order to gain time for fictifaioas ooaik* 
position. 

' Kow, don't aoerayate me,' replied Mrs lipsaway — 
and this time wnn a dadb of piquancy in her aco|^t^ 
leas motherly thssi step-motherRr— 'mr I am doing • 
hair-chain mr a bride-elect» and can't afford to hmre 
my fingen aet all of a treoo^ble. What did the oount 
giye you that piece of money lor, and how caoie that 
bottle broken t' 

' / broke the bottle, Mrs Tqpsaway,' emlainwid tha 
youth, clasping his penitent hands. 

'And the money, the money?' cried the lady, 
stampiogher foot. 

'1^ count gave me the money for having thraahed 
me ao, because, because ' 

' Because he canght you helping yourself to his 
brandy,' cried Mrs Tipsaway, tnumphantly ftniahing 
thesentenoe. 

'Ah, yes, ma'am. I peroeive it is imposBble to 
deceive your sagacity. 

'Then dont trj it again. Smith, mind ^hai! con- 
tinned tiie lady with emphasn. ' Men have tried it — 
women have med it — ^Frizzle has tried it ; but it has 
never succeeded yet with Martiia Tipsaway. it is not 
very likely, therefore, that a ohiUL Uke you will havo 
much chance. Trust me, boy, and I win take you to 
my aims — that is to say, of course, you must keep 
your distance, and not forget that you are the 'prentioe^ 



92 



CHAMBBES'S JOURNAL. 



and I the missis; but try to Asceive me, yoimg 
gentleman, and ycax^U wlsn yourself one of them 
ngores ia the window, whose ears cannot feel a box, 
nor whose mouth appreciate victuals.' 

With which piece of didactics Mrs Tipsaway swept 
out of the room in a whirlwind of silk and cap-strings. 

CHAPTER XII. 
XIB8 backboabd's touxo lasibi. 

' Miss Backboard's fashionable seminary for young 
ladies was situated in a pleasant suburb of the metro- 
polis, and had a strip of garden lying in front of it, 
bearing the same relation to the house in superficial 
extent as each of the slices of carpet in the dormitories 
bore to its respectiTe bed. A holly-tree, signifi- 
cant of IVudence, kept watch at the garden-eate; 
the daisy, emblem of Innocence, blushed in its little 
srass-borders ; the modest violet, at its proper season, 
indicated, in its own sweet language, the character of 
the inmates of the establishment ; no red rose cried : 
' He is near ! — he is near ! ' no white rose wept : * He 
is late ! ' but such of Miss Backboard's vounc ladies 
as had got so far as to think about * him at all, were 
represented in that innocent plot by the unimpa- 
tient lily, which whispers, * I wait ; ' and, on one side 
of the gravel- walk that led to the front-door, by 
the acacia-tree, which sighs but of Platonic Love. 
Only, when Miss Backboard eradicated the wicked 
iris and the too demonstrative jonquil from her 
parterre, it was inconsistent of her to spare that 
Vircinian jasmine — symbol of separation — which 
dixnoed up the entire face of the house, and looked 
down, over the wall, upon the passion-flowers in the 
next garden. 

The jasmine might look, but the voung ladies 
mightn't. 'Not to look out of the window,' was one 
of the edicts of the Backboardian code, which might, 
for precautionary severity, have been drawn up by 
"Mm Praisegod &u«bones, for the benefit of female 
Oavaliers. Miss Backboard herself, however, was 
oonstantiy on the watch at one or other of the case- 
ments, like Sister Anne on Bluebeard's tower, and 
took note of eveiy male creature that came in at the 
little iron gate. She had already caused two bakers' 
boys to be dismissed from their situations, for whist- 
ling melodies relating to the affections as they 
approached her house; and a third was even now 
upon his trial for kissing his hand to her front- 
windows— tiie defence set up by the accused party 
being, that he was only engaged with his pocket- 
han&erchief. The postman was not permitted to 
intrust his letters for the establishment to any hand 
but hers; and she winnowed the correspondence 
thus obtained with, a skill and completeness that Sir 
James Graham and his mjrrmidons might have 
envied. A pink envelope, or an envelope with a 
sealing-wax 'kiss' upon it, or with an affectionate 
motto on its seal, was arrested by her vigilant fingers 
as a health-officer would seize upon some infected 
wretch whose escape from quarantine must needs 
bring death and desolation into a thousand homes. 
No male handwriting was suffered to pass at all 
without inquiry of the would-be recipient; and if 
the serpent who wrote it was no nearer of kin than a 
bachelor-cousin, the missive was ruthlessly torn up, 
and scattered to the wanton winds. Nor was the 
export-trade less strictly watched than the import. 
All letters except to bond-Jide relatives were inspected. 
Yes, conscientious Miss Backboard did mdc^d 
peruse the whole of the correspondence between the 
young ladies of her own establishment and their 
' eternal friends' at similar educational seminaries or 
elsewhere : tvrice a week that indefatigable female 
performed the awful task in its completeness, begin- 
ning with, 'Mv own dearest, dearest Isabel' in the 
miodle of the fust page, and so, through the slanting 
shower of affectionate commonplaces to the all- 



important postscript No. 2. No wonder the good 
lady was consumed by anxieties, and haggard witii 
suspicions; no brain could stand such letter-reading 
twice a week for long. She looked for hidden 
meanings in sentences wherein the writer had aea 
no necessity for inserting any meaning at all ; she 
scorched the missives before the fire, with a view of 
bringing forth the secrets concealed in leman-jnioe 
that were never there ; she conceived that waoB 
crafiy cipher lay in the frequent and unneoeeBary 
dashes which italicised the general contents, and 
imagined el<^)ementB and rope-ladders lurked in 
the very loops of the /s. 

It was Miaa Backboard herself who did Master 
Richard Arbour, otherwise Smith, the honour of 
receiving him at her own door-step, having reocai- 
noitred him for several minutes — as a medieval porter 
might have eyed a stran^r knight — ^before adnutting 
him to even that proximity. 

* Whence come ^ou, boy ?' quoth she, in that blank- 
verse style exceedingly popular with ladies of scholas- 
tic pursuits, when their time and tempers permit them 
to make use of it. ' Whence come you, and from 
whom?' 

' I am the new barber's boy from Mr Tipsaway's, 
please, ma'am.' 

Miss Backboard's eagle eye detected in the Genteel 
Touth too pronounced a gentility. 

* I mistrust you, bov, returned she ; * my mind 
misgives me : do you play a part with me ?' 

* No, please, ma'am, I plav nothing. Frizzle plavs 
a good deal, when master will let him ; but the oni^ 
time I ever tried, I broke a tooth.' 

* Broke a tooth ! ' echoed the astonished school- 
mistress ; *I don't know what you mean ; I don't see 
that you have any teeth broken.' 

* lio, please, ma'am ; it was only the tooth of the 
comb that was broken. Frizzle always {days upon 
a comb; It cost me eightpence to' 

' Gk>od gracious I I hope yon don't bring that oanAt 
here?' cried Miss Backward sharply. 

' no, ma'am ; that would not be ** eomme U 
fcail^'' ' smiled Dick, with his best accent. The natnie 
of his mission tickled the lad immensely, and put 
him in spirits too hifih for his position. 

' What ! you speak French ?' exclaimed the terrified 
lady. * You are no barbells boy.' 

* Perruquier, if you please, madam; ^es, thai is 
what I am. It is essential to our fashicmable conr 
necti(m, says Mr Tipsaway, that one, at least, in the 
establishment should have some knowledge of thai 
language. I learned it from my boyhood.' 

'Bo;^ood!' screamed Miss Backboard. 'Why, what 
do you call yourself now ?' 

*Mr Tipsaway calls me one of his young men, 
ma'am. "One of my young men will be at your 
house to-dav. Miss Backbofud," he wrote, TwiAiting 
myself ; and, indeed, I am more than f ourte^i yean 
ola already.' 

' Fourteen,' murmured the schoolmistress to hoBMif ; 
* that is not a dangerous age. Hum ! Yes, you may 
come in.' 

She ushered him into a small apartment on 
the right of the entrance, huiu; round with blank 
maps and a few unframed lancbcapes ; a couple ci 
enormous globes filled each a recess on either side 
of the fireplace, and a few books of the MangnalPi 
Qttestions class leaned up a^^ainst one another on 
their shelves in a manner which, under any roof less 
correct than Miss Backboard's, would have suggested 
intoxication. An inclined plane — torture-engine pecu- 
liar to females — stood in one comer, and a pair of 
dumb-bells (probably the only ones in the house) in 
another. The apartment vras, in diort, devoted to the 
severer branches of the educational course, inclusive^ 
as it subsequently appeared, of hair-cutting. 

Miss Backboard ran^ the belL ' Elizabeth,' observed 
she to the domestic, with the air of a stage-monaroh 









I 



OHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



93 



ordering a banauet, * let a cloth be spread, and inform 
thooe young ladies who require his servioes, that this 
person — ^the yoong person from Mr Tipsaway's — is 
awaitine them in the Geomphical Chamber. And, 
Elizabetii, tell Miss Onum>by to come down first, 
because her dressing-gown is the largest, and will 
do for all the others.' 

By the time Master Richard had arranged the cloth 
upon the floor, and put on the kangaroo apron, the 
young lady iof (][ue8tion made her appearance. A 
loose and volummous pink robe concealed the form 
which was also doubtless voluminous and pink ; but 
the sight of her chubby cheeks and good-numoured 
eyes ought to have satisfied anybody. 

*I thmk you foraot your curtsey, Miss Grumbby,' 
observed the schoounistress with mark^ severity. 

That yoxms lady immediately rose from the 
cane-bottomed chair and made a prof otrnd obeisance. 

Master Richard Smith, in imitation of the Chevalier 
de Crespigny, bowed almost to the eround. 

' Be quiet, boy ! ' ejaculated Miss Backboard shairJy. 
' Do you suppose that my pupil bowed to you ? ' The 
schoolmistress seated herself on the upper extremity 
of the inclined plane, and from that station super- 
intended the operations. 

'You are looking out of window. Miss Crumbby, 
which is forbidden; be good enough to keep your 
eyes fixed on the ground.' 

Miss Crumbby did not reply ; but Dick perceived 
the back of her neck to become of a deeper rose- 
colour, and her plump figure to shake as with secret 
lanehter beneath his admiring eyes. 

* You are exposing your hand. Miss Crumbby, in an 
indelicate manner. Where are your mits, which I 
have particularly directed to be worn in the presence 
of strangers ?' 

* I thought, madam,' replied the young lady, speak- 
ing in the French tongue, for the private ear of the 
scnoolmistress, ' that you only meant we should do so 
in the presence of grown-up gentlemen, and that for 
this little boy here 

' Silence, girl ! ' exclaimed the schoolmistress hastily, 
and in Gemian : * ** the little boy here," as you dH 
him, understands French.' 

Miss Crumbby bit her lips, and again Dick perceived 
an undulatory motion communicated to the entire 
dressing-gown beneath him. 

Before this young ladv left the room, indeed, she 
had earned for herself a aozen rebukes, and one most 
barbarous punishment — a wooden mark was suspended 
from, her ample neck, the presence of which ornament 
forbade any companion to communicate with her 
except in the German language, wherein she had 
shewn herself no great proficient in the Geographical 
Chamber. How long tnis was to be endured, Dick 
did not know ; but he was relieved to hear Miss 
Cmmbbjr's cheerful laugh as she ran upstiurs, appa- 
rently witii the lightest of hearts, though with a step 
that went nigh to shake the establishment. 

Angd aft^ luiffel, sylph after sylph, came down 
and arrayed hersdf in tne voluminous pink, imder 
Dick's assiduous hands. He did not gig^e, like Mr 
Frizde, he did not again even venture upon bowing, 
Ifloe M. de Crespigny. Miss Backboard began to he 
noUified by his perfect behaviour, and to entertain 
tha* trust in his methodical quietness which she had 
denied to his tender years; she yawned while the 
fifteenth seraph was having her tips taken ofi^ and 
inquired languidly whether there was any more to 
ooine. The seraph replied that there was only Miss 
Mickleham to come, who had been delayed until last 
fay reason of her being under punishment. 

' Very well, then,' replied Miss Backboard loftily ; 
* you TOBj tell her that it is her turn when you have 
wme.' With which that imperial female launched 
herself off her inclined plane with the air of a ship of 
ninety guns, and sailed majestically out of the 
xoom. 



* Queer old lady that) is she not?' observed the 
fifteenth seraph mterrogatively, about two minutes 
after the door had closed, and when it was made 
clear, by the creaking of the stairs, that her precep- 
tress had really left uie keyhole. 

Master Richard Arbour, who had remarked the 
young lady under present treatment as being by 
far the best behaved and most rigid of aU the 
heavenly bodies that had preceded her, was perfectly 
aghast at this familiarity. 

* Look here,' pursued she, producing a considerable 
bundle of lett^ stamped, sealed, and directed in 
readiness for her Majesty's mails, *put l^ese in 
your pocket, and make haste. I have been trying to 
make you take hold of them this five minutes, only 
you 're such a stupid boy. I was within half a second 
of running a hair-pin into you, I do assure you.' 

Dick took the packet with an air of the prof oundest 
astonishment. * Well, and what am I to do with 
them, please, miss, now I 've got 'em ?' 

*Why, post 'em,' ejaculated the young lady 
snappisnly. * What on earth do you suppose ought to 
be done with them ? We always got Frizzle to poet 
'em, before you came, and we eiroect, of course, wat 
you vdll do as much for us. Here's half-a-crown, 
and we 're much obliged to you for your trouble.' 

'Mademoiselle,' replied Master Richard Arbour, 
laying his hand and scissors on his heart, ' I will post 
the letters with pleasure ; but to take your money for 
doing it is a thing quite out of the question.' 

'Well, that's polite, at all events,' replied the 
young lady, rising and approaching the glass. 'But I 
don't think you cut my hair quite so well as the 
other. Why doesn't that stin^ old lady let us have a 
couple of mirrors ? One positively can t see how one 
looks. How do I look benind, boy ? ' 

The startled Dick hastened to give it as his opinion 
that she looked channing from every possible point of 
view ; whereupon the fifteenth seraph laughed, and 
said he was a nice lad. 

'Only,' she added, 'don't you go telling Miss 
Mickleham about those letters, mina, because she's 
a little ' — a pantomimic action of the hands, significant 
of staylacing, here took place — 'a little stnut-laced, 
you know, l£at 's all. Good-bye, boy. Thank ye I ' 

With which adieu the young lady opened the door, 
and called Miss Micklenam in much such a tone as 
one female saint might evoke another to martyrdom : 
' MiM Mickleham, tEe young penon is waiting to cut 
your hair. 

Every male individual beneath a certain rank in 
the social scale was held in Miss Backboard's estab- 
lishment to be a ' person,' while all above and of that 
rank were spoken of (and even that but very rarely) as 
' gentlemen.' The word * man ' was entirely ignored, 
and x>erhaps unknown at Acacia House. 

Most of the young ladies had hitherto floated into 
the apartment as though the air were water, and the 
little material substance that belonged to them had 
been made of cork; but Miss Mickleham used a 
somewhat graver mode of progress, either in conse- 
quence of being under punishment, or by reason of 
having a number of works upon Political Economy 
in her hands, that the author had the temerity to caU 
' popular,' but which, nevertheless, may have kept her 
down a little. Tba.t abstruse science oppressed her 
existence at Miss Backboard's (who considered its 
study to be a jmrt of woman's mission), just as Fntc- 
tice had oppressed poor Dick elsewhere, and he intui- 
tively sympaiiiised with her as she put down, by the 
side of we terrestrial^obe, all the volumes, save one, 
witii a great sigh. Inat one she was bound never 
to part wiUi, eating or drinking, sleeping or hair- 
cutting, until she had mastered certain rather imenter- 
taining chapters U]X>n the drain of gold; and she sat 
down witihi it in her hand in the pi& dres8inj|;-gown. 
Dick's tender heart would have been touched by sij^t 
of that young cheek robbed of half its bloom oy 



94 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Bonow, and by those long Uadc eytbaheB steqwd in 
teaia, had he not detected by her Hkenesa to her 
Either tiiie beaatifal daughter of good Mr Midde- 
ham of Darkeodim Street, at the fixSb glanoe. 

As it was, the memoiy of the old man's hindiMWH 
moved lum so, awakening, as often happens, other 
memories with it of loving hearts now sundered from 
his own perhaps for ever, that hU eyes too began 
to fill with dew, which presently overflowing than, 
descended in a couple oi large warm tears upon the 
yonng lad^s neck. The tresses that should have 
protected it were in Dick's trembling hands, so that 
thev Idl directly npon the velvet skin with certainty 
of oeteotion, ttia the sixteenth sean^h jumped np from 
her chair, and exchanged the drain of gda for a shrill 
note of indignation. 

* How dare yon, sir?' she began; then, looking at 
Dick's tearfoi face, she sank her voice — ' What aik 
yon, my good boy ? Is there anything I can do Uxr 
you, poor lad?' 

* Yes, dear yonn^ lady, yes.' 

The dear young lady looked like a ruffled swan at 
this exordimn. 

' Tell your good father that Richard Arbour is not 
uncratenil to him, though he may have seemed so, 
and that he could not look upon his daughter in her 
sorrow without being sad himself.' 

*Are you Mr Arbour's nephew, then, that ran 
away ?' cried she. ' Oh, pray go back — pray do, while 
there is time. Your undo is being more and more 
set acainst you than ever. Papa can do little for 
you, thoufi^ he has tried his best; but perhaps, if 
you would come back, he might do samettiinA. Do, 
pray, come at once to u»— t£at is, to Aim. This is 
where we live.' She tore the fly-leaf out of the book 
she held, which happened to have her name and 
direction on it, and Diol^ kissed it gratefully, and 
put it carefully away. 

* Perhaos I will, dear young lady ; and if I am taken 
back, it snail at least be tm^ugh your father. For- 
give my rudeness and impertinence^ 

*HuBhr cried the gxri; *I hear Miss Backboard 
coming. I have nothing to forgive in you — ^nothing.' 
She snatched up h^ bmks fnun their resting-^laoe, 
and was about to leave the room, when the vdummous 
dressing-gown which she had forgotten to throw off, 
caught m the projecting leg of the terrestrial globe, 
and in anothv moment there was a frightful crash, 
and poor Miss Mickleham stood in horror amidst the 
wreck of the universe. 

' Good heavens ! ' died the schoolmistress, rushing 
in, * what has happened ? Tou clumsy little barber's 
monkey you, what have you done ?' 

' I couldn't help it, ma'am,' cried Dick, without an 
instant's hesitation ; ' my apron caught in it just as I 
was tryinff to look out JerusalenL I had done with 
the yonnff lady, ma'am, and always wishing to improve 
myself when opportunity offers, was' 

' Silence, sir ! ' interrupted Miss Backboerd vidously. 
* Leave the room. Miss mickleham, without one word, 
if you i)lea8e— without one syllable. You have done 
me an irreparable damage, l>oy, and you shall never 
come to tins house again. 

' You have got an<%ier £^be, ma'am, havent you ?' 
replied Didc, pretending to whimper, but secretly 
delighted with naving saved Miss Mickleham from tfaie 
wrath of her mistress. 

* Yes, you idiot,' ejaculated Miss Backboard ; ' but 
it's a celestial one. Do you suppose that these globes 
are duplicates 7 If Mr Tipsaway doesn't pumd you 
petty severdy, my lad, it will not be for want of a 
line from me, 1 do assure you.' 

Dick was rather afraid of Miss Backboard's antid- 
pating the promised chastisement there aiul then, and 
made haste to get out oi Acacia House as soon as he 
could ; and, inifeed, she was not able to resist aiming 
a box at his ears as he passed her at the front-door, 
which he only duded by great forethought and 



activity. As soon as the garden-gate dinged Mtind 
l»iTn, however, Dick's face became radiant wiUi kanpi 
ness; and puOinff out the address whidi Miv MjoUs* 
ham had given io him, proceeded tp mBuckm& m it a 
coosidenlue loc^ of soft Inown hair, whicih he lad 
covertly muppedi from that yomg lady's li 



GEMS AND JEWELa* 

Thzbs is nothing in all ' the wotld's foraitare* at cms 
so costly and so worthless as a predoos stoBe. Jht 
satisfaction which the contemplation of it produces ii 
more superficial than that which is affiirded 1^ the 
meanest flower ; for the meanest flower, we are told 
on high authority, may awake thoughts too deep for 
tears, and the finest diamond or peail cannot aooos^ 
plish thatb The only value they possess beT^nd tiist 
conferred upon them by fisahioi> arises from tfaev 
rarity and durability ; and even £uhion, has first to 
be certified that it is the real thing, and not a coon- 
terfdt, upon which she bestows her favour, for peadi 
have daoled her, before now, which had neysr lain ia 
oyster-bed, and a bit of rock-crystal has m,OKe tiban 
once eclipsed the treasures of Golconda. 

Not long ago, in Brazil, at Villa Rica, a fm 
negro became possessed of a diamond so enonnoai^ 
that he begged permission to present it himself ti 
the prince-regent * A carriage and an esoort wvs 
forthwith despatched to take mm to court Bla^if 
threw himself at the regent's feet, and exhihiied 
his diamond. The prince uttered an exclamatsa 
of surprise— the lords present were astounded: thi 
stone weighed nearly a pound! The oourtien int 
mediatdy set to work to find out the number of 
milli<ms this monstrous jewd was worth. Tht 
great stone of Villa Rica, valued at troy wd^ 
made a total of 2560 carats. Deducting the six^ 
carats for what little the stone lacked of a poan4 
there yet remained 2500 carats. In order to sseeitiiii 
the commercial value of the stone, the carat must bi 
multiplied by the square. The square of 2600 ii 
6,250,000, and estimating the carat at only 150 frucs, 
the common price, we nave the sum of 937,600,000 
francs ; and, as large diamonds are no longer subndttsd 
to the tariff, and as their nominal price increases in 
proportion as they exceed the orcunary dimenaiflaii 
the rortognese noblemen probably estimated the stosN 
at two mmiards, or, like thorou^ courtiers, i^ fioir. 
'However this may be, the inestimable jewd was 
sent to the treasury, with a strong escort, and deposilsd 
in the hall of gems. As Mr Mawe was at Rio Jansirs 
when this wonderful discovery was made, the *"*^H— ' 
sent for him, and communicated to him all the parti- 
culars regarding the phenomenon ; but at the sams 
time expressed his private doubts of its reality. Ths 
English mineralogist was invited to examme ths 
incomparable briluant, and fix its value. Furnished 
with a letter from each mimster — ^without which for* 
mality he could not be admitted — ^Mr Mawe went 
throu^ several rooms, and crossed a great hall hnafl 
with crimson and gold, in whidi was a statue « 
natural size representing Justice with her eealss. 
Finally, he reached a room in which were Bevssd 
chests ; three ofiSoers, each having a key, opened oas 
of these chests, and the treasurer with much solemaity 
exhibited the supposed diamond. Before tonduDg 
the stone, Mr Mawe had already seen ^lat it was 
nothing but a piece of rounded ciystal; he proved 
this on the instant by scratching it with a red 
diamond, and this luckless scratch at once annihilated 
all the millions supposed to have bem added to the 
treasury. The prince-regent recdved the news vary 



* Oems and JevreU. From the Sarliat Agn doten to tke PrtMesi 
Time. By Madame de Barrenu Bentley. 



OHAMBERSrS JOURNAL. 



95 



opliioally ; but poor Blackey, who had coow m 
ijige» wu left to tnvel b«ck on foot^ 

Iwgest real (HamoBd in the would, bdanging to 
ajah of Mattan, in Borneo^ is still nncnt, and 
I 367 caiati : H has no xxral nearer tium the 

diamond, of 193 carats. It has never bean 
tit to Europe, thonfih the fforemor of Batayia 
offered to the rajah 160,000 oollan for it, m well 
3 laige war-brisB, with their ffuns and ammnni- 
Ad a conaideraDle onantityoi powder and shot 
mmber of diamonds in the world abore 100 
' weight, indudinff the two already mentioned, 
r six ; bat the hinoiy of each of these— which 
lied i)ara{yDn«— is a romance in itsell 

Ortofff aocordin£ to some aoooimts. formed cme 

eyes of the idol Scherinfl^bam, in we temple of 
la. The fame of these bright eyes haring reached 
dn French grenadier of PondiAeny, heoeserted, 
Bd the religion and manners of the Brahmins, 
absequently succeeded in escming with one of 
yeted orbs. He sold the lewd to a sea-captain 
,000 &ancs ; the sea-captam wM it to a Jew for 
; and an Armenian, named Shafrsss, boneht it 
much larger sum, anid disposed ^ it to C:>unt 

for the £npres8 Catharine, for 460,000 roubles, 
mnt of Russian nobility. 

Kegent Diamond is the most perfect, and the 
water of the parag(m$. It onomally weighed 
rats ; but the cutting of it as a brilliant, i^ch 
two years' labour, and cost L.d000, reduced 
e to 137 carats. This diamond, which is also 
the PiU, was stolen from Golconda, and sold to 
indfather of the Earl of Chatham, whengoyemor 
rt St George, in the East Indies, lor L.20,000, 
[^ Pope su^^este that that gentleman purloined 
a the origina^thief— 

Asleep and naked, as an Indian lay. 
An honest &ctor stole the gem away. 

^ench. king purchased it for L.92,000, Mr Pitt 
ing the fragments taken off in the cutting ; but 
ine is now estimated at double the price paid 
This jewel was pawned by Napoleon, made a 
al bait by Talleyrand to seduce Prussia, and 

by robbers, who only returned it because of 
Impossibility of disposing of it without detection, 
aun conyict in the French gallejys for some time 
)d a hi^ pre-eminence among lus f ellowB as ' the 
vho hM stolen the Resent.* 
\ Star of the South, the laitteat diamond eyer- 
tit from Brazil, was discoyerecT by three wretched 
ondemned to perpetual banishment in the wildest 
I the interior, but who of coune obtained the 
tion of their sentence. 

h and last of the paragon diamonds is the 
•noor, now weighing but one hundred and two 
, but supposed to naye once been the largest 
nown, ana the same seen by Tayemier among 
iwels of the Great MoguL It is confidently 
m1 that this famous gem belonged to Karna, 
f Anga, three thousand years tap. ' According 
render, this gem was presented to Cha-Gehan, 
ther of Aurungzebe, by Mirzimola, when that 
[ general, having belrayed his master, the king 
xMxnda, took refuge at the court of the Great 
. Since it was admired by the French trayeller, 
iamond has passed through the hands of seyeral 
I princes, and iJways by yiolen<fe or fraud, 
ist Eastern possessor was the famous Rnnjeet 

king of Lahore and Cashmere, from whom it 
I into the hands of the English on the anneza- 
f the Punjaub : it was brought to London in 

' The king of Lahore had obtained this jewel in 
QfOwing manner : haying heard that the king of 
possessed a diamond that had belonged to the 
Mogol, the largest and purest known, ne inyited 
rtnnate owner to his court, and there, haying 

his power, demanded his diamond. The guest, 



however, had provided hmwrff against sndi a con- 
tingency, with a perfect imitation of the coveted 
jeweL After some show of resistance, he reluctantly 
acceded to the wishes of his powerful host. The 
ddi^ of Ronjeet was extreme, out of short dntatiott, 
the lapidary to whom he gave orders to mount his 
new acqtrisition pronouncing it to be merely a bit of 
crystal The mortification and rage of the despot 
were unbounded ; he immediately caused the pence 
of the king of Cabul to be inyested, and ransacked 
from top to bottom. But for a kms while all search 
was yam : at last, a slaye betrayed the secret ; the 
diamond was fbnnd concealed beneath a heap of adna. 
Rnnjeet Sin^ had it set in an armlet, between two 
diamonds, eaich the size of a sparrow-egg.* 

According to Mr Tennant, the great Russian 
diamond singularly corresponds with the Koh-i-noor, 
so as to sufiSiest tiiat the two once formed a sinfiie 
crystal ; ana when united, they would, allowing lot 
the detaching of seyeral smaller pieces in the process 
of cleaving, make up the wei^t described by 
Tavemier. 

What bloodshed, what heart-burnings, what tedious 
and expensive negotiations have each of these shimns 
pebbles cost its various jMssessors, and how exceef 
ingly small the nstification of having obtained them 
at last, independently of the soothing thought that 
nobody else has oot mem ! If it were not uselen to 
lift up our single yoioe against an almost nzdvearsal 
custouL we would ask what more barbarous and 
outlandish usage can be imagined, than that which 
obtains amongst even our kii^s daughters and most 
honourable women, of drilling a hole in the lobes of 
their ears for the reception of a jewel ? and why are 
they so ready to exclaim ' savage * against a maiden 
who may sioularly adorn her nose 7 Let us, however, 
be thankful that in these days, if not cured of our 
lunacy, there is at least some measure to our madness 
in connection with precious stones ; that no monarch 
of a starving people would now offer three millions of 
crowns for the possession of a useless diamond, as 
Louis XV. did; und that no living Englishman would 
so mistake the meazung of loyalty to nis queen as to 
grind a pearl worth L.16,000 into a cup of wine, in 
order to fitiy drink her health, as dia Sir Thomas 
Gresham. This plagiarist from Cleopatra has had 
mai^ a rival in more modem times. The courtiers of 
Louis XV. were wont, in their insane extravagance, to 
pulverise their diamonds. ' A lady having expressed 
a desire to have the portrait of hSsr canary in a ring, 
^e last Prince de Conti requested she would allow 
him to ^ve it to her ; die accepted, on condition that 
no precious gems should be set in it When the ring 
was brought to her, however, a diamond covered the 
painting. The lady had the brilUant taken out of 
the setting and sent it back to the giver. The prince, 
detenmnra not to be gainsaid, caused the stone to be 
ffround to dust, which he used to dry the ink of the 
fetter he wrote to her on the subject' 

As to the association of gems with dress, the 
accounts of past extravagance which Madame de 
Barren gives us in this ydume are of a nature to 
make PaSsrfamilias shudder, inured to crinoline thouch 
he be. Nor were the ladies by any means the oiuy 
spendthrifts. One court suit of King James* ' Sweete 
GoBseppe,' the Duke of Buckingham, cost no less than 
L.80,000. Nay, to come quite close to our own times, 
when Murat took refuse in Corsica after the fall of 
the empire, Although ne had in nioney but 10,00Q 
francs, which he carried in his belt, the biuid around 
his hat was worth 90,000 ; one of his epaulets, 60,000; 
while he carried about with him two diamonds valued 
at 200,000 francs. In all ages, in short, and in all 
countries, this passionate admiration f6r predoos 
stones has been exoeedindy remarkable; and they 
have been used in Holf Wnt itsdf, for the most solemn 
comparisons, and to denote the highest degree of 
pof ection— the New Jerusalem, even, being refeakd 



06 



GHAMBEBS^S JOURNAL. 



to St John under the figure of an edifice with a wall 
of jasper, while each of its twelve doors iras a smgle 
pesri. 

In the Talmud, it \b asserted that the ark was lit 
onl y try precious stones — so that the famous question 
of '"Wnere was Noah when his candle went out?* 
would seem to be to the last degree unauthorised and 
extravagant. From the same venerable paffes we 
learn tiiat one object in nature ia alone to be esteemed 
of higher value than pearls — ^namely, a pretty woman. 
' On approachiug Egvpt, Abraham locked Sarah in a 
chest that none might behold her dangerous beauty. 
** But when he was come to the place of paying custom, 
the cdlector said: 'Pay us the custom.' And he 
raid : ' I will pav the custom.' They said to him : 
* Thou earnest clothes/ and he said : ' I wiU pay for 
clotheQ.' Then they said to liim: 'Thou earnest 
gold,' and he answered them : * I will pay for my 
ffold.' On this they further said to him: 'Surely 
thou bearest the finest silk ;' he replied : ' I will pay 
custom for the finest silk.' Then said they : ' Surely 
it must be pearls that thou takest with thee,| and he 
only answered : ' I will j>ay for pearls.' Seeing that 
they could name nothing of value for which the 
patriarch was not willing to pay custom, they said : 
' It cannot be but thou open the box, and let us see 
what is within.' So they opened the box, and the 
whole land of Esypt was illumined by the lustre of 
Sarah's beauty — Wc exceeding even that of pearls." ' 

And this pretbr story in connection with ' gems and 
jewels ' is the only piece of sentiment or poetry which 
we remember to have been shed upon the custom- 
house authorities of any nation. 



OCCASIONAL NOTES. 

CO-OPERATION. 

In a tract on Co-operation (the first of a series on 
Social Science, by W. Chambers), it was stated that 
the Eouitable Pioneers' Co-operative Society of 
Rochdale had, during 1859, done business to the 
extent of L104,012, and that the profits realised 
amounted to L10,739. From the published Report, 
which has just reached us, it appears that ite busmess 
done by the Society in 1860 amounted to L 152,063, 
and that the profits were L15,906— within a trifle of 
£16,000 realised by a body of workiog-men, simply 
through a method of supplying themselves with the 
necessaries of life ! These facts are so remarkable 
that they seem deserving of publicity. At Bury, 
another Lancashire town, there appears to be a 
co-operative store concern approximating in success 
to that of Rochdale. We see, that although it began 
but five years ago, with only a capital of L14, the 
business done by it alreadv readies L.50,000 per 
annum. We might expect uiat, with sudi exam^es 
of marked success, bodies of working-men in all parts 
of the country would attempt siniilar co-operative 
associations. Unfortunately, for some reasons or 
other, schemes of this kind have often either failed 
entirely or made poor profinress. Such is the case 
particularly in Scotland. The eood common-sense, 
aptitude for business, and integrify of the Lancashire 
operatives in carrying out plans of co-operation, 
cannot be sufficiently applauded. 

LIFE-BOATS. 

A great effort, as we understand, is in the course of 
being made to extend the system of life-boats alon^g 
the shores of the United Kuu^om ; and as thin 
most praiseworthy object can be effected only by 
charitable contributions, we b^ to commend it to 
general notice. From a lately published report, it 
appears that the Royal life-boat Association (office, 
H John Street, Adel^ii, London), expended last 
year upwards of L.1100 in awards for saving 499 
pnaons from drowning by shipwreck on our coasts. 



The number oi lives saved by life-boats 
other means, since the formation of the society, 
been 11,824^ for which services 82 gold medals, 
silver medals, and L13,000 in cash, have 
dispensed as rewards ; the institution has also 
pended nearly L40,000 on life-boat estabUshm 
The stories told of the successful efforts made to i 
life by these boats in the case of frightful storm 
the coasts, are of the most thrilling nature, 
would form a volume as interesting as anythin 
romance. After all was done, last year, as d 
as 1600 penona were drowned along the shore 
the British islands ; and keepins in mind that d 
of these might have been saved, had life-boats 
at hand, it should require small persuasion froi 
to enforce the claims ox this most useful Associati 



LITTLE FLORENCE. 

LiTTLi Florence, fond and free, 
Plajing hj the apple-tree, 
laughing on her mother^s knee — 

Sunbeams slanting on her hair, 
Flowing wreaths of flowrets fair 
Dangling from her in the air. 

Fast and faster go her feet 

Where the grass and sunshine meet : 

Joyful Florence ! — Life is sweet. 

Little Florence, mild and weak, 
Trouble looking from her cheek, 
Scarcely can she move or speak — 

Looks out to the falling rain — 
All a mother's cares are rain ; 
Pillows may not ease her pain. 

Gladness has a flitting will — 
How came she to taste of ill? 
Joy is evanescent still. 

Little Florence, weak and worn, 
Like a faint star left forlorn, 
Trembling on the point of mom. 

Angel forms are in the air. 
Flitting on the golden stair, 
Bearing up a mother's prayer. 

Little Florence, cold and dead, 
Green grass growing overhead, 
Waiting for thy wonted tread — 

Lying by the apple-tree — 
Sunshine comes to look for thee. 
Gomes to crown thy wonted glee. 

And thy mother leaves her home. 
Gomes here, where she used to come : 
Silent Florence ! Death is dumb. 

Little Florence, clothed in white, 
Looking back upon the night, 
Standing in the shadeless light — 

Walking up the golden street, 
Sitting at the Saviour's feet, 
Where the pure and holy meet. 

Shadows stood on yonder shore, 
Waiting for thee heretofore. 
They shall wait for thee no more. 

Thou didst pass them o'er the flood. 
Left them standing where they stood— 
Angel Florence ! God is good. 

David Rabsh 



Printed and Published by W. & R Chambers, 47 ] 
noster Bow, London, and 339 High Street, Edikbi 
Also sold by William Robbbtson, 23 Upper Sad 
Street, DuBUir, and all Booksellers. 




S titxxt t aiib ^rts. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND BOBEBT CHAMBEBS. 



SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1861. 



Price IM 



IDEAS OF MAJOR TRUEFITT 

ON LOGIC. 

a strange thing to say, yet I say it advisedly, 
elity to logic is the cause of many of those 
f individuals which least enjoy the appro- 
Minerva ; and the great bulk of mankind are 
<o maintain that even tenor of procedure 
most satisfactory to the genius of common 
consequence of their happy insensibility to 
itiments of logic. 

lose religion is the true one, are liable to be 
startled now and then by seeing an esteemed 
rverted to another, and, of course, a wrong 
; is a clever, sharp-witted man : how comes it ? 
e is a loyal logician. He has probably got 
r data on certain great questions, or has been 

give some attention to those which formerly 

1 in his mind. If unable to reason these out 
he would have been safe; nine-tenths of 
are so, merely because they do not see the 

taring of anything they know or might know 

subject. But, his mind being logical, no 
i he accept the premises, than he was forced 
he conclusion, thereby imdergoing a change 
tions. It only then depended on his posses- 
rtain degree of moral courage, that he should 
corresponding change in his professions ; in 

over to the other church. You say, there 
re been an error somewhere. Well, possibly 
3, but it would be in the premises — the so 
d facts, principles, truths, and so forth, on 
3 reasoning proceeded. These were probably 
with little hesitation, or were viewed under 

light which made idl little difficulties dis- 
The true faith has lost an adherent mainly 
ihe cogency of logic in the mind of the per- 
le more clear and rigorous that power, the 
isure in exercising it, and the more liability 
Tied away by it from old land-marks and 
'US. If there be any shade of martyrdom 
ise, it would, with a morally courageous or 

person, only give a piquancy to the affair, 
3 retiu*n or repentance more hopeless. 
I of martyrdom — there is a great deal of logic 
»th the martyrer and the martyred will gene- 
3und to be loyal logicians. What can be more 
le than the propositions of a reformer at the 
' If I deny the true faith, I subject myself to 

infinitely worse than that with which I am 
atened. By submitting to the latter, I simply 
hoice of a lesser in contrast to a greater eviL 
'ay, then, with the fagots!* What, on the 
id, can }>c more undeniable than the logic of 



the judge who has condenmed the reformer ? ' The 
errors which this man was propagating are attended 
with endless pain and hopeless destruction to millions ; 
by cutting off* his one mortal life just now, we save 
something more than mortal life to all that indefinite 
multitude. It is a sad case ; but my duty lies straight 
before me. He must bum ! ' Here it is evident that 
both would have been spared the distress of the 
burning — the one in the active, the other in the neuter 
sense — if the logical faculty had been a little obscurer. 
Had there been a failure of logic even on one side — 
had the reformer seen less distinctly the consequences 
of his drawing back from the right faith, or the judge 
the connection between heresy and its remote results 
— the fire might never have been kindled. In the 
great controversy between two such men as Calvin 
and Servetus, it is a tug of logic which we see in the 
first place. Both are dreadfully clear-seeing men. 
We have only to own that there is a sort of unfairness 
as to conclusions, when the one disputant has a fire at 
his back in which to close the argument : a sort of 
practical last vjord. In all other particulars, the 
strictest rules of the science may have been, and 
probably were, observed. 

The abuse of positions of power, in general, is very 
often connected with a loyal logic. I have no doubt 
that Robespierre was a strict logician. An old friend 
of his, living not long ago in Paris, always insisted on 
his having been a man very amiable in society. The 
carpenter's &mily, with whom he lived, had no fault 
to find with him; on the contrary, liked him. It 
was merely this : ' Here are a set of aristocrats and 
traitors tlureatening to prevent that regeneration of 
France which is to produce unheard-of happiness to 
its entire population; shall the few suffer, or the 
many?' With the matter thus logically put, could a 
clear-headed man hesitate, even though he might be 
rather sorry that the business of keeping thingp right 
lay with the guillotine? So also of the late king of 
Naples. I have it on good evidence that he was 
possessed of some princely qualities: he could occa- 
sionally do a kind thing in a very polite way. 
But — it appearing to him that anarchy and all its 
miseries necessarily fiowed from the principles of the 
liberals, he felt bound to silence ^ese gentlemen. 
Their prisons were no doubt unpleasant; bat better 
that a few troublesome advocates and professors 
should suffer a little inconvenience, than that the 
whole nation should be damaged. In losing a kingdom, 
such a man is merely the victim of a syllogism. The 
whole case of those old-fashioned despotic princes in 
Eastern Europe against reform of the state, is nothing 
but a spasm of logic ' From a constitution there can 
only flow confusion and general ruin. Severe meMiirea 



98 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



against all the partisans of a constitntion are but a 
duty we owe to society at large. It is but choosing 
the less of two evils.' And so they co on as long as 
they can, sternly faithful to a painful logic; till some 
day — owing perhaps to some external and unforeseen 
accident — they find themselves nowhere. In ^ aU 
these cases, there might be—probably was, or is — 
great error in the premises. But, unluckily, the 
premises are always what is least carefully looked to 
m these arguments. Anyhow, the premises being 
accepted, the logical process following was irresistible. 
The poor monarch felt bound in reason, if not in con- 
science, to protect lus people from the consequences 
of false political principles. In his subsequent crown- 
loss wanderings, he must have some rather bewildered 
feelings occasionally about the eternal fitness of 
thinjgs. 

That very naughty error, which we see so con- 
tinually operating among the adherents of other 
faiths tluui our own, the doing or permitting of a 
small evil for tiie sake of a greater good, is wholly 
traceable to lo^c The g^tlemen suuty of it see the 
evil as the mmor proposition, and the choice to a 
syllogistic intellect becomes irresistiblo. It is on this 
yeiy principle that the persecutor proceeds when he 
commits a cruelty on one or a few persons, in order to 
prevent worse calamities to a greater number. The 
Benthamian doctrine of the Greatest Happiness of the 
Greatest Number has the same basia Honest Jeremy 
calculated that it oould not be followed out with- 
out injury and suffering to some ; but, then, the 
balance of advantage to the Multitude! He felt, 
indeed, that there was something not quite com- 
mendable in this givins up of even the Few to a harsh 
fate; but he connived to hush all misgivings in a 
confused belief that they were ultimately to be bene- 
fited also. It would have been better to commend 
them to the consolation which Mr Emerson points 
out in his late work on the Conduct of Life, * When 
a man is the victim of his fate, has sciatica in his 
loins and cramp in his mind; a club-foot and a club 
in his wit ; a sour face and a selfish temper ; a strut 
in his gait and a conceit in his affection; or is ground 
to powder by the vice of his race ; he is to rally on his 
relation to the universe, which his ruiu benefits.' 

Now and then, a man reputed wise or clever comes 
out with some strangely absurd action or demons- 
tration, that belies his character, and astounds his 
friends. Nobody professes to be able to understand 
it. Some charitaUy surmise softening of the brain. 
Others profess to suspect a profound policy for some 
ultimate object. But, on tne whole, mystery pre- 
vails. Now, there is generally a very simple expla- 
nation to such marveu. The man is merely acting 
under stress of syllogism. Certain data have pressS 
themselves on his attention ; a peculiar line of duty 
is presented to him. There is some greater evil to he 
avoided, or some greater good to be attained. Always 
there is some bsJance s&uck, the major proposition 
of course carrying the day. Possibly, the data or 
premises involve some fallacy ; but that is the ordi- 
nary case. The misfortune is in the logic, and the 
sensibility to its requirements. Had the man been 
a dull worker in the gin-horse course of society, 
he would have been Bale, Being able to make a 
deduction, he Mis. 

Is not loffic, then, a good thing? Would men be 
in general better without it? Or, if good, how arc 
they to use it safely? It is a good wing, because 
it is a means of arriving at truth, and men ought, of 
course, to continue using it ; but they ought to use it 
with understanding. The mischiefs m question have 
all of them a source apart from logic ; it lies, as I 
have said, in the premises. Men assume something as 
granted to be right and sound, and draw deductions 
from that, whereas it is perhaps not right and sound ; 
hence their reasonings can only lead wem into error. 
Or they assume that certain things will necessarily 



produce good effects, when, perhaps, they are only 
calculated to result in mischiel. Let them look weD 
to their data, and they will seldom come to wrom 
conclusions. This, you will say, is difficult : it k 
But if there be a want of light here, another punk 
may perhaps be found. We may always be peneet^ 
certain, that if any conclusion involves conduct or 
even suppositions that go against an^ of the groit 
behests of our moral nature — if they mvolve ciueUy 
or any other sort of injustice towards our fellow* 
creatures — if they propose our acting towards otheB 
in any manner in which we ourselves should not lib 
to be treated — they arc wrong from the basis, 9ai 
should be rejected. Even if tiiey only dictate a '^ 



of conduct involving some pointed departure from tki I 
ordinary courses oi society, we may well hesitate to 
adopt them, as there is always a presumption tint 
the Mass is wiser than the Unit. 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

CIIAPTXa XIII.— X0H8IBDB OS C&ESPIGNT. 

The day after Dick's visit to Acacia House was <m 
of great anxiety to him ; partly on account o£ ths 
expected letter from Miss ^Backboard, denouncing Ui 
conduct towards the terrestrial globe, and partfy hj 
reason of the singular secret he nad discovered cofr 
ceming Coimt (^tsuchakoff, which he did not knov 
whether he ought to disclose to his friend M. ds 
Crespigny or not. He spoiled several excellent he&k 
of hair that morning with his indecisive hands, mi. 
in one instance, clipped some portion of a genttfr- 
man's ear off, with no better excuse for the misadveft- 
ture than that his hair and his skin were really n 
very much of the same colour, that he couldn't td 
which was which ; a remark which did not by tgj 
means reconcile the Fresh-complexioned to hia nte. 

In the afternoon, the foreign gentlemen bean to 
arrive in their saloon in unusual numbers, and IHoik^ 
attendance was required there for the handing of j 
coffee, which it was not their custom to take excc{i 
when a long sitting was anticipated. There was Ym | 
little speechifying, and what there was, was carried ot . 
in suboned tones, but there was a considerable displsy | 
of documents with figures on them, which the youth per 
ceived were not sta&ments of accounts, but statimi 
of armed men. There was to be a rising some^^ion^ 
and that upon a very extensive scale, and Hcrr Sinful 
brow was weightier with purpose than usual, and ths 
fire in Signor Castigliano's eyes burned fierce flud 
luridly. M. de Crespigny carried on a brisk cofR- 
spondence with Count Gotsuchakoff, and a soon cC 
times the Russian bent forward and held the slip of 
paper in iiie gas-flame imtil it was completely eon* 
sumed. So deeply interested, indeed, were the wfaols 
company in the business on hand that afternoon, thlt 
even the presence of Dick was regarded witii aone 
little impatience, and the sjicakers would drop their 
voices and linger on their words, if he entered Ike 
room even for a moment, like men who havo that to 
say which concerns no interloper. 

Imagine, therefore, the universal confusion whsB 
Dick suddenly burst their door open with a tremen- 
dous bang, and rushed into the saloon punni ed 
by the furious barber. Half-a-dozen, at least, started 
to their feet, and placed their hands in their breast- 
pockets, as though to draw forth some hidden 
weapon ; two made for the door, and fastened it; 
one threw up the window, as though about to 
trust himself to the chance of a twenty-foot &D; 
while Count Gk>tsuchakoff, with naked dagger, efcn 
flew at the trembling lad as he embraced the knees of 
M. de Crespigny. That gentleman, however, inter 
posed his arm with a gesture the Russian could not 
pretend to misinterpret; and rolling up, map-like^ 
the document which lay before him witn particulir 



ii 



OHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



99 



ess and delibfsratioD, reqaested Mr Tipsaway 
in the oompany to wliat fortunate circnmstanoe 
re indebted for the honour of his unexpected 

ipsaway shook his fist at his apprentice Tsry 
md with lipe as pallid with fear as they had 

moment oef ore with annr, expressed his 
an for the intrusion; the roreign gents must 
lardon him, he was sure, when he told them 
had just received wozd that one of his best 
in, Miss Backboard, of AiMieia House — well 
to the first families — had withdrawn her 
ge, on account of the infamous conduct of the 
reprobate now before them; his ri^teous 
bion had led him to chastise the youtii with a 
atched hastily from among those on sale in his 
op, and the ungrateful boy, instead of kissing 
, had had the temerity, in escaping from it, to 
the present company. 

7e the room, sir,^ exclaimed M. de Crespigny 
; 'we have nothinjg to do with your Made- 
t Backboards, and tne rest of it.' 
ird clung to his protector's knees appealingly. 

boy may stay, added the Frencnman; 'ne 
mds nothing of what we say.' 
! were sevml murmurs from those present, 
Russian wrote a few words rapidly down, and 
the slip to M. de Crespigny. 
:e the poor boy,' replied he, *and beg this 
3f you tor him for my sake.' To Ghytsucha- 
wrote : * Fear not ; I will answer for the boy 

business of the day was therefore resumed, and 
ilent at the feet of De Crespigny, the astonished 
i found himself in possession of the details of a 
d insurrection, the importance of which was 
ev«n to his tminstructea mind. The sitting did 
ak up till a late hour. M. de Crespigny had 
3ehind the rest, to beg off his young favourite 
s impending punishment, and was about to 
.e room for m&t puinpose, when Dick suddenly 
he door, and threw himself on his knees, 
sak your language, M. do Crei^eny, and have 
ray word, or nearly so, of what nas been said 
i. 

lappy boy,' exclaimed the count, seizing his 
h a grasp of iron ; * you know not what you 
>ne, nor what penalty you have incurred. I 
1,* hissed he bct^'ecn his teeth, and with an 
benmess in his usually mild eyes — ' I tell you 
'e spoken your own death-doom ! ' ' 
kve heard you many times before,' returned 
. quiet imterrified tones, 'and I have never 
ed of aught that has been said to anybody. 
kve been kind to mc, sir, and I would not 
irour friends for a kingdom.' 
, boy, I do believe you ; but this matter does 
wnh me ; does not affect mc only, but thou- 
I tell you, since you have heard so much, 
it needs die ! ' 

U determined, grim as severest Fate, and yet 
melancholy in his features bom of pity and 
ess, De Crespigny drew the boy from his 
iad held him at arm's length. 
. you eo quietly with me, and be judged bv 
nexorable, incredulous men, or shall 1 stab 
re ? O lies, how bitter is your fruit ! O 
y, how fatal is the pass to which thou hast 
< this child ! Fool, fool ! why not at least have 
.thine o^'n deceit without making me partaker 
What besotted vanity could have consumed 

ir, it was no foolish vanity, but gratitude. I 
ed my knowled^ only for your ^od, for your 
md for that of tnose you love. I tell you of 
only to warn you against another far more 
(US than I. There is one who hears all your 
m do not dream of.' 



* Who, boy ?— who ?' cried De Crespigny in a hoarse 
whisper. * Has this barber dared to tujm traitor? Are 
there spies without ?' 

' No, sir ; there are spies within. Count Gotsuch- 

akoff ' The boy involuntarily stopped, so awful 

was the expression of the Frenchman's face as Dick 
pronounced this name ; it seemed to become sea-green 
with rage and hatred. *■ Beware what you say, dov,' 
munnurcd he with difficulty, so choked was his voice 
with passion — 'beware: your wends are bullets — 
daggers. What of the Russian? What of the deaf 
andaumb ? ' 

*Hc is neither deaf nor dumb,' returned Richard 
solemnly ; ' I heard him speak not forhr-eight hours 
ago. He never bums those slips on which you write ! ' 

' You lie, you lie, boy ; I have seen Hini bum them 
with my own eyes !' 

' Not so, sir ; he bums other slips instead. I saw 
him do so thrice this very fevemne. He keeps the 
real ones in his pocket-book. If ne were searched 
this moment, you would find them there.' 

* Great Heaven ! can this be tne ? ' exclaimed De 
Crespigny. * The nlace, the very hour, he holds in 
our handwriting ; the money and arms he knows, to a 
franc, a musket. The men — Heaven, and the 
women, the poor helpless women that this monster 
has the power to make desolate. Give me the brandy, 
boy. I can't believe it. For thirty years, a spy and 
playing mute — for thirty years! zet some such 
wreteh we must have had amongst us. So many 
plans betrayed, so many schemes abortive ! Once 
more, good youth, upon your sacred soiU, is this the 
truth? Answer as you would answer at the judgment- 
seat, did this man speak ? ' 

' He did ; so help me Heaven ! ' 

M. de Crespigny filled another dass with brandy, 
and tossed it off ; then put his doak on with deliber- 
ation, and passed out of the roouL The front-shop 
was tenanttess, but he delayed there to adl the 
barber, and extract from him, not without difficulty, 
a promise that his apprentice should not be beaten. 
Then parting, with a polite good-night, and even an 
uncommon gaiety, the Frenchman len; the house. 

The next day (Thursday), and the day after that, 
the foreim gentlemen frequented Mr lipsawaVs as 
usual, wiUi one single exception, and the confusion of 
tongues in the smoking-saloon was as great as ever. 
On the third day, the barber inquired of Herr Singler 
what had become of Count Gotsuchakoff, to which 
the German answered that he did not know, and that 
his friends were getting exceedingly anxious about 
him. That same evening, as Mr Tipsaway was pick- 
ing out the plums of me Dispatch newspaper, and 
distributing them, as his custom was, on Saturday 
nights, to we household in general, he came upon this 
remarkable paragraph : 

' Mysterious murder, — Last night, as the polioeman 
on duty was passing down Blank Street, Poplar — a 
rather unfrequented part of that neighbourhood— he 
perceived some person crouching down behind a hoard- 
mg, as if for the purpose of concealment. Upon tuminc 
his bull's eye upon this object, he found it to be a deaa 
body, and by the dress and complexion, apparently 
that of a foreigner. Being carried to the police station, 
and examined, there was found a small wound in the 
left breast, as if made with a stiletto or other shaip 
and narrow instrument, which it is the surgeons 
opinion could not have been inflicted by the deceased 
himself. A valuable watch and some money were 
found upon his person, as well as a pocket-book with 
various entries in it in the Russian tongue. The body 
had the appearance of having lain in the position in 
which it was found for several days. At present, the 
affair is enveloped in mystery, but the police are 
actively engaged in ite elucidation.' 

* Upon my word of honour,' exclaimed Mr Tipsaway, 
slappmg his thigh, ' I'm half inclined to believe that 

I that must be our poor old dummy. At all evflBii^ 



100 



CHAMBERS^S JOURNAL. 



I 'U go to Poplar this very night, and set my mind 
at ease. Frizzle — no, you 're a fool, and will be all 
ni^t about it— Smith, you run out, and get me a 
cab this instant. Smith, dtm't vou hear ? Why, what 
the deuce is the matter ^Hth the boy? — he 's all of a 
quiver.' 

' I don't wonder at it,' interposed Mrs Tipsaway : 
* the heat of this room is something quite insupport- 
able. If you will just leave him to himself, wmle I 
open the window, he '11 be right in half a minute, and 
by the time vou have put on your boots.' 

* Smith, what do you know about this ? ' whispered 
the woman vehemently, as soon as they were left 
alone. * There has been some foul-pla^ with this 
Russian, boy, and you know something of it. I heard 
you talidng to De Crespigny on Wc^esday night ; 
ay, that I did. I tola you what would come of 
trying to deceive Martha Tipsaway. I may save you, 
even yet, you wretched boy,' continued the barber's 
wife, with a vagueness of patronage that curiosity, 
however powerful, could scarcely excuse ; * only tell 
me all you know, from beginning to ' 

' Will you get me that cab. Smith, or will you 
not?' roared Mr Tipsaway, reappearing with his 
great-coat and comforter. * What is the meaning of 
this conduct, sir ? Why are you always fainting, and 
my wife always engaged in loosening your necker- 
chief?' 

Dick snatched up his cap, and rushed into the street 
without one word of reply. 

The clock hands in the front-shop were then 
together at the eleventh hour, and Mr Tipsaway 
calculated that before that hour struck his vehicle 
would have arriveiL 

* I believe that that is the stunidest boy we ever 
had,' exclaimed the barber peevisnly, at the expira- 
tion of the first ten minutes. 

'I don*t agree with you,' replied his lady curtly, 
not lifting her eyes from the Hausekeepet's Be$t 
Adviser f of which recondite volume, however, she 
had not mastered a single sentence : ' you might 
thank your stars if you were only one-half as sharp, 
Mr T.' 

* Sharp or not,' observed Mr Tipsaway, maddened 
by delay — * sharp or not, I '11 give nim such a supper 
of black- thorn before he goes to bed this night as he 
will find rather indigestible, as sure as ' 

' As sure as you are a wise man, Mr T.,' interrupted 
his consort, * there ; you couldn't finish your sentence 
better than that. And not beins a yrae man, why, 
you won't give it himj simply oecause the lad is 
never coming back again to give you a chance.' 

* Never coming back a^ain ! ' echoed Mr Tipsaway, 
sinking into an arm-chair as though overwheuued by 
this intelligence ; * why, he 's got two tortoise-shell 
combs in his pocket almost new. I 've owed that boy 
a tanning these five weeks — one day or another — and 
put it off, and put it off, and put it off, through good 
nature, and because I thought it best to pay him 

for all at once, and now lor, if I Wl but 

known.' 

C H A P T E B XIV. 
THK XTSTBBT OF MH J y B !<. 

London by night ! What a brilliant and animated 
vision to those who, knowing nought of its guilt and 
wretchedness, are whirled ^m comfortable homes to 
gori^us thoatree, and mark the ceaseless throng from 
Iheir carriage windows as though it were itself but a 
scenic pageants What a world of gilded vice and gay 
excitement to those who seek it, purse in hand, and 
with heated faces carefully averted from its darker 
side ! • .What a wilderness of woe to those who, house- 
less and moneyless, pace wearily its splendid streets, 
without one of its million lights disclosmg to them the 
features of a friend ! For such, no loneliness of desert, 
no solitariness . of sailless sea, can make so utter an 



isolation as that infinite ocean of unknown fellow- 
creatures. The heart of London throbs indeed, as has 
been said, but to the poor wanderer in its stony waji 
in a manner far other than human. Among a thoosaod 
faces there is not one that says unto him, * I pity you;* 
not one, *■ What makes you look so wretched . and so 
wan ?' Pleasure is there — real pleasure — with bri^ 
eyes and radiant cheeks; and a hideous and unml 
Pleasure pursues him with eyes that are 8inrii-laiq9% 
with cheeks that are paintcHd skin. Wealth is then^ 
in profusion, in superfluity, made hideous bv oontsast 
witn the abject Poverty that stoops to pick the orange- 
peel from the kennel Prudence is there, witli msay 
a cardinal \'irtue, all with suspicious looks and bat- 
toned pockets, and putting their confidence in Order 
only, who is there also, Uue-coated, and with tnu- 
cheon in himd. But as for Human Sympathy, for any 
sij^ of Common Brotherhood to be encountered in six 
uules of human countenances in Loudon by night — 
you must apply to the relieving-officer of the district, 
who undertakes the supply of those articles; and 
mind, wanderer, that it is his district, and that you 
do not ])ut off the application until after business 
hours! 

Poor Dick ran on and on for several minutes, only 
intent upon settinc as many streets as posuble 
between tdmself and the too inquiring Mrs Tipsaway, 
and accompanied the whole of that distance by the 
imace of Coimt Gotsuchakoff, as he was found behmd 
the hoarding in Poplar with the stiletto- wound in hii 
left breast. Something had prompted the boy to avoid 
M. de Crespigny, ever since that Wednesday nidit 
when he had revealed to him the treachery ofni 
associate, and now he felt a sort of comfort in that hs 
had done so : it was something that he had not toaifihed 

that hand, which Dick did not dare to finish the 

thought, but sped on the faster upon his way, as thoq^ 
to leave it and the phantasm which dogged his noe 
behind him. The further ho ran, however, the men 
perceptible and hideous it grew, and it was not till 
he had entered one of those temples dedicated to the 
grosser Bacchus, and drank off a glass of gin, that he 
found out how largely ei^ustion and weariness enter 
into the composition of the impalpable. One bad 
spirit, in fact, drove out the other ; but the new azrival 
was only too familiar with poor Dick by this time, 
and agreed with him perfectly welL 

Kerreshed and strengthened, at least temporarily, 
the lad inquired of a poUceman where he was, and 
receiving the requisite mtelligence, accompanied with 
a gruff advioe to take himself home, avaued hwn^f , 
so far as he was able, of that recommendatioii. He 
retraced his steps through the now fast emptyiag 
streets — for he had been hitherto running due. east 
— towards Golden S(][uare, a place he had not visited 
since his emancipation from china, many immthf 
ago, and standing in the silent roadway then, 
contemplated his former home. No sucdi feelingi 
tlirongei his bosom as are said to affect yomg 
gentlemen of property ui)on revisiting the pateraiS 
residences from which tney have been absent for 
a long vacation or so. There was no old and 
favourite dog to treat him with indifference as a 
stranger, or—still more objectionably — ^to tear him 
where he stood. Neither coidd he have been com- 
pared to some prodigal about to piteously appeal for 
any husks that might chance to be going in his uncle's 
establishment, for he had no intention of humbling 
himself before that relative. Still, as it was almost 
the only house in mighty London which contained 
any weU- wisher of his, ne did look up at it, and parti- 
cularly at Mrs Trimming's window, with an interest 
that, at least, he did not entertain for the next door. 
It was a beautiful starlit night, and he perceived 
that the housekeeper's blind was down, and the gas- 
light in her chamber extinguished ; the good old lady 
was evidently gone to bed— respectable white-sheeted 
bed, about which no dreams of houseless wanderersi 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



101 



with their last twopence spent in gin, were likely 
to mingle. If he threw tip a pebble, it would prob- 
ably omy break the glass, and not her dumber, for 
Mrs Trimming was tl^t sort of lady who appreciates 
her supper and sleeps sound. 

Husn! who is that who softly opens the next 
window, ^w window— for Unde Ingram and Adolphus 
both sleep on the other side of the house — and 
gases forth upon the sleeping city and the quiet 
rtara? Their neavenly light slides down u^n her 
golden hair, as though it had been watcmng for 
some such resting-place, and bathes in those tremu- 
lous eyes wherein stands the dew. It is Dick's angel 
watching over him, although she knows it not, 
and suggesting what is right by her mere presence. 
He wm not become a vagabond — ^thinks he — ^but 
for the sweet sake of her will ask shelter, even 
at such an hour as that, of Mr Mickleham. Her 
face is leaning on her fair round arms, and she 
is thinking — perhaps of Dick himself. Why has 
he never written to her, according to his promise? 
Why has he not written to his mother? Sister 
Maggie is in her dinner-dress, and it is not a black 
one. Thank God for that ; at least, then, his mother 
lives. But why are they two in London ? — for he well 
knows that Maggie and she are not apart — why in 
Golden Square among his enemies ? He longs to know 
all this ; and by a whisper of his sister's name, a 
motion of his hands, a stepping out into the full light 
from underneath the shadow of the railings, he might 
hove known it alL But, alas ! the black sheep has nis 
nride, his obstinacy, his egotism, as the white sheep 
has; and Rascality can stand upon its own dignity 
as ndioalously (if it were not for the pity of n) as 
Respectability itself. 

As Hwas, Maggie even saw him crouching there 
— some abject wretch lashed by the bitter night- wind, 
as she deemed — and disappearing for an instant, she 
came forth again and stretcning out her beautiful white 
arm and neck, cast out a shimmering something 
wMch olanged upon the stones close oy him, and 
then the casement closed, and she retired — her last 
good deed for that day being done. Dick took the 
nalf-crown, and kissihg it, put it away in the same 
pocket that held lus other treasures — the lock of 
nair and handwriting of Miss Mickleham — and creep- 
ing o£f abashed, fled westward towards the homo of 
the old derk. 

The population to which the policemen had before 
seemed to bear such insignificant prox^^^^^^^ were 
now, in their turn, outnumbered by the guard- 
ians ci the ni|^t, whose sauntering and heavy tread 
oould be distinguished on the pavement— so still 
the nif^ had grown — from the drunken stagger of 
the wvidler, and the slithering footstep of the 
wretchsd women who still haunted the comers of the 
streets - AH sounds were mMpified and repeated b^ 
the aoeonoiiodating echoes, n an oath broke forth, it 
edified eam far distant from those to which it was 
moially addressed ; and if a laugh, it pierced with its 
snrill mockery unwiUing hearers half a street away. 
Diek heard two verses of a bacchanalian song sung 
out before he met the solitary singer, who was walk- 
ing quickly, too, as though he thought half-past one 
wae time to be at home, if not in bed. 

*We can't eat any more, 

We can't eat any more. 

We can't eat any mo-o-OTt 

But vt ^U have some more to drink. 

We won't go home till morning, 
We won't go home till morning. 
We won't go home till mor — ning, 
And perhaps not even thtii^ 

Dick uttered a cry of delight as the roysterer 
IMSed him, for it was no other thap Mr Jones. That 
gentleinan, on his part, was not less surprised at the 



rencontre, although when he was put in possession 
of the young gentleman's forlorn condition (without, 
however, the particulars of it, and least of aU, with the 
immediate cause of Dick's departure from the barber^s), 
he was certainly lees delighted. 

*Well, you must come home with me of course 
for to-night, Dick; but you must not expect a 
palace, my good sir. We are spacious when we 
do get there, but we are a precious long wav up. If 
our apartments give you the idea of havmg been 
taken unfurnished, you must not be surprised, 
Master Richard. We have preferred to wait for 
the very best things that can be got, rather than 
to be supplied at once by upholstering mediocrity.' 
While the young man, wrapped in his loose cloak, 
thus discoursed sardonically concerning the lodgings 
whither th^ were boimd, Dick felt, in spite ofnim- 
self, a shudder creeping over him, as he recognised in 
the speaker an unmistakable likeness to the popular 
representations of no other than the Enemy of Man- 
kind. Alas ! there was no doubt about it ; there 
were the high shoulders, the mocking eyes, the demo- 
niacal smile that had haunted many a dream of his, 
and, for all he could see to the contrary, the elongated 
ears might be touching the roof of that hat, and the 
tail be wound like a rope around that body. It 
seemed only of a piece with Mr Jones's Satanic cha- 
racter, that he should appear pleased with the impres- 
sion that he had evidently produced upon his jjroung 
friend, and should give expression to a prokm^^ 
* Ha ! ha ! ' (of a demoniac character), which, beginning 
at the top of the Hiwmarket, seemed to die away in 
the neighbourhood of Apsley House. 

* Tou seem tired and out of spirits, my poor Dick,' 
observed Mr Jones, unlocking a street door; *but 
wc are at home at last If Queen Lnddora has 
not retired to her imx>erial couch, we will make her 
give us supper.' 

Up ana still up they toiled, until they came 
to tne fourth story, which was composed of one 
enormous chamber, lit by a sky-lijB;ht, and other- 
wise rather overprovidea with windows, and of 
another very smaH apartment without any window 
at alL They entered the former without knocking, 
and a rather pretty young woman, who had been 
sitting by the fire, came fom'ard with a yawn to 
welcome Mr Jones. Thoudi she was not so very pretty, 
nor he, as has been saio, so divinely beautiful, yet 
Dick, who gazed upon them imobserved by the lady, 
was instantaneously reminded, by thieir embrace, of the 
meeting of Cupid and Psyche. The latter, it is true, 
was in a yellow dressing-gown, and without her 
wreath and wings, and the former wore his hat more 
upon one side uian became a deity of such a reputa- 
tion as the god of Love — but there they were, never- 
theless, as Dick had seen them pictured scores of 
times. 

* Lucidora, I have brought a young gentleman, who 
wants some supper. ^& Richard Arbour, let me 
introduce you to Mrs Jones.' 

The start which that yoimg lady gave at this 
announcement, before she bounded into the little 
room to reassume her gown, wiped out the Psyche 
from Dick's retina, and presented in her stead Diana 
surprised at her ablutions by Acteon ; Mr Jones, 
too, only wanted the horns to l)e the counterpart of 
that ill-fated hunter. 

The lad sunk feebly into a chair, ^uite worn out by 
fatigue and want of food, and not without a suspicion 
that his wits were leaving him. 

' Here is beer, my lad, and here is bread and cheese,' 
cried his host, producing those articles from a cup- 
board: 'they will put a little life into you while 
supper is getting ready. These herrings are only 
waiting to be cooked ' 

* Those herrings are for to-morrow,'' observed Luci- 
dora, rea^ypearing from the inner room, in a some- 
what more decorated style of dress. 'How cotdd 



102 



GHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



you bring the yoang gentleman here at this time in 
the morning?' 

* Wdl, I could have bronght him in a cab, if I had 
bad the money, but as it was, he brought himself, 
although with difficulty. He's tired to death, and 
must lodge here for the night at leasts' 

'Lodge where f^ inquir^ the young lady, with a 
not imperceptible toes of her raven ringlets. 

'Rebecca the Jewess, as I live,' thoujsht Dick, 
' when defying the Templar Brian de Bois Guilbert ! ' 

* In that comer yonder, and in Cleopatra's galley,' 
replied Mr Jones sonorously, pointing to a something 
b^ween a boat and a horse-hair sofa which stood at 
the extremity of the apartment. * Pillowed on the 
leopard-skin of Bacchus, and covered with Hamlet's 
cloak, and the robe of Cardinal Wolsey when a-dying, 
he will need not the bed of down, nor the mattress 
said to be of horse-hair, but which too conmionly is 
stuffed with wooL' 

*Now, don't go on so like a ranting play-actor,' 
returned Luddora peevishly ; * don't you see that you 
quite frighten the lad. I wish, young gentleman, we 
had sconething better to offer you than cheese.' 

* Give him rabbit, the rabbit of Wales,' observed Mr 
Jones with di^gnity. * I think I could even eat a piece 
of such an anmial myself.' 

* Toasted cheese, at two in the morning ! ' exclaimed 
the hostess ; ' why, you will both have the nightmare.' 

And in Dick's case that prophecy was certainly 
fnimiod to the letter. 

He woke up, in the galley, from a deadly combat 
with Mark Antony and the Prince of Darkness, to 
find his host and hostess at breakfast, and that it 
was half -past ten o'clock on Sunday morning. 

So exhausted was he even after that long rest, that 
he did not feel equal to conversation, but lay upon 
h» extempore bed with half-shut eyes, taking lascy 
note of the apartment and its contents. The quantity 
of Uiy^t in the room, intercepted only at the side- 
win£w8 by half-a-dozen very tall chixnneys, together 
with the vast expanse of house-roofis seen from where 
he lay, gave him the notion of being in a gjlass-box 
placed upon the very top of London, and that it was 
lucky he had his clothes on, for that getting out of 
bed would have otherwise been a public iminropriety. 
There was a machine like an enormous magic lantern 
immediately opposite to him, from which depended 
a vast black curtain. The carpetless floor was 
strewed with theatrical dresses of all descriptions, 
and several roughly coloured scenes, as for a dramatic 
representation, were leaning against the walls. The 
chair upon which he had thrown his coat overnight 
he now perceived to be three wooden steps paintedto 
represent the base of a statue ; and Mr Jones hims^ 
was seated not upon a chair but upon a priestess's 
tripod. Nothing that he saw, in fact, appeared to 
be real or natural except the herrings, and those 
were disappearing from the scene with pantomimic 
velocity. 

'I say, just you leave one for the boy,' remarked 
Lacidora, as Mr Jones evinced a disposition to attack 
the final fish. * Since you mean him to stay here, you 
mustjzive him enough to eat, although it 's my belief 
he will never pay for his keep.' 

* Mrs T.,' responded the other — and * Why does he 
call her Mrs T., I wonder?' thought the attentive 
Dick — * you Women know nothmg whatever of 
business, except its mere decorations — its accessories ; 
you understand the flying buttresses and the capitals 
well enough, but the wiSls uid the pillars must be 
left to the great anhitect Man. What did Sunstroke 
give you per head for fairies when you were Titania?' 

* Just five shiUinss, and out of that I had to find 
the eauze and span^es.' 

* Which we used afterwards, once or twice, upon 
other occasions,' remarked the other drilv. ' Well, if 
mere supers fetch a crown apiece, what do you 
think of Ganymede being carried off by the Eagle ? 



There 's a bird-stuffer in Hdbom who wiU land ins 
one for two-^nd-six, which will be just the tlmi^ 
What do you think of Hyacinth with a Dutch, dumb 
in his hand playing at the Discus with ApdUo, eh? 
That young fellow would look uncommonly well i^mb 
a By the by,' cried Mr Jones, interrupting him- 
self, and turning a little pale, * it is just withm tbe 
bounds of posaibilily that he ma^ not be a ziove% is 
the market after alL Sunstroke is always on the look- 
out, I know. — Dick, my boy ; Dick, I say, are yon 
awake? We want to know whether yoa have enr 
been on a slide.' 

* On a slide ? ' ejaculated the boy, sittisff up in tia 
galley and rubbing his eyes. ' O yes, I nave bees 
on a slide many scores of times.' 

* 7^ deuce you have,' replied Mr Jones in a tons d 
disappointment ; ' and yet you haven't been in towat 
twelvemonth, eh ? There you see, Luddora, didn't I 
tell you how they would jump at such a model « 
that?' 

* I have never been on a slide in town,' replied IHok 
with simplicity ; * only in winter-time, at McflB 
Dot and Uarriwun's, there was a pond ' 

At this explanation, Lucidora went off into a 
convulsion of laughter, and performed an act d 
hysterical applause with her feet ; Mr Jones, forget- 
ting he was ona triood, and not on a chair with a hick 
to it, fell backwards in a fit of frantic delist, aid 
brought his head into sharp contact with the flooi; 
while Dick threw off the tiger-skin railway-rug wd 
the red and black cloaks which served for bm rlnthm, 
and joined in the contagious laugh which he h^Mlf 
had raised. He was about to perform his tfwWt 
which consisted simply of putting on his coat — whn 
Mr Jones pointed to an enormous and hidbly ons* 
mental metal basin, and made si^ps — ^bemg at yet 
choked with merriment — that he misht, if he had a 
wish that way, therein wash his face and handL 
Thankfully availing himself of this permission, theyoalh 
was about to plunge his ruddy countenance into^ 
water for the second time, when he was arreted hw a 
cry of admiration from his host. ' One moment, Dflk 
— ^just stop as you are one moment Look at him, 
Lucidora — do just lo<^ at him before he leepe iolo 
the flood. Don't you remember the young nfminiMil 
party who, having once beheld himself in tiie lifod 
element, could never afterwards be peraoieded to 
admire anvbodv else ? He 's Narcissus to tin rarj 
life, is Dick, and a couple of guineas out of Sunaitnke^s 
pocket, if he is a shulins. That 'U do, Dick : g» it 
again, and never mind us. 

Dick did * go it' again, as directed, but not altofflftsr 
without * minding' It was a considerable triaflora 
youth of his OK^est disposition to be stopped in bis 
ablutions, and have the attention of a strange kdy 
drawn to hie shut eyes and dripping features. 

' When vou 're washed, Dick, and had your hmk- 
fast, and if you have nothing else particular to dflb I 
want you to put on a dress that will admiralty baeoMS 
you, and to pennit me to take your picture wHli that 
machine yonder.' 

* And what, in the name of wonder, is it?' enad 
Dick in an agony of curiosity; ' and how is it thi* I 
seem to have seen you and Mrs Jones m, ao mmf 
other places and doing so many things. It's fieiy 
foolish, I know, but somehow or other it strikes me 
that I was at ^our wedding.' 

Upon this, Dick's host and hostess had another aooeai 
of delirious joy, lasting several minutes, after which 
the former took down a couple of stereosoomc slidei^ 
and handed them to his young friend. 'Vou have 
not only seen our wedding, DicK — at least in many a 
shop-window — ^but the cEnstening of our first and 
only babv. Where 'a the babjr, Lucidora ? Why, the 
poor child is actuaUv standmg on its head in tiie 
waste-basket ! I perrorm^ the ceremony myself in 
full canonicals, wnich Shadraoh would not let sa 
have, by the by, under three-and-six. We abo do all 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



103 






the ciaasical pose8 plasUquet for Mr Sunstroke. Nay, 
I have done— and a rezy difficult job it was— the 
▼eiy Fiend himself, as you may have seen.' 

'In short,' said Dick, at a loss what name to give 
to this unexampled calUnA, ' you are ' 

' Fhotograpliee«,' r^pliea ^ Jones, pulling up his 
shirt-collar — * yes, and we flatter ourselves at the nead 
of the profession. We are models for a stereoscopic 
photographer, and you shall join us, and become a 
model too.' 



DEVIL'S DUST. 

LooKivo at a map of the West Biding, we finda town 
named Batley, situated in the midst of, and about 
equidistant from the five great towns of Leeds, Brad- 
fxad^ Halifax, Wakefield, and Hnddersfield ; it is the 
cenize of a district comprising a group of villages. 
rapidly growing into towns, in which the thing caUea 
'oevils dust' is chiefly made. Dewsbury would 
peihaps be afi&ontcd at being named second to Batley 
in importance; but those who know best, say that 
DewBDurv may claim precedence for bl^kets, but 
not for oust. Throughout these villages, the atmo- 
sphere is bad for the lungm and the pervading odour, if 
not exactly *a very ancient and nsh-like smell,' is 
certainly ancient and old-dothes like. This is the 
extract of Shoddy and of Mungo, Let etymologists 
settle the origin of these names, if they can; the 
fobstances themselves are of unmistakable reality. 
Shoddy is a mass of woolly particles, obtained by 
tearing or * deviling' vip old wonted stockings* 
blankets, rugs, and carpets ; while mun^o is a simi&r 
but somewhat better material, obtained by tearing up 
old woollen garments and tailors' cuttings. The coat 
of Locd Peerless, the livery of Jeames tibe footman, 
the buttoned jadcet of Alphonse the page, the carpet 
of his lady's drawing-room, the worsted stockings of 
John the jgardeuer— iQl, when fitted for nothing dse, 
are consigned to the BaUey district, where they 
aoquire a new lease of existence, and claim a place 
anaag the useful thin^ available to us. And let us 
not assume that this is a trifliing matter; for if Mr 
Jnbb of Batley, who has recently written a pamphlet 
oa this matter, is right in his statistics, there are no 
less than fifhr million pounds of woollen rags now 
annually worked up in this way in Yorkshire, prodn- 
oms nearly forfy million pounds of munso and shoddy, 
of ue value of eight hundred thousand pounds ster- 
liij^ As the raw material does not cost half of this, 
W6 mav perhaps safely say that the * devil's dust' 
brii:^ half a million annually to Yorkshire in wages 
and profit. 

It was about half a century ago that Yorkshiremen 
began to conceive the idea of dootoring up old 
woollen rags, and using them with new wool lor the 
manufacture of doth. Or the idea may have been 
formed earlier, but not realised until then. A rag- 
flifll was set up at Batley, to tear the material into 
frsgments ; ta&x one at Brighouse, and so on. A 
machine had long been empk>yed in the metropolis 
Iqr tearimg up woollen ra^ into flocks for saddlery 
and upho&teiy purposes; out the rag-wod for the 
wooUen manufacture requires to be more completdy 
disentangled; it is not merdy torn; it is almost 
^nmnd. The prindpal part of the rag- wool machine 
IS the sio^ a frame provided with ten or twdve 
thousand vidous-looking teeth, and that rotates six 
or seven hundred times a minute. What would bo 
the fate of Jeames's coat, or Alphonse's jacket, when 
exposed to the action of such a monster, the reader 
m^ reiadily imagine. One machine will produce four 
or five packs of shoddy in a day, with two or three 
bundled pounds in each pack; and then it is that 
the Vi>^iiig up the dust takes place— for, endose 
the machine how wo may, the fibrous particles wiU 
fly about, and be both dirty and bad-smelliujr. 

1^5lpt our own home-supply of wooUon and worsted 



rags, there is much comes from abroad — not only as 
rags proper, but also as rag-wool, or shoddy and munffo 

Srepared from the rags in Gennany and Denmark. It 
oes not api>car that rag- wool is to any great extent 
worked up into doth on the continent; rag-mills, 
however, have been set up there ; and the shoddy and 
mungo, when so far prepared, are shipped off to 
Hull — the great entrepOt for this, as for so many other 
articles us^ by Yorksnire manufacturers. From Hull 
the packs find their way to BaUey and Dewsbuiy, 
where they are sold by auction in a very primitive 
way, and amid much more dirt and disconuort than 
would be endured in the general or new wool trade. 
Indeed, Batley has not yet had time to clean itself ; 
nor is it certam that shoddy would allow much oppor- 
tunity for that virtue which is ranked next to go(Ui- 
ness. The rags, shoddy, and mungo pass into the 
hands of dealers or middlemen, who sort and classify, 
and sell them to the manufacturers of the neighbour- 
hood. Nay, this trade has even been further sub- 
divided; for there are now rag-dealers and shoddy- 
dealers; the latter selling their material to those 
manufacturers who use up shoddy without making it^ 
Rag-sorting has now become quite a skilful handicraft^ 
or rather eyeaxf/L All the qualities, all the coloun, 
are separated quickly and completely; so that the 
shoddy and mungo grmdcrs are supplied with upwards 
of twenty different sorts, applicable to an equal number 
of different purposes. *Soft rags,' from stockingSi 
blankets, and carpets, are used in the lax^t quanti^, 
and are mode into shoddy for mixing with new wool 
in the commonest kinds of wooUen goods; but ragp 
of good woollen doth, torn up into mungo, are 
graaually taking the lead in the market, owing to 
uieir applicability to a better class of manufactures. 
Such rags were, until about the year 1834, used only 
for flock or for manure ; but the shoddy-grinders of 
Batley, about that time, detennined to strike into a 
new path, and invented mungo from the remains of 
departed coats and trousers. Mr Jubb makes no 
attempt to enlighten us as to the meaning or origin of 
tiie word dhodo^; but concerning mungo^ he asKs us 
to believe this : that one of the dealers in the newly 
invented material wa# on a certain occasion endea- 
vouring to effect a sale to a manufacturer ; the latter 
expressed a doubt whether it would ' do,' or * tell,' or 
*go down' with the public; whereupon the dealer 
declared with emphasis that *it mun go;' that is, 
must, shall, inevitably will, go. 

There is also a third substance, known in tibie trade 
as extract^ employed in grinding up old gannents into 
new. It consists of the wodlen portion of such ' mixed * 
or ' union' goods as are composed of cotton- waip with 
woollen or worsted weft Sudi are now extrsmdy 
varied, and are becoming more and more commercially 
important every year. Men's dresses and women s 
dresses, apparently woven whoUy with woollen or 
worsted threads, contain cottou to an extent little 
dreamed of by those who wear them. Cotton is 
cheaper, and is more easily prepared and spun, than 
woof; and thus there is a great temptation to substi- 
tute cotton for some of the wod woven into doth or 
stuff-goods in Yorkshire. It is hard to believe that 
men would think it worth their while to pick out the 
tcoollen threads from such mixed goods as these, in 
order to use them again, but such seems to be really 
the case. The product is this extract The picking is 
not mechanical, but chemical ; for in fact tine cotton 
is dissolvwl or destroyed by chemical agency, leaving 
the wool intact. Worn-out carpets, worn-out dresses, 
cuttin^Ts of so-called merino, alpaca, and mohair — 
all are made to yidd * extract,' 2 there be any wool 
in their composition ; and this extract, when mixed 
with new wool, can be woven up into certain textile 
goods ; but not, it is said, so successfully as veritable 
shoddy and mungo. Shoddy looks down upon extract; 
mimgo looks down upon shoddy; new wool looks 
down ux)on mungo — and so the world goes round 



.^ 



I 



104 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



The reader may possibly have been Bi>eciilatmg on 
the question, whether shoddy or mun^o is ever made 
up into cloth without the intervention of any new 
wooL So far as we can gather, such is not the case. 
These substances have in part lost their fdting pro- 
perty — that peculiar tendency of wool fibres to entwine 
around and lock into each other, on which the thick- 
ness, closeness, and strength of woollen cloth so 
remarkably depend. The newly-made cloth would 
fall to pieces rather too soon, linless comforted and 
encouraged by a little new wooL How much this 
little shall be, is a question between the manufacturer 
and the dealer. Snail it be 80 per cent of shoddy, 
and 20 of wool ; or 20 of shoddy and 80 of wool ; or 
50 of each? It all depends upon the price. New 
wool is, of course, dearer than mungo or snoddy ; and 
if a tajlor makes up a coat of very cheap cloth, the 
wearer of the coat must not be shocked to learn that 
it comprises a large percentage of fibres which once 
belon^^ to another man*s coat — nay, to his own last 
yeai's coat, it may be. We might almost moralise on 
the metempsychosis of wool, the transfer of soul from 
one coat to another. Nothing, so long as it has sub- 
stantial existence, is really and permanently useless. 
The woollen rags, whether the organic remains of 
departed coats or gowns, blankets or carpets, stock- 
ings or comforters, Jbave all the seams and irregular 
portions carefully cut away from them, in order that 
the better pieces may with less interruption be torn 
and ground up into mungo and shoddy. But the odds 
and ends thus left are not wasted. Some are allowed 
to rot, and are then used as a valuable manure for 
hop-grounds ; some are made into flock, for bedding 
and sfcufi&ng ; and some are sold to the ihanuf acturing 
chemists, as a source whence prussiate of potash may 
be obtained. Shoddy dust, too — perhaps the real 
original 'devil's dust' — which is shaken out while the 
rags are being converted into mungo and shoddy, 
and then into clotii, is sold as manure. And when, 
as is sometimes the case, the shoddy dust of one 
colour can be kept separate from others, it is sold to 
paper-stainers, as a material for producing what are 
called flock paper-hangings. Paper-makers have been 
long wistfully looking at woollen rags, to see whether 
these could usefully supplement the more costly and 
somewhat scarce Imen rags ; but even if this should 
never be the case, we find that mungo, shoddy, 
extract, prussiate of potash, flock-stuffing, flock paper- 
hanfflngs, and hop-manure, all rise up to protest acamst 
wooUen rags being regarded as contemptible nothings. 

In the towns and villages already named, some of 
the mills are engaged in tearing up woollen rags into 
mungo and shoddy ; but the greater number are cloth- 
mills, in which rag- wool and new wool are spun and 
woven up together into cloth, or into carpets and 
druggets, or olankets and wrappers. As to these 
woven goods, their variety is legion, and their names 
are fanciful For instance, /tM^n^« are heavy, coarse, 
blue or drab goods, largely bought for her Majesty's 
navy, and for garments to be worn by workine-men ; 
druggets are mixed uuraised cloths, frequently plaided, 
more suitable by their coarseness as coverings for 
carpets than as a material for garments ; paddings 
are unraised piece-dyed cloths, mostly red and crim- 
son, used cmefly for stuffing and stiffening coat- 
coUars, and for making cheap table-covers; duffeU 
are stout, well-raised, and soft-finished cloth, often 
dyed drab, and warm and useful in wear ; friezes^ 
chiefly made for the Irish market — and sometimes 
for the English market as veritable genuine Iri^ 
friezes— are neavy, sound, and unraised goods, gener- 
ally dyed of certain colours, which are popuLir in 
Ireland, and which seem to be somewhat clannish in 
their localisation ; witney%, very varied in style and 
colour, and sometimes * marbled' and * clouded' in 
a fanciful way, are in favour for ladies' mantles and 
men's overcoats ; while mohairt and alpacas^ if really 
deserving those names, are goods commanding rather 



a high price, but that they can be and are made ia 
a manner with which mungo has something to do^ 
if 'made to sell,' like certain razors of sreat oelebfitf. 
Then, again, as to tvoeeds^ which are believed to be 
made in Scotland, and esteemed capital cloths fm 
summer-garments, we are told that the cheap ' tourisli^ 
suits' of the last summer or two have smelled nt- 
piciously of shoddy and mungo, and are to be traced 
t)ack no further north than Yorkshire. ChevioU, iao 
(it is a shame to rob Scotland in this way !), are nov 
hugely made in these shoddy districts— some pUided, 
some down-striped, some cross-striped, some magooal 
— for tourists' suits. Petershams we are to reoooiise 
as a cloth for overcoats, friezed or napped with nttb 
knobs or curls ; while strouds are poor bat shovj 
cloths, used chiefly by the Hudson's ^y Oompany ia 
barter with the Indians of the fur-coimtnea. aave^ 
or save-list, so named because the list or edgmg ■ 
preserved, is a poor blue or scarlet cloth, witowSilB 
or blue-^ray list, which finds a market among varioM 
semi-civilised nations in America and Asia. Arm 
cloths, middling or bad, according to the price paii 
(they seldom deserve a better name than 'middlins*), 
are very largely made here : the poor f eUowa ontaidB 
Sebast(^l had full reason to know that much mxmgfi 
and shoddy lead to sponginess and fragUity; bol 
we are mending our ways now, and army cioih is 
better than in those days. There is a blue kind 
called Turkey doth, made in this district, eo vaf 
poor in ^uaUtv that, though a yard and a haa 
wide, it IS sold for two shillings a yard: if the 
Sultan Abd-el-Medjid's soldiers are clothed in tiuBi 
Heaven help them ! Those double-&u;ed, hypo- 
critical kinds of cloth called reversibles are reaihr 
venr strong; they present diflerent textures ana 
difi^rcnt colours on the two surfaces, and are made ia 
great variety as to shade, style, quality, and finisk 
The weaving is peculiar, for, in fact, two clotha an 
woven into one, and the subsibance is thus thick aad 
solid. Moscows and presidents are two leading kiiidi 
of these reversibles. Linings are brightly colom^ 
doths, mostly plaid in pattern, and used for liimc 
coats and cloaks. Bearskins and deerskins aie — irlw! 
shall we deem them? — base deceivers? No: wbim 
everything else is called by its right name, then wS 
we quarrel with these desiffnations for paiticiilar 
kinds of cloth ; and, after aS, as these claih bear- 
skins and deerskins really do keep men and 



warm in cold weather, we will not be angry if a littk 
shoddy and mungo finds its way into the ohfwwr 
varieties. Velvets, too, are not really velvet; Sqr 
are woollen cloths, so shorn and trimmed aa to 
present a velvet-looking material for ooate and 
mantles. Union cloths, prison cloths, conmel cLotii^ 
and asylum cloths tell their own tale ; they are moa^y 
neutral in tint, and must not be scanned too 
closely as to quality. Coloured blankets, as ooatingl 
and coverlets for Indian fur-hunters and negro alayea 
in America, are specimens of the power of Batley and 
Dewsbury to make low-priced goods for cettaia 
mxurkets. But of all the articles in the shoddy mta^' 
facture, pilots, as thej are called, take the lead. Tbiff 
are now made to an immense extent, as a material lor 
very thick coats and jackets, to be worn by aaihxi 
and other persons much exposed to the weathfiKt 
They arc of various colours, but most frequently hIiMb 
and make the nearest approach to the finish of good 
cloth that the materisJs will permit. It is reaUr 
surprising how neat an ap])earance is given to a dots 
saleable perhaps at three or four shillings a yard ; and 
how great the ingenuity shewn in weavmg that which 
has no wool of any kind in the warp, and very litUe 
neip wool in the weft. 

All the articles in the above formidable list aie 
shoddy cloths — or rather, they may be shoddy cloths. 
It depends upon the price. If the price won't paj 
for all wool, then make it of wool and cotton ; if the 
wool cannot be all new wool at the price, then wool 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



105 



and mungo ; if not even tlus can be afforded, then 
wool and ahoddy ; and even if it be wool and shoddy, 
there may be a * rivulet ' of the fonner to an * ocean' 
of the latter. 

Let us not run away with the idea that there is 
anything disreputable or unfair in all this. To apply 
to the utmost ]K)8sible use all the substances arouna 
us, is one of the marks of advancing civilisation. 
There is no harm, moral or oommercial, in mixing 
shoddy and mungo with new wool in making cloth. 
The harm begins when men sell the finishes com* 
modity for '^^lat it is not. Even if tibey do this, 
however, they arc sure to be found out in the end ; 
and shoddy doth settles down in the market for 
what it leally is — a low-priced useful substitute 
for more expensive cloth made wholly of new wool. 
Mr Jubb, who is very candid in bis exposition of 
the manufacture, insistB upon it that the system is 
rather praiseworthy than otherwise. 'Let not the 
world suppose,' he says, 'that shoddy is execrable 
rubbish, which it is almost fdonious to use in the 
fabrication of doth. Nor let it entertain the idea 
that shoddy goods (so called) are not composed 
laigdy of sheep's wool as well as shoddy. These 
fabrics contain certain prcmortions of each material, 
according to the quality of we goods. The wool used 
is in an ascending ratio with the value of the doth, so 
that the mungo used in the best goods runs almost 
to nil ; even a small proportion of mungo, used with 
fine wool, sensibly reduces the cost of the doth so 
composed, which for all practical purposes is equally 
serviceable as if made of all wooL' 



IMPRISONED IN BURMAH. 

FoBTT years ago, the Burmese empire was an unex- 
plored r^on, and its port of Rangoon the only town 
where even the Nation of Shopkeepers could do any 
businesa. Two missions from the Bengal government 
had indeed been sent to the court of Ava, but their 
experience and representations of native ignorance, 
msult, and caprice were not of a natiure to tempt the 
commercial traveller. One Mr Henry Croucer, how- 
ever, a young dvilian in India, of three-and-twentv, 
entertained the idea that Amerapoorah — if one could 
but get there — ^would be as glad to have British 
cottons as any more dvilised pl^x}, nor was he intimi- 
dated by the srim suggestion of his friends, that the 
Burmese m^t inde^ be glad to have cottons, but 
not to par for them — the httlc that was known for 
certain of this outlandish nation being, that it was 
lying, shifty, and addicted to the repudiation of pecu- 
niaiy claims. Mr €k)U2er arrived safdy at Rangoon, 
with preaenta for the king and his court, and a few 
thflusmd pounds' worth of British goods. One-tenth, 
however, of every article he brought with him was at 
once exacted as import duty; and the captain was 
directed to send in the snipes rudder, so that his 
veswl might be placed entirely in the power of the 
anihoritiea. The duties were levied in kind, so that 
the royal custom-house had rather tlic air of a marine 
■tore ; and when the number of pieces of cloth were 
not cUvisiblo by ten, a piece was torn asunder. As 
boats were not to be hired, Mr Gouger bought a couple 
ci canoes to carry himself and cargo up the Irrawaadi 
to the seat of government. The river is easily navi- 
gable, nor did he meet with much obstruction from the 
authorities of the towns on his way, the circumstance 
of hii carrying presents for the king protecting him. 
Themosqmtoes, nowever, were almcMt insupportable, 
and it was injudicious to sit in the stem of a light 
canoe, since it was thereby depressed low enough to 
admit of your being taken out of it by the alli^tors. 
Duriog the six weeks occupied by wis transit, the 
assiduous Mr Gouger made hmuelf master of the Bur- 
mese language. He foimd Amerapoorah in a state of 
tnnsition, because the king had taken it into his head 



to move the court to Ava. which ancient city, being 
in ruins, had to be rebuilt for his royal acconmiodation. 
The Burmese monarchs are prone to these gicantic 
* flittings,' with each of which the population of half a 
city is reduced to beggary ; but the nobles fill their 
pockets by the corru[it distribution of building-sitea, 
and the frequent litigation to which the removius give 
rise — for the principle of justice is quite unknown in 
Bumiah, nor can the simplest right be exercised with- 
out the hdp of a bribe. The king received Mr Grouger 
very gradously, and allowed hun to dispense with tibe 
native attitude of sitting on one hall of his body 
only; but the queen, though equally ci^ did not 
make the same allowance lor European prejudices. 
' Her majesty condescended to present me, as a mark 
of her especial favour, with a pawn from her oym box. 
It was a leaf endosing a combination of substances at 
which my stomach revolted — arcoa-nut, tobacco, terra 
iaponica, lime, and spices, and I know not what 
b^des. What was I to do ? I could not chew all 
this nastiness to a pulp, as was evidently required of 
me, so with great deliberation I put it into my waist- 
coat-pocket. A burst of laughter followed from the 
young ladies behind, at what they supposed to bo my 
Ignorance ; another peal, when I told them I should 
keep it for ever as a mark of her majesty's distinguished 
favour. The present of a pawn in its crude state is 
not much amiss, but the exnibition of it in a different 
shape quite sickened me. Her majesty, after some 
chewing of one of these delicades, took it from her 
mouth, and handed it over to a pretty girl behind her, 
who, esteeming herself highly honoured by the gift — 
horribUe dvctut—yo^^oe^ the nasty morsel into her 
mouth, and completea its mastication.' 

Mr Gouger concluded from this, that the king and 
queen of Surmah were a veiy good-natured, wough 
rather a vulvar couple ; but a naturalised Englishman 
— whom, to his extreme astonishment, he found at the 
court, and whose history is a romance in itself — ^unde- 
ceived him upon this point. Yadza — for that was 
the nearest approach of which the Burmese tongue 
admitted to the gentleman's real name, which was 
Rodgers — had been in youth in the East India Com- 
pany's service, but having had a difficulty with his 
ship^s mate, and, indeed, having left him for dead after 
a tremendous beating, had HA to Burmah, where he 
had remained ever since — that is to say, for forty 
years. * Do not trust, sir,' said he, * to these conde- 
scending maimers of his majesty. He gives way to 
sudden bursts of passion, when for a little while nc is 
like a raging madman, and no one dares to approach 
him. I was once present at a fuU durbar, wnere all 
the officers of government then at the capital were 
assembled. The king was seated on a raided chair, as 
you have seen hun, to all appearance in nis usual good 
temper, when something was said by one present 
which irritated him. His majesty rose quickly from 
his chair, and disappeared at a door opening to a 
private apartment behind the throne. The council 
looked all aghast, not knowing what to think of it, 
but when he re-appeared arm^ with a long spear, the 
panic was universal. /Sauve qui peut. We made a simul- 
taneous rush to the wide flight of steps leading to the 
palace-yard, like a herd of deer before a savage tiger ; 
down the stairs we went pell-mdl, tumbling over each 
other in our haste to escape, without respect to rank 
or station. His majesty made a furious rush at us, 
chased the flying crowd to the head of the flight of 
st^rs, and then, quite forgetting in his frenzy' who 
was the delinquent, launched his spear in the midst of 
us at a venture. It passed my cneek, and stuck in 
the shoulder of an unfortunate man on the step before 
me, without doing him any very serious injury. The 
only man who remained in the council hidl was the 
old Sakkya Woongee, who could not cscai)e because of 
his infirmity, however much he might have wished it. 
He had the cunning to crawl up to a huge marble 
image of Guatama, ahi'ays erected in the haU, ready to 



106 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



receive his majesty's devotiozis, pretending to offer up 
prayers for the averting of the king's wrauL* 

Mr Gouger had not to wait long before he was 
himself a witness to the * tantrums'^ into which the 
sovereign could put himself on occasion, and indeed 
very onen when there was no occasion for them. 
* The new palace was now far advanced towards com- 
pletion. It was indeed a remarkably beautiful build- 
mg. The tallest of the teak-trees of his forests had 
been hewn and carved into pillars, long elegant vistas 
of which, richly gilded, already mark^ its noble pro- 
portions. The tall spire, consisting of a number of 
roo^ tapering one above the other, m the woU-known 
Chinese style, had just been crowned by the golden 
tee, or umlarella, regarded as the glory of the palaoe, 
the use of it being confined to the royal residence and 
to sacred edifices. This spire is erected over the hall 
of audience, and the sacr^ tee, on its pinnacle, with 
its hoop of sonorous bells, is placed as nearly as pos- 
sible over the throne itself. The architect who phumed 
the palace stood deservedly high in his master's favour, 
for it was admired by every one as a perfect specimen 
of good taste. The king was so much pleased with it, 
that he often amused himself by goins to inspect the 
progress of the works. On one of &ese excursions, 
the town was visited by a terrific thunder-storm, the 
sacred tee was struck by the lightning, the massive 
iron stanchions supporting it bent nearly to a right 
angle, and the ill-uted umbrella of course revered. 
It was indeed a melancholy spectacle to behold the 
fragments of this beautiful pinnacle, suspended at an 
immense height, a mark for all the fury of the storm. 
But the temp^t was nothing in comparison with that 
which raged in the breast of the tyrant, when he 
beheld his glory blown to shreds, and an omen of evil 
brought upon his throne. As he could not vent his 
f my on the elements, he turned it on the able but ill- 
fated architect. I did not see him at the moment, 
but was told his rage was like frantic insanity. The 
poor man was hunt^ up, and dragged to the place of 
execution, the tyrant ejaculating at intervals: "Is 
he dead? Is he dead?'' as if grudging a prolonged 
existence, even of a few minutes. 

This king, in his savage and unreasonable hiimcurs, 
which had often a sort cS grim absurdity about th^o^ 
that nobody but the victims could help laughing at, was 
nothing so much as an iU-conditioned and cruel school- 
bully. A band of adroit ju^glen^ who had crossed 
from Madras on speculation to exhibit their feats in 
the royal presence, had been so highly successful, that 
his majesty, by way of rewarding merit, had forbidden 
their dei>arture; and the poor wretches had been 
already akthe court tw(» years, without a prospect of 
release, on a splendid allowance of a basket of rice to 
eachperson monthly. 

* The old king, grandfather of the present one, was 
by turns a bigot and a heretic ; at one time slaying 
his subjects, because they were not orthodox Buddh- 
ists ; at another, unfrocking their priests and confis- 
cating their monasteries with as little remorse as our 
own "bluff King Hal," his subjects sdso foUowinc 
the lead with equal o1>sequiousness. At one i)eriod, 
when the heretical mood was in the ascendant, his 
majesty was troubled in mind while in search of 
the true religion, which he had the sagacity to sec 
that Buddhism was not. 

'Once launched on the ocean of speculation, the 
currents drifted the uneasy monarch hither and 
thither, until at last they set him on the shoal of 
Mohammedanism. His majesty hit upon a very curious 
method of taking the soundings of this faith, in 
order to ascertain whether there was good holding- 
ground at the bottom. He was told that ti^ey 
abhorred pork, and would not eat it. " Very ri^ht 
too," said his majesty; "your Sheen Gautama tneil 
to eat it, and you know it killed him." " True, yoiu* 
majesty," was the rcjily ; " but our religion does not 
prevent our following hU example, if we like, wher£A.s 



with thorn it is a matter of their faith — ^they would 
die rather than pollute themselves with it." TZie 
cunninff tiiought now passed through the monarchal 
mind, uiat if they woiud rather die than taste a bit 
of pork, there must be some virtae at the root cl 
their faith. "We will try." 

* Now, there were many Mohammedans retidiiig a 
Ava, some of them foreigners, others native-bocB 
subjects of the king. Of these he commaodtd 
several of the most considerable to assemble at hii 
palace, where, to their consternation, the flesh of tbe 
hated animal was placed rcadv cooked before then, 
and they were commanded, witnout further ceremony, 
to fall- to at once. What a study for Lavater! What 
a subject for Leech! I feel it is wrong to mab 
tyranny, in its most detestable form, an occasion for 
amusement; but who can conti'ol the imaffl'nation ia 
such a case? \Mio docs not picture to >»iT»»»lf the 
countenance of a solemn moulvie, with his hand oa 
his flowing beard, cursing the savoury sparerih, u, 
with a retcning, sea-sick stomach, he gapes to recein 
the unholy morsel? The look of despair — ^the ill* 
concealed rage — the mutual, recognisiug glances d 
the chief actors, as much as to say : " We are all in thi 
same boat— don't tell of me, and I won't tell, of you!" 
The scene must have been unique of its kind.* 

The then monaruh of Burmah was himsHlf addicted 
to astrulo|^cal rather than to religions speculation 
When echpses of the sun were expected, it wm 
the custom of this siimilar court, tfaiat the Casaii 
Bralunins, of whom there were many residing ia 
Amerapoorah, should notify the same to the king, 
* Whether these pn-dictions were given from calcula- 
iions made by themselves, or whether thev acquired 
their knowledge elsewhere, I forget, but the time at 
which the eclipse was to take place was always m^ 
sented irom. some source or other. These Brahmisi, 
from the influence they hod acquired over the kii^a 
mind by their proficiency in his favourite study, had 
become objects of general envy, and it broke out 
fiercely at this time, the malcontents taking their 
stand incautiously on very slippery ground. Thsj 
aspired to a short-lived vicibory by denying the cQr> 
rectness of their opponents' prediction. Many of the 
chief courtiers joined the cabal from mere hatred to 
the Brahmins, without the slightest knowledge of the 
question, or dread of the conse<^ucuces. The cunning 
old king maintained a vexatious silence until the 
chief men al)out his court were committed to one side 
or the other ; then, when he had drawn a sufiSdent 
number into his net, he threatened to punish the 
losing partyi whichever it might be, for attempting to 
deceive liinL 

* A pool of water lay invitingly near, and perha||» 
suggested the thought. "The Brahmins, or their 
accusers, shall stand up to the neck in that ponw d," 
said the king; then turning to Mr Rodders : "What 
do you say, Yadza? Are the Brahmins right or 
wron« ?" " Now," said Mr Rodgers, " if I bad onjy 
had we wisdom to sav that I was an unlearned man, 
and knew nothing of these matters, all would have 
been right; but, fired i^dth the ambition of being 
thought a learned man, I replied : ' I have not made 
the calculation, your majesty.' 'Ohl then you can 
calculate eclipses?' ^Yes, your majesty, i^ter a 
fashion.' * Then go home instantly, and let me knov 
what you say to-morrow.' 

* " I went home, not to stuily the deep thin^ of 
Newton, you may be sure, but a book of far greater 
value to my weak comprehension, the laengal 
AlmatMCf a copv of which had been sent me for that 
year. All I had to do was the school-boy task of cot- 
recting for the lon^tude, and as bold as brass I gave 
the result to his majesty. The heads of many a man 
of rank, and of many an ill-starred astronomer^ did 
I behokl, waving as thick as lilies, on the surface of 
that pond! But I had acquired a character that 
taxed all my ingenuity to support, and from that 



OHAMBBRS^ JOURNAL. 



107 



tune, as long as iho old fox livBd, I took especial care, 
with the fear of tiie horse-pond ever present, never to 
be without a copy of the Bmgal Afmual AhnaMc^^ ' 

The life of a courtier, whidi every man must lead 
who would get on in Bunnah, was always haaaBrdous, 
and the court itself by no means attnotive. The 
very harem of the kinc waa composed of anything 
but beauties, and gave 3ur Gouger, at first, a bad klea 
of the royal taste. He soon found, however, that the 
ladies were chosen for politioal reasons, as their very 
name of 'Oovemors* Daughters' indeed implied^ When 
any nobleman is made ruler of a province, and espe- 
oiuly if it be a distant one, his nearest female relative 
is taken to the palaoe, as hoetue for his fidelity. 
For a considerable time, the inde&i^ble Mr Gkrager 
— ^making the most satia&ujtory bajrgams, and inaugu- 
rating, as he flattered himself, a most magnificent 
mercantile system — retained the royal &vour, and 
was hand-and-glove with the aristooraoy generally. 
Once only he got into trouble about killing a sheep — 
for which offence, since the Burmese are Kirbiddcai to 
eat any meat but carrion, a poor peasant was soon 
afterwards ' quartered alive, as he had Quartered the 
animal' — ^but even this was got over dv judicious 
bribery, and he subsMrnently obtained his mutton 
as in England, Prince Tharawudi, the heir-apparent, 
becoming accessory after the fact, and daily sharer in 
tin forbidden delicacy. Nay, he was even permitted 
to make a voyage to Calcutta, whence he brought 
back with him a greyhound for the king — a good 
service, which placed him more fully in the royal 
sunshine than ever. But the dark days of this too 
enterprising trader were drawins; near I 

No sooner did the war breaJc out with England, 
than the feeling oi the monarch altered towards him, 
and those of we court of course participated in the 
change. Mr Gouger was seized upon as a British 
spy, and upon the stiUsraver suspicion of beins the 
nother-in-law of the l^nourable East Indian Com- 
pany. Hie Burmese statesmen were seriously of 
cpmion that the H. E. L C. had married Mr Qouger's 
nster. On these charges, he waa hurried into cap- 
tmty, esDchanging his sumptuous fare and scarlet 
ffaieiy (for he wore a complete harlequin suit of Stuart 
tartan silk, by the gracious command of his majesty) 
for the unimaginsble horrors of tiie Let^moryoon toitng, 
or Dealh-prison, its name, being UteraUy interpreted, 
signifying 'Hand! shrink noV from the revolting 
cnieltiei pnaotised within its walls. * Although it 
was betw een four and five o'clock on a brii^t sunny 
aftnnoon, the my. of light only penHntoTthnni^ 
tiie chinks and cracks of the walls suflicienUy to 
dlwdoae the utter wretchedness of all within. Some 
tone elamed bctfcre I could dearly distinguish the 
objects by which I was surrounded. As m^ eyes 
gnduaDy adapted themselves to the dim hg^t, I 
aaoertained it to be a room about forty feet long by 
thirty feet wide, the fioor and sides made of s^ng 
teak-wood planks, the former being raised two feet 
tram the earth on poets, which, according to the 
unal style of Burmese architectcure, ran through the 
bodv of the bnildinff, and supported the tiled roof as 
wm as the rafters for the floor and the plankins of 
file walls. The heiji^t of the walls frmn the floor 
waa five or six feet, but the roof being a sloping one, 
the centre might be double that height. It had no 
window or aperture to admit light or air except a 
cloaely woven bamboo wicket used as a door, and 
tins was always kept closed. Fortunately, the builders 
had not expendea much labour on the walls, the 
planks of which here and there were not very closely 
imitod, aflTording through the chinks the only ventila- 
tion the apartment possessed, if we except a hole 
near the roof, where, either by accident or design, 
naasly a foot in length of decayed plank had heeaa. 
torn off. This form^ a safety-valve for the escape 
of fool air to a certain extent; and, but for this 
{ortuitoiis circumstance, it is difficult to see how life 



could have been long sustained. .... Before me, 
stretched on the floor, lay forty or fiftv hajdess 
wretohes, whose crimes or misfortunes had brought 
them into this place of torment. They were all nearly 
naked, and the half- famished features and skeld«on 
frames of many of them too plainly told the story of 
their protractcid sufferings. Very few were without 
chains, and some had one or both feet in the stocks 
besides^ A si^ht of such squalid wretchedness can 
hardly be imagined. Silence seemed to be the cider 
of the day; perhaps the poor creatures were so 
engrossed with their own misery, that they hardly 
cared to make many remarks on the intrusion of so 
unusual an inmate as myself. The prison had never 
been washed, nor even swept, since it was bmlt. So 
I was told, and have no doubt it was true, for, 
besides the ocular proof from its present conddtion, 
it is certain no attempt was made to deanse it during 
mv subsequent tenancy of many months. This gave 
a kind of faxedness or permanency to the fetid odours, 
until the very floors and walls were saturated with 
them, and joined in emitting the pest. Putrid remains 
of casta'way animal and ve^stable stuff, which needed 
no broom to make it move on — ^the stale fumes from 
thousands of tobacco-pipes — the scattered ejections 
of the pulp and liquid from their everiasting betel, 
and other nameless abominations, still more disffust- 
ing, which strewed the floor — and if to this be added 
the exudation from the bodies of a crowd of never- 
washed convicts, encouraged by the thermometer at 
100 degrees, in a den almost without ventilation — is 
it possible to say what it smeit like?' Hie furniture 
of this den consisted of rows of great wooden stocks, 
which, like huge alligators, opened and shut their 
jaws with a loud snap upon the arrival of each 
victim; and of a long oamboo, suspended from the 
roof by a rope at eac^ end, and worked by pulleys, 
to nuse or depress it at pleasure. At nicnt, tiie 
'father,' or chief oi the lailers — who had all uie ring- 
mark branded on each cneek, which distinffuishes t£s 
Burmese executioners — caused this bamooo to 1)e 
passed between the legs of each individual, 'and 
when it had threaded our number, seven in all, a 
man at each end hoisted it up by the blocks to a 
height which allowed our shouldcors to rest on the 
ground, while our feet depended from the iron rings 
of the fetters. The adjustment of the height was 
left to the judgment of our kind-hearted parent, who 
stood hy to see that it was not hi^ enough to 
endjmger life, nor low enough to exempt from pain.' 
The other six who were Mr Gouffer's companions on 
the bamboo were the following: ^r Laird, a Scotch- 
man, recently kidnapped at Rangoon; the unhapjjy 
Bodgers, whose naturalisation and long residence in 
the countrycould not shield him from tne royal fury; 
Dr Judson, and Dr Price, two American missionaries, 
who were confounded with the British by the ungco- 
graphical Burmese; and two Hindu scrvante of Mr 
Gouger. All conversation, even meanings themselves^ 
died away among this wretched community, whoa 
three o'dock was proclaimed each afternoon by the 
palace gong. A deathlike silence prevailed. 'It 
seemed as though even breathing were suspended 
under the control of a panic terror, too deep for 
expression, which pervaded every bosom. We did 
not long remain in ignorance of the cause. If any 
of the prisoners were to sufier death tiiat day, the 
hour of three was that at which they were taken out 
for execution. The very manner of it was the acme 
of cold-blooded cruelty. The hour was scarcely told 
by the gong, when the wicket opened, and the hideous 
figure <S a spotted man appeared, who, without utter^ 
ing a word, walked straight to his victim, now for 
the first time probably made acquainted with his 
doom. As many of these unfortunate people knew 
no more than oursdvos the fate that awaited them, 
this mystery was terrible and agoiiiaing; each one 
fearing, up to the last moment^ that the stride of the 



108 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Spot might be directed his way. When the culprit 
duappeared witib his conductor, and the priaon-aoor 
closed bdiind them, those who remained TOgan again 
to brea^e more freely; for another day, at least, 
their lives were safe.' 

Scarcely anything in the whole range of literature 
is more graphic and interesting than the account of 
this imprisonment ; nothing in fiction approaches it 
for outlandish barbarity, but at the same time for 
philosophical, almost cheerful resi^iation. Heavily 
ironed, witness to the tortures and death of othen 
daily, and expecting them daily for himself ; with no 
chance of rescue ; deprived of eveiythin^ he possessed, 
and dependent solely upon a certam benevolent 
Mohammedan baker for his escape from positive star- 
vation — the fate of many of his lellow-pnsoners, from 
whom the jailers had filched the royal allowance 
appointed for them, and who had therefore nothing to 
look to but the donations of the charitable; ^my, 
naked, and, on one occasion, actually chained to a leper , 
did Mr Gou^r contrive for more than a year to 
retain not omy existence, but even hope. He had 
been permitted, by favour of the jailer's pretty 
daughter, to occupy for a time — in company with a 
legion of rats— a separate cell, where dysentery at 
length completely prostrated him, and broujo;ht him to 
death's door. Death, indeed, was written m his face, 
wben one of the rinffed-face men came in and carried 
him back again to uie stifling inner prison. *■ What 
could this mean ?' thought he. * I concluded that at 
last the government had made the distinction between 
my guilt and that of my companions, and that I had to 
die a felon's death. Ijiey must be quick, however, or 
the last Enemy would snatch the prey from their 
gnuy. 

* A^ain I was wrong. I did not owe it to this ; nor 
is it iBiely that any human being could guess the true 
reason. I did not mysdf learn it untH some time 
after. It was this : if a prisoner dies within the vxMs 
qf the prisoHf his funeral obsequies are performed at 
tiie expense of the government. His bbd^ is rolled 
up in a mat, slung on a bamboo, and deposited in the 
adjoining srave-yard. If he dies vnthin the edUy his 
corpse is disposed of in a similar manner, the only 
difference being that in the one case the CMOst of the 
mat is paid by the government, in tiie other it falls 
on the keepers. These men, judging from appearance 
that I might die that nisht, had an eye to saving the 
expense of the mat — a few pence at most — ^probably 
none at all, as an old one serves for the purpose.' 

Neither Mr Grouger, however, nor any of his 
European fellow-sufferers, were destined to die within 
the walls of the Let-ma-yoon. 'On the 2d of May, 
our party, now eieht in number, again found itsdf 
assembled aroima the memorable granite block. 
What a ghastly group I The matted hair, the hollow 
eye, the feeble sait, the emaciated frame, the filUiy 
tattered rags — objects such as the sun surely never 
beforo shone upon! Around us the Spotted men 
gathered for the last time. Thank God 1 i never cast 
my eye upon one of their detestable ringed cheeks 
after this day. They wero now armed with spears, 
and each held in his hand a long piece of cord. Our 
irons were knocked off— for the first time for eleven 
months I found my limbs free. The sensation was 
ridiculous. At first, I could hardly stand— the equi- 
librium of the body seemed destroyed by the removal 
of the fetters I haa so long worn on my ankles, weigh- 
ing full fourteen pounds — the head was too heavy for 
the feet This only lasted a short time, and I enjoyed 
the first stretch of my legs. We were now tied in 
couples by the waist, one at eadi end of the rope ; a 
pahouet, with a spear, holding the rein, just as 
children are seen to drive each other in ilieir sports. 
Off we went, we knew not whither bound, but con- 
jectured, by the manner of the men and their weapons, 
we were going to the place of execution.' 

Instead of tiiis, they were all driven away to 



another jail in the country, the condition of whid 
would have made a prison inspector weep, but whick 
was an Eden bower compared to their recent place of 
durance. Here, too, they would all have starved but 
for the faithful baker, who ran the six miles from 
Amerapoorah daily, bringing his loaves with hin. 
The reason of their removal was unknown to the pMr 
wrotches ; Uiey only ffuessed that it boded them ns 
good, since tney had incurred the rraentzneiit d 
Facahm-woon, the new Burmese generalissimo againi 
tiie British, by whose orders the chan^^ had beet 
effected. When the sluices wero opened to ir* ^ 
the rice-fields about their somewhat elevated dwi 
it was inundated by vermin and roptiles of all 
who wished to escape death by drowning, and c»ch of 
the prisoners was allowed a stick to defend himi^ 
A tfuly was kept of the number killed of these jsar 
welcome guests, and of the cobra da capello aloDS it 
amoimted to thirteen ! 

One day an enormous cage was wheeled into thi 
enclosuro, and placed imder their apartment. Thii 
contained a huge lioness, who was not to have aoj 
food given to her for the present As day after day 
she grow moro ravenous, and they heard her eveiy 
roar and even her terrible breatmngs, but too well 
surmising that they themselves wero doomed at la4 
to be her proy, it is no wonder that the mind o! cat 
of them nearly lost its balance. But the poor lioDMi 
died — starved to death — after all, and one of ti» 
prisoners, fever-stricken, gladly removed into htf 
deserted tenement The Pacahm-woon had deddod 
that the white prisoners, instead of beiujg devonndL 
should be buried alive at the head of his army, for 
luck; and this would certainly have oome to pHib 
but %it that hero himself fell under the displeann 
of his sovereign, and was happUy trodden to ^Mlk 
by elephants. 

Eventually, the success of the British arms osmt 
pelled the surrender of Mr Gouger and his companiav 
irom the Burmese government ; and, as in the ooneb* 
sion of a nurserv-tale, they all lived happy eiv 
afterwards, and the good bajLer got rowardeo. Wai 
ever nursery-tale steanger than this true histoiTT 
Bid ever man in a book pass through greater pcni 
and sufferings than this man really did, who is nov 
alive to tell us of them? In his extreme modieil;^, 
Mr Gouger apologises for having published thv 
narrative, on account of his never having followed 
literary pursuits, and of the ciroumstances described 
having taken place so long ago. Setting aside, howevei^ 
the intense interest of the adventures themselves, the 
book needs no excuse of any kind. Its Btj\A is. as 
easy as that of Bobinson Crusoe^ while its refle<^aiit 
have something of the same simplicity and gnikdMi^ 
ness ; and as for the staleness of the subject, then is 
but too present a parallel now offered to it m the treat- 
ment 01 our unhappy fellow-countrymen in ChiniL 
The Chinese, however, cannot urae the plea of bnitd 
jsnorance which might be used in the case of tbi 
Burmese of forty years ago. ' Some of the natives idbs 
had fled from the war, and were thrown into the ssioRi 
prison, gave us marvellous accoimts of the sldll and 
prowess of the English troops, exaggerated by thidr 
own superstitious fancies. They firmly believed IB 
our usmg enchantments. One of these convicti 
affirmed, that even our missiles were charmed befoia 
they were fired off, and knew what they had to 
do. He was standing, he said, near his TaA-haip an 
officer of rank, when a hu^ ball of iron came singBU 
" Tsek, tsek," which he distinctly heard in its fl§^ 
when, true to its mission, it burst upon the verymaa 
it was calling out for, the unfortunate Teek-Jsai! Tbxm 
who have seen shell-practice, know the peculiar hissing 
noise made by the fuse in its course through the aiii 
and can enter into the mistake of the wonder-strickea 
soldier. Our surgical operations, too, had come to hi* 
knowledge, but, with the ignorance of a savage, he 
concluded our surgeons amputated injured limbs only 



|i. 



r : 



I. ' 



OHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



^109 



o repair and fit them on again. He could not con- 
eive an^ otLer motive for cutting them off.* 
There u one lesson we may all leam horn Mr Gon^;er^8 
t>lnme,* and of which we have most of us not a httle 
leed — ^not to bewail ourselves about small calamities, 
rhen such sufferings as these sometimes befall our 
eUow-creatures. 'When I look back,' says he, 'on 
he almost unexampled sufferings of those two months, 
low Hgfat and insisnificant do Si tihe ordinary troubles 
>f life appear! When such arise, I have only to 
reflect, and be thankful.* 

RAILWAY CHANCES. 

[if common with my peripatetic brethren, doubtless, 
t had often been my lot to arrive at a railway station 
ioo late for one train, and too eariy for its sue- 
sessor. Under these melancholv circumstances, to 
kill time* during certain long hours and fractions 
A hours, became to me a problem of the utmost 
niiportance. As I paced the unsympathetic stones 
>f that modem ScUU des Pas PerdttSy the station, 
.he railway placards assimied to my eyes an 
mportance commensurate with the four-inch cha- 
uciters in which they were printed. I studied them, 
4 course, in common witn many fellow-sufiferers ; 
ind I believe that, should a competitive examination 
jver take place with reference to Thorley's Food 
'or Cattle, Elkincton's Electro-plate, Rimmel s perfect 
kibstitute for Silver, and the tiondon Crystal Palace 
18 an advertising medium, I should gain an incredible 
■umber of points, and pass triimiphantly into the 
lervice of my country. But there was one caba- 
istio notification which attracted an undue propor- 
^on of my spare time to itself, perhaps the more 
iasfly on account of its glaring size. While Joseph 
Fhorley, in seeking to b^efit the supposed tenants 
if my pastures, pigsties, and stables, was content 
irith a modest four-inch set of Roman capitals; 
(Hule Elkington addressed me in Gk>thic Rimes, and 
Etimmd in a flourishing copperplate text, like a prize 
miting-mastcr — this tremendous notice bade me, in 
etiers half a foot long, 'Beware of Pickpockets!* 
Mliy should I beware of pickpockets in particular? 
kuely, I used to think, tnere are other shoals and 
ndden rocks in life equidly to be eschewed with pick- 
30cketB. Why does not the benevolent sa^e who 
penned yonder legend, bid me beware of plausible 
ipeculators, of bubble-companies, of make-believe 
TBcdnation, of cheap guns, Brummagem jewellery, 
mseaworthy ships, or the oidium in p^toes ? Why 
lickpockets ? Bairinetons and Three-fingered Jacks 
ire bad things, no doubt ; but so are pirates and high- 
tnijmen, fires and shipwrecks, which I am not advised 
so goard against. Why pickpockets ? And I looked 
ummd me, and eyed my fellow-captives, moodily 
ncins like myself, with suspicious scrutiny, and then 
ookea up again at the glanng black and white bill. 
Bid saw thuS it was even of a more alarminff nature 
liua I had feared at first 'Beware of Pick- 
jockets, Male and Female* — ^thus it ran, in Brob- 
bngnagian characters. Worse and worse ! Not only 
mv I thus authoritatively commanded to mistrust 
B(y brother-men, yawning like myself in the waiting- 
twms^ or stamping, like myself, their miserable boot- 
leds up and down the windy pLsttform, but I was not 
sren to repose confidence in uiat fair and gentle sex 
itIm) share our joys, alleviate our sorrows, and smooth 
oar path throu^ existence. Gracious goodness I Male 
uid female ! Must those gentle beings, too, like our 
ron^bar and ruder selves, be encountered with the 
Kmted eye of suspicion, and the buttoned-up pocket 
of nrecaution? Tnat dear old lady, for instance, so 
nouierly and comfortable of aspect, with the satin 
gown, l£e glossy curls — ^just perhaps a l^e too smooth 

'A PtnoHol Narrative of Two Ywxnf Impriaonment in Brnmah, 
Bf Bvary Ooagcr. Morniy, London. 



to be of her own ^wing — the gold watch, warm cloak, 
and fat pug held m silken durance ; has ^e any desicm 
upon my portemonnaie, my guard-chun, my pencu- 
case, or my other portable jewellery? And those 
delightful young creatures — sisters — ^who look so well 
in their pretty hats, and plumes, and jackets, and 
neat little Balmoral boots — those fair young maidens, 
so sprightly and innocent, to all appearance — ^would 
they, toOy pick my pocket ? Male ana female ! Must 
I shim my species ? 

It took some little time and reflection to change 
the current of these truly unwelcome ideas. After 
all, pickpockets were oftener spoken of than suffered 
from. They were myths as far as my own experience 
went. Nobody ever clandestindy annexed the con- 
tents of my pocket ; and as far as I was personally 
concerned, I had as much call to believe in the exist- 
ence of gnfSns or wyvems as of the swell-mob. After 
a good many years of knocking about this world of 
ours, I had come to the conclusion that mankind 
were not exactly rascals, after alL I had found a 
sreat deal of good, even in very slippery people ; and 
ror every instance of roguery or oppression, I could 
remember a hundred cases which shewed that love, 
and charity, and justice, and mercy had not quite 
taken flight with Astrsea from this terrestrial planet. 
So calling this to mind, and being heartily asnamed 
of my original mistrust, I not very logicieJly went 
into the opposite extreme, and regarded pickpockets 
and their like as creations of the poetic £&ncy. To 
be sure, I saw ugly stories in the police-reports, 
and queer newspaper paragraphs respecting those who 
had travelled oy rau in quest of a golden fleece 
— Jasons with a return-ticket — and had been shorn 
on the iron- way; but I skimmed these over lightly. 
Few of us realise the truth of newspaper rejwrts, or 
deem that the * Frightful Occurrences,* or * Awkward 
Adventures,* could ever have ourselves for their 
heroes. 

I will briefly relate what made me change my mind 
with respect to that same incredulity. 

One morning, at an early hour for so raw and misty 
a day, I had been for some time briskly trudging 
along the planking of the Euston Square platform, 
and from time to time throwing a glance at my old 
friends, the railway advertisements, as I awaitea the 
makinp; ready of the 9 a.m. train for the North. 
I was bound for the Highlands. I had a long journey 
before me, and had started early, lest, through any 
unusual 'lock* in the streets, I should be delayed, 
and only dash up in time to hear the words : ' Just 
too late, sir. Two minutes sooner, and you *d 'a done it ! ' 

As matters stood, I was in excellent time. The 
enexgetic station-master, who waves us off, flag in 
hano^ as if he were our standard-bearer, and we a 
forlom-hop« departing to deatii or gloiy, had not yet 
become visible. The porters were wheeling up fabu- 
lous barrow-loads of ooxes and cun-cases, and twir- 
ling ' points,' and ' shunting * carnages out of sidings, 
and 'switching* vans into sidings, and oiling axles, 
and hanging ' Liverpool,* ' Aberdeen,* or ' Carusle,* in 
wood upon the several compartments. It was very 
cold for summer ; the news-boys were blue about the 
nose and fingers, the guard's voluminous whiskers 
were frosty, and the present writer excessively chilly. 
There was nobody m the first-class carriage next 
to the engine — ^in fact, there was but a thin sprink- 
ling of passengers at all, that rainy autumn morn- 
ing — so I stepped in, and wrapping my mg round 
my .knees, composed myself to my snug comer and 
dunp copy of the Times, with a pleasing certain^ 
of not being disturbed. Nobody, I have noticed, 
looks very invitingly at those who seek to share the 
solitude of a railway-carriage of which he is the only 
occupant ; nor did I fail to cast a malevolent glance 
at a somewhat clerical-looking person, dressed like a 
magpie, all in black uid white, who sauntered along 
the platform once or twice, eyed me rather keenly 



110 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



. 



through the window, and then proceeded to step into 
my compartment. Well, he had a right to come in 
if he liked — there was room for six paMengera, and 
I had no cause of complaint; but of coarse I Ult 
somewhat intruded upon, as we all do in such cases. 
The clerical gentleman was hardly seated, before a 
stout man of agricultural aspect bustled up, and ^ 
in— Agricultural aspect, at least, if an agricnlionst 
may Ee conjecturea to be addicted, off the stace, to 
a green coat and brass buttons, red waistcoat, meie 
OTerooat, bird's-eye * chciker,* white hat, and a most 
butcherly pair of top-boois. Immediately after 
this theatncal'looking fanner — who, by the way, 
carried a thick ash stick — arrived a little hook- 
nosed old fellow, with restless black eyes, grizzled 
whiskers, smart neck-scaif, profuse jewelleiy, uid 
unsoaped gloveless paws, jittering all over with 
rings. The last comer was evidenlly of Caucasian 
origin, and broi^;ht with him a fine odour of 
mingled hair-cdl and stale cigars, as well as a clossy 
little portmanteau. It had never been trusted into 
the hands of guard or porter, never labelled, ticketed, 
and stowed away, that treacherous, shining little 
portmanteau. These three gentlemen did not look 
at each other at all ; they were strangers^^ course ; 
but I noticed that tiie ^uard look^ very hard at 
than, when he came round to inspect the tickets. I 
thought he was goin^ to say something to me, but he 
memy growled in nis beard, and pMsed on. The 
station-master waved his flag, the engine squealed 
assent, and off went the north express, tearins like a 
meteor through the countiy. We were past Irimrose 
ffilL 

'Ahem, sir; a fine day,* said the clerical gentle- 
man blandly. It was scarcely a fine day, for the thin 
rain was I ftaliing the window-panes ; but the clergy- 
man was probably an optimist — most good men since 
Dr Pangloss are. I answered with civil briefness, 
and there was a pause. ' Nice weather for the crops,' 
remarked the fanner, with a very uncalled-for ex- 
pletive, which I aftcrwuds fancied he thought need- 
mi for the full rendering of his character; rural 
individuals aJways swear before the foot-lights. I 
bowed in answer, and continued the perusal of my 
leading article. *Dull work this travelling; shad 
dull work,\ observed in his turn the Jewish passen- 
ger, stretching his arms and yawning. I had always 
heaid that gajping was contagious, and so it appeared ; 
for the clerical gentleman instantly yawned too, 
though mildly, and the bucolic traveler yawned 
vehemently, as became their respective stations in life. 
There was another pause, the train racing furiously 
northwards. *Hany news particular, sirr inquired 
the Jew, irho seemed the orator in chief. 1 read 
him out a telegram from Naples, which, however, did 
not appear to interest him much. Perhaps his atten- 
tion was chiefly confined to domestic politics. A 
longer pause succeeded. ' Dull work travellin',' 
repeated the Hebrew at last, and then a triangular 
yawn pervaded the carriajge as before. * Couldn t no 
one, nohow, do nuffin to lighten o' the toime like?' 
boldly demanded the farmer, with a bigger expletive 
than before, for which the clergyman should have 
reproved him. 

' A very shensible idea, to be sure,' said the Jew ; 
' and if shentlemen have no objection, we might play 
a little same or ^o.* The farmer took up the balL 

' Cartu ye mean, I suppose ; and a good notion too, 
to kin toime like. Eh, gents all ?' 

<I should not object myself, in a quiet way, and 
for small stakes, of course,' replied the clerg^moan 
graciously, ' but one obstacle exists — I am afraid we 
nave no cards.' 

It happened, by a wonderful coincidence, that the 
Jewish gentleman had some cards with him. They 
were in the little glossy portmanteau; and ha, had 
them out in a moment, and began to shuffle them 
rapidly through his unsoaped fingers. * Take a hand. 



sir?' was his general invitation. The &rmer and 
clergyman were ready. I looked quietly at the msa, 
and said: * Thank you, no.' 

* O hang it, don% be a muff!' srowled the mand 
turnips 7* that is — ^beg pardon, I'm sure-nlon't bi 
unneigjhbourloike.' 

* For the sake of harmless recreation ! ' hinted Urn 
parson. 

*Shixpence a point won't break yon, I ahuppoM^' 
tittered the Jew satirically. 

At this point I extinguished {he trio by oalHns thar 
attention, politely, to a notice posted insi(te the 
carriage, and having reference to 'pickpockets sad 
card-£arpers.' The clcrg3rman — the most astute d 
the threes—gave up the scheme at onee, for self sad 
partners; fuid repressed the wrath of the stoil 
fanner, who was rather disposed to bully. 'Oad- 
sharpers ! Who does he call card-sharpers ?' growled 
the yeoman, fingering his ash stick. 

' That's enough,' observed the cleigyman, in quite a 
new tone, and with an entirely different aspect 

After this, the Jew produced from his mvalnsUs 
valise some fine rings and watches, a box of cigars— 
* shmugeled, my dear ' — and a nugget of virgin gold; 
which Isst the worthy Hebrew had brous^ hs 
affirmed, from Bendigo diggings, the prize of his owi 
pickaxe ; and which was for sale, like the linn, 
watches, and contraband regalias, on terms eqaafij 
remunerative to the lucky buyer and ndnous to w 
seller. I declined to accqpt any of these commcrail 
sacrifices, and the hook-nosed man gave me im. Of 
course, i^ter this, I had but a sulky assemblage d 
fcUow-voyaffers, and anything but fnendly were Urn 
dances wiw which Jew ana yeoman regarded me. 
But their chief, the mock ecclesiastic, who reslly 
looked the character he had assumed, was not rude or 
demonstratively hostile. On the contrary, when the 
train slackened speed on nearing Tring, and tiht 
smouldering anger of the farmer expl(3ed into s 
defiant: *nho does he call card-sharpers, then? 
What does the genilman mean by eard-sharpen, 
then?' the clergyman silenced him by a still mon 
emphatic 'ThaFs enou^;' and the other wis 
subdued. At Tring they all got out, there to awiit 
the up-train for London, and to look out, donbtlesB, 
for fellow-passengers of a more malleable nature and 
metal more attractive. I saw no more of them. 

They were very transparent knaves, after all, and 
their poor, stale attempts at roguery were anything 
but formidable to what Ecdstaff called * a man of this 
world.' But all of us are not, and cannot be, men cd 
the world. Some of us arc just on the thr^ihold of 
active life, and have a boy's trustfulness, a boy's love 
of novelty, and a boy's wish, above all, to' be con* 
sidered manly. Then there are credulous travelkn^ 
timid travellers, travellers of a character easily led, 
travellers who can be cajoled, or bidlied. or aneeved 
into playing or baiyining with such birds of prey «• 
those I encountered. Very young men, especially, 
are not imfrequently devoid of the necessary firm- 
ness, sensitive to ridicule, averse to offend, and not 
fond of saying 'No' to a proposal of their eldfln. 
There are also silly travellers— sheep only too easily 
shorn. Over all these the law very properly extenflb 
her segis; but law cannot have an eye upon the 
tenants of every railway-carriage. She can only 
punish when ofi^noes are duly proven, and not one 
tithe of such cases of plunder on the rail ever find 
their way to the police-courts and papers. Tlie 
sufferers are nervous, credulous, or ashamed of their 
own folly ; and not desirous to be pilloried in print» 
with names and addresses in fuU, while the cooii 
titters, the magistrate advises more prudence in 
future, and the reporter heads his paragraph with the 
old adage about ' fools and their money.' No — th^ 
lose, aiid wince, and go home; and their spoilers 
chuckle and thrive, till the day of retribution comes, 
and Nemesis in the shape of a detective, claims hit 



^ 



\- 



''I 

I A 

p 

9 

a 



[1 



1 1 






OHAMBBRS'S JOtTHNAL. 



Ill 



j^vilty Tiofchna. Hie OomiMUiiM do their bert, by 
slftoundfl And bills, to mm tiie tlunightleflB agnnst 
hich dttigiu ; and the gUatdt tte ahniys prompt in 
Bheir inteHerence, when aome aenaible paaaenger oom- 
pkina of annoranoe from the gang. Bat the public 
■re their own beet protectora, and it is to the spirit 
and moral coorage of trayaUan tfa^msehres that we 
have to look for the breaking up of the oiganiaed 
syvtam I have here denoted. 



T EETH. 

As elderly gentleman once observed: ' I wonder why 
my whiskers grow gray before my hair.* ' Don't yon 
know?' replied a mde fellow. 'It is because yon 
work your jaws more than vonr brain.' The remark 
was more wise than witty, though it was both ; for, 
after all, what are more worked than jaws ? Do not 
eating and talking divide the result of many people's 
lives? Are not our words our spiritual judra ? Are 
not our bodies prepared food ? Somebody — ^Abemethy, 
I sujppose — says that all our diseases come from 
fretting or stuffing. Now, as the fretting is often 
more outward than inward, it wears the jaw as 
well as the heart; and as to stufBnf, the members 
ion't complain of the stomach, but the stomach and 
the members make common cause against ilie jaw. 

This, to the million, means Teeth. 

Teeth are the great blessings, curses, and character- 
istics of humani^. A year or two ago, there was a 
cuntal picture in the Koyal Academy, the title of 
which was, 'Toothache in the Middle Ages.' A 
monk was sitting on a bench, on which he had 
Laid his nntasted meal — and no wonder. Eat, sir ! 
He was past the howliuj? stage; the skin of his 
oheek was tight and stiu ; you could read, in the 
angnish of his eyes, the red-hot throbs which stabbed 
his jaw; he nad tied it up, and was nursing it 
withal, dolefully in his hand. The picture was truly 
catiiolia Yes, at all ages, to all men, there has been, 
at one time or another of their lives, strong com- 
mon sympathy — Sardanapalus might feel for a lazar, 
Aiistides the Just for Sir John Dean Paul — ^when he 
had a toothache. 

Is not the progress of the teeth a sien ? Whether 
thejr be coming or going, whether at uie first or last 
end of life, in Ihe day or the ni^ht nursery — do they 
not supply the liveUest illustrations of our changing 
moods ? Does not impatience bite her lips ? Does not 
raffe make men grind their teeth, and desperation set, 
aiS condemnation gnash them? Does not the dog 
shew his before he bites ? Does not cold make them 
chattvr in men, and excitement in monkeys ? By the 
way, I 'm afraid to think how much of the difierence 
between these two animals rests upon the conforma- 
tion of their respective teeth. I remember hearing a 
lecture by Professor Owen, in which he explained the 
dental distinction between his audience and apes. I 
really forget what it was. People clapped their nands, 
and hiends nodded triumphantly to one another, as 
much as to say, ' Now the great man has settled the 
question;' but it was, I thought, a wonderfully close 
shave. 

Do you know. Header — my stumps all stir them- 
selves as I write ! — do you know that there are three 
hundred and forty-one dentists in London? — pro- 
fessed dentists, besides all those who belong to the 
medical profession, and draw teeth incidentally — ^three 
hundred and forty-one, which, according to recent 
regulations at the War-office, is only a few short 
of a battalion. Allowing a month's holiday, you 
might have a new London dentist every day for a 
year, and even then leave some out: all principals, 
too, and no assistants, but men with smiling con- 
fidence, supple wrists, immaculate linen — don t you 
always notice the shirt-front of your tormentor ? — and 
eas^-chairs. Oh, that half hour of anticipation in the 
waiting-room, when yon turn over medical books, and 



look at the prints and pictures on the walls, and feel 
a sort of savage sympathy for each victim as he is 
carried sway mmi the flocik and swallowed up in the 
inner den, where you may sometimes hear him shriek, 
but whence yon never see him return ! The outer 
door shuts after a quarter of an hour — those were his 
remains going out ! 

Then your own summons But why recall the 

vision of that shastly chamber? Only, I must say 
that I think the process to be sone tmough before 
yon have a sinxde tooth rsplacec^ is more extensive 
than need be. Whyshould he have the model of yoor 
whole jaw ? I see him now, making at me with a 
little shovel full of warm wax — I hope it is new for 
the occasion, but it looks rather mottled — a little 
shovel, with a i>at of wax about the shape and size of 
a penny bun, with a mouthful bitten out. 

' Impossible ! my good sir ! ' 

But ne pops it in, and squeeees it against the palate 
with such dioking adheroice that every gusuttoiy 
nerve 0oes into fito. We must forgive his consterna- 
tion, THien the subtle judge of sauoe and wine finds 
himself suddenly encountered by a pound of soft 
second-hand candlewax. 

I really think some other preparatory plan mig^t 
be devised. Couldn't they do it by photography? or 
under chloroform? or, better stilt with something 
nice ? As it is, hours must pass after the operation 
before you can gjBt rid of the peculiar cosmetio taste 
it leaves — some&ing like that you might expect if 
you dined with the Lord Mayor of Greenland, and 
sat between a tallow-chandler and a soap-merchimt. 
Three hundred and forty-one dentists in the London 
Poet-office Directory alcme, besides those more or less 
instructed about teeth, discoverable in the same 
volume— namely, one thousand eight hundred and 
ninety surgeons ! 

Just consider what an amount of caries, inarticula- 
tion, toothache, and ill-humour this represents. The 
preponderance of the profession is measured by 
comparing it with another — ^take hairdressers. You 
want your hair cut whether you be well or ill — for 
every tooth drawn or replaced you have your hair cut 
scores of times : for every dentist there ought to be 
fift/ of the others, but there are barely three. 

U is true that much, probably most of the dentists' 
work, is to supply, not to wiuidraw. Ta^e up the 
Times, and climb a ladder of dentists' advertisements : 
the extraction of teeth bears a small proportion to 
their replacement. The ofjeration is so graphically 
attractive, so painless, so ingenious, that I wonder 
people don't have it done for Measure. It would seem 
to be a luxurious gratification. Those who go to be 
shampooed, and have their joints cracked, will pre- 
sently have all their teeth drawn and put in a^ain, 
once a week — say on a Saturday, when they are tired. 

Seriously, however, the improvements in dental 
mechanism are perhaps the most ai>preciable signs of 
modem surgical progress that we possess. Compara- 
tively few enjoy the latest discoveries in cuttii^ off 
legs and the like, while almost all are worried about 
their teeth, at one time or another ; but now ' sans 
teeth ' will be no sicn of age to those who can afford 
to buy a new set. Health, comfort, appearance are 
alike unproved. It is no small matter to be able to 
procure a useful ornament and a wholesome luxury 
at one purchase. The demand for teeth is rapidly 
increasing. Immense numbers are made of a mine- 
ral compound. One wholesale dentist I know of 
employs more than ninety persons in manufactur- 
ing either tiiem or things pertaining to them. The 
daily tale of teeth there produced is more than 
a thousand. Teeth made of this material, how- 
ever, are liable to break, under some circumstances. 
Having mytf^ twice smashed some mineral pinders, 
my dentist said, looking at the fracture : * An, I see ; 
you must have some hippopotamus teeth ! ' Retaining 
I a vivid recoUestion of the effidot when that gentleman 



113 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



in the tank at tb« Zoolo^col Gardens lixiks out of 
the water, nud soiiles, 1 aaid, ' Ah '. ' rather dubioiuly. 
Bat he v/aa rijjbt. Many teeth are Biipjilied by the 
hippopotamos : mine aie excellent. I am given to 
understand that those irhich have done service 
already in aome native bamaa ekoll ore lees used than 
they were; hut one would think they must be the beat, 
after aUj if it were not for the idea of imperiect 



dental Bureery U their erpenge— at least where teeth 
have to be replaced. Young dentists, who want 

S-aotice, are happy to draw teeth io /irrmd pauperii. 
y an inveree application of the law, ' you must not 
look a gift-borse in the mouth,' the unhappy gratis 
patient who has had a molar broken off short half' 
way ill the process o£ abstraction, may be eipected, if 
not to thank his eiecutiaaer, at least to abstain from 
a personal aasaulL You may get your teeth dravm, 
every one, for oert to nothing, if not for nothinz 
itieu; but when gaps in the series have to be filled 
up, it is quite another tiling. At present, gold is 
required. Thus, the jioor man cannot avail hinmelf of 
the advance in dental mechanism. Lately, however, a 
new material has been discovered, called vulcanite — a 
preparation of india-rubber, which is so successful as 
probably to supersede gold. At present, it is expen- 
sive, but before long, must necessarily afford much 
cheaper reliei than the material now employed. It is 



irith gutta-percha ; and the best uE it is, if the 
dentists will permit me to say so, that it is capable 
of application by the patient MmBelf. Front-t«eth 
cannot be thus replaced : but snpposo a man has lost 
two or three of bis back ones, and cannot afford to 
have them lupplied by a ilentiat. I would advue him 
to act thus : Let Mm take a lump of gutta-percha 
[white is the best, b«;ause it is sweeter than the 
brown) about as big as a walnut. Warm it tLorouuhly 
in boiling water till it is aa soft as putt; ; ueii, 
putting it into his mouth, let him bite it well into 
the gap, and keep his teeth closed till the gutta- 
percha cools ; thia will oblige him to shut hia mouth 
for two or three minutes ; then let him open it 
carefully, and take the lump out; be has only to 
trim it dawn with his penknife, and he will be fitted 
with an excellent substitute for regular artificial ttwtb, 
which will serve him well for yeara. This is no 
theory, but a proved Cacti and I can only account for 
its not being more generally known and reaEsed, by 
its interference with the regular business of the 
profession. Forgive, dear reader, my entering into 
details ; but the presence of ]a(^ed stumps rather 
assists this operation than otherwise, for thoy steady 
the gutta-percha auperatructure. Already thia material 
is recognised as capable of a popular self .application 
in the matter of stopping teeth, for it is sold in small 
lumps about the size used for this purpose. The 
white, I repeat, is the Iwst and purest ; though cheap, 
it is much dearer than the dork material used for 
pimng and the soles of sboefl. 

Eventually, however, I have no doubt but that the 
new stuiF, vulcanite, will enable the poor man to 
recover so necessary an assistance to health as teeth 
are admitted to be. I remember the time when 
lucifers were a great curiosity. Once, distinctly, I 
recollect, when I was a little l»y. seeing a genUeman, 
who was inquisitive about the latest disfovetiea in 
science, take two or three lucifers out of a case. After 
his shewing and explaining tbem, it appeared that at 
the end of each mateh there was a small glass tube 
filled with some phosphoric compound, which on 
being crushed, produced a flame. This process was 
effected by nipping the end with a pair o£ pliers, 
carried in the pocket for the purpose. Altogether, it 
*r«D « ^...-.,1 k..t ........r a£»x..:< '..... k.....i.._.. -Ji -'>emed 



brimstone-matcfa. Ita chief drawback, however, nii 
its erjiensc. I forget what this genUemon said he hid 
given for the matehes he exhibited, but now you cu 
get two boxes for a half-penny. 

nMbably, before very kiDg, dental hospitals will be 
able to a^ord rehef to thu poor by means of the 
material lately discovered, and repUce. at a cbau 
rate, those necessary stones of the mill thnn^ 
which onr food must be passed before it can repleniii 
the wasting fabric of our frames. 



Bedford Las no pecnlinr indastrj. I asked a gentlemu 
whom I casually met i 'What was the staple of the tows'" 
and he answered : ' Bducntion,' The beqaeal of an *Mb- 
msn of liondon, in the reign of Edward VI., of thirwoi 
acres of land in the parish of St Andrews, Holbom. cur 
produces an annual income of L.]3,E00 ; and the chui^ 
iiaving come under parliamentarj regulation, supporti i 
Grammar School, a Commercial School, a Pi^antn; 
English echcol. a National School, a QiFhi' Scfaool, iM 
an Infant School. Bedford Giammar School fumida 
the bigbest education to its free scholars and boardoi; 
and families come to Bedford from all parts to qnsltff 
themtelTcs as naidcnts for its advantages. Thnsednoi- 
tion i,t the great staple here. But the other >cllOld^ 
where pupils are not qualified by classical instnitlisi 
to oblMn aniverMty eihibitions, fit a very large jiiTOlk 
popnlalion for the duties of life in a manner wluch il 
evident in the demeanour of the inhabitants of Bedfol 
No stranger con ask a question of man, woman, ordiS^ 
without feeling that he is jn the midat of an inteUigOl 
popnlation, very remarkable for their alertneas sad 
GOnrtesy, as compared with the industrial classes d 
most previncisi towns. Sir William Hnrpiit'g betlM>i 
'for the inelmctioii of the children of the tom <l 
Bedford in grammar and gaad-manuera,' has very mhtt 
results. — Companian to Ihe AlmaniK. 



THE MISSEL. THEC3H IN PEBEUART. 
ToEna ia a bird, a handsome speckled bird, 
Who fills our naked woods irith early song ; 
Whiln jet from trees the wintry drip is heard. 
Of miats condensed, that move the vale along ; 
Poiied high upon some patriarchal tree. 
Pull in the sun's pale yellow rays of spring, 
When silver dast the rime spreads on the lea. 
He Instily hie morning-song doth sing. 
First note of loye that wakes the infant year. 
The sleeping bads grow purple with delight ; 
And swelling, like his warbling throat, appaar 
To woo with him the beams of warmth and light 
As aome full-chested herald who proclalmn 
The advent of the noble and the fair, 
Ho doth announoo the earth's returning claims 
To admiration and renewM care. 
Ah ! happy time, full promised time of hope, 
Melodiona breaking of the dawn of love. 
When oyes upon mystcriaua beauties upe. 
That jet the seasons' cinic have to prove ; 
How fair and fleeting are the joys oE earth ; 
How close is spring to winter's cold decay ; 
How small and mean, with little sign of worth. 
The bud that holds the gajest flower of day 1 

CnAKUs Enc 



Printed and Pnhljslied by W. * R CnAHBtfiB, 47 pB^B^ 
Dostcr Row, LoHDOH, and 339 High Street, EdinbuMI. 
Also sold by WiLLlJiM Robertson. ^ Upper Saokvilk 
Street, DcBLiN, and all BookscUen. 




S tit net anb ^rls. 



CONDUCTED BT WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 373. 



SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1861. 



Price 1^. 



POKING THE FIRE. 

NoTBiSQ can be more irritating than the feeble, 
incomplete way in which some people poke their firea. 
I cannot bear to look at them. But I don't know 
iirliich is worse, the indecisive ' potter/ or the ignorant, 
inartiHtic 'smash' which batters down the pregnant 
csovering of caked coal into a black confusion, letting 
the precious materials of a blaze escape unignited up 
ihe chimney. 

To stir a fire perfectly^ requires the touch of a 
■cnlptor, the eye of an architect, and the wrist of a 
dentist. I never saw it done thoroughly weU above a 
doien times in my life ; and though there are approxi- 
mations, more or less distant, within the reach of 
ovdxnary men, do not suppose that the process is a 
ample one, capable of being performed in a single 
operation. 

There ia the tap, when the fire has eaten into the 
heart of a big, upper boulder-coal, and its opening 
diinks require but a slight shock to part, and let the 
imprisoned flame spring forth. There is the lift, when 
the poker acts as a lever to the crust, and lets the 
rich loosened fragments drop into the red-hot cavern. 
There is the stir universal, when the mass has been 
left too long, and requires a thorough mixing. There 
is the ventilating poke, when the roof of the fabric 
has fallen heavily in, and the struggling flame has 
hardly power enough to overcome the incumbent 
mass. In this case, the poker must be moved slowly, 
and left for a minute between the bars after the move- 
ment has been made. In contrast to all this is the 
procedure of the fairer part of creation — the varium et 
mutahile — as epitomised in the noted definition of an 
Irish arolibishop : ' woman, a creature who does not 
reason, and who poikea the fire from the top,^ A truth, 
no doubt, but a partial one ; for, reader, have you not 
seen male animftla also commit this fearful outrage on 
the lares of the hearth ? 

Then there are side-pokes, and indeed many varie- 
ties of treatment adapted to the state of the patient : 
for a fire is a living friend, though a capricious one, 
and must be managed with respect and affection. A 
friend, ay ! Does he not glance a bright welcome when 
yoQ enter your room of a morning ? Is he not glad 
and merry when you come home ? Does he not wink 
at yon out of the window, when you mount the door- 
step ? Is he not quiet and considerate in your study 
or sick-chamber? If you are dreamy, and sit witii 
feet on lender, does he not sympathise with you, 
building &iry grottos, and peopling them with fan- 
tufeio ahapes, to suit and soothe your mood ? A friend ! 
I abonld think so. He is kind even when you turn 
jonr bsek upon him. But I grieve to see the unfeeling 



way he is often treated after months of closest inti- 
macy. You have sat by his side; you have talked 
with him by the hour together ; you have held your 
hands over him, as if you blessed him; you have 
looked into his heart through all the dull dead winter, 
and found it ever warm ; and then, when fickle, gaudy 
summer comes, and the sun peers into the room, 
catching the fire's eye with an insulting stare, is it to 
be wondered at if he sometimes slips out in the sulks ? 
You should have humoured him a little — drawn down 
the blind, and not left him alone to eat his heart up 
in neglect. 

Putting on coals, too, is a delicate process. A 
good healthy fire does not much mind a heavy meal, 
but a dyspeptic requires to be fed with caution. 
The surest way, though a slow one, is to take up 
a lump at a time, in the tongs, and build a loose cairn 
above the feeble blaze. How quickly the flames search 
the black interstices, and change the dead mass into a 
pyramid of life ! It is marvellous how soon a coy 
spark may be thus coaxed into a steady unequivocal 
fire. CoaJs ought not to be very big, but about the 
size of potatoes — the smaller ones choke and stunt 
the natural progress of the flame. 

I do not wonder at the freedom of the grate 
being made a test of friendship. You cannot trust 
an acquaintance to touch your fire. It is not only 
impertinent, but often unfeeling in him to attempt 
it. A hearth is a sacred place. Nothing accoimts 
more easily for the absence of domesticity among 
many foreigners, than their want of open grates. 
That can hardly be a home which is warmed 
by an invisible fire in the bowels of a great dead- 
looking stove. It is not worth protecting. Who 
would die fighting for an Amott? No, no— the 
successive and contradictory advertisements of patent 
stoves, assure me that the Briton has not yet accom- 
modated himself to so unconstitutional a machine. 
He cannot find any to suit him, and I humbly trust 
he never wilL Wood-fires are better than stoves; 
they can be poked — indeed, properly managed, they 
emit an excellent warmth, and crackle welL 

But about the right way of burning logs. Piling 
them up is simple enough, and a right genial hearty 
act it is; but many miss the power of a wood-fire 
by having the ashes frequently cleared away. Leave 
them there — let them accumulate for a week ; then, 
if you will, keep them within bounds ; but let there 
be always a mound or bed on which the log may lie. 
They warm a room well ; indeed, they never go quite 
out, though they look white and cold by early day- 
light. Some time ago, when staying at Rome, the 
frost was very sharp, and we had large wood-firea. 
Dominico, our man, never cleared the ashes away. 



Ui 



CHAMBEBS'8 JOURNAL. 



The fitat thing in tbo morning, be QBed to otick a 
number of cone* into &b uh-henp, and, lo J in s few 
miiiuteB there was a bright blaze. All the aaaocia- 
tioos, too, of a wood-fire are pleasant ; there ii the 
riving of lora with wedges — woric for the brun of a 
matl^iDatictaii. as well aa ezercise for bis body ; 
re is the picking up of odd bits oF stidu in the 
plantation, saying, ' Then;, that will do for the fire,' 
and theauomiDg inand feeding ityourself. There iia 

EroaperoUB look about a woodstacli. and well-stored 
aaktt of sawn billets in the comer of the room. 
Thesis msittinals, indeed, ore more '^easin^ than the 
best double-screened Wallsend. There is nothing 
hearty in the appearance of a cool-hole. 
I cannot bear p-'^-'--' "- ■■ - " 

kept lire, but the ends of the tools should be Mock. 
Never stuff up the grate wiUi ornaments ; hang some- 
thing in front, if you will, bat have the fire always 
laid. Then, on a wet, chilly, July eveniiu, yon can 
indulge the sudden hunger for a blaze, by the aid of ■ 
lucifer. at once. But the poker itself — what an apt, 
multifarious piece of furniture t Not ouiy has it a 
normal a[)hurti and use of its own, for wtuch. by the 
~~ -; it should not be made too blunt at the point, but 

. a test of physical power and manual dexterity. 

h and BUcL a man, we boor, can break a poker on 
his ana. or bend it round his neck. In this there is 
only the appeal to common experience, for who — 
wbat Englishman at least— is Ignorant of a poker! but 
a pleBflont vision of the feat. We behold the lire 
round which the athletes sit. over their wine ; we hear 
conversation stray to deeds of prowess ; we see 
the ready means of iUustnition present on the spot — 
the e7ctem[>orised performance. Then, too, what a 
ready weapon of offence or defence is supplied in the 
poker ! What more handy? It ia a national inatm- 
ment — the BritiBh poker. When the Yorkshire juir 
Hcquitted tbe man who knocked down his wife wim 
it, giving in their verdict, * Sarved ber light 1 ' depend 
upon it, DC would have been hanged if he hod done it 
with the tongs. I wonder whether he was the man 
who iiimrrolled. with his spouse about the right way of 
stirring the tire. Tbey had been separatHl on this 
account by mutual consent ; their friends, however, 
having brought them together again, they began talk. 
ing, as tbey sat by their hearth, on the first evening 
after their reconciliation, about the folly of falling out 
n so small a matter, when the tady said : ' Foolish, 
indeed, my dear, especially as / was right oil the 



THE VICTORIA BBIDGR 

Piw home-staying Britons are aware, that tiay 
[lESesB in North America a territory amounting 
> nearly a ninth part oE the land-surface of the 
globe, permeated by the finest system of natural 
iter-coinmunication that ciists ; or that in Canoda, 
B of the provinces of this great region, and the 
it of a new immigrant population of only three 
ndlUnna, there ia a system of canals equally nnex- 
lunplad, viUi one railway twelve hundred miles 
long, besides about eight hundred miles of other 
railwaya, being, in all, equal to a fourth port of the 
whole railway communication of wealthy and biuy 
England berseU. So ra[nd, indeed, has been the 
progress of Canada, that when on Englishman hap- 
pens to visit ber shorn, he is usually in no small 
degree surprised by what meets his gaze. He sees 
with equal wonder and gratification such goodly 
cities as Montreal and Toronto, He finds justice 
Bed in halls for eiccediag those of Westminster 
both as to space and elegance. He finds Icaming 
cultivated with dignity as well aa diligence in superb 



and liberally endowed colleges, of which thst d 
Toronto is an especially noble example. He fiidi 
also in that oity the central office of a moat aScUtit 
■yrtem of juvenile education, on non-sectariaa prm. 
ciplea, which mokes him aigh to think tlutt no Micli 
institution can yet be realised st home ; and if hi 
mingles in aocie^ in these remote regions, he discom 
that the elegances, the culture, and the enjoymoA 
to which ha may have been accustomed at home, an 
not wanting. 

Foremost among the wonders of Canada must U 
reckoned the great public work tbe name of whidi 
stands at the head of this pa[tcr. There have bMt 
many eighth wonders of tbe world, but none, it mq 
dehberstelf be Said, at all comparable to this. Spa- 
cing tbe St Lawrence at Montreal, tbe Victoria Bndgi 
forms a necessary part of the main line of raihnj 
communication by which the prodoce of the intcmt ■ 
brought to the porta of tbe Atlantic The meed n* 
readily to be seea and admitted ; if there vros to bsa 
railway communication at all — and the froicen stats d 
the water-communications for half the year made tt* 
sufficiently desirable — then a viaduct over that gnad 
river became clearly indispensable. Bnt tbe St Lav- 
rence is a rapid stream, twenty feet deep, and abors t 
mile in width, whose channel becomes so choked wilk 
ice in winter, as to seem to make engineering wtdi 
impossible. To contemplate such an nndettdn| 
required a scope and hardihood of imagination beyad 
all parallcL Nevertheless, the idea was formed bf 
a citizeD of Montreal so long ago as IS46,* and ii 
December 185!) the first train passed over the sctnt 



Tbe writer has seldom been so impressed b; uf 
outward thing, aa by the first sight he obtained i 
this bridge from the hill behind Montreal, in Octob* 
1860. He visited and inspected it next day, in cat' 
pony with several gentlemen of tbe district, ud 
found his impressions only deepened by the neir 
view. It is not that there is anything pictnresqna or 
fine in the Btructorc : its features are, on the contnuj, 
of a simply mechanical character. It is the «■"■ and 
purpose of t^e work which create a sense of sublimity. 
One haa to drive upwards of a mile out of Montiol 
to the station, whence proceeds in one direotiaii tks 
Great Trunk Railway of Canada, while in the oOs 
appears the Victoria Bridge, by which the coatiniMd 
line is carried on to PortliiDd in Mame. The fabrio 
consists of twenty -four piers, rising sixty feet above ti» 
water, with inbervala of 34'2 feet in all inatancei tot 
one in the centre, which ia 330 feet; the upper end of 
each pier being in a sloping form, to meet the dangenm 
masses of ice which pour down tbe stream in winbK 
Along the tops of the picra is laid a quadrajngnltf 
tube of ijlntc-irou, 16 feet in breadth, and riaingno* 
IS feet 6 inches at the extremitiea, to S2 feet m Aa 
centre in height ; this tube, of course, containing tte 
carriage-track. Such— with abutments at tbe eitr*- 
mities — ore the simple elements of t^ otnietnn; 
but when we walk into the tube, we find tlutt **>f* k 
composed of pieces, one of which crosses the gnat 
ceutral span, while each of tbe others croBsoa thmi^ 
two of the other intervals, a small vacant KMt 
being left at the extremity of each, to allow cnAs 
expansion and contracIioD arising from variatiiM 



On arriving at the opening of the tube freoa ths 

.mlnmllf out in ifa. BrtUih colonlH. la nniHqii^c* at Ikt 
grnrlif of * nen mmtrj, and thi sitmne UbenUtj of tt* 
ibIu InMinaoni. 



CHAMBERS^ JOURNAL. 



115 



Montreal side of the rirer, one finds it masked wiili 
stonework of E^i^tian massiTeness, including a lintel, 
on which is inscribed — 'Ebectkd a.d. mdccclix: 
Robert Stephenson and Alexander M. Boss, 
Engineers.' It was melandioly to reflect that already 
the first of these men was no more, while the secona 
waB represented as so thoron^y broken down in 
iiealth, as to be, for the present, sequestered from 
iie world. We walked in to about the centre, where 
in opening and a ladder enabled us to get upon the 
x>p, so as to survey freely this marveUons fabric, 
ind its surroundings. Everything seemed severely 
(imple, yet perfectly adapted to its purpose. A side- 
>pening, in like manner, enabled us to observe the form 
ind structure of the piers. Then the w(»d was given 
hat a train was approaching from the south end, and 
t was necessary to stand aside, and allow it to pass. 
>ur party followed the example set by a few work- 
oen near us, and ranged themsielves close to the plates 
onning the side of the tube, between which and the 
ail-track only a space of about two feet intervenes. 
)n came the huge noisy object, looking as if it would 
weep us all into destruction — it was impossible, with 
he utmost faith in what we were told of safety, to 
epress some Uttle tr^nors. Certainly any sudden f aint- 
1688 at such a moment mioht have been attended wiUi 
stal results, for nothing l)ut an erect position could 
ave us. The blinding and deafening mass passed in 
b8 undefined lineaments close to our faces, and I 
xjperienced, though I did not express, a feeling of 
enef when we again saw the empty tube before us, 
ad observed the train wheeling quietly out into the 
i^^ at the north end. As to the imperfect light 
n.thin, this is obtained through round holes pierced 
.t intervals in the side platM, at the places where 
heir weakening effect is least felt 

It having b^n determined, in 1852, that the St 
!jawrence snould be bridged by a metal tube after the 
tyle of the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait, 
t was but light and fittioff that the aid ci Mr Robert 
HM^ienson should be ca&ed in by the projectors; 
Old this eminent man, accordingly, visited the spot in 
he fftnwiing year. It is admitted, however, on {dl hands, 
hat the hiudest part of the busioess of engineering 
wm borne by Mr Rosa. On the plan being perfected, a 
[xrodi^ous system of labour for its working out was 
)rganiaed by Mr James Hodges, as representing the 
xmtractora, for whom he had executed several of 
bhe most extensive works in England. It comprised 
150 quanymen, shipping to the extent of 12,000 tons, 
nannfid by 500 sauors, and 2090 workmen of otiier 
lescriptions, exclusive of those required for the pre- 
paration of the tube, which was executed piecemeal 
n England. The work was commenced in January 
1854, when the surface of the river was composed of 
i deep pack of ice fragments, thickly coated over, as 
inial, b^ a newly frozen sheet On this firm surface, 
I pecmliar piece of wooden framework, called a cr3>, 
mm formed and sunk, such being a necessary prepa- 
vlive to the forming of a coffer-dam in which to 
a(y the foundations of the first pier. 

In the course of the summer and autumn, two 
iofiiBr-dams had been formed, and in one of them a 
ner had been built. Great fears were entertained as 
10 the effects of the winter's ice on these fabrics ; and 
•ha two dams did actually give way on the 4th of 
rannary 1855, when the pack of ice broke up. The 
Mscumolation had been going on for four days, until 
ihe river had risen high above its usual level, and lay 
Q a widely extended sheet over the adjacent country. 
At leoffth,' to pursue a narration which we owe to 
At Hodges, ' some slk;ht sympt(»ns of motion were 
nunbla The universaf stillness which prevailed was 
atemmted by an occasional creaking, and every one 
treftthle«l^ awaited the result, straining every nerve 
o afloertam if tiie movement was general The 
ikoertainty lasted but a short period ; for in a few 
xboaitei t£e uproar arising from the rushing waters, 



the cracking, grinding, and shoving of the fields of 
ice, burst on our ears. The sight of twenty square 
miles (over 120,000,000 tons) of packed ice (which 
but a few minutes before seem^ as a lake of solid 
rock), all in motion, presented a scene grand beyond 
description. The traveller-frames, and No. 2 *1awi^ 
clidedfor a distance of some hundred yards without 
having a joint of their framework broken. But as 
the movement of the ice became more rapid, and the 
fearful noises increased, these tall frameworks appeared 
to become animate ; and after performing some three 
or four evolutions like huce giante in a w^altz, they 
were swallowed up, and reduc^ to a shapeless mass 
of crushed fragments. After gazing at tnis marvel- 
lous scene in silence, till it was evident that the 
heaviest of the shoving was over, all those in the 
transit tower, from which it had been witnessed, 
began to inquire how the solitary pier No. 1, which 
had been battling alone amid this chaos, had escaped. 
Although some affected to entertain no fear, the 
author confesses, for lus own part, to have felt infi- 
nitely relieved when, upon lookmc through the transit 
instrument, he discovered that tne pier nad not been 
disturbed.** 

It was against .difficulties and dancers like these, 
and in the narrow intervals of time wnen the nature 
of the climate permitted men to work, that the 
masonry of the Victoria Bridge proceeded. Mean- 
while, the preparation of the plates required for the 
tubes proceeded at the Canada Works in Birkenhead. 
This branch of the work was one of great nicety, for 
every part of the tube required its own degree of 
strengtn, according to the strain and the compression 
which it was called upon to bear. A plan or map of 
each tube was made, upon which was shewn each 
plate, T-bar, angle-iron, keelson, and cover-plate, 
required in the different situations, with the position 
of each marked by a distinctive character or figure. 
As the work advanced, * every piece of iron as it was 
punched and finished for shipment, was stamped with 
the identical mark corresponding with that on the 
plan ; so that when being erected in Canada, although 
each tube was composed of 4926 pieces, or 9852 for a 
pair, the workmen, beinc provided with a plan of the 
work, were enabled to lay down piece by piece with 
unerring certainty till the tube was complete.'+ 

In the business of the masonry, great pndsc was 
due by the sub-contractor, Mr Chaffey, for certain 
remarkable contrivances by which the transport of 
the stones was greatly facilitated. At St Lambert, 
' a stock of material, amounting to at least 10,000 tons, 
was to be accumulated and placed in such position in 
the stone-field, prior to the commencement of the 
masonry, as to admit of each distinct course beinp 
kept separate, and readily accessible when required 
To effect this, a steam-traveller sixty-six feet in length, 
placed on a ^anty-frame raised twenty feet frotn the 
ground, and extending about six hundred feet in 
length, was constructed. The boiler and engine weie 
attached to the Jennie, and traversed latenJly along 
the traveller, being provided at the same time with a 
gearing to admit of a motion being communicated to 
the traveller, driving it from one end of the staging 
to the other. With this machinery, worked by one 
intelligent hov,. a train of cars, loaded with tiio 
heaviest blocks of stone, could be moved on the 
railway-track, underneath, backwards and forwards, 
as required, and the stones taken up and deposited 
together, according to the courses they were intended 
for. We have frequently seen this extraordinaiy 
automaton at work, with three of its six distinct 
movements going on at one time. Thus, a block of 
limestone, weighing perhaps eight tons, would be 
taken from a car, and while in me process of being 

* Hodget't Cbnstrvetion of the Tictona Sridpe. London, I860. 
This is A superbly illustrated work, mainly designed for the 
instruction of the profession. 

tHodges, 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



tup of a vile some iSstaoce further on, and at the side 
of the lieJd, the lateral motioD was cairyiiig it aide- 
wnys. and the whole mnehiue iDoviag in Uie direction 
of the pile at the rate of four mile* no houc ; which 
point reached, and the stone aofely depoaitcd. the 
three motions were inatsntaneously reveraed, and the 
troFellcr bronght liack to the cor for a necond load, to 
be conveyed perhaps in an entirely diiferent direc- 

Tbe work was completed nt the cloae of 1869, and 
tested in the most unmerciful manoer hy the pasnag 
of a train of platform cars, five hundred and twenty 
feet in lengtli, loaded with stone to the utmost, when 
even the central and longest tube was found to be 
deflected t« an extent of less than two inches. It 
needed but this fact to perfect the glory of a work 
which promises to be an enduring monuineiit of British 
skill, enterprise, and peiseverance. 



THE FAMILY SCAPBGEACE. 

After breakfast, Lucidora was despatched to 
Mr Sunstroke, to acqnaint him of the treasure that 
awaited his inspection at his photographic rooms — 
for the apartments occupied by Mr and Mra Jones 
were liia, and hod been fitted up, as we bate seen, 
with an eye to art purpoBos rather than to domeBtic 
couTenience- Better, however, is any tinfumiahed 
residence, gratis, than the most stately dwelling- 
place and rent therewith; and the two models lived 
cheaply and contentedly in their gbisa-house — 
throwing no stones at otiiom, wo will hope— and 
were evea enabled to accommodate a yoong friend in 
addition, as we have seen. Their home and their phieo 
of business were thus conveniently amalgamated. 
From sunset until after breakfast, all was domeaticity 
and private life ; but in the daytime, the nuptial- 
chamber was devoted to collodion and the black 
art, and the larger room bccaoje a theatre for 
CableaiLc. 

Those outdoor picnica, ao redolent of the leafy 
summer-time, with which the atereoscopo has made 
ua so familiar, all had their origin in that art-attic 
over the Haymarket. There, couched at ease upon 
greeu baize, and nnder the shade of canvas woods, 
those July revellen hold their pasteboard feasts, no 
matter what the weather or the aeasoo. There, loo. 
was temporarily reared the lung-drawn aisle and 
fretted vault of that well-known cathedral— which 
has drawn many a tear from the impressionable 
medieval eye, stereoBoopioally deceived— wherein those 
white-robed choriBicts (at one-and-sii) are swinging 
censera, with bowed head, before their bishop. And 

re, above all, those classical statues, with which 
are so well acgiutinted, more lifelike than the 

atest triumphs of Grecian art, reversed the miracle 
of Pygmalion, and turned from floah and blood to 

In auch a very slight flosh-colonred garment, that 
the wearer felt excesaively alarmed leat Mra Jones 
should re-eater the a[)artment before he changed it, 
the compliont Dick was now regarding himself in the 
' g basin. Aroimd his brow was a wreath of water- 
lilies made of green and white eottoa, which bobbed 
nlKiut his face, and tickled him like a night-cap witli 
a too liu:uriant crop of tasapla. A pieoo of blue cahoo 
was looped about him, much as a window- curtain is 

' L(n*'i aimiet al thi Ficlena BHdgi. Himtreal, ISCD (p. IM). 



festooned to right or left ; while into his connteaaoct || 
was thrown as vivid an expression of aclf-admiratiin | 
as hia sense of the lowncsa of the temperature lad D 
the falscnesa of his own position would permit the 
lad to assume. 

' A little more forward, if yon please, Nardn^' 
observed Mr Jones, who was in charge of the caiiBBi 
' not so much as that, though ; thank you. Doit 
laugh, whatever you do. or you'll be a dreidU 
object. Good Heavens '. wliat are you BCTatebni 
your ear for ! Pooh, pooh, a model must uaver iUI 
Couldn't you stand on one 1^ for a Lttle, in dixU 
give a lightness to the attitude ?' 

' Not without timibling into the basin,' rejciiHl 
Dick ; ' I couldn't, indeed 

' Ah, well, we will try that afterwards, then ; it 
will not look ill aa a specimen of an instantaMOB 

■ I say, you mustn't wink your eyes, NaiciMMi 

you must ataro steadily and fondly upon the wato; 
please— — - That's not a bad notion, though, I «■ 
going to say, for Sappho throwiue heraeu off Ik 
Lesbian rock into the sea. Mra T.— Mm Joiic^ 1 
mean— shall be Sappho, only it will spoil her clotka 
a good deal, uutess she does it in a bathtng-gawi; 
and you sbidl be Fhaon. Now, you must not nKm 
a hairsbreodth, Dick, for the photograph ii jpl 
going to be taken ; but don't hold your brerta • 
much, or you will be purple, and there is M 
knowing what queer colour that may turn to mfli 
photograph. 

In a couple of minutes. Narcissus the original VM 
permitted to re-asaume his lesa classical gaUMBlt 
and Narcissus the cmiy was lying in the dark chlB- 
her, steei>ed in an offensive preparation. | 

' You did it capitally,' observed Mr Jones vitk I 
triumph, ' and now it only remains to name yiw 1 
rewara. Shall It be beer and tobacco, or ahall M I 
go to the Zoological Gardens ?' I 

'Neither, thank you,' replied Dick, 'just now- I 
ahould prefer, if you don't mind- although yoalum 
forborne to inquire into my own recent histoty— 1> 
learn why it is yuu sometimes Call Mrs JonM^Uii 
T.r 

For a moment, the photographee looked a litSl 
annoyed, but immediately recovering bis gooir 
humour, observed : ' With all my heart, lad, for jw 
are sure to know it aome day, sooner or later. Coot 
and sit down by the fire, and listen to the history d 
one who haa been neglected by hia tas ; and dnv 
the corks of that couple of botUes before we begin 
Dick, for I hate to he interrupted by noise. Wnm 
I went almut the conntry with a couple of big candlM 
and n Shakapcare, giving tliat admiiAble. oonrse cf 
readings from the immortal bard, of which it wis 

'uatly remarked hy the LamTa End Thimdtrec 

tut there. I daresay, you never beard of them. Wdl, 
rhen I went about elevating the masaea hy the lam' 
f Dramatic }l3ocution. I always began the ent»tM&- 
ment hy a disaertatioa againai noiau,' 

By this time the liecr was drawn and emptied btD 
a huge 'pewter.' into which the CUsncal llodd, 
having dipped bis features, and emerged from 'iat 
foam thereof after the manner of pytheresLD VenN^ 
commenced as follows : 

' If Locke's theory be nDteoablc, and one balij bs 
really brouf^ht into the world with insUnoto anS 
characteristics differing from those of another baby, 
it is certain that the mdividunl who now addnMM 
you was bom a gentleman. I was n precioua hi^ 
ehnp in my notions from my very cradle, and I ^d 
always be a precious high chap until I die. It *■■ 
therefore monstrously inconaistont o£ Nature, haviif 
thus endowed me with qiiaLties only bolitting •« 
ixalted station, to permit my father to be the pro- 
,itietor of an inconaiderable eating-house in Wbite- 
ehapel : and whatever griefs I have Bince come to — 
and they have been nuinerous-_I have Attdbutoi 



OHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



117 



thiiJL, with jnatice^ to Nature only.- It may 
ly imagined that my poor parent — a ggood 
man in his line, which was, however, mainly 
i to mutton-pies and sheep^s trotters, with a 
ing of a sfngnlar viand denominated Chitter- 
be origin and nature of which are shrouded in 
V — ^was quite unable to amnredate the boon 
had been conferred upon mm in an offifpring 
8 msrsell But my mother — ah, my mother! 
(r Jones app«ired to be overcome with emotion, 
ce more buried his face for an extraordinary 
of time in the pewter] tiiat old lady was a 
trump, and that s all aiMmt it.' 
* murmured Dick in a symxMithetic voice, 
I just like my mother.' 

11, 1 cut away from the tripe business, and my 
' brought me back SAain, wod then I cut away 
Then I went to school, and out away from 
Then I was bound apprentice to a sigQ-painter 
had always a yeammg towards the Fine Arts 
r cut away from him. And at last, when I had 
rial, in short, of most things that a lad might 
terra firma^ I cut away from ihaty and went to 
iy connections, generally, were of a narrow 
tf mind, and dicm't appreciate me. When I 
lite yoimg, they only shook their heads, and 
ed, liiat, " after all, I was nobody's enemy but 
a." But when I grew older, and wanted a little 
from them now and then to start afresh, then 
le iheir enemy, and they shut their doors against 
icidently with their pockets. When I returned 
to Whitecbapel from my first voya^ my 
iras very far from killing a fatted calf m hon- 
that event : if it hadn't been for my mother, 
^ I should have had nothi^ for supper that 
except cold chitterlings. He even expressed 
\ ss owing Nature a grudge for having presented 
til such a son, whereas, as I have demonstrated, 
ievance lay precisely the other way ; whUe, in 
ton, he gave it as his opinion that I was 
\ less thim a "black sheep" — ^his very meta- 
foa perceive, being drawn irom those snambles 
\ he procured the raw material for the canying 
lis ignoble profession. In Encland, said he, 
ras no pasturage, he thanked Heaven, proper 
^ of that sort, but there was a portion of 
obe recently discovered, especially adapted, 
it seemed to some, providentiaUv designeo, for 
oommodation and sustenance of Black Sheep 
efy, Australia. If I was content to be exportea 
; he would pay my passage; if I was not 
lliere was a certain choleric vulgarity, in 
shout my respectable parent — attributable, in 
egree, as I have always endeavoured to hope, 
over-attachment to pigs' puddinss— that led 
hi language which, from respect to nis memory, 
lot repeat 

ung, however, to act a dutiful part, and being 
ttrely unprovided with the means for carrying 
omestic war, I acceded to the parental terms, 
trked for the Antipodes, and was accompanied 
ird the Betsey Jane by my father Imnself, 
td to that step by ardent affection, doubtless, 
3 desire of bidding me farewell, but also by the 
ig suspicion that I might otherwise spend my 
s-money more agreeably than in maritime travel 
ip was but a small one for so long a voyage, 
t well officered ; the watches, particularly at 
being very ill kept. My bertii was so small, 
ben we reached the Tropics it grew unbearable, 
len it was fair, I used to lie on deck instead of 
with only the stars above me. 
particularly still and solemn night, when I 
i to take up my (quarters dose beside the 
lan, J felt as disinclined for sleep as for 
n. I lay in a torpid state with my eyes 
Mit witi^ my senses partially shut, and with 
oughts occupied indeed, yet not under my 



control, but wandering at their own wondrous will 
in the jmst and in the future, to the annihilation 
of time and space. The only soimds that broke the 
universal silence which reused over sky and sea, 
were the turning of the wheel beside me, and the 
clanking of the rudder-chains, at first at irregular 
intervals, and with more or less of violence, but pre- 
sently becoming quite monotonous; for the helms- 
man had fallen asleep, and 1^ that indifferent vessel, 
the BeUey Jane, entirely to her own devices. Then 
the heavens grew cloudy, and the stars dimmer and 
dimmer, and the wind began to rise ; and still I lay 
with my Uuo& skyward, conscious but unconcerned. 

All of a sudden, there loomed something monstrous 
far above my face, shutting out the douds from my 
sight, and I heard a noise other than that of the 
rippling of the waves about our stem — it was the 
sound which the cut- water of a vessd makes in a 
freshening breeze. In half a second, I became fully 
conscious that the bowsprit of some huee ship was 
passing over us, and that in another half-second the 
netaey Jane would be run down with all her crew 
complete. Casting my cloak from off me, I leaped at 
the rigging which hung about the mighty beam, and 
thereby managed to dimb up on it, and tiience, with 
cautious trepioation, like a cat in walnut shells upon 
the ice, on to the forecastle of the stranger. When I 
had reached so far, the Betsey Jane was not to be 
seen. She had not been run down, for I had not 
fdt the slightest shock, but had escaped by the skin 
of her teeth, and with the loss of one of her most 
respectable passengers. 

1 was not at all surprised, after what had happened, 
to find the look-out man of the stranger also asleep at 
his post ; but it did disgust me, when I woke him for 
the purpose of explainmg the circumstances, to see 
him throw up his arms with a great shriek, and run 
bdow, exclaiming that the devil was on the forecastle ; 
thou^ if the uiing had happened in these stereo- 
scopic days, there might have been some foundation 
for the libeL As it chanced, I had got on board an 
Australian vessel bound for the London Docks, where 
I presently arrived, after a six months' sea-voyage 
almost unprecedent^ in the bazrenness of its results. 
My reception in Whitecbapel, as may be eadly 
imagined, was not enthusiastic; but, on the other 
hand, I arrived just in time to reodve the bequest of 
the travelling wild-beast show from my maternal 
uncle ; it goes about the country under my name until 
this day ; but as you are aware, I did not long remain 
its proprietor. The position was not, perhaps, of a 
sufficiently gentlemanlike character to smt my aspiring 
nature. You would have liked it, would you, Dick ? 
Perhaps so: I have often regretted, myself, that I 
should have been bom so precious high. The very 
same thing occurred when I subsequenSy took up the 
dog-trade. A puppy's tail, Dick, take my word for it, 
is not a moutnful for a gentleman ; and yet, unless 
they are bitten off, ** the Fancy " will not have them 
at any price. I daresay I had eaten many a one in 
my respected papa's pies ; but then the coolung makes 
such a deal of difference. That good man died at the 
very period when I failed in aogs— a circumstance 
which redounds to his credit as a man and a father — 
and paid the debt of nature just in time to enable me 
to settle with my creditors. My poor mother was not 
left quite so well provided for as might have been 
expected — for my father's will, it seems, had always 
been in my favour, although his way had sometimes 
been so unpleasant — and she therefore very wisdy 
determined to take a situation as — as — as housekeeper 
in a gentleman's family ; and I am bound to say that 
she has been of considerable use to me while in that 
position.' 

'Is it Mrs Trimming?' asked Dick with some 
hesitation. 

* That is the very party,' observed Mr Jones, * and 
a very nice old party die is. It was thought that 



118 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



li 



( t 



I 

1 1 

I 
f ' 



your roBpected unde mijg^t haye a prmndioe about 
her being the mother ot such a What shall I 

•ay?' 

* Such a precious high chap,* suggested Dick with 

gravity. 

'Just so/ returned Mr Jones; 'and therefore we 
have kept the connection dark, as far as he is con- 
oemed.' 

* And Mrs Jones beinc your wife, that is why you 
call her Mrs T.,' observ^ Dick. 

* Well, the fact is, she is, and she isn't,' returned 
the photographee, revisiting the tankard. ' My mother 
don^ Imow about it, you see ; she has her prejudices 
— I find so many people have about so many things — 
and so I keep that diurk too. But, hark! I near Luci- 
dora's footsteps upon the stairs, and, if I mistake not, 
that of our proprietor also.' 

As he finished speakinff, Mrs Jones entered the 
room, accompanied by Mr Sunstroke, a little old man 
with an immense pair of gray moustaches. He was 
always stroking and petting these, as thou^ to keep 
them in good-humour, and dissuade them m>m flying 
away wim him — a proceeding for which they looked 
admirably adapted — and he stood now in the doorway 
with one of tnem in each hand, and with his head 
yery much on one side, regarding Dick with his keen, 
critical eyes, as tiioush the lad were some object of 
vertA, of which he had been offered the first refusal 

' I don't like that Uttle mole on his left cheek,' 
observed the photographer, after a prolonged investi- 
gation. 

* Ah, that *s where I differ from you ! ' returned Mr 
Jones witii coolness. * Without that mole, he would 
be commonplace enough, perhaps ; but with it — ^bcing 
as it is, a beauty rather than a blemish, too — he 
becomes uni(|ue at once.' 

' Yes,' replied the artist drily, 'so unique that every- 
body must needs know him again, and he will only 
serve us for one poae. The public can't be expected 
to believe that Hyacinth, Ganjrmede, Narcissus, and 
the whole army of mythological youth, were all distin- 
^[uished by a mole upon their left checks, you know : 
it 's quite ridiculous. 

' Suppose,' suggested Mr Jones sardonically, ' that 
you sometimes took his right profile instead of his 

'There's something in thcU^ assented the little 
artist candidly ; ' and the young fellow is not alto- 
gether without expression, I must confess.' 

Dick, indeed, was looking volumes of astonishment, 
as well he might, while this question of his personal 
valuation was being settled, and felt much reheved 
when the bargain was concluded, and he found himself 
pledged to giv6 some half-a-dozen 'sittings' to Mr 
Sunstroke — although he never sat except in that 
celebrated pose of the 'Boy Extracting a Thorn' — at 
thirty shillmgs for the single figure, and a pound for 
one of a croup; one half of which remuneration was 
to go to Mr Jones, in return for food and lodgment. 

'Well,' observed the artist, when these terms had 
been finally arranced, ' I should have come up here 
this morning at all events, independently of our classi- 
cal young fnend. I have gone into a new line since I 
was with you yesterday morning. The stereoscopic 
business is extending, my friends — ^is ramifying. You 
remember that prison-tour of ours. Trimming, last 
summer, wherein we photographed about five hundred 
as ill-looking scoundrels as the sim ever shone upon, 
in order that justice mi^t keep mementos of tneir 
visit — duplicates of their expressive physiognomies. 
Well, I was sent for special, by the pouoe, laist after- 
noon, to do another job for them. It has been deter- 
mined, it seems, in the cose of all unclaimed How- 
ever, just look at that ; it speaks for itself, don't it ? ' 

Mr Sunstroke drew a slide out of his pocket, placed 
it in a stereoscope, and handed it to Mr Jones for 
inspection; then stroking his moustaches wiUi great 
vehemence, as if to make up for his neglect of them 



while arranging the instrument, he awaited fta 
verdict of his photographee. 

'It's the most iSelike, at least deathlike itaB§! 

cried Mr Jones, ' I ever But here, Dick, rat 

do ^ou say about it ; your opinion, as that of n 
outmder, snould be better worui having ? Isn't fbi 
a splendid specimen of what art can do tovadi 
strengthening the hands of justice? A score of jma 
i^ter that mortal body has dropped to piecei, fts 
lineaments of the dead man's features will renum h 
you see them now, to be recognised by any * 

' Gotsuchakoff ! ' cried the lad with a shzick of 
terror, casting the instrument upon the cronnd, ad 
cowering into a comer of the wall, as if ne hid beet 
struck. 

Mr Sunstroke bounded forward, but too late to un 
the already shattered sUde ; Lucidora rushed into & 
little chamber for a jiu; of water to throw ow tlK 
faininng bov ; but Mr Joncs seized possession of & 
camera, and bidding everybody keep away from tte 
lad upon their lives, proceeded to take an instsstip 
neons photograph of nim — which afterwards beoni 
one of the most popular of the * ghost-slides,' mds 
the very taking title of The Speetre-anUten^-a Sttdi! 

CHAPTSB xvi. 

IN TaOUBLS. 

Having thus involuntarily commenced his proleoBn 
— having achieved his first stereoscopic success in » 
manner at least as accidental as that by whidi ftfi 
artist in the story painted his doud — namely, 1i^ 
throwing his brush at it — Dick pursued it with SH* 
duity and pleasure. It was not very hard work, mm. 
while it was goins on, and wet days and dark daji 
were holidays m tne photographical calendar ; moR- 
over, it was rather pleasant to recognise himsdf k 
shop- windows, and hear the criticisms passed bjib 
vulgar upon his classical attitudes. Mr Snmrtnke'i 
manner was kind, and his anecdotes amusing munf^ 
whenever, at least, there was anything like a flm 
light. Mr Jones was always chatty and agreeub; 



and Lucidora, although she su£kred occanonally mn 
depression of spirits, imparted that feminine mmnr 
to the general conversation without which the toat^ 
of the matest wits is said to be imperfect. She evh 
dently liked the youth, and her manifestatioii of Obd 
feeling {iroduced at once its effect on Dick, whoia 
heart was indeed a very mirror for reflecting tiie lent 
good- will that happened to be shewn to n; bat Mr 
Jones monoi>olised most of the talk when Mr Sqb- 
stroke was not with them, and studiously confined ifc 
to the airiest themes, so that the lady's diapoiitioB 
and character remained almost as unkne^m to Dkk 
as on the night when he had first seen her. "Ha nenr 
chanced to be left alone with her — Mr Jomee dedaring 
that he was jealous of Narcissus — ^oniil a eertaia 
morning some weeks after his arrival, when the pho- 
tographee had gone out for some twenty minutes to 
his costumier Shadrach, to hire that very hmsar vni* 
form in which we have so often seen him proponng to 
the young lady in the conservatory. 

'Kichii^ Arbour,' exclaimed she the inBtant Hut 
the street-door was shut, and without the least hsa* 
tation or introduction, 'would you like to see year 
mother once again before she dies ? ' 

Dick, who, very much in dishabille, was fittii^ s 
gilded win£ on to a flesh-coloured shoulder-stnp, 
uttered such an inarticulate cry of erief and terror, 
that the woman's eyes, which had looked hard and 
harsh enough when she first spoke, grew tender st 
once. ' Hush,' she went on, ' it is not your fanh, <v 
at least not all your fault They have kept that from 
you which they should have told. Mr Sunstroke does 

not want to lose you, because O Dick, we are 

all of us very selfish, and need much forgiveness t' 

'What of my mother?' whispered the kd, as thon^ 
he heard her not ' What of my dear nurthar ?' 



J 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



iiy 



L 



'She is ill — very 01,' retomfid the other. *I am 
•ore of iAuA by whitt I heard laat ni^ht. Richard waa 
told ao by Mrs Trimming. She ia m Golden Square, 
not ten minutes' run from this, Diok. To-moirow, 
£temity itself may be between yon. I have known 
what it is to miss a moUier's messing ; I pray you 
may never know it, too, and that is why I speak.' 

' I will tell her,' sobbed Dick, as he thrust on his 
shoes and coat — * I wHl tell her how you saved me 
from that loss.' 

'Tell her nothing about me!' exclaimed the ffirl 
with passionate shnllness. 'Forget me and all that 
belonfl9 to me when you leave this room. Let not the 
thought of her be ever mixed up with thought of me, 
unless you would defile your mother's memory !' 

Hurried and panic-s^ck as the boy was throu^ 
the news he had just heard, he ran i^ to the wretched 
woman as she poured forth her bitter words, and lifted 
ap his face that she micht kiss him. But she tamed 
away, and put him aside with her hand, ciyinfl that 
her lips were poison; and again bade him depart 
while there should yet be -time. 

Dick needed no third warning, but fled down the 
stairs and into the street like one distracted. Fast 
as he flew, however, through the wondering crowds, 
and short as was the distance he had to traverse, the 
thoughts of what he had done, and what he had left 
undone, in regard to his beloved mother, passed 
through his conscience-stricken mind again and again. 
He had written to her but three times during the 
fifteen months or so that had elapsed since his £par- 
iure from his uncle's, giving indeed a cheerful view of 
his mode of life, but without specifying what it was, 
or mentioning anv address whereby she mi^t write 
to him, as he well knew she must have lovindy longed 
to do. O^gnizant of her thraldom to Sister^aria, he 
had not ventured to disclose his whereabouts, for fear 
of its beiiu; revealed to Unde Ingnun, while his boyish 
pride revolted at the idea of confessiDg the actual 
nature of the humble pursuits in which he had been 
cngafled. The sense of this unfeeling conduct, unmiti- 
gataa now by any such excuses, possessed him wholly, 
and left no room for any dread of repulse or humi- 
liation that he might meet with at the hands of his 
imcle or Adolphua He only yearned to penitently cast 
himaelf at the feet of her whose lovmg heart was 
breaking — ^perhaps broken — ^for his sake; for his, to 
whom a straoger — and, by her own account, a far from 
exemplary character herself — had had to point out 
the cruelty of Ids silence, and to remind him of that 
parent who osurht never to have been absent from his 
thou^ts. What was drudgery in the china ware- 
hooae, or cold looks and cutting words from those 
who loved him not, that to escape them he should 
have added so heavily to that burden of sorrow which 
he wall knew his mother had to bear ? Had she ever 
shrunk from a personal sacrifice by which the merest 
pleasure was to be conferred upon himself ? * Wicked, 
wicked boy though I have been,' thought he, * hence- 
iorth, at all events, mother, you shall never have 
eauae to complain of the conduct of your son ! ' 

Al&s! how unfortunate is it that these inward 
determinations of Reformation — these little private 
^provement bills which are passed in the Parliament 
of our own hearts — can never be made sufficiently 
public ; and what is of greater importance, be got to 
M publicly belie\'ed ! that we cannot cry, * Let bygones 
be oygrones,' and so become quits for what has passed, 
with all Uie world ! ' My behaviour, up to this time,' 
ao our confession runs, *has been, I miist confess, 
abominable, and nothing less ; but henceforward, O 
my fellow-creatures, I start upon a new tack and 
under an honest flag. I have got out of the Smuggling 
eydone, and mean to be driven for the future 1^ no 
other winds than most straightforward ones. You and 
I, Revenue Cutter, called Society, have been hitherto 
at cro8s-]|>uriK>se8, but let us mutually salute. I feel 
alrsadyy in anticipation, the delights that will flow 



from a due obedience to the Excise laws.' But, alas! 
the Society ranges up with her guns double-shotted ; 
can be got to credit nothing of what is intended for 
the future ; harps solely upon some past ' Tubs,' 
illegally run by us the deuce knows when, and takes 
us mto harbour a condemned vessel, just as we were 
upon the point of commencing a career of universal 
usefulness. 

Poor Dick was as full of pious resolves, as dead to 
any old temptations, when he turned the comer of the 
strieet leading into Golden Square, as any lad of his 
vears could be in all London, when, lo and behold ! a 
hand is laid upon his collar, and a voice, as firm and 
quiet as that of conscience itself, remarks : ' We've got 
you at last, young eentleman; though we Juwe been 
looking after you a pWuy long time ! ' 

Thus spoke that efficient officer Al of the metro- 
politan police force, taking the steadiest gripe of the 
lad's coat-collar, but managing, nevertheless, to convey 
no other idea to casual passengers, but that Dick and 
he were engaged in familiar conversation ; * Now, I 
don't want to throttle you, young sir, nor nothing like 
it, so I do hope you have made up your mind to come 
along without a row.' 

Poor Dick had certainly just been makins up his 
mind to obey all constituted authorities, out the 
practical compliance thus immediately expected of 
him was rather embarrassing too. 

* Why, you must have knowed,' continued Al, 
in answ^ to his astonished look, ' that this here was 
the very place of all places as you should never have 
come to. There's one of us in every street out of that 
square vender with his orders al>out you. There's 
been a detective a-lolling' against your area-gates for 
the last fortnight. Why, lawk a mercy I to see you a- 
coming here in the broad dayliffht, as though there 
was nothing out against you, and no reward for your 
being took up — ^why, it do beat lettuces for greenness ; 
and you a conspirator too ! ' 

'A conspirator!' echoed the wondering lad. *I 
don't know what you mean indeed ; but I do pray that 
you will let me see my mother first, before you take 
me away.' 

*0 lor! mv! I can't stand this,' exclaimed 
the poUceman, taking out a pair of handcufis from his 
pocket ' You must be a slippery chap to talk like 
thatb For a young murderer and a foreign plotter to 
be so precious innocent and devotedly attached to his 
parient, is something too much.' 

' don't, for God^ sake, don't ! ' cried the agonized 
boy. * I have done nothing to deserve to wear those 
things, indeed. I had nothing to do with it — if it's 
about Count Gotsuchakoff— except that I told upon 




which will take us to Poplar quite comfortably, and 
without the necessity of my putting on the bracelets.' 
The policeman beckoned to a passing cab, and the 
two got into it. As soon as they were inside, Al 
relaxed his gripe of the lad, who was weefung bitterly, 
and bade him be of good cheer, for that it was very 
unlikclv that tiiey would do more than lag such a 
young un as he. 

* Might I see the house, please ?' cried Dick eagerly, 
as he perceived this change for the better in his cap- 
tor's teeliugs. ' Might we drive slowly past, that I at 
least may see the house in which she is ?' 

* Mr Arbour's, I supixwe, you mean, my lad. Well, 
I daresay you may. Take the right hand of the 
square for Poplar, cabman. Here it is, then, and there 
isn't much to look at, as I can sec. The family's all 
gone out of town since yesterday, I reckon. It's all 
shut up, with the blinds down, and the rest of it, just 

as though somebody had been and gone and died 

Hullo ! young fellow, keep up, will ^rou ? ' ejaculated 
the policeman, as the boy fell heavily forward, and 
sunk down a li&dess heap upon the floor of the calx 



120 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



■« 

1 



I 



* Well, I thought he was too ^oung to cany it through 
so preciouB cool as he began it. Driye as fast as you 
can, will you, cabby ? for your fare here has been and 
fainted slap bang off.' 



ON PAROLK 

DuRiNO the twenty-three years' war with France, 
which, beginning with the wild anti-monarchical mani- 
festoes of the Committee of Public Safety in 1792, 
came to its apogee at Mont St Jean in the June of 
1815, many prisoners were necessarily made on both 
sides. The goyemments of neither Gaul nor Britain 
erred on the side of OTer-indul^ence ; captivity was not 
an Elysium on either side of the narrow seas ; and as 
philanthropy was an infant science, and sentiment out 
of fashion, the public sympathies in no degree miti- 
gated the harshness of the authorities. Indeed, the 
French prisoners in Britain were very unpopular, and 
were regarded by many worthy folks as the authors of 
all evil amongst us. Coining was a very usual offence 
just then ; the land was flooded with bad shillings and 
base half-crowns, the making or circulating of which 
the law punished with death, or such minor pimish- 
ment as his noajesty should deem fit. His majesty 
seldom did deem any minor punishment fit for such 
flagrant misconduct. The hangman was very busy, 
but somehow the bad money seemed to abound the 
more for the countless convictions and executions 
which blacken the records of the age. Now, this 
fraudulent mint was believed to be a device of the 
French prisoners. They — ^the captured grenadiers 
and artillerists — ^being ingenious in their way, really 
did plait straw-hats, and mats, after the fashion of 
their country, and, to the great detriment of Dun- 
stable, offered the same for sale, thou^ their work- 
manship was remorselessly burned i^enever their 
guardians could find it. Nobody doubted that those 
who could make straw-hats could also make false 
shillings, wherefore the chief 'smashers' were the 
French prisoners — Q. K D. 

Still, although the great camp of Norman Cross 
was famed for its harsh discipline— though contractors 
nibbled away a part of the prisoner^sloaf, and the 
beef may have bieen inferior, and the guard severe, 
and though the hard fortune of those confined on 
board the hulks is a favourite theme for declamation 
in French literature at this hour — still it is a curious 
fact that few of the actual captives spoke evil of their 
captors when restored to freedom. Norman Cross 
was bad enough, but Verdun, where our countrymen 
lay, was worse. The hulks were wretched, but Biche 
was * in the lowest deep, a lower deep.' And those 
places where the prisoners on parole were confined 
were anything but overstrict in their regulations. 
At Lichneld, for instance, were stationed 2000 Gauls 
— officers and privates — ^watched by a military force 
that was partly under canvas, and partly quartered 
in the quaint old town, under the shadow of the 
renowned triple spire of the minster. The PVench- 
men were picked Frenchmen — the good boys, in fact, 
culled from among the foreign pupils in Dame 
Britannia's stem school. Only the tractable and well 
behaved among the men, only the officers who had 
made no attempt at escape, were privil^ed to reside 
on the peaceful shores of the Minster Poo^ among the 
green meadows and leafy hedgerows of Staffordsnire. 
A single offence vrdA enough to procure instant 
expulsion. The captives on parole lost caste as easily 
as a Brahmin docs. A breach of word, an effort to 
flee the country, was rightly thought to deprive the 
prisoner of his claim to be relied on as a man of 
honour, but a mere trespass beyond bounds was 
enou^ to coll down the same punishment. The law 
was Draconic, and the punishment was the transfer- 
ence to the penal settlement of Norman Cross. Was 



a light-fingered conscript caught in purloining a 1m! 
— to Norman Cross with him. Did a crusty veteni 
become disrespectful to the ruling powers ? — ^NoiaHi 
Cross was the word. Did M. le Commandant Choit 
take a promenade into the country beyond tiie jn- 
scribed limits ? — ^Norman Cross was lus doom. 

Still, on the whole, the prisoners must have behsvid 
well, for they conquered much stubborn prejudn^ 
and became quite popular with the towns-people, wUi 
those who dwdt some miles off were still reg^vdng 
them as blasphemous sans culoUea, They were polil% 
these involuntarv guests ; they were gay and li^^«( 
spirit, and usually affable ; and, above all, they WM 
industrious. Many English homes are still deoorairi 
by some tiny toy, some delicate model, in wood, cr 
bone, or ivory, the handiwork of the French prisoBMiL 
It was wonderful to see out of what unproming 
materials they would construct pretty knick-knaeki^ 
fit for the most attractive stall a fancy-ftur coaM 
boast ; and equally remarkable was it to watch thai 
at their toil There they were, the sfu-ightly httk 
aUens, chirruping and singing over their tau: — OM 
man turning a leg-of-mutton Done into an improved 
model of the guillotine, victim, executioners, and all; 
another cutting out a delicate ship in ivory, with emtf 
rope distinct, and the utmost finish of detail ; while i 
third was turning shavings of stained- wood into worit* 
boxes, or making such bukets of variegated straw u 
no native gipsy could equal The poor artists mad« » 
good deal oy their industry, even in that period d 
taxation and scarcity, when the ploughman hadtopi^ 
a shilling for a loai, and there was no gold leH ■ 
England. The prisoners were not content wiA 
carving bones and making work-boxes : they scm^ 
emplojrment as grooms and gardeners, and as mm 
servants were expensive just then in England, owiiif 
to the demands which the immense army, navy, aai 
mihtia made on the nation at large, the petition <k ti» 
captives was well received. 

It is true, that few Britons of that time were nA 
enough to intrust a horse to a Frenchman's tsate 
mercies — grooming was an accomplishment onJy fil 
for King George's native-bom subjects; but itw» 
soon discovered that the foreign candidates for gurdoh 
work were exceedingly clever, and they were thfii«> 
fore gladly allowed to beat their swords into proning- 
knives. It was amusing to see some sturdy uip- 
booted Briton, in the blue coat, fiowcred vest, and 
bunch of seals of the old school, giving orders in 
dumb show to his grinning and gesticulating j^urdencr, 
and to watch the infinite amount of pantomime, the 
shrugs, grimaces, and skips with which the Qaal 
suppHed the place of words. Moreover, there was a 
stnp of neglected land near the town-walls ; and this 
waste plot the prisoners beg|y;ed of the corporation of 
Lichfield, and being permitted to take po ascari oB, 
they forthwith cultivated innumerable htUe patdbct 
of onions, potatoes, lettuces, and other vegetabki^ 
while others fished in all pools and streams withift 
their bounds. Even the reptile world had to con- 
tribute to the cuisine of these forced exiles : tho 
peasants and school-boys swore that the French had 
captured and cooked every frog within two miles of 
the town, and I am sure that no one grudged then 
this national dainty. While the privat^ were hoeing 
turnips or angling for the BcUrachta^ the officers weie 
in many cases received into society by the gentrf <^ 
the place kindly enough. Some of the poorest of 
them gave lessons in their native tongue, or taught 
the youth of Staffordshire the accomplishments of 
fencing and dancing, or how to discourse dulcet soundi 
on the flute or vidin. Yet, poor fellows, they must 
have had many a dull hour while awaiting the cartel 
of exchange that was to send them back to the caf§i 
and theatres of their own land, soon in maxiy cases 
to be deserted for the grim reidities of a Kussiaa 
campaign, and a soldier's hasty grave. 

There were some there, however, and those by no 



1 

a 

'5 



i 
I 

t 

B 

i 
D 

1 

T' 

\ X 

E 

S 

t 

a 
(k 

ca 

\i 

IB 
|il 

i 



OHAlIBHRSnS JOURNAL. 



ISl 



16 least liked by IftigKnh familiei to whom 
B known, to whom no cartel could bring the 

of freedom. There waa, for instance, an old 

mine, still alive^ the Marqois de Pontonon. 
quia was a gay yonng colonel then ; he had 
he army at eiditeen« to save his neck and his 
>m the shaip decrees d the Convention ; had 
jrades at the swardVpomt ; and had sorren- 

town, himself, and lus regiment, to Lord 
on's troons. Napoleon threatened to shoot 
D, if the latter returned from captivifc^, and 
marqois seemed doomed to perpetual mipri- 
He was not the only one with whom the 
iperor was displeased. Sereral officers dared 
ick — they had done their best, and Napoleon 
nore than the best — wanted to erase the 
mpoBsible* from French dictionarifii, and 
tia4» a short shrift and a smart volley should 
5 gndinswhea thev came back to him. They 
d come back to him. Some died in exile, 
uzned to France with the allies ; others, and 
nis in especial, married blue-eyed daughters 
ious Albion, acquired the language in some 
md became half Anglicised. Yet it was 
ad pathetic to see them kissing and crying 
r crosses of the Lesion, the baubles they had 
r blood for under tioe banners of !FVanoe, and 

the harshness of the Emperor. They never 
him with disrespect, not even those whose 
s easily provoked an^ had blighted. As 
ommon soldiers, they idolised him. Most of 
L some little portrait or bust of the Man of 
which they earned about like a fetich, and 
ad gazed upon for hours. Of a different 
re we views of Britons r^zarding the sallow, 
ing and king-breaking Corsican. *Boney* 
ogre of our nurseries; little children were 
d into good-behaviour by the threat that 
onld be sent for to eat tiiem — Boney, that 
ston, with sabre and plumed beaver, and 
B^rin, who scowled on all honest folks from 
iellcas' windows, and who, as being the very 
pictorial Famine, was deemed an appropriate 
:or the traditionally lean and hungry French, 
a — for to use the word Napoleon was then 

a petty treason to good King George on the 
na his plump guert at Hartwell — was the 
ol the nation to an extent hardly to be 
now-a-dim The French prisoners derived 
Brest in British eyes from their connection 
I Xncamation of EviL Thev caught, as it 
ne sparkles of the infernal lustro of this 
B war-dragon, with baleful breath, and ada- 
icales, and fiery jaws ever gaping to swallow 
t a mouthfuL Most of them had seen him, 
1 spoken with him— with him. Napoleon 
e, whose words made monarchs shake in 
il shoes, and whose audacitv kept all Britain 
This vieille mougUiche could repeat what the 
had said to him when he received the crotx ; 
r syllables, and that scrap of ribbon, were 
mpensation for toil, and wounds, and cap- 
liis old soldier could boast of a kind word ; 
ig conscript, while lying wounded after his 
ie, had been consoled by a smile, or a *Pauvre 
om the Man of Destiny ; and their comrades 
1 a certain meed of honour, because kis glance 
ned to rest on them. We English folks 
md wondered, and admired this devotion of 
lers to their idol, and envied a little, perhaps, 
ire of their veneration for the conqueror. 
, we had no idol of our own, in particular, 
bhe war began, and for some years after, our 
I loyalty, love, and homage had been all for 
orge our king ; but the war had gone on ill 
iringly, except at sea, where no hostile flag 
bed, and where our fleets were supreme, 
a dear, trade slack, and grumbling plentiful. 



Great George our kinp^ was old, and blind of mind 
and body, and his subjects had lost si^t of him for 
ever : the most fervid loyalty could hardly cany its 
aspirations to that padded room at Windsor. Lord 
Wellington, not yet a hero, was painfully struggling 
in Portugal agamst the furious tide of the FrencE 
attack; the funds were fabulously low; and riots 
seemed indigenous to the manufacturing districts. 
Presently, there came a change. The mail-coaches 
thundered into the towns, laurelled like so many 
bowers upon wheels, nay, the very wheels were 
twined with dusty evergreens; bays were twisted 
round the heads of the smoking horses, wreathed 
into their harness, and blended with their tails. 
High on the giddy roof, where even the luggage of 
the passengers was bedecked with laurds like a 
trophy, stood the guard in his official red coat, 
reading out to the oreathless populace the Gazette 
which announced some Peninsular victory. How the 
people shouted, and the bells rang triple bob-majors, 
and the volunteers fired salutes, and the sternest 
schoolmasters gave half-hdidays to their excited 
charge! Woe to the windows that should be dark 
and candleless that night, when an illumination 
was decreed in honour of Badaioe, or Salamanca, or 
red Vittoria ! Wonderful was the stir and huzzaing, 
amazing the jov, and beer-drinking, bell-ringing, 
smashing ci winaow-glass, and consuming of taflow- 
dips, as the news of each new triumph came on the 
notes of Fame*s blatant trumpet — ^the mail-coach 
horn! 

It must have been with curious sensations that the 
French |irisoners, chipping at their ivory frigates, 
or traimng their scarlet-runners, heard all these 
rejoicings. I wonder how they felt when the earliest 
inteUijo^ence was communicated to them respecting 
the disasters of their compatriots, so many cannon 
taken, so many stands of colours, captives, treasure 
— such and such a list of killed and wounded — all 
the meagre items which the dx^ little newspapers of 
the day dribbled out to the excited public, and which 
sound so mean and unsatisfactory when compared 
with the florid eloquence of Our Own Correspondent, 
now-a-days. Huzza for my Lord Wellington! the 
little boys used to shout, with the thoughtlessness of 
their time of life, when they saw the good-natured 
grinning Gauls : * What do yon think of Boney now, 
mounseer?* The Frenchmen took the inquirv well 
enough, with a shrug and a grimace, and pornaps a 
pinch of snufE^ if they had any snuff *Think of 
Boney, indeed!' They thought the same of him as 
ever — ^that he was invincible, fate-compelling, king of 
men. They were not in the least angry with that 
M. Vilainton of ours for some minor successes in 
Spain and Portugal over the French arms ; that was 
but the fortune of war : the Emperor would put that 
little matter to rights when he should come back 
from his Moscow campaign, dragging with him the 
Czar in chains, and crowned with C^ossack victories. 

I am afraid that some honest tax-payers in Stafford- 
shire were not a little disgusted tnat the prisoners 
should have made so light of the reverses of France 
in the field. Fortresses fell— battles were won — 
Iberian provinces regained from the gripe of the 

riler — Joseph the Satrap, kin^ of Spain, and brother 
'Boney,' was flying from his usmrped realm, and 
his very plate and plunder were overhauled by 
Wellington's dragoons; but the Gallic guests at 
Lichfield kept up their spirits joyously, and never 
doubted the luck of the Emperor for an instant. 
But when news came of the terrible retreat from 
Moscow, with Frost and Kutusoff pressing on the 
heels of the Grand Army, and how whole brigades 
of world-renowned vetenms died daily by cold and 
hunger, then a gloomy change came over the prisoners 
too : tiiey grew morose and silent ; their everlasting 
camp-souj^ camp-stories, were hushed ; their, gay, 
gasconading, hopeful spirit was under a cloud at last 



12fi 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Emperor-wonhip was the main religion of most of 
these poor fellows, and they beheld the darkness of 
misfortune that was fast envelomng their glittering 
idol, in much the same mood with which the 
Chinaman watches an eclipse of the sun. A deep 
depression succe^ed to tne familiar merriment of 
the prisoners ; they hung their heads, and ceased to 
twirl their moustaches mto that oonqoerinjg, defiant 
twist which the French miUtaire most afiScts. No 
more fiddling and dancing; their flutes blew the 
dolef ulest of dirges ; their manners grew brusque 
and surly, and amongst themselves they often 
quarrellecl desperately. 

It was at this time that young De Mousseuz, a 
Bonapartist pur sangy who had been an ai^e-de-camp 
on Napoleon's personal staff, who was only twenty- 
five, and already a colonel, had an altercation with 
Count Louis de Fresnes, a cajYtain of chasseurs, who 
came of an old Legitimist stock, and was supposed to 
be but a time-serving partisan of the bellicose Corsican. 
At anyrate, two younjg officers of an English cavalry 
regiment lending their kind assistance, and getting 
a month's arrest for so doing, a duel was fought with 
the small-sword, and the count was run through at 
the second pass. The venerable cathedral city was 
scandalised by the arrival of a yellow post-chaise, 
through one of the windows of which protruded the 
booted feet of the dead duellist, whose head was 
supported in the arms of the surgeon. A great 
turmoil resulted from this luckless afi&ur, not that 
duels were scarce in that hot-blooded epoch, but that 
those rencounters had rarely a fatal termination. 
De Mousseux was taken into custody by the town- 
sergeants, of course, and there was talk of committing 
him to take his trial at the assizes; but some one 
suggested that to bans an alien prisoner for the 
murder of another woula be a breach of international 
law, and the matter dropped. However, Qeneral Sir 
George Powderpuff was very angry with the gallant 
diagoons who had seconded uie Frenchmen; he 
ordered them into dose arrest, and menaced courts- 
martial, and it was well for the delinquents that the 
rcuJbe came, and the regiment was ordered to the 
Peninsula. The iU-humour of the French was but 
transitory ; a Gaul has a variable temper in general, 
and before lon^ the men were heard fiddling and 
flinging in their quarters, and the officers were 
dancing and drinking tea, and murdering the king^s 
English, at the houses of their British friends. 

^chfield, like most of our old cathedral cities of 
minor importance, is but a dull and small place, where 
the grass grows r^reshin^ly between the cobble-stones 
of the juivement, and l£e dogs bask on the sunny 
flags, in perfect confidence that no very bustling 
tnuSc will disturb the even tenor of their slumbers. 
But when the French prisoners were there, it was 
not as it now is. Railways have done for Lichfield 
what civilisation has done for Glencoe, according to 
Macaula^ — ^that is, they have reduced it to a stagnant 
lifeless silence that might render it a respectable rival 
to Palmyra. If my poor old friend Pontorson were 
to cross the Channel again, and take a 'ticket for 
Lichfield, at the Euston Square terminus, he would 
hardly recognise the old town where he spent so many 
of his best years. He would find the three tall spires 
of the graceful cathedral, at the door of which Lord 
Brooke was slain in the Civil War, and the dark 
Minster Pool, and some of the ancient red brick 
houses, with their venerable trees and clusterineiyy ; 
but it would be but a husk without a kernel When 
Pontorson dwelt there on juirole, there was bustle and 
life, rattling mails bringing news, carriages whirling 
through clouds of dust on the obsolete road, bfdls, 
dinners, races, and reviews. Lichfield is not the 
only English Tadmor which was gay and noisy in 
the old war-time, when the country, though it 
lacked bread, flowed with wine, when the nation, 
fighting hard, and armed against invasion, yet fomid 



time for more hearty genial mirth and 
than more pro^ierous periods have ever knowa 
At that day, ever^ second man in England was ii 
a red coat, for if a gentleman was not in the 
army, the militia, or the yeomanry, he was oertain 
to be a volunteco*. And what volunteers! Whsfc 
a contrast to the gray tunic-wearing, sharp-sboot* 
ing heroes of 1860, were those t^tly stocked, 
ti^tly gaitered, red-coated defenders of 1810, spotka 
as to pipe-clay, powdered till their hair, what witk 
flour ana pamatom, was as the driven snow, and ]f% 
tailed as Benbow himself! Yet their stout hniti 
were the same, under those strangling crossbelts, sflit 
is to be hoped that British hearts will ever be ; andX 
their aueues were sometimes, as malicious waa 
asserteo, so ^dghtly screwed that the wearers coqU 
not shut their eyes, the more praise was due to 
their patriotism. There were three battalions d 
such volunteers in the camp on Cannock Chase, t 
few miles from Lichfield, along with yeomanry aad 
volunteer-horse, and militia and regulars. Alto- 
gether, there must have been eighteen or "»™»<»— 
thousand men, all in red and Mue, all powdered, 
all pigtailed, all pipe-clayed to perfection, and all 
under canvas, in a camp perhaps a trifle less ordedy 
than Aldershott or Shomdiffe, but very pictureaqae 
to look upon, and as my as a fair in the plesssnt 
days of summer. At uie first blush' of the thiqg, 
it appeared as if these nineteen thousand wanidr 
Britons were in arms to watch over the two thousaiBd 
of their vanquished enemies in Lichfield ; but thii 
was a mistaken view of the spirit of the age. Eng* 
land bristled with such camps : north and soou, 
east and west, out of a population scarcely half the 
present muster-roll, there had sprouted from the &w 
soil of our island-home such a growth of aimed met 
as no other European country has ever produced. Ai 
for Cannock Chase, where the Staffordshire camp wis 
formed, it was a wild and wide tract of purple moor 
and felled forest, just fitted for military oociqiatifln, 
and useless for agriculture. In this actual year of 
grace, a royal commission has fixed on it as the best 
site for a new national arsenal, more out of reach tbia 
Portsmouth and Woolwich. In the old war, tiie brown 
heaths and tangled copses rang incessantly to the 
music of the shml fife and rattling drum, as by squadi 
and companies, and regiments and brigades, the re- 
cruits learned the trade of arms, prior to xeinfoiciig 
Lord Wellington's struggling army. 

That couruy veteran, bir George Powderpufi^ was in 
command. It was a delightful illustration of the popu- 
lar theory, which demands the light man in the ri^ 
place. General Sir George was in the right |daee ; a 
high-born, well-mannered gentleman, a martmet, nd 
yet a courtier. There were those who avoudied his 
descent from the identical nobleman who angered pcao- 
tical Hotspur, and he certainly was familiar wiu no 
powder but such as still contributes L.3, 13s. 6d. to the 
assessed taxes. But this dainty warrior was great at 
drill, and admirable at recruiting Bougher men, 
such as Hill and Picton, might do me coarse fi^^itiBg 
in Spain ; it was the province of Sir Greorge to fmiali 
the raw material of heroism. And the work was one 
requiring tact, invention, and a perseverance that no 
obstacles could exhaust The voluntaiy system 
seemed worn out; Britain was drained of blood; 
bounties were high, but every village could tell of its 
score of stout lads who had marched gleefully off to 
leave their bones at Walcheren, in Egypt, anywhere 
and everywhere, and the survivors were shy of the 
fatal shilling. Often did poor Powderpuff own that 
things were better mana^id in France, and that a 
conscription made matters remarkably comfortable. 
There was a compulsory bidlot in F^ngUi^^ ; lynt it 
was only for mihtia purposes. A thousand yokek 
mi^ht crowd into Lichfield Market or Tamworth 
Fair, and Sir C^eorge could not lay his itching fingetf 
on one of them. But Sir George was luckjr in Ab 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



183 



of Sergeant Kite. He is dead now, poor 
feOoir, and hiB suoceaori are degenerate dwarfis ; bat 
Kite of the old war was no common man. He was 
an orator, a poet, a hon vivatU, and a lover of his 
■peciea. It was grand to behold him, erect, portly, 
flaunting in ga^ nbbons, and the brightest of scarlet 
coatees, jiaradin^ the street! of a town, his black 
hawk's eye twimding as he measured every man's 
inches. But it was ^nmder to listen to lus wonderful 
orations, where patriotism, plunder, finest climate in 
the world, promotion, ros^ wine, black-eyed seAoritas, 
a toast, a sonc, a sentiment, and a coach-and-six, 
were all marveuously mixed and min j^ed in a sort of 
intoxicating Hecate's broth that few could rcsiBt. He 
was an enthusiast, Sergeant Kite, and no doubt 
believed implicitly in the very bi^g^^est of the lies that 
fell from his glib lips : he accredited himself actually 
to have shared in the bloody fights, hairbreadth 
'scapes, carouses, triumphs, ana sieces, of which he 
discoursed — ho who had never been beyond Chatham 
on the one hand, or Cork on the other. Then, his 
tact — the artful mode in which he would insinuate 
himself into the confidence of the wariest Chawbacon 
— his frankness, his good songs, his mellow voice, that 
hospitality of his, tnat always beram with a pint of 
ale, and ended with the words, * You swear, for an 
unhmited number of years, in peace and war, and so 
forth ' — all this was truly artistic, and Sergeant Kite 
was justly an esteemed favourite of General Sir 
George Powderj)u£r. There were other hunters after 
men who did their spiriting less gently than our 
friend the sergeant. 

The navy has always been renowned for a more 
frank and bluff method of proceeding than the 
Idndred service. While Kite was cajoling poor Hodge 
in the tap of the King's Arms, other still more pressing 
gentlemen, who would take no denial, and had no 
more respect for Magna Charta than for the Shasters 
of Zerdusht, were besetting Hodge's brother on the 
highway. Hodge's brother muit come to sea with 
them — ^he really mtMf, and the^ would take no 
denial lliough Lichfield was an inland place, it was 
generally the temporary abode of a press-gang. Every 
evening, at dusk, out they slipped, the stout blue- 
jackets in their gregos and tarpaulin hats, with cut- 
lass and cudgel, imd the man-hunt commenced. They 
lurked in the lanes near public-houses, watchini; for 
the tipsy revellers ; they put ropes across the high- 
roads, and ensnared the passers-by. Every loose 
lounger felt a hard hand upon his collar. * Go, carry 
Sir John Falstaff to the fleet!* was the word with 
them ; and it was in vain that the belated journey- 
man remonstrated, for it appeared that though the 
constitution forbade taking soldiers by force, to press 
sailors was lawful, perhaps on account of the benefi- 
cial effects of sea-air. There were gentlemen who 
approved the system highly : they gave many a hint, 
uid sot rid of many a poacher and pilferer by the 
frienmy importunity of tne boatswain and his crew. 
Tramps and incorrigible idlers were thought fair 
game ; apprentices were protected by law, also 
b n i gh er m and yeomen ; and it never occurred to the 
most ambitious lieutenant to carry off the young 
squires to man the fleets of Collingwood or Jervis. 
A footman of the bishop's was trepanned on one 
ooeasion, and remained trembling oil night in the 
crimping-house, but poor Jeamcs was rescued in the 
morning by his right reverend employer. 

While tnese thiugs went on, while a man was a com- 
modity so much in request, it is natural that Sergeant 
Kite should have cast a sheep's eye, once and again, 
at the sturdy Gallic prisoners. Most of them wen' 
hapeless as recruits, for two reasons — first, they were 
French to the backi)one; and secondly, thev were not 
tall enouf^ to fight for Kinc George, though they had 
Btatore enough to enable them to fight aeainst him. 
But there were others, well up to the standard, strap- 
ping Bhinelanders, whose German sympathies were 



not so actively Bonapartist To catch these honest 
Deutschers was one of Kite's most delicate tasks ; 
they loved beer, they loved Fatherland, they were 
not averse to Greorge of Hanover and Britain, and so 
far all was welL But, on the other hand, their French 
companions in captivity were quick-tempered and 
resentful, and might brain them for listening to the 
blandishments of the syren Kite, while Napoleon's 
marshals would make short work of them, should 
they again liavo the luck to be taken prisoners. To 
convert a Westphalion conscript of Boney into a full 
private in the King's Gorman Legion was no ordinary 
feat, and Kite prided himself on it in proportion to 
its difficulty. In the year 1813, the races at Lich- 
field promised to be unusually attractive. There 
wen; garrison-cujis, garrison-stokes, plates, a whole 
assortment of silver to be run for; and the county 
was liberal with, its prizes. The prisoners, among 
others, were looking forwonl to the nm of seeing their 
captors risk their necks, in John Bull fashion, when 
an untoward event occum*d. General Houbigant, 
brother to the Marshal Houbigant, Duke of Transyl- 
vania, Grand Cross of evcr^' order Nai)olcon's hands 
could bestow, broke his parole in a very shabby 
manner, rather befitting his parent the suttlcr than 
his brother the duke ; aud gomg off with post-horses 
to the coast, escaped to France. Old Sir George 
Powdorpuff was justly ancry with the runaway, but 
he was unjustly angry with the others. He confined 
them strictly to their prison limits; all leave and 
licence were withdrawn ; and the poor Gauls lost the 
gay spectacle of the race for Houbi^nt's fault. But 
there was one young officer, a captam in the Imperial 
Guard, who was so anxious to see his conquerors, 
Messieurs Plumpuddinc, gallop in jackets of silk, to 
see which coula ao &e quickest (races were not 
ingraft<!d on French customs as yet), that he resolved 
to venture. A scbc»ol-boy, a lad of twelve, who much 
patronised the tall captain, volunteered to escort 
him, and up went the ill-assorted pair to the breezy 
common, wnere the white tents were pitched, and the 
gaudy flags flying, and the midtitude ouzzing eagerly, 
as the smooth-skinned horses were paraded pai% the 
stand. The Frcnclmian was in ecstacy witn idl he 
heard and saw ; he clapped his hands with delight, he 
laughed and gesticulated to the amusement of his 
young ally, and was enjoying the sport to the utmost, 
when, as Ul-luck would have it, up rode young Hany 
Powderpufi^ nephew and aide-de-camp to old Sir 
George. When the aide-de-camp espied the French- 
man, ne trotted briskly up ; ana at the sicht of the 
awful staff-uniform, and white plumes, and curveting 
charger, the unfortunate captain winced in his shoee 
like a school-boy out of bounds. 

* What arc you doing here, mounseer?' demanded 
the Briton very sternly. 

' I came with M. Charley ; I am under the pro- 
tection, vot you call, of "hi. Charley,' said the poor 
Gaul humbly enough, trying to screen his tall person 
behind his little mend. It was the giant and the 
dwarf over again, only the rdles were dianged some- 
how. Charley knew Harry Powderpuff well, and 
spoke up for his whiskered mend like a man. 

*Weli,' said the aide-de-camp, *I shall be in hot 
water if Sir George hears of it ; but never mind ; I 
won't i)each, Charley. But be off with your friend 
before the staff passes ; for if my imcle sees him, by 
Jove, he '11 send him to Norman Cross at once ! ' 

There came a day when Norman Cross was to be a 
bugbear no longer, when bounds were to be abolished, 
and Powderpuff s military pupils were to bn-ak up for 
a long holiday. It was l814w The Allies were m 
Paris ; Louis the Desired was on the throne of Franoe ; 
the French prisoners, enemies no longer, ^'ere going 
home. Amid tears, and hand- shakings, and waving 
kerchiefs, and the unfailing English cheer, this little 
colony broke up for ever. In long column of march, 
preceded by t^e bands of the British regiments, the 



., 



124 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



1 



French took their departure, not without some kindly 
feelings of regret on both sides. Since then, our 
island has happily seen little of prisoners of war. 

A SCOTTISH HERO IN A NEW LIGHT. 

A WELL-WBITTXN life of Edward I., under the title 
of The OrecUegt of the PlarUagenda* is calculated to 
produce a stranse feeling on we north of the Tweed, 
by the view -v^ch it takes of the monarch's con- 
nection with Scotland, but more particularly by the 
account which it presents of the famous William 
Wallace. Three or four years ago, the able Scottish 
noble who has just achieved such a satisfactory settle- 
ment of affiiirs in China, presided at a great meeting 
near Stirling, for the erection of a national monu- 
ment to WSlace ; a few days since the newspapers 
informed us, ihat for this object a sum exceeding 
L.5300 has been collected, and that money continues 
to pour in at the rate of about L1500 a year, derived, 
we believe, from Scotsmen in every comer of the 
world. In contrast with the view of ^ Wallace's 
character and doii^ which this argues, it is some- 
what starUins to find an evidently clever and intel- 
ILront TCnglion writer speaking of the knight of 
Mderslie as only a thirteenth-century counterpart of 
tiie noted Nana Sahib. 

In these matters, all depends on one's point of view. 
Our Englishman, knowing well the sa^gaciiy and other 
great gifts of Edward — seeing, in his policy for the 
combination of all parts of our island under one rule, 
a design calculated to promote the good of all — defends 
his conduct towards the Scotch. A Scotsman, on the 
other hand, feeling a pride in the ancient independence 
of his country, cannot well be induced to regard Long- 
shanks as other than a usurper and an oppressor. 
From the same considerations it naturally flows, that 
the names of Wallace and Bruce, who defended and 
asserted Scottish independence, diould be enshrined 
in tiie hearts of their countr3rmen, but condemned by 
the biographer of the Plantagenet as traitorous rebeJs 
and barbarous chiefo. Doubtless, even Nana Sahib 
himself is not without admirers amongst his countiy- 
men ; and if ever the people of Hindustan succeed m 
estaUishing a national independence, as the Scots did, 
we may ejq>ect to hear the praises of the Cawnpore 
chief sounded, notwithstanding such shades upon his 
character arising from ihe massacre of the women and 
children. 

Fair>play, however, is a ieweL The greatness of 
EdwArd as a sovereign and lawgiver, and even his 
ceneral equity and clemency, may be admitted, 
but yet we think it is evident that he did not act 
quite rightly towards Scotland. All the dexterous 
pleading of this advocate will never wipe away tiie 
obvious fact, that the English king, having some 
obscure claim to be paramount over a paH of the 
Scottish dominions, was found, in the course of a few 
years, to have so worked this right, as to put himself 
m ^he position of abtolute sovereian over the whole 
reaW No railing against the rebelliousness of the 
Scottish nobles as his subjects, will ever take away 
from them the excuse that the people of Scotland 
generally felt that his claim on the allegiance of any 
of their number as an absolute sovereign, was, from 
the beginning, unjust ; so that all was fair that they 
could do for their emancipation from his rule. What, 

r'n, can be more natural and excusable than that, 
Scots having wrought out tiieir own deliverance, 
their descendant shomd exult somewhat in tiie fact, 
and take the most lenient views of the characters of 
those by whom that deliverance was achieved? 
Robert Bruce may have been traitor to Edward, 
and a murderer ; and yet we cannot but think 
it very natural that the people of Scotland should 
continue to feel a gratitude towards him, and to 

* 8to. Bentley, London, 1860. 



even somewhat macnify his name, seeins how, by 
great daring and long suffering, and, nnally, by 
consummate military skill, he released them from a 
foreign and hated yoke. 

The curious consideration, however, is as to 
Wallace. The panegvrist of the PlantagsDet 
endeavours to diminish the importance of tins 
hero as far as possible, by makmg out that hk 
entire career lasted only some fourteen montiM. 
The victory over Edward's lieutenant at Stirlinj^ 
he speaks of as made certain to almost any leaded, 
by tiie extraordinary folly of the English genenL 
He diiefly insists, however, on Wallace's cmeltui 
to men, women, and children in the course of bii 
invasion of the northern English counties; &cii 
charged against him on his trial, and which were 
never denied. A life of rapine and cruelty deserved, 
he thinks, no other end than the scaffold. Grant, 
after all, that these are truths, is there nothing due to 
the patriotic sentiment which brought this obscure 
Rennewshire gentdeman into action ? Are we to be 
so besotted by admiration of the illustrious En^iak 
king, that we shall not sympathise in some fair and 
reasonable measure with a guerrilla chief who braved 
him in behalf of his countay, and boldly met him 
in a pitched battle, albeit to his own ruin? 
Perhaps, too, if we had Wallace before us, we mi^ 
hear of some extenuating considerations regardug 
even his Cumberland ravages. It might appear to 
him necessary to strike terror into those Engliik 
counties which ' chiefly supplied the armies for the 
iniquitous subjugation of Scotland. The not modk 
less horrible doings of Cromwell at Drogheda have 
been defended in our own day by a favourite writer 
with derisive allusions to * rose-water surgery.' And, 
any how, who began the warfare, but tiiis greatest 
of the Plantagenets himself? Was not he mainlj 
answerable for the horrors which arose in the ootow 
of the justifiable opposition which he met with ? 

It occurs to us that our author has rather over- 
stated his case, and thereby damaged it. He mig^ 
have admitted that his hero trie4 to filch a kingdoo, 
and failed after thrice overrunning it, smitten % the 
Nemesis which is the fitting end of all great ezrorti 
He might have taken a generous view of the Scottish 
resistance and its heroes, sympathising with its 
motives, even while he deploreid its success as some- 
thing imfavourable to the interests of the entire 
island, l^ough would have remained to establish 
Edward as the greatest of English sovereigns before 
Elizabeth. By taking the course he has done, he 
provokes dissent from his own general conclusions. 
And, in any case, he may be assured that he will 
never induce Scotland to abate one jot of her veneftr 
tion for the name of her iU-requited chief. 

NOBODY'S NEWSPAPERS. 

If any man wishes to ruffle one of the sweetest tem- 
pers with which a human being was ever endowed, 
let him send me a newspaper which has in it nothinf 
concerning me or mine wnatever. Among the minor 
evils of li&, these nobody's newspapers seem to me to 
stand pre-eminent. For example : I have done mr 
breakfast, and am leaving home for my office, with 
that assiduous punctuality which is mv character- 
istic, when the postman comes with my letters — and 
a strange newspaper. The former I recognise by their 
superscriptions, so far as to know who wrote thein, 
and conjecture nothing very formidable from their 
contents. But these eight pages of the BumUepupptf 
Independent^ addressed to me m a feigned or unknown 
hand, what may not they contain which affects me 
and my interests ? I am (let us suppose) an i^uthor, 
and some kind creature ma^ have forwarded to me 
a eulogium upon my still msufficientiy appreciated 
Blood-stained Bandit^ of which a few copies are still 
remaining at the publishers; or some 'd^-d good« 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



125 



nitured friend' may hxvt iiuui sent me a hostile 
critique, for fear it shoold otherwise escape my notice ; 
and in either case, the thing must be looked into, or I 
shidl be upon thorns till I come hcmie again. Or, I 
am a barrister, and there is a silk gown going a-b^- 
ging, which has been mentioned as adapted for every 
pair of legal shoulders except mine, until this far- 
seeing Bomblepuppy* editor (perhaps) has put the 
matter in its proper light before the public Or, I am 
a diyine, ana the cathedral stall of Dreamichancel 
may at length have been suggested by something else 
than my own inward monitor as being the very thing 
to suit a student of retired habits, who only wants a 
little leisure and a comfortable income to enrich the 
scholarship of his country by some magnum opus. I 
am, at all events, engaged in some pursuit or calling 
in which prizes are to be had, and what but the public 
pt^as should indicate the ri^t man for tiie right 
place ? I set down my hat and gloves, therefore, and 
open the mysterious present not without anxiety. 
My eye runs throu^ the eight pages rapidly for some 
cross or mark which the sender, if not an absolute 
idiot, would surely not fail to place against the para- 
graph to which he would call my attention. But no ; 
tiiere is nothing but a blotch over against the adver- 
tisement of a chiropodist, who bicb us beware of 
imtradesmen-like imitations of his miraculous bunion 
plasters, which is felonious. That must be an acci- 
dental blotch, for I have no crime of that sort to 
leproach myself with. There is also a fainter mark 
on the next page opposite to the account of a complete 
immersion (in December) of a Plymoutii Brother, which 
can scarcely be designed for my conversion, and, 
indeed, is only the iinS blotch *gone through.' Then 
I a^ly myself to peruse the Bumblamppy Independent 
in its integrity, with an irritated but still expectant 
mind. The leading article dwells exclusively upon 
the abominable extortion practiBed by the local water- 
company, without one syllable, of course, about the 
Biood-9tained Bandit, or the silk gown, or the cathc- 
dnl stall ; and the summary of news is only not the 
sane as that of my own newspaper, perused before 
Ihe post came in, because it is the interesting intcl- 
ligeiMse of at least a fortnight aga 

No ; I am in no way mixed up with the Bxmible- 
Mqppy Turnpike Trust, nor in the Cai^ versus Railwav 
0(mipany*s action, nor in the right of way through 
Stomn's Wood. Nothing that I want is even going 
to TO sold by Messrs Hammcrdown, High Street, 
Bumble wip py , on the 17th instant ; and if there was, 
I should not get it, for the 17th has passed a week 
ago. I was not concerned in that robbery with 
Science upon Crackskull Common, about which 'our 
efficient. inspector is on the qui vive ; ' the free pardon 
and reward to any but the actual principals, kindle no 
Hope witiUn me. I am not at all prosibrated by the 
intelligence that the Bumblepupjpy Tea-gardens posi- 
tively closed for the season (and mdeed I think it was 
lii(^ time they should) on Saturday last ; nor should 
I be revived, did I need revival, by the news that the 
prdnietor received a * bumper.* I am faintly curious 
to know what a ' bumper may be, but that is all ; 
ibs Independent says that it is glad he got it, 
but the Independenif for all I know, may De his 
M t te es t enemy. I was not among *the following 
^^^Urt '^f j'py guardians of the poor,* who * transacted 
UnuiesB on Tuesday,* nor in the Bumblepuppy petty 
MBsions when that 'scene' took place between a 
clecmnaa and a county magistrate, which is likely 
to iSrord employment to the gentlemen of the long 
lube. I am not connected with the circus which pro- 
poses to remain for a limited number of nights at 
hmiblepapipy, nor with ihe Revival which is to be 
hM in Messrs Weathereye's empty granary next 
Sonday evening. I am not in Our London Corre* 
spondsni's letter (although almost everybody else 
•eeaas to be), nor in the JList of candidates for the 
^•ent office of Beadle of the borough. In a word. 



after an hour has been wasted in wading through 
these thirty-two columns of provincial twaddle, I 
find that there ia nothing that concerns me in it from 
beginning to end. What malicious fellow-creature, 
then, could have expended a penny, and raven himself 
the trouble of directing this rarrago of rubbish tome? 
Is it the same kind of maniac who pours dirty water 
into the pillar letter-boxes? Or is it a funny fellow, 
who mistimes this 20th of December for April Fool 
Day? or is it an editor who cannot dispose of his own 
newspapers by any other means? 

The case I put is very far from being an imaginary 
one. Every month or so, some unknown correspondent 
takes advantage of the cheapness of colonial postage 
to send me a nobody's newspaper — of all places in this 
world, from Sidney ! I wish the government would 
charge five shillings for the transmission of Australian 
newspapers. Is it some scamp of my family, who, after 
leaving the old country for the old country's good, 
adopts this method of annoying his respectable 
relatives even from the other side of the globe? Is 
it some wretch whose necessities I may have one day 
injudiciously relieved, and who now, more prosperous 
in the new world, adopts this mistaken method of 
testifying his gratitude? Or is it some editor who 
wishes, through my humble means, to make his paper 
known to the English public at home ? I will con> 
elude that this last is the case, and for my own sake 
— not for his — will here set down, for the first and 
last time, what is noticeable in the periodical which 
he has the happiness to conduct. I regret to say that 
my remarks must be limited to its advertisements. 
In the body of the paper I find nothing to interest 
myself, nor any other British mortal. The Sydney 
Intelligencer is merely the Bumblepuppy Independent 
transplanted to the antipodes. 

The first advertisement sheet is almost entirely 
maritime, and reads like a leaf out of the Shipping 
Gazette, It is evident that not even the seductive 
voice of the Sydney Intelligencer can persuade people 
that they are better off there than theV are at nome. 
Everybody would get away, I think, omy so veiy few 
seem to liave the money to pay their jmssage home. 
An immigrant must be able to put his hand to most 
things in Sydney, to keep his head above water at alL 

• Wanted by an elderly gentleman of strict integrity, 
a situation in a private family, as teacher of the 
pianoforte.' (By wnich I suppose he means as teacher 
of how to play upon it). How different is this 
from the advertisements of musical-masters at home ! 
Here, some sort of proficiency is expected, and a 
long list of the professors under whom the advertiser 
has studied his art, is essential; whereas at the 
antipodes only 'strict integrity' is required. What 
a pathetic statement, too, is this elderlv gentleman's! 
Cfl^ we not imagine him a once well-to-do Pater- 
familias, who, having been wont to run a few tunes 
off on the keys, to please his children, is now com- 
pelled to look to that simple accomplishment for his 
bread? But no, he must have been an uncle rather 
— one of those imcles who are always the favourites of 
the young folks, but rather a source of embarrassment 
to the old ones, on account of their continuously 
borrowing money until they get their expenses paid 
out to Australia — for happily he has only himself to 
provide for. * Salary not so much an object,' writes 
thepoor f eUow, * as a comfortable home.' 

Here, again, is a wonderful specimen of a Jack-of -all- 
Trades : • Wanted, a situation of trust and responsi- 
bility by the advertiser, who has had upwards of five 
years' experience of the colony, embracing, at various 
times, clerical duties generally, in soUcitors' and mer- 
chants' offices, and as a secretary in a public institu- 
tion, also as bookseller, reporter, and sub-editor in 
town and countrv.' What are 'clerical duties gene- 
rally, in solicitors' and merchants' offices ? ' Are le|^l 
and commercial proceedings ' opened with prayer' in 
Sydney, like tiiose of the swinoling joint-stock banks 



l!= 



186 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



in England ? or ire tbey bdcIi gig&ntic Concems that 
a chaplain is kept in every ' boiue,' as cJeigjfnaD-of- 
all-work ! ar ia it tmlf a defect id the ulerical gentlc- 
maa'a arraneement of hia wordi ? In that cose, he 
cannot be what is called 'a literate penwiii,' but muiit 
needs proceed from one of the iinlyeraities. ConceiTe, 
tlien, n'liat blue mutationa he mtiKt have experienced 
from his palmy days at Oif ord or at Cambridae, down 
tbrongh tite solicitor' and merchants' offices, the aeore- 
taryship in the public institution, the bookielling and 
reporting, and tJie aub-oditing in town and country t 

* L.5 reward, if stolen ; one pound, if Htrayed, on 
recovery of au iron-gray borae, off-hip down, newly 
shod on the hind foot? 

' Stolen or atmyed. a bay horae, branded HE con- 
joined OD near- shoulder ; a brown horse, branded E 
oa off-ahonldcr. L.5 given on conviction, and 10s. 
each on recovery.' 

la it the inverted order of thingR at the antipodes 
which cauaeB people tbua to reward thieving more 
highly than honesty ? or are stolen boiaos in Sydnsy of 
greater valne than Sydney horses that have strayed ! 

Among the pleaanre-exCurHionB, tJiere ia nothing 
striking except that it seenig rather atrange that one 
con get retnm-ticbets to Paramatta, just as tbongh it 
were Gravesetiil, for eiphteen-pence ; while of ciiibi- 
tiuoB there is hut one. to which, however, no leas Uian 
five advertisements are dedicated. It ia difficult from 
the fint four to discover of what nature thia attrac- 
tion may be. ' T/ie grealat Phenommon in IM iBortd 
prFviou4 to hit drparliire for England, nal. Viekria 
Thfatrt.' The Sphynx herself could scarcely have 
worded a notice more ingeniously. To the departure 
of what persDn, who seems to bare placed this other- 
wiae nnnvalled Phenomenon in the seoood rank, dooe 
this refer? or does it affirm that it ia the greatest 
Pbennnenon next to the Victoria Theatre ! What 
wondrous pile, then, U the Vintoria Theatre ? These 
gentlemen who 

Hold thtir heads to other Btaia, 
And breathe in conrersa eca«oa9, 
appear to cipreea themselves a little conversely also : 
' The WoAiifT of the World, age deem gmrs, and weight 
enlg lutaity-liBO Mane. Cornier Band.' The WMd 
'onlv' is clearly acovert sarcasm; hot Monster Bond ! 
Ia tnat hia name or bis belt! There arc two other 
myrterioQB puffs, and then the Phenomenon stands 
rerealed. ' Nfxt Vktoria Theatre The Auilraliaa 
Touih. Orand opening OiU day.' So that it is only 
the dissection of a very fat boy, after all. 

The moat remarkable feature of this ontlpodeEUi 
paper is, however, its Persona Advertised For : 

' John Gulliver, who left Melbonme some six years 
ago, and mipposed to be in Sydney, is informed that 
h» sister ia anxioiia to hear from him, at Kelly's 
Eating-houHC, Bull Street, Sandhurst, Victoria.' What 
■lender chance has that poor sister of seeing brother 
John aeain ! Six years ago \ Why, not to mention 
the probability of hia having been devoured in the 
Feejee Islands (to which a veaael aeenu to start from 
SydJiey aUnoat doily), John Gulliver may. within that 
period, have been trodden under foot by an noconacioDB 
mfant in Brobdingnag, or shot to denth with needles 

' If Tbomna Annesloy is in Sydney, he will hear 
of his brother Robert by applying at the Prince 
of Wales Hotel. Lower George Street, Sydney. Or 
it Mr Robert Roea, or hia sister, Mrs Lewers or 
Lewis, who is from Armagh, county Armach, Ireland, 
wiU apply at the above hot^J. they will ace flieir consin 
Eolwrt AnDesley. Any information of them will be 
tliflukfuily received.' 

* If Hannah Gardiner, who arrived in this colony 
in An^ut 1858, will call at tbeoffioe of John Hoidtjni^ 
Eng^ Pitt StrRet, will hear of her brother Jamee.' 

■Robert Griffiths. Your father is staying at tho 
Darling Harbonr Inn. Call R Q.' 



What are these but the dumb criee of sisters who have 
croesed the world ia find their brothers, fathers to fiod 
thi!irBonB,and having crossed, are yet, maybe, noni«rer 
to him they sought, who is lying a skeleton in the Bush, 
or even Bailed lor the old world, on the very day that 
these embarked for the new. Surely there is a pathos 
in this newq»per prose, which Poems of tlie Affections, 
hound in morocco, and illustrated by the best of 
pencils, often lack. There is nothing else in this 
Hydneij Int^igenfa- very noteworthy, imleaa it be the 
aDDouncement, that for part of the Obristmaa Treat at 
the Burlington Baxaar, ' lemonade and sodo'Watv 
maybe procured from the fountain!' How such a 
shivery statement reminds us at once of the ■ convene 
■■easons,' and of the Midsummer December sod! 
This U all, Mr Editor of the Sydney [MeUigenca^-ii 
it be you that hna seat me this thing — that I havs 
to write upon the subject of your paper. If it docs 
not interest the reader, I cannot help it. It did not 
interest me. I sincerely trust that the sender will now 
be satisfied, and ceaae to send it more. All nobody's 
newspapers are bad, bnt a nobody'i newspaptt from 
the other side of the world ia to be endured by nobody, 



THE MONTH: 

SCIENCE AKD ARTS. 
BiTKSEli and KirchofTa intetestine exiieriments with 
the spectrum in chemical analysis have been repeated 
by Mr Matthieasen, at a meeting of the Royal Society, 
to the gratilicatiou of all beholders, for, apart fna 
the intrinsic value of the results, some of tie efferti 
are strikingly beautifuL The black lines seen in a 
solar spectrum, which are known to students aa Ftwoi- 
hofer's lines, appear white, as Mr Matthitasen demon- 
strated, when the spectrum is produced by the eptxk 
from a oalvanic colL Seeing, then, that every different 
kind of light hitherto tried shews a different efleci 
on the spectrum, the IJj^t of thf stare ia to be tested 
by the same apparatna, in the hope that conclosiou 
may be arrived at concerning the physical eonditioa 
of thiHe diatant bodies, and the nature of their 
atmosphere. Foucault abewed. some years ago, that 
the ray D of the electric spectrum coincides with tie 
B.ime ray of the solar spectrum ; if, therefore, the 
starlight spectrum present the same coincidence, 
it would be safe to infer an Identity in the nature of 
lie light. There aeema something wonderful in the 
notion of thus making out the secrets of remote 
space by scanning an illominated stjipe within a 
small darkened box. With regard to the hygienic 
view of the qneation, readers of our former notace of 
this Bidijcct will remember what was said cooceming 
sodium and dust ; the vast amount of sodium in the 
abnosphcre is derived from the aea by evaporatian, 
and drffused by the action of winiii and wavca ; each 
minute porticleof water holds a still mere minute 
solid nucleus of chloride of sodium, which remain! 
floating in the air after tho water has evapmsled. 
Now, it seems reasonable to conclude, that thess 
minute particles supply some minute forms of organiB 
life with the saline element essential to existence, and 
that animal life generally is influenced by their 
presence in greater or lesser proportions. Henof; to 
quote from the Joumat of tho Chemical Sodtiy, 
'if, as is scarcely doubtful at the jireseot day, to» 
explanation of the spread of contagious disease ia to 
be sought for in some peculiar contact-action, it il 
possible that the presence of an antiae]>tio substance 
like chloride of somum, even in almost infinitely imaU 
quantities, may not be without inllnence upon such 
occurreDGca in the atmosphere.' The test for this 
theory would be a constant and long-continned series 
of spectrum observatioas, noted hour by hour, as has 
been the case with uu^>netical and meteorologicsl 
observations, whereby tho increase or diminution of 
sodium in tho atmosphere would be detected. 
Among the experiments made by Loewcl,a chomiit 



OHAMBERSrS JOURNAL. 



127 



lat^deceased, tibere are ■ome of smgnlar importence, 
18 Mppean from a work pubfidied in France. It was 
di t wv gred, two or tliree yean ago, tiiat air filtered 
tintni^ a laver of cotton would not excite fenpenta- 
tkm ; that we freezing of water nnder cotton is less 
ftrm than when uncovered, and tiiat cnrstallisation is 
retarded by the same means : Loewel found that air, 
heated by friction or agitation, will not excite crystal- 
lisation. If compressed air be allowed to escape in a 
jet from a receiver, and play upon a saturated solu- 
tion, no crystals appear; but u only two or three 
bubbles of common air be permitted to pass, the solu- 
tion wffl solidify. Air, in this paanve condition, is 
distinguished as adynamic, and we filtered air would 
come under the same definition. What is the signi- 
ficance of ihis peculiarity^? Does it apply on the 
large scale, and is the air of oar atmosphere ever 
thrown into an adynamic condition hv hurricanes and 
storms, and is ^e effect thereof on numan beingii in 
anywise different from that of undisturbed air? 
Again, is there in this adynamic air any support for 
the theory of spontaneous generation, or the reverse ? 
To answer these and other inquiries which suggest 
themselves, would be an interestmg course of research 
for some ingenious and dilicoit student. 

Some years a^o, Mr £ W. Fox, of Falmouth, 
SBtonished the scientifiM) world by shewing specimens 
d artificial copper produced by electrici^ ; we now 
hear of a Crerman chemist who produces silver — 
rterling silver, not Clerman — by artificial means, at a 
ooet of about three shillings an ounce. We hear, 
moreover, that a snug company is forming to work 
the discovery on a profitable scale: the appliances 
rsquired are certain chemical preparatioDS and gal- 
vanic afmaratus of sufficient power to act on them. 
Should the experiment succeed on the large scale, the 
profit will certainly be handsome, ana additional 
weight will attach to the opinion, that all metals are 
resmTable into two or three elements. 

The new tele^ph company for London, to which 
ire called attention last autunm, is making satisfactory 
progreas, and the expectations formed of uie usefulness 
of Mr WheatBtone*s simplified instruments are fully 
realised. They — ^the company— have already erected 
a number of mies acroos the house-tops, and purpose 
srtendfng the same system into all parts of the metro- 
polis^ Mr Renter, of multi-telegram reputation, rents 
more than a score of wires for nis own especial use ; 
the Time§t for the present, has taken three ; the city 
pohoe avauQ themselves of the new system, as also 
certain man u fact u riiig firms ; and now, when a lady 
calls to ask whoi her piano will be ready, instead of 
heitt|( told that she will be informed by post next day, 
recerves an iminediate answer by telegraph from the 
factory in the suburbs. The rent chargea for a wire 
is L.4 a mile per anninn, inclusive of maintenance ; and 
in cases where it is not desired to purchase the 
instruments, they also may be rented. One econo- 
mical advantage, which the company derive from 
the use of Mr Wheatstone*8 instruments, is, that small 
wires are available for the transmission of messages ; 
for as from thirty to fifty such wires can each be com- 
pletely insulated in an india-rubber cord not thicker 
than a man's finger, it follows that in setting up a mile 
of cord fifty miles of wire arc set up at once, which 
may be rented to as many different individuals. 
When set up, the cord is painted white, to check 
absorption oi heat ; and it is found that india-rubber 
is far preferable to gutta-percha as an insulator, inas- 
much as it will bear extremes of temperature without 
any of that softening which allows tne wires to shift 
their position in a gutta-percha coating. The india- 
rubber oord is manufactured by Messrs Silver, at their 
works near North Woolwich ; and it is worth notice 
that the central wire, which is thicker than the others, 
is tho 'hanging wire,* and bears all the strain of 
ssspension, whereby the conducting wires are left free 
from strain-disturbances, and have nothing to do but 



convey the messages. We hear that 400 telegraph 
stations are to be ^tablished in Paris. 

The late severe visitation of frost has occasioned 
the inquiry — Is it possible to announce the approach 
of a frost by telegraph, as it is to give wanung of a 
cyclone? a question of vital iinportance to vine- 
growers in the south of France. The answer, which 
has however to be demonstrated by practice, is that it 
is possible, for cold currents in the atmosphere are 
commoidy a day or a day and a half in Ravelling 
from the north of Russia to the Pyrenees : hence, S 
a message were flashed from Archangel or Stockholm, 
notifying a fall of the temperature to 20 degrees or to 
degrees, which would be represented by 30 degrees 
or by 10 degrees in the south of France, the culti- 
vators would have sufficient time to protect their 
vineyards by the usual means, which, as is well 
known, cost but little, and are easily applicable. 

The Academy of Sciences at Naples offer a prize 
for researches m answer to the question : What are 
the circumstances in which the atmospheric oxygen 
is transformed into ozone? Is the' cause of the change 
to be sought for in vegetation or electricity? Does 
the change take place by day or by night, and in 
what electric condition is the atmosphere at the time 
of the change? — Wolf, of Zurich, is pursuing his 
observations on tiie sun-spots, and is collecting all 
the tables of x>ast observations which he can hear of 
for the purpose of corroborating his theoretical calcula- 
tions. So far the verification is satisfactory ; but he 
is particularly in want of observations for the years 
172i9 and 1748; and any one who can inform him 
where these may be found, will aid the cause of 
science. He finos by his investi^tions that a small 
defined spot crossed the solar disk in 1800, which 
seems to answer to one of the i^pearances of the 
intra-Mercurial planet, Vulcan, as ascertained by 
retrospective calculatioiL — Dr Biiijs Ballot, of Utrecht, 
who is also a sun- observer, with especial attention to 
solar rotetion and temperature, is led to conclude that 
one half of the sun is hotter than the other. In the 
photosphere, or atmosphere of light, which surrounds 
the mighty orb, he finds a movement from west to 
east in the equatorial region, thereby confirming the 
deductions of former observers, that trade-winds exist 
on the Sim as well as on the earth. — M. Liais shews 
the perturbations of Mercury which have long puzzled 
astronomers, to arise from its exposure to a continu- 
ous shower of aerolites, which of course affecte ite 
mass. Of this shower of aerolites, our earth occasion- 
ally receives a few wandering specimens; ite quantity 
is enormously increased with nearness to the sun, 
and hence the ceaseless fall on Mercury. To it, as M. 
Liais remarks, we owe the phenomenon of the zodiacal 
light ; and agreeing with other physicists, he believes 
it to be the source and support of the sun's heat: 
derived from without, and not from withiiL 

These are among tiie most important questions in 
astronomical or in cosmical science, and we caimot 
therefore pass them by uimoticed. While one class 
of inquirers is occupied with their investigation, 
another is discussing tnat interesting geological ques- 
tion, which, in consequence of recent chemical dis- 
coveries, has once more revived— the debate between 
fire and water. The Neptunists, as the aqueous philo- 
sophers are called, are bringing forward more con- 
vincing argumente than before, which it will tax the 
ingenuity of the Vulcanists to confute. Granite can- 
not have been formed by the action of fire, assert the 
former, because that rock ia constituted of minerals 
whose melting-jxiint is so different that they could not 
have been formed at one and the same time ; and 

?7et these minerals interpenetrate and cross each other, 
ike the roots of neighbouring trees. A^n, mica and 
free silica exist in the same mass of gramte ; and some 
kinds of granite contain soft mica charged with from 
four to five per cent of water, which facte appear quite 
irreconcilable with tiie theory of a vulcanic origin. 



128 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



A lively debate hna bIho lakea place among the 
membera of the Academy of Medicine at Paris, on that 
highly important qoeation — Lif& The argument was 
carried on from three difTereot pointa of view : that of 
the orgaoicians ; that of the ammisU i and that of the 
TitaMsta ; and t^och party found much to say in support 
of their own oiiiniona. The vitalists, who contend 
that life is a vital force entirely independent of phy- 
■ical influencea, were triumphantly answered by M. 
Foggiale, who proved to demouHtratton that the phe- 
nomena of life are due to physico-chemicoj action. 
The chemist, amiljTng his scieQce to physiology, expe- 
riments on the hvmg organism, and discovera the for- 
mation of aUKir in the liver ; that in respiration oiygen 
combiQes witli the hydrogen and carbon of the blwxl, 
and produces animal heat ^ and that the gastric and pan- 
creatic juice act upon alimentary substances enclosed 
in glass tubes with the some result la in the body. The 
result of the debate will probably be to give an impulse 
to the science which embraces the chemistry of hie. 

Dr Hooker, who has recently retnmeii from a 
acientiSc travel inthe range of Lebanon, in company 
with Captain Washington of the Admiialty, has 
catalogued the plants collected by the naturalist of 
tie yacht Fox in her recent North Atlantic surveying 
expedition. The number is 170, of which nearly 100 
are flowering-plants; and the doctor, after con- 
trasting them with the plants of other arctic locali- 
ties, and thereby widening the scope of geographical 
botany, adds, that he ' is drawing up a general 
acoouai of the whole arctic flora, which he shul have 
the honour of lading before the Linnseaa Society-' 
From the soundinga made during this cipedition, 
ftirther confirniation has been gaioml that animal life 
can be maintained at very great depths. About mid- 
way between Greenland and Ireland, Lviug atar-fish 
were brought up from 1260 fathoms — nearly a mile 
and a baui and minute annelids were found at 1913 
fathoQU. Clearly fan 'zero in the distribution of 
ooimal life,' referred to by the late eminent naturalist, 
Edward Forbes, is not yet arrived at. 

At the instance of iSr Tite, the Institute of British 
Architects have held a discussion ' on the various pro- 
ceases for the preservation of atone,' in whici, as wss 
hoped, available facta and principles were brought 
out, and trustworthy informatioD given as to the 
actual condition of the walls of the Houses of Parlia- 
ment, to which the preserving wash has been applied. 
The whole question of buiidina materials is one of 
increasing importance ; and while the present high 
price of bricks is maintained, experiments will be 
made to render stone durable, or to prodoce some 
artiflcial substitute. We noticed, some time since, the 
biloH. a kind of concrete, manufactured in blocks at 
Paris, suitable for walls cither above or below ground, 
and for factory cisterns, as it resists the action of 
acids, and, judging from late reports, it answers expec. 
tation. A biulder at Keadiog, actuated by a dose 
examination of the mortar which still binds the flint 
walls of the ancient abbey in that town, with almost 
irresistible tenacity, has recently patented a jirocess for 
the aumnfocture of what he calls ' Reading Abbey 
Kubble Stone,' which resists moisture, heat, cold, and 
pressure, presenting a clean and smooth surface, 
capable of formation into mouldings, corbels, quoins, 
baluBtrades, and so forth, nod acquiring an extraordi- 
nary degree of hardness within a few minutes after 
leaving the moulds. Seeing that ornamental blocks 
and slabs of any size cin Iw produced, all the parts 
of a honse, the steps, landings, basement-stairs and 
floors, sinks and window-sills, may be fashioned from 
this ■rubble stone.' as well as Mocks for the walls, 
and at a cost below that of bricks. 

As meteorological reports come in from distant 
parts, it appears that scarcely any region of the 

5 lobe has escaped the visitation of unusual weather : 
M continent of Europe, North Africa, North 
America, as well as England, had more clouds and 



rjun than sunshine; and now we hear that Australia 
has experienced an unusual demand for umbrcllaa. 
lu the middle of November last, about a month from 
their midsummer, the colonists of New Sonth Wales 
were glad to sit by the fire ; and from the l»5giiining 
of the year, up to that time, more than live fe«t of 
rain bad CoUeo. 



ENGINES. 

I, Janbury IB, lUL 



3TEAM- 



■Sii— InsnirtlcUin 



origin, and Hut Uw iDTntlon, cmlng (a iu net being lulaMtd ij 
Dnr arF4»mpanlH, vu taken mrouthvAtlnntic. and butMoiBe 
natunllKd SBnni a i>»|it( more qnlek la spprKliIc lu molU. 
Full lln-and-tventT jan tga, Cipbiln Edcxia, In mijimcUini 
nlth Mr Brwlllwaita, bmnglit odi ■ lUain flrt-nxiDr, lod it 
their DwD Deal, sent It to sU pirtfl Df LoBdoa. to aid In the uHa- 
fiDlihlnr oif flna. At lanrsl Tvrr t ' 
nmtt tmdMiet wH I 

I UW It U WW ' 



onnagTatloDB, It 



and tba tann splendid mIfU mJl to apfiUHl 
renderad on titat oaca^on. III preaeDoe, hcnrcver, un»D mm 
jFiloiu;, and ma tba lOlmotitJ of Iba Sremen. vho [aRlrad its 
arrival vllh grnna and olhir hortile dDDDSitnllniii, ubieli van 
anlT'uMned ij a UMBto-daniDnBtraUiHi froni the crtn>d,vtie 
bn*D out into load ahaninc. Soma jan after thie, a iBin 

Enra^rapb want Iha lonad of tba paperv, to tba rffpct tbat 
aptilD Eriraon had ItCllbla eonntry tor America, 
had lakes Ma flra-enidiia with hlv. In «n> 
adoption try U"" ""^ ' '"" ' — '^"" 



lilh him. In eonieqoence of lu noa- 



li. we ou«ht 10 be sllee id it, snil do uhat ve can In M 
ral sphet» to reined j It. 



Wrinkle^" pobUibad In 



Hon/ li, 18B1. 
inibiT 1M» 






ly, Snixu aiid Miw.v (aiietHwrs to W. J.'TnjJi].' 



DUTY. 
Wnu recks the soldier on the battle-field 
Whether the soil he treads be rich or bore. 
The country round him desolate or fair— 
Whether bright ■unbeams play on lance or shield, 
Or raiD-clouds ^ther in the heavy airl 
His only thouglit how heat his arms to nield. 
To force the hated foe al length to yield, 
To bUdiI the chtti^, or the assault to dare. 
And why core I, who have my battle too, 
With ein and folly, doubts, temptations, foar^ 
Whether the post assigned be fair to view, 
Which iButt be ccnflict-tminpled, sconhcd with leai 
Enough if, etrnggling, 1 o'ercome at last I 
Scars turned to trophies, and their pain long past I 



Printed and Published hy W. i K. ChaIIBeBb, 47 Patar- 
Doater Bow, LonIwn. and 3^9 High Street. EdikbubBB. { 
Also Bohl by Williau Robebtsom, S3 Upper SackviUe ] 
Street, DviiUH, and all Bootacllen. 




S titntt aub ^rts. 



COKDUGTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 374. 



SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1861. 



Price lj<f. 



THE OLD ARMOURY. 

Some of the happiest hours of my life have been 
pnased in the grand old armoury of Croodiich Court. 
That unrivaUed collection, the fame of which has long 
been widely spread over the New World and the Old, 
brouj^t many a pilgrim of foreign speech and mien. 
Guide-books gloated over it, antiquaries appealed to 
its sflent testimony for confirmation of their dearest 
iheoriesi, and novel-loving young ladies surveyed with 
QO pretended interest the gilded mail in which the 
kaighta of old had ridden forth to tourney or to 
battle. What a number of bluc-spcctacled pro- 
{■■ors, fresh from Heidelberg or Jena, have I seen 
congregated round the effigy of a stark crusader, 
peerini^ jostling, and disputing with all the tooth- 
looaening power of German gutturals and sibilants, 
as to whrther *mascled' sleeves came into fashion 
in 109S or 1106 — a question evidently of difficulty 
and deep moment But the times when I saw 
the old aimoory to the best advantage, and most 
tiioroughly enjoyed its accumulated treasures, were 
when the mormng sun or the soft summer moonlight 
came pouring in through the emblazoned windows, 
and I luid the galleries to myself. How awful and 
mysterioDa, by moonlight, did that long line of 
martial forms appear, standing motionless, with their 
annour half ahimmering in the yellow light, half 
f^a^r¥^ing in ahadow ! The moon that shone through 
the pictiired windows flung rich ruby and topaz tints 
on tiie dinted breastplates, beneath which knightly 
yjiglwh hearts had throbbed at Cressy or Agincourt ; 
on Hie gjUt Milan suits worn at the Eighth Harry's 
court; on the pliant harness of chain-work that had 
been borne by many a Saracen sheik and Moorish 
emir. There, under one roof, had been gathered, by 
the combined magic of wealth and taste, a wondrous 
miscellany of warlike gear : the weapons of mortal 
foes, the arms of different generations, the rude 
panoply of savage tribes, and the gorgeous armour of 
monarchs. 

Besides this assemblage of military curiosities, the 
armoory contained much that could not be without 
interest to any thoughtful mind, whether dreamy or 
pnu;ticaL In those galleries could be traced the 
gradual progress of human invention, as applied to 
war. There were mail-shirts, for example, which had 
probably been worn at Hastings, mere lozenges of 
thin iron, or rings of the same metal, that had been 
sewn witii thread to a garment of stout linen or 
wodQen cloth. Linen and wooUen had fed the moths 
of an earlier century, threads had rotted away, and 
nothing was left but the little scales of corroded iron, 
lieroed with holes for the needle of the Norman 



armourer ; but skill and lore had sufficed to restore 
the fabric to its original condition, and there hung the 
hauberk, as perfect as its old wearer had left it. 
These were the earliest of the series, excepting certain 
classical scraps of Roman harness, in brass or in 
bronze ; a shield or two, on which could be traced the 
world-famous S.P.Q.R.; perhaps a helmet, battered 
out of shape; a fragment of a lorica; and offensive 
arms in plenty. Next came the bymes and lurichs of 
ringed and of linked mail, the old classic lorica in a 
new form, but with a scarcely altered name, and the 
chain-shirts of the Northmen. Invention had taken a 
great stride, when cunning smiths first succeeded in 
constructing a fabric of pure metal, every link joined 
to the next in order, so that the ancient plan of sewing 
the scraps of iron to a groundwork of cloth is disused, 
except for those quilted * jacks * of leather, plastered 
with iron lozenges, which foot-soldiers continued to 
wear as late as the Reformation. These chain- 
shirts were pliant and flexible articles of attire, 
fitting to the body, and allowing free movements 
of the limbs ; but they were weighty garments, and it 
was soon found that less iron in anotJier form would 
furnish an equal defence. Then came the jointed 
mail, of a hundred varieties, dependent on fashion, 
caprice, or convenience. The Goodrich Armoury could 
shew some noble specimens. There they stood in 
rows, those mimic knights, the hoUow shells of war- 
riors long passed away. Another great stride has 
Invention made ; and yet, with all this gallant show 
of warlike bravery, there seems to be somewhat worth 
regretting in the simplicity of the elder world's defen< 
sive gear. A Danish viking or a Saxon thane could 
have ' put on his armour for the fray* in two minutes, 
and with little need of aid. Not so your companions 
of CoBur de Lion, not so your stalwart Crusaders, 
your iron-handed negotiators of Magna Charta, your 
early K. G.*s, and followers of the first Plantagenets. 
As their battle-garb stands before you, stark and 
stiff, you cannot but marvel at its costliness, and the 
wonderful amount of preparation required to equip a 
champion for the joust or the field. Already, by the 
end of the eleventh century, you see that iron has 
become an exploded materijJ for the armour of aristo- 
cratic combatants. Brass, the classic brass, had given 
way to iron long before, and now iron gives prece- 
dence to its |)olishcd cousin steeL Spain is now the 
great mart of warrior-harness ; the forges of Toledo, 
Seville, Burgos, can hardly produce their wares with 
sufficient rapidity. Europe is yearly flinging her 
blood and treasure on the burning sands of Syria; 
Christendom is waging a long duel with the Pajmim 
on his own soil ; and every galley bound for the Mom- 
ingland, carries out from the West a goodly store of 



130 



CUAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



gallant mm, ateedB, umoiar, to retnm never ag^n. 
SpaiiUh «teel is hard and enduriag; it con beat 
much lianuneriag n( mkcei, Blosbigg of swords, and 
dint of arrow and lance. Moreover, it is often fair 
I. in age and dcca;, 
yoa con dlBtinguiah the azure and gold, ^e Damu- 
? tracorj, the delicacj of bronzing, lackering, 
losaing, the atars of gold, the fantastic orn-imtDta, 
the half-effaced atmorial-bearingB on the shield, the 
half-macd crest on the helmet, that once pleased 
the eyea of fair lodiea, leaning orer toumanient 
gallerioB draped with cioth of gold, to aee their 
ciiainpiona win or lose. Vanity of vanities ! All those 
UiingH of the elder world are dnst aad aahcs alike — 
stole and wimple, and robe furred with minever, and 
the slender girls and haoghtj matronn that wore 
them : the kings that presided over the list ; the 
pompons heralds that marshalled th^^n ; and the stent 
limbs and bold hearts that filled these hoUow husks 
of steel — The knights are dust, and their good swords 
rast ; their souls are with the saints, we trust. 

I scarcely know which reflection, as a child, 
puEzled me the most, whether all those peraonagcs 
of the chivalric epoch that I used to read of in 
dear old Ivan/ioe, and anch antique romancrs, were 
dead and gone utterly from the earth, or whether 
they had ever existed out of a, poet's fancies. Theie, 
before me, in Tisiblc presence, when I went alone to 
the old armourv, Ivan/ioe in hand, were the identical 
■nita that knienta bod worn and fought in ; and it 
was hard to believe dat the race had completely 
died out, when there stood the hamesa, grimly 



suddenly issuing from within that hollow helmet. 
And yet it was like looking at a mammoth's bouea, 
absolutely had Time's flood left the feifdal epoch 
ligh and dry. At anyrate, we can guess that each 
if those suits was a very expensive porcbaae, and a 
very owkward garb to wear. There were countleas 
joLata that required to be secured with rivets, and 
each rivet bad to be clenched with a hammer. The 
valets of a nobleman of those ages had need to have 
served ia a smithy, and the l«ilet must have been as 
noisy aa the oidinaiy Work of a forge. Clang ! clash ! 
ring! hammer and pincers clattering on aouoroua 
metal ! How dreadful must have been the disturb' 
ance in a hostelry, when young knights were prepar- 
ing [or a pageant; and how tremendous the clatter 
requL^te for getting their worships into Schtine-trim 1 
All this time, the helmets have been changmg t<io. 
There were casques, with long ' nazals,' or nose-pieces, 
instead of visora, to protect the face, just the casques 
you see depicted in the Bayeux tapestry, and in one 
of which Sajton Harold was kilted by that hateful 
arrow. Then there were early English, and French, and 
German head-pieces, where the visor was n flat plate 
of iron, with round eyelet-holeo, and a similar oriflce 
for breathing, Next in order came the helm, with 
crest npon it, and aierette to fix feathers in, and holes 
where the laces had once passed to tighten it on the 
head of its wearer, and the regular visor of iron bars 
very close together, and capable of beinu raised like 
a portcullis. The weight of this migh^ head- 
eovering increaeeil with every age; and it is worth 
notice that the touinament-hEim, used for tilting, was 
half as heavy again as the battte-casque, and hod 
loftier crest No wonder the knights never wore tiu.. 
dreadful thing until the very moment of joining 
battle ; no wonder they guped and choked till ijiey 
got on opportunity of taking it oCT again; that oou- 
Btables and marshals rode in jaoceBnion, armed at all 
points, eccepl the head ; and that many ■ bold 



when nnhoraed and helpleas. There was one 
tiltins helmet with a wyrero or other tabidous ci 
tnre Tor a crest, that I once believed to be the very 
helmet (it was nearly big enoagh] mcntiooed in tb> 
Ctulh of OtrojUo, and under wiiich the page v" 
conflned. Only to think of bearing that ton of st 
on one's aching head, with the laces drawn tight, and 
that suffocating aventajlle down, and the crest and 

plumes nodding nneaaUy, and so to take r '■ '■ — 

of society throi^ the bars of the visor, as 
for the herald's cry : ' Knights, do yoi 
Xhis, surely, preseuts chivalry in a most uncorafortable 

But I am now coming to the age when plate-armont 
ipplonted mail, and the dressing-room of a gentle- 
ion bore leas resemblance to a sn:uthy, though there 
as yet some work for the hammer-man before (' 
amor was fully aeeoutred. Every piece of anni 
now a separate affair ; and on amazing quanl 
'as worn. There was the helmet, with a mail-hi 
perhaps as well, the goreet clasping the neck, and 
the vauntbrace, the ctwselet or broastplnte, the back- 
plate, brassards and pauidroua, cuissards, afterwards 
yclept taalets, st«el-boots or steel -shoes, and jambanis, 
uauntleta, knee-pieces, and enaulets of steeL The 
breast was not only protected by the shield and the 
coraclet, but by on inner breastplate, or sometimes a 
hanberk or moil-shirt ; and within that again was s 
ohest- protector in the sha)>e of a iazeran, or shirt of 
fine chain ; while other worriora iireferred a gamb cs M n 
of quilted leather inside their armour, and a suroast 
of bright heraldic colours, daintily wrought by lai*-— ' 
Angers, over it. Altogether, a knight could not 1 
worn leas than a hundredweight of cold iron, o 
much more, bfaidea hia two-hauded sword, hia h 
of poniards, oie or mace, and lance. Then, wher 
consider tjiat his gallant charger was trapped wii 
steel-plated war^rnddle with high bows and caot^ 
and broad stirmpe, and that the unhappy animal was ' 
barded with steel, and smothered in embroideicd I 
housings, with a poitrail on his cheat, flankers oloa^ 
*"" ' w», a choii^on with a long spike like a mu- 
hom on his head, and a bimch of peacock's 
plumes between bis eara, we can easily j 
slow must have been the march, how mot 
onslaught, of such ponderous cavalry. Indeed, the 
wonder is how Flanders could produce ateeda ci^>- 
able of bearing such towerB of hollow iron ; and we 
know that in the plate-armonr epoch, a knight being 
down was unable to rise without asaistanci:. There 
he lay, helpless, like a turtle on its back, until he 
was hold to ransom or poniarded. But they were 
not easily unhorsed, those living fortresses, until gnn- 

Eowder lent its aid. By this time, Milan pvM 
Lshions, and sells harness to the world- The milliner 
deals now-a-days in Qimiy wares for fair wearera ; 
but the first Milliners, or, more correctly, Milaneis, 
were Italian merchants, who drove a most gaintn! 
traffic in selling to the barons and princes i>f the rods 
West the promicts of the unrivalled forges of Lom- 
bordy. Goodrich Court hod some splendid snits, 
worthy to be worn by a Visconti or a Borgia. 1 have 
'' ' any royal or national collection. Even 



pion has been smothered ontright a 



r his morion, 



iu our time, the old beauty lingers about those oxtly 
mail-suits, mado 'at enormous price. Cor the martin 
dandies of the decline of ohivdry. There may still 
' " i azure bla^or ' 
silver, that o 

glowed all gorgeous in the sunlight of four centuries 
bach. Some of those coats have the gloss and deli- 
cacy of a starling's breast ; the colours have faded, 
but still the flne damoak-work survives. Somo 
harness, for kings' wearing, was far more superb than 
even these, and nas douhuees paid the penalty of iia 
uvemch plumage by finding its way to the Jews' 
melting-pots. We read of astonishing ooracleta plated 
with pure gold, of helmets bestarred with jewels, of 
hauberks where goldsmiths' work was intertwined 



witii arabeaqaed sieeL Tliese are gone from the 
worid'a gaze long agou Those glorious Milan suits 
vera costly enough withont being jewelled as welL 
Ti^ were bought at pices qpiie surprising ; a farm 
for a omelet ; a yoke of oxen for a gorget ; a com- 
pete suit was at the Tslue of a small estate. Books 
n^nsdyes were not dearer. In the middle ages, the 
mercenary soldiers who were paid by Italian republics 
and princes to fi^it their battles — the Lamorici^res of 
their day — fought not to kill, bat to capture. Some- 
times a battle was quite bloodless. Often there were 
bat one or two deaths in a hot affray. The arms and 
horse of the captiye were what the conqueror sought ; 
and so that he could strip the vanquished of his gay 
]dmnes, and get a ransom afterwards, he was seldom 
craelly disposed to kiU the goose that could bestow 
soeh golden eggii as Milan mad and a ba^ of bezants. 

Sspecial magnificence distinguishes the armour of 
Edwazd IIL's reign — a reign made up of wars and 
pageantry, of victones and of toumameDts, when the 
court was a faiiyland. Tlie surcoats of brocade, velvet, 
doth of gold, and other rich stuffs, were during this 
king's sway of a prodiffal splendour ; the knights wore 
them over their sparkmiff armour, and on their breasts 
flashed their heraldic devices in gold or in silver 
Inndery. The old chroniclers, Froissart, Comines, 
Brantome, loved to expatiate on the fantastic taste 
and luxurr of all this eusteninff apparel ; An<l, indeed, 
nopeacocK spraKUng ms j^oriued tail in the sunshine 
eoiud have out^ttered one of the Block Prince's com- 
mon in war. Who paid for all this bravery ? The 
ThM EidwBzd could not make money by practising 
roQ^ dentistry on rich Hebrews, as King John hoa 
dxme in the good old times. The Jews were gone out 
of 'Bi^—*'^ — banished ; their teeth were safe m>m the 
forceps of any royal practitioner. But there were 
the Xombaids of Lombard Street — wealthy, timid 
far&gaeis, that fattened on the ignorance and thrift- 
I w BuesB ci the rude English islanders, golden sponges 
from which the king squeezed many a goo<l flonn and 
loae noble. 

The only armour equalling this expensive mail of 
the Plaatagenet day, is that of Henry VIIL's time. 
The abbey-lands and episcopal revenues gilde<l those 
aatonkAiing corselets and damasked those mir helmets. 
R was the renaissance period, too, and across the 
Chimufd Fnmds L was blazing like the noonday sun. 
Hafc was the age of i^lendid books, palaces, mantles, 
and annoar, of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and 
of such lereb and iousts as gave a rich after-glow 
to the evening of chivalry. Then comes a terrible 
fidiing-off in the specimens handed down to our 
time. In Elizabeth's reign, gunpowder proved too 
much for annour. Knights began to go into battle in 
half -ariDoor ; the old shells of mail were discarded ; 
the baff<x»t came in. Buff'-coats were in fashion for 
a oentaxy and a half ; they still exist in some collec- 
tions, naj stiff garments of bulFs hide, with a little 
oorrodea metol, perhaps, on their seams and edges, 
where once gUtteied a broad lace of silver, for the Imff- 
eoat was the nay military uniform of its day, wrought 
in alk, and gold, and silver thread. The buff-coat was 
a fair protection against sword-strokes and stabs ; it 
eost firtypounds when new; and wc may still read 
Ookmel Hutchinson's piteous complaints against the 
esvafiers who hairied his property, and robbed him of 
Hiis useful article of attire. 

Gharies L is considered to have been the last person 
in Ihgland who ever went to battle in complete 
armour, eap-A-pie, like an ancient knight. But Crom- 
wdl's IroniBides had metal enough to cany to content 
xnoderate men. They were armed with breast and 
hade plates, steel morions on their heads, and buff- 
ooats to coyer their bodies, besides taslets of iron to 
meet tiieir ponderous boots, which latter were bound 
with brass and iron, and ten times as heavy as the 
degawrate boots of our day. Even infantry continued 
oooMBoniilly to wear corselets and helmets until a very 



late period, probably quite up to the Duke of Marl- 
borough's campaigns, thougn the pictui^s of the 
Flanders wars almost always represent the foot-soldier 
without any defensive annour. As for the cavalry, 
they gradually laid aside their harness ; and after the 
battle of Minden, the Blues and Life Guards disused 
wearing their breastplates. This was in 1759. Those 
cuirasses lay in the Tower armory for many a day. 
The Household Brigade wore no steel over their cloui 
coats on the occasion of their famous charge at 
Waterloo ; and it was in consequence of the protection 
afforded the French cuirassiers by their iron naminfc 
which rang to the sword-blows like a smith's anv^ 
that the Guards blos:<iomed out once more in the 
picturesque attire with which our eyes are familiar. 
Many soldiers are now wearing the identical breast- 
plat^ that an earlier generation bore at Minden. 

Annour is not utterly forsaken, even in tiiis far- 
shooting age of Armstrong guns, Congreve rockets, 
and elongated rifle-balls. Besides the British Life 
Guards, there are cuirassiers in the service of France, 
Bel^um, Holland, Russia, and the German powers. 
Spam has, 1 believe, but one corps of cuirassiers. Hie 
Sultan and the Pacha of Egy])t nave each had a fancy, 
respectively, for a regiment of * Heavies' in corselet 
and helm, but climate and lack of sturdy steeds were 
against the project. Asia, however, that Conservative 
among contments, is loath to give up an old habit. 
In Circassia, Persia, Tartary, in India and Afghimis- 
tan, in the Malayan Archipelago, and among the wild 
nations of Arabia, there are still knights and mailed 
warriors, in the very ^arb of those Saracens who 
resisted Kichard of the Lion Heart. Curiously enough, 
the most heavily armed of all these champions are 
the Wahabees of Central Arabia, who never go to 
war without being headed by a few heroes in helmet, 
hauberk, gauntlets, and steel-boots, fortified like 
actual castles against such lethal weapons as the 
Be<l()uins use in close fight. In India, again, there 
arc men in armour enough to grace the processions 
of all the Lord Mayors that ever swayed the sceptre 
of Cockaigne. The Pindharees, those mounted blood- 
suckers whose armies of light-horse used annually to 
sweep over Hindustan and the Decoan, robbing, bum- 
ii^, and slaughtering— a mere joint-stock com|)any of 
adventurers— were tdways in mail. The Great Duke 
won his spurs, under the name of Colonel WeUesiey, 
or rather Wesley, in pursuing a famous Pindharee 
chief, Dhoondiah Waugn, every one of whose followers 
wore armour. A hiurd chase it was ; the Duke, in his 
dispatches to his brother, the Marquis Wellesley, 
conq)are8 it to fox-himting, and declares that * it was 
now plain they should never catch Dhoondiah Waugh.' 
Nor was Dhoondiah ever captured, though his heu- 
tenant, and some thousand sliareholdcrs in the associa- 
tion of cut -throats, were driven into a river, and drowned 
by the weight of their harness. Curiously enough, 
though the Hndharees wore iron on their own breasts, 
they had none on their horses' feet; and yet those 
Mahratta nags of theirs could march from seventy to 
a hundred miles a day, under the weight of nder 
and mail, corn-bag and heel-pickets, not to mention 
a felt saddle weighing 24 lbs., and snugly wadded with 
rupees and bangles besides. * Do you think I would 
trust my life to a bit of iron ?' said a captive Pindharee, 
with infinite scorn, in reply to the question why lus 
horse was unshod. And yet the man wore half a 
hundredweidtit of smith's work on his own head and 
shoidders. There are plenty of Mahrattas, Sikhs, 
Patans, Rajpoots, and so on, who wear mail-coats to 
this day. The iVfghaDS and Beloochees always have a 
handsome harness when they can muster its price; 
and now and then our irregular troopers are allowed 
to Vrear a chain-shirt, though the officers are not 
partial to tho indulgence, for three reasons. First, 
they say that armour makes men timid ; second, it 
hampers the sword-arm ; third, if a ball strikes the 
wearer, it drives in some of the broken sted link% 



132 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



converting a clean gunshot wound into a hideotiB 
laceration, past surgery ; and that is, indeed, the very 
worst of armour. A ball may glance from a rounded 
cuirass — though there are French breastplates at 
Woolwich through which Brown Bess has cut a rough 
hole — but it can hardly fail to pierce linked mail or 
chain- work. Many a warrior of a couple of centuries 
ago has died painfully from the effects of a wound 
that would not have been mortal, save for the scrap 
of buff-leather, or the fragment of steel, forced into its 
owner^s body by the fat^ bullet. This was why the 
armourer shut up his disused forge, and broad-cloth 
supplanted hard iron. 

The eighteenth century gave little heed to arms 
defensive. Ilie nobles of France campaigned in velvet 
and silk, not in tempered metaL Even the jazeran, 
or secret vest of chain-mail, worn beneath the clothes 
by tiiose who feared the assassin's dagger, went out 
of fashion, and a vest of quilted siSk, pistol and 
poniard proof, superseded it. This latter, technically 
called a * plastron,' was no new invention. James I. 
of England thus protected his majesty from sacri- 
legious stabbcrs. when that reverend romancer, Dr 
Titus Oates, had the ear of the nation, many a good 
Protestant went swaddled i^ silk, for fear of popish 
knives. Such a silken breastplate was offered to, and 
refused by, poor Louis Seize in the height of his 
troubles ; ana tiie Duke of Orleans, Philippe EgaiitS, 
fainted in presence of the Convention, fairly stifled by 
the * plastron' which his cowardice had suggested. 
A somewhat similar cuirass was that worn Iby the 
natives of Peru, and called by Pizarro and his filli- 
busters by the Spanish name of e^caupiL It was a 
sort of tunic of cotton cloth, wadded and quilted 
with cotton so thickly and firmly as to defy all 



arrows, and deaden most bullets. The Spanish con- 
querors cladly threw aside their heavy steel-trappings 
tot this U|^t substitute, the only instance perhaps of 
a really untaught nation's possessinjg any armour 
beyond a shield. The Aztecs of Mexico, to be sure, 
had delicate hauberks and casques of thin golden 
mail, and the prettiest surcoats of humming-birds' 
feathers ; but those faiiy arms could only have been 
designed to enhance the splendour of Montezuma's 
court Cuirasses were taken into favour by Napoleon, 
who made great use of heavy cavalry, but they have 
been the cause of much complaint All the cuirassiers 
abroad, except perhaps the Spanish Guards, are 
underhorsed; they move slowly, they overweight 
their horses,' and yet it is certain that light cav^iy 
dread their shock above all things. 

But .after long neglect, after being sneered at, 
derided, and shehrcd as lumber, armour has started 
up like a phoenix, and has assumed no mean place 
among the questions of the day. From the hour that 
the hrst iron-plated fri^te was laid down at Cher- 
bourg, by the emperor's £rection8, the consideration of 
nautical armour, at least, was forced upon our reluctant 
consideration. Our wooden waUs, it seems, from a 
hundred experiments at Sheemess and Cherbouiff, are 
not fence enough for the Island Home they nave 
guarded so long. France has ten of these sea-dragons 
afloat, proud oftheir scales and their strength, besides 
that grim monster the Ghire, which defies the 
mightiest engines of modem warfare. The latest 
experiments on this side the water go to prove that 
wall-sided ships cannot face heavy artillery, be tiiey 
never so bucklered with iron; but the most formidable 
discharge can do no hium to a bulwark sloped at 
46 degrees. From this all shots glance off like hail- 
stones. There are those who deny that the CHoire 
can swun the seas. Her armour weighs her down, 
they say ; her lower ports are swamped, her decks 
afloat, and her guns useless. But, ah ! let us not crow 
out our peeans of victory too soon over the clumsy 
Gaul! We have heard much of this kind of talk 
before. Did not grave dons of science demonstrate, 
by awful mathematicfly that no steamer could czou 



the Atlantic? — that no locomotive could run on the 
railway, or do aught but stand still and spin around 
its wheels like a firework ? — that gas would not illumi- 
nate, nor electricity play the newsmon^r? So we 
may be pretty sure that if iron -plated ships can float, 
and won t float, they will be made to float before our 
pertinacious neighbour has done with them ; nor is it 
well for us Britons to be left too far behind the latest 
Cherbourg fashions. Wooden ships cannot ensage 
impregnable leviathans ; if a ship cannot be suilc or 
set on fire, there is but one resource — to board her; no 
uncongenial task for British tars. Pipe away the 
boarders, then ; get ready the pikes and cutlasses ; 
sheer alongside the invulnerable enemy, the monster 
that darts flame and death from every port-hole in her 
guarded sides, and hey for St George against the 
Dragon ! Alas ! this also has been foreseen. There 
is not one weak spot in the monster's steely scales : 
that iron roof over the Oloire's deck is proof agamst 
the boldest boarders that ever sprang cheering on a 
hostile poop : St George cannot get a stroke at the 
Dragon. Well, we must have dragons of our own. 
We must pit armour against armour, 
take a lesson from our ancient rivals, ana earn anew 
for Britain the well- won title of Mistress of the Seas. 
Most true it is, however, that iron sheathing does 
sink a ship very deep indeed in the water — a serious 
drawback to the efficiency of these new tyrants of the 
deep, where long voyages and diversity of weather 
are in question. No aoubt, this difficulty will be 
improved away ere long, and the floating power of 
plated vessels be greatly increased by the extension 
of the principle of separate compartments, and by 
other means. But we should remember how easy it 
is, in these narrow seas, and for short expeditions, to 
pick and choose our weather. 

Steam makes an enemy independent of contrary 
winds : impregnable ships need not care for a 
blockading force. The wind has, in old times, been 
England's very good friend and ally : the wind 
scattered the haughty Armada, put a stop to 
scores of Jacobite enterprises and French descents, 
and drove Hoche and his frigates out of Bantry Bay. 
But steam-transports, escorted by an overpowering 
fleet of these new children of Bellona, the Oloirs 
and her stem sisterhood, may cross when they wiH ; 
and not all the gallant devotion and seamanship pos* 
sible could stay such an armament, unless one floating 
fortress is matched by another, steel by steeL Let us 
not, with old Admiral Mainbrace, launch out into testy 
contempt of the new-fangled marine champions ; let 
us not call the Oloire a clumsy hooker, and wish oor- 
selves on board some Agamemnon or Arethusa, just 
to have the pleasure of engaging her on eoual terms. 
The terms are not equal, my poor dear old admiral : 
your Arethusa is a good smp and a soimd, bravely 
manned, and skilful^ handled ; but wood cannot 
match iron; your line-of-battle-ship would be dis- 
masted, burning, wrecked beyond reaemption, spout- 
ing red blood from ports and scuppers like a wounded 
whale, before she had so much as oint^ tiie bulwarks 
of her grim opponent. It would be the old stoiy of 
tiie naked savage flinging his life away in a struggle 
with the mailed man-at-arms, locked in his harness 
of proof. The French authorities have kindly informed 
us, that while the targets made of British iron have 
been broken by repeated shots, those of French iron 
have stood the test That is a fact that may stagger 
Merthyr and Birmingham; but, after all, charcoal 
iron must be better tlutn iron ' bloomed' by coke- fires. 
In steel, at anyrate, the French will harmy beat us ; 
and steel-plates, being lighter, are undoubtedly superior 
covering tor war-ships. It is not absolutely neoes- 
sary that these plates should be of iron or steeL If 
the timbers would bear the repeated blows, a thick 
sheathing of gutta-percha would protect a vessel 
against imot ; but liquid fire-shells to be propelled by 
a rifle, and bombs full of molten iron for the same 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



133 



benevolent purpoee, are among tHc recent devices of 
sdeiice, and gntta-percfaa is too inflammable a sub- 
itaooe to be trustworthy. 

One substance there is, and that a new one, 
hardly known beyond the laboratory, but more 
Talued every day, which would be better fitted 
for ship-armour than all the old metals of Tubal 
Cain, and that is aluminum, the basis of clays. 
Untamishing, easily worked, capable of being alloyed 
into a bronse of wonderful hardness, and of being 
indurated in a pure state till it equals cast-iron, this 
Kewoome among the metals has the groat merit of 
heiqg the lightest of them all — lighter than glass. 
Aluminum . would give equal pn)tcction, with a 
fractional part of the weight, could it be but cheaply 
procured ; but its ranesent high price curtails its 
yy»f^lT|ftM tetrifaly. llie other day, on the French 
itagiSt ' there ' appeared a Joan of Arc in armour of 
aluminum, beautifully finished, the weight being 
eleven pounds; the cost, at a fan^ price fixed by 
the jeweller who wrought it, some L.2^. The steel 
8mt» of Berlin make, m which Mademoiselle Mars 
used to play the character, weighed fifty-five pounds ! 
and cost lIlOOO, according to Paris tradition. Just 
now, aluminum is banded about like a shuttle-cock 
between the chemist and the silversmith ; it is costly, 
it is rare, thou^ its humble pedigree is but traced to 
conmion dav — the clay that clogs the ploughshare, 
and loads the highlows of honest Hodge, toiling in 
tlie shafts ; but it cannot be bom as a metal, cannot 
oooie forth white and glistening, a Cinderella in her 
baU-dzess, witiiout the expensive aid of sodium, and 
lodinm is at half the price of gold. When it does 
become chew, in the course of invention, great thincs 
ire expected from it ; it is to decorate our side-boards, 
ooia our small-chanffe, construct our machinery, carry 
gas and water, ana why not arm oiu> ships? The 
armourer's trade is not quite obsolete among us. 
The £7eat anny-cutlers, Messrs Wilkinson of Pall 
Ma]]^ rar instance, send out quantities of mail, chain- 
ibirti^ ateel-^loves, and helmets, both to Asia and 
Sooth America. Venezuela and Arabia arc good 
castomers to Pall MalL The Arab chiefs require 
eoate of weU-annealed chain-work, heavy and massive, 
aade after a pattern as old as the Crusades. The 
mail-abirt alone weighs nearly thirty pounds, and 
the whole suit above forty pounds. The Spanish 
cuBtaaoaen, who only want to be shielded from the 
reed-anows and cane-lances of their Indian foes, 
order aon^thing much lighter of wear. A Venc- 
ssela col&Dist can take the field in only twenty-five 
pounds of polished steel, pliant as a slove ; but the 
bedoinii, thou^ he deals with Louaon instead of 
Bamaacos or Bassora, chooses to carry the burden 
which his grandfather bore a^es ago, and sees no 
need to change^ Not that all these sallant accoutre- 
joents are proof against a musket-b^ To keep out 
kad propelled by gunpowder, no less than twenty-eight 
poanos of steel to the square foot are required, as 
lepeated experiments have proved. The elasticity 
of gntta-pezx^ might bo useful here, but who could 
bear the fatigue and heat of the march and battle, if 
he were swawed in such a material ? And yet there 
BMjy come a day, ere lon^, when some kind of armour 
^1 be needed for soldiers, as now for ships. The 
■ew anns have never yet had a fair trial — ^the cannon 
that throw their shells and shot ten thousand yards 
— 4lie Enfields and Whitworths that make good prac- 
tiee at fourteen hundred, and are all but unerring at 
nine hundred yards. We have not yet seen— and 
nay we never see ! — a war in which shall be employed 
the Tery.best arms of precision extant, in the cool, 
ttrong hands that, at Hythc, may daily be seen to 
itdke the far-off target with clock-work accuracy 
aAin, ag^un, and again. But it needs no prophet to 
tetl that inventions so murderous must be met by 
defenaive inventions of some kind, and armour, prob- 
ably of aluminum or other new substance, may. 



T»crhai)s, once more come into favour, from the very 
horror of the carnage which must accompany the next 
great European struggle for empire. 



LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN. 

My little men and women are not the stunted growths 
of our adult population; they are not the small old 
specimens occasionally fallen in with, whose appear- 
ance suggests the idea of attenuated infancy and 
chronic hydrocephalus ; neither are tiiey kith nor kin 
of the individual met in coimtry fairs and market- 
places, usually travelling, as a pleasing contrast of 
nature^s pleasantries, with a herculean specimen of 
obese idleness, and whose residence is weakly sup- 
posed, by children and village-folk, to bo the highly 
decorated, three-storied, wooden-box house, from the 
drawing-room window of which he makes frequent 
display of a dirty little hand garnished with suspicious 
jewellery. My little men and women are not dwarfs; 
they have neither dwarf bodies nor dwarf intellects. 
They are simply children who have never known a 
childhood ! 

How sad an anomaly is a child whose wakening 
years onen upon such scenes and circumstances as at 
once call upon it to enact its little part amidst them; 
as plunge it into such thoughts, and cares, and anxieties 
as rightly appertain only to more advanced life; as 
blot out all traces of a child's childhood; as stamp 
it, by too shrewd an intellect, and too small a physi- 
cal development, a premature little man or woman. 
These were never children, but in years; they look 
back to no simny spot in their brief lives, as other 
men and women do, and call it childhood, and the 
place wherein it was cherished, home. There is no 
summer of past days towards which they can fondly 
turn in any sad moment of their wintry experience, 
not a green patch of promise to enliven the whole 
bleak and desert waste. ' 

Who would call * Aunty Bee* a child? liook at 
that small active fi^re, wrapi)ed and bandaged in a 
tattered shawl, which trails after her along the 
dirty pathway like a train of the ladies of old. Her 
naked feet are thrust into loft^ iron-bound dora, 
wherein she balances herself with consummate skuL 
Peep into the depth of that prodigious bonnet, whose 
silk is faded and obliterated, but whose solidi^ of 
structure yet remains; gaze at the small, sharp 
features therein canopied as beneath the hood of a 
gig, and after you have looked, and wondered, I 
amrm you will not venture to call that face the 
face of a child; you will at once acknowledge it to 
belong to one of my little women. Though she has 
not seen eight full years, a strange experience has 
rendered her far wiser than are most larger women, 
who can count eighteen. We shall meet her presently, 
coming from a bs^l-smelling aUey near at hand to seek 
the sunshine, with a singular bundle lying across her 
shoulder, which reposes confidentially against the 
sheltering side of her queer bonnet. If curious to 
inspect this suspicious rag-heap, we shall astonish our- 
selves by finding that it contains a child — one who 
should oe an imiant, a perfect babe in weeks; still 
poverty and the alley have conspired to cast over that 
mite's features an expression vastly different to that 
of the baby-face we Idss and snme upon in houses 
elsewhere! Its little eyes are wide and shrewdly 
open, and its keen features seldom relax into baby- 
laughter; it seems already to have taken a very 
serious view of existence, and foimd that it promises 
but a few visionary fragments, calculated to excite 
any shade of humour. Dirt and it have already 
commenced what will probably be a steady acquaint- 
ance for life ; for we shall find the baby-face veneered 
in compact particles and patches by undisturbed 
accumulations. 

* Aunty Bee' will tell you that she goes out 
'nussing.' The curious little rag-heap you have 



134 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



t'ost inspected has been confided to her tenderness 
»y its father. Of a mother's care, it has known 
nothinjg; eJie is dead; so *Aani^ Bee* here steps in, 
and onei-8 her kind offices to tne child of the dead 
woman. Remembering what a child Aunty is, how 
much herself requiring a mother's care, you will not 
fail to admire the protecting and almost parental wing 
with which she envelops her charge. She seems to 
anticipate the whole of its wants, and to meet them 
after ner own fashion in a very creditable manner. 
She is a good, warm-hearted, ragged creature, and 
loves the poor forsaken little heap, lying across her 
shoulders, with a far more genuine feeling than my 
Lad^ Shirkerbaim's well-paid nurse loves my lady's 
fashionable bantling. My lady pays handsomely for 
^e motherly care me should herself bestow upon her 
offspring; but, alas! she owes more to socie^* than 
to it, beinc a spoiled and beautiful child of the one, 
and only ue parent of the other. 

* Aunty Bee' gives far more love from her baby- 
heart to her baby-charge, than any money can ever 
rewutL If it were not so, sad and forsaken indeed 
would be the nurse-child of the ill-smelling alley. 
Aunty's bearing has been b^ no means repelling, 
whilst I conducted my inquiries; on the contrary, 
she seemed to court them. She has confided to my 
keeping secrets connected with the rearing of infants, 
to my mind, truly astonishing; but fortunately for my 

g resent condition, useless in uieir practical application, 
he has assured me, with a nicety of calculation, the 
exact weekly eiroenditure consequent upon a baby; 
how much its nrst year's life will cost, and how 
much its second year's existence ought to be. She is 
intimately acquainted with the proprietors of marine 
stores, and other general dealers, who, she imagines, 
make great annual sacrifices on i^e articles of baby- 
clothing alone. She assures me she buys * beautiful things 
for next to nothing,' of these amiable and devot^ 
merchants; which, freely rendered, means that she 
pays a hajidsome percentage upon the useless rags 
for which thev were bou^t, out for which they 
are far from being sold. Nor is her knowledge 
confined to the baby expenditure as a living baby; 
she has enlightened me ^peatly upon the subject of 
funereal duuges. She is a walking trade-list of 
Messrs Dust and Ashes, and knows their precise 
demand for a plain elm, or a strong ditto covered with 
blue silk, nails, and plate. She h^ calculated, for the 
special consolation of bereaved parents, the whole cost 
of Messrs Dust and Ashes' attention to a * small 
job,' not omitting the diarge for beer, with which Mr 
Dust will hope to aUay the excessive dr3mess of his 
mournful throat, when he returns from the burial. 
Her greatest intimacy exists amcmgst 'plain elms,' 
containing upon their lids a brief summary in chalk ; 
but tibe most astonishing event of * Aunty Bee's' 
whole small life is wrapped up with ' a baby as she 
knowed and nussed, as died, poor dear, and was 
buried in a beautiful blue cofiui, what had angels 
on the top — and how did I think it was buried? 
Wl^, in a cab 1 ' 

Tne magnificence of this poor burial, with a blue- 
covered c(mn for the d^ad baby, and an actual cab 
from the street-comer, to bestow upon it a first and 
last air of respectability, is fixed in the imagination 
of Aunty as an event too imposing to be readily 
foi^gotten. She associates hers^ with its grandeur; 
and if she be rendered one atom the more happy 
by her remembrance of *the baby as was buriea in 
a cab,' it will be a far rougher lumd than mine that 
will strip the smaU piece of tinsel away which she 
sees clinging around the hidden glory of one of Mr 
Dust's best uttle jobs, in a very poor neighbourhood. 
For all the love and tender carefulness Aunty 
bestows, she receives, as by herself expressed, * thrup- 
pence a week and vittels ; ' and I can certify that for 
that trifling wage she does a woman's duty well and 
lovingly, and ministen to the wants of the motherless 



alley-bred baby as fondly and patiently as any such 
baby could desire. 

May He who loves little children, bless and aid 
thee, my poor * Aunty Bee ! ' Thou art, indeed, no 
creature of my fancy ; I have seen thee many times 
seeking out warm spots of grateful sunshine ; I know 
thee well — ^ragged m raiment, tender in years, most 
miserable in uoy daily gain and sustenance, but oh ! 
how strong in the love with which thy diild-heait 
fosters the child of the dead woman ! 

Auntv is only one out of a great number ; there are 
other *httle wonien,' young in years, but old in experi- 
ence — children who, stepping into women's places, 
display women's love and powers. Little hous^olds 
call them their guide ; foisaken and forlorn childrezi 
call them Aunty and Mother, and look up to them, 
children though they be, and seek love and protection 
from these protectors, so frail and unprotected them- 
selves. H^gling at street-stalls, cheapening stale 
fish, and strange particles from butchers' trays; 
conversing mysteriously with real men and women; 
buying, selling, talking, listening, we see these smaU 
women daily, and can only wonder at and pity the 
circumstances by which they are developed. 

Foxy Bosley, more frequently styled the * Admiral,' 
is, I need s(»Ekrcely suggest, quite unknown to the 
First Lord; he is an urchin of some ten years old, 
but he cannot count them himself, and, as far as he 
knows, he may be twenty. K I were to be told l>y 
any solenm beadle that he numbered a score, I should 
not hesitate in accepting such respectable testimony. 
He wears the remains of a green surtout; it comeB 
fairly over his heels, and the collar may generallv be 
found embracing the top of his heaoL Something 
peculiar, dangling in shreds, and fantastic in outline, 
covers such portions of his legs as the ample skirts 
occasionally reveal I have never ventured to inquire 
into the nature of this covering, but have reasons for 
believing that the Admiral has submitted an aged 
coat to principles of economic adaptation, and made 
the sleeves do duly in a manner at variance with the 
intentions of their constructor. His boots are worth 
looking at. Whose they were, or what they were, 
affords room for vast conjecture. They may have been 
related to the famed seven-league boots; they may 
have belonged to a dragoon, or a Kentish ' hoveller.' 
They are long and heavy, have been cut off at the 
ankles, and patched, blotted, and stitched out of all 
original design by curious handicraft. He pushes 
himself along in them, as though his feet were in 
boxes, and rejoices inwardly in &e noise wi^ which 
he awakens tne echoing alleys. He never wears any 
covering to his head other than the very bountiful one 
with which nature has presented him. Red, shock, 
and ample is it in its growth, and quite unlovdy. He 
tells me he never wore a cap. * He 'ad a 'at once as 
was give to him by a boy as 'ad a 'ed growing too big 
for it ; but the s^-larlu and mud-la^s bonneted i^ 
out in a week.' This, he assures me, is the only 
covering he ever affected. He begirts himself wi^ 
either strap or rope, to keep the fragments of l^ 
surtout closer around his boay than uiey otherwi^ 
could ; and he is not proud in the display of his line^ 
for his old coat is always pinned closely under t^ 
throat, concealing whatever portions of a shirt he m^^ 
happen to possess. His features are the living expr<^' 
sion of precocious cunning and shrewdness. His e^^ 
is a marvel — concentrating in a glance whomsoever 1^^ 
may be speaking to, and all that belongs to hii^ 
His acute sense of an approaching constable ^ 
worthy of any man's observation. From some cau^^ 
real or imaginary, he has early conceived a strot^^ 
animosity towards the whole force, and knows thei^ 
only as something to be avoided by every effort, ^ 
long as it is possime. His admiration for the miUta^ 
is as intense as his animosity towards the police ; 
and his delight at finding himself in a vast crowd »t 
a fire, or otEer popular assemblage, is only exceeded 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



t^ witnwwng the parish beadle or police confltable 
nbjMted to insult or danger. 

He knows niuneroiu cabmen, and appears to haye 
iB extensive circle of friends amonffst omnibus drivers 
tad cads ; so far profiting by sucm acquaintanceship 
SI to ride uninvited whenever opportunity serves. 
His skill as an acrobat is mostly displayed to these 
friends, as he keeps op a running peitormance along- 
side thtfeir vehicles; Imt his reward more frequently 
oomes tram the hand of the driver than from the 
pocket of the omnibos cashier. His reception of a 
widl-dre«8d child is worth witnessing; and the 
faoetioas critioiBms he bestows upon the eeneral 
a|i|Maranoe of a youth of his own age more nai)pily 
OBemnstaaced tlum himself, are worth the heazinff; 
while if he poaseos a physical superiority over t£e 
bttter-dresaea iival«he is not slow in displaying it. 
To the a^jed of each sex, he is a continued terror, and 
AnKghta m eztnetisff from tiiem any ferocious dcmon- 
itetioiiaL Fifltoe ana rash blows, dealt out from heavy 
nmfaraUas and walking-sticks, never reach his head or 
back, when aimed at it, but only tend to increase 
the mirth and anger mutually arising from the contest. 
He has at ccmmiand lar^ stores of r^idy repartee. For 
the benevcdent, he cames searching words of misery ; 
lad is eloquent in that rude language of xK>verty 
which never fails in reaching the heart it is intended 
ioc. For the curious, he weaves plausible sentences, 
(Mjftilatpd to lead iar out of the desired track. He 
kM insolence for such as ma^ rebuke him, humour 
lor an who can appreciate it, blasphemy for the 
gHieral public, and in short a language of reply 
adapted to all his requirements. 

€aaat is he in the subjects whereon the low drama 
kktena. He openly expresses his admiration for both 
Shqppaid uid Turpin, and makes no effort to conceal 
bis regrets at the unhappy manner in which so much 
brilliancy was eclipsed. My first acquaintance with 
the Admiral took place during his representation, in 
Ida native alley, of'^his favounte histnonic character. 
lUdn^ ahelter in it during the rain, I found him 
bugniling the wet moments oy endeavouring to make 
a mall audience familiar with the leading features 
of Jack Sheppard's career. On or off the boards, I 
hanra never seen more energy thrown into a part 
OoRectness of detail he neither aimed at nor desired ; 
ha WPmnfA larse with the hope of conveying to pos- 
terity aome idea of the unoaunted front which his 
cJuffiahfid hero shewed to all his enemies. He there- 
fon vspreaented himself as offering immediate and 
datnaetm eombat to Jonathan Wild, Blueskin, and 
a host of others, and was inflated with natural 
triumph when those sentlemen retreated into the 
cbadowB, and declined nis sanguinary appeaL Brief 
waa ike hour of his glory, for the vision of a glazed 
hat and shining cape gliding softly doiKH the alley, 
dispersed the valiant Sheppard and his accomplices, 
in the midst of a most daring attempt upon the 
life and property of an imaginary old gentleman. 

The sworn fnend of Foxy Bosley is Pineapple Cole, 
wka derives his sobriquet from an early partiality 
lor the rum which is called * pine-apple.' It is a 
atnmge sicht to witness these two little men standing 
b eneath the edge of a bar-counter sippinc with the 
air of connoisseurs the little draught of dariL-colourod 
^■rit. A dark spirit to thczn, I fear, will be their 
eaxly taste for * pcnn*oths of pine-apple rum.' 

Should any be curious to know more * little men 

~ women,' I can furnish them with numerous intro- 
daefcions. Seek my * uncle.' You know his residence ; 
it usually is at a street-comer, and has a private 
entrance down which abashed nephews and nieces 
slide to obtain an interview; thev afterwards conceal 
Siemaelves in small cells, and endeavour to excite my 
uncle's greatest liberality, whilst he inspects their 
oonfidential offerings. If you spend an hour on 
Saturday's eve or Monday's morn, hovering around 
the postals of that relative's house, you smdl meet 



136 I 



unmistakable 'little men and women' in flocks, con- 
ducting household gods of divers kinds to temporary 
banishment up the universal ' spout ;' or else return- 
ing with the late imprisoned treasure, released from 
beneath the pecuniary cloud it was called upon to 
disperse. 

Nowhere will vou see my * little men and women' 
to a more painful advantage than as the needy 
nephews and nieces of their uoiquitous uncle; exhibit- 
ing their too early knowledge of the value of all that 
is convertible, and an aU too intimate acquaintance 
with that tariff, which regulates such things as the 
flat-iron of the poor laundress, the implements of 
mechanical handicraft, and the wretohea articles of 
raiment wherein the poor and diseased conceal tibeir 
gaunt and miserable forms. 



ELECTRIC CLOCKS AND SHIP 

CHRONOMETERS. 

A SHORT time ago, having a few hours to spend in 
Liverpool after a mornings business, we were kindly 
offered the conduct of a fnend over the various places 
of interest. Now, having lately found, on expressing 
a wish to sec some of the instruments in a ratfcU 
observatory, that strict orders have recently been 
issued from government absolutely prohibiting the 
admission of strangers to those in£ttitutions, we were 
very ^lad to avail ourselves of an opportunity dt 
rcnewmg an acquaintance with some of tiiie subjects 
of our Cambridge studies. To the Observatory, 
accordingly, we went. After going along the Prince s 
Dock, wc emerge on an open space by the side of 
the river, and, near the water's ed^ observe a very 
unpretending-looking building, with a small dome at 
the top, and also a weather-cock with some other 
apparatus about it, giving it the resemblance of a 
toy wind-milL This, connected with an apparatus 
inside, is the anemometer^ which indicates and registers 
the force and direction of the wind for all times of 
the day and nij^ht. This is first shewn to us and 
explained by the kindness of the astronomer, Mr 
Hartnup. 

Our attention is next directed to a clock, which has 
the appearance of an ordinary astronomicid dock. 
And so it is. It goes mean time, and is every day 
regulated in accordance with the transit observations, 
so that at any moment its accuracy can be depended 
on within one or two tenths of a second. Beside it ia 
a galvanometer — that is, an instrument like the face 
of a telegraph apparatus, fitted with two magnetic 
needles. As the second-hand of the clock is approach- 
ing the minute, we fix our eye upon the left-hand 
needle of the galvanometer, keeping our ears open to 
the beats of the pendulum. At the instant of the beat 
sixty, the needle vibrates. Now this, we are told, 
means that the great clock in the Town Hall is pre- 
cisely at the minute. In the same way, at the twenty- 
seventh second past the minute, the other neecDe 
vibrates, which shews that the clock at the Telegraph 
Office is exactly at the twenty-seventh second. These 
clocks, by a remarkable invention recently worked out 
by Mr B. L. Jones of Chester, upon the suggestion of 
Mr Hartnup, are both controlled by the clodc in the 
Observatory. The means is an electric current. Each 
clock, as well as the one in the Observatory, is fitted 
with a Baine's jiendulum, and at the instant of each 
beat, a contact is made which brings each pendulum 
into electric connection with a small battery. By Mr 
Jones's arrangement, the effect of the electric current 
is made to accelerate the motion of the pendulum of 
the clock acted on, if behind-hand, and to retard it, if 
before. This effect being produced at each second, 
the clock is obliged to go accurately with the one in 
the Observatory. We are told that the clock in the 
To^n Hall is about one hundred years old, and that 
this arrangement was applied to it at the expense only 



136 



CHAMBBRS'8 JOURNAL. 



of baying an old Baine^s pendulum for L.7 at a nautical 
store, fitting it with Mr Joneses apparatus, and laying 
down the wires for electric communication. The 
advantage which this arrangement possesses over 
other similar applications of electricity, consists in the 
f^ of the clocks having their independent motion, 
which enables them to go on, shoula anything inter- 
fere with the electric current. Besides, the electric 
current required is extremely weak. 

We confess we should like to see tlus remarkable 
invention brought into more extensive operation. No 
doubt, if mankmd in general were to come to reckon 
tiieir time in tenths of seconds, the phenomenon would 
be as remarkable as the circumstance of a gang of 
roughs dividing their time into * quarters * of an hour 
appears to an acute detective. Still, if we know that 
a great clock in a town is to be depended on within 
some tenths of a second, it is (I fortiori to be depended 
on within any appreciable time. But supposing for a 
moment that men were so impressed with the value 
of time as to consider a clock going right within two- 
tenths of a second a valuable acquisition — say as valu- 
able as the possession of water or gas in a house — ^it is 
a curious reflection that the machinery exists by 
which a Thne-regulation Company (Limited) might 
be enabled to supply the article to every house by a 
machinery much more simple and less costly than 
that reqmred for the other more indispensable articles ; 
while Paterfamilias misht take the 'bus in time for the 
family by the hall do^ in such a way that no excuse 
should be left for unpunctuality. The dr«»ing-bell 
should ring 23' 17" and A ^fore the hour ; while 1' 33" 
and -fn of law might be lulowed to a dilatory toilet. But 
the advanta^ would not be all on the side of Pater- 
familias. Crmoline manages to keep mamma waiting 
till 10^' and ^ pu^ the five minut^ At the comer 
of the street, oy a curious coincidence, the swain, 
Pegtops, arrives so precisely at the same instant that 
his joining the party is mevitable — it would be a 
positive rudeness to avoid it. 

Two doctors meet for consultation : ' Sir,* says the 
senior, * you are 5" and -^^ behind your time.' * A 
thousana apologies — but we will proceed to business.' 

As to poor boys at school, we fear invention would 
be taxed to find an excuse for being late better than 
the time-honoured protest about the school-clock being 
fast, or the innocent belief in the clock at home being 
slow. 

But leaving the contemplation of the consequences 
of such precise accuracy in time, it is easy to imagine 
the practical importance of every town havinff two or 
three clocks wmch can be absmutely depenaed on; 
and with the means which this invention gives for 
any town which is at all within reach of an observa- 
toiy, this is a matter of no difficulty and no great 
expense. 

ne now go upstairs, and are shewn a large telescox)e 
equatorially mounted. As it is a gray afternoon, there 
is no use looking through it. Next we see the transit 
instrument, a small one, the telescope being only about 
three or four feet focal length. We are tmd, however, 
that it is an instrument of great accuracy, indeed, more 
to be depended on than the great transit-circle at 
Greenwich, because in these large instruments Uiere is 
always an error — and one very difficult to appreciate 
— ^from the flexure produced by its weight. 

Passing by this, in tiie next room is a very 
interesting apparatus for observing the rates of 
chronometers at different temperatures. This is 
similar to an apparatus for the same purpose which 
is in use at Greenwich. There is now in ooorse 
of construction, in this Observatory at Liverpool, an 
improved apparatus for this purpose, which, to render 
its principle intelligible, would require a more minute 
description than we can give here. Hie arrangement 
at present in use has practically very well nufilled 
its purpose, though tne new apparatus will give 
the opportunity for observations to be made more 



conveniently and npon a more extensive scale. T 
result is to ascertain the rate of a chronometer at ai 
given temperature. The greatest practical difficul 
which has as yet been found in the way of workii 
this scheme, has arisen not from any deficiency in tl 
apparatus to give the result required, but from tl 
reluctance of ship-captains to submit their chroB* 
meters to a test by which all their faults wou! 
infallibly be discovered. A ship-captain would be ; 
willing to doubt the faithfulness of his wife as of b 
chronometer, and the difficulty of inducing him i 
submit the matter to a real test is almost equal 
great. This difficulty seems, however, in the ca 
of chronometers, to have been now partly ove 
come ; and we believe there are now in this Obse 
vatory over 100 chronometers, submitted to the tei 
partly by chronometer-makers and partly by shi] 
captains. With regard to the former, the Observatoi 
acts at once as a register and a market. If yc 
want a chronometer for certain voyages, you wi 
find here one that will go approximately correi 
between the variations of temperature in the require 
latitudes. The ship-captain will find why, thouc 
provided with a chronometer of very excellent wori 
manship, and which never failed him in voyag( 
between Liverpool and New York, he yet foun 
himself hundreds of miles out of his lon^tude in 
voyaee round the Cape ; and if not induced to chanj 
his cnronometer, he will, at least in his next voya^ 
across the line, pay some attention to his lunar di 
tancea 

We take leave of the Observatory and its courteoi 
astronomer with regret, and only hope our descriptic 
may be read with a tenth of the pleasure which tl 
visit gave to us. 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACK 

ClIAmB XVII.— TBB WITKB88E3. 

When Richard Arbour 'came to himself,' as tl 
phrase is, he also came to a series of policemei 
oeginning with Al, an inspector, three reporters, t^ 
magistrates' clerks, and one magistrate, not to mentic 
a considerable number of the general public — ^the bu 
of whom were regarding him with a sort of terrific 
admiration, as though not altogether without ho\ 
that a lad of such bloody instincts might commit 
homicide in the police court itself, for their especi 
edification and comfort All the world, it seemed \ 
Dick, were by this time more than fully informed < 
the active share he had taken in the assassination < 
the Russian count, as well as in the progress of Coi 
tinental Revolution; his fame had, mdeed, alread 
gone forth from the police station, and was becomio 
metropolitan through the exertions of several scon 
of stroet-intelligencers, while the telegraphic wire 
were even then doing their best to render : 
European. The police alone had hitherto been i 
possession of the lad's real name, but there was no' 
no further need for even that concealment ; and tii 
Family Scapegrace was fulfilling his destiny with 
ven^^eance. 

Dick leaned forward in the Dock with his fac 
buried in his hands, to the great disgust of a gentli 
man in the crowd connect^ with one of the illui 
trated papers — who had been sent for post-haste b; 
a member of the force who was in his pay, in orde 
to purvey the lineaments of so remarkable a crimini 
to the Public — and with only the picture of that houa 
in Gk>ldcn Square before him with its drawn-dow 
blinds. The thought of his dead mother — of tfa 
murder that he seemed to have in truth committe 
— prevented his feeling those apprehensions to whic 
a person in his cireumstances woidd otherwise hav 
doubtless been a prey. Tliere was even a certai 
miserable consolation in the fact, that this misfortun 
had befallen him, when, at leasts it oould w(Mmd tha 



OHAMBERfi'S JOURNAL. 



1S7 



_ heait of hen no more. The acute 
8 w&e therefore in error, through whom some 
milHoQ of interated readers were informed 
iming that *the youthful prisoner was deeply 
ed by the sense of his oisgracefiil position, 
) TeiT serious nature of the charges Drought 
him.' 

Ustoned to the details of his caption, which 
[iv«red from the witness-box, as to some 
oug nanmtive which had not sufficient interest 
him lor ever so short a space from his secret 
It mm an original and exciting story, too, 
KNt all new to hmi, describing his own super- 
camiing and personal agih^, and thereby 
ly evidencing the sagacity ana determination 
iptor. When it was finisned, there was quite 
nr of apj^anse from the British Public at the 
, eonduot of their servant, and they regarded 
ritii a renewed wonder, as being athletic as 
t muiiunaiy beyond his years. If the lad 
catgedio their own class in life, he would have 
mpathy, and even commendation ; but not 
own in the proper soil, nor of the crop that is 
garnered in police courts, they looked upon 
% something or monstrous growth. 
the next witness,' said the mi^istrate. 
was leaning forward again in his old attitude, 
I thou^ts wandering away to the lock on the 
,nd the song which his mother had simg 
I that last hmppy day they had spent together, 
familiar voice struck c^arply upon his ear. 
Smith, and who *d a thought of seeing you 
Miss Backboard wrote as you were the 
sat boy she had ever seen, but I never believed 
il this moment ; though you did nm off with 

b tortoise-shell ' 

1 your tongue, sir,* interrupted the magistrate 
; 'how cUire yovL speak to the prisoner? 
this witness ? What 's his name, officer? Why 
•worn ? 

n't help it, you see. Smith,' groaned Mr 
gr ; • I must tell the truth, you know ; it 's 

jrou be sworn, sir, or will you not ? * roared 
idUe magistrate. ' Now, what have you got 
^KMit the prisoner ? ' 

1, mr, he was a good enough boy, as far as 
t go, that I wUl say for him; but he was 

. flood cutter, Smith wasn't ' 

£f who's Smith?' interrupted the magistrate, 
e feofpoeed to know nothing about Smnh here. 
witrai us your whole story, sir, from beginning 

ipsaway smiled blandly, coughed deliberately, 
hair on end by means of two rapid passes of 
i*cn of the right hand, and commenced as 
: 'My father's name was William, sir — ^the 
I my own — but he had not the abilities ever 
above the spear of an apprentice, though 
in the best of establishments — ^but that, of 
is all altered now, and what was fashionable 

time' 

dness gracious!' interrupted the magistrate, 
■rson is an idiot. This fellow ou^ht never to 
en brought here ; he is not fit to give evidence ; 

. you never 8X)oke a truer word nor that, sir, 

iceman, or my name isn't Martha Tipsaway,' 

:ed a female voice from amid the crowd. * They 

rrine him alon^ here, in spite of what I told 

it tney might just as well have brought the 

ck from our back-parlour.' 

commit that woman,' shrieked the magistrate, 

1 as this case is over ; I '11 commit her as sure 

here.* 

I I 'd like to know how you '11 get the case 

irPo' 

Mrs Tipeaway's voice was arrested so suddenly, 



as to convey the idea of her windpipe having been 
compressed by the human thumb, and she herself 
was borne away, gurgling, from the presence by two 
of the myrmidons of Sie law. 

* Now look here, witness,' observed the magistrate, 
with that elaborate calmness which is the offspring of 
despair, and not of patience. ' Do you know why you 
are put into that box, or do you not ?' 

Mr Tinsaway, whose native intellect had been much 
shattered by the late outbreak on tJie part of his wife, 
and who did not know that he had been put into a 
box, or see any box into which he could be put, except 
a ridiculously small one of tin upon the mafijstrate't 
table, contented himself with shaking his heii^ slowly 
and moumfidly, and pursing up his Ups. 

* Then take him away,' roared the magistrate, * and 
put somebody into his place who is a Witness, and not 
a Fool and a Dunmiy.' 

There was a soft and muffled sound, as of an 
.^lian harp, heard for half a second, and Mr Frizzle, 
thrusting something hastily into his apron, was 
ushered mto the pen recently occupied by his master. 

Mr Frizzle's trepidation and modesty were so 
excessive, that he kissed the policeman's thumb 
instead of the book that was presented to him for that 
purpose, and was rebuked bv the official accordingly. 

'That's a very old trick,' remarked the magistrate 
indignantly ; * and you had much better not try it on 
in tnis court, I warn you. Whether you kiss the book 
or not, mind, you are equally liable to a criminal 
prosecution.' 

Mr Frizzle's bony knees knocked togetiier audibly, 
and a low and not unmelodious whistle was heard to 
pervade the court. 

'Officer, who is that whistling?' cried the magis- 
trate shaiply. ' Who is it that <£tres to whistle while 
I am speaking?' 

' Please, sir, it 's the witness,' responded apoliceman 
standing inmiediately beside the wretched frizzle. 

*The vritness, was it?' returned the magistrate 
very quietly, and filling up a sheet of paper that lay 
before him. • Very goml, witness.' 

Mr Frizzle whistlML again. 

'Whistle once more, witness, and your committal 
will be made out for one month's haid labour. At 
present, you have got six days of it for contempt of 
court.' 

* Please, sir,' exclaimed the prisoner suddenly, ' that 
young man cannot help whistling. He alwavs used 
to whistle whenever Mr Tipsaway swore at him, or 
Mrs Tipsaway boxed his ears. He always does it 
when he 's frightened ; and I don't believe he could 
stop himself to save his life.' 

A loud and prolonged chirrup here broke forth from 
the witness-box, as wough to corroborate this testi- 
mo^. 

* I never heard such an extraordinary case as this 
in all my life,' whispered the magistrate to his derk ; 
* the only person in the business who seems to have 
a ffrain of sense belonging to him, is the boy in cus- 
tody. — Very well, then,' fulded he aloud ; • you must 
whistle what you have to say, I suppose, witness, 
although it is not the usual way of giving evidence in 
a court of justice. Do you know the prisoner at the 
bar?' 

* Yes, sir (whistle) ; and a very nice young man he 
is, sir (whistle). I never knew anvthing against the 

young man, except' Here the witness looked 

regretfully at Dick, and executed several bars in a 
tremulous and birdlike manner. 

* You must tell the whole truth,' cried the magis- 
trate ; • you must not be swayed bjr pity for the 
prisoner. What is it that you know against him? You 
must tell it alL' 

* He snipped a gentleman's ear-tip, sir, the very last 
day but two as he was with us,' replied Mr Frizzle, all 
in a breath ; after which he sighed, as one who has 
performed faithfully a painful duty. 



188 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



i 



i 



*Who has the flrttiiig-up of this caee?' inquired 
the magistrate. 'Why are these imbecile perBoss 
permitted in the witness-box ? * 

Upon this, a tall, intelligent-looking person, 
excessively heated— one Inspector Lynx, who did 
(metaphorically speaking) the Po{jlar murder — 
stepped forward, and explained that in his unavoid- 
able absence a mistake had been conmiitted ; it was 
idle female Tipsaway that ought to have been sworn, 
and Dot her husband or his apprentice, who could 
speak to nothing which implicated the young man 
in custody. 

At this statement, Mr Frizzle gave a feeble smile, 
and looked round tibe court, as u some tribute had 
been paid to his sa^^ity and usefulness; but upon 
being very sharply directed to stand down, he relapsed 
again, and tottered paral3rtically on to the bench 
behind the witness-box, where he was charitably 
permitted to remain, and whence an occasional 
smothered ' toot' from his favourite instrument alone 
gave token of his presence and survival 

' So you want me after all, Mr Policeman,' observed 
Mrs Tipsawav, mounting the steps of the witness-box 
as though she were a Boadioea, and it were her 
triumphal car. ' Things mostly comes about as I expect 
*em to do, somehow. Says I to that poor boy there : 
** Now, don't you be a-trying to deceive Martha Tipsa- 
way, for no good will come of that, so sure as your 
name's Richard Smith ;" which it was, as far as was 
known to me at that present speaking. We took him 
in, Mr Policeman, after a deal of begging and prayine, 
for **You have no character from your last piace7' 
•ays L " No," says he, " but I am an orfling, and in 
want of tile necessities of life," or words to that effect. 
It was not a nrudent thing to do, I am fully aweir 
of that, my lords and gentlemen' — observed Mrs 
Tipsawav, parenthetically, and waxing into elo<^uence 
beyond ner subject — *but I always was a chicken- 
hearted Christian-like body, and we thought it would 
be made up to us in some way or another, which it 
hasn't been in this world, Groodness knows. That 
lad was as comfortable as any one of us, with his 
three meals a day, and table-ale, and what not, learning 
the fashionablest of styles, alone with the respectable 
young man who has just stooddown, Mr Pouceman, 
who plays so sweetly uj^n the harpisacord, if that is 
the name you call it, being only a tortoise-diell comb 
and the thinnest of brown paper ; and a most ingenuous 
nerformance, as was allowed by Mr de Cresspinny 
himself, a nobleman of France. Hie count was very 
fond of him, he was, and let him be in the smoking- 
room with the other emigrates who frequented our 
establishment, although unknown to him, he spoke 
the French laioj^age iSke a native.' 

< Oh, this Frizzle was a favourite with these foreign 
gentlemen, and spoke the French language without 
uieir being oognizuit of it, did he ?' interrogated the 
numstrate. 

'Not as I am aweir on,' observed Mrs Tipsaway, 
with an air of lofty and abstracted coolness ; ' I never 
heard tell that he did. I am here to speak of what 
I knows, and not of what I don't know. If I were 
asked my private opinion, I should say that Frizzle 
spoke no other than his native tongue, and that but 
very imperfectly. He could whistle like any foreign 
cocK-y-oily bird, and a long sight better thmi most ; 
but as to his speaking the outlandish lingo of the 
gents in our ' 

* It was the prisoner Smith, then, whom you would 
give us to understand was conversant with uie French 
tongue, and that that fact was unknown to the emi- 
grants who frequented your house V 

* Smith was the word I tiaedy Mr Policeman,' 
remarked Mrs Tipsaway in a tone of pity and for- 
bearance ; ' which, if you will be good enough to listen 
to, attentive, and put it down in a book, you will find 
my words come tnie. One day, when I was passing 
their door, permiscaoos, when the others were gone, 



all except Mr de Cresspinny and Smith — Smith, not 
Frizzle, this time, if you will be so good as to keep in 
mind — I heard summut as went cold to the pit otmy 
stomach, so that I had to take half a glass of raw 
brandy almost immediate, a thing I never touches 
except when non compos, Mr Policeman, as I could 
get both sides of our house, and, for the matter of that, 
many over the way, to prove. Thev was a-talking in 
a aoieinn sort of a voice, as this mi^t be ' — and £001 
this point Mrs Tipsaway continued her evidence as 
though she were suffering from an aggravated form of 
quinsy sore throat. 

< " I can speak your language," says Smith, as I 
saw him fallmg down upon his marra-bones through 
the keyhole, or else may I never speak another worn. 
" The dickens you can," answers Mr de Cresspinny ; 
and I thought he would have choked the youn^ chap, 
for all the world as Count €rotsuchakoff, as is desui 
and gone, did, a few days before in that very room, 
which ought to have come first, Mr Policeman. That 
was the poor Russian who was deaf and dumb. My 
husband used to call him aU maimer of names, 
although I always told him he had better be civil to 
eveiybody, for that there was no knowing ; and, indeed, 
as it turned out, he could hear all the time as well as 
any person, and better than some people, and if I 
had said Smith, would never have dreamed that I 
said Frizzle, nor anything like it. He tried to murder 
the poor lad in that same room, as I believe, although, 
of course, that was no call why Smith should get nm 
murdered after all was forgotten and forgiven, or 
ought to have been, and a penknife to be stuck into 
him, or what not, behind a hoarding in such a part 
of the town, savinc your presence, Mr Policeman, 
as Poplar. "No, Smith," says I, "let bygones be 
bygones " ' 

* On a previous occasion, then,' interposed the magis- 
trate, ' this Gotsuchakoff had assaulted the prisoner 
at the bar in that apartment? Are you aware of 
the extent or nature of the provocation upon that 
occasion?' 

'There was a thumb-mark and four finders, Mr 
Policeman, as black as your hat upon the lad/s throat, 
and the bottle of brandy broke — which, however, 
was emptied first you may be sure, wherever the 
poor count was — and had to be returned, or three- 
pence paid in money, to the Bunch of Grapes.' 

* The magistrate wishes to know what the two 
quarrelled about,' suggested an officer at the witness's 
elbow. 

* And I daresay he does, which was also my case, 
and nothing came of it,' returned Mrs Tipsaway. 
' The boy was as deep as garret, and as false to me as 
he was to Mr T. ; and you see what has come of it. 
Smith, and are sorry enough, I daresay, when it is too 
late, as is always the way in this world. " He was 
not agoing to be knocked about bv Russians," ibat 
was all he said, " or he would Know the reason 
why." ' 

* Or he would know the reason why,' repeated the 
magistrate. ' Now, did he make use of that expression 
revengefully ? Did those words give you the impres- 
sion of menace — of paving out a person ? ' 

' no,' returned Mn Tipsaway briskly, becoming 
suddenly aware of the consequence which might 
flow from a too general and drsunatic rendering of 
what actually took place. * On t^e contrary. Smith 
seemed particularly forgiving and affable; he said 
he didn't mind, not he, for that it would be all the 
same two or three days hence.'. 

' Ah ! ' remarked me magistrate, * this was iu the 
same week in which the murder took place ; and the 
prisoner at the bar observed within your hearing, did 
he, and with reference to the Russian coimt, that it 
would be all the same two or three days hence ? ' 

' A hundred years hence, was the exact words he 
used, Mr Policeman, though, not being a copy-book, I 
can't speak letter for letter, to what a person aaid, all 



CStMSKBSS JOUBHAL. 



Dcmt. " It would be rQ the same a hundred 
enoe," lud he; and I should have thought 
kbont it hot for thia aecond t^lk aa I over- 
etweeo the lad and Mr de CrcsBpinn)- : 
a «pe(Ut jnjor langnage," uys the boj. 
I Jickeno yon can ! " aays the French gontle- 
uairfal vmee. 

"aajitheboy; "but there 'a anothBT as ipe^s 
lAi^ jon don't know of 
al' ^iji De CreNpiuiy, grinding hia teeth 

J, Uia BoBJan," ny* the boy, " who ain't no 
1^ nor dnmb than that 'ere tabl& He liatena 
Uaaa yon, he doea, and knowi about all your 
id 'ipinciM i he heepe all your iumdwritmaB 
poduit-boiA; and if he were aeaiched this 
;, yon would find them Uiere." ' 
in jvn know tiiat pocket-book again, if you 
I Ne itt' aaked the magistrate, 
same I ■honid: it was of Human Wther, as 
tnial, he beiiig one of 'em, yon know, and I 
m it in bii hand agaio nod ogiuo.— Ay, that 
M>cket-book, wire enough, which I can awear 



it u true," aayi Smith ; " it is, and yon may 
IT Davy <m it.' And then the French gentle- 
ne most dreadful in his own tongue, which I 
kfol to tiiink I oouldn't nndentand ; and they 
it, and I ran into the back-parlour juit in 
d waa no mora fit for plaiting, let alone deli- 
i-work, all that day, UiaQ if my liiigers bad 



' is all, Mr Policemau, leastways except that 
J hnalmd read aut of the Dvpatch newspaper 
MteigD gent had been murdered at Poplar, 
sg to the description of old Dum — or Connt 
StioB, as is the Bussian name of him— Smith 
■inted ont of his chair ; and beinz sent out 
b, he took hisself off with a con;de of beat 
•hdl cmnbs, which hare not been returned ; 
Km uerer set eyes upon him since until this 

«M an that Mrs Tipaaway had to say of the 
Htd almost all that anybody cUe had to say. 
tH of the Rusaian count and the photogmph 
iMd body could witness nothing, while not 
tfas foreign gentlemen who Luid formerly 
tad the perruquicr'a shop waa now to be found. 
nit the Ltd for trial upon mch evidence, fully 
rated by his own voluntwy statement of the 
•emed out of the question ; but on account 
mpartance and mvHteiy of the case, he waa 
■■ed, but remanded untd tlut day-week upon 
linal charge. 



not a case that admits of bail being taken,' 
B last words that smote upon Dick's rasa as 
led out of Court, but it was an unnecessary 

of speech. There was no competition among 
.hie householders to shore tne honour 01 
^ Dick's security. It seemed, indeed, as if 
cut his moorings for good and all, oa far as 
ii that class of persons, and that he waa 

out into the great ooean of scoundreldom, 
i come within sight of port again. Nor waa 
le friendly pilot to pnt off from either bank, 
>the helm, or even to holloa from the last pier- 

ho swept b^, a abgle warning word, 
■d been m his cell about a ooi^le of hours, and 

ontasted dinner lying before him, whan a 



poLcemoD entered, with ' A lady to see you, young 
gentleman ;' and Dick heard the rostle of a sUk garment 
without daring to lift his eyes. Bod Sister Maggie, 
then, oome for^ fnnn his dead mother's room to 
oomfort him T Nay, did she brinx a lost measoge 
of farewell from those clay-cold Cps, after having 
delivered which, ahc would depart, and he would sea 
her never moro* The poor lad shivered in that 
onseen preience u our First Parents might hftve 
done when the rebukeful angel pointed to the gates 
ol Edsn with his fl^T^inj^ sword, inA bade thmn depart 
for ever. 

' I have brought you money, my poor boy,' said a 
tone aistarly indeed, but wMch was not Us sister 
Magxie'B, 'which my— that ia, which Eiehatd and 
Mr Sunatrofce owe to you. I thou^t, perhape, that 
you might need it here." 

Dick stretched out his hands for her to take them 
in her own with a mute gratitude, but he ooald not 
yet look up even into her face—' kept doric ' tbon^ 
she might be by Mr Trimming, out or » due regard to 
materiiai prejudice. 

■ Yon BJC very, very good to me,' said he 1 * but this 
is not a place for you to be in. Why didn't Mr 
Snnatroke come to see me I' 

Dick would have said. Why didn't Mr Jonas T — for 
that waa the name by which he always spoke of the 
photographer to Lnddon — but that he was onxioiis 
to spare Eer feelings. 

At this the girl began to sob hysterically, and hide 
her face in her turn. ' You mustn't mind them, Diok, 
if tbcy do not seem to feel as yon would, who have 
been brought up properly and all that ; hot I Would 
Dot let them sell your face about the streets, as Sun- 
stroke wished to do, now that you were in trouble 
and a pabhc chancter, and I broke the glass, so that 
tbey couldn't take aoy impressions — you gave it to me, 
you know, yourself, and taeryforo I had a right to do 
H 1 pleased with it— and now Biuiiird is angry with 
me, ond they don't kitow tliat I am oome to you. 1 
am so glad I did thoDgh, Dick, for, as I came hunying 
into the police-office, there was a letter put into my 
hand by some person— I don't knowwho — uid I have 
seen tlu magistrate to whom it was directed, and he 
said it was very important, and would do you good.' 

The lad shook his head, and groaned. :u though the 
time was past wherein anything could do that now. 

' You must not take on like that, Dick. What ia 
done can't be undone ; bnt we con always do better for 
the future ; ' although, added ahe, with a bitter laugh, 
'1 ain't quite the one to iireacb it. The 8rst thing to be 
done, is to get yon out of this ; and the magistral, who 
ia B. kind man, though he interrupts one so, thinks that 
this may be done. There was a copy taken of the 
letter, and I 've brought it here, only it isn't the least 
like Hie other to look at, which was ail written upon 
paper as thin as a cobweb, and in sueh a little, little 
hand, and all in French.' 

Lucidora ]nt>duced a document from the mavis. 
tnte's office in the atifleat poesible handwriting, but 
oontaininE a very free translation from the onginaL 
It bore the date of about a fortnight buk, but not 
the name of the place where it was drawn up, hot 
hod it any headlug or anpencriptioD other than 
this, Dedaratioa amceraing Uu Execution of Aiait 
Gm^hakaff, Sps and Traikir. 

iwing statement lias been drawn up by the 
.... — 1.1 , r ^1 tliem, 



' other authority before 1 

h may at any til 

th the fate of the 
_.- .... Gotsuchakoff. lawfully done to death on 
Wednesday lost, at midnight, and in accordance with 
an euoctment against traitors which bo himself had 
subscribed. 

' It is true that the lud waa the discoverer of the 
bvachery of tiurt man, iuM™""*' aa he was the first 



140 



CHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



to inform one of us of the connVs not being a mate, 
which GrotsuchalLoff had successfolly pretended to 
be for more than thirty years ; but he was certainly 
unaware of the importance of such a disclosure, 
and far less could he nave anticipated the punishment 
which it justly entiuled upon that unhappy man. 

* When Richard Smith had informed M. oe Crespigny 
of the count's having spoken the Prench tongue in 
his hearing, as weU as of nis having certain documents 
in his possession, which he (the count) professed to 
have dortroyed, affecting the lives and liberties of the 
undersigned, as weU as uioee of hundreds of innocent 
persons, whose betrayal he was in that case plottbu^, 
M. de Crespigny at once repaired to Herr Singlers 
lodging — it \xmg then about seven o'clock in the 
evening. Having communicated to him the above 
intelligence, the two went separately out, for the 
purpose of calling together the principal members of 
our Society, witn the exception of Count Gotsuch- 
akoff, for immediate and important deliberation. 

'In a little time, the chiefs of the Society then 
in London, comprising representatives from every 
European nation, and numbering five-and-twen^ 
persons, assembled at the rooms of M. de Cres- 
pigny, as being the most conmiodious for that 
purpose, where the circumstances which have been 
desoibed were laid before them. It was decided 
that four should be selected out of that body by 
ballot, to go at once to Count Gotsuchakoff's, and 
acquaint themselves certainly with the truth or false- 
hood of this charge — ^the most hateful that can be 
preferred against a fellow-creature, and therefore one 
the proof m whidi it is necessaiy to place beyond 
all aoubt before proceeding to act upon it. The 
persons thus selected were Henri ae Crespigny, 
Kudolph Sineler, Antonio Castigliano, and Suwarrow 
Blaaki— the ^t being a conntiyman of the accused 
person. 

' In case of proven guilt, the execution of Alexis 
Gkitsuchakoffwas intruded — a dreadful but necessary 
and sa<rred duty — ^to the hands of these four persons. 
The two lirst mentioned preceded the other two, in 
order to avoid observation, to the count's lodgings in 
Poplar, and found him retired to his sleeping-chamber, 
altnough it was then scarce eleven o clock, and it 
was his general custom to sit up very late at night. 

' He oDserved — talking with, his fingers, as he always 
did — ^that he was not well, being overtired with tne 
protracted sitting of the Socie^ during that day. 
There was a haggard and tenined look about him 
while he stated this, never beheld in him before, and 
which convinced the spectators that he guessed the 
nature and reason of their unseasonable visit 

" We wish," cried M. de Crespigny, speaking aloud, 
and looking sternly at the wretcheid man, " to examine 
your pocket-book, with those slips of paper in our 
handwriting in i1^ which you have omittod to bum 
this day." 

' It was terrible to see how pale and terror-stricken 
the count turned at this, his fingers trembling so 
that they could scarcely form the denial which he 
gave by their means, in order to keep up the notion 
tiiat he could not speak, although, in his agitation, he 
forgot that by that veiv denial ne was acknowledging 
that he was at least able to hear. 

'At the same moment^ Castigliano and Blaaki 
entered. 

*«I have asked this man," said De Crespigny, 
addressing himself to them, " who has never uxmer- 
stood word of mine (as he has made me believe) for 
thirty years, to see the slips in my own handwritinff 
and yours, which he carries in his pocket-book, ana 
he replies with his finger8---as though he could not 
use his tongue as well as his ears — £at he has them 
not" 

'*! suppose the lad at the perruauier's told you," 
observed Uotsuchakoff in the French laii^^aaffe ; whidi, 
to every one there present — notwithstimaing what 



they had been acquainted with — seemed like somt 
prodigious miracle. " If I had not been so merdfolly 
faint-nearted, I should have killed him. It is hard 
that thirty years of success in such a part as mint 
should have oeen concluded by a rascal boy, whom, if 
ever again I meet" 

" Suence, wretched man ! " cried De Crespigny— 
** silence, and think of your lies no more. There is 
no plotting in the grave, no traitor's work to be done 
among the dead ; and vengeance is for us, and not for 
you!'^ 

" So ^ou came to murder me ?" exclaimed the courts 
half -rising in his bed, and thereby disclosing that 1m 
was fully dressed, and had only made pretence of 
illness. 

** The Society has decreed your death," returned De 
Crespigny. 

*'So soon?" ejaculated the count — "so soon, and 
without trial ? What good can my death then do to 
it ? I will make it a teiror to kin^ if you let me lire. 
Have I. served its foes for thiriy years, counter 
plotting, revealing, destroying for them, without beinff 
trusted, think you, in return ? I swear to you that I 
will henceforth serve it alone." 

'* It needs no traitors," exclaimed Castigliano, snatch- 
ing the pocket-book, a comer of which he perceived 
protruding from beneath the pillow. " See, here are 
the slips upon which we wrote this very afternoon; 
and that he made believe to bum ; any one of which 
would be our death-warrant in l^e place where he 
would have sent them. What has the traitor written 
here, Blaski ? . It is in your own language." 

" It is the entire detail of our plan of to-day," returned 
the Russian. The other three crowded round to look 
over his shoulder as he translated, and Count Got- 
suchakoff seized the moment to leap from the body 
and make for the door of the sitting-room. 

*' It is locked," said De Crespigny iquietly, as his 
companions rushed upon the tmhappy wretch, and 
earned him back into the inner chamber, bound and 
gagged. "I knew that such a traitor would nerer 
have the courage to meet his end like a man." 

' At this moment, a step was heard upon the staim^ 
and the lod^g-house keeper knocked at ihe OIIte^ 
door, inquinng whether anything woidd be wanted 
before she retired for the ni^t . 

" The count will require nothing more," replied Herr 
Singler ; ** we are all going out in a little, and have 
persuaded him to accompany us." 

' Then the^ turned the man with his face towards 
the wall, while they arranged the manner of his death» 
and drew lots for him whose hand should perform the 
deed. Next, they wrapped the count's dfosk around 
him, and a wooUen comforter about his mouth to con- 
ceal the gag, and two of them took him between them 
into the street to an unfreouented spot, close by, which 
had been agreed upon. When they reached that spot 
and found themselves alone, the one upon whom tiie 
lot had fallen struck the fatal blow with a sharp 
poniard, and the body was placed out of sight behina 
a hoarding of phmks. 

'The above is copied, word for word, from the 
minutes of the Society which organised the deed It 
desires not to excuse its proceedings in this declara- 
tion, or in the eyes of him to whom it is addressed ; 
else it could eanly set forth reasons abundantly suffi- 
cient for the execution of the traitor in question, as 
one who had caused to be committed, and for the sake 
of blood-money, the judicial murder of many hundreds 
of persons, as weU as brought imprisonment exile, 
and ruin upon their helpless wives and children ; and 
who, moreover, within the very hour of his death, was 
disclosing, to tiiose who hired him, a certain scheme 
of that Society of which he was a sworn member, the 
betrayal of which would have brought scores of honest 
men to the scaffold, and of nobfe ladies to shame. 
The sole purpose, however, of this declaration is to set 
forth that tne lad, Richard Smith, employed at the 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



141 



wmiqiiier Tipnway'B, has had nothing whatever to 
do mtk thia matter, except so far as has been already 
itakd, and had neither share nor knowledge of the 
exMotion of Alexis Gotsuchakoff. 

(Signed) *Hsnbi de Crespiony. 

' Rudolph Sinoleb. 

' AirroNio Castioliako. 

* SUWARROW BlASKL' 

'There^ you see the^y acknowled^ that you had 
Aothiiig- to do with it,' cried Lucidora; *and the 
magistrate befieved it too ; of that I am sure. I dare 
ny, the Bnasian deserved it, poor fellow, telling upon 
neo|ile that had trusted him tnrough all these years ; 
Dut it waa aa awful end. What a thing it would 
have been to have met him in the street bel^een those 
ether two, bound and gauged, and walking to his 
death amons crowds ol peo^ that would have rescued 
him if they liad only known ! * 

*Ho»iime, most hoifrihle ! * cried Dick with a shudder ; 
' and but for me, it would never have happened ; and 
yet I would expose a wretch like that to ms dupes, if 
it all was to be done again to-morrow.' 

' Wdl, I don't know,' replied Lucidora doubtfully ; 
* I think it is ill work to be meddling with those foreign 
lalkaL I>o ycm know that the magistrate — who 
tiuwight I was your sister at first, I think — said that 
the whole burinees was so grave that it would prob- 
sh^ have to be laid before uie Home Sec' 

* A gentleman to see you,' cried the janitor, suddenly 
*y^"*g the door, at which Mrs Jones slunk into a 
ootaer petrified, under the impression that the august 
penonage to whom she had alluded was at hand, about 
to pay a visit of ceremony to the accused person, pre- 
pumtaiy, periiaps, to his being led forth to immediate 



* Why, mj poor boy, Richard,' exclaimed the visitor, 
who waa no other than good Mr Mickleham, * what 
a'poaition is this I find you in, and what a blow it 
vrald have been to pottery in case you had really 
oonoemed in uus assassination! You have, 
I I just leam, only to appear before the 
and go through a legal form of release, and 
yon will come home with me to Kensington. 
lly aolicitar assures me that there was scarcely any 
noand ai all for your remand. There, there, Richard, 
cunt cry, my lad — don't disturb yourself, although 
o£ eoune it was hard to hear them pattering— that is 
what they call it, I believe — pattering the broad- 
sheeta amnit your apprehension and personal appear- 
ance imniediately opposite your uncle's establisnment. 
Yoor names being identical is, without doubt, a great 
mafartone ; and it would have certainly saved us 
Bmeh annoyance if you had been related to him upon 
your mother^a side instead of your father's.' 

Ai thwe woids the flush of glad surprise which 
had nsm into the boy's cheeks at the news of his 
tftedj enfranchisement, faded off at once, and he sunk 
ooifm Into his chair again, with *My mother — my 
poor mother; there ia no pardon for my having 
■mideredAer/' 

'Bichaid Arbour,' cried the old gentleman kindly, 
*I am ^ad to see this sorrow for your late undutiful 
condnot^ bat I do .not wish to see you despair : be 
oomlorted, for your poor mother's death does not lie 
at TOUT door. She had been ailing for many months, 
ana even years, and her end was expected even before 
it came. Doubtless, it would have pleased her to 
harm seen your face by her bedside, but it coidd not 
hnve saved her. I may tell you^ even, that your 
suter Maigaret was of opinion tnat it would have dis- 
tm—ad her nM>ther more to see the disagreements 
b e t w e e n younelf and certain members of your family, 
ib/uk to know, by your letters, that you were at lesat 
ilifiiifiil hi III h il and not in want. 1 doubt whether 
I am zig^ in saying so much, since it may only 
enoonnoe yoa in your roving and indeed vagabond ' 

Bat by this time Didic was upon his knees 

—f^iMiwg j^ cdii gentleman's hand aa though it 



were gingerbread, and Mr Mickleham could not 
somehow conclude his valuable remarks ; his nose, if 
one might judge from a very ostentatious use of his 
pocket-handkerchief, putting in a prior claim to his 
attention. There was also a sobbing noise, as of a 
dstem-pipe in difficulties, from an obscure comer of 
the cell, which caused Mr Mickleham to inquire into 
its natiu^ with the greatest apparent interest 

* It is a very gooafriend of mine, sir,' replied Dick 
softly — * the onty one, to say truth, who would have 
been likely to come and see me here, except yourself. 
Lucidora • 

' Lucidora ! ' exclaimed the old gentleman suspi- 
ciously — ' what a very singular name ! ' 

The young lady thus alluded to came quickly for- 
ward, wiping her eyes, and took Dick's hand, which 
he extended to her very gratefully. *I am glad. 
Master Richard Arbour, that you are going amongst 
your friends again, and to uve wiw respectable 
people. This gentleman, I see, considers me very tar 
trom that, and company fit for neither him nor you.' 

' No, no,' returned Mr Mickleham nervously ; * really 
I never meant — dear me, no — doubtless, a most 
respectable young person — but Lucidora — such a very 
singular name ' 

'Sir, you are quite right,' replied the girl, not with- 
out some dimity. * I should, however, not have been 
here at all, if I had thought this poor lad would have 
had any help from my betters. My own experience 
has been, that when folks get into trouble, their 
respectable friends are not very active in getting them 
out of it.' With which remark, the yoimg lady left 
the room, and with such- a sweeping curtsy to Mr 
Mickleham that the wind of it seemed to take away 
the old gentleman's breath for several seconds. 

' She has been exceedingly good and kind to me,' 
observed Dick apologetically. 

* Indeed ! ' responded the other drily, and drawing on 
his gloves. * I ^st, however, that in future it will 
not be necessary for you to cultivate similar friend- 
ships. I shall mention nothing of the circumstance 
myself, and I would recommend the like silence to 
you, Richard. You are (|uite ready to see his wor- 
ship, I suppose, after which you will find a hearty 
welcome at our house, I do assure you. My daughter 
Lucy, is very gratefid to you for the kindness you dis- 
played to her at Miss Backboard's. She could not 
write to me of your position, on account of that 
woman's habit of reaoing other people's letters, or 
I would have got you away from the barber's long 
ago. It is just as well that you have not touched 
that dinner, Dick, for it would have been throwing 
away anything like an appetite to have eaten it; 
and, gracious goodness, what a miserable taste in 
crockery ! The commonest delf , and the very ugliest 
pattern that can be got in Staffordshire ! ' 

And with an expression of regret that the police 
should neglect so powerful a means for the refoim- 
ation of criminals as well-selected earthenware, Mr 
Mickleham led the way to the magistrate. 

UNKNOWN TOURIST-GROUND. 

As our Religious Circles are said to be too apt to 
prefer the conversion of folks in the interior of 
Africa to meddling with those in their more imme- 
diate neighbourhood, so our modem travellers are 
too much given to get away as far as steam can 
take them, before commencing their tours. They 
have the Second Cataract of the Nile in their 
eye, at the very least, before setting out, and are fully 
convinced tiiat all is barren between that place and 
Folkestone. From henceforth, and for the next half- 
dozen summers, however, they will thank Mr Horace 
Marryat* for having discovered for them a new 



• A SeMidenet in Jutland, the Danish Jstei, and Copenhagen, 
By Horace Marrytt John Murrsy. 



14S 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



toiirisirgroand clofle at hand ; since eren tibote men-of - 
passage who have migrated in soch swanns, of late, 
to Northern Enrope, for their long vacations, and 
penetrated the wastes of Norway and Lapland, have 
passed by Jutland, only intent npon giving that 
dangsrous coast as wide a berth as possible. 

*Bo any English vessels ever touch at SkagenT* 
inquired our author of the light-house keeper near 
tiiat village. 

'Yes,* replied the man, 'they do; toAen (key art 
wrtdoedy but not otherwise.' 

No vessel stranded on that shore can bo floated off 
again* The east wii^d blows the water away from 
her, and ^e west wind brinss down the irresistible 
breakers. Last June, Mr Marrj^t saw enouAh of 
masts sticking out of sand to renund him of a &rest 
On visiting the wreck of the then 'latest sacrifice,' 
tiie North Sea steamer, near Agger, he save : ' Many 
other vessels are here in the same plight, without 
speaking of the wrecks extending mmi hence to 
Skagen. Lower down lies the AugusU, a French 
boaC and further still the Dutch Hcavorg; then comes 
a Swedish frigate, 74, and so on ; a regiment of masts 
of defunct ships lie embedded in the sand down the 
whole west coast of Jutland. In the year 1811, two 
En^^ish ships, the 8t Qmrge and the Dffianoty fiist- 
clain men-of-war, were wrecked on this ooast The 
masts, until not many years ago, were stUl above 
water. The D^Umce may yet be distmguished at low 
tide, though not the skeletons of the admiral's wife 
and three daughters in the state-cabin, as I was 
informed by a young lady a few days aga' 

The furmture of the humblest houses in the north 
of Jutland is both good and cheap, bein^ imported 
there, contrary to uie wishes of the onainal pro- 
prietors, by the favouring gales. ' I could not help 
smiling,' says Mr Marryat, 'as I looked around liie 
" fixings" of one cottage : an English patent stove, 
purchfued from the wireck of the Polyphemua; an 
oil-painting of some English ruined abbey, from the 
North Sea steamer, lately stranded off the coast ; 
splendid shutters, carved and even gilt, from some 
Kussian brig, also gone down. Then there was crockeiy 
from vessels laden with oranges and iron. No wondw 
the " customs " of the north of Jutland are not pro- 
ductive. The sea herself "provides" for the wants 
of the inhabitants.' 

It is unnecessary, however, to infonn the moder- 
ately geographical reader, that Jutland may be attained 
from England without the imperative neoessity of the 
intervention of a wreck at all, and most conveniently 
by means of the port of Hambure. From thence, Mr 
Marryat travelled due north to we veiy extremity of 
the peninsula, until he stood with one foot in the 
Skager Rack and one in the Cattegat, beyond Skaw- 
point. The country, of course, is flat, and so tax 
unpicturesque, and when you want to see any quan- 
tity of it at once, you must ascend a church-tower ; 
but it is in many places rich and wcdl wooded, and, 
on the eastern coast, extremely lovely, dose to one 
great town, there is a meadow of no less than eight 
square miles in extent — a limitless sea of haycocks not 
te be rivalled at home. Even the blemishes and 
lackings of the country — ^its endless sand-roads and 
innume rable fiords, ' steung together like birds' effgs 
on a string' — are novel and mterestinff to TCnghS 
eyes ; while the towns are old fashioned and quaint 
— ^with at least three streams of running-water to 
each of them — and the inhabitanto queer and simple 
to an extraordinaxy degree. Ail the year round 
almost, the women are seen knitting out of doors. 
How the old ones did so without d3ang before morn- 
ing, was often a mystery to our author, until he 
witoessed, one day, the ascent of an aced matroii into 
a stuhlwagen. ' She woro t^i knitted woollen petti- 
coate at the smallest calculation; you might nave 
plumped her down flat in the middle of a bog without 
her perceiving the dampness of her situation. Fram 



the age of fifty until she is ffathefed to her ftithen^ a 
woman in Denmark betakes nefself to knittin|^ warn 
petticoats, at the ratio of one per annum, which die 
wears over that of the preceding year, until shs 
becomes a moving mass of woollen fabric, defying 
rheumatism, lumbago, damp, and all such sublunary 
evils to which age is heir.' 

Eoiitting petticoate is not an unladylike pursuit in 
Jutland, nor is washing — that is, the oetting-up of 
fine linen — ^in Schleswig-Holstein, whicE the Dansf 
love so well to call So^h Jutland. ' My nftighhocr 
at the tahle-d'hdte, who dines well got-up, with 
beautiful blue rosettes (like a horse) in her hind-haii^ 
daily perpetrates " a fine wash " of coUan, sleeves, 
and such like, with the remains of her tib6waaBer. 
Breakfast concluded, she empties the um into a 
basin, and when the articles are cleansed and wrung 
out, places them to dry on her window-sill, with a 
pebble on each topreserve them from all treaoherooi 
guste of wind.' Tnis homeliness may perhi^ aooonnt 
m some measure for the general prosperity of ih6 
people. Thero is not much of luxury, it is true, among 
the great, but what ia far better, plenln^ and comfort 
prevail among the smaU. ' I remarked^ on one occa- 
sion, to an mtelligent Dane : " The people are wdl 
clothed and well lodged; we have me/t with no 

Eoveriy, no b^^gars, as ^t^" "As regpuds that," 
e replied, "you are quite right; for every one 
man who dies from starvation, if such a thing 
ever does occur, ninety-nine die from oveieatuig 
themselves." ' 

The Jutlanders have a sleek and weU-to-do appear- 
ance, and seem to be as hospitable as the Arabs, with 
the advantage over that wandering nation of having 
something to give awav. Their weakness in the wav 
of extravagance ia conmied to their burial of the dead 
In old times, the bodies of their nobles were often pre- 
served for years, until funds should be procured for a 
befitting funeral Families vied with one another, not 
only in- the splendour of the coffins, sepulchral slabs, 
and epitephia, but in the funeral feast and sennon of 
the 'coffin-preacher.' ' Dr Matthisen received two gilt 
cups, weighing one hundred ounces, for preaching tine 
funeral-sermon of the Lady Anna Lange; dino, a 
tankard, of one hundred and four ounces, for that <d 
Nieb Fnis, in Aariiuus Oathedral, &o. &c Common 
people presented him with sums of money. The dis- 
course was afterwards printed and distributed, and, by 
way of a frontispiece, was adorned witib an engraved 
][x»rtrait of the deceased, and of the monument about 
to be erected to his memory; the portnit after a 
painting either byCari van Mander or Peter Xsaacs, 
and engraved by Haelwech, the man of the day. An 
excellent engraver he was ; and the collection of these 
frontispieces to the funeral-sermons have, in later days, 
proved invaluable aids towards the reoognition of 
family and historic portraits, unknown and f oigotten. 
Then small medals, called ekue penge, were ooioed, 
bearing the effigy of the deceased, sometimes in sQver, 
often in gold, and distributed among the relatives and 
friends. A grand funeral, with epitephium, a gorgeo us 
coffin, a sermon preached by Dr Matthisen, your por- 
trait engraved by Haelwech, and a akue penge stniok 
in your honour — what more could a man ei^eot from 
his survivors T How he died, it is not for us to say; 
but, at anyrate, he was buried as a man of quality 
ought to be. The most expensive funeral ever known 
U)S\l place in Frederic n.^s reign, according to Hoi- 
berg. A Danish nobleman, Christopher Mogensen by 
name, was slain in a naval fight. Cast him into tlM 
sea, tiiey could not ; a noUe must be buried in Chris- 
tian ground; wherefore, they sailed with the fleet to 
Gothumd, and laid him in Wisby Churdi with aU. 
honourable ceremony. When tiie fleet lu^ain got under 
sail, it encountered a terrible storm, andsixteen shmi 
sank, with 6000 men and all the officers, two a/lmit^ 
among the number — so people said that " no funeral was 
ever so oostly as that of good Christopher Mogenaen, 



1 



J 



r 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



143 






for ift OMued many thooauid living men to become 
wet tiiat one man mig^t lie diy." 

'To gm you an idea of the extravagance of the ase, 
I win merely state that many of the coffins in this 
ooontry are of solid silver. A conntess of the noble 
HffDse of Beventlow lies in a sarcophsjnu of that 
pieoioioa metal- (dated 1680), so rich in sQver angels 
and hefaldzy of all sorts, that a Jew antiquary from 
Hambuig is said to have offered to purchase it for 
the ram of 16^000 dollars — ^more than Ii.2000 of our 
1&i|^i«li money.' To this day, the undertakers of Jnt- 
laiuidim a roving trade, and the people are extraor- 
dinarily su ps iwtit ioua. They believe implicitly in the 
legends whidi bang ait>nnd every hamlet in their 
ooimtiy in dusters to make an antiquary's mouth 
water. Uvea edocated Danish children identified our 
Sir Henxy Hafsloek with the ancient hero of their 
Ofwn o o uutry. A lady, who devotes herself to teaching 
in the poor sohodls m Copenhagen, assured our author 
*tiiat on the moning the news of his death arrived, 
she found the whole of her school dissolved in tears, 
weeping their iFeiy hesrts out, for they looked upon 
him as their own ooontryman — the very Havelock the 
Dane of the popular ballad — ^the lapse of nine or ten 
oentmiea being nothing to an infant mind.' , 

Ton cannot see a smgle church-tower in Jutland 
without beinff told some marvellous tale concerning it, 
aid inmranify is therefore far less to be expected 
when there are two. The reason wh^ there are a 
ooDfle of them at Fienneslevlille is this. Sir Asker 
Hff^ lord of that plaoe, when about to start for the 
wsn^ first 'went mto "the little church to pray," 
sod graatJy scandalised was he to find the doorway 
so low bo was compelled to bow his head on entering 
tibsrein : the roof^ too, was of black straw, and the 
dsmp md ffem. mould hung to the crumbling walls. 
Oi e atl^y riiocked was Sir Asker Ryg ; perhaps, had he 
been movs rsgular in his attendance, ne would have 
slrsady disoovered the dilapidated state of the build- 
ing; hat, however, previous to his starting, he gave 
dbeetioiisto his wife, the fair Ladv Inge, at that time in 
■I intot e atiii g oondition, to rebuild the church during 
Us whmncm, and if she were brought to bed of a boy, 
to ereet a lofty diurch-tower ; if only a girl, a roire. 
Ihe Ladv ^ge promised obedience to the wishes of her 
kid; and ofifne goes, followed by a numerous train of 
iquireB, to fij^t the battles of nis counby, and per- 
form pndisaes of valour. When the war is at an end, 
he benda nis -way homeward, and on approaching 
Fieimnahtfline^ his impatience is so great he outstrips 
ill his tnitt, and arrives first alone on the brow of the 
bin which overhangs the village ; he strains his eyes, 
sad sees not one tower, but two — the Lady Inge has 
given birth to twin boys during his absence— and on 
sniving at his castle half nuM. with joy (education 
cost «^^"g in those days), he embraced his wife, 
PTwlMwrmg : « O thou noble Lady Inse ; thrice honoured 
be thou: thou art a 'Dannewif ! ' (a woman who 
fint bears twin sons to her husband is termed a Dan- 
Bsvif). And these twins grew up to be the most 
oelehrated characters of their century — Absalon the 
wurior Archbishop of Lund, friend and adviser of 
VsUsmar the Great ; and Esbem Snare.' 

At another place, where there is a good deal of 
vindto be met with, even that is accounted for by a 
ligend, albeit the commodity Wind is very plentiful in 
tbe whole peninsula. It occurs, in this case, at the 
ooner of a certain convent- wall ; for, the devil and 
tbe wind being out together, the former dropped in to 
Me the monks, and miding the quarters excessively 
agreeable, never came out again, and (with character- 
mic discourtesy) never sent out to say so : and the 
riad has been waiting for him at the comer ever since. 
The Teiy birds in Denmark have each their peculiar 
Uoj^nipliy, and are held by the inhabitants in honour 
9t diwonoor accordingly. 'It was on that fearful 
flidmf whan our Saviour hung in his agony upon the 
when the sun was turned into blood, and dark- 



ness was upon sll the eartii, that three birds, flying 
from east to west, passed by the accursed hill of G^ 
gotha. First came the lapwing ; and when the bird 
saw the sight before him, he new round about the 
cross, crying, in his querulous tone : " Piin ham ! piin 
ham ! — torment him ! torment him ! " For this reason, 
the lapwing is for ever accursed, and can never be at 
rest ; it flies round and rormd its nest, fluttering and 
uttering a plaintive cry; in the swamp its eggs are 
stolen. Then came the stork, and the stork cned in 
its sorrow and its grief for the ill deed done : " Styrk 
ham ! styrk ham ! — give him strength ! give hhn 
strength!" Therefore is the stork blessed, and 
wherever it comes, it is welcome, and the people love 
to sec it build upon their houses ; it is a sacred bird, 
and for ever unharmed. Lastly came Uie swallow, 
and when it saw what was done it cried : " Sval ham ! 
sval ham ! — refresh him ! cool him ! " So the swallow 
is the most beloved of the three ; he dweUs and builds 
his nests imder the very roofe of men's houses, he looks 
into their very windows and watches their doings, and 
no man disturbs him either on the palaces or the 
houses of the poorest peasants. For this reason, as 
you travel in Denmark, you will observe the swallows' 
nests remain undisturbed ; no one woidd dream for a 
moment of scratching them down o^ destroying them 
as we do in England? 

The historical legends of this country of the ancient 
Northmen are of course both bloody and terrible, but 
even down to comparatively late times, there have 
been done such deeos as are unknown on less lonely 
coasts. In the archives of the police, this curious 
incident is set down as having occurred at Rorvig, in 
the middle of the last century. ' A Russian man-of- 
war anchored one day at the entrance of the fiorde. 
Denmark was at peace with all countries, so its 
appearance excited no remarks. The fishermen of 
the village examined it through their glasses, and 
then thought no more about the matter. The parson 
went to his bed as usual, when suddenly he was 
awakened by anned men in masks standing round 
his couch. Molding a loaded pistol to his head, they 
ordered him to dre^ and foUow them to the church, 
where there was a marriage to perform. Trembling, 
he accompanied them to uie church, which he found 
to be already brilliantly illuminated, and many per- 
sonages assembled around the altar. And now the 
bride and bridegroom make their appearance ; a man 
richly dressed, evidently a personage of consequence — 
he looks gloomy and abstracted; the bride, a fair 
young lady of great personal attractions, sad and pale 
as aLibaster. The ceremony is commenced, the 
marriage-ring placed on the lady's finser, vows ex- 
change "until death do them part.' All is now 
over, when suddenly a flash, followed by the report of 
a pistol resounds through the sacred edmce — a shriek, 
one piercing shriek, from the scarcely married bride, 
who falls dead in the arms of the surrounding attend- 
ants. The worthy pastor saw no more. Horror- 
struck, he allowed himself to be hurried home, more 
dead than alive, to his humble dwelling, where he 
remained a prisoner in his chamber until released by 
his female domestic. When he rose and ^azed on the 
placid waters of t^e fiorde, the Russian fngate was no 
longer visible ; she had weighed anchor before sunrise, 
and a fresh breeze had TOme her from the coast. 
Without delay the affirighted priest posted off to 
Copenhagen, to relate the mysterious event to the 
bishop. A purse of gold left beside the pastor's bed 
— the blood still visible on the church-floor — ^the 
extinguished lights in the corona — all afl&rmed the 
truth of his assertion, and no more, for the afiair to 
this day has never been elucidated.' 

Mr Manyat did not confine his wanderings to Jut- 
land, but explored Funen, Zealand, and many another 
island of the Danish archipelaga At Copeimagen, he 
made a sojourn of some length, and yet had the good- 
fortune not to be burned oirt, as happens to most 



144 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



persons who are long in that city. On the lofty tower 
of St Nicholas, the watchmen keep ni^tly guard, 
and give the alarm in case of fire. Scarce taree days 
elapse without a conflagration breaking out in some 
quarter, and often in the dead of night the slumberers 
are aroused by the repeated cry of 'Brand, brand, 
brand ! ' alons the street. Then every window opens, 
and the inhabitants inquire where it is : if in their 
neighbourhood, they are bound to come down and 
place a tub of water before their doors; but if the 
fire is at a distance, they so thankfully to bed again. 
And yet this simple people have a real discernment 
for wnat is great ana admirable, which nations in a 
more advanced stage of civilisation often lack. The 
Danes have willingly recognised the greatest man 
whom their count]^^ ever produced, notwithstanding 
that his father was a carpenter. The public museum 
of Thorwaldsen is one of the most mitfnificent 
and admirably managed in Europe, and the great 
sculptor's memory is neld in extraordinary honour. 
Nor was this tribute, as happens but too often, paid 
only to his remains. When ne had resolved to quit 
Italy, and return to his native land, the ^vemment 
despatched a frigate te convey him and his immortal 
wo^ te Copenhagen. The day of his arrival was 
celebrated as a national festival ; and apartments 
were allotted te him in the palace of Charlottenborg, 
where he resided for the rest of his life. * When he 
died, his fimeral was conducted with the greatest 
solemnity. First in the procession walked a deputa- 
tion from the navy. On the cofifin, borne by stuaents 
and artists, were laid his numerous decorations ; and 
it was cbvered with garlands placed thereon by the 
queen and princesses. The little children of Copen- 
hagen subscribed together their skillings, and purchased 
wiui the proceeds a garland of silver leaves to place 
upon tiie bier. All delated to honour him — ^the high, 
tiie humble — the rich, the poor — the old, and the yoima. 
When the funeral procession arrived at the churcn 
of our Lady, the king, the prince, and magnates of the 
land all left tiieir seats, and accompanied the coffin to 
the altar. All Denmark came forward on that day to 
attend the funeral of one they had loved and respected 
when living, and whose unrivalled talent added to the 
glonr of their country.* 

iflie Danish monarch did himself honour, and 
understood his own duty in behaving thus ; and one 
of his ancestors, at least, appears to have entertained 
the same exalted idea of true nobility. In the 
Swedish war of the seventeenth century, a bursher of 
Flensborg was about to refresh himself with a orauffht 
of beer from a small wooden bottle, when a wounaed 
Swede, fixins his longing eyes upon the beverage, 
exclaimed : 'I am thirsty ; give me to diink.' Now 
the burgher was a kind man, and replying : ' Thy 
need is greater than mine,' he knelt down by the man 
to give him the liquor. Then the treacherous Swede 
fired a pistol at him, woundihg him in the shoulder. 
Thereupon, the burgher startea up indignantly, as he 
well might do, and cried out : * Rascal ! 1 would have 
befrienoed you, and you would shoot me in return. 
You shall now only have half the bottle instead of all 
of it. When the news came to the kin^ of Denmark, he 
exclaimed : * A man who can do this thing deserves 
to be a noble ; ' and he created him one, and gave 
him for his arms a wooden beer-bottle pierced through 
with an arrow ; which was borne, until quite lately, 
by his latest descendant. This was Burety a sort of 
heraldry above the common, and a very different kind 
of cognizance from that which Uobbett justly 
stigmatised as 'a couple of jackasses fighting for a 
piece of gilt gingerbread.* 

A more agreeable journal- writer than Mr Horace 
Marryat we nave rarely met with, although the people 
that he would call 'serious,* would perhaps denomi- 
nate him ' flippant.* He certainly seems to have a 
verjr Harold-SkimpoUsh antipathy to manufactories, 
and could only be got to look at one of them in all 



his travels — a paper Fabrik — in which he was 
ably surprised. 'No rampageous machinery 1 
itself to pieces, but quiet sedate cylinders 
noiselessly along, in company with running- 
He can be grave enough, nowever, upon occai 
when he voyaged to Draxholm (Dragon's Island' 
the bad Earl of Bothwell, Mary's husband, aftc 
fitful fever, sleeping welL He lies in the little 
church of Faareveue, almost out of the world, 
raise a folding trap in the chancel, and des 
ladder into the vault below ; on the right, is a 
wooden coffin, encased for protection in an out 
The lid is removed, a sheet withdrawn, and thi 
the mummy-corpse of Scotland's proudest ea 
has been for centuries known by sacristan and ( 
as Grev Bodvell's tomb. * When the wooden 
was first opened, the body was found envelo 
the finest linen, the head reposing on a pillow oi 
There was no inscription. The body is t] 
a man about the miadle height; and to juc 
his hair, red mixed with gray, of about fifty 
of age. The forehead is not expansive; th< 
of the head wide behind, denoting bad qualif 
which Bothwell, as we all know, possessed p 
high cheek-bones ; remarkably prominent, 
hooked nose, somewhat depressed towards tb 
(this may have been the effect of emaciation) 
mouth ; hands and feet small, well shaped, tho 
high-bred man. I have examined the records 
Scottish parliament, caused researches to be no 
the British Museum — ^the copy of his Hue and 
not forthcoming : no description of Bothwell 
save that of Brantdme, who saw him on his t 
Paris, where he first met Mary during the lifel 
King Francis, and he describes him as the " 
and awkwardest of men.'* Concerning His G 
can say nothing, but I do not think his corpse be! 
description of the French historian. And nov 
satisfied with the inspection, having first sev 
look of his red and silver hair as a souvenir, 
close the coffin-lid, and again mounted the sta 
BothweU*s life was a troubled one ; but had he s< 
a site in all Christendom for quiet and repose in 
he could have found none more peaceml, mo: 
and calm, than the village church of Faareveile. 
Of ' the Peninsula of Jutland, and the isla 
Zealand aud Funen,* most readers know lit 
nothing beyond what the geographies told ti 
their infancies ; and we can very honestly recoi 
Mr Horace Marryat's volume to their attentioi 
very pleasant elucidation of those mysteries. 

THE CHERRY-TIME. 

Oh the whitest plumes of the Mayflower-tree, 

The black-bird loves to sing ; 
There he prunes his breast with his golden he 

And ruffles his glossy black wing. 
Or he creeps to the sweet tree's innermost hea 

And jugs with his mellow pipe ; 

He whistles and flutes to the apple -flowers : 
* The cherry will soon be ripe.' 

He sings to the rose-cloud over his head, 

To the blossoms, and leaves, and buds ; 
To the rainbow drops of tho April rain, 

And the shower that brightens and scuds ; 
Then nestles close to the May-tree's heart. 

And sings of the brave year's prime, 
Of the crimson joy that cannot cloy, 

In the coming cherry-time. W. 

Printed and Published by W. ^ R Chambers, 47 
noster Bow, London, and 339 High Street, £din; 
Also sold by William Bobkbtson, 23 Upper Sa 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 




S tit net anb ^ris. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



Na 375. 



SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1861. 



Price 1^. 



INDIAN GBASS WIDOWERS. 

I MADE <me of a puty of eight gentlemcD who sat 

doiwn to a Mt tiffin in India some twelve months 

aga We were all Benedicts; but I was the only 

hnsbaad proeent whose wife was not ten thousand 

miles away. Seven of the party had each his wife 

in Rngland; they were, to use the ordinary phrase 

c( Indian aociety — grass widowers. In the majority 

of the ca s es, the inexorable decree of the family 

doctor had caused the painful sejiaration; he may 

have gone so far, in some instances, as to have 

dffftlared that the next hot or wet season would prove 

fidal to the wife, if she remained to meet it In such 

eJrcnnwrtaaces, of coarse, the husband must make 

jgp lua mind to subside into the loneliness of grass 

widoweAood; the wife, to hazard her weakened 

fniaie and diattered health by the trials of an 

overiand journey to England. If she has children, 

tiiey nraat accompany her; for although, up to the 

•gs of four years, India has often been found favour- 

aUe to the health and growth of a child, after 

ftat period a reaction takes place, and the climate 

iMdioiuly undoes the good services previously i)er- 

foimed. GnuM widowerhood is the greatest cost at 

'vUdi a good appointment in India can be purchased. 

Separated from every prized and valued friend, and 

from every amociation connected with our past years 

and thfliT nminiscences, there is yet some comfort 

in the prB t ca oe of her who has borne the same 

Bepsmtioos for your sake ; but even this is denied ; 

grass widoweihood is as general in India, especially 

in the metropolis, as it is unnatural, and when I next 

took wine wtth some of the seven who had made up 

oor tiffin-party, I had become one of themselves — a 

nmied man, but without a wife. 

It vary freqnently happens that a young man, pos- 
Haiog a wife of proportionate age, and of a natundly 
ddicate and frail constitution, accepts his appoint- 
BMst in India, or goes there without a permanent 
ci^gigement^ and arrives with his wife in the month 
of kptH, or one of the six months which follow. 
When they left England, the snow was possibly on 
the gnrand. Over the Channel, through the straits of 
Oibnltar, and as far as Malta in the Mediterranean, 
the voyage is accomplished in a sharp, crisp, bracing 
tir. They land at Alexandria in an insufferable blaze 
of scorching sunshine ; but the heat is as yet a novelty, 
ttd may be borne without complaint Egypt hes 
hiked and reeking — a mosaic, with gaping fissures 
between its component parts. Suez is one of the 
hottest i^aces in the world. Already has that fright- 
hH t euipera tare begun to tell upon the constitution 
cf the wife, and as the steamer sails through 



the gulf towards the scene of Pharaoh's host's 
calamity, even the sense of the overshadowing pre- 
sence of Mount Sinai docs not serve to quell her 
repining and discontent. Henceforward, a staring 
Indian summer is what she must expect for many 
months, and the glass in the shade will be at 88, 
which, said poor Hood, * is a great age.* 

When she reaches her destination, it is but to part 
with the last English servants whose attendance she 
may enjoy, in the persons of the stewards and 
stewardesses of the steamer, and to begin to endure a 
catalogue of trials too many to mention. Such was 
my case, and should I survive this century by a 
hundred years, the -memory of the ' first night in 
India ' will still remain fresh and vivid in my recol- 
lection. We arrived in Calcutta in the noon of the 
day, to find the best hotels quite fuU, and so had to 
put up with what proved itself at the best a fourth- 
rate one, with, as I afterwards learned, the blight of 
bankruptcy upon it. It was a huge straggling tene- 
ment, and the chambers allotted to us seemed a 
Sabbath-day's journey from the room where the 
keeper of the domestic establishment was to be found, 
but a journey I had nevertheless to perform many 
times that weary day in positive quest of food. It 
became evident that no food was to be had until 
seven o'clock that evening, but we had a young 
child, for whom, in defiance of all India, I must 
procure some nourishment We were starving in a 
land of untold plenty. I presented myself for the 
sixth time to the landlord, and, having appealed to 
his feelings as a parent, was enabled to hurry back 
to my young cub in half an hour, through a mile 
of passages and staircases, with some milky water, 
and some unwholesome-looking seedcake. This is 
not, though it may seem so, a digression, for to 
that night I ascribe certain influences which, acting 
in future months U|X>n other influences and trials, 
made me what I am now — a grass widower. Kight 
fell upon that melancholy scene, and with it came 
fresh horrors. An ayah, dark as Erebus, and 
unable to speak one word of English, was handed 
over to us for trial My young wife undressed the 
son and heir, who, overcome by starvation as much 
as weariness, slowly dropped to sleep, and the ayah 
fastened on to him mechanically, took him into the 
adjoining bedchamber, and, lifting the mosquito- 
curtains, awarded to him his legitimate share of the 
bed. The silence of the abode was something awful, 
and the lamps, which were totaUy inadequate to 
illumine one tithe of the space of those colossal 
rooms, shone faint and sickly in the thick and hot 
atmosphere. Gloom hung like a funereal tai)estry 
about the roofs and comers of the chambers, and 



146 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



the breathless stillness of the ayih in i^ bedroom, 
led my wife to form a deep-nxyted belief that the 
sable hireling contemplated the fri^tful crime of 
infanticide. It became my duty, therefore, to steal 
furtively to the purdah^ or dooivcnrtain, which hmig 
between the two apartments, and observe what the 
ayah was doing. She was squatted upon the floor, 
and seemed much more intent upon slumber than 
bloodshed. We were without a mend in India, but 
visions of scores of dear friends in England rose up 
before us, and the happy home which we had left 
without occasion, seemea suddenly possessed of a fore- 



finger, which it pointed tauntingly towards us. 

So dreary did that apartment liecome, that we took 
refuge npon the stamiase, making an impromptu 
throne of the top step. We ' took Siis step,' because 
it commanded a fine view of a hall-lamp which hung 
at the end of a chain about thirty feet long, and was 
quite a fiery meteor compared to the melancholy 
argand in our own room. We were hastily dislodged 
from our outpost by the appearance of a eentleman to 
whom I haa farou^t a letter of introduction. Mr 

B was a grass widower, and having been in iiie 

country a few months, was able to make some sugges- 
tions, the first of which was, I weU remember, to 
leave that establishment precipitately, and take 

guarters in one of the many respectable and almost 
omely boardinc-houses in tiie city. 'Desperate 
diseases require desperate remedies ; ' and believmg in 
this maTJm, I left my wife by herself, and in coBapanv 
of my new friend, s^ out in search of a * home.' A 
was not the season for strangers, and yet Calcutta 
eeemed quite full of visitors, and it was only in the 
fifth house we visited that I obtained accommodation. 
The two rooms offered to me were not very inviting ; 
but they were an improvement upon the old ones, 
and I decided to take them. The terms were L.25 
a month for my wife and self ; stable, servants, wines, 
&c, all being extra. I hurried back to the Cimmerian 
shades, where I found my son still unmurdered, but 
my wife plunged into still deeper melancholy. 

Now, in this case there was a ^oun^ lady who had 
been tutored to every domestic disciplme ; who knew 
the mysteries of the cookery-books, and could, after 
the hare was caught, cook it as well as Mrs Glass. 
She had been educated to be the greatest ornament a 
home can possess — an industrious housewife; but a 
few days sufficed to shew her that in India such 
attributes are not called for, and that the ordinary 
duties of the generality of wives in this country are 
to visit and 1^ visited. The kitchen, as a rule, is 
never entered, sometimes never seen ; but every rule 
has an exception, and I remember one married lady 
who came to India when she was a child, who used 
to superintend the constiuction of cunning devices in 
pastry, and who, throughout the whole of ner sojourn 
here, some twenty-five years, enjoyed uninterrupted 
good health, and left lately for En^^and with a Devon- 
ahire bloom upon her cheeks, streaked with four tears 
which she shed at leaving this abominable city. But 
there is no doubt that the climate disagrees witii nine 
out of every twelve ladies who come to India, for 
the only exercise attainable is that which wearies 
but not invigorates. In short, there is but one means 
of exercise adopted — namely, horsemanship, which 
is too often a recreation requiring more exertion 
than the nature of the climate will permit. Is it to 
be wondered at, therefore, that a life characterised 
by such extreme inactivity, perpetual lassitude, and 
no variety, should affect the h^th of young wives 
bom and Drought up in EWland ? As may naturally 
happen, ' household gods make their appearance 
upon tiie stage, and all mothers who read this 
article will understand the effects of such domestic 
oocuirepces. 

It is thus b^ gradual stages that the evil tenden- 
cies of the chmate develop themselves. You see 
your wife dafly grow weaker, and .<Esculapius then 



delivers the fiat with a solemn mien, and the passa^ 
home has to be taken. Notwithstanding all tEe 
experiences of Sir Cresswell Cresswell, 1 believe 
there is frequently an attachment between man and 
wife. It is tried nere. The dreaded morning comes; 
the steamer is at Garden Reach, and at lost wife, 
children, and baggage are airanged in the carriage; 
you brealdast onboard ship wiUiout breaking fast ; 
that which is in your mouth is — your heart The 
bell rings; a feverish shake of the hand, a hunied 
kiss ; a smile from your own child as you part with 
him; a hundred parting requests utterea by his 
mother, and a strange spell-boimd feeling of nie^ 
aro a few of the acts and emotions which fouow. 
The vessel steams off, and for long a handkerchief 
waves in the close sultry air; two frail arms hold 
up the child, the pledge of an affection which was 
never doubted; and you turn from the quay, with 
the knowledge that each day, for the next five 
weeks, wOl place a breach of two hundred and fifty 
miles between you and those from whom you have 
separated. You return home ; and the pair of Idd- 
eloves on the dressing-table, which wmAody has 
mrgotten, and which are so much smaller than the 
size you take yourself — and the tiny odd shoe, scarce 
three inches long, which has also been left behind 
unintentionally, are sufficient proof, if such weie 
wanting, that you are a — ^grass widower. Under aH 
circumstances, this state is to be deplored. The 
husband is very likely not in a position to retom 
to England ; B^igal is no longer the pactoliaa land 
it was a century ago; and he must either resign 
his position, where a moderate fortune, in the oonrse 
of tune, is certain, or finally consent to live separated 
from his wife for years. 

There are other causes which hek> to break down 
the constitution of a woman in uidia besides the 
climate. The often-quoted patience of the revered 
Job would have been more severely tried by sefen 
Indian servants than by seven cuseases, however 
virulent. Van Amburgn tamed his animals, or 
rather reduced them to their sluggish, spiritkaa^ 
unnatural condition by so continually provoking their 
irritability of temper, that finally they seemed to have 
no temper left, and yielded up tneir liberties in silent 
resignation. It is precisely tnis ordeal throu^ which 
a young wife, freui from her Eki^ish home, has to 
pass. She cannot do it unscathed like Shadnch sad 
his two friends in their ordeal, but is prone to give a 
loose rein to her indignation, which, the servants 
perceiving, manage, by additional deceit and rogueiy, 
to provoke still tinker. All these trials assist the 
climate to effect its unhappy purpose, and once com- 
menced, the consummation rapidly arrives. 

With the few women whose strength is on a par 
with that of the Carthaginian damwels who serred 
the catapults in the Punic war, everything is diffierent. 
They are able to parade their domestic establishment — 
the keys of its storerooms, its wine-cellars, and bottle- 
connahs, hanging from their waist-girdle — before they 
have dressed to receive visitors. No distaste for the 
country acts with an evil influence upon them. They 
pay periodical visits of inquiry to the several bazaars 
where the head table-servant procures the necessaries 
of life, and upon their return cut and hack that gentle- 
man's bill as Dr Russell's friend did his khansamai's 
at Simla, or as Mrs Browning recently discovered 
the great god Pan cutting and hewing the reeds *down 
in the reeds by the river. 

But now to behold and survey the grass widowers 
from a different point of view. Provi&nce undoubt- 
edly tempers the wind to the shorn lamb ; and 
after the first, often heartrending scene of separation 
is over, a singular spirit of hSarity takes posses- 
sion, in many cases, of the unhappy grass widower. 
He becomes the life and centre of every jocund and 
oonvivial assembly, gives festive dinners to local 
wits and musical badielors, and becomes generally 



OHAlCBXBSnS JOiarRNAL. 



147 



bid by his extended acgnamtanee as a really 
w&anme, and well-intentioned fellow, 
a little villa at Croydon or Sydenham ate the 
i€ Ilia booom, yivicQy picturing to herself tiie 
i oondxtiaa of her htuBoand in his companion- 
aam in tibe East ; and although in his letters, 
m. witii xeligions regolarity to that cottage, 
Ifauaoii to his jovial banquets is omitted, it 
en^ fxaai foorsetfulness. For my own part, 
I ft m^ oc a diarming singer, or an ingenious 
gifv, or an individui3 of lively aocomplish- 
I, I alioiild never refuse an invitation to sit at 
tahegmy of a grass widower, whose friends were 
) iHDe genos as himself. That I am occasionally 
sh msny parties, I have unwittingly confessed ; 
sng ft gntsB widower of the genuine sort, whose 
ia da^ approadiing breakage, I am not one qf 
t^^iP'g** I am witii them. Thus, in my reflective 
B, I nave had opportunities of studying my 
r-bBBquetsanL I have been uncharitable enough 
mae wonwUmM that graa widowerhood was tud 
uito Mr Jones or Mr Smith which Mrs Jones 
Ilia Smith, in England, suppose it to be. For 
to^ Mr JoDSB never could be prevailed upon, 
Iisi wife was here, to sinff The (Hd English 
■MM) albeit he knew it well, and it suitea his 
3^010, it is impossible either to speak or sing 
Mr Jones is pr^ent, for he will have it all to 
UL As for Mr Smith, the change that has 
iver him is tremendous, contrasted with his quiet 
f habits when Mrs Smith was with him. He 
ft ft decayed suit of clothes, which he takes out 
luBt'aiMl in which he sings, * in character,' BlUy 
«, inboducing improm p tu verses, playfully 
Bg to his host and host s friends. But there 
lO dnwing Smith out when he was not a grass 
wm. He was positively unsociable ; and h^d it 
lesn fir the pleasant and homely mannen of 
Siodti^ I beueve I should have dropped his 



are very clever in organising 
■ m the cdd weather ; and the manner of their 
Iff wi(i& the prettiest girls who ^race the rural 
iBBi e nts borders closely on delirium. If thev 
OB tibds occurrence in their letters home. Smith 

* JoBWS plagued me for days to join the party, 
t kflt I consented, much to my r^ret I did 
i}SNr vyidf, and my heart was with tfou all the 
JonSs nys : * I have been literally besieged 
bond about tiiis abominable picnic, and flatly 
id for several days to go — ^how different had you 
here, i^ love ! — but at two o'clock Brown and 
■OB oaded for me, forced me into their gharry, 
iro members of a press-gang, and I was oragg^ 
I plase, where I paussed six miserable hours.' 
r, botii Jones and Smith are getting up a 

and bachelors' ball at the present moment, and 
tofmiag me with invitations to share the 
MS. IsM 1 1 And though I should not like it 

& in public, Mr Jones save Miss M an 

r-jgaoDBtk Cashmere shawl tiie other day, and 
t&tending that he wrote his wife a long letter 
sxt mofming, the little matter of that Cashmere 
. qnito escaped lus recollection. 

D£ SCOBESBY. 

inrtsnoes of those who have raised themselves in 
aatic Engiland not only to wealth and the 
dofttion consequent upon it, but to reputation, 
f no means rare. Still, every new biography of 
I who 

Breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
And grasps the sldrts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of cire nm sta noe, 
And gmpplss with his evil star. 



is interesting to his fellows, who, whether he * lives to 
dutoh the gcdden km' or not, admire with reason 
the force that makes his merit known. Many of these 
get so torn and trampled on in the beginning of their 
battle of life, that they are marked for evermore, and 
made discernible among the smooth and poUshad 
class wherein they have won a place, at the fiiat 
glance ; others seem to have received thmr wounds 
within^ and as if unable to formve the world that 
gave them, remain lone-minded and austere for 
all their lives; some few, with just so much of 
individuality left as gives them ]nquan(nr, are able 
to take up tiieir new position naturally, without 
embarrassment and without antagonism. Of this 
last kind — in spite, too, of certain peculiar obstacles, 
which one would have supposed to be insunnountable 
— ^was the late Dr Scoresby. 

It is scarcely possible to conceive a boyhood passed 
among rougher trials snd more disadvantsoeous cir- 
cumstances than was his. The son of a Greenland 
whaler of Whitby, who, at the period when the subject 
of this paper* came into the world — namely, 1789 — 
was earning but ten pounds a year, as seaman, bcwt- 
steerer, hanpooner, or what not, it mav be imagined 
that the infant William was not cradled in luxury. 
Even at nine years of age, and whcm his Either had 
attained to somewhat better circumstances, we find 
him imder such a schoolmaster (!) as this : 

* He not only had recourse to the ordinary means of 
punishment, such as the cane or the ferule — hoQi of 
which he was in the habit of applying with terror- 
awakening dexterity, and they were of unusual magni- 
tude — but he also was in tiie habit of locking the 
offending boys in the school, and keeping them several 
•hours in darkness after the rest of the scholars had 
departed — of strapping the little culprite to a bench, 
and keeping them immovably fixed for half a day 
together — and, at other times, of fastening a cord to 
their thumbs, an inquisition-like torture, and then 
passing it through a pulley^ above them, hoisted them 
up so as to leave only their toes on the ground. Lot 
this cruel posture, with their arms above their heads, 
and with their thumbs almost disiointed, he was 
known to detain those who seriously offended him 
during the absence of the school at dinner ! ' 

It IS no wonder that William was delighted to 
exchange the society of such a ruffian as tiiis even for 
the haraships of a Greenland vovage. When ten 
years old, he secreted himself on ooard his father's 
ship, and although discovered, was permitted to 
accompany him on the expedition — tne youuflest 
mariner, perhaps, that ever went a-whalins. Alter 
this, he made many voyages to very high latitudes, 
and at sixteen was so exi)eriencea, wat he was 
appointed chief officer under the captain. 

So enamoured of the sea he was, that when the 
Danish fleet was captured at Copenhairen, he was 
among those sailors who snswered tiie caU of oovsrn- 
ment to assist in bringing the prizes into a British 
port. It was his example, indeed, that caused the 
men of Whitby to volunteer for that duty, who, 
until they saw his name given in, were under the 
impression that it was but a scheme for impressing 
them. Of the Danish capital, after its bombardment 
he gives a curious skctoh : 

'Here, I was told, a respectable householder, 
neglecting the cautions of his more timid neighbours, 
hoped to make his house his castle and defence ; but 
an irresistible shot penetrated the wall, struck the 
too secure inmate, and put a period to his lif& There, 
pointing to the site of the church, I was informed, a 
number of the outcast inhabitants, whose houses had 
been demolished and their property buried in the 
ruins, took refuge, trustinff that m the house of their 
Qod they should not raiy obtain shelter from the 

•TkBLifiofWiniamaeoraky,DJ), By Us Nephew. Ndacm 
and Sons. 



148 



CHAMBERS^ JOURNAL. 



elements, but sanctuary from the destructive effects 
of the missiles of war. But tiieir hopes were vain, 
and their confidence proved their destruction. A 
■hot, as if directed by the demon of battle, struck an 
arch of the tower, and dislodged one of the stones ; 
immediately the proud cross of the mighty edifice, 
owing to the loss of balance, sank through the interior 
of the building with a tremendous crash, and crushed 
in its fall those wlio sought refuge in its shelter! 
Turning my eyes from the desolate and ghastly spec- 
tacle m smouldering ruins, I expected to nnd in 
every countenance I met tibat woful and mourning 
expression of which I experienced the lively sympathy, 
and that the justly indignant patriot would wear on 
his brow the marks of determined and revengeful 
hatred towards the authors of these calamities. But 
my surmises were not well founded ; the prevailing 
physiognomy indicated rather gaiety, carelessness, or 
phlegmatic indifference. Everything I saw seemed to 
express insensibility. The shops were filled with 
customers, the portals of the exchange were invitin^y 
open, the quays bore the marks of business, and vie 
taverns were filled with the gay and the mirthful ; 
and if, after all, there might be a doubt remaining as 
to the singular apathy of the Danes at a period of 
national calamity, I may mention, in further proof, 
that I saw in the very heart of the city the drawing 
of a lottery in the public street.' 

After seven weeks* occupation of the Copenhagen 
waters, the whole of the (late) enemy's fleet was 
rigged, provisioned, manned, and in a condition for 
service; while such ships as were building, or not 
sufficiently advanced to oe removed, were &stroyed, 
together with the floating-batteries and other dis- 
posable apparatus for war. * One ship, a seventy- 
tour, that was completely timbered and well advanced, 
was cut in the keel in several places, in the floorings 
and beams, and then all the snores, or supports, on 
one side being removed, it was hauled over and 
destroyed. I witnessed this extraordinary launch: 
the noise of the cracking materials was equal to the 
loudest thunder I ever heard.' 

Mr Scoresby, although only a volunteer seaman, 
was put in command of a Danish £[un-boat, which, 
however, in common with vessels of its class of that 

gkriod, was totally unfit for navigating the open sea. 
e and his crew consequently underwent fearful 
hardships on their way home. Afterwards transferred 
to another man-of-war, he became witness to the 
abominable t3rrannies practised in those days by 
persons calling themselves officers and gentlemen. 

* Lieutenant usurped an arbitrary and unjust 

authority in the daily exercise of an unfeeUng, nay, 
a barbarous disposition. Men were flogged witiiout a 
specific fault — some, without the shadow of a crime. 
One man received three dozen lashes, because a rope 
in his hand ran foul — another two dozen beciuise he 
could not lie out on the topsail-yard without being 
thrown off by the top-sail, whicn was not properly 
secured — and a third was flcM^ged in three successive 
weeks, because the men unc^ his charge, but over 
whom he could exercise no control, were not active 
in their duty ! In the latter case, the punishment was 
*9 ag^vated that the man became indifferent about 
his Ute-^he told his messmates that his life was a 
burden to him; and shortly after his last punish- 
ment, which I myself witnessed, he fell from the 
foretop on the deck (throujdi carelessness, if not by 
deogn), and was killed on we spot.' 
. The hideous blasphemies indul^d in by all classes 
of naval men in those times, filled Mr Scoresby's mind 
with especial horror. His disposition was essentially 
pious, and he had been trained to a high veneration 
lor the Sabbath. As a boy, he says, he would 
scarcely dare to pick up, on Sunday, any article 
in the street he mi^ht find without an owner; and 
comparatively late m life, we find him refusing to 
dine with Sir Walter Scott upon that day— with a 



courtesy, however, that is by no means always found 
to accompany similar convictions. * I fear,' writes he, 
* I cannot have the honour of waiting upon yon on 
Sunday at dinner, agreeable to the arrangement yoa 
were so kind and polite as to propose. For some 
years, indeed, I haye declined visiting on that day of 
the week; though I readily and honestiy acknow- 
ledge that in tlus instance the privation is greater 
than on any occasion that ever before occurred.' 
In all his Greenluid voyages, he absolutely forbade 
his men to join in any pursuit of the whale— no 
matter how tempting ute prey — ^upon the Sabbath; 
and he seems to have been convinced, that he wia 
suffered to lose nothing of material success by this 
diminution of his opportunities by one-seventL 
During the whole of his career as a sailor, he was 
storing his mind with knowledge, and training himself 
to habits of scientific observation. He was omv aboat 
twenty-eight, when, in 1820, he published with great 
success his work upon the Arctic Regiona — among the 
earliest of those stirring narratives of adventure in 
the polar seas, of which Kane's and M*Clintock'> 
are tne latest, and the text-book for all succeeding 
scientific explorers of those dreary shores. 

The combination which Mr Scoresby's mind afforded 
of patient study and practical energy is rare indeed. 
During the most deUcate magnetic experiments, and 
the most assiduous watching of the mysteries of 
nature, he never neglected his duties as a whaling 
captain, but even drew up a code of regulations for 
harpooners, the diffusion of which he * trusts may be 
eminentiy useful' He could not, however, prevent 
the accidents which are inseparable from that perilous 
pursuit — a trade more 'dreadful' far than samphire- 
gathering. A whale once led a boat of his mto a 
vast shoal of the same species. *■ They were indeed 
so numerous, that their " blowing" was mcessant ; and 
the men believed they could not have seen less than a 
hundred. Fearful of alarming them without striking 
any, they remained for some time motionless, watch- 
ing for a favourable opportunity to commence an 
attack. One of them at length arose so near the boat 
of which William Carr was harpooner, that he ven- 
tured to pull towards it, though it was meeting him, 
and afforded but an indiJQferent chance of success. He, 
however, fatally for himself, succeeded in harpooning 
it The boat and fish passing each other witn great 
rapidity after the stroke, the Ime was jerked out of its 
place, and, instead of " running " over the stem, was 
thrown over the gunwale ; its pressure in this unfii- 
vourable position so careened tne boat, that the side 
sank below the water, and it began to filL In this 
emergency the haipooner, who was a fine active fellow, 
seizea the bight of the Ime, and attempted to relieve 
the boat by restoring it to its place; but by some 
singular circumstance which could not be accounted 
for, a turn of the line flew over his arm, in an instant 
drag^ged him overboard, and plunged him under water 
to rise no more ! So sudden was the accident, that 
only one man, who had his eye upon him at the time, 
was aware of what had happened ; so that when the 
boat righted, which it immediately did, though half 
full of water, they all at once, on looking round at an 
exclamation from the man who had seen lum launched 
overboard, inquired what had got Carr ! It is scarcely 
possible to iniagine a death more awfully sudden and 
unexpected. Tne velocity of the whale, on its first 
descent, is usually (as I have proved by experiment) 
about eight or nine miles per hour, or thirteen to 
fifteen feet per second. Now, as this unfortunate 
man was occupied in adjusting the line at the yeiy 
water's edge, when it must have been perfectiy 
tight, in consequence of the obstruction to its running 
out of the boat, the interval between the fastening 
of the line about him and his disappearance could 
not have exceeded the third part of a second of 
time ; for in one second only he must haye been 
dragged to the depth of ten or twelve feet ! The 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



149 



aeddent was indeed so instantanoouB, that he had 
not time for the least exulamation ; and the person 
who witnessed his extraordinary removal observed, 
that it was so exceedingly quick, that although his 
ere was upon him at the instant, he could scarcely 
Artingnish Hie object as it di8M)peared.* 

Wearied at length of this laborious and exciting 
life, and aetoated by strong religious feelings, Mr 
I Socnesby idinqnished the Greenland trade, and 
detennined to take orders as a minister of the Church 
of Et^^aad. He was first made curate of Bessincby ; 
next appointed to the Mariners' Floating Churoi at 
JAverpool — for which he was of course peculiarly 
adapted by hia previoos calling — and afterwards served. 
several outer churches. He was, however, far from 
neolectiiig bia scientific investigations. In 1847, he 
muiertook a voyage to America; and having, by 
great ^pood-foitiuie, met with a tempest, managed 
upon bia way to asttle the question of the altitude and 
rate of motum of the Atlantic waves. The phrase 
* mmmtain-hjghi* so often applied to them, seems to 
be a oonaiderahle exageeration. He found that the 
hi^tmb waves of the Atlantic average 43 feet ; that 
the mean distance between each wave is 559 feet; 
that the width from crest to crest is 600 feet ; that 
the interval of time between each wave is 16 seconds ; 
sod that the velocity of each wave per hour is 32^ 
Bules. 

Finally, we read that this indefatigable Mariner, 
IHvine, and Savant, set out, at the a^ of sixty-five, to 
eron the worid in search of oertam scientific facts 
ffnm4¥?t^ witii polarity. Ho was attracted, we may 
ay, tram liveipool to Melbourne by magnetism. The 
Vading propositions which he wished to confirm by 
Ihia TIBS to tlie antipodes were these : 

* L That' ships built of iron must not only be 
i^tnmfjij magnetic, because of the vast body of this 
metuwiiicfa is subjected to the action of terrestrial 
induction, bat that by reason of the elaborate system 
of hamniering, as well as from the bending of plates 
and bsons dnnng the progress of constru<%on, there 
mat be cm extremely nigh development of the quality 
eiftteHtufe nutgitetism, 

'2. That eadi iron ship has a special individuality 
€f the magnetic distribution, depending essentially on 
tfaapodtion of the keel and head whilst building. 

The reanltB of this voyage were hi^y confirma- 
tory of Dr Sooresby's scientific convictions. He had 
stated that a ship, when at Melbourne, would have her 
wgw^^ oonditions turned upside down ; that her 
apper par^ which in England has always southern 
polarity, and attracts the north pole of the compass, 
would m MeUxmme have northern polarity, and repel 
il ' Tlie first opportunity of trying this was in enter- 
ing Fort FhiUip, when I found that the upper part of 
the ship had clumged its polarity, and was now north- 
CHL On going down the vessel, I found the polarity 
^iwwwmJmS until, in the middle, there was no polarity. 
I nilMeqiiaitly found that the longitudinal line of non- 

erity was not straight, but waved. Above this 
tiie north pole was repelled ; below, it was attracted. 
My theory was verified. Everything that in Liver- 
pool was northern, was now southern. This went so 
fat that the pillars, anchor-stocks, and standards of 
the i^per paits, instead of having southern polarity, 
had in every case northern polarity. Every principle 
I had aasoted was completely verified. The compasses 
were adjusted on the very ingenious principle of the 
Aatranomer-royal, the errors being compensated by 
antagnmstit* magnets in England. Exactly as I had 
said beCore the British Association in 1846, these com- 
paasns not exactly ceased to be useful, but they actu- 
ally went further wrong, than any others on board. 
Eveiy principle of a compass aloft^ as the only means 
of » sise goi^moe, was fully established. If he cannot 
eomhat with an enemy, a wise general sets as far away 
from him as he can. In our compass i£>ft, we had our 
perfect goide and standard of reference at all times. 



We always knew what course the vessel was steering, 
and never had the slightest doubt, notwithstanding 
the changes going on in other parts of tiie ship.* 

Dr Scoresby died at Torquay in 1857, leaving a 
good reputation behind him in very different and even 
somewhat antagonistic circles. The religious and 
scientific * worlds * both lost in him a higmy valued 
member. He seems to have mixed with all classes 
and degrees of men, without much loss of personal 
characteristics. Among his varied social experiences, 
perhaps none was more singular than the following, 
extracted from his diary while in Paris in 1824 : ' m 
the evening, attended a conversazione at the house of 
M. Arago, where it was my privilege to be introduced 
to M. Cailliot, who travelled with Sie Pacha of Egypt 
towards the source of the Nile ; to M. Simonof^ who 
has visited the Antarctic Circle beyond the ne plus 
ultra of Cook, General Beaoy, M. Poisson, &c., &c It 
was remarkable that the person who had been nearest 
to the south pole ; myself the nearest to the north 
pole; Humboldt, who had been higher than any man 
upon a mountain, and deeper than any man m the 
earth ; and M. CaiUiot, who had approached nearest to 
the source of the Nile — should aU meet together in 
one party.' 



THE PAMILY SCAPEGRACK 

GHAPTBft XIX. — THB XXCOMXUMIC ATIOK. 

When Mrs Benjamin Arbour had been buried, in such 
a manner as did no discredit to that respectable firm to 
which she had the honour of being allied by marriage, 
there was still another solemnity to be held in Gk)l(^ 
Square upon that same afternoon. The actors in it 
were the entire Arbour family — ^Adolphus, Maria, 
Johnnie, Margaret, and Uncle Ingram, with Dick 
added — as the race-cards say of any extraneous 
matter. He had come that morning from Mr 
Mickleham*s house at Kensington, by express invita- 
tion, to attend his mother^s raneral, but neither his 
uncle nor his other relatives had so much as taken 
his hfuid in theirs, with the exception of Sister 
Maggie. She had never set eyes on him since that 
happy day on the river long ago ; new experiences of 
life nad altered his looks and made a man of him in 
the meantime, but her heart seemed to know no 
change, but beat responsive as of old to his in a long 
embrace of love. 

' She bade me give you this, and this ! ' she whis- 
pered, kissing him tenderly; 'whatever is said of poor 
mamma to-day, Richard, and whoever says it, remem- 
ber, if it be a word of rebuke for you, ztiat it is not 
true.* Maggie knew what pangs of self-reproach were 
rankling in the boy^ for Lucy Mickleham nad written 
to her every day about him, while her father had even 
paid a visit to Golden Square in person in the vain 
nope of moving Mr Arbour's heart towards the 
prodigaL 

Luncheon was laid out upon the sideboard of tiie 
dining-room when the gentlemen came home, and ito 

Elaice upon the huge mahosmy table was occupied 
y the family Bible. Uncle Ingram having assemoled 
the family and dosed the door, seated himself oppo- 
site to the volume, as though it were a ledjpr, and 
selecting a broad-nibbed pen from the standiui, filled 
it carefmly with ink. 

* Richard Arbour,* said he, * it is not my purpose to 
embitter t^c feeling which I am told you are begin- 
ning — tardily enough — to entertain regarding the 
wicxed undutif Illness of your past life by any remarks 
of mine. When I was in the position of your natural 
protector, and was paying for your support and edu- 
cation, I sometimes thought it my duty to remon- 
strate with you upon your misbehaviour ; but as, from 
tbis date, I give up all charge concerning you, and 
wash my hands of you and your future actions alto- 
gether, I spare you further censure. I say nothing 



of the manner in which you have reaolntely opposed 
yoonelf to every plan for your own prosperity and 
well-doing. I sav nothing of the witmg you have 
done to those whose greatest weakness has been a 
blind attachment to an unworthy ol^ect— yourself ; 
nor of the serious pecuniary expense that I have 
been put to for your maintenance up to this time. 
Your share of your mother^ property, who would 
probably but for you have been living now ' 

' Unoe, unde ! ' appealed Mar^;aret passionately. 

'Well, then, to carry out my mtenton strictly, and 
not to hint at what has been done or undone, your 
fortune of L.600, sir, lies in that pocket-book, and you 
maytakeit away with you when you leave this house.* 

'"^eep it, sir, and pay yourself out of it I * replied 
Bichua dosgedly ; * I will never accept one farthing of 
it from. su(£a hand.* 

* It will be paid into my banker's to your name, 
tiifln,* returned the merchant coolly, 'to be roent 
when you please and how you please, which, if we 
may judge from the company you have been recently 
kecpmg, will be disreputably enough; but mind, 
when Uiat is gone, you never have one guinea more 
from me ; no, not one shilling to rub againafc 
another* 

' I do not want to rub one of your shillings against 
another,* intem^)ted Dick, maddened by the contemp- 
tuous malice that sat upon the countenances of lus 
eldest brother and sister, as much as by his uncle*s 
cruel scorn. * What have I done ?* cried he, turning 
so sharply round upon Adolphus that that ^ntleman 
drew in his legs with great rapidity— which before 
were luxuriating at utmost length, as the legs of one 
who is seeing justice done upon the wickM, at no 
personal risk — and put himself into a posture of seH- 
defence ; * what have I done that I should be treated 
thus vilely by you all ? I have stood it often for the 
sake of her who is gone, and whose loss not one of 
you, save Maggie yonder, has a single tear for ; but I 
am not gtnng to stand it now.* 

' He is about to butcher his eldest brother,* observed 
Maria with acrimonious distinctness ; * he is nothing 
lets than a second Cain.* 

' Ay, and he is Able, too,* returned Dick with eni- 
srammatic ferocity, and excited, as usual, to frenzy oy 
tiiat sisterly voice. 

* Silence, Maria ; do not touch him, Addphus,* 
exclaimed Mr Arbour sternly ; ' you have done with 
him from henceforth as well as myself. You ask 
what you have done, sir, do you, to deserve this 
treatment ? I will tell you, thuL You have killed 
your mother* 

*■ That is a lie,* replied Dick furiously ; * and there is 
none who knows it oetter than yourself ! * 

Hbe comers of Mr Ingram Arbour's mtfuth garve a 
twitch at this, the resuSant of two forces — anger at 
his nephew's insult, and oonsciousness of having been 
really somewhat hard upon the deceased lady. ' Yon 
have killed your mother,* he continued, * or at least 
have shortened her life by your undutiful ways ; you 
have associated with conspirators, and — and — hair- 
cutters ; you have voluntarily abandoned, I say, that 
station of life into which, as your catechism very 
properly remarks, it has pleased Heaven to call you, 

ana connected yourself with a set of* : here Mr 

Ingram Arbour, whose indignation had caused him 
to rashly leave the safe current of speech-prepared- 
beforehand, for the eddies of extemporaneous dis- 
oouTse, grounded heavily upon a sand-bar. 

' A set of bloodthirsty assassins ! * suggested sister 
Maria. 

' Yes, a set of bloodthirsty and continental assassins,* 
repeated Uncle Ingram, making the remark his own 
by extension of epnhet. 

' That is not tnie, sir,* returned the hardy Diok, as 
he thought of kind Mr de Qreapiaay, 

'You have been in the han£ of the police, and 
nanrowly escaped from the imputation of murder; 



our name has been hawked about the streets, throng 
you, in oonneotion with a C£U>ital crime; you are s 
disgrace to the ftonily, sir, and you belong to it from 
this moment no longer.* 

And with that VmAe Inwcain drew the broad-nibbed 
pen through the name of Kichard Arbour, winch was 
written on the fly-leaf of the book before him, whose 
mission was to preach foraveness of all injuries. That 
name had been inscribed there with faltering fing^ 
by the poor lad*s father, when he lay a-dyin^ saae 
sixteen years ago, whose own name also stood above 
it, written in the heyday of lus life, when he and hii 
Leety were but newly married. 

Richard did not ask himself whether the deed wa 
justk or if so, whether his uncle had the risht to 
execute it; he only felt as though some ternUe and 
inexorable excommunication hi^ been pronounced 
against him, which he had not the power to despbe, 
or set at nouj^ The occurrences of his short life 
whidi had led to such a scene, and especially those 
tremendous ones that had thronged the last few days 
of it, whirled through his brain so fast, that he coiud 
scarcely hear what was passing. He knew that 
Maggie was interceding for him, and that Mr Arboor 
was replying to her, obdurately, and that was all. 

* It IS of no use, unde,* at last he heard her say; 
' for flesh and blood is stronger than pen and ink.* 

' We will see,* he answered more bitterly than he 
was accustomed to q>eak to his favourite niece ; ' we 
will put that to the test at once. Yon, Adolphus— 
I begin with yon, my eldest nephew and my heiz; 
although all who axe here present, save one, will 
have no reason when I die to complain that I have 
left them unprovided for. Are you prepared to for|i^ 
your relationiship to this fellow nere ; to neither spttk 
nor write to him; to treat him as thou^ he had met 
with that fate which the law has been within a little 
cf awarding him? Will you swear upon this sacied 
book, I say, to abjure him as one of the family, and 
so to express your sanction of the act of jnstioe whioh 
hasjust now been done by me? * 

The look which, in the capacity of Head of tin 
Family, Adolphus assumed upon this solemn adjura* 
tion, was a sight to see; he i^peared to have 
borrowed half of it from the rAle of Brutus in the 
act of saorifioing his sons for the commonwealth, 
while the other half (which was his own), hare a 
strong resemblance to that more modem hero of tin 
drama — ^Tartoffe. 

* it is a very painful duty, Unde Ingram, bat it m 
my duty, and bemff so, I should be wrong to shrmk 
from it. Brother Bichazd,* continued hs^ 'as after I 
have taken this oath our intercourse will eeaee, I ask 
of you if you have any final observaEfekxn to make 
before I do sa* 

This hypocritical .address acted upon Dick's joos- 
trate oonoition like a cordial dram; he felt the 
embers of indiimation kindle once more within him, 
and had a dmculty in suppressing an inmndent 
twinkle of his downcast eyes, as he replied: *1 have 
one thing to say, Adolphus, but it should not be said 
here.* 

' I have no secrets with such as you,* leepoiided the 
other loftily; 'whatever you have to speak most be 
spoken here, and in my uncle*s presenoa If I can 
carry out any last wish of yours, sir, oomnstent with 
du^, with honesty, and with proper feeling I shall 
be nappy to do sa* The mantle, or ton, el Brutus 
here seemed to forsake the shoulders of Mr Adolphus 
Arbour, and his air resembled greatly that of Mr 
Galcraft, the hangman, when demandii^ of a gentle- 
man about to be artirtically dealt with, whether tiiere 
is anything which, after ^e ceremony, he can have 
the pleasure of dmn^ for him 

'There is one thuu^ Brother Addphus,' returned 
Dick in a confidoitiar whisper which could be heard 
all over the room — 'tihere is one thing oonsiBtent with 
the virtues you have mentumed, that I do think yoa 



00^ to do : you ahoiild keep your word with your 
iDiQle*! maid, poor Betsy, and marry her at your 



convenieuce. 
! ' exclaimed AdolphuB, viciously, missing 
IB kii blind fury the yolume which he would have 
ilnick with his clenched fist, and overturning the 
iak-bofelle. 

'That's ngjht,' remarked Dick drily; *I'm glad 
laa've swoni it; and now I do hope you 'U get the 
Mm pnUii^ied as soon as possible.' 

* Maria!' oried Mr Ingram Arbour, pallid with rage 
at tiiii iniroduotion of vie comic element into a scene 
wbioh was intended to have been prof oimdly grave, 
*yaa have heaid what I have said to your elder 
hrothcr; are yoa likewise prepared to give up this 
abald bo^, and to lorset that he ever bore our mmily 
name to its diigtaoeT 

*I am,' Tetnmed that young lady, regarding the 
ontoast bilioiulgr; 'and it would have been better, in 
my judgment^ u ihm thing had been done before.' 

'swear awiqr,' observeid Dick with cheerfulness. 
« I can only ngret, Maria, that I can get nobody to 
praoiiae to nuny yoic' 

Matia'a jeXkiw coontenanoe was shot with scarlet, 
like aome mferior silk, as she abandoned the lad as 
ber bnyther for ever and ever, but she did not venture 
upon m p ic s ai ng her indignation in words again. 

' And yon, John, are you, too, prepared to let all 
ttumection cease between this fellow and jourself ? ' 

Johnnie Akrbonr had no absolute niali£:nity in his 
aatnre, and would not willingly have hurt a fly, 
nslesi tihe act had been of manileBt benefit to him — m 
iriiiek case, however, he would have sacrificed the 
tatbe hninan family without the least internal 
iteasgle. He did not *see the good' of a domestic 
onsMwanation such as the present, wherein, moreover, 
sa lar as words went, the proposed victim was clearly 
gettiqg the best of it ; and he walked up to the table 
with moeh aoch misgivings as some Tonr voter who 
nproaches the poUmg-booth secure indeed of the 
mud triumph of nis candidate, but also aware that 
ttere are rotten eggs and cabbage-stalks to be ^ot 
from tiie nnrepresented democracy who wait outside 
thothiedbold. 

'Brother John,' oried Dick, arresting him in the act 
ef crtracism, 'as you have ihe Bible there, will you 
swear upon it that it was not yourself who cut Bill 
Bempaey'i eye out with a snow-ball, yean ago, and 
laid the Uame on me ?' 

'I swear/ exclaimed Johnnie hastily, turning pale 
as death, and tottering to his seat, as tiiough he nad 
just been struck off the roll of practising attomeys. 

'Ton may here perceive,' remarked Dick, with the 
air of a showman exhibiting a wax-work ruffian in 
some 'Boom of Horrors' — *you may here perceive how 
a young man looks, from head to foot, who has just 
committed a perjury.' 

'My dear Margaret,' observed Mr Ingram Arbour, 
'it is now your turn to do your duty. You have 
iHsned from his own mouth within the last few 
miaates— if you entertained any doubt of it before — 
what sort of character this voung man really is ; how 
insnimit, how malignant, how wanting in all self- 
mspect as well as in respect to others! You will 
nol^ I tmst^ be backward to ratify that conclusion to 
whidi myself and all other members of the family 
have come to — that it is necessary that this fellow 
hs cot off from it, and take his own evil way alone.' 

'My dear uncle,' returned Margaret quietly, ' I am 
Sony that I cannot obey you in this matter ; I am 
not unmindful, believe me, of the benefits which you 
hare so long conferred upon one and all of us, but I 
esanot, even to please you, perform an act which I 
Uieve to be both unjust and uncalled for.' 

'And yet yon were by your mothei^s bedside when 
ihs died, returned the merchant sternly. 

'It is because I was with her then and at all times, 
aad Jnisfw the wishes of her loving soul so well, that I 



would not now desert this boy of hers although his 
weaknesses were ingrained vices (which th^ are not), 
and his follies crimes.' 

'I do not wish to be angry with you, Margaret,* 
returned the old man firmly ; ' but I must be €>oeyed 
by you as well as bjr others. Whoever of you, from 
this day forth, holds intercourse with that boy yonder, 
whether by speech or letter, will derive no benefit 
from what I nave to leave behind : their name, so 
help me Heaven, shall never so much as be written in 
my wilL' 

* My own dear Sister Maggie,' cried Dick suddenly, 
' do not cross your uncle in this matter for the sake 
of me, I pray. I should — indeed I ^ould — ^be far 
more wretched in the thought that I had been the 
cause of your being left unprovided for, of any wrong 
being done to you, than even in the knowledge that 
we were never more to meet in this world. Tms man 
cannot prevent my lovins you ; he can hinder our 
hands from clasping, but that is alL' 

Maggie heard him with a proud smile of love and 
triumph, but when he ended, only shook her golden 
hair for answer to him. 

* And think you. Uncle Ingram,' exclaimed she, 'that 
I would barter such a love as that — one single kiss, 
one hand-clasp, one kind word — for the being set 
down in a deaa man's will ?' 

So scornfully the girl's eyes flashed upon him that 
the old man md not care to meet them with his own, 
but kept his face averted, and with his fingers tore 
the pen that had crossed Richard's name out into 
fraranents. 

* I did not think so, Margaret,' answered he in 
suppressed tones, and with some effort; 'and I 
meant to use no threat, or at least not only threats. 
Have I earned nothing at your hands, niece ? Have 
I not ever been kind and ^ue to you ? Have I ever 
refused a request in reason ? Have I not shewn my 
love in a thousand ways ? ' 

' You have, uncle ; and far oftener than I have 
deserved. If some of that kindness, some of that 
consideration, some of that love, had been shewn to 
that jpoor boy yonder' 

'Silence, girl!' cried Mr Arbour fiercely; 'do not 
dictate to me what I should have done, or what I 
should have left imdone. I have humbled myself too 
much already to you, and now, as I perceive, to little 
purpose. I was but recapitulating what I have felt 
towards you, in order to let you know, that while 
remembenng it — ^that in despite of it — I was prepared 
to punish your disobedience as it deserved. We have 
had talk enough, and I waste my words no lon^r 
about this malier. As sure as I stand here a living 
man, if you abjure not the companionship of that 
boy, now and for ever, you will find yours^ portion- 
less, penmless, or with only that miserable pittance 
between yourself and beg^aiy as lies here now be- 
tween him and the jail wmch will receive him when 
it is spent — ^That is well, Margaret,' continued the old 
man m a triumphant tone as the girl rose, while he 
spoke, and with pallid lips laid her hand upon the 
still open Bible; 'that is well, child, and yon will 
swear while there ia yet time, I know.' 

* I swear,' exclaimed Margaret firmly, ' in the 
presence, for all that I can tell, of the sainted soul of 
that lad's mother, who was buried this day, that I 
will never desert him, or forg^et that he is her son 
and my own brother, from tms day forth until the 
day I die !' 

OnAPTER XX. 

AMONG raiBVDB. 

The domestic shell having thus exploded without 
altogether confining itself to the direction intended 
by the astonished bomburdier, there was Chaos 
enough in that respectable Golden Square dining- 
room without the (Uscordant element of Diclrs 
presence. He wisely concluded that he would only 



162 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



I 



be Twalring matters worse by remainiiig, and so he 
unceremoniously left the room at once. Mrs Trim- 
ming, suspiciously near the door, was in the hall to 
receive him, to fold him in her substantial arms, to 
drop upon his exiled brow her sympathetic tears. 

' It *8 a sin and shame, Master Dick ; but it *b along 
of that younc; Mr Adolphus, who misleads your uncle : 
it done my heart gooa to see you a sticking up to 
him. My Richard — Mr Jones, I mean — always told 
me as how it woidd come to that. ** Some day or 
another," says he — ^but I am glad you did not touch 
him, for you should never lay hand upon vour own 
flesh and blood — " it will be Dick verms DoUy with a 
vengeance." Here *b a note for you from him, which 
I was to be very particular to put into your own 
hjuid. God bless you, my dear boy ; and if ever a 

five-pound note, or, for the matter of that, a ten 

Heaven preserve us, here 's my master ! ' 

The young outlaw seized the handle of the front 
door, and hastened with considerable asperity to place 
that visible barner between himself and his sometime 
relative ; but the next moment his hat, weighty with 
its trappings of woe, brought to mind the sorrow 
which had only been in abeyance during the preceding 
scene, and he took his homeward way, weeping and 
despondent — not because he had been disinherited, 
but because he had been bereaved and orphaned. 

The little villa at Kensington, to wnich he was 
now returning, had been for the last week a home 
indeed to him. Mr Mickleham had never alluded to 
any of the circumstances which had brought him 
there, save when he himself had evinced a wish to 
speak of them, but had treated him with the courtesy 
of a host as weU as the interest of a father. Lucy 
was never tired of talking with him of his Sister 
Maggie, and now and then, when she saw he was 
more than commonly depressed, of his dead mother ; 
for she also had known what that loss is, and how far 
better it is to speak of such a grief than to shut it up 
in the lonely heart which is its prey. Now and then, 
too, in gayer moments, she womd slily advert to the 
deterioration of her hair, which, she persisted, had 
never recovered the injury it had received at the 
hands of a certain incompetent person. 

*It was only one little, little curl,' remonstrated 
Dick, imagining at first that she had discov^^d the 
loss of her missmg ringlet. ' I stole it, I confess, but 
who would not have been a thief and picked a lock 
under such temptation V 

* You don't mean to say that vou have stolen a lock 
of my hair, you wicked, wicked boy 1 ' cried the girl 
bltismng ; but it is probable that she would not have 
sent him across the seas for that offence, if it had lain 
in her power, nor, indeed, to any areai distance from 
Kensington. She was always persuMinff him to go back 
to Darkendim Street, and be reconciled to his uncle — 
incited thereto by her papa — and built up oonsiderr 
able hopes of his turning out a sort of uidustrious 
Apprentice, to be eventu2dly a lord mayor of London, 
arber all Dick was bom to be misunderstood by his 
friends as well as to be condemned by his enemies. 

There was another person in the little Kensington 
househdd, too, who helped to make it a paradise for 
the young rogue, deserving though he was of altogether 
different quarters. Mr l£ckleham had a son Wulieun, 
about ten years older than Dick, and after that lad's 
own heart Not that Mr William was irreclaimable, 
erratic, vafl^bondish, or any one of those many adjec- 
tives which yoke so harmoniously with the word 
Scapegrace, but he had a tenderness for those that 
were. All literary men — I speak it to their honour — 
with the exception of a few of the heavier sort, the 
Bumpter-mules of the profession, who carry all the 
classical quotations for us, have an eye of pity and an 
open hand for the poor mauvaU miets to whom Society 
presents quite another portion of her person, or even 
ner clenched fist (for in spite of her fine-lady airs and 
aisumptionB of indifference, she can shew herself a con- 



siderable virago where she thinks it safe to do so), and Mr 
William Mickleham waa tosome extent * aliterary man ; ' 
not openly and avowedly so, indeed — for such a con- 
f ession woidd have shocked his father into an apoplexy 
— but he mitigated the rigours of a government 'clerk- 
ship by an occasional flirtation with the Muse, and 
re^trded her clandestine offspring with that affection, 
the depth of which no man, wno has not similarly 
sinned nimself , can ever plumb. He was not a poet m 
any high sense of the term, of course ; Heaven is not so 
superfluous as to permit people in the enjoyment of 

government situations to be also great -geniuBes ; but 
e had a deeper knowledge of human nature than it 
possessed by most persons. In particular, he had an 
insight of appreciation denied to many a one of 
keener intellect Where a mere man of the world 
beheld a mental deformity, William Mickleham 
detected the latent cause of its outgrowth, and found 
it not alwavs a weakness. Other men in his office 
could * spot ' their companions with equal accuracy— 
an expressive metaphor, though borrowed, I believe, 
from the billiard-table — ^but he knew what they were 
fit for, not only what they couldn't do : he understood 
more than that the round hole was unsuited to 
them, and could sometimes indicate the polyson which 
should be dug for their especial accommdwion. It 
was abundant^ clear to him that the hole in Darken- 
dim Street, wherein his father had found himself so 
comfortable for so manj years, was of fiir too exact 
proportions ever to suit that very irregular figure, 
Master Richard Arbour. 

' If ^ou were my son, Dick,' remarked Mr Mickle- 
ham, junior, with relation to this matter, on the third 
night of the lad's acquaintance with him — ^by which 
time he had gained his confidence as easily as ever 
Jesuit mastered that of woman — * if you were my son, 
I tell you honestly, you should go to sea to-moirow.' 
*Say the day after,' replied Dick flippantly: 

* to-morrow's a Friday ; ' for the subject of ms fatnie 
prospects had got by this time to be rather an 
exacerbating one to the young gentleman. 

*It's wonderful how constuit the symptoms of 
your disease are in every case,' remarked the philoso- 
pher musingly, puffing at a long churchwarden pipe, 
with its bowl half-way up the chimney, in order tnit 
the smell of tobacco might not pervade the house: 
*it's impossible to touch upon the question of the 
future fortunes of any of you Scapegraces, without 
getting an impudent reply for one's pains.' 

' I £d not mean to oe impudent,' returned Dick 
penitently. 

* Of course not, my dear sir,' answered the other; 

* I know you didn't You are impudent by natural 
constitution. You can no more prevent it, than 
you can prevent your hair curling, or your nose 
turning up» I suppose, too, you have been a good 
deal bulbed alreaay about what is to become ci 



you 



?» 



* Ah, I just have,' replied Dick with a deep-drawn 
sigh. * I remember that Maria used to tell me that I 
would never get salt to my porridge, to encourage me 
to set about it» I suppose, wnen I was so younf that 
I did not know what porridge meant ; then Admphus 
was always impressing upon me that if I lived to be a 
hundred, I should never make anything of business, 
and at the same time pitching into me for not n*%lring 
something of it ; while, as for Uncle Ingram — ^Ah ! 
the things I have had said to me about what I was 
to be, and what I was not to be, make me perspire 
to think of them.' 

' / know,' returned the philosopher, nodding ; ' and 
there was "an old friend of your father's," or two, 
wasn't there, who remembered you when you were 
" so high," and prophesied that you would never grow 
up to be such a man as he ? They asked you what 
you were going to be, didn't they, as thou^ you were 
a chiysalis alx>ut to astonish them by some extraor- 
dinary transformation; and when you said you didn't 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



153 



onarked it was high time you did ; and when 
I luiow, and told them, they objected to it ? 
enda of one*8 father are oppressive. There 
) be a funeral-pyre upon which the whole of his 
xmries shoula be sacriiiced, without distinc- 
iex or age ; indeed I think the women are the 

7 one^' returned the young eentleman, not 

^ a shudder of reminiscence — ' tney are, and no 

a.* 

I 'whj won*t you be a sailor, Dick, eh? What, 

» bhiahing! You must certainly have some 

of which you ought by no means to be 

d. The Scapegrace never blushes, so far as I 

baenred, unlesa when in the act of bdng 

led hf some good motive.' 

ad biiu^fid more than ever, as he replied, that 

lihrBr had once obtained a promise from him — 

not know with what intention, but it was 
lA Sunday before he came up to London for the 
me— that he would never, under any circum- 
,00 to sea. 

piiiloeopher patted the young man's head 
indiy. 'A douL mother's wish is the best of 
, fiid,' observed he. ' You must, however, set 
nd to something or other; since you are not in 
lition of life wherein people enjoy the reputa- 
beioff able to do anytning you choose without 
;; ai^ besides, there is the vulgar necessity of 

food. Ah, Dick, Dick, what a shiver that 
V'aa the remark I made too coarse a one, then? 
hmty ever so remotely, that you had not a 
of your own, and were Uvin^ at another man's 
How strange it is that Providence should have 
) much of uie Sensitive Plant to natures that 
r aure need of the Prickly Cactus ! Li there, 

iBore active line of life adapted for you than 
sittmg to a photographer? The professions are 
ymir reach, the trades disgust you; what 
roQ, then, of the pen? Can you write, my 
If 

ea,' replied Dick briskly ; * I can write a very 
e hand, and even do nourishes with a steel 
mis, and all that — but I can't say much for 

Oing.' 

ras referring to authorship,' returned Mr 

1 Mkikleham, involimtarily setting back his 
n his dasBical forehead. ' There is little or no 
1 lor poetry of a high order in the present day, 
om, Imiderstand, gets its value, or at least its 

I ihould think you might try your hand with 
ronpect of success at the ephem — ^that is to say, 
aikling Style, which is now so universally 
'. They say, it is true, that a good many of 
Kriptive pieces are turned off by machinery 
Jie same pattern woven in, but they can 
f have dispensed altogether with brain-work, 
I think rather that that school of writers must 
acovered some ingenious adaptation of natural 
whereby they produce their extraordinary 
I am not suro but that before describing 
m or object, they invert themselves, and in 
tttion imbibe some effervescent mixture. You 
nd on your head, my boy, I'm sure. Well, 
oa next have a leisure twenty minutes, do it ; 
ike one of my Seidlitz powders yonder, and 
your ideas in writing of the tool-house at the 
ihe . back-garden. It will not be very accurate, 
will be lively and just like enoueh for many 
to discern what is intended, whereby their 
iplacency will be aroused and flattered — which, 
[ uiow, is the object of the sparklins writer, and 
B his popularity. What ! you don t think you 
overcome the physical difficulties ? Why, there 
iioTS of twenty years' standing — standing on 
sads. I mean — who (apparently) suffer from it 
slightest inconvenience. At your ace, such an 
on is serious indeed. You must be bilious, 



Dick. In that case, the Bilious School will be just the 
thing for you. Its disciples aro moody, witheringly 
sarcastic, and suspicious to an extraordinary degree. 
According to these, the most frightful tra^sdies are 
in the course of being enacted in eveiy family, quite 
unknown to the Detective Police. We all wish each 
other dead, or, at the best, don't care about the matter 
either way. One's wife is in love with her music- 
master, azia over the piano, the pair interchange the 
most dangerous sentiments in Italian, a language we 
know nothing about; the money whic^ our dead 
father had especially laid aside for our instruction in 
that tongue, having been dissipated by his widow in 
the travelling expenses of her second honeymoon. 
There is also the Mutual Improvement School — all 
serious condescension and personal advice, with inti- 
mate relations established with the reader whether he 
will or no — which I will not insult you by recom- 
mending to your notice.' 

Thus, half in banter, half in earnest, did Mr Wil- 
liam Mickleham suggest this and that line of life to 
the impracticable youth, without any very great faith 
in his own recommendations. He conclud^ rightty, 
that this was a case where that oyster the world must 
be opened after the operator's own manner, and witii 
what instrument he would ; and for the present, Mr 
William Mickleham, like his Either and sister, had 
fallen back upon vague anticipation of sood resulting 
to the lad from the interview he neeos must have 
with his uncle at the funeral of Mrs Arbour. He was 
theroforo disappointed scarcely less than they when 
he learned how that interview had terminated. The 
L.600 which was forwarded to Dick by Mr Ingram 
Arbour on the following day that young gentleman 
could not be persuaded to make use of, and it was 
suffered to lie in his name at his uncle's bankers, 
where the old gentleman had placed it. 

Thero came, too, an affectionate letter from Maggie, 
assuring him of her wellbeing, and ropresenting herself 
on the same footing with her uncle as before, except that 
he would not permit Richard's name to be mentioned. 
* You may stay with me. Niece Margaret, so long as I 
live, as usual,' he had said, ' but when I die, you will 
find that my oath of disinheritance has been kept to 
the letter.' The girl, however, did not write that latter 
part of his determination to her brother. She was 
not only one who was careful for others rather than 
for herself, but of that still rarer sort — and rarest in 
the female sex perhaps — who aro not solicitous to be 
known as sufferers even by the being in whose canse 
they have sacrificed themselves. All she stipulated 
for was, that whatever course Dick decided upon, he 
would let her know it; and so concluded with her 

Erayerful wishes for his good. Thero was a postscript 
owever — ^f or Maggie was woman as well as angel — 
which alarmed thelad not a little. ' I do not come to 
you as I long to do, since it would only enrage my 
uncle ; you, I am suro, would be the very last person 
to desiro to expose others to his wrath, whose only 
crime is their tenderness for you.' 

Mr Mickleham had been in unusually low spirits 
that afternoon, so that Dick did not like to speak of 
any annoying subject in his presence ; but as soon as 
tiiat gentleman was enjoying his customary nap after 
dinner, and he found himself alone with Mr William, 
he determine to make a confidant of that gentleman, 
of whose sagacity he had formed a high opinion, and 
get that same uncomfortable postscript of Sister 
Magflne's explained. 

'Well,' observed his mentor, when he had perused 
the letter, ' I have never had ihe pleasuro of seeing 
Miss Margaret Arbour, and rather mistrust one young 
lady's ecstasies about the virtues of another ; out I 
now believe that all the good I have heard of her from 
my sister falls short of her real merits.' 

*She is the very greatest brick!' observed Dick 
enthuGoastically, and with his cheeks glowing as they 
always did wnen his theme was Maggie's virtues; 



IM 



CHAMBEBS*8 JOUKKAIl 



beaeUyjoa aee, nor bmto at the 
loB to wluch ahe has subjected htiialf on way a ce ouuL 
She even triea— Ood falen her!~ta make it afpev 
that her nnde has forgiven htr, ^baoffi I kncnr the 

old' 

mind,' 




ly omit the adjectives* 

* Wen, I know him a neat deal too well to think 
that pnaaible/ oontinned Dick ; 'it is ior that vor 
reason that I am so pnzaded ahoat this poafcMa^i, ^ 
William. She is not afraid on her own aooooni^ of 
coone ; who, then, are thoae others whumi Ae 
me not to eamoae to mj nnele*s anger?' 

'Pedu^ mr Ingram AHwnr is ahoot to 
thr mugtfftrst-p. *rh^ i^Tf*"**^ **^ ;»— P^w.^^*— ^a^ 
the peder, who called a cab, and thereby effected jovr 
dbehaige from custody. These rindictive ondes wiU 
nm throng the wfaoJe ffoum that Jack bmiU in revenge 
npon every portion o£ it that has chanced to stand 
between them and their rietim. I have known it to 
ooenr niyedf a handled times — upaa. the st^e. It 
is, without donbt, the magistrate of Poplar who is 
goinrtD catdi it.' 

«v«- •» «.». -:«» inqoind the boy anpealia^^, 

own knoiHfidgehas taken 



xon are sore, sv. 



that 



within 



place between 



i:ri 



there 



O Mr 



WiDiaml pray do not deceive me^ Has jroor 
£ithBr, my kind fioend, sniBaed any annqyanoe from 
ny nnde imon my aooonnt ?' 

'Wen, Dick, the fact is, I think there has been n 
sort of a TOW in Darkendim. Street to*day. 
brother, I fancy, 

harbouring rvflians in dpfiance of 
ol the iMad ol the fina; and, yon see, my 
ia a commercial man — in ahort^ he's been n 
deal move cot np aboot it than / shonld have 
bot he would be angiy enongh, mind yon, if he 
thoofl^ that I had whispered it to yoo. I daresay 
Mr Addphns told yonr sister iHiat plnsmnt thinoi lie 





aboot to aa^, as junior partner — ^ior he has 
taken into .the hrm, I heai^-4o the manacinc-d 




and ahe meana to put yon on your guard Jest yon 
should unwittinghr nnrt us. But, bless yonr heart* 
we are not so easfly hurt* Didi ; and you ahall not be 
tamed out of our house to please Iwangf o KitniJf 
tbeoffi^nng of the sun and moon, and fint-cousin to 
the planetaiy q^tem, and far less for any pi^dieaded 
young china-merdumt, such as Mr Adolphne Arbour.' 

DidL could not trust himself to speak, but gratefailly 
wringing the philosf^er^s hand, ruahed vp into hie 
own ehand)er, and locked the door. Hie conadenoe 
reproached him more bitteriy than it had ever done, 
save vrhen hie mother lay i-Mng — in that he had 
^n'on no thought to the posnnflity ol what he had 
just been told, but had been so ready to say aU was 
wdl, so long as he was en joyiiw p res en t ease, fie 
determined that that day should be the last on whidi 
he would run the chanoe of bringing down the light- 
ning <ji his uncle's wrath upon an^ human being, even 
thoracal he should have to beg his bread throng the 
^^'odo. He would not even risk a caU upon flood 
Mm Trimming for the loan she had offered. JBut 
^"^ by the by, was that letter which ahe had 
given him from hitr son, and which had lain unof>ened 
imta now in the coat-pocket iHiith» his haste had 
thrust it on leaving h» unde's house? He took it 
out with some -wtmie hope of hdp, and as he readit, 
h» dooded face began to brijghten, and his eves to 
dance as the eyes of the poor man will at the sight of 
a five-pound note, so long as the Bank of T^»glMMl 
staadeth. There was good news besides the note, too, 
upon that rather dia^ pieoe of paper, aud in that 
other than fashionable female hand. 

' Bleai her kind heart !' murmured Didk, V^»«g tl^e 
soiled and volgar sheet of p^ier, which wasnotirom 
Mr Jones at au, ezcrat the siyera c ri ut ion ; and then, 
as though the action nad remmded the young dog of 
who was in the back-garden, he ran down towaids 



tiiatarhom' wkitik Mr Wmiam MiAkhain— with thrt 
cfiiensive denreeiation of thipge pertaining to him- 
self, which m the afiectatian of other pJukiSQphen 
^wenld pBEBBt in calling a toothouae. A tod- 
wy other n bower of roaes by Bendbemere's 
or the plesanre-hoase in yMtadn^akWM^ 
it was Kensington — ^wfaere Alph the sacred river tea. 




her Bedm-woffki there iDcn 
smrnncr eveninn, and ihe pure stream of Dick's mafc 
love Aew ronna it fathmnlem? 



IK THE COAL-PIT CABIN. 

As a rule, we do not find cdliea so well infoRoedM 
^ctory operatives; but, on the other hand, they ate a 
quieter and nuee tractable set They hardly seesa to 
know fear; but still, the dbrknem in whidi tiiey 
labour, and the many daugeis surrounding them in 

abode, ^pear to imperoqitibly affiBCfc 
meter. Though from better applica- 
tion of medtanicd powei; and n more sdentifier^iiila* 
of the cnii ee Ua of air in our ledger oeal-miaB^ 
neonelea mamenms, they wiU, fnm 
the nature of the work, ahrnys be rather freqaent; 
and the collier, on dff f niling the shall to Idb diily 
tadc, if reflective, must be keenly alive to impending 
danger. In walkii^ throng the ooal-diBtrict about 
the time the men leave off won^ it ia ^mw«wg to 
watdi the diflEerent banda of men emerg in g from the 
pitr s mouth, having been qmekly wound tip by the 
powerful machjnnry from the regions of darifuflse 
into the welcome l^t of day. Many of them 
are as wild and froficaome as a pack of boys let 
out from schod; and as soon as they can free 
t hwnael f es from the chains, in wiiich they have been 
hanging like a large bundi of smutty grsqMS— the 
youngsters in the middle for greater safety — ^tiiey ran 
d^iering and shouting from the bank, w^lriig the 
diost of their liberty, and di^idlin^ by thehr boirterons 
mirth, any ielse notions of pity we may hsve been 
entertaining for their hard lot. In winter certainly, 
during their working-dayB, they never see the Bon, 
for those of them who labour the whole of the day, 
commence before it is lig^t^ and do not leave off until 
it is dark, being underground mnily from 6 jlm. to 
6 p.K. The Monday foUowii^ tiie reeluming Satur- 
day ii mostly a play-day with these men ; and, if 
wages are good, not unfrequenlJ|y the Tuesday 
also, thou^ on these occasions they wiU frequeotly 
assemble at the pit at the customaiy time, and then, 
from aome trivial excuse — eaaOj found by men un- 
willing to work — or at tfe diieot inetigrtion of one of 
the youngest hands, they will return heme again. 
It takes but little, on ordinary occasiona, to make 
a whole pit's company 'play.* Should iStub engine- 
man be but a few minutea behind time in the 
morning, and cause a alight dday, when Ihey are 
ready to go down the abaft, they wUl often lefoae to 
work ; and ahould any unforeoeen o c o n nence prevent 
the whole day's wi»k bdng done, they can seldom or 
never be persuaded to begin later in the day, and do 
three-quarters or half a day's woric instead. 

Thou^ individually the ooiDiers do not care nraok 
for a few wounds and bmiees, priding themadves 1900 
their harc^ endurance of suffering yet, if sue of their 
company ie sH^^btly hurt in any wajr, so aa to be 
compelled to leave his post, they will in genezd all 
desist from working, regardlem of oonseqoenoeSb We 
cannot dve them, as a dasB, great credit for bei^gJiKO- 
vident ; out there are many ezeeptiona; and in vintiitg 



J 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



155 



tiuir homes, we find that where there ie a shelf for a 
km books, a little store is also laid by, in the |nt>- 
forfajal MtMbrnff-foot or in the savings-bank, against 
fibe 'rainy dsy. At present, literary societies and 
Bsdianios' institiEtes have sisnally failed in reaching 
the hulk ef tltese men, thon^ free lectures, in popo- 
kos plsboes, and other means of social entertainment, 
ippear to be attended with good effects. 

For reUgMMis instmotion, agreat portion of them are 
indfllited to tiie Wesleyan connection, and — as coming 
neanr still down to their level — ^to the Primitive 
Methodisti, or 'Ranters,* as they are vulgarly called. 
In the prayer-meetingB of these oissenters, tliere is a 
dagns of energy and enthusiasm exhibited which 
in most cam aooords better with the colliers' ^iste 
than ihe move formal church-service. Another 
indw?fnw ii i k, that man^ of their own number take 
the lead st thaw rebmous meetings, and, with 
ezanplary leal and striking enthusiasm, strive, as 
far as aiur abililnr -peimits, to inculcate the doctrines 



of Ghristianity. Ijiere are many who will listen 
to the ezborftaticm of a ' butty collier,* whom nothing 
would mnoade to attend the ministration of a didy 
ordained olergyman. 

In traveUing about the nei^hbouriiood of the pits, 
I freqnontly ksve opportunities of talking to the 
odliBn About their work, or other topics, and have 
loond oooanowdly, under a swarthy cloak of flannel 
•od dirt^ a deoee of intelligence that much surprised 
■a. On a cold or rainy day, I have sometimes entered 
MB of their cabins by the pits, sure of finding shelter 
•od a good fire. If you have never been in one 
«( tboM places, yon may enter with me this evening, 
ind see and hcssr what n goipg on. A capacious fire- 
iktotf on which a b arrowlu l or two of coal would be 
tort, oenopiea nearly the whole of one side. There is 
no aart east-iron grate, but some long bars, or old 
pit laili, are stretched across a wide cavity in the 
wan, famiing an ample receptade for tiie fire. Rods 
«f iron, or sometimes strong rope-lines, are stretched 
aflrooB the cabin in front of the fireplace, for the men 
la dry their wet clothes upon, when they have been 
woikmg in places troubled with water. Various 
■iCTitwfB are^ aeen round the unplastered walls, 
huM^ lor puttinff dinner basins and cans in, or for 
Aowing awaj other odds and ends ; and in one of the 
oomeia fnriheat from the fire, a rude cupboard is 
genonHj found, where powder, safety-lamps, fuse 
and eartridgi bu;s for blasting rocks, candles and 
other stoni^ oan be put under lock and key. Round 
the waUs are fixed some short butts of trees, across 
wUoh an placed roueh slabs for the men to sit 
upon, bgr whom a large bottle of ale is often discussed, 
inam for aome extra work they have had what they 
oaQ a 'fetching* from the nearest public-house. 
Withoot miming into any excess, there is a sort of 
vntrammdlBd enjoyment about these free-and-easy 
■■^^"g" in the cabin that many of the pitmen have 
a atnmg relish for. The 'fetching' does not always 
ooanst only of beer; solids, such as bread and 
cheeac, and nam are often added ; and many a royal 
teiquat has passed off with less steiiing enjoyment 
tiiaa ia realised by these jolly colliers arouna their 
hiue fire, alter some heavy task is dona 

Bitting thus, some of uiem with eyes half closed, 
dmwing at a diort black pipe, they recount to each 
ottwr aoenes of danger tney have passed through, 
diffifwltias they have encountered, extraordinary 
aasna of coal they have helped to get, and other 
woodarfol experiences. The first tmtt speaks to- 
BM^ IB an old man, upwards of sixty, short and 
sialic of the true collier build. His legs are bowed 
a fitUe, bat firm under him yet; and you can 
see that the bridge of his Roman nose has been 
hroken, for a dark-blue line stretches across it, shewing 
iduve a lump of coal or other Uack substance has 
fiQen upon it. (Ton will frequently see colliers with 
■any ol these bine seams upon then* face, and other 



uncovered parts of their body, for wherever coal cuts 
deep into tne flesh, it brands a man for ever.) 

' It was better than forty years ago,* he began, ' in 
** Bony 's '* time, when I was a lad " drawing dans,' ' and 
doing work such as you youngsters know nothing 
about now-a-days. Tnere had been a bad harvest,! 
remember, and the wheat was so bad that the bread 
made of it would hardly hold together, it was so wet 
and soft ; and my old woman often scooped the middle 
of the loaf out with a spoon, and put it in cans for the 
children to eat with treaole, like pudding. I have 
seen surly tempered chaps throw a lump of their 
bread against the wall, where it would stick like 
mortar. Potatoes went up to a great price, and 
were hardly ever seen in our pit; and oiten there 
has been a scrambling fight to get a taste, if the 
young men saw a few in somebody*s dinner-basin. 
Well, there was a lot of us driving a "head ** through 
some faulty ground, with a bad roof, and I was 
drawing out m dans what little coal they met with 
while pushiuff through. I had to go about forty 
yards through the uneven way they were Tm^lring^ 
back into another road, where a second lad met me 
with an empfy dan-basket to go back with. At 
middle-day, tnis lad brought our dinners, and I took 
them to vie end of the head, but we had barely sat 
down to eat them, when we h^urd a loud rumbling 
noise near at hand. **Now we are in for it," sidd 
one of the men; *' the head we have been drivtog has 
fallen in, and we are afant up I " 

Greepins warily alono, they found it even as he had 
said; for a£out half thelenffthof 'the way, the roof had 
fallen in, completely blocking up the passage. The 
hardiest coUier looked pale, whioi, wiui the dirt, I 
remember, gave some of them a strange leaden look, as 
though they were numbed with cold and fright. We 
did not feel any more appetite for the dinner now, so 
it was carefully laid by, for, as one of them said, ** We 
shall want it bad enough by and by.** The men did 
not spend much time in useless grief ; but putting out 
all our candles except one, for we had not more than 
half-a-dozen in all, they besan resolutely to work to 
clear out the road agam. It went on slow and toil- 
some, for having no timber to prop it up, the roof 
was continuaUy giving way, now that it was once 
broken. Canole after candle burned away, and 
though the sweat ran off them, they could not make 
much progress in clearing the road. When half the 
candles were gone, they had not gained above a 
couple of yards in lensth ; still they kept manfully at 
it. Doing all thoroughly aroused to tne impending 
dancer of being left witii little air and no light. We 
coukL now hear men working at the other end of 
the head, and knocking, as oomers do when they wish 
to sifi;nal to one anouier, being too far away to be 
heard by shouting, and this revived our courage very 
much, for though we could tell that the head had 
fallen in for a considerate lengtih, we Imew every effort 
would be made to get at us. I carried the last candle 
to them, and had to wipe it carefully before giving 
it them, for, almost unlmowingly, tears had been 
dropping on it as I hurried along. I told the man I 
gave it to, that it was tiie only one left; he said 
nothing, but sticking it in a mt of clay against a 
large rock, worked on in silence with more vigour 
thfui before. I dragged away wiidi all my strengui at 
the rocks they got out, to clear their way alittle, 
stealing now and then a furtive glanoe at the small 
candle fast melting away. When it was almost 
burned down, one of them proposed that we had 
better see after our dinners, and put them where we 
could conveniently find them in the dark. We did 
so, and then tried to cut up one of tiie hack helves into 
splinters, to give light a uttle longer; but it was old 
and tough, and would not, after all, give any light to 
work by. Bits of tobacco-paper and other scraps 
made a spill or two, to eke out a flame for a few 
minutes, wkd then we were left in total dsrVngsi. 



* Judgiiu; by the time the candles would List, we had 
now beSoSlocked up for siz or eight hours, and I, for 
one, began to want something to eat badly, though 
ashamed to say so to the rest. Now we were in the 
dark, however, the oldest man proposed we should 
sit down and eat a small portion of our dinners, and 
think over what we could do for the best Oh, how 
good the soft bread was now! I wondered how I 
could ever have disliked it before, and could hardly 
deny myself ^m eating it alL But as I heard the 
men whispering to each other, that it may be a day 
and a night TOfore we could be got out, I laid a 
portion by for another little meal, nor did I quite 
empty my can of beer. Trying to work again in the 
da&, one of the three men ^ot hurt in the back by a 
rock falling upon him, so wat we were compelled to 
give over, lest some of us should get killed. We Knocked 
occasionally, for them to hear and answer us, but the 
sounds did not seem to come much nearer. How slow 
the time passed away ! Our little store of food, though 
we divided it into small portions, was soon gone, 
and now thirst began to be felt more than hunger. 
After we had been wut up about twenty-four hours, as 
near as we could tell, the air began to feel very dose and 
oppressive, and it made the men feel so weak, that they 
could not have worked even if we had had candles. 
One of the colliers had been used to attend prayer- 
meetings, and getting us all to kneel down together, 
he prayed earnestly, and encouraged us all to do the 
same. I cannot remember much longer myself, for 
they told me I had been insensible for some time 
before the road was open ; but at length the way was 
cleared, and we were carried out all out lifeless. It 
had taken more than for^-ei^t hours to get to us, 
for the rock fell in so contmuaiUy that timber had to 
be set all along to support the roof over the nantow 
way;^ 

When the gray-headed old collier had finished, he 
refilled his pipe, and wanted to know if ' nobody else 
had got nothing to say.* There was a lusty little 
fellow in one comer wnom they called ' Jerry,' who 
rave us an account of how one day^ he was pulled up 
the pit without his leave. It appears he was what 
they call a 'hooker-on,' or one that connected the 
carriages of coal to the pit-chain, when ready for 
being wound up the shaft, and unhooked those which 
came down empty ; and, if the pit's company were all 
at work, was continually kept dose to the bottom of 
the shaft It appears that one day as he was con- 
necting a carriage of coal to the main chain, the 
engine started rather sooner thim he expected ; and 
iuirt as he was slipping the hook into the large link, 
his thumb got fastened, by the snatch of the engine, 
between the two, and before he was well aware of it, 
he found himself a good many yards up the diaft 
They pause sli^tly a short distance up the shi^ to 
steady the weight; but he said he was unable to 
shout, and consequently was pulled up in that manner 
to the top of the shaft, his hand and arm completely 
numbed by the pain and tension. 

Practical jokes occur, it seems, even in coal-mines ; 
and one that had nearly proved fatal to the parties 
engaged was now rdated. In some pits, otherwise well 
ventilated, small quantities of carburetted hydrogen 
^ collect in nooks and crevices of the roof, espedidly 
m comers partly out of the current of air which runs 
through the various workings. To frighten a novice, a 
reckless fellow will put a naked can(ue up into one of 
these places, causing a miniature explosion of fire- 
damp, rust sufficient to terrify any inexperienced 
person, but what an old hand would consider a mere 
Dagatella It appears a stranger had been down one 
of the pits, who seemed very forward with his remarks, 
and altogether sceptical as to danger; indeed, the man 
said * he gave himself important airs, and knew all 
about everything a great deal better than us poor 
colliers.' So when they came to a part of the pit by an 
old road, that had not been used for some time, a sly 



rogue among them directed this savant's attention to 
some tarry matter oozing out from the coal in the 
roof, dose to the air-door leading into the old road. 
Adjusting his spectades, the opimonated wiseacre put 
up his candle to the place, to note well the pheno- 
menon, saving at the same time that it was nothinc 
new to htm; but he had scarcdy uttered this sel^ 
conceited remark, when the gas caught fire from his 
candle, which he had been poking all about, and a 
scorchmg flame passed over and almost blinded them. 
They inirtantly lell down flat, as is usually the safest 

Slan in cases of fire, and he, imitating their example, 
id the' same. It was well they did so, for almost in ^ 
an instant a loud explosion fairly shook the ground, I 
blowing the air-door, close to them, into fragments ! 
over their heads. The flame, they said, must have 
passed through a crevice dose to the door, and i^ted 
a large quantity of inflammable gas in the old disused 
road. Fortunatdy, they escap^ without any very 
serious injury, though the learned theorist's practical 
experience was of a painful character, such as he would 
not wish repeated, for his eyebrows and whiskers were 
singed off, and his dothes bore sure testimony that 

* the smell of the fire had passed over then^' 

The introduction of flat chains into the collieries, 
though combated against by the men at first, as most 
new things are, has been uie means of saving much 
loss of life. It was not a very uncommon thing, before, 
to hear of a hempen rope breaking, and dropping a 
whole band-full oi men. Such an accident seldom or 
never occurs where ^ood three-link chains are used, 
for as one of the chains is able to bear more than is 
generally trusted to all three, and as th^ are all 
joined ust together at every alternate link by a 
wooden * key,' driven tightly in, and hdd there by 
stout little nails called stubbs, it is possible that aU 
three chains may be broken in separate places, and the 
weight still be sustained, by the intervention of many 
keys between the broken parts. An old charter- 
master — ^who contracts for raisixijg the coal at so much 
per ton — ^told us how terribly finiditened he had been 
once by two links breaking toge&er. He was coming 
up the pit on the top of a load^ coal * skip,' or basket, 
and when near the top he heard something snap, and 
looking up saw that one of the links had broken, and 
of the two remaining links, one appeared rather slacL 
By and by, he comd plainly see that the one link 
wnich appeared to bear all the weight, was parting in 
two. It was an old engine, which wound but slowly, 
and the short time taken in being pulled up the last 
few yards seemed, he said, L'ke an age. As the link 
parted and stretched a little, of course the other chain 
tightened up, and had come to its bearing before 
a^ual severance had taken place. It was impossible, 
he said, to describe the intensity of his feelings for . 
the few remaining seconds as his eyes glared at the I 
single whole Unk left, on which his life depended. He 
wasn't a prajring man then, he said, but his heart 
offered up an earnest ejaculatory petition, almost 
without his knowing it, and his companions stared 
with astonishment as he fell on his luiees upon the 

* tacking,' or platform covering the top of the pit, and 
returned hearty thanks for nis safe deliverance as 
soon as he was safdy landed and out of periL 

Colliers are rather inclined to be superstitious, per- 
haps owing to their work being so frequently done in 
the dark, or with such a light as only makes darkness 
visible. They are genenSly too willing to believe 
in a special Frovidence averting danger and death. 
Where there are so many acddents, instances of what 
appear to be miraculous escapes are not uncommon. 
Several cases have occurred of persons falling down 
shafts some forty or fifty yards deep, and sustainix^ 
no serious injury; and tnough science may assert that 
the parachutical inflation of the man's stiff flannd 
shirt, or the woman's voluminous skirts, broke their fall, 
the collier finds it easier and pleasanter to believe that 
Providence interfered in a direct manner. It is an 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



157 



dd Mwrtion of the pitmen, that the roadB fall in more 
when an ia quiet, at night, than during the daytime, 
when men and horses are continually employed in 
them; and they often have to clear away in the 
morning large masses of rock which could not have 
bXLtXL duxing working-hours without causing loss of 
fifeu 

The aezagenarian here recounted some of the 
narrow eseapes he had undergone, of which I can only 
remember one or twa He had finished earlier than 
usual one day, and was coming up the shaft in com- 
pany with another man clanoestmely, as employers 
object to one or two coming up by themselves^ and 
expect them to wait until the customary number 
(e^rht or nine) are all ready together. He was not sure 
whether tihey ahouted to the banksman or not when 
near the top, for him to sigpal to the engineman l^t 
men were oonmiff up; but either accidentally or other- 
wise, he pnUed uem about a yard too high, and they 
came in oontact with the pulley, just as the tacking 
was beix^ polled orer the pit. His companion f efi 
oat, and aroiiped on the very edge of the tacking over- 
hanging the pit, e8cai)ing wonderfully with only a 
few bmisei, while he himself dung to the rim of the 
policy, against which he was pulled, and was gently 
lowered again unhurt 

Another time he was ascending the pit with eight 
or nine more colliers after their usual day's work, 
lliey were singing away on coming towards the pit- 
mooth, as they often do ; the engineman pulled them 
vp exactly to the right place ; the banksman leisurely 
rashed the tacking over the pit, when instantly the 
krge hook they were hanging oy snapped in two, and 
dropped tiiem all on to the tacking, just ready to 
ieoel¥e them. Had the hook broken a second or so 
before, they would all have been precipitated to the 
bottom of the shaft, some six hundred feet, and con- 
sequently have been dashed to pieces. The old man 
nid, that he frequently thought of that time when 
death was so near; and often when he and his family 
had been but badly off, when waces were low and 
work scarce, he gratefully tnisted that the same 
watehfol IJ^rovidence would help them through their 
diiBeoltieB. 

The big ^n having burned low, and their several 
p^es gone out, the story-tellers, after placing a laree 
pieoe of eoal — ^which a London needlewoman would 
thuk a liberal week's allowance — on the fire, to keep 
it in tUl next morning, all wend their way homewaitL 

Tho^^gh soiround^ by many dangers, a cdlier, 
onleas from compulsion, seldom leaves the pit 
for other employment. The young strong men, 
idisn working by measure, can often do their dajr's 
WQsk bgr dinner-time, or soon after, which leaves 
a Ungs portion of the day at their own disposal 
When wages are good, of course play-days are 
Bomeroas, and in many other employments these 
kdidays never occur; and a collier lad is dearly 
land of a loo&e end, as he terms it — an expression 
dflriyed from, their sometimes having the measure tiiey 
are making/iui at one end, in the solid stratum, and 
loots at the other, from a head having been driven 
in ft prerionsly. Besides the Field Club, to provide 
soinst ooUieiy accidents, they often join another 
eSah or provident society, so that, in case of illness or 
aorident, they may be well provided for support and 
medical attendance. The collieries being now under 
tibs immediate inspection of government, no serious 
aceidsBt can occur without a thorough investigation 
takipg place; and if adequate protection is not given 
to men's lives by efficient macninery and good venti- 
lation, oompnlsory measures are resorted to, by the 
imposition of fines upon the proprietors. The master 
in a colHery often retains that title only by courtesy, 
lor when the men are master of their position, they 
do not scrapie to shew their independence, and wiU 
work or play just as they please, without letting the 
interest of their employer interfere much in their 



proceedings. With healthy homes to live in, a moderate 
education given to them, and recreation free from 
vicious contamination placed within their reach, these 
hardy fellows would all become worthy and well- 
behaved members of society. 



SNOW-BOUND ON THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 

* Therb goes the bell of the Tron Church,' cried I ; 
'the mail is in at last. Come along, sir; there is no 
time to lose, for the return-coach is to start in an 
hour.* 

Thus I spoke on a December morning some thirty 
years ago, to my good uncle (now with the saints, I 
trust), at the Thistle Inn, in Glasgow, where we two 
Southerners had been delayed already nearly a week 
by the incessant snow. No mail from the south had 
arrived throughout that period, and the reports that 
poured in from all sides of the state of the roads were 
evil indeed. Never had such a winter been known 
within the memory of even the men of the wintry 
north; never had the drifts lain so deeply upon 
the king's highway before. Along the roads of lesser 
traffic, not only cattle but men were * smoored ' con- 
tinually; and close outside the city, the snow had 
drawn its icy shroud over more than one victim. 
Nothing was thought of, or at least talked of, except 
the snow, which had completely cut off aU commerce 
depending upon correspondence or communication 
with north or south, and even within the town, 
had made the streets impassable for vehicles ; while 
in the warehouses it had turned day into night by 
heaping itself against the windows and upon the 
skylights, so that scarce a ray from the dull blood- 
red Sim could struggle through them. 

Few whose presence at any distant place could be 
dispensed with, dreamed of hazarding a journey just 
then, even snug inside the coaches, with six strong 
horses to draw them ; and many of those who made the 
trial, had to return again, having been dug out during 
their first or second stage. The government rule was 
this, that those in charge of the mails should convey 
them upon wheels as far as possible, and then upon 
horseback until they stuck fast, when they were at 
liberty to give it up, and go back again to tiie nearest 
post-house — ^if they could. This was not a pleasant 
arrangement for the officials, but it was infinitely 
worse for the passengers who might patronise the 
coach ; and even I myself, at that time as plucky a 
lad of twenty as Manchester could boast of, did not 
look forward to my journey homewards without some 
nusgivings. Nevertheless, I was* due 'at Cottonopolis; 
and young though I was, was not the man to let diffi- 
culties stand between me and business until I had 
myself proved them to be insurmountable. 

As to my unde, the case with him was different, and 
when I reiterated: *Come along, sir; the south nuul 
starts in an hour,' he only said : * Does it, Tom ?' and 
drew his chair in closer to the parlour fire. At his time 
of life, he went on to observe calmly, the external air, 
when impregnated with snow-fiakes, was hurtful to the 
constitution ; whereas to youth, upon the contrary, it 
was one of the finest tonics possible. I might have 
his inside place — his room— and welcome, but not his 
company. He had some further business to transact 
in Glasgow; he was expecting advices from the 
north; he must really consult a medical man about 
a pulmonary symptom that he had lately detected in 
his method of breathing; and, in short, when the 




moment came for starting, my imole — ^who had made 
eztraordinarily li^t of snow-driftB np to tiiat time 
— would stop where he was, and refused to cross ihe 
comfortable threshold of the Thistle upon any account. 
I therefore handed to him all the money of which I 
was in charge, reserving (very luckily, as it afterwards 
turned out) some five-and-twenty pounds, to pay for 
incidental expenses; and took my place, well clad, 
upon the outside of the mail-coach Mover for Man- 
chester — or any intennediate place beyond which we 
might not be able to get. The coach was full, both 
inside and out — ^there being many an applicant for my 
uncle's vacant seat, in consequence of the long inter- 
ruption of the communication — and this, of course, 
gave MB a less chance of pulling through. 

' We shall soon have yon all back again,' grinned 
the hostler, as he twitched the doth off the horses' 
backs. 

'Not if I can help it,' answered the coachman 
cheerily ; but he turned round to me, who happened 
to be immediately behind him, and whispered, with a 
shake of the head : ' I am afraid that Jem will be 

Keyertheless, aU that started upon that December 
moming had their sufficient reasons for doing so, and 
folly intended to persevere if they could. A young 
fellow, of about my own age, whom I will call True- 
Bian, bound for London upon some important bank- 
tmsiness, sat next to me, and we soon struck up an 
acquaintance. On my other side was a good-looking 
servant-gill, belonging to an Irish captain and his 
lady, inside, and I gave her a part of my rug — ^not in 
those days called a railway-rug — and a wing of my 
ample cloak, for she was not properly equipped for 
such an expedition. « 

The snow was not then actually foiling from above, 
but a north-east wind was driving the frosen particles 
against us from the bank of snow upon our left, and 
iliey stung our cheeks as though with little whips. 
Almost continually we travelled on as through a rail- 
way cutting, with a large white wall upon either side, 
while underneath, the snow lay two or three feet deep, 
throng -w^ch, if we could, we eantered — the postilion, 
who rode on one of the leading horses, the extra pair, 
having by no means a sinecure office. If we stopped 
for ever so short a space, the driving snow began to 
accumulate upon ihe coach, so as to hide the eastern 
side of it in a few seconds ; and thus with whipping 
and shouting, and now and then with the guiuxl's 
riionlder to the hind wheel, we managed to aocom- 
I^ish a few stages, untQ we arrived at a post-house, 
which I will call Maidsham Bars. There were already 
standing in the courtyard a couple of coaches, whose 
departure southward from Glasgow I had mjn^lf 
witnessed several days ago ; and their detention shewed 
us that the obstacles we had hitherto met with were 
but in s ign i fi cant in comparison with those which were 
to come. 

The landl(»d — one Donald 0ampbell-4iad his 
house far fullor than he wished of present company, 
who chancing to be for the most part of a poorer sort 
than we new-comers, had spent all their ready money, 
and were already living on credit. He was therefore 
desirous that these should be sent on by our coadi, 
while we remained, who were at the oommenoement 
of our journey, and must needs therefore have our 
purses pretty fulL With much eloquence, he urged 
tiie claim of these poor dttmoM to be conveyed by 



the Rover, assuring them; on the one hand, that it was 
but their rightfol due, and privately infonning us, 
on the other, that they would be perfectly certain to 
stick on the moor whidi lay between his house and the 
next, while we should be snugly provided for at Maid- 
sham Bars. As to taking such moneyless folks again 
into hie quarters, he would see them starve on their 
seats first, as he did not scruple to tell me, as he over- 
heard me jii^^ing mv guineas. I infonned him, in 
return for this oonfidenoe, that he was just the sort 
of innkeeper whom I should like to see strung up to 
his own sicn ; and from that moment I saw there was 
to be war Between us, and no compromise. While at 
dinner at this place — where I wonder we did not get 
' hooussed,' so as to be sent to sleep while the Rw)er 
started — ^the landlord entered, and once mora stated his 
cool proposition for the transference of passengers. He 
aasertedXand indeed he had every reason to believe 
it — that no coach could possibly make its way through 
the fourteen miles of moor in its prasent state, and 
announced his solemn intention of admitting none of 
the present company within his doors wm) should 
perast in departing; and be forced to turn back 
again. 

On this, a certain Northern divine of zeputationy 
who was an inside passenger, insisted upon the posi- 
tive neoessity of gomg on, in his own case. He was 
engaged to preadi in liveiTool upon the next Sab- 
bath, and there would be a congregation hungering 
for his presence, with no other nunister competent 
to fill his j^ace. Had it been a matter of temporal 
concern, added the reverend gentieman, he would 
have siven in to circumstances ; but, as it was, Mr 
Donald Campbell must perceive tiiat the call waa 
imperative. 

* Then yon will just dee on i^ mmr, doctor,' 
replied the innkeeper grimly ; ' and how will the 
consregation be any the better for that, in respect 
of t£eir sermon ?' 

At this the good doctor looked out of the window 
upon the vast expanse of sheeted moor that stretched 
away on all sides to the horizon, and murmnring 
soniethin^ about submission to inexorable decrees^ 
ordered his luggage up to a bedroom. 

A panic, I perceiveo, was spreading among our little 
party, so, having obtained Tmeman's pronuse to 
stand by me, I got upon my legs, and aimounced 
my int^tion of proceeding, as well as the private 
opinion I entertamed of the landlord'a veracity. A 
school-boy of fifteen or so, upon his way home for the 
Christmas vacation, made a third in our party of 
Progress; while tiie Irish captain announced coolly 
that, for his part, he had taken his place for London, 
and not for Maidsham Ban. In a few minutes, we 
were all in our places again, with the exoeption of the 
reverend doctor, whose place was occujned by one of 
the previous ditenua ; but it was nearly a quarter of an 
hour — a long delay for those old punctual ooachinff- 
daya — ^before we got fairly started. The landlord, 
almost beside himself with fury, swore that we should 
not go, and even insisted upon two of his sen aetting 
up to drag me, the rineleader, from off the ooatm-roof ; 
whereupon myself and Trueman announced, that we 
would CMist down the first that touched us headlong, in 
the expectation of breaking lus neck — a thing^Hiich we 
would most certainly have done. My foUow-paaien- 
gen, generally; takinff my part too, and resenting 
uus iminlt to one of weir body, tiie attempt was not 
made ; but Mr Donald Campbell saddled his bay- 
mare, protesting, with fearful oaths, that he would 
accompany us tiU the coach stuck fast, and then otder 
back tne horses, which were his own propoty , leaving 
us to shift as we could. Never did 1 see man wear a 
mors malignant face than did that same innkeeper, 
riding now behind and now alongside of ua, as we 
boce through the snow upon that desolate moor, like 
a mighty mgeo: upon whe^ At every enforced halt 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



169 



— and there were many — ^he cried out in a tone of 
fiendish triumph : * Take my horses out ! * and the 
sullen scowl would settle again upon his brows, as, 
with whipping, and spurring, and shouting, we man- 
aged to urge the poor creatures once more upon their 
way. At lenrtii, about midway between Maidsham 
Bars and the Duke of Cumberland's Head, and seven 
miles from each, wc fairly came to a stand-stilL It 
was late in the afternoon, and growing dusk, and the 
north-easter was roaring at us with greater fury than 
ever. The prospect of remaining in such a place on 
the top of a horseless coach, and in such cireum- 
stances, was by no means cheerful 

' Take my horses out ! ' roared once more the 
remorseless innkeeper; and this time the postilion, 
who saw that further progress was impossible, set 
about undoing the traces. 

Then the coachman turned round to me, and whis- 
pered gravely: 'Now, look you, young sir; we arc 
this man's servants, so far as his horses are conoemed, 
and must do his bidding ; but if I were you, or any 
other passenger, I woidd not submit to be left here to 
die — as die every one of you will, before morning, as 
sure as my name is Jack Harrison.' 

I was down — up to my middle in the snow — and 
at the door of the coach in half a second. * Captain,' 
cried I, as I threw it open, * this blackguard innkeeper 
is taking the horses out, and will leave us to perish.' 

It was a full minute, and a very agonising one to 
me, before I could waken the Irishman and put him 
in possession of the state of the case ; but directly he 
did understand it, he leaped out, and waded to the 
front where the postilion was already hitching up 
the traces of the released animals. * Stop ! ' roared the 
captain, ' or, by the holy poker, you will never ride 
another stage in this world ! If you mane to obey a 
murtherer, you shall take your choice between a 
couple of them — ^your master and me. I will put a 
bullet from this pistol (touching his breast-pocket) 
through your skull, if yon don't just set the hones to 
the coach this moment, as they were, before.' 

' They are my horses,' roared the innkeeper ; ' and 
they shall be taJcen out.' 

' At the Duke of Cumberland's Head, by all manes,' 
returned the Irishman coolly ; ' but not in the middle 
of Maidsham Moor, I do assure you. You will just 
let us have the loan of them for a few more hours ; 
and begorra, if you lay a finger on one of them, they 
will be yours no longer, for you will be a dead man, 
and they will belong to your executors.' 

Whetiier the captoin had a pistol in his pocket or 
not, I do not know ; but I do Know that Mr Donald 
Campbell pnidently remained on his bay-mare, and 
did not oppose himself from that moment to our 
renewed enaeavours to proceed. 

Eveiy male, except the driver, was ordered down 
from the coach, and the females all placed inside; 
and each man put his hand to a wheel, and so the 
thus lightened vehicle was enabled to make a start, 
which was of course a great matter. When wc were 
not pushing — though the snow was always a1)ovc our 
waists, ana sometimes up to our necks — it was for- 
bidden to take hold, and I well remember the excep- 
tion that was mode, and why it was made. All of a 
sudden, a piercing cry rang through the dusky air 
from the poor school-boy, wnose s^ngth had failed 
him, and who having fallen 1>ehind but a few paces, 
imagined, and with a good deal of reason, that he was 
about to be left to perish. If we had nf )t heard that cry, 
indeed it would have so happened, for in the darkness 
and confusion we had not missed him. Some of us of 
oourse went back for him ; and as a great favour, and 
because there was no help for it, the exhausted boy 
was permitted to hold on to the back-seat. The man 
on the bay-nmre still followed us — for although he 
knew his designs were discomfited, he did not dare go 
back alone — and hung about our rear, like a vultc^ 
upon the retreat of a drooping anny. And so, at last, 



about midnight, and after the most exhausting exer- 
tions, we came in sight of tiie Duke of Cumberland's 
Head. 

To find an Inn, as we had got to learn by this 
time, was, however, by no means to find a welcome ; 
the moon, which had now shone down upon us for 
some hours, revealed no less than Jhe North and 
South coaches, the outsides and insides of which 
were all involuntaiy lodgers at the po0ting-hou8& 
To our repeated ancl noisy summons at the door, we 
for a long time obtained no reply ; but at length an 
upper window was raised, and a portly but determined- 
looxin^ female held parley with us — the besieged 
with the besiegers. 

* I have more than thirty folk in my house already/ 
quoth the dame, *and it is useless your attempting 
to get in. You must just go on to the Blowing 
Stone, a mile and a half only along the muir.' 

' Wc have famales with us, my good lady,' appealed 
the Irish captain; 'tinder and dalicat famales, and 
they are well-nigh frozen to death.' 

' It may be ye have, and it may be ye have not,' 
returned the landlady ; ' but if they 're inside passen- 
gers, they canna be frozen ; at all events, a mile and 
a half further canna mak them much waur.' 

* And we 'vo a poor young fellow here,' continued 
the captain, 'a mere child, who has fainted twice 
already (drop on your knees, you little blaiguard, and 
pretend to he a-dying, can't you 1), and sure it ii not 
your purty self who will put in peril the life of an 
mfanV 

' Nay, if the poor child be afling, I will even come 
down and open the door,' cried the good woman ; ' but 
I give you fair warning, there 's neiuier bit nor sup for 
the rest of you, or even the comer of a bed.' 

Ingress having been thus obtained, and a glimpse of 
the kitohen fire, it would have taken a talkrwoman 
than Widow Robertson, and, indeed, a very consiciv- 
able male force, to have turned me out of the Duke of 
Cumberland's Head, for one. In vain she threatened 
and entreated ; the horses were put in the stable, and 
all our company established themselves in front of 
the blazing hearth. 

' Hark ! ^ exclaimed the widow, upon a sudden, in the 
midst of a most solemn declaration that all her pro- 
visions were consumed, and her cellar empty — *1here 's 
a coach-horn tooting, and another mail coining up 
from the South. You shall eat and drink of the best, 
if you '11 keep them out, laddies ; as you should not 
have got in yoursels, but that all my ain company is 
fou, and will not put forth a finger to help a poor 
lone woman.' In a few moments, the door was oar- 
ricaded, and we had armed ourselves with broom- 
handles, and whatever else we could lay hold of, 
including the long iron spit, which fell to my own 
share. 

The same sort of interview was held with the new- 
comers as had passed between Dame Robertson and 
us, and they were earnestly requested to retrace their 
steps a nulc and a half to the Blowing Stone. TUs 
they not only positively refused to do, but wn«gitii«g 
the fortress to be undefended, at once proceecfed to 
assault it by force of arms. Then it was that we 
volunteers revealed our strength by a united shoot; 
and I myself, from the upper window, did so harass, 
with my tremendous weapon, the foe attempting to 
beat in the door, that they at length desisted, and 
turned their horsca" heads, with many curses, south- 
ward. To illustrate how selfish human nature becomes 
in cases where there is a chance of provisions getting 
scarce, I may mention that my friend Trueman recog- 
nised a near relative among the invaders, without his 
determination to resist them softening in the least. 
After this, we had a ^orious supper upon moor-game, 
and retired —no, lay down to sleep, jaur in a oed — 
with the exception of Mr Donald CampbelL In the 
beginning of our repast, it was suddenly observed 
that that would-be murderer had ventured to seat 



lao 



CHAHBBBS'S JOURNAL. 



himself at tabic, biit the ahuut of execratJon that 
bunt forth from all of ub, oa from a aingte throat, 
drove Lim fr»iD the board, nnd even forixil him to 
tak« up hii loiigiug for the oigbt in one of the itAblea. 
The life we Iwl at that snowed-up inn, where nc oil 
rcmaiD«l for more than a week, waa most eitnuinlt- 
nai7. The ploue was used as a Ghixitiag-lnx by aome 
nobleman, and be kept a [irirato stock uf the choicest 
port-wine there. When we bad exhausted the land- 
lady's own slender ocUar, we broke in upon this, and 
lived entirely ujHin iHirt-wine, spirits, and moor-game. 
Tbe Bpirits. ID huge atonu bottles, were removed every 
night at eleven o'elnck, and placed for Bccurity — when 
tbe guests were supposed to have had as much as was 
good Cor them — under Mrs Robertson's bed ; and tbe 



1y slaughtered as poultry. It 
apidly demondised we got — 



olraost 

was astonishing liow rapidly 
being, as we were, for tbe moit part, busi 
fessional men — under these unwoDl«d ciroumstoni 
just as Defoe tells us the Londonen became in the 
plwue-time. We pUyod cards and drank all day, 
and in tbe front of Uie bouse we cleared the snow 
away Ui form a ' pit,' and bending out to the villages 
round, procured a number uf game-cocks, to fl^t 
in that arena. The period which 1 spent after Uiis 
fashion stands out In my memory as distinct and 
strange as though it were a nightmare, and not a 
portion of my own real life ; and yet, so far from 
exaggerating the facta, I have even softened them, in 
order not to offend a feneration uf somewhat more 
delicate stomach than the last 

My money was nearly all gone, when we once more 
started southward ; and I brought the coachman and 
guard, whom I had made my friends, on no account 
to leave me, but if we were snowed up again, to take 
me on with them, even on horseback. We were 
snowed up again at tlie poating-bouae upon Shap 
Fells. On the next morning. I was awakened early by 
a trampling under my windows, and lo and behold ! 
there were the faithleaa officiala mounted on two of 
the coacb-horaea, and a kind of aumpter-harae behind, 
bulen with the mails, about, if possible, to force a 
paaaage over the hill. I shouted to them, and they 
waittS for me while I got on my things, excusing 
themselves for their breiudi of promise on account m 
the peril of the undertaking, which they tfaenuelves 
were bound to attempt, although without much hope 
of success. However, they tout the mails, and gave 
me the siunpter-horse, which waa caparisoned with 
U milk-saddle — for Shap Fella is a dairy district — 
without stirrups, but with a great number of little 
hooka : and so, through the aleet, and in teeth of the 
never wcory wind, we cantered forth. The animal 
bons me bravely, though plunging up to the saddle* 
girths in the anow at every stride. I remember my 
chief miaery was the fear of being suffocated, the wind 
blowing back my cloak, and pressing the fastening of 
it against my throat until I waa bhick in the face, 
while my handa were so numb with cold, that I could 
do nothing to help myself. We did. nevorthelesa, 
contrive to get over the hill — ' You would never have 
guessed,' aaid the guard, ' that your horoe was stone- 
blind, young gentleman ; ' but bo it was — and we found 
the coach for the north snowed up at tbe ion on Uiat 
side. So we took her on at once, exchanging mails, 
to Kendal, where some friends of mine were living. 
1 took nothing but a great draught of ale, and was 
placed inside, just as I was, in my wet things ; and I 
remember, when we arrived at the end of the stage, 
that the people of the inn im3|i;ined the coach to l>e 
on fire, on account of the volumes of steam that come 
forth from the windows. But this was merely tbe 
evaporation from your himihlc servont, who was 
lifted out, and put into a comfortable bed by bimielf, 
for the lirat time since he hod left Ulosgow. 

J bare never felt in the least the worae for it, 



probaUe t 



A metropolilao jounialiat, advertini! to Louis fJipoleon'a 
speech to his icftiBlatiire, on tbe 4th of Fi^bmaij. in 
which his imperial majesty talked of his recent doin;]! u 
designed for the' ioleraats of France,' and crowned by ' the 
ineiorablB logic of facts,' proceeds to arite as toUoBs; 
"The emperor may yet diaooTer, when it is too Isle la 
retrace his steps, that he has OTertooked or deipiKd 
higher interests than those of which be is the worebipiwr, 
and that there is an "ineMiahle logic of facts" 1« whick 
he has paid no r^nrd. We •rish he would turn liis mieil 
to the study of history. Be would there discorer IhU 
justice, and truth, and bononr sre the ireigbtieat inttnsti 
of the nationa of the earth ; and that avarice, nrenp, 
and ambition dig the gnivea and weave tbe shioudt ol 
peoples otbetwise prosperous aad strong. National eiiit- 
ence oujrht not to be preferred to honour. Kal' 
coasaienoe is nobler than material wealth. GI017 is 
when justice is violated, or goodness peneciited. or 
wrong inflicted. Athens sunk into a Tillage, Carthige 
buried in the sands, Babylon represented by a few m " 
bricks, Bgypt perpetuated in its gigantic pjrai 
tomhs, Venice with its palatial atepa covered by the aca- 
weeds— Naples, and Home, and Vienna, all spak 
"inexorable fact," that the vital element of nst 
greatnen is moral, not materia) ; and that every stteiupt 
to revenc this great law has recoiled on tbe eipsHmcs. 
talist in min and remorse. The mark of deeideDce u 
visible where ouiny trumpets once soanded forth pro- 
phecie* of immortality. Names that shook tbe world ii« 
forgotten. Genoa was once a powerful and wesltLy 
republic ; it ia now a memory, and little more. The fn« 
citiEs of Flanders ore cities of tbe dead. The philut 
of the Macedonian, the legions of Rome, the guudi of 
Napoleon, did nothing to perpetuate, and much tconr- 
tom the empires to which they belonged. The foaivU- 
tions of empires arc composed of better and more Luli"! 
msterisls. Prosperity and progress are developed onder 
the shadow of a throne on which other and sablimo' 
iDteieala are thought ol It would be well did our 
imperial ally sec these " interests of France," and vxfi 
" this iDCiorable logic of facts.'" 

As we consider these sentencn worthy to be wn 
in letters of gold, or incised in marble, and pat up in Ibv 
most public places of the world, it would be unjust to 
conceal that they are from the weekly paper, eatitlcd 
?'Ae London Revieir. 



SONNET. 

'Tis neet to wander in the early year. 

When March has entered with hit y'a*SK bold. 

When bleat of eariy tamb from diitant fetd. 

And voice of missel- thrush, tell Spring is near; 

When elder'buds ia high-banked lanes appear. 

And in tbe wood tbe auowdrops white unfold. 

And through tbe cottage-garden's opening mould 

The crocDi flsmea opoa dead winter's bier. 

sweet it is to God the violet fur 

And early primrose in the moa^ lane. 

Where freaheniag ivy-wreaths and nlehoof Iwine 

Around tlie tlarr; flowers of celandine, 

While in the rear of dark retiring raia 

The rainbow mells into tbe sonny air, C 



Printed and Published by W. i R CHAHBCae, VI Pater- 
noatcr Row, LnnlxiN. and 3:19 Sigh Street, Edinburgh. 
Also sold by WiLLiiu RonKKTSON. 33 Upper Saekville 



S tit net anb ^ris. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



6. 



SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1861. 



Price 1^. 



BUY PRETTY POLLY! 

>a know the great Liverpool thoroiighfares ; 
roaring streetB with their endless processions 
in^ rocking, rolling wagons, piled high and 
18 if with the wealth of half a world ? Do you 
Aeir pavements, down which the tide of life 
> strangely mingled ; where men of all nations 
4» to face ; where the returned convict jostles 
.'chant-prince, and tawdriness and rags flutter 
he gay dress of the merchant's wife and 
STB ? Will the women of the wealthy classes in 
i gf o w n manufacturing towns ever find out, by 
, how much better a simple style of dress, 
MT colours, would suit dingy streets and tall 
yi? At present, it seems to be the rule, that 
ore smoky a town, the more conspicuous 
]«■ will make their outdoor toilet, 
e remarks Mrs B. and 1 were exchanging, 
«p, in respect of a bevy of fair Lancastrians 
wy dresses, pink bonnets, and light gloves, 
ke ourselves, were waiting at the top of one 
principal streets in Liverpool for the chance 
lie crossing, when the request which heads 
iper — ^Buy Pretty Polly I — screamed out close 

1H, pnt an end to our criticisms. It came 
he beak of a gray parrot in a cage over a 
DOT — much like a little old man with a 
1 head and a gray satin doublet, and just 
led my wife that she had always wished 

paiTot — that I had promised to buy one, 
I didn't at all remember — that there wasn't a 
place for the purchase than Liverpool, and 
i we leaving to-day, and might never be there 
facts not in my power to gainsay; so the 
was, that we found ourselves in the shop the 
linnte. The place looked more like a ware- 
han a shop ; it was lined with cages from the 
to the floor — a complete Noah's ark of feathered 
Nobody seemed to be guarding them, and for 
ninutes we stood watching the caged crowd 

screeching, whistling, fluttering, singing, in 

contrast, and yet not without a certain likeness 
perambulating crowd without. Here, too, was 

of notes and voices ; here was the strut, the 
r; here were beaks like hooked noses, both 

by birds of prey; hard, cruel eyes — eyes 
ive, melancholy, bright, restless, treacherous, 
308, shy. Furry owls blinked out from one 
with the air of well-to-do fathers of families ; 
tu might have sworn the monkeys, peering 
h. their cages on the ground, were own cousins 
itreet-boys. 
3 had ragged suits— fowls roughly used by 



the world; others wore respectable black, brown, 
gray, like their fellow-creatures without ; and how 
that scarlet macaw, and those lories, put to shame 
the finest feathers of the finest birds outside ! The 
longer I looked at the feathered people round me, 
the stronger the likeness grew to my own species; 
and I don't know what point it would have reached, 
if the master of the shop had not started up from 
somewhere — a little dry old man, with a bright eye 
and fluffy yellow hair, standing nearly upright, own 
brother he looked to the cockatoo winking on its 
perch behind him. Our negotiations, which had to be 
carried on at the extreme top of our voices, and eked 
out by dumb show, s# deafening was the din about us, 
ended in the old man offering me my choice among 
fifty yoimg parrots for a sovereign. I picked out the 
youngest of them, a shy, quiet bird, not fully fledged, 
and about six months old. Just as the old man was 
putting it into the travelling-cage, I said in a tone 
meant to be highly impressive: 'Now, mind, you 
warrant that bird free from all defects ; and if he dies 
as soon as we get him home, I shall look to you to 
make it good.' 

' I dunno about that,' replied the seller, eyeing me 
over his shoulder more like a cockatoo than ever. 
' Ye look healthy, and like to live, both of ye, and so 
does PoUy; but ye may be gone to-morrow, and so 
may she. We mun all go, men and birds. Na, I 
don't promise to make her good.' 

What could mortal man find to say against this 
rejoinder? not made impertinently or doggedly, but 
simply, as if it were the most natural thing to say. 
I retieated somewhat discomfited, and felt more than 
usually disposed to buy insurance-tickets when we 
got to the Lime Street Station that morning. 

I had sundry good reasons for not choosing our 
acquaintance at the shop-door: first, in considera- 
tion of many accomplishments, his price was five 
poimds ; second, I had a curiosity to watch a young 
bird grow up to full-grown parrot's estate under my 
own eye ; and lastly, that highly educated fowl might 
very likely have some words in his vocabulary which 
Mrs B. would not like to listen to. That such 
things have been, we could both bear witness. 
Though the thing took place years ago, yet could 
anybody who was present at that confirmation- 
limchcon at Watcrwold vicarage, foi^et what haj)- 
pened then? Our vicar, the Rev. Arthur Simpson, 
had not long been transferred from a curacy to 
Waterwold, and his wife who, with a large family 
and small means, had not often played the hostess, 
felt this entertaixunent, to which a number of guests 
were to be asked to meet the bishop, a very nervous 
affsur. In her perplexity, Mrs Simpson consulted Mrs 



162 



OHAMBBBS'S JOURNAL. 



R, who prides herself on being aufaU in snch import- 
ant matters. Ye sods! what solemn diseoasions 
went on between those two hidies about the game, 
and the fowls, and the waiting, and the creams, for 
a week beforehand I knew every dish, and could 
have mapped the whole table ont on piq>er. By dint 
of hftiring so much about the luncheon, I naturally 
came to take a deep interest in its success, so that 



when on the great day we were u^er^l into the 

"ining-room, I 
' mighty pleased that the table did look so handsome,' 



'vicarage dining-room, I was, as Mr Pepys says. 



and shared my wife's satisfaction on observing that 
the great jelly-lion — ^for a long time a refractory oeast, 
bent upon coming out of its mould minus its head — 
had beien melted down into submission, and shook the 
terrors of its mane, every hair complete, in full view 
of the bishop. He was a grave but genial man. Hie 
party proved particularly pleasant; and poor Hxb 
Simpson, towards the middle of the luncheon, found 
leisure to think how well it was ^{oing off, when his 
lordship took notice of a paiTotwliioh, swingiuff in his 
01^ suspended from a hook in the ceiling ojr the 
window, looked down on us all with a soxt St vmdio- 
tive surprise. 

' Tou nave a fine bird there, Mr Simpaon,' said the 
prelate ; ' I keep one myself at Fulfdrd. Does yours 
talknmch?' 

* No, my lord. I 've tan^t him everv day myself 
for the three weeks I 've had him, but ne won't say 
anything.' 

'Indeedr (The bishop looked benignly at the bird 
through his spectacles.) * Why, Coco, can't you talk? 
Haven't you anvthing to say to me. Coco ?' 

At the sound of ' Coco,' his own name, which he 
had not heard at the vicarage, the bird set up all his 
f eathere ; perhaps he was excited, too, by the si^tt of 
so much company and sood cheer; poniaps he felt 
bound to answer when aadr es s c d by a bishopi Open- 
ing Ins beak with a scraam which made everybody 
jump, he burst into the heartiest commination service 
a bii^op ever had the luck to Usten ta You may 
imagine, though I can't describe, the commotion. The 
ladies held their ears, the best thing they could do ; the 
servants could not reach the cage& get it down ; and 
how that bird went on while the steps were being 
brought, and our host, very red and nervous, unhooked 
and nnstled him out of we room at last ! The vicar 
came back in a minute or two, with his fincer aoid 
thumb bitten, I believe in an attempt to wring the 
creature's neck. Nothing short of such a measure 
could have stopped the bird, and this had not suc- 
ceeded, for all tne rest of the luncheon, though every- 
body tried hard to seem as if they didn't hear it^ there 
was a perpetual grinding growl, tiie exact voice of the 
Irish sailor. Coco's previous owner, issuing &om the 
dark closet under the stairs, to which he ha4 been 
consigned. Of course, we all felt what veiy naughty 
words the bud was saying, and the conversation 
flagged forthwith ; somehow, it wasn't easy to keep 
up church-talk, and school-talk, and rdigious socie- 
ties' talk with the accompaniment of a swearing 
parrot in the background. After such an experience, 
vou may suppose I should avoid the purchase of a 
bird which mig^t, like Coco, talk 'not wisely, but too 
wdL' 

Foi' those who have any curiosity in observing the 
steps by which an ammal grows perfect in its little 
romid (^ experiences and actions, a young parrot is a 
most interesting study. A bird oi six months is a 
quiet little thing, two-thirds of its full size, sitting 
stiipidly on its perch all day long. Besides getting 
its rail feathers, and growing a fine red tail, it nas to 
accomplish a great deal inue way of education. Of 
course, in the case of a soUtaiy individual, "vidiere 
instinct is not helped on by the imitative faculty, the 
process is much more slow and difficult. Its natural 
note — not a pleasant one, half pUdnt and half chirp — 
has to be changed throi^ the range of inairticubte 



sounds from the first faint gabble up to perfect human 
speech. That its beak is an anchor, a lever, and a 
means of transport, as well as of mastication, the 
creaiuxe has yet to find out ; and it must learn this 
before it can pof orm its monkey feats of climbing,* 
swiiLging, and suspending itself head downwardsy 
precisely like a bird hanging in a larder. And, 
finally, it has to arrive at the knowledge iHbich 
seems to come last of all — ^that his claw is a 
prehensile organ. 

Have parrots any notion of the sense of words ? A 
question which has been often mooted, and most 
writers, witii Pope at their head, give a verdict 
against the bird's mteUigence. To some extent^ they 
do know what they say; attaching, hke cats and dogpi^ 
certain meaning9 to certain sounds. My parrot, m 
instance, knows his own name — Cooo ; snd that the 
words ' Fuay,* * Scamp,' represent the cat and dog, 
the meaning of some words of praise and Uame. l£ 
sives their respective names also to inmates of the 
noossL Hie goesa step beyond even,forwhea apet-robin 
walks in at the window for his daily dole. Coco caOs 
out patronisingly ; 'Pretty bird — pretty lifctLe bird!' 
and addresses the house-canary m tho same way. 
Here he shews a power of generalisation ; he has an 
idea that a creature with beak and feathers is a bird 
like himself. ' Kiss Coco,' and * Coco peeks,' are also 
phrases understood, for he suits the action to tiie 
word. When he cslls for food, he cidls intelligently; 
and if shewn apples, nuia, &c., of which he is fond — 
the name at the same time beings repeated, he soon 
picks up the word, and attaches it to the object It 
IS plain, therefore, that the bird is more or leai intelli- 
gent in req>ect of words which represent an object 
or action pmectly fonuliar to him; beyond this, his 
speech becomes mere imitation of scmnd. A voet 
sagacious parrot of my acquaintance oflfers a good 
example. Its master will peep into the roomwherePolly 
is, who csUs out instanter : ' Ah, there you are, lu 
Clarke !' If another gentleman looks in the same way 
through the half-open door, Polly cries : ' Ah, thBr» 

you are, Mr ' , and always stops — ^it knows the 

name is not ' Clarke.' But tnis same Polly was thfr 
property of a sailor, who must have been a bit of i^ 
cowBid in a stiff nor'-wester; and when the wind 
blows hard, the bird will cry by the hour together 
in the most distressed and supplicatory tones : 'Loud, 
have mercy on Bob Bamardl' attaching, of oounew 
just as litue meaning to its words as one of its kind 
m Antwerp, which repeats the Paternoster and Av9 
Maria exactiy as if it were saying a rosary — a pious 
accomplishm^ it acquired from bein^ like th9 
famous Vert-vert, pet-parrot to a convent 

The fodlity with wnich my pretty Polly picks u{> 
inarticulate sounds is really astonishing. Distant street^ 
cries, conversations with great variety of voice and tone^ 
yet without any articulate utterance, the creaking oC 
a gate, the rolling gravel with a garden-roller, mn^ 



ning-water, couAhin^ sneezinff, &c. — all these, ana. 
many others, wul be faithfuQy given by our bird* 
ventiiloquist, and the more discordant, the bettor 
they seem to please it. If the reader is an F.B.&« 
the name of my friend Caleb Fomcett, and his learned 
treatise on Methylethyianxylophenylammamum, wiH 
be familiar to him; if he Ib not, and ignorsntiv 
supposes this little word to be coined out of Polly's 
inarticulate sounds, I beg to refer him to PkOatopkiooil 
Trtmaaetuma, 1851, p. 380. Fomcett lives princi- 
pally at Waterwold, for the sake of the quiet, he VKjt, 
m a small house, and mostly shut up in a small study; 
a pale-faced, nervous bachelor, who makes Ins house- 
keeper go about in list-shoes, and would make te 
cat do so also, had not nature, in consideration of Mr 
Fomcett's nerves, given her a pair of velvet of her 
own. About a month back, as 1 was getting ont oi 

* Owing to the peculiar eonformaUon of the sends nUimiiu, 
they ewmot dimb oj aid of the elawi alone. 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



163 



• iiiSii»y*CBmace at our little station, who should I 
see but Oaleb ]raiicett getting into one ! Afttf we 
hid ■h«k«n hands, he in the carriage, I standing on 
the platlann, and he had told me wat he was Si to 
haaasm. for a fortnight, he exclaimed : ' Oh R, we Ve 
flot a parrot, and Morris doesn't know how to feed it. 
She gave it aome of her supper last night— bread and 
cheese and beer. Will you tell us what they ou^t to 

' Of ooone. But how came you by such a thing ? 
Whjf I ahcold have thought you the last man in tne 
wond to bay a parrot' 

<I didn^ bqy him,* explained Fomcett *The 
canary died on Tuesday; and when Mr Smith, of 
TdTcrton, called that afternoon, he said he would 
send me a bnd I should tike instead. I was quite 
mrariaed when the pairot came in a great cage by the 
YeWecton cazrier yesterday. Such a quiet bird, I 
tiiink I ahaU like him. But what are you laughing 
afe»B.?' 

' T^i^wiy t Why, at the notion of a pairot 
simpiniff off oheew and beer, to be sure. 1 11 look in, 
ana teu the housekeeper what to ffive him. I hope 
he H nmse you when you come back. Good-bve.' 

Off went the train with a tremendous whistle, and 
off went my friend, holding his ears very hard. I 
fimsbod mj laugh as I walked up from the station. 
Tba idea of poor Fomcett and his prise was really too 
lidioaloiia. I knew the bird well ; the noisiest vixen 
tlnk ewr aai m a cage. The Smiths were blest with 
a IsKgB liftfle family, and it had all the nursery uproar 
at Ita tongne^s end. They found the bird intolerable at 
lasft^ andTliad aeneronaly raven it away half-a-dozen 
timaa ; bat it uways caniel)ack, like a bad sovereign, 
toifei ownsn. 

Tbsfc day-fortnight, when Caleb Fomcett stood at 
the door ci his house, he could scarcely betieve it 
was his own. It mig^t have been appropriated as a 
JwdKng-hoytal during his absence : out of every 
door and wmdow, as if the little dwelling were 
: witii sound, there poured volumes of nursery- 
soreams, scoldings, vociferations all in 
As the housekeejier answered the door, 
of 'Mamma, mamma!' rang throu^ the 
Had quiet bachelor ever such a welcome 





1 

what does this — this infernal clamour 
mean?' asked her master in a shaky voice, intended 
tobestsa. 

'Mean, ar!' shouted Morris, coming out that she 
might hear herself speak. ' Why, don't you know it's 
that had of yours, sir ? He 's ^t the woices of all 
tiuBi litUe JuBS and Master Smiths ; and ever since 
TumSmf was a week, he begun, and has been going on 

like'ttiiL V Cough, cough, whoop, whoop, whoop, 

tin tte hooee rang again. * There ! now he^s in the 
booping-oong^ ; the little Smiths had it in the 



Qood HisKvens, what shall I do?' cried Caleb 



'I know what / shall do, sir, now you're come 
: — ^I shall speak my mind, which is, that me or 
that bird packs off this very afternoon! ' 

I need not add that Fomcett caught eagerly at the 
sagBHrtiinn,and that the parrot went back, as ne came, 
%y«e oanisr that day. 

Gommon report says that Polly, like the phoenix, 
sess oat its century; but from fif^ to eighty years 
is tte term of its natural life. Le Vaillant, the cele- 
fanlid naturalist, describes an octogenarian gray 
nazni he saw at Amsterdam; it was decrepit and 
aotiqg like a very old man, had lost both sight and 
na uiury, md was kept ative with biKuit dipped in 
ICadsinL After aixty, its memory began to nul, and 
it lort its words by de^a^rees, returning to its native 
jnekdsir note. At sixty-tivc, its moult became 
megolar; the tail feathers dwindled, and were 
lip fi ee d by dull yellow instead of red. After this 



chan^, the bird never renewed its plumage. Three 
conditions ore essential to Polly's health and comfort 
— wannth, proper food, and cleanliness. The di^wisw 
to which these birds, when in captivity, become sub- 
ject, are brouriit upon them through ignorance or 
neglect, for when properly treated, S^ are perhaps 
the healthiest of all our feathered prisoners. How 
often a bird may be seen shivering at an open 
window, or out of doors, in a cold wind; and when 
he drops dead from his perch, or wastes away, nobody 
supposes his being set out in *that beautiful sunshine' 
l^ad anything to do with the misfortune. 

Again, no creatures suffer more from improper diet* 
Wh^ you see a parrot sitting sullenly, its head drawn 
into its neck, the plumage dull and hanh-looking, you 
may bo sure poor Polly is a martyr to dyspepsia, and 
feels quite as cross and no-howish as human bipeds do 
under similar torments. All birds in captivity diould 
be fed as nearly as possible as they feed themselves 
in freedom. Now, the Psittacidae are strict vege- 
tarians: young shoots, pulpy fruits, grain, and 
almonds, make up their bill of fare. To keep your 
bird in full health and beauty — which is tiie visible 
sign of health — you must confine him to bread soaked 
in water (no milk, remember), hemp-seed, or hemp 
and canarv mixed; a bit of hard biscuit, or crust 
dried in the oven, is healthful ; dates, nuts ; in fact, 
any dry or ripe fresh fruit in moderation. Ho has 
Paddy's taste for a good boiled potato, which may be 
indulged. His favourite part of an apple is the core, 
from which he picks out the pips with evident relish, 
undaunted by Sir Fitzroy Kelly's opinion. For 
orange and lemon pips, also, he has a penchant, even 
for those of the Seville orange, which we might 
suppose too bitter for any living thing to eat. Never 
give your bird animal fo()d in any form, and you will 
not mid him suffer from dysent^y, lose his feathers 
in patohes, or pluck them out, as x^uTots often will, 
in the uneasiness produced by a vitiated state of the 
blood consequent on improper diet. The last point, 
and a very important one, is cleanliness. Both perch 
and cage must be duly attended to, or our favourite 
is apt to suffer from sore feet, or to be attacked by 
insecte. A bath regularly given, daily in summer, 
twice a week in winter, with the chiU just off the 
water, adds much to his comfort and appearance. 
They don't like it at first, but they soon enjoy tiie 
fun of being well splashed, and are always noisier 
after it fliese rules, which were given me by a 
dealer in foreign birds in Paris, who has long been 
noted for the health and beauty of his jMrrots, ap^j 
to cockatoos, macaws, lories, and all oirds of tnis 
genus. When carefully kept, the gray parrot (PnU, 
cinereuif) might be reckoned a beautiful creature even 
without the embellishment of his bright pomegranate 
tail The feathers, which lie lightiy, yet firmly, over 
each other, their edges forming deei>er and tighter 
imdulations of tint, have a smooth, satiny lustre; and 
an efflorescence tike fine white powder, perpetually 
renewed, is to lus plumage much what its bloom is 
to the plum. Have you ever lifted the ear-coverts, 
to look at the large curious ear, and observed how 
(tiffeient from the close, short, round feathers which 
thateh the head arc these ?— long slender plumes they 
shew through a magnifying-glass— stightly curved 
over the opening, so as to protect it without inter- 
cepting sound. There are two varieties of the ash- 
coloured parrot — one with a dash of red on each wing 
[PsUL G. alls ruhris)y and another [PsiU, Q, rubro 
varius), the gray groundwork of whose plumage is 
varied all over with red. 

The ash-coloured parrot was not known in Europe 
until some time after the discovery of the Cape by 
Vasco da Gama, 1496. It is common in most African 
regions, tives in large communities, but keeps in pairs. 
The thought comes strangely enough, that * the cox- 
comb bird, so talkative and grave,* sitting demurely at 
our fireside, has looked down from a far different pcrdi 



164 



CHAMBERS'S JOUBIf AL. 



on faerda of buffiitora and clephantB, and seen troopa 
of Beared antelcFpea flying from the lion. Ah, Polly, 
you would talk to some pnrpoaE i[ you could t«ll ua 
the wondera of youc hnmi in the primeval foreata of 
South Africa, of the giant evergreen treea, thick 
interhiced with gorgeomi creepens, and the jangle 
beneath, a wildorneBB of stoving blosaonu ! Perhapti 
in the forests which climb half-wny up the skirts of 
the Zeircberg, Las Pretty Folly chattered and swung 
with thmiaands of companions, while the momiDg 
shadows lay block in the ravines, and the niiEts rolled, 
purj'U, amber, and gray, down the mountain-heightB 
as the sun struck ue topmoBt crags with flame, and 
the great diapason of the forest, from all ita myriad 
fomia of life, upsnelled to greet bim! What comfort 
can these chilifreQ of the sun take from the sight of 
our trim gardens, and our polo siuomer sunsl 
We have freed the black population of Africa — why 
shouldn't Bome zealous puilauthropiat, in want of 
iriiat he calls ' a cause to advocate, take up that of 
her gray forest-people, kept siayes to our pleaaure in 
a solitary dwindled-down existence ! Let ua hear 
what t^e bird himself, as the party most coDcemed, 
has to say on this matter. Coco, swinging away as 
if there was nothingelse to he done in the world, 
opens his beak : ' What have yon got for Coco 1 
Coco is going to he married to the cat. Ha, ha, ha 1 ' 
Decidedly, we need waste no ptty on our little gray 
friend ; like b true philoaopher, ho doesn't trouble hu 
head about the post, but looks out for his advantage 
in the preaent, and nmuses bimaclF nith plans for the 



THE COAL-FIELDS OF GREAT BRITAn*.' 
'How long will our cual-fielda last!' is a question of 
great importance, especially in connection with what- 
ever may serve greatly to increase the conaiunption of 
coaL It is neceaaory we should be put m possession 
of such facta as may enable us at least to approximate 
to a corruct notion on the subject, and the valuable 
work of Mr HuJi is in this res)ieet of much service ; 
he has bad large means of information at Ms disposal, 
and he has mode good use of them. 

It is difficult to ascertain much concerning the 
earliest attempts at coal-mining, wliich roust have 
been of a very humble nature, and regarded for 
long as unworthy a place in the chronicles of history ; 
and even when at last they obtain any mention, 
the notices are of a very acanCy nature. The cool 
spoken of in Scripture ia uo doubt charcoal, for coal is 
not to be fonnd in the Holy Land or Arabia, and 
none nearer than the shores of the Black Sea and 
the Bosphoms. Theophrastua, a Greek, who wrote 
about 23S years before Christ. bricQy speaks of the 
nature of coal, and tells ua how It was used by smiths 
in his day : he saya it was found in Li^pirio, and in 
Elis on the road to Olyropias over the mountains. In 
our own island, so especially abounding in coal strata, 
there can be no doubt that at a very early period coal 
bad begun to be used. A Bint axe, stuck into a bud 
of coal, was lal*ly discovered in Monmouthshire ; aud 
when we remember that llint weapons denote the 
earliest stage of civilisation, in which neither iron nor 
oven bronze implements were made, wo may infer the 
early age at which coal was tumeil to account A 
tew years aiuce, some miners, near Stanley in Derby- 
ahirc, while engaged in driring a heailing through the 

■ Tht Oal-fitliU 0/ Ormi Britain, liiir Jliilmy. Stnalart, 
1x4 liwaliiiH.rilh Stiiciliflhi a>at-fitlit of elkrr Pari! af lla 
IKor'd. Dj Edoird Hnll, B,A., Df l&e OtolonlMl Suitor o( 



OiWng t,"™, Londui, 



itilbiim coal, broke into some very old excavations, in 
which they found axes or picks formed of solid oak. 
Implements which appear to have belonged to an 
equally early period, are stated, to have been found 
in old coal-workings near Ashby-du-Ia-Zouch, con- 
sisting of stone hammer-heads, wedges of flint, and 
wheels of solid wood. We have, therefore, suffi- 
cient evidence that onr coal-mines were worked to 
some extent long before the invasion of the Romano. 
After this period, uo doubt coal would be more fre- 
quently used, for the Romans had many stations close 
to the outcrop of valuahic coal.seams, and cinders 
have been found auiongat the ruins of Roman towns 
and villas. In his history of Manchester, Whittaker 
tcUs us that at Castle Field, among other Roman 
remaioB turned up about a century ago, cinders and 
Bcoriie were discovered in several places, as well as 
the actual refuse of some considerable caaI-Rn>. Ue 
nlao relates that, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 
near North Brierlcy, a quantity of Roman coins, the 
very best indices of dales, were found carefully 
rejiosited amid many licds of cool-cinder? heaped up 
in the adjacent fields. 

After the time of the Romans, and when we entfr 
upon the Anglo-!jaxon period, traces of the clearest kind 
may be gleaned from documentary evidence. In the 
Saxon chronicle of the Abbey of Peterborough, dativl 
852 A. P., we read that the Abbot Ceolred let to Land 
the land of Scm]iringham to Wulfrcd, who was to send 
each year to the monasten', among other things that 
are BpeciHed, sixty loads of wood, twelve loads of coal, 
and six loads of peat. It is certain, therefore, that 
at this early period coal was becoming an article of 
household consumption. The fact should be noticeii 
also, that tlie word (oal ia of Saxon origin, and must 
at this time have became nationalised, for it to take 
BO deep and firm a hold in the language of the country. 
We see no mention of cool in the Vomaday-Book of 
William the Conqueror ; hutthisisnotau)TiriBing,siui;c 
mineral productions of every kind are left unnoticed, 
and tbo commissioners evidently confined their inves- 
tigations to tho extent, riahta, and ownership of the 
Burfacc-land, together witt the classification of the 
inhabitants. But in the Soldon Bock, published in 
the reign of Henry 1 1., containing the census of por- 
tions of the northern counties, we find references 
to coal in connection with smiths' work. In tho 
year 1259, Henry 111. gnmled a charter to the free- 
men of Ncwca«tlo-on-Tyno *or liberty to dig cool ; 
and under the term sea-cool, a conuderahle export 
trade woa estabtished with London, where it speedily 
became an article of consumption, especially amongst 
the various manufacturers. At first, much prejudice 
arose against the use of cool, on the ground that its 
amoke contaminated the atmosphere, and injured the 
public health ; and in )3lie, the oatciy became so 
genorol, that the lAirds nud Commons presented a 
petition to King EdwanI I,, who issued a proclamation 
forbidding the uae of coal, and authori^ng the destruc- 
tion of all fnmacea and kilns in which it was bumsd. 
proclamation was afterwards re])e*led, and wo 

. notice how, in the face of opposiUon, there was a 
steady increase in the consumption of coaL Historical 
records are still extant recording the opening of cob 
lieries during the fourteenth century in various parts 
nf Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland. Camp- 
bell, in his Folitiail Hnrvry of Britain, pnblisbeil in 
1774. states that although coal was employed in 
manufactures for several hundred ycore, it did not 
come into general uae till the reign of Charlos t., aod 
was then sold for seventeen shillings a choldroD. Id 
I67U. about 200,000 chaldrons, in 1690, upwanU of 
300,000, and in 1760, doable that quantity, were 
annually conBumcd in Britain. From tlt.it time to the 
present, the consumj>tion of cool has gone on itotdily 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



165 



inereann^ so that the average quantity of coal raised 
annually in Great Britain at present is about sixty 
ndUions of tons. 

Considering how much the manufactures and pros- 
perity of Ehi^&nd depend on the still continued supply 
oi coal to at least its present extent, a knowledge of 
oar resouroea in this respect, based upon calculations 
worked oat with the utm(^ care, becomes of the 
otmoat importance ; and hence the value of Mr HulPs 
present volume. The consumption of coal in our 
coontiy is at least three times greater than the com- 
bined produce of all the remaining coal-fields in the 
world. But the supply cannot be unlimited, and 
bfimce we shall do well to endeavour to ascertain 
what are our probable resources. 

Jost at this point, geology comes to our aid in enab- 
ling OS to make sorve^^ both comprehensive and to 
be relied upon. As if with full foresight of the future 
use of ooaC a provision was made by the Creator on 
soch a stopenaous scale as should for thousands of years 
supply the whole world with fuel For countless 
ages was the earth covered with gigantic trees, and 
a thick undergrowth of plants from pole to pole. 
Forests of hu^ pines, tree-ferns, reed-like calamites, 
sculptured sigillaria^ and the hirsute lepidodendron, 
were everywhere to be seen, while a rank and luxu- 
riant herbage cumbered the swamps below. At that 
time, no aictio reeions, bound with ice and snow, 
checked the growSi of vegetation, and limited its 
advance, but one uniform climate of fostering heat, 
with almndant moisture, prevailed over the whole 
{^be. This is inferred from the vegetation of the 
ooal period, displaying as it does the same genera, and 
most of the same species, throughout the whole of 
Enrope and of North America, from the arctic regions 
as far south as the thirtieth parallel of north latitude. 
Afao^ this uniformity of vegetation is continued verti- 
eally, the same species ranging throughout the whole 
series of strata, amounting in some instances to a 
tirickneBS of 10,000 feet, shewing that a similar 
uniform climate prevailed over the whole globe for a 
long succession of ages. 

It was the observation of Sir William Logan twenty 
years ago, and since abundantly confirmed, that every 
eoal-seam lies on a bed of clay. These under-clays, 
wiiich formed the soil on which the coal-forming 

emts grew, are distinctly stratified, shewing that they 
ve been deposited under water; and all recent 
invesfcigttkkms strengthen the probability that this 
water was not fresh, but marine. It is not imlikely 
that the ooal-plants were fitted to grow either partially 
anbmeiged or at the sea-leveL The great swamps at 
the estoary of the Mississippi, along the coasts of 
LcRUfluuiA, and the tropical lagoons of the African 
coasts though not strictly analogous, f lunish us with 
the nearest representation of the nature of those 
loreste that have produced oiu: coal-beds. The strata 
aswciated with coal consist of sandstones and shales. 
The sandstones, which were once sand, are frequently 
inpled, and contain fragments of drifted plants ; the 
Bues have generally been deposited tranquilly, and 
m sometimes so highly carbonaceous as to be nearly 
Uack, forminc impure coal called bas8. We may com- 
ndieDd the &rmation of a bed of coal by supposing a 
low-lying tract, subject to inundations from the sea, 
tiuduy covered with trees, plants, and herbage. After 
a time, a slow subsidence of this tract takes place, 
and then the brackish waters of the estuary, and the 
nit waters from the ocean, carrying dark mud in sus- 
pension, gradually submerge the whole. The deposit 
mcieaaes until it covers in one uniform sheet the 
accomalated growth of centuries. After the subsi- 
dence has ceased, and the soil increased to a sufficient 
elevation, a fresh growth of vegetation takes place, 
and is continued for a long period of years. Genera- 
tions oi trees, ferns, and grasses sprins up and die, 
tiU the pnlpy mass attains a thickness of 20, 50, or 100 
feet Another subsidence takes place as before, and 



the whole bed of ve^table matter is subject to chemi- 
cal and mechanical forces, till what was once a forest 
becomes eventually a mass of coaL By a repetition of 
this process, coal-seams are formed one above another 
— in some cases, above fifty in number— comprising 
a vertical thickness of several thousand feet of shales, 
clays, and sandstones. A^s roll on ; the strata are 
moved from their foundations : upheaved from the 
sea-bottom, the breakers and currents sweep away a 
portion of the covering, and the mineral treasures are 
Drought within the reach of mining industry. 

The coal-field of South Wales is the largest in Eng- 
land, and, with the exception of that of Nova Scotia, 
contains a greater vertical thickness of strata than any 
coal-field in the world, amounting to upwards of ten 
thousand feet. It is separated by Caennarthen Bay into 
two unequal portions : the larger portion, that to the east, 
stretching to Pontypool, a distance of fifty-six miles ; 
the smaller, to the west, extending seventeen miles to 
St Bride's Bay — the greatest transverse diameter, at 
Neath, being sixteen miles. The average annual pro- 
duce is about eight millions of tons, and at this rate 
the supply will last two thousand years. 

The extreme length of the Bristol and Somersetshire 
coal-field — from its northern apex, at Cromhall, to the 
northern flanks of the Mendip Hills — is about twenW- 
five miles. In this coal-field, the strata among the 
hills are much disturbed ; and those along the northern 
borders plunge so rapidly towards the centre of the 
basin, that many of the coal-seams are buried to the 
depth of four or five thousand feet beneath Pennant 
gnt : hence much of the coal is not available. The 
annual produce of this field is about six hundred 
thousana tons, and at this rate would not be exhausted 
under three thousand years. 

The Forest of Dean coal-field, Gloucestershire, forms 
a more perfect basin than any other coal-field in Eng- 
land, as, with a slight exception, the strata every- 
where dip from the margin towurds the centre. • Its 
area is aoout thirty-four miles. The coal is being 
gradually worked from the margin of the basin where 
it crops out, towards the cen&e, where it is deep. 
At the present rate of annual production, five hundred 
thousand tons, the yield will last above a thousand years. 

The coal-field of Colebrook-dale, Shropshire, has a 
triangular form, its base being in the valley of the 
Severn, and its northern apex at Newport. Over a 
very large portion of this field, the coal has been nearly 
exhausted, as may be seen from the Wolverhampton 
and Shrewsbury Kailway, where, for a lone distance, 
dismantled engine-houses meet the eye, and enormous 
piles of refuse from abandoned coal and iron mines 
may be seen. At the present rate of consumption, this 
coal-field wiU be exhausted in about twenty years. 

The Denbighshire coal-field, beginning about three 
miles south of Oswestry, extends northward, about 
eighteen nules in length, and four in breadth at 
WrexhanL The yearly production is now above five 
hundred thousand tons, and at this rate it would last 
nearly a thousand years. But as collieries are now 
being erected along the Chester Kailway, the produc- 
tion will probably De doubled. 

The Flintshire coal-field extends along the western 
side of the estuary of the Dee to Pomt of Ayr, a 
distance of fifteen miles. Throughout a considerable 
part of its range the productive portion is very narrow, 
and greatly broken by faults. As the greater part of 
Uie coal Ues near the surface, it has been so much 
exhausted that probably not more than one-half 
remains for future use, and therefore the supply will 
scarcely extend to fifty years. 

The South Staflfordshire coal-field extends from the 
Clent HiUs on the south to Brereton, near Kugeley, on 
the north, a distance of twenty-one miles, and is of an 
average breadth of seven mues. The proximity to 
Birmingham, Dudley, and Wolverhampton has brought 
its resources into full play. From Dudley Castle, the 
centre of the coal-fielc^ the country in every direction, 



186 



OHAMBSRS'S JOURNAL. 



for five or biz miles, is ovenpread by ooUieriea, ircm- 
fonndriet, and hlftst-funuicea. Aboat five miUion tons 
of coal were nuBed from this field in 1868, and at this 
rate it may be exhausted in about two hundred yearn 
The North Staffordshize coal-field, though of 
amaUer area than that of South Staffordshire, has 
vastly greatar capabilities, with twice the t^icVneiiB 
el workable coaL This field is a triangle, with its 

r: to the norUi, at the base of Gon^eton Edge; 
eastern side is formed of millstone grit^ and uie 
westerly of New Bed Sandstone or Femiian strata, 
doee to the Potteries. In 1857, it yielded 1,295,000 
tons of coal, and will not be eirhanstad for twdve 
luudzed and seventy years. 

The great coal-field of Lancadiire is very izxctgular 
in outline, and consequently difficult to deecriba. Its 
eaEtzeme leogth from Bickerstaffe to Staley Bridge is 
thuty-two miles, and its average breadth six miles. 
SmaUer isolated coal-fielda occur at Groztette Park, 
Manchester, and Buzxdey. Calculating the annual 
production at nine millions of tons, there is sufficient 
coal to last for four hundred and fbrty-five ycAis. 

The len^h of the Cumberland coal-field is aboat 
twenty miks, and its greatest width at Workington 
id^nt five miles. Between Maiyport on the north, 
and St Bee^ Head on the south, it stretches along 
the ooast of the Irish Sea, and extends inward for a 
distance of five miles, in which direction the beds 
rise and crop out. At the rate of a nullioa of tons 
a y^, the coal will last for iU)oat a hundred years. 

The Warwickshire ccal-fidd is small but zich« 
eoEtending from near Tamworth in a constantly 
narrowing band, by Atherston and Nuneaton, to near 
Wyken, a dirtance cf fifteen miles. At the present 
rate of consumption, three hundred and thirty-five 
thousand tons, xt will last for twelve hundred and 
fo rty -four years. 

The LeioeeterBhire coal-field, inextensive but valu- 
able, oocupies an irregularly shaped district south of the 
YaUey of the Trent In the main coal-field of Moira, 
at a depth of 593 feet, salt water, beautifnlly dear, 
trickles down from the fissuree where the coal is 
being extracted. The present yield of coal is six 
hundred and ninety-nine thousand tons, and, at the 
same rate, will last about two hundred and fifteen 



The Derbyshire and Torkahxre coal-field underlies, 
in part, the coantiee of Derb^, Nottin^iiam, and Torii, 
and is the largest coal-field m "Rnglann. Twelve and 
a half millions of tons were extracted from it in 
1807, And, at the same rate, it will last for more than 
seven hundred years. 

The great norfhem coal-field of Durham and 
Northumberland extends from Staindzon, near the 
nortii bank of the Tees, on the south, to the mouth of 
the Coquet, where it enters Alnmouth Bi^ on the 
nortii, the distance being nearly fifty nmes. Its 
l^eatest diameter is near xhe eentee, along the .course 
of the Tyne, which foima the great highway for the 
export of coal to the London market The North 
Sea from the Coquet to the Tyne forms on that side 
the limits of the coal-field. Ito annual yield is about 
sixteen millions of tons, and it will last, at tins rate, 
for four hundred and sixt^-six veara. 

The great coal-field of Scotland forms one of the 
geologiMl bands crossing the country from south- 
west to north-east, and stretches from Kirkcudbright- 
Bhire to Berwick. The extreme length from the coast 
of Ayr to Fife-ness is ninety-four imles ; the average 
breadth, twenty-five miles. The quanti^ of ccwl 
raised in Scotland is about nine miluons of tons, and 
some o£ it exceedingly valuable for ns. 

There are geological grounds for bdieving, that two- 
thirds of Ireland was once covered by coal-bedB ; but 
the carboniferous limestone, which in other countries 
ia uniformly surmounted by coal-measures, has at 
some remote period been swept clear of them in 
Ireland, wiUi the exception of a few isolated tracts 



in Kerry, Cork, and Waterford, and at Tyrone^ 
Bidhrcartle, and some few other places in the north. 

The extent of the coal-bearing strata in our Indian 
empire is large, though not very productive, while 
the coal is 3. inferior quality. Thero is coal in 
Australia ; but in New Zealand the coal strata are 
exceedinglv vi^^a^^ While there ib much coal in 
the United States, thero ia none whatever in Canada. 
The coal-fialdB of British North America are at 



Newfoundland, Ctife Breton, and Nova Sootia. The 
coal-field of Cape Breton contains erect stems of 
foBsil-trecB, and gives evidence of at leaat fifty-nine 
forests buried in sucQeasion. Some of the beda shew 
casts of rain-prints^ worm-tracks, sun-cracks, and 
ripple-marks. 

In the forwroing oaloulations as to available ooal in 
this country, Mr Hull has excluded what lies beyond 
4000 feet from the surface, and for this ha gives 
important reasonflL The lewer we descend, the more 
we have to contend with increased tempenture and 
pressurei Arago, after actual experiment, gives ub 
the following results: In an artesian wdl at Paris, 
there was found an increase of one drame for every 
sixty feet of depth ; at Saltswerk, in Westphalia, it 
was one degree tor every fifty-four feet ; near Oeneva, 
it was one d^sree for every fifty-five foet; and at 
Mondorfi^ in t£e grand duimy of Luxemburg, it was 
one d^;reefor every fifty-seven feet According to the 
Eneytwptadia Briiaamca (Art ' Bfines and Afining *), 
in ue Treaavean mine, Cornwall, the temperatore 
at the depth of 2112 foet ranges between 90 and 
100 degrees Fahrenheit ; and some of the water from 
the deep levels of the united nunes stands at 106 
to 108 degrees Fahrenheit, which would nve an 
increase of one degree for every fifty-six ana a half 
feet The observations of Professor Phillips, at the 
Monkwearmoath CoUieiy, ahew an increase of one 
degree for every oxty f c»t According to thermo- 
metrical observations between 1848 and 1859, in the 
colliery at Dokinfield, Cheshire, it was found that, 
at the depth of seventeen &et, 51 degrees Fahren- 
heit is the invariable temperature throug^at the 
year; also, that there is an mcrease of one degree for 
every eighty-three feet of depth in that mine. Per- 
haps some peculiarities of strata may aocount for tibis 
nnuBnally slow incroasc of temperature. Striking 
an avera^ between the two extremes awarded ub by 
the expenments above noticed, we get an increase of 
one danee for about eveiy seventy feet, which will 
generally be correct Now, since it has been found 
that at a depth varying from fifteen to fifty feet, the 
temperature remains uia Bsme all the year round — 
that is, about the mean annual temperature of the 
air^we may adopt 50 degrees Fahrenheit as the 
avan^ standard of departure from that d^ith. Cal- 
culating the increased denaity of the air at one degree 
for every 900 feet of depth, and combining this witii 
the increase of temperature, we find that at 2600 
feet the temperature is 94 degrees Fahrenheit, or 
almost that of the tropics; while at the depth of 4000 
feet the temperature will be 120 degrees fUirenheit. 
Now, against tiiia some allowance must be made for 
the effect produced by a jgood system of ventilation. 
By tiiia means, it was found that in the iShirmtak 
Colliery, at the drath of 1590 feet^ the tenqierature 
could be lowered 10 deiQp:ees. Also, it is not unlikely 
that in winter, and during severe frosts, the tempera- 
ture may be reduced still further. But Mr Hull oon- 
siders that, in the face of the two obstacles, inereaaing 
pressure and temperature, it would be impossibLe to 
work coal-mines at a greater depth than 4000 fert. 
The following is a recapihilation of the results to 
which he has arrived : That there are coal-deposits in 
En^and and Wales at all depths to 10,000 feet ; that 
mining is possible to a depth of 4000 fec^ becuise the 
temperature of 120 degrees Fahrenheit at that depth 
is C2^ble of coneiderame reduction 1^ meana of ven- 
tilation; and that adopting 4000 feet as the limit to 



CHAHBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



167 



danmiiui 



3 umually, tlie presunt rate of 



THE FAMILY 3CAPEGBA0E. 

At ■erentoen, and with a fiTc-pooad note in one's 
yocket, who il there that needs 'to call the Lonl 
U&yar hia dikiIb ! ' — Ui expremion, ladies, boirowed 
[mn the nlieairi of the lover dowel, and ugnifying. 
. tile advantages of aof bigh Hocud con- 
Witit elaittc youth upon oar side, and lo 
■nidi money a* pata the immediate fntnre out of 
baw conrndanticm, whom, indeed, need n-e envy? 
Sot the hoaij duke, whose apon of existence even 
OUT five pounds diacieetly expended, may see the end 
o^ and -whom m«im«r of life — if we may believe the 
{K^mlar BordiBt — bat not been such as to aObrd him 
artire aemuly in ita contemplation. Nay, Bcarcely 
iny old gentleman, we may say, in any however 
■mnent social pontion, bat would be glad to cbange 
plioea with oa, and barter oil hia honoura and riches 
fwthe privilege gnnted to Etizekiah of old. Bemem. 
bcr tiai, unfriended weary young tramp, ploddinj^ 
with aoanty wallet upon Life's crowded highway, and 
Biy it be a eorofort tu your murmuring spirit ! The 
tUtd of tlion who recline in the apteodid chariots 
«)me wheels cover you with duet, are by no means 
to be envied ; nay, not even ho in the bishirp's coach 
jgndei; who baa worn his purple and Gne liaen, ood 
bnd scmptaously cvecy day, since that vicarioos 
hmr wbea he married the dangerous girl betrothed 
to bis intnm's heir, aud left his own soirowing 
Kstie to wear the willow. 

It ia possible that poverty-atricken Youth does 
oanfort itself in this faahion, and it is certainly 
observable that it does not promote or lead revola- 

pn^ortioa as improapcrons Middteage — that period 
Wck dtapaee birtih tiie hopes oC the Young and the 
Kgrcti tt the Old, and eetimatea to an extreme degree 
mere loavat and fuhes. 

It was pcobabiy most excellent natural apiriti, how- 
•vs^ nther than the above redections, wkich made 
Bishaid Atbonr whistle and ling so blithely aa he 
tnd die leafy lanes of Devonshire, on the third day 
bnK that on which we ported from him at KensingtmL 
He kad during that interview in the arbour prepar«l 
ICm Lucy's mind for his immediate departi 
■ettilig forth the positive ncccBsity of it so vividly, 
B* to ailence all her eloquent love-battery except a 
s^ or twa He did not confide to her the precise 
Btare of Oie employmimt he hod in view, nor 
hsr truiLful nature aolicitoua to discover what he 
iriHm ahe loved would fain conceal ; nor did he r 
it more particularly to her brother, or to Maggie, 
nth both of whom he commimicated by letter, after 
hskad laft London. By letter, too. he bod expressed 
Iw pofannd gratitude to iix Mickleham, and tJu 
bo|KB which be entertained of getting on honest 
GvalihiKHl, and of not shaming his generous pro- 
ttctor by any future conduct; and by Ettter ho had 
iefoDued Luoidora that her advice, in case of 
mn^ had been followed, and that be occcptei: 
firie p«*""*^^ with the luoi^t ht^artfi^'It thardcs, oa a 
vUbIi b* tnwted would be but temporary. 



Haviug thus pcrfonued his literary duties— which 
Bre always somewhat irksome to him— and sat him- 
self right with all his friends — which was a novel as 
well OS satisfactory position to find himself in — Dick 
hod travelled along merrily by coach and railway to 
within a little of the town of Solterieigh, in North 
Devon, which he was now approaching on foot. The 
intido light fell green and golden through tho 
shadowiog branches that almost met above his head, 
and ht up the red sandstone bonks that walled him in 
either side^ Walking amid a rainbow of colours 
■t seemed rather to belong to sir than earth, and 
isdouB of the nnseen summer influences in 
leart and brain, it was no wonder that he thought 
if Darkcndim Street, and its smell of mouldy str 
with a sort of pleasant scorn. There is no man 
closely wedded to Town, but that on some days 
every year he acknowledges to himself that his n 
rioge was one of cauTenience, and that the Country 
is his tmc and natural consort, after olL To the 
Young especially, just emancipated from the din and 
toil of a city-life, a day among green fields is the 
Revival epoch of the earliest and freshest aspirations, 
when Nstnre once more makes us that oQer of com- 
munion — faint though it he grown with much rejec- 
tion— which she pressed upon us when we were lads 
and losses long ago. Dick's stop had on elasticity 
which it had never felt on tiie road from Goldm 
Square to the city, although he hod already walked 
Gve times that distance, and the young blood leaped 
in hia veins like sparkling wine. 

Presently, the lone— which was a Mide enoogh road, 
however — seemed to end abruptly, and to lead to the 
verge of o blood-red cliff beneath which lay the 
gleaming sea. Dick had seen blue glimpses »{ the 
ocean, hero ond there, before, for his way had lain 
along a range of elevated moorland for miles by 
coach ; but this andden revelatian of the great deep, 
literally at his very feet, almost took his breath 
awny with admiration. He hod beheld the Tower of 
London and St Paul's without experiencing those 
tremendous sensations which had been eipected of him 
by Mr Mickleham — who had taken him thither when 
he first came up to town— and hod regarded even the 
conmierce- bearing Thames, with ita crowded Pool, 
with considerable equanimity ; but the scene i 
before him affected him to an extreme degree, 
sat down upon the lane-side, and taking his knapsack 
from his back, dronk in the gorgeous vision with 
that thirst which more lads feel for the sigbta of 
nature than dare to own it; for even in youth ws 
soon Icam to bold it weakness to be subject to 
imprcssii>ns produced merely by the works of the 
Creator, as having little or no jiractical bearing 
The long broken line of gray which marked the 
opposite coast had indescribablu charms for Dick ; 
it might be Wales upon tho map perhaps, but to 
him it was Fairyland. The stalaly vesaeU, so far 
off, that, notwithstanding their white wings, they 
appeared motiouleas, were ffoating m3^terica ; 
steaTO'ships, whose black pennants trolling through 
the sky proclaimed their course, outward or ho 
ward bound, bad each for him its story. 

The hues of earth, and sea, and sky hod changed, 
the noonday insect monotone hod ceased, the air can 
cooler from the stream close by, which ever liurried o' 
the cliff to meet the sea. when Dick took up hia worldly 
goods again, and pursued his wny once more ; for the 
rood did really turn, though almost at right an^ea, a 



168 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



few yaixlB short of the precipice, and immediately at 
the toot of the winding hill lay Salterleigh. 

It was a laree vilbge, hid in a beautiful ravine, 
apparently closed up to eastward by a thick wood, amid 
which could be seen a stream of sdver, which was the 
water-fall for which the spot was famous ; southward, 
however, another hill, as steep as that which Dick 
was descending, afforded egress, in the strange case 
of any one wishing to miit so fair a residence ; and 
westward was the one oroad street that led to the 
harbour and the little pier. As the lad neared the 
high gray bridge which crossed the ravine, and gave 
access to the town, a mighty red and yellow placard, 
stuck on a fallen oak-l^e, like a vulgar libel on a 
dead hero's fame, arrested his attention. 

Stupendous Attraction ! ! 

M()narchs of the Desert and the Prairie ! 
The only Unicom now Travelling ! ! 

Largest Collection of Lions, Ben^ Ti|^ers, Leopards 
(i^ped and spotted), Serpents (inclusive of the so- 
called fabulous Sea-serpent), Nylghaus (from the 
Hinudyas), ' the Rugged Russian b^' (Shakspeare), 
and others too numerous to mention ! 

QuxBN Victoria, Prince Albert, and the rest of 

the Royal Family I 

Windsor Castle ! 

The Lion-tamer of Central Africa ! 
TiCKEROCANDUA the Livincible ! 

The Earthman and Earthwoman (lowest of created 
Human Beings) having been engaged by the spirited 
Proprietary at an immense expense, and for a few 
weeks only ! 

Refreshments for the Elephant to be obtained of 
Doll Jeeheeboy, only; formerly Bheestie (Anelic^ for 
Keeper of the Menagerie) to his Serene Hi^^ess 
Budgerow Khan ! 

A hiffh premium given for Birds, Beasts, and Reptiles 
(N.B. Must be unique). 

Tredgold's, late Trdimino's, Travelling Caravan. 

Come Early. 

* That's well,' said Dick to himself; <and I seem to 
have hit the phice in the very nick of time.* He took 
out Lucidora s note once more, to make himwftlf quite 
certain. 

•My dear young Sir — ^Here is the five-pound 
note which I for;^t to leave when I went to see you 
at the police-station. I also send, in case of notmng 
better turning up, a few lines to the head of an old 
travelling company. A living can at least be picked 
up in it, althoiu^ of course, not a very sood one. 
Mr Tred^ld will take you on, I think, for the sake of 
me and of old times. I would not venture to prox>06e 
such a thin^, but that I hear your unde means to turn 
you adrift m the world. I remember how fond, too, 
you always were of animals. The show is going 
through Devonshire just now, I see. Bridgewater, 
17th (that was last week) ; Salterleigh, 24th ; Barn- 
staple, 26th ; Exeter, 28th. I wish I could help you 
to anvthin^ better, dear lad.— Yours, Lucidora.^ 

Salterleigh is never a very populous town — not 
even in the fashionable season, for it lies twenty miles 
from any raUway, and the hills which lead thither 
from all sides are what nervous persons would call 
TOrecipices — ^but on the present occasion it seemed to 
Dick to have been recently devastated by some plague. 
There was one old man, however, looking out of 
window in the High Street, horizontally, so as to con- 
vey the idea of his being in bed at the same time — 
which indeed ho was — ^who informed the stranger that 
everybody was away to see the Beasteses, and that he 
himaelf, the speaker, could from his present elevated 



position catch a sight of the pictures in front of the 
principal caravan. 

Following the direction of the eyes of this enthu- 
siast, Dick presently came upon the only level spot 
which Salterleigh could boast of, situated in a 
romantic hollow of the gorge, usually dedicated to 
cricket, once a year to the wrestling which formed 
the principal attraction of the village fair, and 
on this particular day — unexampled in Salterleigh 
annals — to the menagerie aforesaid ; whose twenty 
gigantic caravans, arranged in an oblong, and 
covered over Mrith tarpamin, presented a material 
Paradise to so much of the population as could not 
raise the shilling demanded for admittance. These 
unhappy persons, some threescore in number, had 
been standing in front of the gigantic picture and the 
little flight of steps — that was a JacoVs ladder to 
them, upon which a more favoured race ascended 
and descended, - from noon to eve — and even now 
evinced no sims of weariness. Besides the barest 
possibilities of good-fortune — such as that of some 
caravan more top-heavy than its fellows falling side- 
ways, and so revealine some hid treasure of natural 
history ; or that more nopeless chance of the vinecar- 
faced woman, who sat in the shiine upon the plat- 
form, beckoning them up into the sacred place 
gratuitously, out of mere good-nature — there was 
enou^ even outside the show to repay any reasonable 
expectations. 

There were, in the first place, to be seen no less 
than thirteen beef-eaters, and royal beef-eaters too, 
unless faith is to be denied to golden letters encircling 
black velvet caps — and in that case, where is Scep- 
ticism to cry nalt? Each of these persons had 
some mighty instrument of music, consbiicted, as it 
seemed, out of the trunks of golden elephants, 
crmningly fitting one into the other, and producing in 
combination a volume of sound which might well be 
designated imperial quarto. Once every two hours, 
these gorgeous persons took outside places upon the 
stage, and discoursed much eloouent wmd-music ; they 
were accustomed so to do in tnickly populated cities, 
and were apparently unaware that they had long ago 
attracted every inhabitant of Salterleigh. Now and 
then, too, a stout and melancholy-lookm^ eentleman, 
with a massive watchguard, who was rightly whis- 
pered to be the great Tredgold himself, would come 
to the front, and exclaim, in a sonorous voice : * Walk 
up, ladies and gentlemen' — at which the threescore 
would most passionately cheer — 'and inspect the 
greatest wonder of the age. This is the omy oppor- 
tunity which will be afforded in this town, in conse- 
quence of the pressure of engagements, and on account 
of her Majesty Queen Victoria having bespoke the 
exhibition at Windsor Castle for the 14th of next 
month.' Then he would converse with the vin^^ 
faced woman in the shrine, as to the advisability, it 
was fondly conjectured, of lowering the price of admit- 
tance, for it was observed that she always Aock her 
head malevolently, and nothing came of it. 

Lastly, there were sounds U> be heard, nay, sights 
to be seen, even by outsiders, in connection with 
the animals themselves. The camel — or so said 
the village-schoolmaster's son, who ought to know, 
if anylxxly did — was heard to sneeze distinctly,^ 
and the elephant — ^the same authority settled it-~ 
to trumpet ; although there were certain ignorant 
and stuobom persons who held tiiis latter noise 
to be only Mr Tredgold yawning. That gentle- 
man did yawn pretty loudly, it must be confeued, as 
the evenmg drew on, and he still beheld the same 
patient band standing in front of his own, and not 
' walking up' with a single shilHng. The stripcKi leg» 
of the female hyena haa been caught sight of — ratl^ 
indelicately — by one fortunate outsider through a 
cranny, which had instantly been stopped up htmk 
within on his indiscreetly expressing his gratificatioa; 
and one of the workhouse-lads protested that he had 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



169 






beheld the jackal peering round the comer of the 
platform itself : upon cross-examination, however, 
this testimony broke down, the witness confessing 
that he was not prepared to swear it was not a speci- 
men of the cants communis after all — the village- 
clergjniian's own dog, which, with a rash reliance upon 
its master's sacred character, had accompanied him 
into the show, from which it subsequently emerged 
howling, and leaving a quarter of an inch of its curly 
tail in the possession of the racoon. 

Dick elbowed his way through this shillingless 
crowd, whom he sincerely pitie<C and ascended the 
steps amid a tempest of welcome horn the band. The 
vinegar-faced wonuin smiled acidly upon him from 
her wrine, as saints both in and out of niches some- 
times do, and her skinny hand closed like a snap- 
purse upon the expected coin. Dick hesitated a 
moment, doubtful as to whether it would be better to 
enter as a spectator, and make his observations in 
that unprejudiced character, or to make known his 
desire of joming the company at once. Mrs Tredgold, 
however, upon whose practical mind the lad's dusty 
clothes and scanty knapsack had in a few seconds 
made their impression, decided this matter for him by 
calling out : * Kow, young man, be alive, if you please, 
and don*t ;>erwent the nobility and gentry obtaining 
haccess to the exhibition.' 

Nature had given to this lady a voice sufficiently 
shrill, but she generally intemufied it by speiiking 
over the edse of a smaU key, belonging to the cash- 
box, and held up to her withered hps whenever she 
was performing her pecuniary duties upon the plat- 
form. Her tone did not strike Dick as betokenmg a 
propitious frame of mind for welcoming an addition 
to the staff, and therefore he walked on and into the 
show without reply. 

CHAPTER XXIL 
A LBCTCKS VPOK HAITBAL HI8T0BT. 

The menagerie of Tredgold, late Trimming, was 
really a fine coUection of animals in good condition, 
and something vexy different from those melancholy 
exhibitions made up of a few mangy camels and shuf- 
fling elephants, which was all the natural history that 
travelled in the days of our fathers. There were 
eight caravans on either side the oblons, and a couple 
at both ends. Some of these were divided into two, 
three, or even four compartments ; the female Hyena, 
for instance (whose legs had been so shamefully 
espied), occupying the ^round-floor — ^which, however. 
Was of course the heirat of the caravan- wheel from 
the ground — and the Jackal the floor above ; and a 
ntther trying overhead lodger he must have been, in 
case that lady was nervous ; for he spent the whole 
of his days and most of his nights in pacing to and 
fro like a sea-captain ; and that not only upon the 
floor of his scanty chamber, but half-way up the walls 
thereof— either tiirough not being able to stop him- 
self (for he was always in a state of great impetuosity, 
«ad as though he had just recoUected some very par- 
ticnlar appointment which must be kept immediatdy ), 
or from some other reason known only to Buffon and 
Ills own mind. On the second floor resided a Badger 
o| an evil odour, who, being very much ashamed of 
liimself, as he well might be, was always endeavouring 
to conceal his person from the public eye in a very 
inidflicient quantity of straw. It was a painful posi- 
turn for any animal, aggravated in his particular case 
by the conduct of a couple of wild-cats in the attics 
or third floor, who never ceased to express their dis- 
tpprobation by hissing and pretending to expectorate. 
On the other hand, the next compai%nent was what 
1* called in Edinburgh a self-contained house— with- 
out flats — ^the whole of which was in the occupation 
of a Rhinoceros, whose horn had been exalteu in a 
manner totally unconnected with the Eastern meta- 
phor; for, having moulted or dropped off, or been 



knocked off the animal's nose (which retained merely 
a small knob, as if to mark the locality of the missing 
ornament), it was hung up on the top bars of his cage, 
to the wonder of the pubhc, and the distress (as is but 
too probable) of its original possessor. Mental anxiely 
of some sort was at all events depicted upon hia 
leathery coimtenance ; while his hide bore unmistak- 
able testimony, in its superfluous folds and excres- 
cences, that it had been made for him to order (unless 
it was procured at second hand, which seems unlikely) 
at a period when he was a fatter and more prosperous 
beast. 

By the time Dick*s observations had extended thus 
far, the sagacious elephant Ninus (so called from 
there having been eight elephants before him under 
the Tredgold dynasty, of whom two yet remained) 
ran^ a mighty bell with his trunk, and the chief 
exhibitor exhorted the spectators to follow him round 
the establishment, and listen to his illustrated treatise 
upon the brute creation. The Salterleigh audience, 
who had done this five times already — for each of the 
performances was repeated every hour, with the view 
of edifying the fresh arrivals that were supposed to be 
pouring into the exhibition momently — obeyed the 
summons with an alacrity which must have been gra- 
tifying indeed, one would have thought, to the feelings 
of any lecturer ; but the gentleman in question, who 
had sent round his hat iSter the last tour perform- 
ances with its little appeal to the generosity of the 
public entirely unresponded to, took up his pole of 
reference as though it had been a pilgrim's staff, and 
as if he could wilhngly have delegated the privilege of 
dilating upon the affairs of the animal world to any- 
body e^e. His quick eye lit upon the only new face 
among the staring eyes and expanding mouths of his 
listeners, and to Dick he principally addressed his 
remarks, as to one who knew how to recomx>ense as 
weU as to appreciate instruction. 

* Of all tne pursuits calculated to ennoble and 
refine the human mind, that of the study of natural 
history, when accompanied by living specimens, it 
has been agreed upon all hands, is the most advan- 
tageous ; tms is mil of wonderful and interesting 
phenomenons— such as what they will touch, and 
what they will not touch in the way of food, who are 
their natural enemies, how obedient they are to the 
eye of man (in this exhibition, entirely imassisted by 
the whip), and so on, from the gigantic elephant, three 
beautiful specimens of which are now before us, down 
to the ridkultis mus, or dormouse, so familiar to 
those around me, and doubtless kept in a lozenge- 
box, or other warm receptacle, by many of them in 
their early childhood. liinus, acouaint this gentle- 
man with the knapsack, who is perhaps an artist, and 
wishes to take your picture, that you are very glad 
to see him. What ! you won't say a word, my friend ! 
That is very rude. You are glad, to see him, I hope, 
at all events.' 

Ninus, being thus invoked, emitted a most awful 
sound, the reverberation whereof it doubtless was 
that had so gratified the outdoor spectators, and 
which Mr Mopes (the exhibitor) explained was the 
aflBjrmative of tne animal — the elephantine * Yes.' 

*And you don't want him to go away again just 
yet,' continued he, * not till he has heard the lecture, 
and seen the Earthman and the Earthwoman, and 
beheld the Lion-hunt conducted by the Invincible 
Tickerocandua ? ' 

Ninus being again called upon to reply, and feeling, 
as many other great personages feel in presence of the 
public, that he had no observation to make beyond 
that to which he had already given utterance, 
rejieated the same. 

* That is well, Ninus,' observed the exhibitor with 
hardihood. *He now says **No," you see; he does 
not want this young gentleman to ^o away. Give him 
a cake, Jeeheeboy, and mind (whispered he to the 
attendant black) iVs one of the cayenne-pepper ones ; • 



170 



GHAMBBBS'S JOURNAL. 



tJu hagffmoaidMg bniie ! — Cakes and nuts, gentlemen, 
may be procured, as stated in the biDs, of bis keeper 
only, iviiicb. be will pick up with bis trunk, or baving 

opened bis moutbat the w<nd of command Young 

man,' observed the lecturer, suddenly intemiptin^g 
liimaAlf, and addressing one o£ the more youthful of bis 
beanrs, ' don't let me see you a<4oing that again, or 
you leave tbia exhibition directly minute ; and I re- 
A'wiimmH you not to ^ into the way of that 'ero 
elephanti neither, anv tune this ten years. Hoysters 
inittofid ! A pretty thing to be offering an boyster to 
a poor aninm like tiiat, who has not got even fingers 
to open it Respect other persons' tintes, sir. Mow 
wonld you like balf-»-doaen Abemetbies and two 
quarts of nuts, with their sIibUb on, chucked down 
ttwr throat, I wonder 7 And I 'm sure you 're opt- 
ing your mouth wide enough anyway. -Xhe> 

efepbai]^ gentlemen and ladies, is sometimes called 
the whale of terra firma ; and indeed he can exist for 
a. considerable peraod under water by means of bis 
trunk, wbidi be elevates above the surface, as in the 
ordinary diving-bell : when the stream is not deep 
enough for total immersion, the ingenious animal oon- 
-verts this member into a garden-engine, and cools bis 
body by spouting i^pon it volumes of water. These 
amimula wevo made use of by Pyrrbus, king of Epirus, 
in bis wars against the Romans ; and that monarch 
had so bi^ an opinion of their docility and right feel- 
ing, that be was on one occasion beard to observe, 
that it was easier to turn the sun from its course 
than any of those ^m the path of honour. The 
mabonti or elephant-driver, in India is armed with a 
e^eel weapon, which, being driven with considerable 
violenoe into its neck, the sageuaoaa beast will imme- 
diately quicken its pace. ISvosa and bis two con- 
aoorts— polygamy being permitted among this gigantic 
race — will presently go through the singular and 
interesting nerf ormanoe of standing on their own 
heads, imd placing tbemselveB in other clasirirfll atti- 
tudes.' 

Throu|^ the *wbele of this eulogium, the iJiree 
elei^iants ki^ nodding their beads, aa though in the 
grM^est oorroooration, and officiously presenting their 
trunka to each of the company (to the manifert ner- 
tnrbation ol the Devonshire mind), as thou^ uiev 
wwe touting for some advertising establishment witn 
inirisible carck 

'The Nylj^iau^' observed Mr Mopes, addressing bis 
ramarks to the animal ao designated, who seemed to 
haive been unable to make up bis mind 'v^etber be 
should be an ox or an ass, ana to have been punished 
for the indedsion pretty severely by having bad the 
bump of the dromedary dapped upon him — 'is one 
of the most vicious of the natives of India^ When 
meditating an attack, this insidious quadruped will 
fall upon nis knees in a devotional attitude, snuffle on 
obsequiously a few paces, and then darting forward 
with a powerful sprmg, rarely fails to annmilate the 
astonished spectator. 

* The C&miSlBopKrd and ber young. This auadn^ed 
has justly been caUed the gentlest o€ animals, as well 
aa being by far the tallest and most useless. The 
young one before you, which has only been uidiered 
mto the world a few days ago, is upwards of nine 
feet bi^ without whicn m>untiful provision of 
nature m respect to altitude be would be unable to 
partake of that refreshment which bis tender age 
demands. His amble is very peculiar, and may be 
likened to the knighf s move m ebess, or the spec- 
taole which might be afforded by a camp-stool in 
active motion. This creature commonly cuus its food 
from the upper branches of taU trees, thus interfering 
with the requirements of no other animal; when 
reduced to crop the herbage of the ground, it has to 
set its forelegs exoeedin^y wide apart, in order to bring 
its mouth simciently low ; and &om that absurd posi- 
tion it surveys the landscape — ^being gifted with the 
attribute of looking backwards— m»m between its 



own bind-ktts. When erect, it can, on any moderately 
level 0roun£ observe the approach of an enemy fisom 
the omer side, or nearly so, of the horizon, and can 
then make off— though unfortunately only up-hill — at 
considerable qieed. 

* Tlii» T.i^Mia.^ which is sometimflB desimiated the 
CSamel of the West, in consequence of its m^ able 
to go £or a lengthened period without water — and, of 
courae, all other liqmd refreshmenta — is good to eat^ 
and also excellent for |>a20<otf or overooata. Too easily 
attracted by curiosity, alas I the hunter baa only to 
lie on bis back, with his beela in the air, and tbeaa 
confiding creatures will flock round him, aa the boya 
of our country will surround a street-exhibition; 
when even tlm discharge of bis fatal wei^ran ia con- 
sidered (by the survivors) to form a part of the inte- 
resting performance. They are extensively used by 
the Peruvians as beasts of burden; but £rom the 
circumstance of their beinfl very weak* exoesuvely 
slow, and obstinato beyraul belief by persons w^ 
have been only accustomed to mules, t£ere is little 
probability of their superseding the horse amnngrt 
ourselves. The Llama is a native of Soutii America^ 
but it is oocasionally found in Tibet, where it is held 
in the greatest veneration, and even worship— prob- 
al^ on account of its rarity.' 

It was a characteristic of Mr Mopes' lectures, 
which Biok, of course, did not^ get acquainted with 
till afterwards, that on days when the company 
were numerous, and their donations liberal, his 
accounts of the A«ima.]a he described were eulogLstic, 
and evoi flattering ; whereas on unsatisfiactoiy occa- 
sions^ such as tl^ present, when Mr VLmi mind 
was soured by a lack of appreciatioB» they were 
detractory and even calumnious. 

' The Brown Bear, in common with the rest of bis 
species, has the power of sitting, and even walking, 
in an erect position, as well as that of climbing trees ; 
but he doesn't do any of it welL It is said that he 
will not attack a person sleeping ; but this, I thinky 
from what / know of him, must mean v^ien the bear 
is sleeping, and not the man. He ia a ficace andl 
remorseless anjmal, and we ke^iers, whe baive if^ 
vmture into his compartment, nsk our lives for » 
c(»nparatively trifling consideration. Observe bis 
daws, goDtlemen ana ladies, and how he stn£Bi \am 
fore-paws into bis mouth, as thou^ for want of » 
human sacrifice. It looks like toothache, bui it's 
nothing of that sort, I do assure you. 

* This animal, 'vnth the partially diaved ooonta- 
nance, and the inadequate white shirt, is the 
Gkiereza Monkey, a native of Africa, the dimate 
of which can alone excuse such insuffidewnr ol 
dothing^ From the bush-like tennination of its 
tail, -^licb commonly forms its cushion, com- 
bined with the contemplative expression of ifai ooun- 
tenance, it is sometimes confused with the fabled 
Rumtumf oozleum, so familiar to many of raj hearers 
as the animal who " sits upon the tip of his tail 
a-wondering at the ordinances o£ nature;" but this 
is not the case.' 

Mr Mc^pes* harangue became wearisome mm^ to 
Dick by this time, who, from much aognaintanre 
with the Zodogical Gardens, knew almost as much 
about the subje^ as did the lecturer ; but be was too 
astute a lad to disgust one who would probaUy be 
bis future compuiion, by exhibiting the indiffiarence 
be really felt. He therefore accompanied him in bis 
tour round the four quarters of the g^obe^ and bia 
researches into earth and sky with laudable attention, 
lauebing only when Mr Mopes lau^^ied, whidi was 
sd£>m, and not during the delivery of his mnre 
doquent passages, where the fun was not so obvious 
to tiie narrator as to bis hearers — a rule that it is 
well to observe at lectures of a more scientifio 
character. 

The most interesting of all the animals, in Dick's 
eyes, althoogb those about which Mr Mopes bad least 






CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



in 



to mjt wete tLs lions and iigen, who occupied three 
oonticaoiia dBDS — the lions ov themBelyes, the tims 
bj wmadree^ and in the tiiixd den a lion axS a 
tigreM together. What a contrast was there between 
ttw aopearanoeof the king of beasts — extended at fall 
kosu, ■Inm bi O M i and reaicned, but far from tonnd, 
in& his calm earnest e^es naif open, oonacioua alike 
rf rtremgth and of captivity — and that of his fellow- 
|p*"»**>>j whoaa eje seemed to speak fire against oTeiy 
iwaited ereatiire, daring that noiseleis but impatient 
nai hm to and fro, anawhose awfol throat to send 
toinmnn time to time the very name of the aathor 
dE her wioea^ and the object on which her revengeful 
heart mm farooding — Man, Man I With what care, 
toe^ despite her wzath, when her rapid stride led her 
icmas toe Boo^i extended paws, did she pick her way, 
ontioiia not to cfiend the powerful ; and what a nmr- 
dsrona mear dM wore at sight of the exhibitor, whose 
apjpoach. she aiwaital poised upon three legs, a monu- 
wmbmA d feroaioas beanty, as tnou^ the hour of her 
ddmranee wm at last at hand, and he who was 
about to oonfer the benefit should be the first to 
inaitl 

'J>id TSokflRicaiidQa enter that very cage?' was 
Dick's in^airF. 

'Certainlyy letumed Mr Mopes; * leastways when 
tibste waa any enoouragement afforded by the qpecta- 
tBB% he did s& Under present circumstances, which 
von hmmUatmg to him as a Briton and a believer in 
tbs pesfeotibllitj of the human race, such a course 
wtm otdb d the question; but even now the Lion- 
tnur of GeDtrai Africa would go through his 
BifcmiMTlii^ pezfonnances with the thiie lions and four 
fioBflMSB in the neighbouring compartment, as adver- 
tiiBBd in the bills. Whether folks were real gentry, or 
sme^ mbfaosh,' added Mr Mopes with meanings 
'worn is always kept with the public in every case.* 

'And does the lion-himter venture among those 
tigBn ?' inquired Dick with interest, and pointing to 
ttat hr mm Hiqipy Family of Fdmce in questu)n, 
vho, eesMlcasly winding in and out, and over and 
whr one another. Banned to be treading some 
tnUe tiger-measure to a running accompaniment 
of auBli and growls. 

'Doea he ffo in among <A«m tender-hearted critturs ?* 
•flboed Mr Mopes with derisive scorn ; ' why, not if 
ha knowa it ; na' By which that sentleman did not 
mean to eonvey the impression ^at Tickerocandua 
ever 'viBtad ihem unconsciously, as in his sleep, but 
thftt if he wwe so rash as to do such a thing at all, 
tfaejMifoniiance would not be repeated.- 

*The fiKttman and the Earthwoman will now 
■eke their appearance,' exclaimed the lecturer ; and 
aa he spoke, uie pair alluded to descended a small 
ladder leading from one of the two caravans occupied 
as dmilinff-honses, and made their bows to the com- 
DBBy. lime akin to humanity as this couple were, 
iiegr iDnatcsted the poet's statement, that *Man 
wmtka but Uttle here below, nor wants that little 
loD^' by their respective garments, which seemed to 
he entirely focmea of strings of sheUs, and which, as 
tiiey Boved, made a pleasant tinkling like that of 
riieqi4id]s; they could hardly have been put on, 
however, for a similar purpose, since the wearers were 
Bot ol a character to become lost or indistinguishable 
MBsng any amount of their fellow-creaturas. The 
lliiniiiiBii mill Mill Fill 111 III iiiiiiiii had a certain (perhi^) 
flvttnf odour about them, which, independently of 
file Bella, made you aware of their presence at a con- 
■derahle distance : their hue was an unhealthy- brown, 
iciievvd hy zed and ydlow 8potE^ wherewith they 
tattooed themaelves precisely as the peripatetic cake- 
fa l eiB of the faombler sort are wont to sprinkle their 
fongBhread. Bound their waists and arms, thev wore 
GenBan-sihrer rings of a mighty thickness, which fl;ave 
^^ tibe appearance of havins just been released nom 
otmfinement, in order to go through their 
w»r-danoe ; ' and the only vocabulary 



of which they were possessed consisted, or seemed to 
do so, of two words — WoggadahoOy signifying ' How 
do you do?' and Wiggidy^ which was llwthen for 

* Thank you, sir.' 

It is to be hoped, that as they were unable to 
speak the Engliiui tongue, so were thev mercifullv 
debarred from understanding it when spoken W^their 
exhihitoEi 'This is the Earthman and the Earth- 
woman, ffendanen and ladies,^ exdaimed Mr Mopes, 
dexterously insinuating, by emphasis, the iwimimwA 
difierence that lay between barbuism and civilisa- 
tion, * and it is supposed that they are the lowest 
of created human beings. It has oeen conjectured 
by some, that they are more akin to the orang- 
outang, or wild man of the woods, whose acquaint- 
ance we have just been cultivating, than to the 
human ; but this is easily disproved by the inspection 
of the toes or fingers ; and, moreover, the interesting 
specimens now Sefore us live where there are no 
woods, but in holes of the earth, after tiie mitm^iiy of 
the rabbit or cony, and hence their nama The 
taller one is, of course, the male^ who is, however, 
kept under strict control, and sometimes even beaten 
by the female, which, eain, materially strengthens 
their position as beinff ulied to the human umily. 
They will perform &eir characteristio war-danoe, 
accompanied by singing; after which they will go 
round the company, and wish them ** good-bjre," by 
shaking hands, an aocomphshment they have been 
recently taught with infimte pains and trouble : the 
mode of salutation among themselves — that of rubbing 
each other's noses briskly to^^ether for several seconds 
— having been found ahnost ineradicable.' 

At the conclusion of this euloginm, the Esrthman 
and Earthwoman began to jump aSout in their charae* 
teristic, but rather alanning manner, it the same 
time uttering a war-cry compounded of the worda 
Wogsadaboo and Wigndy; after which they per- 
vaded the spectators, ^lo pressed as eagerly forward 
for a cUuq) of their clammy hands as thoi^ they were 
monarohs (whidi, indeed!, they were said to be, in 
Earthland), and touching for the Idng's-eviL 

These ceremonies being ended, and the elephants 
having duly stood, accwding to the programme, 

* upon their own heada ' — ^which, indeed, iz they must 
needs stand on any, it was quite as well they should 
have done — and placed themselves in other * classical 
attitudes,' Mr Mopes announced that *the perform- 
ance would now conclude with the unique exhibition 
of Tidcerocandua the Invincible, in his tremendous 
character of the Lion-hunter of Central Africa; the 
only tamer of the Monarch d the Forest now trave- 
ling, who could be relied upon with confidence for not 
having his head bitten of^ or other unpleasant 
accident occurring, which but too often turned, what 
the public had expected to be a harmless exhibition, 
into a most distrasing spectacle. — It was usual at 
this stage of the prooeeounga, for those '^o were 
satisfied with the lecturer, to bestow upon him some 
small pecuniary trifle, the amount of which was left 
to the ladies and oentlemen themselves.' 

At these worcui, the attention of all Salterlei^ 
became at once engrossed by things which had had 
no sort of previous interest for them; such as the 
wood- work and bars of the caravans, the taipenlin thai 
roofed the exhibition, their clergyman's dog, and, in 
short, every object which thev could admire without 
laying themselves under an oblig^ition to Mr Mopes ; 
who, on his part, smiled sardonically, and inquired 
au^bly of Dick, as he flipped that young gentleman's 
sixpence perpendicnlariy m air, whether & had ever 
seen such a heap of mean ones out of Devonshire. 
The question would have been rather an embazrassiuff 
one to answer without offence to either partjr; but 
luckily, at that moment, Tickerocandua the Invincible 
was seen descending the ladder of the same caravan 
which had already sent forth the E arthm a n and his 
consort, and Mr Mopes turned upon his heel, with the 



CBAHBBRera JOURNAL. 



air o£ a monarcli who fecla indeed that the Limr ol 
depositian bos arrived, bat who, for his part, moraa 
to DOW hi> regaJ knee to the coming usurper. 

COTTON COUNTRIES. 
It ia littlu to thit eredit o( the magnatca of the 
mBoufacturing world, that the Cotton Supply Abbo- 
ciation should have roaBon to complain that 'the 
cntton-brokera and mill-owtiere most illrectly affected 
by the ahort supply of cotton, and most hkely to be 
first benelitcd hy the exertiona of the Atsociation, 
have withheld that measure of support which was 
naturally expected at their hauda.' It ia true that 
whenever the faQure of the American crop aecea- 
sitated short time or closed mills, the voices of the 
manufactnretB were loud enough in appcahng 



Kovenuoeat to encourage the cultivation of cotton in 
India ; hut the danger tided OYor, they quickly 
relapsed into ajrathy, and turned away indifferently 
from thoae to whom they had cried for help. Such 
Bolfish and ahort-aighted policy ia euro to work its 
own retribution, and in this instance it haa dono 
BO with little warning. The ' irreprMmblc conflict' 
between North and South threatens not only to 
deatroy the great lepablican confederation, but to 
bring down heavy pamshinent On thoae who have 
permitted the daily bread of four millionB of their 
conntrymeu to depend upon the proaperity of the 
cotton-fielcfa of the United States. 

Cotton requires a peculiar combination of heat and 
moisture, aud an even and uniform temperature ; 

growtli, while an exceaH the other way iirodnces 
abundance of leavca and very little wooL It ia alao 
subject to the attacks of the army-worm, boll-worm, 
cotton.bug, and chenille, who at tmies commit great 
devastntion in the plantations. But notwithstanding 
these obstacles in the way of cultivating cotton with 
certainty and profit, it will not be dilfioult to prove 
that our dependence upon a single source for its aupply 
is as unneccsaary OS it is dangerous and imwise. 

England aud France, whose cotton goods arc to he 
founcT in every known market, grow no cotton at all, 
although Napoleon the Great once entertained hopes 
of raismg cotton in the iattec country. Sicily, Nautes, 
and Miutn produce between twenty and forty tliou- 
■and pounds annually ; Sardinia and Spain also yield 
a small qoantity — too small to be wottb calculating ; 
and tiiere ends the brief list of the European pro- 
ducers of the raw material, which ia the foundatJon oE 
the most gigantic trade the world haa yet seen. 

Asia t^es more kindly to the great staple. Less 
than a hundred years ago, 25 per cent, of the cotton 
imported into England came from Asiatic Turkey, 
which now aends us some 300,000 pounds— one. 
twentieth of the quantity it supplied in 17ST. This 
great change is to be aocoun ted for by the great increase 
in the home conaumptiou, and the demands of the 
French consuinera, who secure nine-tenths of what 
remaina for exportation. In Syria, cotton haa been 
grown for ages ; but through canJess cultivation, and 
want of artScial irrigation, the quality of the produce 
has gradually de^nerated, til! it has no cbsnca in 
competition with its rivals in the European markets. 
The country itaelt is well adapted for raising cotton. 
The valley of Baalbeo, the banks of the Orontes and 
Euphrates, and many other districts, abound in exten- 
sive tracts of feitjie, well-watered land whoro it 
might readily he grown, if it were not /or the mal- 
administmtioD of the government, the opposition of 
the farmers of the state revenue, tlie apathy of the 
popnlation, and the want of roads. These difiiculttea 
overcome, there ia no reason why the cotton of Syria 
should not compare as aitvantageoualy with that of 
America an its silk tloes with the produce of Italy 
and France. The Chinese grow n considerable 



(quantity of cotton, bat not nearly enough for their 
own use-, they look to India for aid — that mine of 
undeveloped wealth, to which the eyes of Englislunen 
turn in lo many croergenciefl. 

More than two thousand years before European 
industry was employed in the manufacture of cotton 
fabrics, a system of spinning, weaving, and dyeing 
had been brought to raatunty in Hindustan. But 
while the commerce of Europe has expanded so won- 
derfully in this direction, that of India haa remiuned 
stationary, or nearly so. Tho fimt recorded exporta- 
tion of Indian cotton to Great Britain took lilace in 
1783, and from that year to 17IK, it averaged 65,560 
pounds. In 17S8, the East India Company were 
mdted to exert themselves in endeavouring to effect 
some improvement as regarded both the qoslity and 
quantity raised ; and tho exports in 1793 bad 
increased to 739,643 pounds. By ISOO, they rcae to 
6,629,822 pounds. New cleaning - machinery was 
introduced, and owing to a falling off in the American 
supplies, the exports of Indian cotton rose for a time 
to 24,000,000 pounds ; after suffering a relapK, th^ 
again recovered, aud since 1B31 have gone on increia- 
ing, the average for the years 1851 — 1856 being 
ll^98I.Se3 pounds. This, however, gives but a 
faint idea of the actual quantity of cotton prrxlnced 
in the peninsula. The Chinese trade, taken into 
account, raises the annual exports to 300,000,000 
pounds, while the home-consumption is enormona. Not 
only ia cotton made into clothmg, but it ia used for 
beiu, piliowa, cushions, awnings, canopies, ceilings, 
curtains, carpets, ropea, halters, aud padding of every 



maniifacturera thus conaume not less than. 
3,000,000,000 pounds of cotton per annnm-~a calcula- 
tion speaking volumes for the productive powers of 
the coontry. 

These powcra have not a fair chance of developing 
themselves. The want of leaaehold, copyhold, or 
freehold tenures prevents the cultivator feeling any 
intcreat in the crop he raises. No person can hold, 
a single acre of land by fee.simplc, but is liable to be 
diapossesaed directly he fails to meet all demands o£ 
his landlord—the govemmcnL These demands, ia 
tho shape of land-tax, vary according to circiun- 
stancca ; they amount, on tho average, to 20 per 
cent of the value of the total yield of the land, hnti 
in some cases reach even to 75 per cent, leaving tha 
lyot barely enough for his subaistence. WiSi a» 
httle to encourage him, it is no wonder that Indian 
cotton is so carelessly cnltivated and prepared for tha 
market that it cannot com[tet« with the clean staple* 



fourth of it consisting of sand, dirt, 
leaves, and other extraneous matter. When the 
process called 'cleaning' is going on, the cotton ia 
left exposed to the dews of night, and carefully turned I 
over once or twice, that it may absorb them as freely 
as poaaible ; the good and bad ia then mixed inti - 
mately together, and a sprinkhog of seed added to 
each bole. This diagracef ul system does not end here. 
for after the cotton is fairly shipped, the boatmen 
purloin it, aud make up the deficiency in weight by 
saturating each bale with salt water I 

One great difficulty in the way of the cotton culture 
of India, is the want of water; hut the noble rivers 
afford ample means for a perfect system of irrigation, 
if the work was undertaken earnestly and energetic- 
ally. The Mohammedan conqucrois of t^c countiT 
have left beiiind them lasting proofs of the spirit with 
which they laboured to supply this grc.at desideratum. 
The East India Company ore certainly chargeable 
with neglect in thia matter; till the latter days of 
their rule, not ouly were new works not constructed, 
but even those already existing were suffered to 
decay. And yet no public works ever proved more 
profitable to a government. Thirty-nine constructed 
m tlie presidency of Madras at an expenditure of 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



173 






L.54^000 brought an increase in the reycnue, amouftt- 
ing to L.415,S)0 ; indeed, all such investments fully 
justitied the outlay, the ayerage increase in the produc- 
tioD of the soil consequent upon artificial irrigation 
bang at the rate of 300 per cent 

But, Buppoeing all other difficulties removed, before 
India can l^e her proper rank as a cotton-producinjg 
ooontry, it will be necessary to open fresh conmium- 
cationa between tiie interior and the coast. The 
only ffood roads, or at least the majority of them, 
have been constructed for military purposes, and run 
north and south, whereas, for commercial purposes, 
^y should run from east to west. The existing 
roads are up and down hill, and inclined at all angles ; 
one wheel of a vehicle being twelve or eighteen inches 
higher than the other, or Iwth are buried so deeply in 
the ruts as scarcely to allow of the axle passing over 
the main road. Convenient harbours are equally 
scarce. At Broach, *the bales are first roUed down 
the bank to the yerm of the mud, into which they 
sometimes plunge from the impetuosity of their 
descent. Each bale is placed on the shoulders of six 
men, who stagger under it up to their waists, or at 
least their knees, to the boat' Such, we are assured, 
is a fair picture of the usual provision for the ship- 
ment of the produce of Hindustan. Even in Bombay 
itself, there is not decent dock accommodation. 
Unfortunately, the state of the Indian exchequer gives 
litUe hope of the government being able to do much 
for removing these various obstacles to the develop- 
ment of the resources of our magnificent Eastern 
empire ; it remains to be seen whether private capital 
ana entei^nnse will be encouraged to attempt tiie 
task. 

At a fortni|^t's steaming distance from Liverpool, 
Great Britam possesses the beautifid islands of 
Jamaica, Barbadoes, Dominica, and their satellites, 
which in 1786 supplied one- third of the raw mate- 
rial for her cotton manufactures. The famous sea- 
iilsnd cotton is indigenous to the West India 
Islands, and takes its botanical name {Oossypium 
BaHndense) from one of them. At the commence- 
ment of the present century, cotton stood second 
in importance among the exports of Jamaica, sugar 
mking first; and at that time, no less than nve 
different sorto were cultivated there — namely, the 
Sea-island, Brown-bearded, Nankeen, French, and 
BraaliaiL. From 1801, the production declined, till it 
did no* amount to a tenth part of the yield in that year. 
Misgoveniment, protection, and want of enterprise 
had no little to do with this sad falling off, but the 
duef cause was the difficulty of obtaining cheap labour 
after the extinction of slavery. Since that period, 
the |dsnters have had to depend upon the Creole 
and Pertuguese settlers, and the coolie immigrants. 
The latter are engaged for five years; and at the 
ezpiratioQ of their term, are entitled to a free passage 
home. By working moderately, they soon become inde- 
pendent, and avail themselves of the terms of the 
contract to return to India. A body of 315 coolies 
have been known to take home with them five thou- 
sand pounds in hard cash, besides a large amount of 
wesln in the shape of armlets and rings. The recent 
treaty with China promises, if some of the colonial 
nstnctions are removed, to provide these fertile isles 
with the labour so much needed ; while the incubus of 
d^ weighing down the planters will soon cease to 
exercise its malevolent influence, if Jamaica and 
Bsihsdoes follow the example of Tobago, St Vincent, 
and the larger islands, by putting the Encumbered 
Estates Act into operation. There are no less than 
six million acres of alluvial soil suitable for the culti- 
vation of cotton in the West Indies and British 
Ouiana ; and if a sufficient number of coolies can be 
induced to bring their labour to the market, we may 
rest satisfied with the people of Demerara that 
'British enerey, British capital, and British pluck 
will accomplum all the rest* 



The French government, duly impressed with tho 
importance of encouraging the planters of Martinique, 
Guadeloupe, and Guiana, to grow cotton — of wmch 
they now produce about three millions of pounds per 
annum — has not only repealed the import-duty, and 
offered prizes for the best specimens, but in some 
instances has even remitted five years' taxation to 
those engaged in raising the desired staple. Dutdi 
Guiana occasionally sends England a small quantity 
of Surinam cotton. Cuba is also a producer, but to 
such a limited extent, that the total amount exported 
in the three years ending in 1855 only amounted to 
187,896 pounds. 

The hopes of those interested in * fresh fields and 
pastures new* may find encouragement in the re- 
flection, that it IS only seventy -six years since 
seventy- one bags of cotton, shipped from America to 
England, were seized by the custom-house authorities at 
Liverpool, on the ground, that that continent could 
not produce so much ! Two kinds are grown in the 
United States. The upland cotton, whidi forms the 
large proportion of the crop, is a short staple, and with 
such oifficulty separated from the seed, that while that 
operation was performed by hand, the yield was incon- 
siderable ; but after the iutroduction, in 1793, of Eli 
Whitney's machine — by which three cwts, were 
cleansed in a day instead of one pound, as by the old 
process — ^the production increased with extraordinary 
rapidity. The sowing, if the weather be favourable, 
begins in March or ApnL The groimd is well 
ploughed, and cast into ridges, along the centre of 
whicn the seed is sown in holes from fiifteen to eigh- 
teen inches apart, several seeds being placed in each 
hole. In five or six days, the plants appear above 
ground ; and as soon as they can boast the possession of 
three leaves, undergo thinning — an operation repeated 
later in the season, when omy a single plant is left 
in each hole, and that is topped for an inch or two, 
to promote the development of the side branches. 
Blooming takes place about seventy days after the 
planting, and the earlier the bloom appears, the larger 
IS the crop, which depends upon the longer or shorter 
period intervening between the spring and autumn 
frosts. When the cotton is ripe, it is gathered by 
women and children ; it is then separated from the 
seed and cleansed, and afterwards packed into bales 
for the market Sea-island cotton, the finest 
imported into England, is raised on the small sandy 
islands, and along the low shores of South Carolina 
and Virginia. It is long in the staple, silky in texture, 
and easily separable by means of rollers driven by 
horse, water, or steam power. Its growth, however, 
seems dependent upon the presence of certain saline 
constituents in the soil and atmosphere, as it only 
flourishes in the vicinity of the sea ; consequently, the 
supply has for many years been stationary, and forms 
but a himdredth piurt of the total crop of cotton 
raised in the United States. 

A hundred and thirty years before the revolution, 
the English government attempted to foree the culti- 
vation of cotton on the planters of Virginia; out of 
this contest arose the acts which prohibited the 
receipt or export of any European commodities in 
other than Bntish-built vessels. In 1786, cotton was 
raised on the east shores of Chesapeake Bay. The 
first successful crop of sea-island was grown by Mr 
Elliot on Hilton Head, Beaufort, in 1790, and fetched 
lO^d. per pound. In 1806, American cotton was 
worth irom Is. Sd. to 2s. per pound at Liverpool ; in 
1820, from lid. to Is. 5d. ; by 1830, the value had faUen 
to 7d., and in 1848, actually declined so low as 41d., 
since which it has gradually risen ; in 1857, the market 
value being a fraction above 9d. per poimd — a price 
leaving a good margin of profit, the cost to the planter 
being estimated at S^d. 

The states of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and 
South Carolina are the greatest producers of cotton, 
their respective yields averaging twenty-three, twenty, 



174 



CHAMBERS^ JOURNAL. 



I 



nineteen, and twelve miUions of poundB. Rather 
more than six millions of acres are imder cultivation 
in the Southern States, engaging one-foorth of tiie 
African population. In regara to fertility, the new 
states naturally rank first, Texas proAicing 700 
pounds of seed-cotton to the acre ; Arkansas, 700 ; 
MiBsiBsippi, 600 ; Louisiana, 060 ; Alabama, 020 ; 
(Seorma, 000 ; South Carolina, S20 ; Tennessee, 900 ; 
and Florida, 200 — each 1000 pounds of seed-cotton 
producing from four to five hundred pounds of wool 

The propK>rtxon of the American crop taken by 
Great Britain has decreased since 1851 from 08*72 to 
46'74 per cent. ; the exportation to the north of 
Europe having increased, while more has been retained 
for home-consumption, the latter having risen 4 per 
cent, in tibe last seven years. Since 1845, indeed, 
consumption has been gaining ground upon produc- 
tion ; and the process of cultivation having apparently 
reached perfection, while the want of labour prevents 
the openmg up of fresh ground, it seems probable that 
the production of cotton in the Unitea States has 
for some time reached its maximum, furnishing an 
additional reason for the anxiety of tiiosc concerned 
in the manufacture of cotton fabrics. 

American planters would fain hove the world 
believe, that there are insuperable difficulties in the 
way of Brazil becoming a dangerous competitor with 
Uncle Sam. The Encush coiwnl at Bahia, however, 
rep or ts that on the banks of the St Francisco, on 
unlimited supply of cotton equal to sea-island may 
be raised, no rain, frost, or bu^t coming unseason- 
ably to prevent the fruit attorning maturity, or to 
hinder ite being gathered when ripe. The cultiva- 
tion is neglected, because, from want of roads, the 
planter hM no means of conveying his produce to 
the coast; but a railway is now being constructed, 
which win obviate this difficulty. A greater one lies 
in the paucity of labour, which has caused the produc- 
tion of cotton to retrograde since the suppression of 
the external slave-trade. In 1858, Brazil exported 
18,617,872 pounds to England. Mexico, Peru, New 
Oranado, and tiie other republics of South America, 
are well adapted, so far as climate and soil are con- 
cerned, for tne cultivation of cotton, but the chronic 
state of anarchy existing in them precludes any hope 
of their turning their capabilities to any use. 

Previous to the year 1820, sufficient cotton was 
raised in Egypt to suffice for the wants of the native 
manufacturers ; but it was a cotton jteouliar to the 
country, short in staple, of inferior quality, and pos- 
sessing a strong odour. In the above-named year, a 
M. Jumel jMiid a visit to Moho Be^, ex-governor of 
Bongola and Sennaar, who cultivated various Ethiopic 
plants in his garden at Cairo. The Frenchman, struck 
oy the appearance of a cotton-tree of a species with 
which he was unacquainted, drew all the information 
he could from his unsuspecting host, and with it a 
packet of seed. M. Jumel's next step was to offer, 
upon payment of 20,000 dollan, to disclose to Mehemet 
Alt a method by ^idi he mi^t increase his revenue. 
The wily pacha agreed, provided the scheme proved 
successfuL Operations were commenced on a small 
scale at Matereeyeh, the first-fruits — three boles — 
bein^ sent to Europe for opprovoL The judement 
provmff favourable, cotton plontotions were estolSished 
throughout Lower Ecypt The fellahs objected stre- 
nnously to sacrifice their old crops for the new staple, 
but the scourge and the stick soon brought them round 
to acquiesce in the notions of their ruler ; and by 1823, 
the exports of Jumel cotton amounted to 4,393,707 
])ounds, increased by the succeeding year to 32,472,434 
pounds. Although the author of tnis prosperity hod 
succeeded in his undertaking, he could not succeed 
in making his employer fulfil his promises, and died 
bankrupt and broken-hearted. T^e Jumel, or the 
Maho cotton, as the ungrateful pacha decreed it 
should be called, gradually drove the inferior native 
staple out of cultivotian. Several sorts of seed were 



introduced into Ikypt ; the only kind that attained 
any success was the sea-island, of which 16,000 bales 
were exptnrted in 1829 ; after that year, it deteriorated 
in quality, and has now all but disappeared from the 
exports of Ecypt, in which cotton figures to the 
extent of 40,000,000 pounds per annuTn. 

Stimulated ly Mraemet Ali's success, the French 
commenced operations in Algeria, principally with 
the sea-island cotton. In five years' time, nine thou- 
sand acres were under culture ; but in 1856 and 1807, 
a great falling off took place, which would hove beoi 
greater still but for the bounties offered by the 

Sovemment ; the experiment as yet has had but a 
ubious success, ana the same may be said of the 
attempts to induce thepeople of Timis and Morocco 
to try their fortune. 'Whatever doubt there mav be 
respecting the cotton-producing cajiabilities of the 
north of Africa, there can be none whatever as to 
those of the interior. From latitude sixteen d^rees 
to the equator, cotton has been cultivated from time 
immemorial Not only are the inhabitants clothed in 
fabrics of their own manufacture, but they actually 
export cloths to the Brazils. Mr Campbell, consul i^ 
Lmos, estimated the exports of tiie Niger states in 
18M to amount to 72,000,000 pounds ; but until the kst 
few years, the natives were unacquainted with the 
best modes of cleaning and prepanng the cotton for 
the European market, and ignorant of the value of 
the raw material as an cxx>ort. Through the exertiono 
of Mr Cleeg, the chiefs of the various tribes were 
enlightenedon this head, and several young Africans 
instnicted in England in the preparation of the 
staple. The chiefs are anxious enough to trade, par- 
ticularly with those white men ' who have hearts for 
the black men,' and labour is abimdant ; the African 
in his own land working willingly ten hours a dov 
for a wage of fourpence. Dr Livingstone was strucL 
with the waste of cotton in Africa, seeing the trees 
cut down as nuisances in Angolo, and ffrowing luxu- 
riantly in the market-places from secNi accidentally 
dropped on the ground. The Ancolan women are 
universally spinsters, goinc to the fields laden witb. 
pots, hoes, and children, out spinning as they go, 
using the same implements as were in use in onci^it^ 
^fflT^ Roods to the coost ore wanted to facilitate 
the transport of the produce, as everything has noir 
to be carried upon the heads and shoulders of the 
natives. The slove-hunting king of Dahomey as 
the great bor to the development of the resources of 
Afrioo; however, he shews signs of heorkening t» 
reoson, although he refuses to treat with ony but the 
British government. His mojesty offers to give up 
man-huntinc, providing o revenue ec^uol to that 
which he derives from the sole of his victims be 
secured to him. The British government hos not 
hesitated to declare it is to Afrioo we must look for 
cotton ; ond therefore every effort will doubtless be 
made b^ it to open the country and enconrsge the 
cultivation. 

Cotton of good quality has been prodneed at Port 
Natal, but i£e disuke (n the Cafra to lobmir ptre- 
sents an insuperable bar to making this colony of 
much service to Manchester. The numerous groups 
of islands in the Pacific hove soils and climotes 
suited for the cultivation; and in the Novigotoi's 
Islands, the cotton-plant id perennial, and oaBumes 
the form of a tree from two to twelve feet high, 
bearing Ix^ of the size of o goose-egg. Austrolia 
likewise is o competitor; and some outhorities do 
not hesitote to soy that, with o supply of coolie 
lobour, she could send cotton to Liverpool at o 
dbeoper rote thon the United Stotes. In tne experi- 
ments mode at Moreton Bay, the yield of seed-cotton 
was about one thousand pounds per acre, being 35 
per cent obove the Texan product; and the ikh 
alluvial soil upon which the experiment was made 
extends one himdred miles into the interior, and three 
hundred along the coast. 



f 



CHAMBSBS'S JOURNAL. 



175 



Wiaitever wmj be tbe Temilt of the dissensioiifl in 
Aiaenctk, wHli so many reBonroee open, we ought not 
to btk. SB mndti cotton as onr milk can conBume. 



I 



LOST! 

A TAxnxQ glance round the office, to assure himself 
all desks, doHte, snd iron safes are properly secured 
for iJie sa^A, and the solicitor's confidential derk 
looks v^ and pnepares for home. With coat buttoned 
to the throat, and hat drawn over his eyes, Mark 
Edwuda tmsa his steps towards Islington, and 
ehssrfdlly laoes the ron^ wind and ihnv.T\mg Tain, 
whkk mu n cr c i fnily pelt and buffet him, as he vainly 
hails omnibini after omnibus to receive the same 
answer — * FulL' But Mark makes no trouble of these 
outdoor 1 1 mw I TBinsPDce, for his mind s eye is fixed on 
the well-ooiwed tea-table, biisht fire, and, best of 
aB, the prstty vonng wife awaiting his return. The 
prtore IS so pleasant, that he cheerily breaks forth 
mto a line of Heme, sweet home, as he turns the 
comer of the street where stands his own trim little 
domicile: 

Mn Edwa;rds is-peermg into the darkness tinough 
iSbe folds of the muslin curtains, and has the door 
open before Mask's hand touches the knocker. 

'What a night for you, love!' says the little 
matron, bniihing the rain-drops from his bushy 
whiskers, and kissing him compassionately ; ' and how 
late Toa are!' 

Edwards looks up at the clock as he struggles 
out of his dxippinff coat : ' I am late inc^d,' 
he answers ; ' but Mr Fleadwell has started on his 
trip to the Lakes this afternoon, and there were a 
great many things to attend to before he went And 
look here^ Fann^ — this packet contains some valuable 
deeds and secunties, which wiQ be called for by the 
owner in a few days ; in the meanwhile, I have to 
copy one <d them, but dont feel inclined to begin 
to-night. Where can I place them with safety?' 

Fanny suggests his desk, but that is the first article 
a bai]g^ would be likely to meddle with. The wife's 
cheek pales at the idea of such a visitor, and she con- 
siden. *That old escritoire in the 8x>are bedroom, 
will not that do ?' 

Maik still hesitates. * I had so many injunctions 
to be careful, and not let them go out of my own 
possession, that I am afraid of even that.' 

Fknny reminds him that there is a secret drawer in 
it. ' Don't you remember,' she asks, ' what trouble we 
had to find it?' 

' Ha I the very place ! ' So his wife carries 
the esndle for mm, and the valuable packet is 
deporited in this hidden receptacle. Its only contents 
are a few highly scented letters, tied together with 
a piece of ribbon, the which, Fanny laughing and 
blnshing, confesses arc Mr Mark Edwards's love 
effusions before marriage, carefully preserved to bear 
witness against him when he becomes cold and cross. 

Perhaps it was a restless night and unpleasant 
dreams which made tiie clerk so uneasy — even in the 
hnny of the next da^'s work — knowing that he had 
not visited the escritoire before leaving home in 
the morning, to ascertain with lus own eyes the 
safety of the papers in his charge. He pooh-X)oohs 
the idea as it presents itself, remembering that one 
key is in his own possession, and the other on his 
wue's housekeeping bunch ; but it returns so often, 
that it is with a feeling of relief that he hears the 
signal for closing, and feels he is at liberty to return 
home. 

How is it his welcome is not such a smiling one as 
it usually is? Fanny's spirits seem depressed, and 
her eyee look as if they had been clouded with tears. 

'Hjkve you had any visitors to-day?' her husband 
eaRkady inquires as he sips his tea. 

The iMsitating * No ' is so faintly pronounced that 



the young man, hitherto preoccupied with business, 
looks upu 

•That "No" sounded like "Yes!" Who has been 
here?' 

* Only my brother George,' Fanny answers in a low 
voioe, and Mark, frowning, turns away, and takes vp 
a book. 

* My brother Oeorge' is his cneraUmf and the tonneiit 
and '^uble of his wife's ^unily; always in diffi- 
culties, no sooner rescued from one soiape tiian rushing 
headlouff into another, sometimes invisible for numthsi 
and suddenly reappearine to levy contributions on 
any relatives able or willing to assist ^lim Mark 
has seriously contemplated forbidding his vints ; but 
then Fanny is so tender-hearted, ana cherishes such 
a kindly belief in the prodigal's ultimate reformation, 
that her husband has not yet mustered sufficient 
firmness to enforce lus wishes, alUiouffh he knows 
where his wife's brooch went, anid why ne wears that 
old velvet bonnet. Fanny seems to guess what is 
P|assing in his mind by her coming so softly to hoi 
side, and stroking lus hair, and pressing her Iqis to 
his forehead, but neither of them say anything, and 
Mark leisurely prepares for his tssk of copying. 
While he has gone up stahs to fetch his ^pers, she 
lights an extra candle, and ensconces herself m a comer 
with her work-table, rejsretting as she does so that 
her 'poor boy' must be borod with this odious 
writis^ when he oueht to be resting. However, Mazk 
soon comes down we stairs, three at a time, to ask, 
rather angrily, why she has moved his packet without 
mentioning it. With astonishment in her looks, his 
wile denies having done so, and hurries with him to 
the spare bedroom, asserting her belief that he has 
overlooked the paroeL Not a thing is out of its 
place. The old escritoire stands exactly as they left 
it, the lock had not been tamnered with, nor was 
the secret drawer open; and there, undisturbed, he 
the love-letters ; but the small brown-p^ier parcel, 
tied with pink tape, and sealed with the office seal, 
is gone! 

The husband, suspecting he knows not what, looks 
almost sternly at his wife, whose snswering glance is 
confused and full of terror. 

* Tell me the truth, Fanny, my dear Fani^ I Are 
you playing a trick to tease me? Reroembear, if I 
cannot pro£ice these papers, I am a ruined man ! It 
would be worse than tne loss of money ; that I might 
replace, these I cannot. Tell me at once where tSey 
are.' 

* Indeed, Mark, I know no more about them than 
you do yourself. They must be here ; perhaps they 
have slipped behind the drawer.' 

Although next to inmossible, the chance is not 
overlooked ; hammer ana chisel are soon fetched, and 
the back of the escritoire is knocked out, leaving no 
nook or cranny where the smallest paper could remain 
unperoeiTed. 

Almost beside himself, Mark leads his wife down 
stairs, and commences questioning her. Where is her 
key ? On the ring ; it has not hwa out of her posses- 
sion. Has she bien out ? No. Is she quite sure of 
that ? Quite ; besides, as she ventures to remind him, 
the locks have not been forced, nor is aught else 
miwiuff, as would have been the case if thieves had 
entered the house. In uncontrollable aeitation, the 
bewildered young man paces the room, -vniilc Fanny, 
unable to jntiffer advice, or assist him with any 
reasonable conjecture, watches him in trembling 
silence. 

Suspicions arc crowding upon his mind ; hints given 
before his marriage about Fanny Bobeite's brother, 
and regrets uttered, even in his hearins, that a 
respectable young man like Mr Edwards should 
lower himself by such a connection, are suddenly 
remembered and dwelt upon. He pauses before hiB 
wife, and sternly demands what errand had brought 
that brother of hers to his house. That brother of 



176 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



hen! What a speech! All Fanny's sisterly feel- 
ings are in arms, and yet her voice falters, lor she 
is forced to own that it was the want of money. 
' And you told him I had those papers in the house,* 
Mark cries accusinsly. With a crimson face, she 
angrily denies it. She did not mention Mark's aflairs 
during their short interview. Is it likely she woidd 
do so? Or if she did, woidd George, poor foolish 
fellow that he is, steal up stairs and rob his sister's 
home? Ridiculous! Impossible! 

* Impossible,' Mark retorts, * without he possessed 
the key.' 

* It has not been out of my pocket,' sobs Fanny. 

' Then where,' asks Mark, * are the missing papers ?' 
Their little servant-maid away for a hoUday — ^no one 
in the house, according to Fanny's own confession, 
but this young man. Where are the papers ? 

Receiving for reply a torrent of tears and pro- 
testations, ne flings himself on the sofa, and tries 
to steady his nerves to the consequences of this 
extraordmary loss. Meanwhile, Fanny goes and 
institutes an unavailing search in every box, and cup- 
board, and drawer where it could be possible to find 
sudi a parcel, although it would puzzle her to explain 
how it could have withdrawn itself from the secret 
drawer to take refuge elsewhere. At last she returns 
to the parlour in despair. The packet must have been 
stolen. But how? When? By whom? Oettine 
fr^tened at Mark's gloomy looks, she is delifhtea 
when a tap at the door announces a visitor, and that 
visitor proves to be her father. 

To Imn the mysterious aflfair is circumstantially 
detailed, and Mark points out the inevitable loss of 
his situation and good name if he should be unable to 
produce the papers, or give any clue which mi^ht lead 
to their recovery. To Fanny's dismay, he particularly 
dwells upon her brother's visit, and her half-made 
endeavour to conceal it; conduiding by an entreaty 
that she wiU, if retaining any affection for her husband, 
tell all she Imows. 

But now the father interposes. To tamely hear 
both his children accused of such a crime, is more 
than his rather irascible temper will endure, and he 
enters a counter-accusation that Mark has, for some 
unworthy end, removed the parcel himself. Words 
now become so hot and bitter that Fanny's distress 
is increased, not lessened by this championship, and 
she weeps so bitterly, and pleads so earnestly with 
both, that Mark, more touched than he would like to 
confess, abruptly leaves them to shut himself in his 
chamber. Arter some hours, the sound of his footsteps 
ceasing, the anxious wife creeps softly up the stairs, 
and is relieved to find him lying on the bed in an 
tmeasy slumber. Her father persimdes her to rest too, 
but poor Fanny shakes her head, and still sits by his 
side, leaning her head on his shoulder, and feeling more 
forlorn and miserable than it had ever been her lot to 
feel before. What will poor Mark do? And what 
will become of her, if he persists in believing her 
guilty? 

Equally bewildered, and almost as unhappy as his 
daughter, Mr Roberts tries to soothe her with pro- 
mises, not only to seek Oeorae, and bring him to 
exculpate himself, but to for^ve Mark's hasty speeches, 
and assist him in investigatmg this mysterious afiieur. 
So, at last, Fanny begins to feel more comforted, and 
to wish her father to leave her ; but, tired as he con- 
fesses himself, he cannot quit her in such trouble, 
and they contmue to occupy the same position by the 
fire till night has long given place to morning, and 
Mr Roberts's eyes dose involuntarily. 

A footstep overhead startles them. *It is only 
Mark,' says Fanny after a moment's listening. ' Poor 
fellow, I wish he had slept longer.' 

In the modem six-roomed house every sound is 
distinctly audible, and they hear him enter the 
chamber where stands the now ^Attered escritoire. 
After a short pause, he is heard slowly descending the | 



stairs, and his wife raises herself from her reclining 
position, and smootiies her disordered hair. 

As he enters the room, Mr Roberts lays his hand on 
his daughter's arm. ' Look, child, look ! he whisoers ; 
and Fanny sees with astonishment that her husband 
is fast asleep, and holds in one hxmd the bundle of old 
love-letters. 

Setting down his candle, Mark unlocks the front of 
his large and well-filled bookcase, and begins deliber- 
ately taking down, one by one, the handsomely bound 
volumes of the History of Englandf which grace the 
highest dielf ; then he draws out a number of loose 
magazines, hidden there because of their untidy ap- 
pearance ; lays the old love-letters quite at the back 
of all, replaces the odd numbers, returns the volumes 
to their shelf, carefuUy putting them even, locks the 
^xiss-doors, and is stalking away, when Fanny, with a 
cry which awakens him, snatdies the key from his 
hand. Rubbing his eyes, and wondering, ne sees her 
eager fingers dragging Hume and Smollett from their 
proud position to assume an inglorious one on the 
nearth-rug and in the fender ; the once treasured Bdle 
AsgenibUes are scattered in all directions ; the hichly 
prized love-letters receive similar usage; and then, 
tram behind all the rest, Fanny triumphantly takes out 
the small brown-paper parcel, tied with pink tape, and 
sealed with the office seaL Crying and laughing in 
one breath, the happy little wife is the next moment 
in her husband's arms, kissing and being kissed ad 
libihan. 

Little explanation was needed. The youn^ man's 
brain, excited by extreme anxiety regardmg his 
trust, had led to his cautiously rising in the night, 
and unconsciously transferring the packet to what he 
afterwards remembered as the first hiding-place which 
had presented itself to his mind on bringing it home 
thepreceding evening. 

How many times he has asked forgiveness is not 
recorded, but Fanny is a true woman, quick to resent^ 
but easily appeased ; and Mark has taken George an(L 
George's afraars in hand so heartily, that the youo^ 
scapemce is actually improving, and there is ever*, 
some nope of Fanny s belief in nis total reformatiocM. 
being realised. 



BITTERNESS. 

Wb sat among the ripe wheat sheaves ; 

The western skies were golden red : 
We had a hook ; we turned the leaves ; 

But not a word we said. 

A sudden lull ; a thrilling pause ; 

We seemed at once one thought to have. 
We little could divine the cause 

That such a moment gave. 

A minute that comes once and goes ; 

That must be snatched at once or lost : 
foolish heart I — but something rose 

In me. Our Fate was crossed. 

We rose up from the shining sheaf ; 

We looked back at the setting sun ; 
We scarcely spoke ; we seemed to grieve 

The golden day was done. 

And on the morrow I was gone. 
Who could not speak for paltry fear. 

The morrows will go gliding on, 

And we find each a bitter one. 
Nor meet for many a year. T. A 



Printed and Pnblished by W. & R Chambers, 47 Pater- 
noster Bow, London, and 339 High Street, Edinbuboh. 
Also sold by William Kobebtson, 23 Upper Saokville 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 



/> 







S titntt anb ^rls. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND B06EBT CHAMBERS. 



No, 377. 



SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1861. 



Price 1^. 



SECOND-CLASS PASSENGERS. 

Whxn more motiyes than one can be attributed to 
conduct npoQ any occasion, the world has clearly 
made op its mind to select the most obvious, without 
regard to the chance of its being also the coarsest and 
least agreeable; and more especially is this evident 
when aii3rthing like a pecuniary element is contained 
in the question. It hardly avails, therefore, to be at 
the trouble of placing upon record any plea to the 
effect, that principles of a subtle and recondite nature 
really lie at the root of our beha\aour. If Brown in 
the boxes beholds me in the pit, I am simply wasting 
perliaps valuable time when I endeavour to convince 
him that I infinitely prefer my seat to the situation he 
occupies (peradventure by means of a free admission) ; 
that I can see the performances very much better ; 
that I am spared the necessity of assuming a cere- 
monial costume ; that the pit has been, time out of 
mind, the critic's place; and so on. Brown says 
abruptly : * Yes — and it 's cheaper ; ' and is content 
to think that he has pierced through a cloud of 
vpedoaa arguments, and arrived exactly at the 
matter-of-fact motive of my conduct. So if, while 
he is enjoying that superb sedative of a cigar, the 
size of a small rolling-pin, he detects me, in the retire- 
ment of my own smoking-room, with a pipe in my 
hand, he can recognise only one reason for my indul- 
gence in the same bad habit in a less expensive form : 
and it I journey upon a railway in a second-class 
carriage, I am only making myself absurd if I presume 
to exidain that I prefer the greater ventilation ; that 
I like a hard seat, or so forth. Brown is satisfied 
with knowing that I save money by it ; and 
anything further said upon the subject, so far as 
he is concerned, is clearly surplusage and waste. 

Now, I am not going to deprecate this system of ideas. 
I presume it to be inevitable in a commercial country 
that all sorts of things should come to be tested by a 
commercial standard. I don't claim myself to be 
exeoipt from often arriving at the same judgment by 
the lame means. I know that we do wink at each 
other, and that somehow we can't help it, when our 
dear Iriends assure us of their great admiration for 
the nutty flavour of South Africa's sherry, and of 
tkdr preference for it, over the vintage of any other 
coontry. I say we wink at this, and cannot for the 

(iires of us forget the marked difference in the market 
quotations of the wines. I simply desire that the 
thing should be understood and recognised. I am sure 
mndi pain and trouble would be thereby obviated. 
After this, when I proceed to state that I con- 
stantly travel in second-class carriages, it is palpable 
that I must content myself with stating that fact* 



and permit the reader, if he wiU, to agree with Brown 
as to the motives which induce me to do sa Upon 
my own shewing, it is vain to struggle against certain 
conclusions — it is hopeless to parade arguments 
none will attend to. It must be so, then ; I ride in 
second-class carriages, because the fare is cheaper than 
that of the first-class. 

There are people who walk up and down the plat- 
form of the railway station for a long time, before they 
can make up their minds which of the carriages they 
will enter. They dodge the guard who unlocks the 
doors, and hurry past him. They coimt the number 
of carriage-lengths they will be from the engine, and 
from the luggage-van at the end ; and enter upon a 
difficult calculation, given their situation in various 
parts of the train, as to the effects upon them of a 
catastrophe. They examine the carriages critically, as 
with the view of ascertaining their age and powers of 
endurance in the event of a collision or an upset ; but 
I believe their choice is ultimately determined by the 
ringing of the bell, and their being forced hurriedly 
into the nearest seat vacant 

I confess I never bewilder myself in this inge- 
nious manner. I enter anywhere, provided that 
two persons do not occupy the carriage. Every 
train carries two persons whom I particularly desire 
not to meet. 

The first is the man who always teUs me, 'that 
the weather is seasonable* or * unseasonable;' I don't 
know exactly which, and I'm sure he doesn't, and 
it never matters. Why does this man go about pro- 
nouncing upon the weather in this way? holding an 
assize upon the seasons? What is it to him, after all ? 
This man may be very excellent in other respects : 
I am quite prepared to believe that in his capacities 
of husband, parent, and friend, he is all that can 
be desired. If he would only let the weather 
alone! But he won't. He is a good-natured man, 
with a broad fat face, and a neat oasis of whisker 
on an ample plain of cheek, clean shaved and 
white -collaj*ed, with a strange infatuation for 
having everything much too tight for him. His hat 
is so small for him, that it really looks as though he 
had had part of his forehead cut away to get it on; 
and his coat, which, with a determination to incon- 
venience himself to the uttermost, he will button, 
compresses him so closely that his stoutness obtrudes 
between button and button in ridges all round him, 
like the thread of a screw. He sits patting his knees 
kindly, as though they were the heads of his children, 
and glances urbanely round to see if any of his co- 
travellers will encourage him to proceed with his 
favourite topic. I believe that the proverbial taci- 
turnity of the British traveller is entirely attributable 



178 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



to this man. There is a preTalent dread, thai may be 
morbid in its intensity, but which is fovnded upon 
entirely natural causes, that every traT«ller may be 
fViia 'weather' man in diagniae. Hence the English- 
man in the railway caniage looks oat oi the window, 
contemplates the ceiling, studies the floor, or wraps 
Tiimaplf in his newspaper — anything rather than 
give the x)er8on sitting opposite to him a chance 
of talking about seasonableness and nnse&sonable- 
ness ; and the formal introduction which Englishmen 
insist upon having before they will interchange 
words, is merely a sort of social guarantee that neither 
of them will talk too much about the weather. For 
this man, I look carefully about before I enter a 
railway carriage. If he geta in after me, I get out, and 
seek a seat elsewhere. In some carriages, I am sure 
I see hiin; in others, I suspect his presence journeying 
incog,, and under an assumed name : for he is too 
much for me this man. I admit that this may in a 
measure arise from my groaa ignorance of his staple 
subject of conversation ; compared to him, I feel that 
I am an absolute dunce about the weather. I know 
when it is hot, when cold, when it rains, when it 
shines; but furtiier than this, I don't busy myaelf, and I 
am not prepared to gow This man, however, is informed 
on the subject : he knows about the moon, and the 
exact age and state of that luminary, and believea, 
of course, that it aflfects the weather. For my port, I 
don't see why it should, and I don't believe it does, 
but then I have never studied the matter. He knows 
the precise quarter from which the wind is blowing, 
and from which it was blowing last night or yesterday 
morning, and has strong opinions as to the quarter 
from which it will be blowing to-morrow and the day 
after that. I believe that he could even perform that 
singular nautical feat known aa ' boxing the oompaaa,' 
if he were once thoroug^y put upon his mettle ; he 
has theories about hot summers and cold summers, and 
long and short winters, and droughts and wet sea- 
Bona ; and remembers heavy thunder-storma and sharp 
frosts, during which I don't know where the thenno- 
meter didn't fall to, but when people must have been 
as nervous about it as one sometimes feels when a 
bass-singer touches the deepest depth of his compass, 
and seems to totter on that awful note, doubtful if he 
will ever be able to rise from it again. I believe him 
to be tiie man for whose express reading those news- 
paper romances are compiled about the shower of 
frogs, and the preposterous gooseberry, and the 
man who cut a summer^cabbage from his garden 
on Christmas-day — ^^a remarkable instance of the 
unprecedented clemency of the season.' He is the 
man who is always provided with goloshes and 
umbrella on those sudden wet days which catch us 
unweatherwise-people unprepared, and drench us 
accordingly; and he enjoys his triumph over us 
immensely, with a sort of chuckling pity for our 
poverty of intelligence and ignorance of the great 
weather question. He is certainly a man to avoid, 
and one of the people I wish I had never met. 

The second man is little more, perhaps, than a varia- 
tion of the first. He is an older and a thinner man, 
but equally affiEbble and importunate. He begins by 
proffiering his snuff-box. 'Do jcn ever do this?' he 
says, and opens a small coffin full of brown rappee. It 
is hard to refuse a courtesy of this sort, because the 
man has evidently quite made up his mind that you 
will accept, and has indeed set his heart upon it. 



So, at the risk, perhaps, of making yourself intensely 
uncomfortable, you choke up your nose under the 
ridiculous pretext of clearing your head, and then 
go nearly mad between a passionate longing to sneeze 
and an imbecile inability to accomplish that effort; 
and for this troublesome pinch of snuff, you have 
sold to the man opposite to you the absolute right 
of persecuting you. He puts away his box, buttons 
his coat, folds his arms over his buttons, and observes 
with a malignant deliberation: 'Wonderful thing, 
sir, steam!' 

Now, I have met this man so often — ^he has made 
the same remark so often — I have agreed with him so 
often — that I b^gin to doubt at last ; and I believe I 
shall end by positively disputing the question with 
him. If st^tm be really so wonderful a thing, surely 
it can afford by this time to rest upon ito own merita ; 
it cannot want all this backing-ifp, and patronising, 
and pampering. Only this man is an abject impostor. 
The other fellow did know something about the 
weather — at least I am willing to believe that he did 
— ^but this one knows nothing whatever about his 
topic. He knowa that the great marvelloua piece of 
machinery at the head of the train shrieks when it 
enters tunnels like a frightened child — and pants, and 
heaves, and pu£b during a long run — and anorts 
angrily when it has to put back — and occasionally 
emita streaming donds of steam, at once so whita and. 
light, and yet ao apparently substantial, that it would, 
aeem to be a good matoial for the fabrication of 
ladies' ball-dresses. He knows the outside surface 
notion of steam-power, but nothing about it deeply, oor* 
really, or wholly ; a aham ptopounder of a philoeo^iy 
he does not himaelf comprehend, though he will 8tab»^ 
at every one with hia remark in exchange for hi^ 
gift of rappee. In his lowest f onn, this being affrwtap 
a humour of a really disgraceful character; having 
exhausted his wonder at steam, and wrung from eveiy 
one their wonder, and exhausted that, he goes on to 
make-believe that the train is drawn by horses, and 
tells the guard to 'drive on,' and 'hit 'em up;' ancL 
when we pauae at stations, declares that we do so 'to 
water the nags ; ' and so on. The reader will perceive 
the lively vein of faoetisB open to a creature who will 
be funny in this way, and tiius insult the understand* 
ings of a carriageful of traveUeia. Why cannot he 
let steam alone ? Why can't the other man let the 
weather alone? though positively I begin to think 
that the weather-man is the preferable companion of 
the two. 

Well, I avoid these gentlemen, and I go on to other 
partoof the train where they are not I find a carriage, 
the only tenant of which is an elderly lady in black 
silk, with black velvet on her forehead, and black curia 
in her eyes, her loosely black-gloved hands ti^tly 
clutching her ample umbrella. I recognise her at once — 
ahe is quite harmless. There is another old lady very 
like her, only much calmer and severer, who wears 
mittens, and puto on silver-rimmed spectacles, and 
then with a mild air preeenta all her co-teaveUers 
with a fierce denunciatory tract. I admit I am rather 
afraid of tJuU elderly lady. The other elderly lady I 
have no objection to whatever, and I therefore enter 
the carriage in which ahe is sitting. She glances at 
me in a scared way, and then abruptly jerka her 
head from me. She is the dderly lady doomed by an 
inexorable &te to travel on railways, and who, not- 
withatanding, has never been able to overoome ber 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



179 



extnne objectionB to that mode of oonyeyance. She 
18 in ft state of acate panic during the whole period of 
her ooeimaacy of the carriage; she is snnering a 
pofiBct xnghtinare of fear — a phantasmagoria of rail- 
wsy horron passes before her during ner journey. 
She never speaks : I think fright has made her nearly 

IqieeohlesB. OocasionaUy, she looks round her with 
terrified eyes, and compressed lips; her black curls 
tremble as Hhe train otKillates, and she clutches her 
vmbreUa with the vigour of despair. There is no 
pscifying her; no amount of argument or ezpostu- 
ution would reooiove her alarms : they axe too deep 
seated to be readied. She has made up her mind 
to a raOway accident, and has in anticipation suffered 
its wont results a hundred times over. 

The tndn movw on. We psiss acres of house-tops 
~we hnrry tfaroa^ many cubic feet of bad smells — 
much dimabittS in respect to back-gardens is revealed 
to U8 — squalor and rags, and brimming gutters and 
doabifnl dnmage, and children very happy, and com- 
fortable^ and numerous, notwithstanding tiiese disad- 
Yaotages, mmmig smaller children, or playing with 
battlcHdoon cr whzpping-tops, and each others leeiL 
Then out among tiie manhes and the cabbage-fields, 
and the oommcm with the white clothes bulooning 
about, nien trees at last — plenty of them — and a 
little brook so dear, the pebbles shine like jewels at 
its bed, and it reflects the blue sky with a mirror's 
fideli^ and brilliance, and is dense black in its shade, 
where tibie shmba nther round it, and bend over, 
and try to hide it nom the light, and keep it cooL 
Now we pass groups of pretty white villas, looking 
so Wfkak and span, crisp and trim, and so smafi 
Irain tho distance, that they seem like children's 
toys — the little Giothic churches, with their nest 
pomled spires, seeming extra-pretty toys for espe- 
cially good diildren; then tne lulls cross-barred 
with hei^ies, and with yellow freckles on them, 
winch are the sheep browsing placidly after their 
■Mumer ; and we pause at so comiortable a station, so 
dsdud with rosebuds, and with the gravd-walks of 
its adjoining garden so smooth and spruce, and with 
sodL a dexterous edging of shells and white stones, 
that I heffn. to thiiuL tiie station-master must have 
father an easy time of it, and to wish that I were he. 

Of coane^ the sight of the pleasant country we had 
pamod HoQiO^ hiul in no way padfied the dderly 
udy, my IdSow-traveller ; nothmg could do that 
short ol 8Mb arrival at her own house again, and sit- 
ting down OBoe more on her own so^ miles away from 
the raihrsy- We had more passengers now — a cor- 
pond and priyate of the 900th Regiment of Foot 
iBoyil CShcahire). They were equipped as for a 
jouEBsg^liiesvy-maiching order, I suppose, would be 
the eerrsot term. They had haversacks and knap*> 
M/ekMf and canned their muskets. It seemed to me 
that tliese military travellers rather ezdted the 
fafttur alarm of uie dderly lady than appeased it ; 
adding to her contemplations the terrors of 
r, and combining them with the horrors of railway 



The c or poral was evidently a cheerful man. He 
todi off hoi shako, and wiped his forehead ; he fell to 
■— ""Hyg certain documents; he then jiroduoed a 
short pipe, and looked at me simificantiy. I nodded : 
he miderttood me. He tnn^ to the elderly lady, 
wifing his pipe d^antiy before her. 'Object to 
■BokxDgy mnm r 

The eldedy lady gave a wild g^are, dutched her 
vmhrella oonmlsiyefy, and murmured inarticulatdy. 
It s f ) ei nm i ! to me tliat she purposed to convey that 
they mi|^t do what they listed, so long as they spared 
her life. The corporal understood acquiescence. 

* Yon may li^ht up^ Mike, if you Uke,' he said to his 




a short, savage-looking man, with eye* 
that joiiMd in a ton over, a coarse upturned 
He had wild black eyes,* and a very dark 



oomplexion, covered with still darker freckles. He 
took no apparent notice of the corporal's remark. 

* He's a "Connut" man, he is,' said the corporal to 
me, pointing with his pipe to his companion, as tho^rii 
he were shewing me a specimen in a museum. Tne 
*■ Oonnut' man did not manifest the slightest interest 
in the proceeding. 

*I'm Shropshire nwself,' the corporal continued; 
' bom at Wellington, I was. What's your county, sir, 
if I may ask?' 

I informed him, whether rightly or wrongly, I 
hardly know now; I had not been in the hiSit ol 
laying stress upon such matters, or keeping them con- 
stantly before me, as it seemed to be the corporaFs 
plan to dow However, he was satisfied witli my answer; 
and all our counties being stated and settied, there 
seemed to be no further ceremonial of introduction 
necessary, and we fell to talking generaUy ; that is, 
the corporal and I did. The * Connut' man confined 
himself to frowning severdy at the elderly lady, as 
though she had injured him in some unaccountable 
way. The corporal was shrewd and pleasant, with a 
sort of rigid fr^dom of limb about him which I have 
observed in the military, who acquire by their drill a 
muscularity which can only be in a measure confined 
by the general tightness and discomfort of their 
clothes. He was attired in the dirty red with the 
dirty buff-fadngs, and the pipe-clayed cross-bdta 
peculiar to the regiments of the une. 

*■ Yes,' said the corporal, in answer to some inquiry 
of mine, 'a littie job on, after a deserter;' and ho 
produced a pair of glittering handcufb. 

There is something f earfm about the look of hand- 
cuffis, and the shaip click with which they fasten 
round the wrists. 1 looked at tiiem curiously, for I 
had never before enjoyed so near an inspection. They 
seemed to me strangdy suggestive of felony, and 
prisoners' bars, and convicts' cells. I had a fancy at 
one time for putting them on, but I confess I shrank 
from doing so rfter the feel of the cold metal round 
one wnst. 

' Tes, a pretty thing is a 'andcuff,' quoth the cor- 
poral ; ' neat and pret^ I say, and a fellow can't easily 
get his 'ands away again, ndther. Darbies they calls 
^m sometimes, but I don't know why. Yes, me and 
Mike's after him; and we know where to find him, 
don't we, Mike ?* 

But Mike made no reply. He was a short man, 
and by sitting far on the seat, could swing bis feet 
about without touching the floor. He was amusing 
himself by thus doing, staring meanwhile at the panic- 
stricken elderly lady. 

* Yes,' the corporal went on, * it's a great pity, but 
it can't be helped. I 'm very sorry alwut it myself. 
And it isn't as if he was a skulker, because he isn't. 
A good soldier, that's what he is ; and he'd have been 
doing very well by this time if it hadn't have been for 
himself. A good soldier. Me and him was in the 
trenches at Sebasto;>o^e, and eat our Chrismas-dinner 
together, such as it were — a lump of snow and a pipe — 
that's all we had. He'd have been all right but for 
this ; ' and the corporal pantomimed drinking : ' h^ gets 
the grog aboard, and then, as you may say, it's u p 
with hmi ; he loses his 'ed. He's done it before, 
you know. Twice the men have found him, and 
watched him, and brought him back, and the thing 
wasn't known hardly. He gets crying and melan- 
choly that much, that he says suddenly, says he: "111 
go home and see how old mother is I " and off he goes 
straight to his mother's, without another word. She 
lives out Portsmouth- way, you know; they've had to 
find Vtini there before, and bring him back. The dd 
lady's a rum sort She's very glad to see him first ol 
aU, and thinks it's all right, and makes much of him; 
then, when she finds it dl out, she fires up like, does 
the old lady. She's a very respectable woman — • 
widder woman — stakes in washing and that. "Go 
back," says she, '< you scoundrd; I hate a runaway !" 




That^s what she says. Poor old Joe Piper, hell get 
it this time, and no mistake — court-martial and that — 
and there's been so many runaways of late ; and they 
won't hear talk of previous ffood conduct now. It's a 
bad job for Joe. Mike, old man, we might go and 
look up Tom Bowerbank at Portsmouth, and see how 
/le's getting on.' 

The ' Connut' man turned and frowned what might 
have been an assent or a threat, or indeed anything; 
as a companion, the ' Connut' man was certiunly as 
deficient and undesirable as one could well imagine. 
The strange moroseness of his manner struck me so 
forcibly, that I could not help looking interrogatively 
towards tiie corporaL 

' He^B aU right ! ' he said in a low whisper. 'It's a 
way he's got, that's all ; one of the smartest soldiers 
in the de^t is Mike.' 

He might have been a smart soldier, but he cer- 
tainly did not appear to be a very agreeable man. 

We had other passengers soon. A gentleman in 
the commercial interest travelled with us a short stage, 
and incommoded everybody's legs by the number 
of his boxes held together by a strap. I imagine 
them to have contained specimens of the articles in 
regard to which he sought orders. He was a 
lai^ man, and had the largest whiskers I think I 
ever saw. He was proud of these, and nursed, and 
coaxed, and twisted, and pulled them out ; it might 
be to shew the diamond-ring on his finger, but haroQy, 
I should think, to exhibit his nails, for they did not 
bear close inspection. He despised us ^, I fancied, 
by his manner, for our want of connection with com- 
merce—hummed tunes and whistled, notwithstanding 
Mike's defiant clare at him, and quitted us when 
the train stopped again, distx^ins our legs anew by 
the abrupt removal of his boxes. We had a navigator 
in then, who had been repairing the roadway some- 
where, a rough brawny gentleman in a red night-cap. 
He had a sturdy way of chopping on the floor with a 
very sharp spade, which made one feel nervous about 
the safety of one's feet. I think the * Connut' man was 
making up his mind, whether it would or not be a 
dereliction of military duty and smart soldiership if 
he were to offer to fignt the ' navvy ' then and there, 
when he suddenly stnick up an acquaintance with the 
corporal, after a satisfactory, mutual interrogation as 
to counties, upon the strength of their both being 
acquainted with one Bill Somebody, a Dorsetshire 
man. To this hour, I have not been able to satisf v 
myself as to whether the corporal reaUy knew Bill 
Somebody, or whether he was merely affecting to do 
so out of his undeniable cheerfulness and sociability. 
After this, Mike abandoned the subject of the fight, 
though he had moistened the palms of his hands m a 
scientific way, to be prepared for an emergency or 
any sudden call that might be made upon his com- 
bativeness. 

After this, we had another passenger, a short stout 
man with a scarlet face, and a purple plush waistcoat. 
He was panting for breath, and seemed to be almost 
steaming, he was so hot. The lady looked towards 
him witii an agonised air ; surely there had been an 
accident or something horrid. 

* Had a run for it ? the corporal inquired cheerily, 
wondering, perhaps, mentally, as to the county of the 
new-comer. 

* I never saw such a thing in all my life,' gasped the 
man in the plush waistcoat 

* An accident ! ' the lady looked. 

' A fight ! ' Mike looked. They neither spoke. 

*I never did, no, never. There — ^though at one 
time it bade fair to be the nearest thing I ever 
see — near as a toucher. There, nearer by a good 
bit' 

We all turned to plush waistcoat What did he 
mean T What was all that excitement about ? Was 
the man mad ? 
* 'I'd have laid any money upon Pawkins. I'd 



have bet a crown-piece — there — ^that Pawkins would 
have won.' 

He gesticulated violently, and the perapiration 
trickled down his face. Won what? Wno was 
Pawkins? 

* Never saw anything like it, never. Couldn't have 
thou^t it possible ! 1 'd have backed him to any 
amount' 

Curiosity was surging up into exasperation. The 
'Connut' man was seriously affected; at one time, 
I thought he would have fallen upon plush waistcoat, 
and despatched him straight. Still, he went on about 
Pawkins, and his not winning, and how he would have 
backed him to any amoimt 

It was no longer to be borne. 

' Tell us aU about it' I think even the lady joined 
in this entreaty ; I know Mike did, though he fell to 
kicking about his feet afterwards, as though to 
conceal his having spoken. 

'Well, you see,' said the plush waistcoat, rather 
quieted, now he had formally to relate the cause of his 
excitement — 'I've been up at the Admiral Sceppd, 
the public yonder, and there's been a match on — 
sparrer-shooting ; and Pawkins made splendid play 
at first — spleniud he did ; blazed away, and brought 
down all his birds, and I 'd have backed him to win 
to any amount. Well, when his turn came again, 
blessed if he didn't go all wrong ; never saw such a 
thing, forgot hisself, didn't know where he was, 
banged away anyhow, missed everything, and was beat 
— <Lead. Never saw such a thing in aU my life ; and. 
I'd have laid any money upon Pawkins.' 

I fancy we were of opimon, all of us, even to Mike» 
that the excitement was rather in ezoeas of th^ 
cause. 

And now we stop at my station, and I say good — 
morning, and so an end of the corporal, and the Connu^^ 
man, and Joe Piper, and Pawkins. The elderly lady.^ 
I know, I shall meet again, and I fear also thc^ 
'weather' man and the 'steam' man among futur^^ 
fellow second-class passengers — unless I exercute grea.^^ 
caution in the selection of my carriage. 

HOW THE MONEY WEARa 

Of the wajr in which money 'bums a hole in th^^ 
pocket,' it is unnecessary to speak; but there is ^^ 
more imperceptible vanishing than this, of whicX^ 
none of us are aware of while it is going on, ani«3. 
which can only be detected by cumulative rasult^K- 
Whenever one coin rubs against another, a smali por*' 
tion of metal leaves each; we can never find, in oiur* 
pockets, purses, or hands the minute fragments thix^ 
abraded, out there they are, whether we can see them 
or not The^ do wear away, and they will wear, though 
the action is too slow to attract our notice. It is not 
an important point in our everyday-life. A pound is 
a pound, a shilling is a shilling, so long as it will pass 
for a pound's worth or shilling's worth ; nor does it 
nuitter to us whether the coin, when we part witii it, 
weighs a few grains less than when we obtained it 
But when the Bank of England, as is the case now 
and then, finds it expedient to weigh all tibie gold 
taken over its counter, and to deduct some- 
thing for the sin of ' light gold,' 'Uien we obtain an 
idea of the practical depreciation of the robbing 
process. 

The first occasion on which the attention of the 
Bank authorities was directed to this subject appears 
to have been in 1787. The silver coins were then in 
a wretched state, battered, crooked, thin, and their 
devices almost illegible. Taldng some of the speci- 
mens at random, it was foimd that one troy pound 
of shillings required 78 to turn the balance, whereas a 
pound of new shilling numbered only 62. A pound 
weight of sixpences, in a similar way, required 194 
instead of 124 — thus shewing how very large a 
quantity of silyer had gone, somewhere or mter. 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



181 












from each coin. The loss in the sixpences was 
greater than in the shillings, partly because those 
coins were thinner, and because they changed hands 
more frequently in the operations of retail commerce. 
Tbe crowns and half-crowns, being less in use, had 
inffered leas ; the former had lost, on an average, 
ibout 1 in 30, and the latter 1 in 14 ; whereas uie 
shillings had lost wei^t in the ratio of 1 in 5, and 
the sixpences 1 in 3. The coins were allowed to run 
their usoal course, chan^g hands in the wonderfully 
rapid way which Knglian commerce illustrates, for a 
further period of eleven years. Laree quantities, 
taken promiscuously, were weighed in 179& It was 
now found that the shillings had suflfered in the 
usaal way from this hard work; 83 of them were 
needed to make up a troy pound, instead of 78, as 
at the former weu^ng; wnile 201 sixpences were 
I required^ instead of 194. The crowns and half-crowns 
had also suffered, though in a smaller decree. Taking 
into acooont the who& amount of diminution since 
the first issue of the bright new coins, it was found 
that tihe crowns had, on an average, lost 3 per cent, 
of their wei^t, the half-crowns 10 per cent., the 
shillings 24 per cent., and the sixpences 38 per cent. 

It must not be inferred that the whole of this loss 
was due to Intimate wear and tear ; in fact, the Bank 
directors knew that it was not ; and one of the objects 
they had in view was, to determine in how large a 
de^ee they and the people were robbed by knavery. 
Siwh tilings axe not so much done now ; but in those 
days the current coin of the realm was clipped and 
'sweated' in an audacious way. It was punched 
throo^ the middle, scraped round the ed^, and 
otherwise shorn of its proper dimensions ana value. 
Here were many reasons for wishing to know how 
much of the lessening in weight was due to such 
causes, and how much to legitimate wear and tear. A 
committee was appointed oy the Privy Council, *to 
take into consideration the state of the coins of this 
kingdom; having, among other circumstances, remarked 
tile considerable loss \mich the gold coin appears to 
have sustained by wear within certain periods ; and 
being desirous to ascertain whether this loss was occa- 
sioned by any defect, either in the quality of the 
standardffohC or in the figure or impression of the 
coins.' The committee, whose labours were confined 
to the gold coinage only, invited the co-operation of 
Mr Cavendish and Mr Hatchett, two distinguished 
fellows of the Royal Society ; and those savants were 
engaged on the inquiry from 1798 to 1801. 

The first problem undertaken for solution was this — 
Does yery soft and ductile gold, or gold made as hard 
as is compatible with the processes of coining, suffer 
tibe most by wear, under the various circumstances of 
friction to which coin is subjected in the course of 
drcolation? The two philosophers prepared a very 
laxge series of alloys of ^old with baser metals. 
Arsenic, antimony, zinc, cobalt, nickel, manganese, 
hisnuith, lead, tin, iron, platinum, copper, silver — all 
wen tried, combined in various proportions with the 
nedona metal. They next expased these alloys to all 
lands of vicissitudes, to find which bore themselves 
most brayely. Some of the metals evaporated too 
much when heated ; some were badly coloured ; some 
too brittle ; some too soft. The worst of all the alloys 
were foond to be those in which the gold was com- 
htned with bismuth, lead, or antimony ; while the best 
of all was that which the united opinions of the 
govemments of Europe had already determined as the 
most appropriate — ^namely, a small admixture of silver 
with toe pure gold. The philosophers rubbed away 
for months, to see which sdloy bore the ordeal most 
unflinchinely. They fixed twenty-eight pieces in a 
frame, and rubbed them with twenW-eight similar 
piedes fixed in another frame. This rubbing was con- 
tamed for the enormous number of half a mulion timeSf 
witli pieces or discs made of the several kinds of aUoy 
above ^numeFated. The result was, that standard 



gold, consisting of twenty-two of pure gold to two of 
silver, sufferea less by me abrasion than any other 
alloy, and also less than pure gold itself — a sati^actory 
result, shewing that accumulated experience haa 
taught the right thing to the money-makers. Lest it 
should have happened that this systematic sort of 
rubbing failed to imitate the various kinds of friction 
to which coin is usually exposed, the philosophers 
resolved to toss about their experimental pieces more 
indiscriminately. They prepared a box, so adjusted 
upon a pivot that it could be rotated. Into this box 
they put forty blanks of pure gold, forty of standard 
^old, forty in which the alloy was copper, and forty 
in which the gold was alloyed both with silver and 
copper — all the pieces having been first carefully 
weighed. The box was then rotated more than seventy 
thousand times, causing the pieces to rub against each 
other in every possible direction. The result confirmed 
that which had before been arrived at — the standard 
gold sufiered less by the friction than any other 
combination. 

In 1807, the authorities at the Mint, satisfied as to 
the fitness of the standard, recurred to the subject of 
wear and tear, and sought to inquire how much the 
coin had really been depreciated in value during its 
busy course in the scenes of commerce. One thousand 
guineas, taken from a banker's, were found on an 
average to be 198. per L.100 short in value. Of one 
hundred guineas obtained from a retail tradesman, 
the average deficiency was 23s. per L.100. Of six 
hundred half-ffuineas, it was 42s. ; but on three hun- 
dred scven-shSling pieces— a coin very little in use — ^it 
was only 17s. i)er L.100. Mr Jacob, a great authority 
on all matters relating to the precious metals, was of 
opinion that the gold coins thus examined had been in 
averaco circulation about ten years ; and from further 
considering the proportion which the half -guineas bore 
to the guineas, and the relative wear of each, he stated 
his behef that the average anniud loss of the coins by 
abrasion, consequent on uie usual commercial dealings, 
was about ^f^th part of the whole. 

Many years elapsed before any further inquiry took 
place into this curious matter. In 1826, the Mint 
authorities wished to ascertain how much loss by 
abrasion had been occasioned in gold and silver coinea 
subsequent to 1816. One odd result of weighing was, 
that the dirt on three hundred pieces of money 
amounted to 7 grains if the coins were half-sove- 
reigns; to 22 grains, if they were half-crowns; and 
to intermediate amounts if other coins were ex- 
perimented on. It was next found that gold 
coined in 1817 had lost about 5s. per cent on an 
average of sovereigns and half-sovereigns ; while that 
coined in 1825 had suffered an average loss of 28. 
per cent. Mr Jacob, commenting on these results, 
expressed a belief that the coins had been in use about 
two years and a half on the average, and that they 
indicated a wear of -riv^^ V^^ P^^ annum. This was 
a greater ratio than that (T^^th) which he had before 
observed ; but he accounted for it thus — that the 
annual average wear for two years and a half is 
greater than that for ten years ; because it has been 
found that sovereigns lose more in the first than in 
any subsequent year, probably on accoimt of the 
numerous snsurp projecting points of the device. The 
shillings had lost from 58. to 46s. per cent, in value, 
according as they had been one year or ten years in 
circulation. The sixpences had lost more than this, 
the half-crowns less. Mr Jacob, not choosing to be 
beaten by the complexity of the subject, examined 
all the results which had been obtained on all the 
coins, and in all the years; and he arrived at a 
conclusion that, under the usual conditions of English 
commerce, stiver coins depreciate ^hfi^ part every 
year; that is, four or five times as much as gold 
coins. Some x>er80ns believe the loss to be still 
higher, but Mr Jacob was very careful in his calcu- 
lations. All agree that silver coins wear more than 



182 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



gold, because the same degree of friction will produce 
a jgpreater diminution in weight, and because silver 
ooms are more incessantly in circulation than those 
of eold. 

Nothing further, so far as we are aware, occurred 
in relation to this subject until the year 1859, when, 
in accordance with a wish expressed by the govemor 
of the Bank of England, Mr W. Miller, first-assistant 
cashier, and Mr J. Miller of the Gold Weighing Office, 
made an investigation into the condition of tne ^Id 
and silver coinage, so far as concerned loss of weight 
by wear and teu>. In order to test this matter care- 
fully, it was considered desirable to select coins issued 
in a particular year, that each year's work of destruc- 
tion might be duly measured. Mr J. Miller col- 
lected, trom parcels sent to the Bank on different 
da^ and from different places, one hundred sove- 
reigns of the date 1820, ul of which had therefore 
been knocking about the world for nearly forty years ; 
he found the loss of weight by rubbing, estimated in 
money, to be L.1, 6s. 7d. — somewhat more than three- 
pence per sovereign on an average. Mr W. Miller 
made a veiy elaborate series of experiments on two 
kinds of gold coin, and three of silver. He collected 
a lu^ number coined between the years 1817 
and 1825, and considered that 1822 would present 
about the average date of the whole. They had 
thus been in use somewhat more than thirby-six 
years. Then he determined how much weight of 
each denomination of coin was equivalent to L.100 
at the time of coining, and how much weight was 
equivalent to the same sum in 1859, from whence 
lie easily deduced the amount of loss. The reader 
would not thank us for overloading the page with 
figures; but there is a mode of stating tne matter 
^mch will appeal to the eye and the jud^ent at 
<mce. Mr ll^ller said, in ^ect : * These coins have 
been playing their part in commerce during a period 
of thiSrty-six years ; if they continued wearing at the 
same rate for a whole century, how much would they 
lose in value ?' He answerea his own problem thus : 
L.100 worth of soverei^is would lose about L.3, 10b. 
in value and weight ; <S half-sovereigns, L.6) 128. ; of 
half-crowns, L.13, 12s. ; of shillings, L.d6, 14s. ; and 
of sixpences, L.60, 19s.— that is to say, these last 
would be a little less than half their proper weight, 
after passing from hand to hand for a hundred years. 

In a letter addressed by Mr W. Miller to the 
deputy-governor of the Bank towards the close of 
1859, the following interesting remarks occur touching 
the coina^ generally: 'Sovereijops issued from the 
Mint in different reigns, or at different times, do not 
wear eaually welL They wear more or less, according 
to the difference in the alloy; in the impression, or in 
title temper of the metaL Ihe sovereiens cd George 
nL were much better than those <3 subsequent 
reigns, from their being alloyed with silver [without 
any copper T] When the impression is simple, without 
many minute prominences, which soon rub off, the 
coin wears much better. The milling, too, round the 
rim, loses much by wear ; a plain nm, with letters 
round it, would wear better. If the metal of a coinage 
should happen to be more soft or brittle than usual, 
the coins would not wear so welL The first coinage 
d a new rei^ will, after a long period, be found m 
better condition than one of two or three years sub- 
sequent, from the fact of many coins of the former 
being hoarded as curiosities. The wear of the coin 
depends on the manner in which it is used in circu- 
lation. A sovereign passed at the west end of London 
meets with better usage in such shops as jewellers* or 
milliners*, than it does when rung with a strong arm 
on the counter of a potato-salesman, where it would 
be rubbed by the sand. In commercial towns, the 
coin becomes light sooner than in other places, not 
only from its greater circulation, but in consequence 
of the rough usage it undergoes in being so often 
thrown into bankers* scales and drawers. During a | 



time of great commercial activity, as the coin would 
be used more, of course its wear would be greater 
than at other times. It is probable that the coin 
issued during the last ten years has become light more 
quickly than that issued in the preceding ten years, 
and it might perhaps be found that our coin becomes 
light more rapidly than the coin of other countries. 
I do not know wnether the old process of sweating 
the coin by shaking it in a bag be ever practisea 
now ; but we have constant evidence of the sovereigns 
being reduced by acid, and also by being filed in 
many ingenious ways.* 
This is how the money wears ! 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

CHAPTBB XXXXI.~THI LXOIT TAMim. 

The personal aspect of the Lion Tamer of Central 
Ahica was certainly impressive in a very high degree. 
His actual hek^t coula scarcely have been less than 
six feet two, wmle it was .artificially raised by a circlet 
ol eagle feathers set in a coronet, which the majority 
of enraptured beholders believed to be constructed df 
virgin-gold. A leopard-skin, worn somewhat after 
the manner of a Scotch plaid, set off a jerkin of green 
leather, while his le^ were encased in a pair of nuge 
jack-boots. Such was the costume in wnidi Tickero- 
candua*s promietors would have it supposed that hB~ 
pursued tne King of Beasts in the and plains of 
native land, armed only with an ordinaiy-lookin^^^ 
carter's whip, which he carried, however, with an 
air as though it had been the sceptre of Timbuctoo. 

He was undeniablv a ma^nincent-lookin^ fellow, 
to whom not even tne luxuriant tresses which were 
swept back from his forehead in the style .^cro- 
batupie, could impart a touch of effeminacy ; 
as he trod the floor with abstracted air, he 
every inch as much a king as anv playactor, and, it ij 
pro1>able, a vast deal more so than any actual occa 
pant of a throne. Gaang neither to uie right ~ 

nor to the left» he £p»velv approached the cage wh< 

the lions were awaiting nim, oy no means as thoug fc^t 
he were an article of consumption, especially deoorate^^B 
for tiieir table (as would have been nty feeling, 
yours, brave reader, in such a case), but rather 
thou^ he had * a crow to pick,' as the 
runs, with one of them — an account which' it dii» 
tressed him, as their ruler and natural protector, 
have to settle. In execution of this painful du^r^^^ 
therefore, as soon as he had deliberate^ openied tk 
cafle-door, just wide enou^ to admit himself, ai 
bolted it on the inside, he applied his whip wii 
considerable energy to that monarch of the desert wl 
happened to be making the greatest roaring of tlL-" 
seven ; then seizing him by a great handfnl of man( 
he forced him to stand upon ms hind legs, and 
his massive forepaws upon lus own breaetb in whi< 
position he stood for a minute or two, ^ba lion, look — - ' 
ing straight into his face with the eye cf an epici ii - " ^^ 
regarding lus first morsel, and Tickerocaodna lookin> .^ 
at the hon as though he would like to see him at i"^^ 
Then disentangling nimself of the King ol Beasts bp»^ 
the simple process of throwing him backwards, lie tcH^^^ 
up an exceedingly small wooaen hoop, and requeste^^S 
in ceremonious dumb show — as- though he were com^- 
fening the Order of the Garter upon aome disti^V' 
guished courtier — that the laigest quadruped thasre 
present should leap through it without the previormxi 
precaution (which seemed absolutely necessary) ^ 
taking off his head and shoulders ; the thing appeared 
only one degree less preposterous than a requeat tlu^ 
the camel over the way should attempt tiie eve of ^ 
needle; but at the second crack of the whip, and 
after a single aoan of remonstrance from the lion, th^ 
creature dart^ through it, fitting it closely indeed as 
a bullet its barrel, but with all that shaggy anyrJifaulA 
of mane shrunk down to nothing — laid Mck like the 






CHAMBBRffS JOURNAL. 



183 



of a TioioiiB horse on the one side of the hoop, 
andrfiiMortiDg itself on the other like the quilLi of an 
gmwdingly fretfol porcupine. 

1a admtioa to this example of what the professional 
iioB hunter (as well as the lion) has to go through in 
Coitral Africa, Tickerocandua now inserted a oouple 
of ridicoloiuly narrow shelves in the back of the cage 
ior the aooommodation of a pair of lionesses; and 
nrangiiig the remaining five animals in the foixn of a 
deepfakjg-oouoh, he reclined upon them in a luxurious 
attitodS, while those dai^gerous-looking cherubs 
watched 0¥W him from their exalted position. Finally, 
harmgieoaived a carbine from the hands of Mr Mopes, 
and oompeUed the whole of the anrmals to leap many 
times OTer his head and shoulders at full gaJlop, he 
drove the seven into a comer, snarlins and growling, 
and discharged among them, from his deadly weapon, 
a penny-wiQcth ol powder — a ceremony which con- 
chudedihe representation of the method of conducting 
lion-hunts. 

Pnrii^ the whole of this spectacle Dick was trans- 
ported with delifl^t ; he had never imagined such a 
mssteiyovwthe fierce creatures he had so often admired 
and dreaded was attainable, and he looked upon him 
who had achieved it, as the brave^ and pernaps the 
best of men. There was so undisguised an expression of 
wonhipinhis countenance, that Tickerocandua himself, 
aocustomed as he was to the incense of public adora- 
tion, bowed to the lad in a stately manner as he 
piMnd throng the crowd; and when he reached his 
OHAvan, andlelt Dick's hand laid reverently upon his 
ti^er-skiDy he observed, in a voice less regal than 
MjAfc havo been expected, and even a litt^ thick, 
'WeU, what is it, young un? Would you like to 
Mske your living among wild beasteses like me ?' 

Dick nplied respecuully that such was not only 
his wish, m his settled intention. 

' Wl^y Uess my liver,' replied Tickerocandua, whose 
name^ m private life, by the by, was Robinson, imd 
whose kn^ledge of Central Africa was derived from 
«nl tradition rather than from personal experience, 
or from books, ' Why, bless my hver, I never seed a 
joong fellow ii your age bit so— never ! Boys, ay, 
sad sooaetimes gals too, I have seen bit ; but a young 

aan like joa Lord love you, go away home to 

your mother, do, for the hexhibition's dosing I ' 

«I am goinff to bebng to your company,' returned 
Didk sanesily. 'I have got a letter from Mr 
Trimnaa^ who used to have the show, or at least 
from Kb Trimming, to Mr Tredgold, to ask him to 
take JDS on here.' 

* Shy what ? Mrs Trimming I ' ejaculated the Beast- 
tamer ^ 'a Toung ooman wiui dark hair and eyes, as 
warn Idon Queen here for a little time, only nothing 
would ever induce her to go in among the nanimals, 
and har name is Lucidora ?^ 

'Ay, that 's her,' replied Dick. 

' Coms up alon£ witn me thai,' returned Tickerocan- 
dna, as he led the way up the steps of the caravan ; 
* we have plenty of time for a little chat together about 
old friends, for master and missus are at supper at 
praNoi, and hates to be disturbed over their wittles 
as nmcfa as the beasteses.' 

The caravan was of polished deal, and consisted 
of three apartments — one devoted to the Lion Hunter 
o£ Gbntral Africa, one to the Earthwoman and her 
oonsort^ and one to the purposes of a common sitting- 
nsm. Hie privacy of each apartment, however, was 
not so great as these arrangements implied, the 
ywtiti^nif being by no means sound-proof; and, 
mdeed, throughout the subsequent convcisation 
nhioh was hdd in Tickerocandua's sleepng-apart- 
the words Woggadaboo and Wi^dy made 



1 



distinctly heard through the single plank 

vhich intervened between Dick and his new uiend and 
the two abori^nes from the Mountains of the Moon. 
Xhs convenienoe, however, if not the seclusion of the 
SDmgeBients, was undeniable ; the furniture was good 



if not plentiful ; while every article of it had some use I 
beside that which its outward appearance indicated. 
Not only was ' the bed by night a chest-of -drawers by 
day,' but one of the chairs hung down perpendicular]^ 
from the wall, until it was wanted, and the other 
turned over (sometimes when it was not wanted) and 
became a washing-stand. There were little cupboards, 
too, like rabbit-hutches, for the keeping of all sorts of 
properties, hanging round the room in default o€ 
pictures, and one of them was the cellar, wherefrom 
Tickerocandua produced a bottle of spirits, and dnmk 
Dick's health out of it straightway, without the 
intervention of a glass. 

' I always find that 's good for me,' exclaimed he, 
* whenever I get away from those precious lions.' 

To this Dick responded, ' Ah ! ' merely, like a prudent 
lad ; but he thou^t within himaAlf^ that if toe Lion 
Hunter of Centr^ Africa performed that beneficial 
ceremony, after each of his representations, and the 
representations took place every hour, he must set 
through a good deal of Hollands in the course of uie 
day. 

Could it be possible, then, that Tickerocandua 
stood in need of Duteh courage ? That he was acting 
a part that he was not equal to ; and that, when the 
play was over for the time, such a stimulant was 
necessary to recover him from subsequent reaction ? 
As Tickerocandua took off his crown of eagle feathers, 
and passed his hand over his brow, with somcthinff 
like a sigh, it seemed to the lad that such indeed 
might be the case. The tone of the Beast-tamer, 
however, was blithe and jovial enou^ as he asked 
after his old acquaintance, Richard Trimming — ^just 
such a careless self-congratulatory tone, in short, ss 
that in which men usua^y do ask after one who has 
been a boon-companion to them for some little way 
on the road of life, but since then, it is likely, may 
have taken a wrong turning. 

'Well,' answered the lad laughing, *he lives by 
photography, just at present.' 

'I was afraid that 'ud be it,' observed the other 
^velv, ' and I 'm sorry for it. An honest livelihood 
IS the best, be it ever so hard a one.' 

* Oh, it 's honest enough,' explained Dick hastily, ' as 
far as that goes; he hves by taking other people's 
faces, that 's alL' 

*Dear, dear I so poor Dick has got to that, has he? 
We always said there was need to hold one's hat on 
with hotn hands in his company, and that even then 
he would be sure to pick one's pockets. Such a clever 
fellow, too, and not to make anything of his chances 
titer all ! Why this ere Travemng Hexhibition must 
have been wor&i at least twenty pounds a week to 
him. There was a yellow-throated Sloth in it at that 
time as was five hundred pounds to begin with in any 
man's purse — always a throwing itself upon its badL 
and requestin' of the public to come on if they dared 
for a scratch-match : and yet they do say Trimming 
lost the whole biling of it at three card loo in six 
months. He was an awful gambler, was Dick ; the 
bttt card-player, billiard-player, skittle-player, and 
what not, as was to be looked on ; but nothing evor 
comes of that wortii speaking of ; it 's light come, li^^ 
go ; or else there's somebody else as is always just a 
point or two beyond you ; that *s where it is. Did 
Ddok ever tell you how he did the Yankees over the 
water ?' 

* He told me some queer things of his own doings, but 
I don't think he ever told me that,' replied the Tad. 

' Well, it was in the days of Tnmming's luck, and 
he had some six hundred pounds to the good about 
him, so what docs he do but goes to New York and 
loses a little of it in the best of the public billiard- 
rooms, and then by rail and coach to the far WesL 
stopping at every big place to lose some more ; and 
dropping here a little and there a little all the way 
as though it were a paper-chase, with dollar notes. 
When he got to Bumdor, or some such wild-^ 



184 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



sort of a name, he had but twelve pounds belonging 
to him to bring him back to England, and then he 
besan to calkilate that it was about time to think of 
maidng his fortune. So he played a little better at 
Buffalor, and commenced to win instead of lose ; and 
then a good deal better at each of the places at which 
he had o^n defeated — ** picked up," as the saying is 
— on his way West. Those who had found him an 
easy victory before, could scarcely understand how a 
man's play could so improve in ten days' time, and 
were nled thereby most uncommon, but of course 
they had to pay when they lost When he got back 
to New York itself, he put the i)ot on to a very con- 
siderable extent, and won a heap of dollars nightly ; 
he told me tiiat he did not get less than a couple of 
thousand poimds, in all, out of that same room ; and 
he would have made more, only one night an accident 
happened which might have been rather serious. He 
.perceived, by the oehaviour of some of the players, 
that he had been " blown upon " — got found out, in 
fact — and by their savage looks and whispers among 
themselves, that a quarrel was going to be picked 
with him, after which, as he wdl Imew, he would 
have to take one of Colonel Colt's lead-pills, or 
become a sheath for a bowie-knife. He saw he 
would never be permitted to get clear awav from 
them rooms again, and yet he had every fartning of 
money he possessed, in the world at that moment 
about his person. He had won three or four hundred 
dollars almidy that very evening, and he placed the 
notes ostentatiously upon the mantel-piece as he went 
on with his game ; then having contrived to cut his 
hand with the brass rim of a pocket so as to make it 
bleed, he left the room imder pretence of going to 
wash it, in his shirt-sleeves, indeed, but with a wnole 
skin. He never came back either for his coat or his 
money, but went right away, and put himself under 
the protection of the police, imtil the steamer started 
for England.' 

* And did he get safe home with all the rest he had 
won?' inquired Dick, who could scarcely reconcile such 
a fact with the sky-parlour and modest manner of life 
affected bv the gentleman in question, since he had 
had the aavantage of his acquamtance. 

*A^ that he did, and lived like a fighting-cock 
upon it for six months or so, by which tmie it was 
all gone and more with it ; he was reduced, indeed, so 
low on that particular occasion, I remember, that he 
had to take to the Bumby Bodge.' 

*The Dumby Dodge?' remarked Dick interroga- 
tively ; * I never heard of that, I think.' 

Well, my boy, it 's a profession that few people take 
up with for choice, and until most other trades have 
failed. You go about to sporting public-houses — ^them 
in the dog-line principally — and stick pins into your- 
self for the gratification of the nobility and gentry ; 
that 's what is called the Dumby Dodge — because, I 
suppose, you don't holler out when tney hurt you. 
Dick Trimming had great natural gifts in that way, 
and had no more f eeung in his arms than if they had 
been stuffed with saw-dust ; while his lips in parti- 
cular, might have been orange-peel for ul that tiiey 
cared about pins. But he had his tender pints, of 
-course, and suffered accordingly. For my part, I 
should not like to see it done, a bit better tnan to 
make a pincushion of my own carcass, but different 
persons are differently constituted; and for the 
matter of that, it 'taint a usual thing to lock one's self 
up with half-a-dozen lions and lionesses, ten times 
a-day, for the enjoyment of one's fellow-creatures.' 

* That 's true,' returned Dick, * I never expected to 
see you come out of that cage alive to-day.' 

•Well, I've done that same trick,' remarked 
Tickerocandua coolly, and entering a figure in his 
note-book, * exactly three thousand times in the last 
four years ; I keep account of it, so that when my 
time does come, my successor may know exactly what 
he has to look to. Except Newcomo, the lion-tamer 



belonging to Edmonds' concern, that was Wombwell's 
— and is the latest hexhibition as travels, for all what 
our advertising- bill says — I gives in to no man for 
pluck and stea^Uness ; but it's a bad trade — a danger- 
ous game, young man' — (here Mr Robinson took 
another pull at the gin-bottle, as if to conceal a 
passing snudder) — *and I should never advise you, 
nor nm)ody else, to take to it, if half the money, ay, 
or a quarter of it, is to be made by other means. The 
man who was here as lion-tamer just before me, was 
a black man, and would have been safe, one would 
have thought — to look at him — ^from any animal that 
hadn't a very depraved happetite, indeed ; and yet that 
ere tigress in the fourth caravan from this ' 

'The beautiful creature that is in the same cage 
with ttie lion?' interrupted Dick; *I saw her lying 
down to rest as soon as she found she was not wante(^ 
and sleeping through all the noise and tumult of th 
hunt next door, as though she were in her native 
jimgle.' 

•sleeping!' exclaimed Tickerocandua contemptn 

ously, *that striped devil never sleeps. She does^ 
nothing but shut her eyes, and think of human fiesh^. 
that 's my belief. She made but one bite at that poor- 
darkey, it 's true, but you might have put your neacl. 
in the hole a'most.' 

* Has that tigress eaten a man, then ?' demanded 
Dick with horror. 

*She has killed a man, and eaten as much as sh^ 
could of him,' returned the Beast-tamer. I was tele— 
graphed for ^m London, and took his place withirB. 
twenty-four hours afterwards. People ain^t picked up» 
in every town that '11 accept such appointments as this^ 
you see, and particularly after these little accidents. H 
had been brea up to the work all my life, and was well 
worth my salary, high as it is, as Tredgold very well- 
knew. Why, it was I who introduced the lion himtt^ 
into this shop. I am the man that draws the com- 
pany. If there wasn't a chance of seeing me eaten u 
alive ten times a-day, why, how would this show ~ 
filled I should like to know ? Do you suppose they ' . 
stand a-gaping at them elephants all day if there wasn'^' 
something startling to f oUow ? Don't they get tirec 
enough of that fool Mopes's talk about the creeturv-'^ 
intelugence — and the beasts are sharp enough, it'^^ 
true — and affectionate docility, and so forth. On. Lcnr ^ 
just you ask Doll Jeeheeboy about that I He ~ 
something about their gentlenesses, he does ; he co 
have shewn you, one (uty, five smashed-in libs and 
broken arm in proof of it. I shall never forget ~ 
a-lying imder that angelic-tempered Ninua, wko 
his ofit-forefoot lifted up to fimsh him with, nor th< 
voice in which he cried out, ** Oh Niney, Niney, whar 
are you a-doing on ?" as though he would ezpostulato^^ 
with the terrible creetur.' 

* But he did spare him, did he not ? ' returned 
•or how comes it that the poor fellow is alive ?' 

' Oh yes, he spared him, just as the cat spares th 
mouse when he is tired of torturingit, for a little 
1)eing always certain of his victim. The beast wonl^E=i 
let none of us go into the den and drug Doll out '* 
however, one of the visitors went in — a psnon he w 
and as milksoppy a chap to look at as ever you saw — 
but he was a orave gentleman. He said as how iimt^ 
same Power as sav^ Daniel from the lions wouL 
help him then in doing a good action. That 
what I call bringing the Scriptures home to a fello 
that is ; and, for my part, I wish I could feel like hiac^i 
when I put on my boots and feathers every morning. ' 

* You are not a&aid, however,' said Dick ; ' I am sur*^ 
of that' 

'Afraid!' returned the other scornfully; 'well, I 
should think not ; what made you put such a question 
to m«, I 'd like to know? I flatter myself that none of 
my feathers are white ones. No, no ; but let the pitcher 
go to the well no matter how q/len,' added the Bea8^ 
tamer gravely, ' it must needs come to smash at last. 
It 's risky, you see ; the thing is risky after all — there, 






CHAMBERS'S JOURNAK 



185 



ihii*i my last pull at the bottle for this evening ; * and 

vith those woxtis Tickerocandua replaced the tempter 

in its piffeon-hole. 
'Bui now did you pluck up courage to so in among 

the creatores for the first time?' persist^ Dick. 'I 
can &iicy custom reconciling a man even to such a 
trade as yonn; but the apprenticeship seems the 
wonder.' 

* Well, you see, there were only two — a lion and a 
lioness — ^when I Ihrst came, for the tigress I would then 
have nothing to do with ; and I could keep my eye 
on both of them at once ; and when I cot to be 
strai^t with them, the others were added, one by 
one, sod seeing the old stagers behaving civilly to me, 
they did the same; for all the world like human 
beings, lliey are jealous and suspicious of one 
another^ too, and don't know how to pull together, 
thank Heaven; beside which, they are afraid of the 
whip.' 

'I shoold haye thought they could have scarcely 
felt snch a thing as that,' obs^ed Dick, pointing to 





' and then tdl me what you think of it' 

• Why, it's loaded,' cried the astonished lad; * it 's 
nothing less than a tremendous life-preserver.' 

'Just so,' returned the other coolly; *but it is 
mmecessaxy to mention it to the general public. 
They wonld not be half so pleased if they thought I 
ooold defend myself. One tap on the right place from 
that there seeming bit of leatner, and not a lion living 
Vat must m down oefore it, like a pin in a skittle-alley. 

* You'd hit him on the head, I suppose ? ' inquii^d 
Dick wxtti interest. 

•Well, yoa see, you're an outsider at present, young 
man, and these wings are secrets of the profession ; 
bat I dont mind telling you this much, that you 
miffht beat one of them hons about the head for half- 
anlioiir, with that there loaded handle, and he 
wooldn't know but what you were only killing his 
fleas for him. And speaking of fleas — of which there 
are a great many in ttds here shop, although they are 
nerer mentioned among the Collection in the bills- 
do yoa know that it is about time to turn in, for we 
ke^ eariy hours; Mr and Mrs T., too, must have 
done their supper this long time. You can have that 
maitiCBS yonder for to-mght, if they will give you 
leaTe, but afterwards you must sleep out in lodgings. 
Nobody but me and that Earthenware lot, as i caJls 
them' — and Mr Robinson pointed with his thumb to 
the apartment occupied by the lady and gentleman 
from the Mountains of the Moon — * being permitted 
to ha?e quarters in the Hexibition at night.^ 

'Then to whom does that beautiful caravan next 
door belong ? ' inquired Dick. 

'To the master and mistress, of course,' replied 
Tickerocandua, with an air such as a sentry at Buck- 
ingftam Ftdace might assume, if he were asked who 
resided there. ' It ain't far for you to walk ; only 
take care of the steps, which are steepish ; and if you 
went a cropper down them, you might pitch on to the 
^ass-box nul of serpents, wmch aint a pleasant family 
to break in upon unexpected, I can tell you.' 

With this niendly piece of parting advice, the Lion- 
tamer of Central Africa set up h£ bed, which was 
exactly like the flap of a dinner-table, and proceeded to 
direst himself of his jack-boots and tiger-skin. 

• 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
ME AND MRS TKBDGOLD. 

Tskinff exceeding care not to disturb the great family 
of cpkidutj snugly reposing in their blankets of many 
fola% Mr Bichard Arbour once more descended into 
the ei±ibttaon. The place was ouite deserted of 
hnmaa oocupants, all the duties of the company in 
eomieotioii with the brute creation having been 



fulfilled. Only a stifled bark from the jackal proclaimed 
his sense of wrong at not being let out to the grave- 
yards upon so beautiful a summer-night, and a dis- 
appointed cry from the cheetah, intimated that he was 
hunting in his dreams, and had just missed his spring 
at a phantom antelope. The homed owl, indeed, was 
wide awake, with his ears unnecessarily erect, and his 
eyes exceedingly like a \iair of policeman's lanterns, 
fixed suspiciously on nothing particular; but, as he 
was never known to be otherwise, it is not necessary 
to except either him, or the weazel, from the general 
drowsiness. The stork, with a misdirected economy, 
was husbanding one of her spindle legs as usual, by 
making the other do double duty, and had wrapped her 
wing carefully about her head, as a servant-girl carries 
her prayer-book in her pocket-handkerchief. A monkey 
or two, swung by their tails, like pendulums, as if 
anxious to take note of time even while they slept; 
and the porcupines were huddled together in a manner 
to make a thm-skinned spectator uiudder, and with 
a natural affection overcoming circumstance greater 
than that their brethren of the quill, the Poets, ever 
described in song. 

The rap which Dick administered with the highly- 
polished knocker upon the highly-polished door of 
Mr Tredgold's residence, did resoimd amid the general 
silence rather alarmingly; but he was not prepared 
to hear the bolt shot with great sharpness upon the 
other side, and a tremulous voice demanding through 
the keyhole what was the matter, and in ^urticular, 
whether that confounded alli^tor was about again. 

This interesting quadrujp^, as Dick subsequently 
learned, was a recent addition to the collection, and 
the bane of its proprietor's existence. That bene- 
volent gentleman had caused a mighty bath to be 
prepared for it, and had let it out, upon one occasion, 
for the express purpose of its taking its natural 
refreshment therem; but instead of doing so, the 
animal had snapped at the company generally, and 
pursued his keeper round the show for upwards of an 
hour, with his mouth open, to the estimated extent of 
thirteen feet. Spare iron bars from the cages had 
been plunged into that dreadful vacuum, only to be 
snapped in pieces like slate-^ncils ; and he was only 
captured at last by means of a casting-net, in which an 
experienced fisherman entangled the amphibious beast, 
after a chase which lasted for an entire afternoon. 

*What is loose, then, if it aint the alligator?' 
demanded the voice again in tones a little reassured ; 
*it isn't that there abominable nylghau I do hope, 
nor yet the puma ?' 

* Is^o, sir,' replied Dick, half -suffocated with laughter; 

* it's only me ; and I 've got a letter for you.' 

At these words the <KX)r was opened slowly and 
cautiously, as though Mr Tredgold were yet unsatis- 
fied that they might not be the ruse of some subtle 
animal devised to put him off his guard, and gain 
admittance into the caravan. 'And who are you, 
sir?' demanded the proprietor fiercely, as soon as he 
saw how little formidable his visitor really was. 

* Who the deuce are you, sir, and who is your letter 
from?' 

*My name is Richard Arbour, who is seeking 
employment in your service, sir; and the letter is 
from Mrs, or at least from the young woman 
that' 

' From whomf* cried a voice so shrill that it almost 
set Dick's teeth on edge, and so close to his ear that 
he could hardly think a plank, however thin, inteor- 
posed between him and the speaker. 'Bring it in 
directly, Mr Tredgold : I insist upon knowing who 
it comes from.' 

* You may fetch it yourself, madam, if you feel so 
excessively anxious aliout it,' replied that gentleman, 
winking wickedly at Dick, and by rapid pantomimic 
action making him aware tiiat Mrs T. had her ni^t- 
cap on, and was not in costume suitable for ner 
appearance before a stranger. 



186 



OHAMBEBS'S JOJJBJSAJU 



'It's ft bonnesB letter, my love, respeetinff tbe 
taldiig on of an additionftl luuid into the emUiah- 
rnent, and liaa nothing to do with jon whatenrer.* 

There was a rostunff soond as thon^ somebody 
were getting into a suk dxess in a Tery excited 
manner, uid in another moment the misferess of the 
earayan was in the apartment, thinner, and so to 
neak, skimpier than ever, in oonseqaence probably 
01 some denciency of under-garment, and wearine a 
bonnet over what was most certainly never intended 
to be a bonnet-cap. 

* Let me ]o6k at that note this instant, sir I ' 

Mr Tredgold was a particularly stout person, and 
as he hdd the letter on high with one hand, and 
wftvcd tiiat ladv ^pare sway with the other, Dick 
bethought him how glad Mr Sunstroke would have 
been to get them bcSh upon a slide, as an allegory 
of Plenty defying Famine. 

*Who is it, Mr Tredgold? I insist upon being 
told. What is the name, boy, of this voung female, 
who ventures to address a letter to my husbuid?' 

' Dont tell her,' ejaculated the proprietor, ' or you 
shall have no place in mv service.* 

* Tou shall never put foot inside this establishment, 
unless you do,' respcmded the lady. 

Here was a dilefmna which tmreatened to defy all 
Dick's powers of conciliation and finesse, had not 
Mrs T. herself put an end to it, by catching sight 
of the signature of the missive as it fluttei«d tan- 
talisingly above her head. 'You wicked, base, abomin- 
able man,' cried she; ' how dare you flaunt such a name 
as that before my veiy eyes, and under my own 
roof -tree I This is why you have been so short, and 
diort, and short of money is it, for this — I don't know 
how long ! Luddora, forsooth ! What, that trapesing 
wanton bagsage as went away with Trimming, is 
it? Oh yovrre a nice respectable sort of married 
man, you are ! I suppose sne acknowledges your last 
iwen^-pound note, or so, and wants another, I'll be 
bound' 

* You are a pi^-headed old she-unicorn I ' responded 
Mr Tredffold with some rudeness; 'and vou mav 
read the letter, and answer it too, yoniael^ for aU 
I care.' 

The unicorn was a term of severe reproach amonff 
Mr TredgoUL's company, from tiie dicumstanoe <2 
its forming a constant subject of comphunt frtran the 
visttofs; ihB more simple of whom perceiving it 
advertised in the bills, were induced to ejq^ect its 
anpearance among the •«wiftl«, and were apt to be 
dlnatisfied with tke substitution of the rhinoceros in 
its stead, and the information from Mr Mopes, that 
that comparatively familiar quadruped was supposed 
to be the Unicom of the AncientsL Neveruieless, 
Mrs Tredgold's curiosity overcsme her indignation, 
and she applied herself to Luddora's conmiunication 
without reply. 

*Mv dear Mr TredgM {'Her dear Mr Tredgold, 
indeed 1 hoity, toity, well I like that: Oh 3rou 
infamous woman I ' imd the ladv shook a bony fiiurar 
at space, as though it were a female of unpnncro&d 
character.) As an eld friend (*Ay, old enou^ to 
know better, goodness knows; Imss Lucidora was 
no chicken when she came here, for all i^ pre- 
tended to be so childish and timorsome'), and for ike 
sake of old times (* Very pretty, upon my word and 
honour, I wonder "whskt sne is gomg to say next ! ') 
/ wasU you to grant me primUdy a UUle requesL 
(' Heavens, Mr Tredgold 1 am I to read any more of 




aware that her ears had any toes, and even that it 
would do some people's ears ^ood if they were made 
to tinele after another fashion.) This is, that you 
wUl acbmit the young gentleman, who is the hearer qfthis 
letter, and in whom I take a very great interest {* Oh, 
indeed, you then, child, are a victim of thia---this 



disrespectable hussy likewise, are you?') mio your 
eonqmny as exhibitor, or in some other reamneraiwe 
office for which he may he fitted, Mr Trimmmq desires 
his lid regards to Mrs Tredgold ('impudent leQow f) 
and yoursdf; astd hdieoe me to he yours faiUrfyUy* — 
(* Hers whatf Ob the brazen-faced creature 1 Faith- 
fully, forsooth ! Do you hearty Mr Tredgold?') 

'Hear it I' echoed that gentleman; 'no, I dont 
hear it : hearing is no name for being merced by such 
a cracked penny-trumpet; you will split the drum of 
my ear.' 

' ToursfaitJ/uOy, Luddora; gasped Mrs Tredgold, 
without seeming to notice the ooeervations of her 
irritated consort, but with a certain mitigation in the 
fttocity of her manner, toa 'So you thought to 
in^pratiate yourself with me, young man, did you, by 
bringing the recommendation of such a female^ the 
disgraceful companion ' 

'Madam,' interrupted Dick with firmness, 'the 
person you allude to has been very kind^ to me; if 
you have no place for me in your establishment I 
must tiy my fortune elsewhere, but I cannot stand 
by and near her spoken of in this manner.' 

'You are right, lad,' observed Mr Tredgold 
decisively, ' and 1 like jovl for defending your friend : 
he is quite right, I say, woman, and do you be quiet. 
I regret that we have no suitable occiqiation to ofier 
you in the present juncture of circumstances (which 
was Mr Tredgold's favourite plflonasm for 'now'}, 
but Mr Mopes suits us very well as chief exhibitor,, 
and Mr Taper is good enou^ in his absenca W» 
have nothing absolutely nothing, at our disposal 

•* Except we part oi second Butcher,' inteiposed^ 
Mrs Treoj^ld saraonicallv; * Bairman declares he can — 
not do his work much longer without an assistant^, 
you may help hkn, if you like, at ten shiHinffli a- 
young man; but that place, I suppose, womd hardly 
suit such a fine gentleman as yoursell' 

At this unpromising proposal, Dick looked 
without much rapture; but perceiving Mr Tredgd c 
telegraphing over his wife's shoulder that he shouli^B 
accept the situation, he replied meekly : ' Any placi d 
madam, however hun^e, in your establishment, musifl 

needs be a respectable position for one in my circum 

stances. With your good leave I will enter upcwi ^ 
my duties to-morrow morning.' 

Mrs Tredgold had expected her proposition wouL^^ 
have choked off the youth, and his hnmihty disaimec= 
her indignation. H^ heart, too, was not without ~ 
soft plaoe in it peculiar to females of every i, 
and Dick's good-looks, despite the disadvantages* 
candle-light and dusty raiment, had made aome waj 
with her. Moreover, she knew that to retract hi 
offer would aggravate her husband beyond judknoi 
limits. She had her wav in all domestic matters, 
was permitted a conaioerable freedom of lango 
and cnoioe of epithet, but Mr Tredgold was master 
his own caravan, after all. She knew how frir ah< 
could venture in vituperation, to an a4jeetive^ 
could detect the notices of dagger in her husband'^a" 
answers, as thou£^ she were a ntilway en0Jie-drivei^^ 
and he a fli^-pohceman. When he used tne express* 
sion, 'you pig-headed old she-unicorn,' it was thu — 
signal for ' caution,' and her express-tongue nlarken< >^^ 
accordingly ; but when he said, ' woman, be qmet,' m^ 
was a warning to shut off steam immediately, or s^^ 
least to shunt off upon a siding, and there oonfiik— " 
herself to smashing coal-trucks and bullock vans — ^i^-^ 
other words, to rebuke her inferiors, and not h^^^ 
husband. 

'And where will you sleep to-night, young man^? 
inquired she, pointixig to his knapsack: ' it is rath^?' 
late to be looking after lodging in the town, I doub*^^ ' 

A man <^ lees conjugal expenenoe than Mr Tredgold 
would have here suggested that acconunodation ixag^i^ 
have been given to the lad at once in the caravps> 
itself; but that sagacious gentleman held his toiii^;ii^» 
and left the proposal to the lady. 



GHAMBBBS'S JOXJKSAL. 



187 



'it ii Iftie,' replied Dick, ' and if yoa would kindly 






You thaU,* intermpted Mrs Tredgold, with 
eBmhfttie ooodescensioii, and not perhaps withont a 
wiaoto be beforehand with her hnsband in the 
p idBBgr o£ hcipitality; 'you shall lie in that corner 
vonder for to-night ; but mind that you take off your 
boots, or die yoa 11 scrafcch the boards.' 

This apprehension lest Dick should employ himself 

like the GoQk-lane Ghost, arose from the met that the 

floor, tiie walla, and indeed almost Grearv article of 

famxtare in the room, were of the most highly-polished 

mahoguiy, wheorein Mrs Tredgold took a great and not 

unreasonable pride. It was evidently a vast relief to 

her mind when Dick explained that the lion-tamer 

of Central Africa had already offered him an asylum 

for that evening if they would permit him to accept 

it; and when Eer husband asked the lad to renuuin 

and smoke a pipe with him before retiring to rest, she 

offered no <^jedion, but withdrew graciously into her 

own apartment^ like any Lucretia, Griselda, or other 

obedient consort of antiquity. 

'Shell be listoiing,' obeored Mr Tredgold to his 
guest in a muffled voice, * so you had better not say 
anjfluu g ttat's very particular, you know. And 
iroatt about Trimming?' added he aloud; 'he was 
propri e tor here when I was chief exhibitor ; but he 

I made a regular mess of the busiuess.' 
Didk imBarted what he knew concerning Mr Jones's 
manner of life, as he had already done at the request 
sf l^dkerocandnab 

'A clever fellow, and yet a fool !' remarked Mr 
TredjOoldt by way of corollary, when he had finished. 
'He nad a genins, too, after a certain fashion. He 
netted upwards of four hundred pounds in one day by 
oldMmsjfiMe.' 

'A noe-horse?* observed Dick interrogativelv. 

*NOf ar, a lion. Many years ago, the elder Womb- 
weU made a great deal of money by ^^etfing up a 
fi^ between dogs and lions, and Trimmmg reinlved 
to do the same. There was a man named J onathan, 
who had four couple of bull-dogB, which he offered to 
back against anything that could be brought against 
them, and a match was easily arranged be^een them 
adMoamrface. We dared not advertise, as Wombwell 
did of <dc^ in the j^pers, but we sent out notices to all 
the f^orting nobuity and monied sweUs who were in 
tlie nog^bbourhood, and put the tickets up at two 
gii'iiMiaa ahead. Hie match itself was for five hundred 
poandi^ and the betting, which was in favour of the 
ooigi^ WM Mmething tremendous. The fi^t lasted 
three-onarters of an hour, at the expiration of which, 
Hme mang only four dogs able to nold on (the rest 
haviiw been wiped out by the paws of Mossyface), 
Joaafan cried out : ** I have lost, but spare my buU- 
dooil" Had the dogs got the better, it was arranged 
bsmiliaiid that the exclamation should have been : 
"I have lost, but spare my lion I " for, indeed, both dogs 
and 1km were Trimmings own prc^perty, whUe Jona- 
tium was no other than our present animated lecturer, 
Hr Mopea, who will teU you all about it It was a 
foi OQOoeptiQn of Trimming's ; but when the matter 
cf the double ownership got to be known, it is said to 
hate gp:ven some diuatis&tion.* 

'He seemed to me to be a high-spirited, good- 
tenpered fellow,* remarked Dick apolooetically. 

' Very much so,* remarked Mr Tredgcud drily ; ' very 
mush so indeed, so long as he was pleased; but 
when otherwise, he was rather the reverse. I give 
you my word of honour, that he was once upon the 
point of committing a cold-blooded and atrocious 
mnrder upon the very person who is now addressing 
you. Becinise I refused to approach within a dangerous 

I proximity of the animals in the course of my interest- 

I I mg lectures, he chose to be disappointed and offended ; 

II aiMl on one occasicm, being inflamed with liquor, 
1 1 absolutely shut me up for forty minutes in company 
11 inth the emn. I was in the same cage with that 



formidable bird, sir, during the whcde of that period— 
which seemed to me to extend over several weeks-— 
while Mr Trimming and a brutal confederate (dismissed, 
I need not say, within the same hour in which tiie 
establishment passed into my hands) sat cross-le«;ged 
outside the bars, enjoying {he horrors of my situa- 
tion. The emu, you may not be aware, is almost as 
bif as an ostridi, and has a particularly sharp beak. 
I have got impressions of it on more than one portion 
of my person at this moment, and shall probably 
carry tib^ to my grave. No, Mr Trimming's temper 
was by no means always equable. How does he 
behave,* added Mr Tredgold, sinking his vmoe to a 
whisper, * to the young woman ? How does he treat 
poor jLuoidora?* 

'Ptetty well,* replied Dick sorrowfully; 'almost 
always very wdl ; but not quite alwavs.' 

'Drinks, eh?* interrogated the other. 'Ah, poor 
girl, if she had only known wjiat was best for ner, 
and who could have * 

' You are keeping me awake with your chattering 1* 
exclaimed the shrill-toned voice of Mrs Tredgold 
through the panel, and her husband shuddered at it 
like a guilty ghost at cockcrow; 'it is hi^ time, 
voung man, that vou took yourself off next door. We 
keep early hours here, sir, night and morning, and Mr 
Bairman will be glad of your aasJBtance between six 
and seven.* 

'Ten shiUinjra a week, ilien, and your keep^* 
observed Mr Tredgold audibly, and as though lib 
were concluding some foregoing conversation; 'and 
lodgings you mi^ of course fincf in future where yoa 
can.* 

The conditions of the bargain thus concluded mn 
not very advantageous, nor was the nature of tikS 
service he had engaged to perform by any means 
attractive; but i£d frankness with which he had 
been treated by his new master was refreshing to 
Dick after the solemn reticence of the Darkendhn 
Street government, and the companionship of Ticket^ 
ocandua promised to be congraiial and interesting to 
him in a very hich degree. 

That redoubtable hunter had fallen into so sound 
a slumber, that aU the lad's efforts to induce him to 
open the door were fruitless; and he was at last 
admitted hj the Earthman in a costume scantier stall 
than that m which he was wont to iq^pear in pnblio, 
and with a box of flint-headed arrows in his hand, 
wherewith he unmistakably threatened our hero with 
instant death, in spite of many 'How-do-you-doa' 
and ' Thuik-you-sirs,* delivered with even more than 
customary enthusiasm. 

WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED. 

It is the compensation of aU men who die young, that 
they are recorded by the generation that survives 
them as of great promise. Envy no longer attends 
t/iem; and their renown is a convenient and unan- 
swerable missile with which to crush a living aiqnrant 
after the laureL ' Verses, my good friend? Ah, pretty 
enough ; but you should have seen poor Jones's lines 
upon the same subject. He had the real divine 
faculty, sir, hod Jones. If he had but lived — ^but it 
was not to be so — there is no knowing what pinnacle 
he would not have reached. The broken column in 
the churchyard fitly tells his tale. You were too 
young to know him as we knew him; but enou^ to 
say~Sat he was king of us alL* 

Who has not heard some vague eulogium of this 
sort, delivered by one not usually given to pane^iio, 
over a dead contemporary of his youth? Wn^out 
some evidence beyond the ^{mc dixU of such a speaker, 
we mi^t well doubt the genuineness of his asser- 
tion ; and, indeed, most hearsay reputations, used for 
the purposes of suppression and detraction, may 
be set down as by no means really fonnidable. A 



J 



188 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



ffenerous-natured man, too, will undesignedly magnify 
the talents of a departed genial spirit 

Yon might have won the Foetus name. 
If such be worth the winning now, 
And gained a laurel for your brow, 

Of soonder leaf than I can claim, 

says our n-eatest living poet of his dear dead friend ; 
but we don't believe mm, nor would he perhaps be 
better pleased if we did. The past will always win a 
glory from its being far, and orb into the perfect star 
we saw not when we moved therein, as he himself 
confesses. 

On the other hand, it is certain that, now and 
then, at college or elsewhere, a youn^ man will 
outstrip in many things the whole of nis contem- 
poraries in a very surprising manner ; will coruscate 
and glitter in their firmisiment after a fashion impossible 
to a more middle-aged * body,* however luminous, and 
then die ; leaving perhaps nothing behind him save a 
shining track in the sky, discernible only by the eyes 
whidi beheld his livins course. The generation that 
knew him perceive it, but not the next. 

Thus was it especially with the late Winthrop Mack- 
worth Praed. 'Wnen a mere boy at Eton, he emted the 
school-magazine {The JStonian), and wrote poems in it 
such as were scarcely to be found in the most ambi- 
tious of the grown-up i)eriodicals of that day. At Cam- 
bridge, where he obtained an unprecedented number 
of cmssical prizes, he was the most brilliant debater 
at the Union save one, and the very best writer of 

SigrauL Moultrie, Sydney Walker, and Babington 
acaulay, were contemporaries with him, and 
Praed was their favourite and their chief. It was 
there that he be^an to write (in Knighfs Quarterly) 
those vers de soaSU which have placed him at the 
head of aU 'fashionable* poets, and with no rival 
within sight ; verses that not only deserve to occupy 
the space filled by the Hon. W. Spencer in the cydo- 
poedias, but which may dispute for precedence with 
far greater names. Macaulay and he were of adverse 
politics, and in their Songs of the Civil Wars thev, of 
course, took opposite sides. One of Praed's subjects 
was Marston Moor: 

To horse ! to horse ! Sir Nicholas, the clarion's note is 

high! 
To horse I to horse ! Sir Nicholas, the big drum makes 

reply! 
Sre this hath Lucas marched, with his gallant oavaliers. 
And the bray of Rupert's trumpets grows fainter in our 

ears. 
To horse ! to horse ! Sir Nicholas ! White Guy is at 

the door. 
And the raven whets his beak o'er the field of lilarston 

Moor. 

Up rose the Lady Alice, from her brief and broken 

prayer. 
And she brought a silken banner down the narrow 

turret-stair ; 
Oh ! many were the tears that those radiant eyes had 

shed, 
As she traced the bright word ' Glory' in the gay and 

glancing thread ; 
And mournful was the smile which o'er those lovely 

features ran. 
As she said : * It is your lady's gift; unfurl it in the 

van 1' 

*It shall flutter, noble wench, where the best and 

boldest ride 
*Midst the steel-clad files of Skippon, the black dragoons 

of Pride ; 
The recreant heart of Fairfax shall feel a sicklier qualm. 
And the rebel lips of Oliver give out a louder psalm, 
When they see my lady's gewgaw flaunt proudly on 

their wing, 
And hear her loyal soldier's shout, " For God and for 

theKuig!"' 



'Tis soon. The ranks are broken, along the royal line 
They fly, the braggarts of the court ! the bullies of the 

Bhine! 
Stout Langdale's cheer is heard no more, and Astley's 

helm is down, 
And Rupert sheathes his rapier, with a curse and with a 

frown. 
And cold Newcastle mutters, as he follows in their 

flight: 
' The German boar had better far have supped in York 

to-night.' 

The knight is left alone, his steel-cap cleft in twain. 
His good bufif jerkin crimsoned o'er with many a gory 

stain; 
Yet still he waves his banner, and cries amid the rout : 

* For Church and King, fair gentlemen ! spur on, and 
fight it out !' 

And now he wards a Roundhead's pike, and now he 

hums a stave, 
And now he quotes a stage-play, and now he fells a 

knave. 

God aid thee now, Sir Nicholas ! thou hast no thought 

of fear ; 
God aid thee now. Sir Nicholas I for fearful odds are here ! 
The rebels hem thee in, and at every cut and thrust, 

* Down, down,' they cry, * with Belial ! down with him 
to the dust!' 

* I would,' quoth grim old Oliver, * that Belial's trusty 
sword 

This day were doing battle for the faints and for the 
Lord!' 

The Lady Alice sits with her maidens in her bower, 
The gray-haired warder watches from the castle's 
topmost tower ; 

* What news? what news, old Hubert ?'—* The battle's 
lost and won : 

The royal troops are melting, like mists before the 

sun! 
And a wounded man approaches — Fm blind, and cannot 

see. 
Yet sure I am that sturdy step my master's step must 

be!' 

*I've brought thee back thy banner, wench, from as 
rude and red a fray 

As e'er was proof of soldier's thew, or theme for min- 
strel's lay ! 

Here, Hubert, bring the silver bowl, and liquor quantum 
sufifl 

I '11 make a shift to drain it yet, ere I part with boots 
and buff — 

Though Guy through many a gaping wound is breathing 
forth his life. 

And I come to thee a landless man, my fond and 
faithful wife ! 

* Sweet ! we will fill our money-bags, and freight a ship 

for France, 

And mourn in merry Paris for this poor land's mis- 
chance: 

For if the worst befall me, why, better axe and rope, 

Than life with Lenthal for a king, and Peters for a 
pope! 

Alas ! alas ! my gallant Guy ! — curse on the crop-eared 
boor 

Who sent me, with my standard, on foot from Manton 
Moor!' 

This has the true clank of the war-ballad, and breathes, 
through fiery nostril, the true Cavalier spirit, but it 
is no shame to our author to say, that it is scarce a 
match for his friend's Nat^, \Vhere Praed was not 
to be approached by vjxv one, before or since, was in 
graceful humour, as m The Belie of the Ball : 

Yean — ^yeais a^o— ere yet my dreams 
Had been of being wise and witty ; 

Ere I had done with writing themes, 
Or yawned o'er this infernal Chitty ; 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



189 



T6an, jears ago, while all mj joy 
Was in my fowling-piece and £Uy ; 

In short, while I was yet a boy, 
I fell in love with Lanza Lilly. 

I saw her at a country ball ; 

There when the sound of flute and fiddle 
Gave signal sweet in that old hall, 

Of luuids across and down the middle. 
Hen was the subtlest spell by far 

Of all that sets young hearts romancing : 
She was our queen, our rose, our star ; 

And when she danced — heaven, her dancing I 



Dark was her hair, her hand was white ; 

Her voice was exquisitely tender, 
Her eyes were full of liquid light ; 

I never saw a waist so slender ; 
Her every look, her every smile. 

Shot right and left a score of arrows ; 
I thought 'twas Venus from her isle ; 

I wimdered where she M left her sparrows. 

She talked of politics or prayers ; 

Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets ; 
Of daggers or of dancing-bears. 

Of battles, or the last new bonnets ; 
By oandle-light, at twelve o'clock. 

To me it mattered not a tittle. 
If those bright lips had quoted Locke, 

I might have tiiought they murmured Little. 

Through sunny May, through sultry June, 

I loved her with a love eternal ; 
I qwke her praises to the moon, 

I wrote them for the Sunday JoomaL 
My mother laughed ; I soon found out 

That ancient ladies have no feeling ; 
My father frowned ; but how should gout 

Find any happiness in kneeling? 

She was the daughter of a dean, 

Bich, fat^ and rather apoplectic; 
She had one brother just tlurteen. 

Whose colour was extremely hectic ; 
Her grandmother, for many a year. 

Had fed the parish with her bounty ; 
Her second-cousin was a peer. 

And lord-lieutenant of the county. 

But titles and the three-per-cents. 

And mortgages, and great relations, 
And India bonds, and tithes and rents. 

Oh t what are they to love's sensations? 
Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks. 

Such wealth, such honours, Cupid chooses ; 
He cares as little for the stocks. 

As Baron Bothschild for the muses. 

She sketched : the vale, the wood, the beach, 

Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading. 
She botanised : I envied each 

Young blossom in her boudoir fading. 
She warbled Handel : it was grand — 

She made the Catalina jealous. 
She touched the organ : I could stand 

For hours and hours and blow the beUows. 

She kept an album, too, at home. 

Well filled with all an album's glories : 
Pdntings of butterflies and Home, 

Patterns for trimming, Persian stories ; 
Soft iongs to Julia's cockatoo, 

Fierce odes to famine and to slaughter ; 
And autographs of Prince Leboo, 

And rscipea of elder-water. 



And she was flattered, worshipped, bored ; 

Her steps were watched, her dress was noted. 
Her poodle-dog was quite adored, 

Her sayings were extremely quoted. 
She laughed, and every heart was glad, 

As if the taxes were abolished. 
She frowned, and every look was sad. 

As if the opera were demolished. 

She smiled on many just for fun — 

I knew that there was nothing in it ; 
I was the first, the only one 

Her heart had thought of for a minute ; 
I knew it, for she told me so. 

In phrase which was divinely moulded ; 
She wrote a charming hand, and oh ! 

How sweetly all her notes were folded 1 

Our love was like most other loves — 

A little glow, a little shiver ; 
A rosebud and a pair of gloves^ 

And * Fly Not Yet,' upon the river ; 
Some jealousy of some one's heir. 

Some hopes of dying broken-hearted, 
A miniature, a lock of hair, 

The usual vows — and then we parted. 

We parted : months and years rolled by ; 

We met again four summers after ; 
Our parting was all sob and sigh — 

Our meeting was all mirth and laughter ; 
For in my heart's most secret cell, 

There had been many other lodgers ; 
And she was not the ball-room beUe, 

But only Mrs — Something — ^Bc^rs. 

Praed could write fairly, and even freshly upon any 
subject, and when, at the university, some ladiea sent 
him this inexplicable jargon, 

A dragon's tail is flayed to warm 
A headless maiden's heart, 

for the text of a poem, he produced two charming 
cantos upon it, called Lillian, After such a feat as 
that, it is not likely that he would fail when he had 
real flesh and blood to paint from, nor did he. Among 
his Everyday Characters — who, however, are, alas! 
by no means too often met with — his Quince will ever 
stand forth to combine the truthfulness of Crabbe 
with the wit and pathos of Thomas Hood. 

The Vicar is quite as excellent a portrait, but that 
also is too full-length for hanging here, and besides, has 
not wise Miss Mitf ord alrea<fy embalmed it in her own 
amber?* She dug Praed's poems forth irom. the old 
American edition, as we are now doing from the new,f 
two loosely comjiiled and ill-edited volumes, some oi 
the errors of which are, however, unavoidable. It is 
a shameful thine that no Englishman has been ever 
intrusted with zke task of coQecting these ' remains,' 
scattered over the periodicals of twenty years ago, 
and under a. multitude of pseudonyms, but each to 
be recognised without much difficulty by a genial 
and true critic. As it is, the work has been unsatis- 
factorily done : there should have been one volume 
instead of two ; the juvenile and local poems idiould 
have been left out; and every first sketch of an after- 
wards finished poem (for, like Macaulay, Praed often 
wholly rewrote his coxnpositions) should, in common 
fairness, be expunged. We are thankful, however, for 
much good npe grain, notwithstanding the chaff 
among which it lies. Josephine is a bold and original 
poem, upon a subject, however, which we wonder 
to behold in modest American type. Schools and 



* RecolUctioM of a LUerarylAfe. By Miu Mitford. 
t The Poetical Works of Winthrop Maekworth Praed, 
and enlarged edition. New York. 



New 



190 



OHAMBEBS'B JOURNAL. 



School-fdUnM ii at least as good as Hood's Ode to 
Clapham Academy: 

Where are my friends ! — I am alone. 

No playmate shares my beaker — 
Some lie beneath the ehnrchyard stone, 

And some before the SpeiJcer ; 
And some compose a tragedy, 

And some compose a rondo ; 
And some draw sword for liberty, 

And some draw pleas for John Doe. 

Tom Mill was nsed to blacken eyes, 

Withoat the fear of Sessions ; 
Charles Medler loathed fiilse quantities, 

As much as fidse professions. 
Now Mill keeps order in the land, 

A magistrate pedantic ; 
And Medler's feet repose, nnscanned, 

Beneath the wide Atlantic. 

The reference to those 'before the Speaker' woold 
apply to Praed himsell He was at yarioos periods 
member for St Germain in Cornwall, for Great 
Tarmouth, and for Aylesbmy ; and in 1885 he was 
Secretary of the Board of Control In 1839, he died of 
consumption, at the age of thirty-seven. 

The Red Fisherman^ one of Ihe best of IVaed's 
serious pieces, makes us lament its length — as no 
reader of it ever did — sintse that precludes its quota- 
tion ; and the same may be sua of the Chant of the 
Brazen Head, from which, howerer, we must cull two 
Terses: 

I think that friars and their hoods. 
Their doctrines and their maggots. 

Have lighted up too many fends^ 
And far too many fagots ; 

I think while zealots fast and frown, 
And fight for two or seven. 

That there are fifty roads to town. 

And rather more to Heaven. 
♦ ♦ ♦ 

I think that Love )M like a play 

Where tears and smiles are blended. 
Or like a faithless April day. 

Whose shine with shower is ended ; 
Like Colnbrook pavement, rather rough ; 

Like trade, exposed to losses ; 
And like a Highland plaid, all stu£^ 

And very full of crosses. 

How many of Praed's excellent poems are known to 
our readers T Some haH-a-dozen, peihaps, to some of 
them, but to the great majority, none. Even that 
simple son^ of his, Mginning, ' I remember, I remember 
how my childhood fleeted by,' sung by so many young 
ladies in white muslin, is not awaraed to its legitimate 
owner. Praed, who has long been a &vourite autiior 
with the educated American public, is, in short, only 
known in his own country as the best poetical chara^ 
writer of his day, and as that, perhaps, only because 
Sir Walter Soott pronounced him to oe sa With a 
very beautiful eflmt of that kind — although it is mere 
waste of wealth — ^we will therefore condnde thi# 
paper; nor, since it is very easy to be guessed, will we 
msttlt our readers, as is the manner of some periodicals^ 
by promising * the answer in our next' 

Come from my First, sj, eome 1 

The battle dawn is nigh; 
And the acieaming trump and the thond'xinff drom 

Are oaUing thee to die ! 
Fight as thy father foaght» 

Fall as thy father fell ; 
Thy task is tao^t, thy shroiMl is wrou^t ; 

So — forward 1 and farewell ! 

Toll ye, my Second, toll I 

Fling high the flambeau's light ; 
And sing Uie hymn for a parted sou], 

Benei^ the silent ni^t I | 



The wreath upon his head. 

The cross upon his breast, 
Let the prayer be said, and the tear be shed 

So — take him to his rest ! 

Call ye my Whole, ay, call ! 

The lord of Inte and lay ; 
And let him greet the saUe pall 

With a noble song to-day ; 
Go, call him by his name ; 

No fitter hand may crave 
To light the flame of a soldier's fame 

On the turf of a soldier's grave. 



PORTLAND PRISON. 

The clock struck twelve just as we drove iro to the 
prison-gate. There was a noise of steps oommg out 
at that hour of universal release; they were not, 
however, those of prisoners, as you may suppose, but 
of the guard, going on duty. These men, mostly 
Crimean heroes, now half-policemen, half-soldiers, 
surround the prison and quarries, armed with cutlass 
and rifle; a formidable outer check to any poor 
fellow who may have escaped lock, warder, ana wall. 

On entering the yard with an official, who most 
courteously conducted us roxmd the place, we were first 
shewn, as a curiosity, a lar^ stone-coflSn, dug up hard 
by, and now set in the nudst of the entrance-court 
— an apt, but probably unintentional emblem of the 
place it decorates. 

The chapel was the first building we entered. It 
is an oblong, cheerless place, with two recesses, which 
perhaps might entitle n to be callfld omeifomL One 
of these smdlow transepts contained the communion- 
table ; the other, pews for the famiiifis of the officers, 
where they worship unseen and unoontaminated. 
We went up into the oalleiy, and looked down 
into the chapeL It is mled with groups of forms, 
screwed to the ground, without backs. jSaeh group 
is dominated, as our nei^bonrs say, by a hiffh seat, 
the poet of a warder during service. When uie men 
are all assembled, he looks like a mower up to his 
waist in a heavy crop of com. The chapel is used for 
a school-roouL While we looked down, five or six of 
the clusters of seats were filled with convicts in dust- 
coloured dresses and short hair, reading Bibles to 
schoolmasters perched high up on the warders' seats. 
The dull uninterested hum of the readers was the only 
sound in the building, whoi a brisk official, dressed 
in police-clothes, wsJked in, evidently on business. 
There was a hairnonium in the middle, covered up. 
This was stripped and opcoied; a file of prisoners 
was marched m; our policeman sat down to the 
instrument, while a fellow-constable read out, as if 
it had been an indictment, without more ado, the first 
verse of a hymn. The moment I heard it I could 
not help saying to myself: 'How unfortunate a 
choice ! ' However, the constable knew his duty, and 
read it up — 'Come let us join our cheerful songs,' 
&c. and tnen the file joined in song, HtB policeman 
plying — but it was not cheerfuL 

We walked down into the body of fke buildinc, 
and stood by one of the reading-dassesL Each Bibfe 
had printed on its cover, in laive letters, P. P. — ^that is, 
PorUand Prison ; so that whue looking' on tin book 
of pardon, the scholar was still renunded of his 
punishment. Hie convicts cannot scttend school 
much, as they are wanted in the workshops and 
quarries ; moreover, as the classes are larse — the one 
next to us containing thirty men — some tmie elapses 
before eadi has his turn at a verse. The men were 
very irreverent, and poked as much dy fun at one 
another as they dared. 

From the chapel, we went into the Hbraiy, con- 
taining several tbousand in struetiv e volumes, which 
are lent to the men at leisure hoars. Besides th<»e, 
there was a roomful cf small paroela d books which 



CHAMBBRS^ JOURNAL. 



191 



beloi^ed to the priaoaen thwmialTea, either bon^t 
viih wpmn money, or sent in by friemda. Of coiuve, 
tfaoe ■ a etziot oensorriiip exercieed over Iheae. I 
im canons to know the fetvomite author, and said : 
*Ii M i poec yon have several Robinson Ousoes ? ' 

'No,' he replied, 'veiy few. I real^ think the 
book most pziBsd is Bnohan's DometHc Medicine.* 

A eoiivifl% kept in health by exercise, regular diet, 
ind tempezanoe perforce, has, I suppose, a malicious 
pleasoze m reading of the miseries which toiment the 
nee worid, ei|«cii3ly when it doctors itsell 

Next, we visited the prison proper, and were con- 
ducted over three lar^ hidls, each with three tiers of 
oelli^ appnMUslied by light iron galleries running round 
the sidn. At the end of each, in the middle, 
wheie the dodL is generally placed in a London 
ehvroli, is a seat with a desk before it, in which 
a wvder nil wbai the men are within doors. 
Xbe eoBviefcs idbs all their meals in the halls, but 
invislUy. When the guests are assembled, you cannot 
see cnsb S up pose it dinner-time. A body of three 
huidied men marches into one of the halls, two 
abreast As they |mub alonff the galleries, each turns 
into his hole, depositing as he enters a tm-plate and 
mug ootside his dow, mkh is then closed. Thus the 
cdmnn mdts away, mitil the hall appears empty, 
exoept of the rows of platters, and is silent, for none 
are aOowed to speak. Then comes dinner, cut up 
into XKkkms. Following the food, which is quickly 
dM)ed into the platliers, walks a warder, who 
ntiUnlM tlinedoofB at a time ; three hiu^;ry hands are 
stretched cot, and drawin the dinner. l£e doors shut 
with a >harp snap, like teeth, and three more are 
unlocked. Thus the meal is giadually absorbed, first 
into the cell, and then into the stomach within it ; 
and tiie iiknce is broken only by muffled sounds of 
TnastiostMn and short breath. The cells are narrow, 
and seven feet long, lined with tin, or rather sheet- 
iron. In these the prisoners eat, drink, sleep, and 
read Boohaa's Domettie Medicine, Each of these 
feats is praformed in a draught, for at the further 
end of tiie ceU is a grating ^i^ch opens into the 
outer air, and the dcMr is purposely an inch or so 
shorter than the doorway. Formerly, each prisoner 
had a bell-pull in bis cdl, to summon the warders; 
but they rang so inconsiderately — especially one 
fellow, who had been a footman, and was the ring- 
leader of the malcontents — that the bells were con- 
demned, and the doors clipped. Now the prisoners 
are obliged to shove a Inrush or platter under the door 
when they want to be waited on. This answers the 
purpose of attracting notice, and saves the nerves of 
the warders from the effects of continuous tintinnabu- 
lation. 

Complaints have been made that the convicts live 
too weu— not that they grumbled, but innocent hard- 
working men outside. I was therefore the more 
ioterested when our conductor asked whether we 
would visit the commissariat department. We went 
into the kitchen and bakery, heard the bill of fare, 
and tasted the bread. It was not particularly nice, or 
nasty, but abundant and wholesome, as was also the 
meat Indeed, it must be so, for the greater number 
of the prisoners are engaged in stene-auanyin^, which 
is hard work, and consumes much nesh and sinew. 
When, therefore, I smelt the savoury meat, and went 
into the store, heaped high with thousands of loaves, 
I saw tiiat this plenty was only the Portland break- 
water in the eany stage of its srowth. The nation 
does not feed these men well in order to make 
criminals comfortable, but, if possible, to lessen the 
terrible expense of crime, and, moreover, do something 
towards the revival of self-respect among the felons, 
by employing them at a oreat and useful work, which 
they may see grow under their hands. Bat the 
necessity for having so many ton <^ stone quarried 
and cast into the sea, brings with it a liberal diet for 
those who have to do the haxdest part of the work. 



Pea-soup may mortify the soul, and yet fill the body 
of a transgressor, but it never would provide a harbour 
of refu^ for the navy of Great Britain. 

Leavmff the kitchens, we went into the work-ahim 
which ea£ibited aU the ordinary trades. So ennoUmg 
is labour, that it was difficult to realise the fact (2 
all those carpenters and blacksmiths being convicted 
felons, and then under puniahment for their offenoesL 
It seemed, however, very possible, since we knew the 
fact, to detect the convict face. The dress was of 
course an assistance to the power of discriminatioo. 
The men have their numbera, diaracter, and other 
reference to their jail position, printed on their coat- 
sleeves, something after the maimor of the marks on 
sheep; so that any one able to read prison hiero* 
glyphics could tell at a slanoe more of the character 
of any man than he womd care to have known. It 
must be very disagreeable to carry one's biography 
about on one s sleeve, for police-constables to peck at 

It was sad to think how many of the convicts must 
have been intelligent mechanics, who either used their 
skill to rob instead of labour, or perhape, willmg to do 
work, became desperate be<»use they oould not find 
it A few men were pointed out as of superior ednca* 
tion ; one, the ideal of a respectable citizen, with ruddy 
cheeks and * fair round belly,' i^ugh not now * with 
capon lined,' had been tiie governor of a juL When he 
came to Portland as a prisoner, he was recognised by 
several who had been under his charge. His crime 
was embezzlement ; and there, being ready at accounts, 
his employment is to keep such M>oks as he can be 
trusted with. What a perfect Nemesis! Another 
inan, we were told, was a most accomplished musi- 
dan and linguist In an evil hour, he nad obtained 
some instruments under false pretences, and sold 
tiiem to ndse cash. He also was compelled to maJu 
himself useful at such work as his good education best 
fitted him to perform. The bulk of the men, thoudi, 
were as evil-looking, unintelleotual a set as could oe 
conceived ; and when we saw them all assembled in 
the evening at chapel, the contrast between the noble 
words of me service and the down-looking, and, in 
very many instances, stubbornly inattentive connte* 
nances of the congregation, made one's flesh creep. 

To return to the work-shops. The men were 
busiest and brightest there; but still there was a 
ticket-of-leavish smack about the place. When stand* 
ing hard by a forge in the blacksmith's department, I 
could not help thinking how easily a reckless fehm 
might avenffB nimself. Three men were wielding a 
hu^ white3iot crow-bar which was hung from the 
rora by a chain, like a battering-xam ; a wu-der stood 
in the front civilly describing the operation; one 
united vigorous tlunist, and the horrible instrument 
might have been sent hissing through his inside, like 
Ulysses's stake in the brain of Pofyphemus. When 
I beheld the crowd of men with edged-tools and 
heavy hammers in their grasp^ I corneas I rather 
wondered some hopeless, long-sentenced criminal did 
not run a muck that would be certain to be ittus- 
trious. 

The quarries were next visited. Here is the prin- 
cipal scene of the convicts' labour. The breakwater is 
the work of the jail; the prisoners raise the stone, 
and load it in the trucks, which then pass on to free* 
workmen, who see them safe to their destination. 
There are always two trains in motion on the sloping 
line which descends from the ouarry to the break- 
water — the one goinc down full pnfls up the other 
enmty. We were uiewn an ingenious method of 
registering the weight of stones sent down the incline 
to the breakwater. Each loaded wagon is detached 
for a moment as it passes over a platf orm. This sinks 
with the weight, and turns by madiinerjr a large 
metal drum. The drum is covered with white paper, 
which is touched lightly by a black-lead pencil, set 
in a handle. When a load comes on the platform, the 
drum begins to torn, and the pencil to draw a mark 



198 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



upon it till it stops ; then the load passes on, the plat- 
f onn rises, the drum returns to its first position, and 
the apparatus is ready for another load; the pencil 
being hitched a quarter of an inch to mark the line 
measuring the next weight : thus an exact register is 
kept of the stone excavated. 

Owing to the large and iireeular space over which 
the prisoners are scattered while at work, attempts 
at escape are not unfrequent; and not lon^ ago, a 
mutiny was nearly effected. Ordinary endeavours 
to get out are so often made, that one warder told 
me he had himself had the good-fortune — so he 
expressed it — to catch seven truants. Sometimes, 
however, a Jack Sheppard manages to give them the 
slip. But it must be hard to get clear away from 
that barren place ; not only is the ring of riflemen to 
be passed — soldiers — but the mainland cannot be 
reacned without traversing a long bare neck of 
shingle, at the end of which is a turnpike. One fellow 
failed for want of twopence. He made himself a 
suit of clothes out of his sheets, completing the 
cap with a piece of leather he picked up when at 
work. Having rubbed the whole over with bits of 
tallow, and b&ckened it artistically with smut, so 
as to make it look like the greasy canvas working- 
dress of one of the engineers, he concealed and 
carried it about his person till a chance should turn up. 
At last it did; he escaped notice for a minute or 
two behind a stone, changed his dress, walked out 
quietly through the gang in which a moment before 
he had been at work, tmrough the prison-yards, past 
officers, wuxlers, and the sentry at the outer-gate. 
He met no check, being taken, as he intended, for one 
of the engineers about the place. There was nothing 
hurried or strange in his manner; he walked on 
throuffh the vUlage of Portland, alons the wearisome 
straight road, the whole distance of vie shingle neck, 
without suspicion. Had he run, he would most prob- 
ably have been stopped and questioned. Arrived at the 
road's end, he came to the turnpike. He had not 
calculated on this * Tuppence, please.' He hadn't got 
tuppence ; he hadn't tnought ; he didn't know of uie 
charge. Well, he was gomg into the town, and had 
forgot ; he would bring clumge when he returned to 
his work the next day. No, it would not do. The 
pikeman stood with his hands in his pockets, full of 
chance. What wouldn't Jack have eiven for one 
han<md out of that jingling pouch ! *No trust,' said 
the gate ; ' No trust,' repeated its keeper. Meanwhile 
anower jpassenger walked up. Stooping for a moment 
by Jack's side, he lifted up an inch of his trousers ; 
yes, there was the plaffue-spot — the prison stocking, 
witii its fatal P. P. and felon-marking bicolor. The 
inquisitive traveller was a constable in plain clothes, 
as yet only searching for the scent. The jail-suit had 
been found behind the stone. Poor Jack must put it 
on again, with maybe the addition of an iron bracelet, 
and an uncomplimentary line' to the biographical 
monogram on his sleeve. 

Nothing, however, could surpass the air of quiet 
strength in the manner and conversation of the 
officials. They spoke kindly both of and to the 
prisoners, without any affectation of philanthropy, 
and seemed all to be engaged in their work like men 
who felt for men, but did not f oiget that they were in 
charge of felons. 

A LESSON FKOM THE ANCIENTS. 

The foUowing curions narrative from Herodotus (lib. 1, 
cap. 157) is very applicable to the present state of things in 
America, in reference to the claim set up for the fugitive 
sUves : 'Factyas, having heard that the army which had 
marched agaiiist him was close at hand, in consternation 
fled for refuge to Gumie. Magares therefore despatched 
messengers to Cumss, commanding them to deliver up 
Pactyas ; but the Cumseans, after deliberation, decided on 
making zeferenoe to the god in BranchidsB — ^for there was 



an oracle there, established of old time, which all the 
lonians and .Aolians were in the habit of consulting. 
(Now this place is in Milesia, northward of the haven 
Panormus.) The Cnmeeans, then, having sent deputies to 
Branchidse^ asked what they should do about Pactyas, so 
as to please the gods. To this question of theirs, the 
response of the oracle was, ^* To give up Pactyas to the 
Persians." When the CumsBans heard this repealed, 
they eagerly set themselves to deliver him up ; but though 
the multitude was eagerly set upon this, Aristodicus, the 
son of Heraclides, discrediting the oracle, or thinking 
that the deputies were not telling the truth, prevented 
the Cunueans from doing this thing, until, at least, other 
deputies should go to put the question about Pactyas a 
second time, and Aristodicus was one of them. On their 
arrival at Branchidse, Aristodicus, in the name of all, 
consulted the god, submitting the question in these terms : 
"0 king, there came to us a suppliant, Pactyas, the 
Lydian, fleeing from a violent death at the hands of the 
Persians, and they demand him from us (for torture), 
requiring us to deliver him up ; and we, though affrighted 
by the power of the Persians, have not hitherto dared to 
give him up until it be expressly declared to us by thee 
what we should do." On these words, he submitted the 
question, and the god again gave the same answer, com- 
manding them to give up Pactyas to the Persians. 
Thereupon, Aristodicus, of forethought, acted in this 
manner. Walking round about the temple, he drove out 
the sparrows and all the other kinds of birds which had 
built then* nests in the temple ; and while he was doing 
this, it is said that a voice issued from the innermost 
shrine, addressing Aristodicus, and in these words: "Most 
impious of men, how darest thou to do these things ? 
Tearest thou my suppliants out of the temple!" And 
Aristodicus, without being at a loss for a moment, there- 
upon said : '* king, dost thou flee to the rescue of thy 
suppliants, and at the same time command the Cnmsaai 
to give up this suppliant ?" And that he (the god) agais 
replied in these words : ** Tes, 1 do command it, in order 
that, haring done the impious deed, ye might the sooner 
be destroyed, so as never more to come to the oracle aboot 
the giving up of suppliants." ' , 

THE MONEY-SPINNEE SPIDEB. 

Ih my chair, supinely seated. 
Thinking of fond hopes defeated ; 
From the ceiling there descended 
One who with my musings blended. 
Close before my weary head : 
Held by one slight silver thread. 
As I watched him swaying, wreathing; 
In the current of my breathing, 
Steadily with lengthened cable. 
He approached unto the tables 
Firmly there the end appending, 
Bapidly again ascending, 
Steadily by one cord clinging : 
Now no longer loosely swinging^ 
From point to point he safely spread 
The weavings wide, of glistening thread : 
Until, a broad, well-chosen space 
Was filled with light and graceful lace. 
His task complete, he hidden lies, 
Sure of his well-deservM prize. 
Thou hast taught me, airy rider, 
Patient, persevering spider, 
That in the end, men best succeed 
By one straight line of thought and deed. 

Chabub Si& 

Printed and Published by W. & R Chambers, 47 Btt6^ 
noster Bow, London, and 339 High Street, Edinbdbos. 
Also sold by William Robkbtbon, 23 Upper Saekrille 
Street, DUBLlir, and all Booksellers. 




S tit net aiib ^rts. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CUAUBERS. 



No. 378. 



SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1861. 



1*RICE IM 



LAST liTEWS FROM DR LIVINGSTONE.* 

On the 10th March 1858, the expedition to the 
Zamben, under the command of Dr Livingstone, left 
LiTeipool in the acrew-steamer Pearly of 200 tons 
bozdeiiy oomnumded by Captain Duncan, bound for 
Cejlon, bat which had engaged to put us ashore at 
the montih of the Zambesi Oiu* expedition consisted 
of Dr LiTingstone, Charles Livingstone, Dr Kirk, 
Cammand^ Bedingfield, ILK, Thomas Baines, 
Bichaid l^omden, and myself, the engineer. We 
were lOQompanied by Mrs Livingstone and her 
jomigett ddld, a fine boy of six years of age. On the 
deck of the Pearl was securely placed our little steam- 
humch, in three compartments, all fitted and in 
leadineM to be bolted together on our arrival at the 
mouth of the ZambesL We arrived aU safely at the 
Cape of Good Hope, towards the end of April ; but 
hiring, on my late voyage home, been shipwrecked, 
and lost my journal, I cannot now be certain of the 
eorrect dates. At the Cape, Mrs Livingstone and her 
ion left us, for the pur}>ose of going with her father, 
the Bev. Mr Moffat, to the missionary station at 
Knraznan. We left Simon's Bay on the 1st of May, 
and on the 15th, reached the mouth of the Zambesi, 
in lit 18 degrees, long. 36 degrees, on the south- 
eastern coast, having steamed all the way. 

My duties now commenced, and I immediately pro- 
ceeded to get our launch out. This was a most 
anzioas perk)d for Dr Livingstone ; but as I had been 
plftTtwwg during the whole voyage how we should get 
the Uonch over the ship's side, we lost no time, but 
at once erected a derrick, and succeeded in getting 
her sa^ly into the water ; and on the third day after, 
had steam up, and started in search of a navigable 
channel to the ZambesL 

Onr first attempt was up the west Luabo, a distance 
of about fifty miles, which it took us three days to 
accomplish ; and this apparent river terminated in a 
reedy marsh, where the mosquitoes were so plentiful 
and so hungry, that both my eyes were completely 
closed np in the morning ; so we had nothing for it 
bat aboot ship, and return to the Pearl, On reporting 
to Dr Livixigstone the failure of our search, he 
requested Captain Duncan to rccross the bar, and 
attempt the Kongone. The Pearl then departed, 
leaving us in the launch, where we remained one week, 
until the arrival, outside the bar, of H.M.S. Hermes, 

* Thif report of Dr Liringstone'B new expedition is from the 
pen of his engineer, Mr Rae, who recently retomed to England. 
We have coneloded that, thongh bat a sketch, it will gratify 
enriortty intermediately, without prejudice to the ampler accounts 
whieh mnj in time be looked for from the venerated chief of the 



Captain Gordon, which signalled us to come out, and 
enter the Kongone, where we foimd the PeaH l}nng 
at anchor inside the bar. 

On communicating with the Pearl, we found that 
Dr Livingstone and Mr Skedo had gone up tho 
Kongone in the Hermes's cutter. Next morning, we 
started in the launch, and after steaming about 
thirty miles up the river, met the cutter coming down, 
they having succeeded in finding a good navigable 
channel We returned in company to the Pearl, 
which then proceeded up the river a distance of about 
forty miles ; and finding she coukl not with safety 
proceed further, on account of the shallowness of the 
water, we started again in our launch in search of a 
suitable island — of which there are many — on which 
to erect our store-house. After mature consideration, 
our commander decided upon one about thirty miles 
above where we had left the Pearl, and which was 
named Expedition Island. And now wc proceeded to 
erect an iron house, which we had brought with us for 
the purpose of serving as a depdt for our stores. It took 
us about four weeks to get all our stores safely conveyed 
up to the island and deposited in our store-house. 

The Pearl then left us to our own resources, and 
proceeded on her voyage to Ceylon. Afterwards, our 
first step was to make out Mazoro, a Portuguese 
settlement, about fifteen miles further up the river. 
On arriving at this place, we found the natives at 
war with the Portuguese. They took us also in 
our launch for Portuguese, and were threatening to 
fire upon us, when Dr Livingstone, without hesitation, 
at once went on shore, and having told them who we 
were, completely disarmed them, and made them our 
fast friends. 

Dr Livingstone being now certain that we were in 
the right river, and that there were no insurmountable 
obstacles between us and Tette, we returned to 
Expedition Island for a load of stores, which we 
purposed taking on to Sanna, a Portuguese town, 
situated about fifty miles above Mazoro. On our way 
up to Sanna, when about one mile above Mazoro, the 
morning being very thick and foggy, we were steaming 
along as usual, when it suddenly cleared up, and we 
saw the dead bodies of several natives, half-eaten by 
alligators, which are here very numerous and large. 
We called Dr Livingstone's attention to this, and he 
said there must have been fighting going on; and 
immediately afterwards, on winding a sharp angle of 
the river, wc came in view of a largo encampment of 
the Portuguese, who had taken the field to quell a 
rebellion of the natives of the surrounding districts. 
Being hailed by the Portuguese officers, who had 
heard of our being in the river, and knew who we 
were, we drew close inshore, and were informed by 



194 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



them that their govenior, who was oommanding in 
person, was very sick of fever. They wished Dr 
Livingstone to come on shore to see him, who at 
once consented, and accompanied them to the gover- 
nor's quarters, whom he found veiy ill and much 
reduced. Dr Livingstone proposed that he would 
remove him in the &unch to Supanga, a distance of 
about thirty-five miles further up, on tiie opposite or 
right bank of the river. During this time, the fipiiting 
had recommenced, and sreat numbers of the Fortu- 
cuese slaves were flying before the rebels, and tried to 
force their way on board of us, but were kept o£f bv 
our own hands, principally Kroomen, armed with 
cutlasses, as, if they had ^ot on board, they would 
undoubtedlv have swamped us. Finding they could 
not get on boiuxl of us, they awam off for an island 
about a mile from the shore, and I here saw a 
Portuguese sergeant shooting at them while they 
were swimming. Several of tne shots seemed to take 
effect, as some of the heads disappeared. 

Becoming alarmed for the safefy of Dr Livingstone, 
I took my rifle, and went ashore, and on reachmg the 
top of the bank, about 150 yards from the launch, 
saw Dr Livingstone at the distance of half a mile 
assisting the governor towards the launch. I immie- 
diately sang out to our firemen to get up steam. 
The bullets were flying around tiiem in all directions. 
The doctor, however, kept steadily on, and was enabled 
to reach us in safety, bringing with him his patient, 
who was so tall that while one half of him was on 
the doctor's back, the other half was trailing on the 
ground. As soon as we got under cover of the 
bank, the doctor said : * I am slad we have sot this 
length, Rae, for I don't like those bullets whistling 
past my ears.* 

Steam being now up, we started at once for 
Supanga, where we arrived in safety about 5 P. u., 
ana learned afterwards that the Portuguese had 
that day been defeated, losing all their stores. We 
now made several trips to and from Eiq>edition 
Island, and got the most of our stores removed to 
SupaxLga, Sanna, and Tette ; but our vessel being small 
ana s£w, much valuable time was lost in these jour- 
neys. Dr Livingstone was very anxious to get all this 
work over, and worked himself night and day in 
order to gut us all out of Uie lower part of the 
river, where fevers are so common; and this he 
happily accomplished about the end of September, 
when we arrived for the first time at Tette, and Dr 
Livingstone met the Makolo, whom he had left there 
two vears before, and who had ail remained there, in 
the finn belief that he would return. 

The meeting was truly a happy one — ^the men 
rushing into the water up to their very necks in their 
eagerness once more to see their white father. Their 
joy was perfectly frantic. They seized the boat, and 
nearly upset it, and fairly carried the doctor aidiore, 
sin^g all the time that their white father was aUve 
again, their faith in whom was quite unshaken. 
On inquinr, we found that thirty of them had died 
from small-pox, and six had been murdered by a 
drunken chief. They told us that they did not mourn 
for the thirty who had died, but that their hearts 
were bleeding for those who were murdered. 

Up to this time, aU the natives we had seen were 
slaves to Portuguese owners, with the exceptions of 
Dr Livingstone^ Makolo men, and the rebel party 
formerly mentioned, who were mostly runaway slaves 
fiffhting for their liberty under a chief named 
Mariana ; and I have little doubt they would have 
succeeded in establishing tiieir independence, had they 
been better provided with ammuninon. I have since 
learned, from reliable sources, that about six hundred 
male and female prisoners, afterwards taken by the 
Portuguese, were by them sold as slaves to some other 
markets ; and I myself saw a large party of tiiem, 
■eemin£;ly from 400 to 600, on their way to the coast 
to be shipped. 



After this, having with enormous labour and diffi- 
culty got our goods and stores into places of safety, 
and lukving found that our launch . was insufficient 
for the purpose of further ascending the Zambesi, 
and Dr Livingstone having written to her Majesty's 
govonment, urging upon them to send out a more 
powerful steamer, ne thought, while waitins replies 
from home, that instead of remaining idle, he would 
push up the Shire, which comes from the north, and 

ioins the Zambesi about forty miles below SamuL 
from this attempt, the Portuguese endeavoured to , 
dissuade us, stating that we would find it impassable, 
on accoimt of the vast quantities of duck- weed with 
which they said it was covered. For a very short 
distance above ite junction with the Zamliesi we 
certainly met with considerable quantities, but not 
such as to stop us ; and about three miles up the 
river became perfectly clear, and we proceeded on- 
wards, where not even the Portuguese had ever been, 
they having spoken from report only; after steaming 
about forty to fifty miles up this noble river, d-ntlmg 
never less than two fetthoms' water, and the banka 
of the river ver^ fertile land, we reached the base of 
a large mountain, called by the natives Moramballa, 
whose summit is nearly 4000 feet above the level of 
the sea. The inhabituits of the country, from the 
mouth of the river up to this point, are the natdvea 
who acknowledge the leadership of Mariana, and who 
were most friendly to us. We stopped here one day, 
and a party of us ascended the mountain, and themoe 
saw the Smre stretehing far away northward, through 
a magnificent valley, nowhere under twenty miles in 
breadth, as ^ as the eye could reach. 

Starting up the river next day to explore this gTmt 
▼alley, we steamed about one nundred miles, 'vraich 
it took four days to accomplish, and reached a serias 
of rapids, preventing further progress in tiiat direc- 
tion ; these rapids DrLivingstone named the Murduson 
Falls. We landed at several villages each day, and 
found the natives very friendly to us, and lividg in 
the enjoyment of their own Hbertiea, and perfectly 
uncontaminated by the slave-trade. At fint, thflj 
were rather afraia that we meant to fight for the 
purpose of subjecting them to our power, but Br 
Livmgstone soon oHained their entire confidenoa 
We were told by them that the Shire flowed out ci 
a lake named by them the Shirwa, but we could not 
at that time proceed further. Returning again to 
Tette, for the purpose of refitting, but with the inten- 
tion of returning to endeavour to reach Lake Shnrwa» 
we found our comrades all well, and rejoiced to 
see us. 

After remaining at Tette for two or three weeks, I 
erected the small sugar-mill, saw-mill, and stationarr 
steam-engine, which we brought from Glaenow, and 
got ail ready for a start in the sugar-makinff and 
wood-cutting lines. Having been supplied with a 
quantity of sugar-canes by Major Sicard, we set to 
work expressing the juice, to the great delkht of the 
natives. But tne wonder of wonckrs was we steazn- 
engne and saw-mill, cutting the timbor. 

We started for the Shire once more on the lOth 
March 1859, and proceeded again up to Muzohison Falli^ 
finding that the good character we had establiiJ^ on 
our former visit was now of verv great aervice to us 
with the natives. This valley of tiae Shire we found 
abounding in cotton and large quantities of sugar- 
cane. The cotton the natives manufactore them- 
selves into a coarse kind of cloth, and the sagar-cane 
they use as food, not knowing how to extract the 
sugar. We found also large numbers of the lignum- 
vitse tree, of a great size, ebony and boaza trees. The 
bark of the last tree is of a fibrous nature, and is used 
bj the natives for the manufacture of cordage. 1^ 
nver abounds in edible fish of various kinds, and 
hippopotami of a ver^ large size frequent ite faanka. 
Ivory is very plentiful, and I have counted two 
hundred and two bull elephante in a single herd. 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



195 



Wlm we neared Mnrduson Falls, we met the head- 
of the valley, named Ghibiesa^ whom we had 
not Mcn on our former trip, bat who now received oa 
mort kindly. He informed us that his favourite 
diQg^ter had been stolen by the Portuguese about 
two yeara before our viait, imd was, he understood, 
now living at Tette, in the house of the priest; 
In aakeoDr Livingstone if he thought there was 
any poanfailiiy of recovering her from them, as her 
moiher's heart was always bleeding for her chilrL 
Dr Lrrinoitooe replied, that provided he found her at 
Tefcte^ henad littie doubt of beins able to procure her 
freedom and aend her home. Aner Br Livii^estone's 
letnzn from lake Shirwa to the mouth of the Shire, as 
be himadf was not going up to Tette, but down to the 
moath of the Zambesi, he redeemed his promise by 
writing to Major Sicard to have this young girl, onl^ 
fa o r t o ep. yean cf age, set at liberty, and returned at his 
expense to hir paienti» which was accompUshed, and 
she aaMy lekaraad, to their ^reat joy. 

Dr Livii^grtone, accompanied by Dr Kirk, proceeded 
northwanl, and diaoovered Lake Shirwa; while I 
remaaied m chaige of the launch and the hands at 
the bottom of the Falls. Chibiesa having sent some 
of his own man to accompany Dr Livingstone, he was 
evoywhere kindly received and treated ; but he found 
tidi Xake Shirwa not to be the source of the Shire, 
hat a lake having no outlet, and consequently brackish : 
he was told ^7 3ie natives that beyond Lake Shirwa 
tiiero waa another lake of immense extent, out of 
whidh Dr Livingstone conjectured the Shire to flow; 
but he oonld not at present undertake this joumev, 
his party retominjE; all in good health to the launch, 
after an ahaence oTthirty-five days. 

After a few davs spent at Tette to refit, we started 
again towarda the end of June, with intention of 
rnarhing the great lake. We arrived at Murchison 
FkDs about the end of August 1859, and leaving the 
kanoh there, started on our journey. The exploring- 
farty oonaiated of Dr Livingstone, Dr Kirk, Mr Living- 
afceae^ and myself, with am>ut forty Makolo, aocom- 
lamed by four of Chibiesa's men to act as our guides, 
they knowing the way, we experienced little oifficul- 
Om, except tnoae presented by an unknown country, 
and 0Oi along at about the rate of twelve miles a day. 
The Morehiaon Bapids extend about thirty-five miles, 
after which we found a deep navigable river all the 
way to Lake Nyassa. The river falls during these 
thsty*fi<re miles about 1300 feet, the scenery being 
Band, and the valleys veiy fertile. Above the Falls, 
me ^nUey a^pun spreads out to about eighteen or 
twenty muea m wioth, and the country abounds with 
the oolton and indigo plants, and the same useful 
woods tint we had met with below the Falls — ebony, 
lignnni-ntft, &c. Wo also fell in with a soft wood, 
imich I bdieve would be good for carpenter-work 
in oeneraL It is also a wdl-watered country, very 
bealfchy. We were forty nights sleeping in the oi)en 
air, and snfiered no inconvenience, nor experienced 
any evil effeota afterwarcL}. 

About three days' joumev from the head of the 
FaQi, bein|[ on the left bank of the Shire, we began 
to mieet with alave-porties, bound for the coast of 
Hocambique ; and all the way up to the lake we met 
■artiei of dave-hunters, and found villages deserted, 
ma inhabitants fleeing to the woods at our approach, 
"yr»*«»g na to be on the like errand. On finding 
tfaia, Dr Livingstone despatehed two of Chibiesa's 
men in advance, to inform the natives we were 
Ebgjiiaimien — the black man's friends — which had 
eveiy where the desired effect of allaying their fears. 

And here it may be well that I should give some 
■ecoDBt of the slave-hunters' usual mode of procedure 
when on a atealiiig expedition. The men who follow 
this neiarioaa tnSe are all half-caste Arabs, black- 
goard-looking fellows, armed with muskets and 
rmtlamin, and generally on foot The hunting-parties 
m met nnmbered from three to twenty or more, and 



were attended by a number of their own alave& Steal- 
ing up during uie nicht to some village marked aa 
the scene of their aepredations, they lurk about 
until morning, when the children and younger mem- 
bers of the community are beginning to move about ; 
these they seize, one after the other, until they 
obtain a considerable number. The peaceful inhabit- 
ante having no firearms, are powerless either to 
defend or recover their stolen offspring. These are 
then secured by means of a lone forked stick, the 
neck of the poor victim being placed between the 
prongs, and a piece of bamboo tied across in front of the 
throat. The slave-hunter then takes the extreme end 
of this cruel instrument of torture, and by means of 
it pushes them along, and should any of them prove 
refractory, a twist of his hand nearly strangles Uiem. 
I have myself seen bands of them, four anS five at a 
time — as we were told, newly captured — with their 
necks all chafed and bleeding, and their eyes stream- 
ing with tears, principally young men of ten to eighteen 
y^irs of age, ariven along in this inhuman manner. 
We also met a large party near Lake Nyassa on the 
17th Sejitember 1859-— the same day on which we 
discoveied the lake — consisting of between four and 
five hundred poor creatures, being led off to slaveiy, 
and lately torn from their peaccfiu homes. 

We were told by a native chief named Massasoweka, 
that this party was in his nei^bourhood, and he was 
afraid they mieht do us harm. While he was yet 
speaking, five oF the slave-hunters, having heard of our 
being there, came up to us, supposing us to be of the 
same profession, bringing with tnem six children, boys 
and gu-ls, of six to ei^t years of age, wishing us 
to purchase them, and offeied them to us for about a 
yara of calico apiece ; but finding we were V.ngliali^ 
they at once decamped; and before daylight next 
morning the whole camp had disappeared, the mere 
mention of the "Rrigliah name being sufficient to put 
them all to flight The slaves that we saw of uus 
party were jaded and travel- worn, and some of them 
reduced to perfect skeletons. 

From the information we obtained in the lake 
district, wc understand that the country, from the 
sea-coast inland to the Shire and Lake Nyassa, is 
almost depopulated ; and the slave-hunters are now 
crossing the Shire to the west, for the purpose of 
procuring additional supplies for the slave-trade 
along the coast from Quillimane to Zanzibar. Colonel 
Rigby, the English consul at Zanzibar, told me that 
19,000 slaves per annum to his knowledge, besides 
great numbers that he cannot obtain proper account 
of, are brought from the district near Lake Nyassa. 
It is the opinion of Dr Livingstone and all our 
party — and m conversing with Colonel Rigby, he 
concurs with us — ^that a single steamer placed on 
Lake Nyassa, and manned by Briti^ subjects, would 
be sufficient to put an end to most of the traffic. 

The first to set eyes on Lake Nyassa was Dr 
Livingstone himself, who shouted out : * Our journey 
is entled ! Hurrah, my boys ! ' His men had. before 
this been anxious for a termination to their vezy 
arduous toils. 

Arrived at the shores of the lake, observations were 
taken by Dr Livingstone, when he found we were in 
lat 14° 25" S. The lake is of immense extent, the 
Shire flowing out of it to the south ; and the rise and 
fall of the nver docs not exceed two feet, according 
to observations made for two years, shewing that the 
lake must be of immense extent to maintain such an 
equal flow. The length of this piece of water we 
had no means of ascertaining; but on inquiring at 
Massasoweka, a very intelligent old chief, seemindy 
about a hundred years of age, how long we mi^t 
take to travel to the head of uie lake, his first answer 
was a derisive laugh, and said : * You can never travel 
to the end of this laree water. Neither we nor our 
forefathers, after travelling four moons, could find or 
hear of the end, so white men need not try it.* 



196 



CHAMBERS*S JOURNAL. 



The lake had every appearance of a great sea, for 
although the day was calm, there was a heavy deep 
swell setting in upon the shore. From all the 
information we could gather here and elsewhere, the 
whole of the slave-traimo from the west side of the 
Shire and Lake Nyassa to the Zanzibar and Mozam- 
bique coasts passes throash between the northern 
ena of Lake Shirwa and the southern end of Lake 
Nyassa, a space of only about ten or twelve miles 
broad ; and a single steamer running from and to the 
Murchison Falls and on Lake Nyassa must cut off 
the entire traffic. 

On the 18th September, we left the shores of Lake 
Nyassa, pleased and thankful that we had been the 
instruments in the hands of Providence to reveal to 
the civilised world this great and important country ; 
and hoping that, ere long, we should be enabled to 
return to do something to advance civilisation, and 
check the horrid traffic in human beings that prevails 
to such an enormous extent, well knowing that this 
was the object nearest our great leader's heart On 
our return- journey, we were everywhere treated with 
the greatest kindness by the natives ; and when about 
thirty miles south of Lake Nyassa, on the eastern side 
of the Shire valley, arrived at Mount Zombo, one of 
a range of mountains many miles in length, which, 
altiiough fatigued with our long journey, Dr Living- 
stone, Dr Kirk, and myself determined to ascend. This 
task we accomplished after creat difficulty ; and found 
by the aneroid the height of the mountain to be about 
7000 feet above the sea. The view from the summit 
was srand beyond expression. Near the summit, wind- 
ing uuoueh the ravines, we came upon a considerable 
river, as broad as the Leven above Dumbarton, and 
which seemed to flow into Lake Shirwa. The water 
we tasted, and found sweet and palatable. While 
resting on the top, we sent on two of our men to 
inform the chief of our beinjc; on his ground, and he 
immediately sent back an mvitation to visit him ; 
his messengers bringing with them a present for us, 
consisting of three goats, half-a-dozen fowls, three 
large w<x)den bowls filled with meal, and some 
vecptables, which were all acceptable. We were 
obugcd, for the present, to declme his invitation, 
but promised to give him a call next time we were in 
his neighbourhoc^ His head-man assured us he had 
plenty of honey and milk, and wished to get the news 
from ilie sea. We found on tiie summit of this hill 
heath in bloom exactly the same in appearance as 
that found upon our Scottish mountains, and also 
wild-brambles having the same flavour and appear- 
ance as those at home, only being rather smaller. 
Dr Kirk, as botanist, examined both of them, and 
brought off specimens. Dr Livingstone also cut and 
brouj^t off a pepper-stick to make a walking-staff. 
We remained upon the top of the hill all ni^^t, sleep- 
ing in the open air, and in tho morning woke up to 
find it extremely cold until sunrise, although this 
was the hot season. This was the greatest degree of 
cold I felt in Africa. We descended i^rtly after 
davbreak, and joined our party, the same day, at a 
village about tour miles from the bottom of the 
mountain. 

We then proceeded onwards, meeting everywhere 
with a hearty welcome from the natives, until on the 
8th of October we again got in safety to our launch, 
at the bottom of the Murchison Falls, having been 
absent forty da3r8 on this exploring- journey. 

Dr Kirk being now deputed by Dr Livingstone to 

Froceed overlana from the Murchison Falls to Tette, 
started with him on that journey on the 18th October, 
accompanied by thirty of the Makdo men. This being 
a part of the country never formerly traversed by Euro- 
peans, and very thinly inhabited, our journey proved 
to be the most toilsome and difficult tnat we had yet 
undertaken. Immediately upon leaving the valley of 
the Shire, we struck into the mountains lyinff to the 
south-west, and entered a barren country, tiirough 



which we travelled three or four days without meeting 
any natives, or falling in with any of their villages, wheare 
we could purchase fowls or other food, so were entirely 
dependent upon the stock we carried with us, which 
consisted only of about a dozen pounds of salt pork. 
Water also was very scarce, we being sometimes a 
day and a haU without getting any, and even, what 
we procured was very saft and orackish, and in such 
very small quantities, that instead of quenching, it 
frequently only aggravated our thirst On the f ooith 
day, the man who carried our pork disappeared, having 
fallen behind our party, and we now experiexu^ed the 
pangs of hunser in earnest ; but most providentiaDr, 
on tiie fifth SsLV from leaving the Shire, towards mid- 
day, we reached a pretty large village where our wants 
were attended to, and where we remained the follow- 
ing night In the morning, we purchased from these 
hoepi^ble natives, a sheep — for which we paid about a 
faUiom of calico ; six or eight fowls, paying for them 
about a yard of calico ; and some meal lor our men, 
which cost us about ten of our glass-beads ; and being 
once more provisioned, we again set out upon our 
journey, and found the same scarcity of water still 
prevainne; we occasionally met herds of antelopes, 
out could not get near enough to them for a shot By 
this time, we were drawing near to the Portugueee 
territory, and food was more easily procured, tibe 
country bein£ here more thickly inhabited; and on. 
the eighth Sbj from our leaving Murchison FaUb, 
arrived at Tette, where, after proonrintf supplies •! 
provisions, and also some materials much wanted for 
the repair of our steam-latmch, which we puiposed 
executmg at the mouth of the Kon^one, where we 
could beach her, we started in the pmnace, early in 
November, to go down the Zambesi ; and after fifteen 
days' sailing, met our leader with the launch, |kt 
Kongone, where he had arrived neariy two weeks 
before us. 

ELM.S. Lynx, Captain Barclay, was also lying off 
the bar, and with the assistance of her engineers^ we 

got the launch patched up, and once more afljMll; 
ut after three days, had again to beach her, oilMr 
leaks breaking out as fast as we could stop up eld 
ones ; so we now had no other resource but stop vp 
her lei^ with clay, finding it quite impossible to 
keep her afloat any other way. We once more 
started about the end of December, in the launeii, 
for Tette, where we arrived after much difficulty 
and frequent stoppages to repair, ab<mt the be- 
ginning of February 1860. It having been now 
aecidea by Dr Livmgstone that I should be sent 
home to procure a more powerful and portable 
steamer, to be specially adapted for the navigation 
of the river Shire above the FaUs, and also Lake 
Nyassa, we left Tette for tJie mouth of the river 
on the 18th of February, where we expected to 
meet, according to appointment, one of her MftMjy's 
ships, in which I was to return to Eneland. &it on 
our arrival at the bar, about the ena of Febraa^, 
finding no ship due until the 15th ol ICarch, Dr 
Livingstone sent me round to Quilliinane, where 
we expected to find some ship in wfaidi' I could 
get a passage home ; but I had to remain there until 
the middle of June. 

As the launch had by this time become pezieotly 
useless, Dr Livingstone, knowing that nothing coula 
be done without a steamer, resolved to redeem his 
promise made to Seheletu on his former visit by 
accompanying the Makolo men to their own couniiy, 
a journey they of themselves could never have aooom- 
pllshed, on account of the dangers to wMi^ they 
would be exposed from neighbouring tribes; and 
while I remamed at Qiullimane, I hA letters ban, 
him, dated 15th May, in which he stated that on tiie 
following day he purposed leavinff Tette, where he 
then was, accompanied by Dr Kutk and Mr Ohailes 
Livingstone, for that purpose. I al»o had letters 
from Major Sicard, in which he stated that he had 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



197 



news from Br Livingstone, then two days upon his 
upward journey, and that he had sent with him a 
mimber of natives to assist him in his progress. 
Wlule I remained at Quillimane — as was to l^ ex- 
pected from the low, marshy nature of the country — 
1 had an attack of fever ; and Dr Livingstone being 
far away, I felt very much the want of that skill and 
rttention which he was so well qualified, and always 
wUling to jrive. On the 14th of June, H.lirLS. Lyra, 
Captain Oldfield, arrived at Quillimane. Captain 
OMfield informed me that on the 2d ho stood on the 
Kongona, and sent in two boats, expecting to find mc 
there ; and most unfortunately, when crossing the bar, 
iBie of the boats was swamped, and the pay-master 
drowned, a circumstance which gave mo great grief. 
I was taken on board the Lyra on the 14th, which 
left Qnillimane the same evening, and towards the 
end 0^ the month reached the island of Johanna, 
where we fell in with a small schooner bound for 
the Manritnfli on board of which we shipped the 
cases of botamcal Bpecimens, and confided to the care 
oC her captain Dr Liivingstonc's dispatches; but for 
want of room he could not give me a passage. 
Oaptun Oldfield, indeed, was very much opposed to 
my risking a voyage in such a small vessel. After 
this, I cruised about on this station in the Lyra, 
whose particular duty was the prevention of the 
slaTe-tnde, and whose captain was a terror to aU 
the slaTe-dBalers on the coast, and I had the good- 
fortune to assiat in the capture of a slaver of 900 tons, 
fitted np for 1000 slaves. 

An American bark, the Guide, Captain M'Millan, 
having come into the port, bound for Aden, and as 
there was no prospect of my getting a passage to 
the Gape before December, I considered it the best 
way to cany out the wishes of Dr Livingstone, and 
for tilie mm of the expedition, that I should embark 
B her lor Aden, and thence, per Peninsular and 
Oriental Ca*s steamers, to England, which I calculated 
would land me there by the middle of September. 

Wa sailed from Zanzibar on the 30th of August in 
fte Oiddef hailing from Salem. Our ship's company 
consisted, as neany as I can now recollect, of twenty 
AmerioaBS, besides three Spanish ladies, passen- 
Mri^ and= mysell On September 4, about midnight, 
&w vesad struck, and went ashore at Bass Haffoon, 
aesr the Qulf of Aden. The boats were immediately 
Iswered, the wind blowing fresh at the time, and we got 
biseoiti and water put on board, and the passengers* 
prifats luggage, with the intention of puUing out to 
so as to reach Aden ; but the surf being very 
r, our boats were all swamped and knocked to 
aounst the ship's sides, when we lost every- 
m which we were formerly possessetL With 
difficulty, we again scrambled on to the ship's 
;; and as daylight was now just beginninff to 
break, we could see the land about two hundred 
yaid^ distant, the ship being forced ashore by the 
ol tiie mirl As daylisht increased, the natives 
sd in hundreds, and oy eight a. k. they sue- 
in boarding us. At first, they pretended to be 
Iriaadly to us ; but on seeing that we were perfectly 
kwljJws^ and our boats all destroyed, they commenced 
plundering tiie passengers and ship, tearing tiie ear- 
riiui from the ladies* ears, and flourishing their long 
kmroBi as if tiiey intended to massacre the whole 
of QSL We then dropped over the ship's side into 
tiw water, which was now a few feet deep, and 
eae^wd to the shore during the excitement conse- 
quent vpon the plundering of the vessel, taking 
wiUi us only ilie clothes in which we stood, and about 
14^000 ddOan in cold pieces, divided amongst us, for 
tiie purpose of ai£ng us to get away from the coast. 
We travdled along tae shoro towards the north-east, 
in search of water, and also to be out of the reach 
of ill-usage at the hands of the natives, who we now 
found were Sumalies with a mixture of Arabs, all well 
anned with aanrghnirn and long knives, and seemingly 




bent upon our destruction. On the first day we reached 
the rock of Kass Hofibon, where we wandered about for 
two days more, searching for water, and keeping a look- 
out, hoping to see some ship pass near us. On the 
evening of the third tlay from that of the wreck, five 
of the crew went otf in search of water, which they 
expected to find near a green bush which we saw at a 
short distance. These men never returned, and we 
learned afterwards that they had all been murdered, 
and saw some of the natives wearing their clothes. 
Our sufierings at this time were inacscribable, our 
tongues perfectly parched, and our voices so much 
altered, that we could scarcely understand what each 
other said. I scraped away the sand to fit my side, 
so that I might lie comfortably at night. On the 
third morning. Captain M*Millan and I started for the 
north side of the rock, in search of the men who had 
left us the preceding evening, and hoping also to fall 
in with fresh water. This, £uthou^ only three miles 
distant, was, in our weakened oonmtion, and with the 
hot gl^ of the sun reflected from the sand, a most 
painful and laborious journey ; but our labour was in 
vain, as we could neither see nor hear of the missing 
men, found no water, and could see no ship. 

On rejoining our companions in misfortune, despair 
was in every heart : six of the crew and the three 
ladies talk<^ of destroying themselves by drown- 
ing. I was a few steps off when this was proposed. 
Captain M*Millan came to me, and said : * What 
do you think of the proposal?* Mv answer was: 

* I have not the slight^ intention of doing so yet ; 
as long as there is life, there is hope.* By this 
time, we were now approaching the others ; the 
ladies had got to their feet, and were walking off to 
the water. Some of the crew then asked me : * How 
long can we live, Hae, without food or water?' My 
reply was : * At least eight or ten days ; and if you 
remain here at rest, you may probably live longer.* 
The ladies stood still hearing this conversation, and 
wishing us all to go into the water and die together; 
but I opposed this, and said : ' Come, let us try and 
get to the wreck.* The men objected, saying : 

* Althou^ we go to the wreck, we will just be killed 
— ^better die here than be murdered.* I then said : 

* There is a chance of us not being murdered ; and if 
we get back to the ship, we are sure of a drink of 
water, and perhaps some food.* 

The mate insisted that we should not go: *We 
will not be long a-dying here; we will be dead by 
to-morrow nighw After some more aigument and 
talking of the same sort, we all sat down, and it was 
now proposed to kill the captain*s dog, which had 
accompanied us from the ship. The dog was instantly 
killed by a blow from an axe, and some of the crew 
ate a small part of the flesh. I put a small piece over 
my lips, to keep them moist, they being severely 
cracked and very painf uL 

After some fuxther persuasion on the part of 
Captain M*Millan and I, they were all got upon their 
feet; but the ladies still insisted on destroying them- 
selves, and walked towards the water. I followed, 
and caught hold of one of them, and carried her 
along ; the others then turned, and followed, and we all 
proceeded in the direction of the wreck, lyinff about 
seven miles distant, several of the crew viewing 
symptoms of mental aberration. 

To the best of my recollection, we reached the 
wreck on the fifth day, but from ^lis time I lost all 
recollection of the days of the week or month. 
We went stiaight to the Bhip*s side, and tried to 
scramble up, but in our weak state, only a few of 
us succeeded. By this time the natives were a^ain 
around us, and stripped us of our clothes, allow- 
ing us to retain only the shirt and trousers. I 
walked up to a tent made of our suls, where 
a pleasant-looking old woman was standing at the 
door, from whom I begged as much water as would 
wet my lips. She ham^ me a skin-bottle nearly full 



198 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



ol water, which I drained to the bottom, without 
removing it from my lips. The woman tried to seize 
it, but I turned round and avoided her. This draught 
Oi water revived me very much, and I a^;ain made for 
the Bhip*s side, and attempted to scrambk up, but fell 
back repeatedly into the water. On being observed 
by some of the crew who had got on M>ard, they 
threw me a rope, and by their help I succeeded in 
reaching the deck of the ship, and found everything 

Sue, except some pieces of salt pork kicking about 
e decks, and also a tank of freah water, which the 
natives had not discovered. 

By this time, we had all got on board, and soon 
got a fire lighted, and the pork ready ibr eatinff ; 
and we now learned that one of the chiefs head- 
men had arrived at the wreck from the interior. 
He inquired at one of the Spanish ladies if there were 
any J^elL^ amongst us, on which she pointed to 
me, ana said : 'Tbisre is one man belongmg to the 
Queen of England ; that man must be savM, and sent 
back; and we hope that on his account you will 
spare us alL' His reply was, that he had orders from 
his sultan, if there were any EncUsh, he was to pro- 
tect them until the arrival of me chieL We hved 
for five days, with very little food, under his pro- 
tection. After five or six days, the chief himself 
came on board, and asked for the man belonging to 
the Queen of England. I was immediately pointed 
out to him ; and going up to him^ he said in Arabic : 
' Tou are English ? To-night, I wUl send you a sheep.* 
I asked him, was there any chance of our ever getting 
awa^ from this place. He replied that he woula 
do his utmost to get me and the ladies sent oS, and 
after a long delay, despatched us in an open boat, 
called in their language dohw, to Makullah, where 
we arrived on the 14th of October. We then went to 
the sulttui, by whom we were received with ereat kind- 
ness. He gave us a house in which we all were to 
live, and provided us with food during our stay, and 
also sent cloth to make clothes for us. 

On the 22d of October, having been provided with 
another dohw by the liberality of the sultan, we left 
Makullah, and on the 26th October 1860, arrived at 
the Britiidi settlement of Aden, and felt onoe more 
secure under the protection of the British fla^. I 
then reported myself to Captain Playfair, the pobtical 
a£ent at Aden, who told me he would scikI me second- 
cuss to Southampton as i^ distressed British sid>ject ; 
and accordingly, on the 29th October, I sailed in the 
Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer Colombo 
for Suez ; thence overland to Alexandria ; and home 
by the mail-steamer Cejflon to Southampton, where I 
arrived on the 17th of November, grateful to Provi- 
dence for having so merdfiiUy preserved me throu^ 
so many dangers. 

A DAY WITH THE DOUANE. 

Thxbb are some monsters which take a deal of killing. 
Some have a Protean power of change, and baffle you 
by putting on some new form every time you lay hold 
of them; others are like the Nemssan Hydra, and 
for every head you cut ofi^ up spring two in its place ; 
but of all the monsters 'hated of gods and men,* for 
invulnerability and tenacity of life, commend us to the 
French custom-house. 

If cats have nine lives, the douane must have ninety. 
It has been exposed, abused, shewn up in every broaa- 
aheet ; proved to be worthless, unsound, and dishonest ; 
an enemy to commerce and civilisation, a source of 
bitterness and strife, a delusion and a snare ; and yet 
it still survives, and continues its audacious course of 
peculation and tyranny. So here's for another round 
with you, you despotic, arbitrary old humbug ! Quake 
in vour uioes, vteux acUirai! Yes, we owe you a 
grudge, you sneaking, tyrannical old bully ! You call 
yoozielf the majesty of the law ? Oh 1 the dirty tricks 



we *ve seen you guilty of ! Perhaps yon don*t remem- 
ber us. You don't remember robbing a little school- 
boy of his cake and half-a-dozen oranges, which his 
poor mamma had put in his box when she sent him 
across the Channel to the tender mercies <A the 
college of S. Cancan ? We should like to know what 
became of that cake and those oranges. No; our 
turn was not come yet ; we were not up to the free- 
masonry of the customs, and had neglected to purchase 
from the waiting- woman the cards representing the 
first numbers, which she had carefully kept in hsx 
pocket, while the rest were laid out for the onanqieofr- 
mgto choose from. 

We were first, or nearly so, in the custom-house^ 
but no numeral below a nine oould we see upon the 
cards ; and we suspected, as we afterwards found out^ 
that Madame Mane had the rest in her pocket ; yes, 
she was taking care of number one and the reet of 
them, and sold them to those in the secret ; and so 
it came to pass that while others walked one by one 
into the enclosed space behind the griUe, we were 
left for some two hours the amused and interested 
spectators of the miseries of others. 

We had had a tolerably fine passaoe on one occasion 
from CflBsarea (not Phiuppi), and nad succeeded in 
bringing over our little family with all needful * impedi- 
ments,* of household gods and household furmture, 
intending to pass the summer in what is mythically 
called La BeUe France, We had undergone the pre- 
liminary 'gentling' on board the steamer, and had put 
up with mtying our passport snatched rudely out of 
our hands with a calm and equable spirit ; lliit even- 
tually our feelings 'were one too many* for us. It 
was a^ravating to see ladies' trunks opened before all 
the oiher passengers, their knickknaoks, and orna- 
ments, and dressing-cases^ rudely handled; and all the 
hidden mysteries of female adorning exposed to tiie 
saae of uie profane ▼ulnur. What right had that 
bullet-headed Jack-in-omce to expose to view those 
new ball-dresses, and to joke upon the width ol the 
skirts, and compare the slender waist with his own 
beef -eater's figure ? And then to see aU the sacred 
confidences of a lady's toilette violated — ^rou^ dirty 
hands thrust into mdden recesses ; gannente, not to 
be spoken of even by Benedicts, dn^;ged before the 
unblushing officials^ vie whole tossed recklessly bsok 
again into the box, which seemed a world too small 
to hold them all; and the unfortunate owner told to 
cord it up and be gone 1 Imagine the position ol a 
lady, wxtn all her pet garments and iminTrVnaiJra 
thus tossed hi^eay-piggledy in the presence ai 
some twenty feU^-passengers and a dozen grinnins 
douanieni A capitel joke, wasnt it, Montkur H 
Chrf? 

Our attention was next called to Hbe treatment 
which a respectable-looking Englidi servant was 
undergoing at the hands of two female searchers, who 
insisted that she had something contraband concealed 
on her person. The article in question turned out to 
be an extra fiannel petticoat, which was forthwith 
lugged ofl^ and farougnt into tiie public-room for exa- 
mination ; and being found to contain more m«.fAw^i 
than the douaniei'M wife senerally wore, and being, 
moreover, new and unwashed, was forthwith confis- 
cated to the use of the French government in general, 
and the aforesaid douanier's wife in particular. 
Several ladies' skirts were similarly confiscated, as 
being unworn and brought in with a fraudulent inten- 
tion; and one brave British female battied lona and 
bravely for the retention of a travelling plaid-uiawl, 
which, if not old, was certainly not new, and was moat 
unfairly classed amongst the prohibited artdoles. 

But the fieroest battle took place between an elderiy 
spinster, with an array of artificial curls, and a bull^ 
headed corpulent douanier, fen: the possession of a 
Britannia-metal tea-pot The old lady had evidoitly 
a strong partiality for *the cup that cheers ; ' and being 
aware of the non-drawing qualities of French pozoelain. 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



199 



had proTided herself with a tea-pot of home mann* 
bueUn, and tried to pass it in her muff. She held 
M to the handle, while the douanier held not less 
£hI to the ipoatw She foamed at the mouth, and 
nattered oat yoUeys of bad French; while the 
dbiUBiMr spab and swore, and raged in bad English. 
* Laisaex mot mon pot-de-th6 I * said the spinster. 
*What for jc/a try to smoggle him?' retorted the 
officer; and so the battle went on, till the handle 
eame oiS, and the douanier carried away the tea-pot 
in trxam|di ; while the old lady, with scarcely less 
esnltetiOD, retained possession of the handle. 

Bj the time our turn had arrived, the chef was 
anzioiu to get the business over in as little time as 
ponble, ama was oontent to take our word for the 
oontenti of most of our boxes, and the value of the 
artidet liaiUs .to duty. But at the mention of the 
word'booka,' all his ire returned. * Books, always 
booika with tiie Knglish ! What need can they have 
for books? It was but a week ago that a monsieur 
was csoght in the act of smuggling a box of rervolu- 
tionaiy woxks, even the books of that scSlSrat Victor 
Hugo, into imperial France. No ! every book must 
go to the pvefeetore to be examined.* 

We had no objection to this ; and onl^ hoped that 
ai most of them were religious works, with a sprink- 
ling o£ Hebnfw and Greek, the pr^fet would derive 
beMfit and inatniction from their perusal 'What 
next V dflmanded the chef. ' A little plate,' we replied 
modeailj, ' bat most of it in electro-plate.' ' It must 
all be ezammed and valued.' So out it cam& ' Yes, 
it 18 aD silver,* said the douanier, ' and muft be paid 
for by the oanoe.' In vain we protested that most of 
it was plated. ' It must go to the silversmith's to be 
terted. So catehing up a fork and spoon at random, 
he sent iSbaa off by an ofEcer, who presently came 
hmsk bearing the articles in quc&tion, each with a 
laige atem homed through the silver-plating. * Plated, ' 
waa the decision of the silversmith. ' Then they are 
«0 platedy' said the chef, and his word was law; 
and aa we had nothing to pay, we were only too glad 
to aoqvieaoe in hia judgment. In the meantime, two 
gendarmes had got hold of our child's perambulator, 
and wore taking it out to a select party on the quay. 
'Look here,' <moth the portly limb of the law ; ' tins 
k a velooipeae ; this is the wav to work it ; ' and 
the action to the word^ he seated himself 
on the poor little carriage, which bent and 
under his weight, and worked himself along 
hf iSm "podgy legs, to the intense satisfaction cu 
STSij OBM but ourselves. This performance being 
ov«v the unfortunate carriage was brought in to b« 
vahied. Some little doubt seemed to arise how to 
dasB it ; bot at last the sapient chef found its place 
in th« category of carriages with springs. 'Look here,' 
audhe ; 'oamages with springs, on two wheels, fifteen 
per oaeii ; on four wheels, thirty per cent, ad vcUoremJ' 
xei ; bat we bogged to observe that our carriage had 
three wheels; a^ demanded that it should be classed 
aeootdin^y. In vain he ransacked his hats of articles 
prohibited and admissible : no existing provision could 
he &id to meet the case of a three- wheeled carriage 
with MptmOf and so our perambulator passed through 
tt» ordeal triumphantly, except that one of the 
springs was h<^)deesly injured by the weight of the 
irt gendarme. 

Bol he had not done with us yet. There were 
some enhnary artides to be inspected, and their novel 
shape and purpose again aroused his suspicions. 
*Kame of names!' said he, 'what is this?' drawing 
forth a bottle- jack from the depths of a hamper. 

* A roasting-machine,' we explained. 

' Not at alL I believe it to be a kind of infernal 
madiine,' said the chef : * it closely resembles those of 



Seeing he was so determined on its being an infernal 
machine, we could not help favouring the idea ; and 
it op to a nail, and placing a weight on 



the hook, we wound it up, and called out : ' Now 
look out, and you will see how it acts.' 

As it began to revolve, they stared in wonder, and, 
at the first click, there was a cenend movement, and 
an evident desire among the omcials to stand clear in 
case of an explosion ; but the chef cut the matter i^rt 
by commanding the instant seizure and confiscation 
ot the machine, and it was forthwith carried by the 
boldest of the gendarmes, hnlHing it at arms-length, 
into a place of safety. 

Matters were beginning to look serious, especially 
as among our papers was found an advertisement of a 
travelling- dentist, with cuts of various instruments 
for filing and scaling the teeth, whidi Minos took it 
into lus sapient noddle Mrere nothing more or less than 
designs for revolutionary pikes and other lethal 
weapons; and we began to have serious doubts 
whether we should have all our ffoods and chattels 
confiscated, and pass the ni^ht in aurance vile, when, 
to our great relief, the chief inquisitor discovered, 
among our effects, an official uniform, which at once 
convinced him that we had none but peaceable designs 
with regard to his sovereim lord the emperor. 

A simultaneous find of several pipes shewed also 
that we were smokers, and likely to contribute some- 
thing to the indirect taxation of the country; so, 
with many bows and grimaces, and something as neat 
an apology as his dignity would allow him to make, 
we were permitted to pass all our goods with a nominal 
payment for the ' contributable' luiiclea 

Nevertheless, we had scored several points to Mr 
Chef for his overbearing and capricious conduct, and 
we are happy to say we paid nim, if not in full, at 
anyrate a handsome dividend. 

The first instalment was on this wise. Seeing how 
the Uttie packets of tea and cigars had been greedily 
seized on our first visit, the next time we travellea 
that way we prepared a tempting bait for Mr Jack- 
in-office. Ho, ho! Mr Chef, we hope you relished 
that half-pound of 'English tea' which you took 
away from us on our next trip. Would it not have 
added to the flavour to have known that it was part 
of a parcel of dried tea-leaves which was found in an 
old stocking in the straw of our French cook's bed, 
such being her ingenious and economic^ way of 
restoring uie flavour and fragrance of tiie used-np 
contents of our tea-pot to their pristine state? Was the 
flavour rich and aromatic ? Was there plenty oi force 
and diliccUesse in that cheering cup ? Did ttie tohea 
or the bohea predominate in tluit tohu and bohu t We 
pause for a reply. And those fine cigars of tabac 
6tranper, first quality, all the way from the Havannaha, 
for which we pleaded so earnestly, did they smoke well ? 
Was ignorance bliss? Or would it have enhanced 
your enjoyment of those English cigars, if you had 
known that they were penny Pickwicks, imported 
direct from Houndsditcl^ and warranted made of 
decomposed cabbage-leaves, soaked in a mixture which 
shall be nameless ? And that pot of eomJiturCf which 
we persuaded you to taste, as oeing excellent ' guava 
jelly,' did you like it, Monsieur Chef ? Was it very 
good ? — very fine to the taste ? Or did you spit and 
splutter, and run out to rinse your mouth with brandy ? 
Would it not have improved the flavour, if we had 
told you that it was not guava jelly at aU, but a 
month's supply of lenitive electuaiy, which we were 
charged to uring over for an afflicted friend at S. 
Cancan? These delicate attentions we trust you 
will accept with our distinguished salutations; and 
we faithfully promise to pay off the remainder of oar 
score on the iirst opportiinity. 

Such is our narrative of one day's ex]»erience at a 
French custom-house, and we doubt not that many 
of our readers could add their testimony to the 
general style of treatment which they have met with 
under similar circumstances. We could a tale 
unfold of ladies forcibly 8trip]>cd for the discovery 
of laoe supposed to oe concealed about their persozisy 



200 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



and of a hundred other inBtances of the caprice, 
tyranny, and ignorance displayed by the officials ; but 
we leave it to other and abler advocates to take up 
our theme, and attack the infamous system whicn 
has excited our wrath and embittered our recollections 
of foreign traveL 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACK 

CHArraft XXY.— ▲ L0IK2ING WITH A LIOKISB. 

As the full colonel of a regiment takes his ease and 
his n.nniin1 stipend, leaving the conduct of affairs 
in the hands of his lieutenant-colonel ; or as the head 
of a firm holds himseK aloof from the working- 
members, and lets his junior partners perform the 
duties of the concern, while he himself leans rather 
towards the privileges ; so did the first Butcher of the 
establishment of Tredgold late Trimming, depute 
most of the cares of his office to his newly-appointed 
assistant. 

One especial duty, however, did Mr Bairman 
reserve to himself — namely, that of putting his four- 
footed victims to death with his own hanob. Many 
men have a passion for slaughter by means of rifles 
and fowling-pieces, but Mr Bairman was enamoured of 
the pole-axe. As long as he bad health and strencth 
to wield that weapon^ observed he, in something of a 
devotional and suomissive tone, he would continue to 
do so, as he had done for thirty years or so : if ever 
he should find himself unequal to the task of finishing 
off any animal doomed for sacrifice, he was ready, 
from tnat moment, to put aside his sacrificial gannent 
(blue) and the sacred axe ; but in the meantime, he 
would exercise his gift so long as it was intrusted to 
imn. It was a strange and not very pleasing fancy, but 
Mr Bairman was himself a strange and by no means 
very pleasing man. His face was as deadly white as 
that of the most aristocratic daughter of Fashion, so 
that it seemed as thoiu;h he had spilled something of 
his own vital fluid with everv act of bloodshed, wiule 
a cataract of sandy-coloured beard depended from it, 
whereon he was wont to wipe his gory hands — a 
habit which, even under less unpleasant circumstances, 
would be certainly reprobated m the best circles. "Mi 
Bairman was not of tnat social disposition which gener- 
ally characterised the company whereto he hi^ the 
honour to belong; but if it had been otherwise, he 
would have had little opportunity for the display of 
geniality ; they ahrftnlr firom his society and conversa- 
tion in rather a remarkable manner, considering that 
tibJeir own callings were, for the most part, the reverse 
of delicate, and demanided some strength of nerves. 
This gentleman was good enough to SSord what he 
designated as a splendid spectacle to Dick upon the 
yeiy first morning of his apprenticeship, in the dayiog 
of an aged and decrepit horse. The fact of the poor 
animal's being blind did away with that necessity for 
fineness of treatment, upon which the artist par- 
ticularly prided himself; but, even as it was, the 
spectator was so perfectly satisfied, that nothinc 
could ever induce him to b^old a repetition of such 
a performance. He would work with the barrow aa^ 
the fork in the distribution of food to the wild 
animals, as in duty bound, but he would be witness 
to no more butcheries. Mr Bainnan was hupelv 
tickled by this determination of his youiu; ally, which 
he declared to have been his own when ne first took 
to the business, and assured him that within a week 
or so he would come to feel quite differently. In the 
meantime, however, Dick's breakfast was utterly 
spoiled, and the ardour with which he had regarded 
his new mode of life a good deal damped. 

'Never you mind him,* remarked llckeroeandua, to 
whose ear the youth confided his sentiments respecting 
his immediate chief ; * he 's a fine fellow in the sliam- 
bles amon^ tottering animals — a deuce of a Idlow, 
MB tlra saymg is, among ^ggi with a stidE^^bat put 



him in front of a little bit of a cat like the puma, and 
I believe, if he had a whole sheaf of pole-axes, he 
ifv ould not dare to strike a blow to save his life. Why, 
when I wanted to give Regulus his castor-oil the 
other day, poor fellow — that s the African Hon, you 
know — and asked Bairman to lend me a hand, he 
made as much of it as though I had been going to 
administer hinu The way is, you know, we tie his 
two fore-x>aws together, and bring him to the front of 
the cage ; and then we get his mouth open, and pot 
the oil down as easy as uiough he were a baby ; yet, 
if you believe me, that fellow trembled so that he 
spilt half the bottle. He don't love me, I know, 
Decause I called him a funker ; not as I thmk it any 
blame to one as hasn't pluck to be imable to shew it, 
only then he shouldn't go brageing about what he can 
do, and laughing at other people who ain't so fond of 
blood-letting. Nothing would give old Bairman 
c;reater pleasure than to see me eaten up alive, I 
know. Now, Mr Tredgold is quite as much afraid of 
the beasteses as he is; but then he's as tender- 
hearted as a chicken about others, too.' 

Thus discoursed Tickerocandua, perched beside our 
hero on the lofty seat of the lion's caravan, and driving 
four horses in hand, which it was his pleasure rather 
than his duty to do ; for the Hunter was especially 
excused from all the fatigues and duties of travel to 
which the rest of the company, without exception, 
were liable. Eveiy other person was expected to 
make himself useful on the march, whether in run- 
ning beside the leaders of the team of eight cream* 
coloured horses, that drew their band triumphantly- 
through the towns, or in stopping the wheels of the 
giraffe-wagon as it toiled laboriousl^r up the hills. 
There was no occasion to perform tms office to the 
elephant's chariot, inasmuch as, like the Irish gentle- 
man in the sedan-chair with the bottom out, that 
noble animal might, but for the look of the things 
have dispensed with his vehicle altogether; sinoe^ 
while seeming to be drawn, he really drew, as the 
more sagacious observers would sometimes discovery 
by catching sight of his feet underneath among ^b» 
wheels. 

The procession commonly started on its jonniays 
veiy early, as soon as those creatures were fed 
turn it was to feed upon the morning in question, 
travelled very slowly. When they reached 
destination, there was the show to be made readj-^ 
a work of several hours — so as to be opened to tbe 
public, if possible, on that same evening; and thea 
there were divers wants of the beasts to oe atteadedl 
to befbre bed could be thoueht of for themiselveiL 
Dick led no very easy life of it in Tredgold'a him 
Trimmings establishment, it is certain ; and if ke had 
exchang^ the China-trade for lion-feeding with the 
expectation of finding greater ease and leisure^ he IumI 
madeamistake. Sunday was a day of rest to hmwhioh 
he had never before known how to properiy appraoiafte^ 
and we may be sure that he would not have tmsak one 
now, bv way of holiday, in the Zoologioal GwdeBs. 
Nevertneless, except for the unpleasant ehancter of 
his particular occupation, the young man was not 
dissatisfied with his mode of life, nor did he oontem* 
plate leaving it unless Mr Bairman's sinews should fsii 
him, and the office of slau^^hterer devolve upon his 
own unambitious hands. Dick was a favoniiie 



the whole company, except with the first Botdier, 
who was not m the habit of TnAlriwer favooriteB of 
anybody : even Mrs Tredgold gradually fatf^ tiiiat 
he had been once the proi€gS of so despicaUe a 
^oung person as Lucidora, and on one occasion of 
indisposition, even ihade him a motherly present of 
a couple of famfly-pills. Mr Tredgold was hi^^ily 
satisfied with him, and would consult him upon what 
was good for this or that of the larger animals, if 
Tickerocandua did not chance to be at hand. From 
the Beast-tamer, indeed, Dick soon learned all that 
that gentleman had to teach, as well as ezperienoiBg 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



201 



miBj practicml kindnesses at his hands; amoDg which 
WM this, that the whole expense and trouble of pro- 
curing lodging was saved to him by being permitted 
totake npms permanent quarters in the Lion Hunter's 
haaad on 'wheels. 

On a certain dreadful winter night, when the 
atire establiBhment was snowed up on a Yorkshire 
BM>or, and both domestic caravans were hospitably 
■haied with the whole shivering company, Tickero- 
oandua annoonced his intention of giving more room 
to othen by mulring his own couch m the apartment 
of one of the lionesses, who had lately presented the 
proprie ta iy with a couple of cubs. * You may come 
too^ if you like. Arbour,' said he, half in jest and half 
ia earnest; and Dick answered on the instant, ' I will' 
—aldioiigh he felt some undeniable (Qualms of terror 
aa MKm as thirt wMb had esca|)ed his lips. 

' You take your loaded whip, Robinson, I see, not- 
withstwodinfl: tluit yon have not the slightest fear!' 
aneered HfrBainiuuL 

' Yet,' jretoned the Lion-tamer angrily, ' but it is 
became I am aaawtarable for the life of the lad.' 

* Ahj to be sore,' returned the other, *the young 
maa him not your determination of clmracter ; that 
Btme.' ' 

*I.beg of yon, my good friend,' observed Dick 
bhuMng, *'tiiat vou will use no extra precaution on 
my iceoimt; I anall feel quite safe with you, without 
your whtpi' 

Them mm a murmur of approbation among the 
company aa Tickerocandua put the weapon aside, 
vitfa, 'That 'a my brave bov, Dick; you would not 
to come, Batcher, though I took tivTuty whips ! ' 
■tatement beins quite incontrovertible, Mr 
gaye only a ^astly grin by way of reply, 
andiihe BMst^tamer, turning his back upon him con- 
tamptaoDriT, bade Dick put on his great-coat and 
faring a nUmy-mg. * The old lady herself will keep 
AM wahn enoujah,' said he ; ' but j^oxl must lie in the 
fa^'oonier, aa ime may not take lundly to a stranger. 
Toa may talk m her company as much as you l^e, 
faofe yon most not sneeze, or make any unusual sound, 
for het ean are oudly offended.' 

nie eetabtiahment of Tredgold late Trimming, aa 
fta two fiiendB beheld it on that wintry midnight, pre- 
■nfeed a aingular spectacle. A long line of vehicles, 
aa koffs aa were' ever seen — built for the accommoda- 
tion ot beaat— since the Ark itself, cast their gigantic 
ahadowa iqpon the waste of snow ; motionless under 
the odU clear moon they stood, like some embodiment 
of vend romance, disproportioned, unnatural, and such 
aa arig^ be biMi^atten in the dreaming brain through 
iiiVniff Kr Ef^ar Poe's works, and after partaking 
of pOK-bhoiia for supper. The poor horses, released 
framUM aluifta aa soon as locomotion became impos- 
iflUe^ ^od bnddled toesther in a circle that had with 
difliimtty been dearS from snow for their accom- 
xeaembled some troop of phantom steeds 
al drcuB. The wintry blast that swept the 
laden with sounds such aa it had probably 
nofcr borne before— the muffled outcries of wild 
baaata from every quarter of the globe, astonished at 
tka naretty of tibeir situation, and wondering why the 
dbwwaa not aet up as usual, and the public eye 
xmttadnpon them with its customary admiration. 
Oiia melancholy scene would doubtless have had a 
gnatar effect iqx>n Dick, just issued from the warm and 
cmwdBd caravan, had not his mind been so engroaaed 
hf iStm navity of the coming adventure. He heartily 
ly e ntod of that foolhardiness which had prompted 
limi to. accompany his friend in taking up such 
dangaiona qnartBrs, although the fear of Man was so far 
atnoger than that of BeMt, that he dared not now 
for ahame ahxink back from the undertaking. 

' There la really not the slightest danger,' remarked 
TBduorocandna, reading perhaps his thoughts, ' if only 
yon are pretty stilL Only, in case of accident, be 
gnsdad entirely by what I shall tell you.' 



With these words the Beast- tamer undid one of the 
wooden shutters that was fastened immediately over 
the cage-door of the lioness, and without a moment 
of hesitation ascended by a little portable ladder into 
the den. Dick's heart beat loud and quick as he 
followed his leader, and almost lea]HKl into his mouth 
as the animal gave a tremendous growl upon his 
unexpected appearance. 

* Never mmd her growling,' remarked Tickero- 
candua coolly: *when the creeturs growl, it's safe 
enough ; but when they walk round and round you, 
friendly-like, and shew their teeth without any noise, 
it is better to be upon the safe side of the bars. The 
tiger, indeed, will iakwa upon you the very moment 
before he bites your head on. • Poor old gal ! ' continued 
he, approaching the majestic female, and patting her 
on the head, * your cube are in perfect safety, I assure 
yon; tliey are being kept warm by your master's 
fire, while Mr Tredgold, who will on no account keep 
company with them, is banished into tbe bedroom. 
There is a young gentleman come to see you, but he 
isn't good to e^ so you need not s&etch your 
mouth so wide in that direction. Make younelf 
c<nnfortable yonder, Dick ; I shall lay my head here, 
upon my lady's hind-quarters, so that if sne gets up, I 
shall be the first to know it.' 

Whether Dick succeeded in making himself quite 
comfortable, is more than doubtful ; but he rolled him- 
self up submissively enough, and was silent. * I will 
try,' said he to himself, * not to think of that con- 
founded lioness, with all my might;' but he was 
quite unable to keep ?ier might out of hia thoughts for 
all that. He fell a wondering whetiier she would eat 
the railway-rug first, and him afterwards, or swallow 
the whole bundle as the elephant did his oranges, 
without troubling himself to take off the peel ; and 
entertained a number of other ridiculous suppositionB, 
which, however, were not the least less feaitul in that 
they were absurd. At last, not being able to bear 
lon^r this lying awake with eyes and ean kt stretch 
in silence and m darkness (for the shutter had been 

Sulled to as soon aa they were withinside), he suddenly 
emanded of Tickerocandua whether they were likely 
to have more snow on the morrow or not ? 

The Beast- tamer burst into a littie roar at this, and 
the lioness into a great one ; so that it was sometime 
before Dick could get an answer to his important 
question. 

' I do not know, I am sure, my lad ; but I know 
this, that you were not thinking very much of the 
weather when you asked about it? 

* No,' replied Dick frankly, * I was thinking of that 
infernal animal ; I can't get to sleep, and I shall go 
crazv unless you talk to me.' 

' roor lad ! ' exclaimed Tickerocandua pityingly, ' it 
was wrong of me to place you in such a situation ; 1 
will get up and let you out.' 

* No,' replied Dick firmly, • I will stay here what- 
ever comes of it, and no matter how mucn I fear.' 

* Bravo ! ' returned the Beast-tamer ; * that is to have 
far greater courage than not to fear at alL The old 
lady here, however, will never hurt us ; although I 
own that now, when she has just had her cubs tajcen 
from her, I would not like to nave her ftyiag over me, 
as the others do, half-a-dozen times a day.' 

* How is it, by the by, that your face is often 
bleeding when you come out from that?' asked 
Dick. 

* They all snap at me as the^ leave my shoulder,' 
returned Tickerocandua; *ana sometimes a tooth 
will graze the flesh for all that I can do. That's 
nothing compared with the labour of shifting them 
away, so that they should not rest upoo iQO more 
than momentarily ; if they leaped off less slowly, 
I should sink under their weight, even though thcnr 
clavnr did not do for me.' 

' But does not the sight or taste of your blood make 
them dangerous?' demanded Dick. *I have always 



SOS 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



understood that that would set even the best tamed of 
wild animals beyond control' 

' That is not so with human blood,' replied Ticker- 
ooandua ; ' because, with the exception of the Bengal 
tiger yonder, our friends do not Imow how good it 
is ; but if you came in from the alao^ter-house. . . . 
But what IS that moting about outside the caravan 7 
The old lady is getting uneasy. Great Heaven!' 

rolated the Beast-tamer as the shutter was suddenly 
wn back by an unseen hand, and a stick drawn 
rapidly across the bars <^ the cage-door, ' somebody 
wishes to murder us ! ' 

A stifled roar burst forth from the lioness, 
malrw^ the lad's blood run cold, and the hair to rise 
upon his head, as if under the influence of the electric 
wheel He felt that roar to be his death-knell; a 
prayer passed through his mind, which he had neither 
time nor power to utter ; and before his eyes a 
glimpse of that dead moth^s face, which he was per- 
haps about to see again, and for ever ; and then tiie 
▼oioe of Tickerocancuia smote upon hiiB ear, awakmg 
him once more to life and action. It was not the 
Beast-tamer's ordinair tone, but the suppressed utter- 
ance of one engaged in some tremendous physical 
struggle who has no breath to lose. 'Rush to the 
door ; undo the bolt, lad ; that is the only way that 
our lives can now be saved I ' 

Dick had his fingers on the fastening before Ticker- 
ocandua had finished his sentence ; as the iron bars 
■wun^ swiftly back, there was a hurtling noise in the 
air b3iind him ; and as he leaped a flying body came 
with tremendous f oroe upon his back, ana rolled with 
him over and over, out ot the cage. 

This was Tickerocandua, who nad been sitting upon 
the head of the lioness until ejected from the position 
in that undignified maimer. Dick and he would not 
have been safe yet, but that the enraced animal, in 
her fuiioua spring after them, had welf nigh stunned 
herself by ooming in contact with the iron-sheathed 
wall of the cage. Before she could perceive that the 
path of libertv lay open to her, the ^east-tamer had 
leaped up and dosed it, whereupon the creature set 
up such a roar of baffled ra^ as brought half the 
company out of their sleepmg-plaoes, despite the 
bitterness of the night. 

' Thank Heaven, you are safe I' cried thev, when 
ihey beheld the two friends standing on the right 
side of the bars ; ' we feared that Dicu> had devoured 
yoiL What on earth have vou done to enrage her ?' 

Tickerocandua, whose colour had entirely left his 
cheeks, answered not a word. * Fetch my iiaiip, Dick 
— do not lose one moment 1 ' cried he. 

' Yon surely are not going to venture,' began the 
lad; but the expression of uie Beast-tamer's coun- 
tenance became so terrible, that he interrupted him- 
self in the middle of his expostulation, and ran for the 
weapon without another word. 

Tne lioness, with open mouth, was throstinff her 
f orepaws through the bars, as though she wouMnave 
torn his heart out, when Tickerocandua re-entered the 
cage, closing the eate behind him. She turned round 
with a short snarX and sprang right at him, while the 
spectators shuddered at the horror which seemed 
inevitable : but the man lightly stepped aside, and 
bringing the butt-end of his weapon down upon hoc 
with no great force, as it seemeo, the mighly beast, 
BO instinct with strength and fury, lay in a moment 
motionless upon the floor of the den. He waited, 
with his foot upon her neck, till she recovered her- 
self when he beat her with ^le thong severely upon 
the back and legs ; after which he stepped out of the 
oage with great dieliberation, observing to Dick that 
he wsA sorry to have had to punish the old lady, but 
that if he bad sufiered her to imagine herself his 
oon^ueror, even for an hour, his life would have been 
sacrificed on the next occasion that he entered the 
den. 

'There is one, however,' added the Beast-tamer, 



suddenly seizing upon Mr Bairman, who had been 
looking on with a very cha^prined exOTession of coun- 
tenance, * to whom both you and I, Dick, owe a debt 
which I have much pleasure in settling.' And with 
that, before any one could interpose, he had adminis- 
tered a dozen cuts of the whip across the face of the 
first Butcher, whereby that malignant disturber of the 
sleeping lioxifeas and her lodsers was marked like the 
zebra en the desert for montns to come. 

« 

OHAPTBR XXYI. 

▲ XAK or BTflNBM ASD nJUIVmB. 

It was a lingular proof of the tenacity with which 
the Human, however fallen, will still clinf to the 
skirts of Respectability, that Mr Ridiard Aroonr did 
not inform his friends, throughout this period, of the 
precise nature of his employment in Mr Tredgold's 
establishment. He was gaining an honest living by 
purveying their necessary aliment to God's creatures, 
and yet & was ashamed of it. If he had been butcher- 
ing the same for his own pleasure, with the latest 
d^cription of fowling-piece, he would have written c^his 
occupation not without a ^ow of personal vanity; but 
as it was, he ' sank ' the slaughter-house, and I am 
afraid rather led Miss Lucy Mickleham to understand 
that he was permanently enm^ under the indirect 
patronage of Royalty (and ind^ Y.R. alwa^ headed 
Mr Tredgold's posters) in certain scientim) experi- 
ments in X^atund History. Even Sister Msggie was 
co^gnizant of no more than that the outcast wuoraad- 
winning in some humble capacity connected with the 
animal world, and that bcdng likely to better hmmclf^ 
he did not care to mention more particulariy what 
his occupation was. Mr William Mickldiam^while 



playfully announcing his belief that the Family 
scapegrace was parading the south of England witn 
a bear and a monkey, and would some day present 
himself at their gate to the sound of a tambourine or 
hand-organ^ was quite unaware that in so saymg ha 
was in reality rather overestimating his youn^ mead's 
social position. Nevertheless these three hSd xoaxxy 
a council concerning the absent lad and his prospects: 
Lucy and Maggie, because they loved him; and 
Wimam, because, as the scaftoldins whereby an 
attachment (fast rising to the story of affection) had 
been built up between himself and Maggie, lie owed 
him no little gratitude. 

That Kensington cottage was indeed a holiday-house 
to the poor young lady, escaped for a while m>m the 
mm mansion in Qolden Square, and the companion- 
snip of Adolphus and Maria, who, had they dared, 
would have treated her no better than CindereUik 

Uncle Ingram, however, did not lose his affection 
for her, and strove, as it seemed, to make amends for 
the future wrong that he contemplated by present 
indulgence. He took her into his confidence — which 
was, however, only a sort of mentsl counting-house, 
wherein he kept liis business speculations — anS threw 
open for her all the chambers of his heart ^ all, that 
is, save one — ^the Bluebeard Chamber, which it was for- 
bidden for any to glance at, wherein he nunedhiB wra^ 
and kept it warm a^[ainst Kephew Didc PerhAps the 
sense <n justice, which was really strong withm the 
old man, and could, now and then, even overcome a pre- 
iudice, reproached him with his hardness towards tibs 
boy — ^whom he always pictured to himself <u a boy, 
impatient of control, and obstinate under punishment 
— and made the subject more hateful to him than it 
would else have been. At all events, Maria could 
change her uncle's mood of doting fondness for her 
sister at any time, to one of anxiety and suspicion, by 
dropping a casual word which should remind him of 
the mtimacy, still unbroken, between Maggie and 
Dick. Mr Ingram Arbour's memory was waning 
upon many points but not upon this, fie forgot some 
matters whidi had formerly been at least as ^^tniTuw 
to him as his prayers ; his judgment upon matten of 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



208 



boBneBB, m fonner cUys lo uniformly clear and deci- 
me, was now apt to vacillate ; bat he always remem- 
bond that there was one Dick Arbour who had 
turned out a disg^uce to the family, and never wavered 
in hia dstomination to separate it from him and him 
from it. The diligence and activity manifested by 
Addphiu in Darkendim Street, and the good reports 
of Lawyer Johnnie's assiduity in the country, con- 
trasted stvoDglY with the misconduct of their younger 
brother : he of conxBe looked all the blacker by con- 
trast ; and it is poMible that these whited sepulchres, 
on their parts, received an additional coat of purity 
by ibe oompanaon. It may have been the absence of 
t£at foil, periiapa, which prevented Adolphus from 
sppearinfl so excellent a man of business in the eyes 
of Mr Mifliklfthani as in those of his unde. To the 
Mgadooa managing-clerk, it was evident that the 
steai^ but waooSml course pursued by the Head of 
ttiA Finn lor to many yean was little rehshed by the 
jnnior-partnv; and tliat though cautious and prudent 
manf^ by nature^ the young man beheld witn impa- 
tifliioa the many chances of great gains which sprmg 
up in tlie path ol every important conmiercial house, 
rejected for the comparatively insignificant profits of 
mere legitimaie trading. Tms was especially appar- 
ent linee the return of Mr Adolphus Arbour from a 
late hnwn i M s expedition to Paris, where he had ^ncked 
up and broufdit oack with him certain brittle opinions 
OQQoenung uie extension of the china trade, as well 
as a mrmmtX friend in one Mr Frederic Charleoot, 
who abetted him in the sam& 

This gjOBtleman, who had laid him under some 
dianee oMigations at a caf6, by becoming his sue- 
ooHful interpreter in a sqiutbble with uie waiter 
wapecUng his bill, was not himself a man of business. 
On that first occasion of their acquaintance, and 
whfle iippnig the Johannisburg, which he had politelv 
ivnted Adorohus to share with him, he had confessed, 
with ngnt, that his means having always b^m sufGi- 
dent lor hia moderate wants, he had never embsrked 
in any of those streams of enterprise which were the 
boast and life-blood of their common country. ' They 
inleraat me, they have a chann and an attraction for 
Bj inteDeet, such as it is,' observed he, ' but I have 
lerer been practically concerned with them. I have 
made other men's fortunes more thui once, by sug- 
gerting tins and that line of conduct, which recom- 
mended itself to my theoretic commercial jud^ent ; 
it was doubtless assisted by that combmation of 
chMMWi tHiioh enters more or less into every specula- 
tkni^ bat my friends were as srateful as though I had 
been tiicir jniardian angel throughout I have felt, 
however, Intle ambitiini to incur the trouble and 
neesirilj of making money for mysell I am an idle 
do^ jOQ seeu I smoke — and if you care for cigars, I 
think JOQ will like this Cabana as well as any you 
win nest with in Paris. I drink, although never to 
lor that would interfere with my intellectual 
as well as disornmise my digestion; and 
iendahips where 1 find anv sensible long- 
laUow, like yourself, who is also a gentleman. 
Hj Ismity is what would, I believe, be considered 
'good,' e?en by the most exclusive; but through a too 
Vm^ leeidence in the eveodasting atmosphere of 
PiaiMian saloons, they have become un-English, and too 
Mroloos even for me. We often quarreT— my family 
and myeslf — oooceming our Nation of Shopkeepers. 
They aeense me of being a democrat and a tans 
gjrfsilt, becanse I afiBrm i£kt a merchant-prince is as 
good as a prince who is not a merchant They would 
TWiwidm' ^oo, sir, if, as your name suggests, you are 
m eo m ee ti on of the grc»t house of Arbour — in the 
hf^ of a— -upon my soul th^ would — of a mere 




Mr Adolphiis Arbour visibly blushed, though he 
TColied witn no little testiness: * And why not, sir? 
Wny in tlw world not, sir, I would like to know?' 

' Sxactiy/ rejoined the exquisite, lighting a fresh 



Cabana; *you have hit the verv girt of the whole 
ouestion. Why rwty you should like to know? You 
aon't deny it Why sJundd you ? You are proud of 
it ^ You ask if my family are any better for not 
having their hands sullied — ^their very expression only 
the ouier day— their hands sullied oy trade for the 
last three hundred years ; and I answer you, upon the 
honour of a Charlecot, that they are not the better. 
All that I demand is, that commerce and good-man- 
ners should go hand in hand. I should not, I confess 
(so deep are the prejudices of birth), I should not 
have been thus intimate with you, Mr Arbour, had I 
not perceived that your commercial prosperity had 
been secured without the loss of an elegant refine- 
ment — if, in a word, you had fallen short of the 
perfect and polished gentleman.' 

The insolent condescension of this address would 
have been redeemed to some persons by the simplidtv 
and evident absence of a wish to offend, with whion 
it was uttered; it was mitigated in the eyes of 
Adolphus Arbour, by the sir and tone of the speaker, 
instinct with that essy assurance which only oelon^i 
to those who are set above the necessity of ingra- 
tiating themselves with their fellow-creatures, and by 
the fashionable, and even splendid attire in which the 
descendant of the Charlecots was dothed. Lounging 
in this or that unstudied, but never ungraceful 
attitude, the stranger looked indeed like one who sits 
above the thunder of this work-a-day world, and who 
only mixes with it from motives of curiosity or 
amusement Mr Charlecot's expressed admiration of 
men of his companion's class was reciprocated by Ins 
new acquaintance, who, like many of his own wder, 
reverenced none so much as those who themselves 
have neither need nor wish to work. A second bottle 
of Johannisbuig was disposed of during a conversation 
in which his new friend astonished hmi beyond mea- 
sure with huB acquaintance with the details of the 
china trade, surpassing even as a matter of special 
knowledge, but perfectly wonderful, since forming 
only a branch of that intoimation which Mr Frederic 
Charlecot professed to possess concerning all the 
various channels of British industry. 

'You, Mr Arbour, have one of those practical 
minds, that I respect and admire above eveiything, 
and which are worth aU the learning and knowledge 
in the world. / have unhappily done nothing — ^h»i 
nothing to do— save to read and think ; to ^ dream 
perhaps of undertakings promising enou^ indeed, 
but to which I was in no position to give effect ; to 
tease myself with far-off visions o( splendid successes, 
whose reality will be one day grasped by a less idle 
hand.' At these wordBL deUvered veiy differently 
from his ordinaiy unentimsiastic and indolent tone, 
Mr Chariecot extended visibly a set of ladylike 
fingers glittering with gold and gems. 'You are 
laughing at me. Arbour; you think me a fool, I know 
— you practical men are such sceptics — ^but, upon my 
honour, I have such a bent for commerce, that I 
sometimes think there must be a bar-sinister some- 
where intoiposing itself between me and the Charle- 
cots. Here, waiter, is the mone^, and half a franc for 
your own pocket, but not a centune more. Any other 
member ol my family would have given the man a 
whole one, but one of my peculiarities, is the most 
riflorous economy in matters of social expenditure. I 
enjoy myself, but do not pay a farthing more than it 
is neccesary for a genUeman to do: while in my 
accounts withmy tnaesmen, lameven stiU more exact 
and particular. Man of pleasure that I unfortunately 
am, 1 am in my small way a man of business also. 
Our road, I see, ues together, sir, although not for very 
far, I fear.' 

Mr Charlecot paused opposite an imposing mansion 
which has the credit of oeing the most splendidly 
appointed, as slso the most expensive, in all Paris. 
*We lodge here,' said he. *Is it possible that it 
lortunately happens that you are staying at the 



204 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Hotel Gilbert also ? Madame and I have roomB above 
the entresoU 

'Yes,' replied Adolphns hesitatingly, 'I do lodge 
here ; but I am only come for a few days, yon see^ 
My room is a great deal higher up. Indeed, I thought 
the price of the first floors enormons.' 

'ISow, I like that,' replied Mr Charlecot admir- 
ingly; 'I do like that, xou merchant-princes, who 
rou in wealth, are so eccentrio about your e^roenditiire. 
The Berlin Rothschild assured me himseli, that he 
never put his foot in a cab except at a friend's expense. 
What is twenty guineas a week to a man who turns 
a million?' 

* My dear sir,' interrupted Adolphns with a gratified 
blush, ' we do nothing of that kmd, I do assure yon. 
We have, it is true, the use of a few thousands' . . • . 

Mr Frederic Charlecot leaned up against one of 
the marble pillars of the entrance-luJl, and indulged 
in whalt, for a person of his distinguished quality, was 
uproarious mirth. *Now, I do hke that now — that 
notioui of a few thousands in connection with Arbour 
and Nephew ! To underrate the ^rigantio character 
of your undertakmgs is «t> diaraotenrtic. The use of 
a few thousands ! wat is capital I flhall remember 
that for Tuffiier — ^you know Tuflber, tiie Stock 
Exdiange millionaire, of course you do? — that, and 
your room at the top of the house, are both 
excellent.' 

' But you know,' replied Adolj^us, who had begilUi 
to be not a little ashamed of bem^ tiiousht parsimo- 
nious, altiiou^ a few hours previously ne had been 
reproadhiiu; huEQself with livinc at the Hotel Gilbert 
at all, ana wondering^ what tue Head of the Firm 
would say to the bill — *but yon know I am a 
bachelor ; I am not a married man like you.* 

'A married man!' re^ed Mr Chsflecot in an 
offended tone; 'why, what on earth led you to 
suppose that I was a manied man ? Now, really, my 
dear Arbour, you have no sort of right to be so hard 
upon a f dlow. I am not so young as I have been, I 
know ; not so lively, brilliant^ rattung a Don- Juan as 
yourself ; but, O ladiea of Ptois, I appeal with con- 
fidence to you a^nst this accusation I Do "U do 1 
look like a marrira man ? a Paterfamilias? Bfeavens ! 
an elderly person who pays ready-money for flannel 
and children's shoes.' 

'I beg your pardon,', replied Adolphns olumBQy; 
' only I thoufl^t you said something about Madame.' 

A0un Mr Charieeot lauched, but this time like the 
tinkSng of any silver bdL *GkKMi again. Arbour; 
upon my life, you are very good. That {nretenoe of 
respectability is perfect, ana «9 characteristic. For 
my part» when in France I do as- the -French do, and 
in Paris, you know, one-'marries without benefit of 
clergy. Boes Madame receive ?' asked the speaker of 
a female domestio on her way to the first floor. 

'She does, sir;! go for chocolate,' retumed the 
servant. 

*For three, then,'- replied Mr Chaiilecot *You 
will take a cup •with us, Arbour, in * -friendly way, 
and have a ehat with Madame ?' 

The apartment in which Mr Adolphua Arbour 
found himself tiie next moment, was by hx the most 
splendid in which ho had ever set loot; Froneh 
magnifleence had outdone • itself in the profusion of 
gilcQng,'tlie>ramiensity of the mirrors, and the sor- 
ceons' elegance of the dnperiesi -The most beautiful 
nowen seni forth their fragrant peifnmes from cornu- 
copias of crystal* and silver, while from without, the 
gummer aer came soMy over-bank* of flowers in tlie 
balcony. Iii tiie oentre of the shaded room was a 
fountam of alabaster, whieh difliiaed along with its 
pleasant music a sense of coolness inexpressibly 
refreshing- to ejres just released from the heat and 
glare of a Pavisian pavemeat. A piano stood in one 
comer of the anloon, with an open musio-bodk spread 
out before it, while volumes of en^vings, splendidly 
bound, lay on the tables along wi^ the most reoott 



of those French and English newspapers which 
principally record the transa^ons of commerce. 

A desk stood near the window with drawing- 
materials, and a half-finished sketch upon it, and a 
moderate-sized circulating library lay stnewed, hidf on 
the ottoman half on the floor, as though some literary 
epicure had been recently satiating himself, or herself, 
upon the tidbits of fiction to repletion. The whole aspect 
of the room proclaimed a nuUier-of^course and eveiy- 
day luxury, which' is unusual indeed ia hotel drawing- 
rooms inlukbited by English peraons, excq)t they be of 
very considerable weuth and position. Even our 
richer Icllow-countrymen can rarely brins themselves 
to look' upon hotels as their temporary nouses, and 
are commonly, while resident withm them, content to 
debar themselves from many of tbeir ordinary comf oris, 
from a perhaps somewhat fanciful notion of economy. 
If Uncle Ingram, for instance, had been so imprudent 
as to have taken up his quarters at the Hotel GUbert 
— ^whieh his nephew did more lor the sake of giving 
it as his address,' and of consortan^ with fashionable 
company in its coffee-room, than oecause it suited 
with his habits — he would have certainly dispensed 
with his ordinary luncheons, or hsive gone out in the 
broiling sun for a biscuit, rather than have isnmnioned 
one of its magmfioent waiters and taken Ms mid-di^ 
meal off silver and damask. Mr Adolphns Arbour 
had an intellect keenly alive to these diflierences of 
social ejq>enditure, and the air of his new friend's 
gorgeous dwelling-plaoe filled his British soul with a 
reverent and sublime respect. If Mr Charlecofs 
victory over him seems to have been somewbat rapidly 
attained, it must be remembered that his movements 
were masterly and his masses — considering the weak 
nature of the opponent he had to deal with — over- 
whelming. He also began the contest on advantageous 
ground, and with the sun at his back. The beuig able, 
when amon^ foreigners, to speak fluently in their 
tongue, which your compatriot cannot use, is to 
possess. a superiority over nim, quite inoonoeivable to 
one whose sober wishes have never led him to stray 
beyond his native land. The insolence so complained 
of in the manner of Englishmen abroad is, we oelieve, 
mainly attributable to weir almost universal ignoranoe 
of any other language than their own. They trav^ 
more than other nations do, and with fiir fewer 
polyi^ttic accompLisbments. How can they, then, 
fail to look stolid, and sulky, and discontented, when 
they cannot even ask for beer or complain of its 
absence so as to be understood; when people witii 
bayonets jabber at them civilities which, sound to 
their eacA like threats ; and when the whole continent 
of Europe seems to be inhabited by an idle and 
perverse population, who wiU not take the trouble to 
acquire even the nidiments of the Kn^liah tongue. 
Then in periods of misgiving and pecuniaiy dispota- 
tion — ^when we do not even comprehend the value of 
the coins we are disputing about— how pleasant is it 
to hear one speaking our mother-tongue in the strange 
land, and profiering the courteous offer of standing 
between us and the native extortioner ! Urns it was j 
that the btttteifly, Mr Frederic Charlecot, obtained 
his flrst hold of the money-spinner, Mr AdolphnB 
Arbour; and having that hold, ne was not the man to 
letgoa^aun. 

Of au the attractive objects with which that 
drawing-room in the Hotel Gilb^ gleamed, Madame 
was the crown. Mr Arbour's limited experianoe bad 
led him to expect, in a lady of such a more than 
doubtful social position, a coarse, however oomely 
exterior, and a manner familiar and unrefineoL 
Madame, on the contraiy, could scarcely be called 
beautiful; but her air and manner were elegant and 
distinguished in a very high degree. An anstocra|ic 
knffuor seemed to pervade her limbs, and mve a 
pathos to her tones ; while her conversation hM that 
naturalness which only belongs to the very best 
society, and to people who are not in society it alL 



CHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



205 



The latest queen of London fashion is said to have 
been seen sucking a chicken-bone, at a semi-royal 
fnpper-party, wituout the medium of a fork — an 
undeniably advantageous method of eating it, but one 
whk^h you, fair reader, who are doubtless fashionable 
ilao, would rather die than adopt. She was famous, 
however, for a certain peraijlage that occasionally 
culminated to coarseness. Madame, too, had a lively 
fincy, and was sometimes a little rude. She did not 
rise from her couch by the open window when the 
two gentlemen came in, but remained there with a 
book in her hand, sometimes reading it, and sometimes 
joining in the conversation. 

'I am fdad to see you, sir,' said she with a gracious 
smile, aslCr Axbour was introduced ; * I like to see an 
"Engliah faoe, ttod to hear the English tongue. Be so 
gGMMl as to eschew French while in my company.* 

'I shall have the greatest pleasure in so doing,' 
returned Adrfphns ; * uie fact is, your — that is to say, 
I have even now been indebted to Mr Charlecot for 
getting me out of a difficulty caused by my indifferent 
knowledge of the langua^.* 

'I daresay yoa speak it vilely : all Englishmen do.' 
As if to shew, at the same time, that this was not the 
case with Englishwomen, she rapidly uttored a few 
French words to Mr Charlecot in what seemed to Mr 
Aiboor^B ears the purest Parisian accent — but, then, 
he wee not a veiy good judge. 

'Madame ac<|uaints me that there is a letter of 
impoirtance awaiting me ; be so kind, Mr Arbour, as 
to excuse me a moment while I look at it. I make no 
scruple, you sec, of sacrificing the demands of hospi- 
tality itself to those of business.' 

An open door at the end of the apartment disclosed 
a smaller room with a dining-table ; a massive escri- 
toiie, contrasting by its plainness with the neighbour- 
ing splendours <S a sumptuously appointed sideboard, 
stood in a comer, covered with papers, and before 
these Mr Charlecot sat himself down. 

Madamfl conducted a languid conversation with the 
visitor, returning the homage of his eyes with looks of 
oouteous forbeuance, as though Edie would say : * You 
ate dull, air ; but observe, I do not yawn.' But when 
Us gaie wandered elsewhere, regarding him with an 
intenai^ of expression that by no means conveyed 
good-wishes. 

'Yoa dine at the Tuilleries, I suppose,' said she ; 
' everyfoodv does dine there.' 

Mr Adolphus Arlxnir was obliged to confess that, if 
that were indeed the case, he was but a nobody. 

'Well, then, at the Embassy, at all events; it is 
there yoa have met Mr Charlecot, I suppose.' 

Mr Arbonr replied that he had not met Mr Charlecot 
ihera^ hut in a tone whereby he wished to imply that 
that waa ■itig^il^y too, considering the frec^uencv 
of his own invitations to the house of her Majesty's 
representative in Paris. 

' Yoa most have seen De Crcspigny often there — 
the man whom the government have taken up so 
rtraogely in order to appease the republicans. They 
sav uat there has been some sort of compromise 
effected, bat that it will not last' 

Mr Adolphus Arbour had not had the happiness of 
meetmg the Count de Crespigny, although he had 
often l£aid of him. 

'lliat is singular, too: he spoke of you as if he 
knew yoa welL Did you not assist him once in some 
dangerous a£Gur in London ; but no, it must have been 
a yoanger man. Have you a brother Richard ?' 

Addons felt himself growing scarlet under the 
egres that were now fixed steadily enough, although 
with apparent indifference, upon him. 

'It la a mistake, Madame; we have no brother 



I 



' Indeed I then I misunderstood the count,' returned 
the lady carelessly. * Have you not finished, Frederic, 
with those homd papers yet?— you are always at 
tnunneHk' 



' I have finished, Madame,' returned Charlecot, 
coming forwanl ; ' and the business has been a plea- 
sure. Hero is one of Tuffncr's funny letters again. 
Whenever I put liim up to a good thing, Mr Arbour — 
and he declares that my judgment is worth more than 
that of all the Bourse together — he always insists 
upon sending me what he calls " mental brokerage," 
payment for my raw material of advice. Here is his 
note for five thousand francs, you see ; one per cent., I 
suppose, or so upon his gains on the whole transaction. 
A ridiculous bagatelle, of course, in the eyes of a man 
like you, but in my case very acceptable to defray 
any uttle extravagances. Do not take another cup 
of chocolate, but, if you have no better engagement, 
stay and sup with us in a friendly way. V?e have 
a marchand dup^. for supper to-night, have we not, 
Madame?' 

' I rather think we have,' replied the lady. 



A L D E R N E Y. 

In two consecutive numbers of a certain popular 
periodical, published, I believe, towards the end of 
lS55t there appeared two article?, headed, respectivelyi 
* A Tight Little Island,' and ' A Very Tight Little 
Island' — the one being a description of HeUgoland, 
and the other of Sark. It has since been a source of 
wonderment to me that their writer, whilst at the 
latter place, and apparently in search of some spot 
remarkable for its * tightness,' should have omitted 
mention of Alderney, which it was my lot, for nearly 
two years, to inhabit. 

Alderney, as most people know, is one of the four 
Channel Islands enumerated in the geographies as 
Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark. It is situated 
about eight miles west of Cape La Hague, in France, 
and between fifty and sixty miles south of Weymouth, 
and is the most northerly of the insular group. 

To spare my readers the error of imagining a 
beautiful little oasis, abounding in trees, green-sward, 
sweet hedges, and cream-coloured cows, I will com- 
mence at once by informing them that Alderney 
consiste of a rock about three and a half nules long, 
by one and a half broad, at its broadest, and rising 
in some -paita to a height of from 220 to 270 feet 
above the sea-leveL* This rock is almost destitute of 
trees, and contains only two rows of what in England 
would be called hedges. 

The town of St Annes, which lies nearly in the 
middle and highest part of the island, contains two 
streets, Victoria Street and High Street, and several 
very dirty lanes. The former of the two streets 
obtained its name from the fact of Her Gracious 
Majesty having, on a visit to the place, stood at its 
foot, and looked up it as far as its curvature would 
permit ; on the strength of winch, the loyal islandera 
placed new pitching on the road, and a stone slab on 
the wall commemorating this act of their queen. It 
would have been a blessing to the town had her 
Majesty, on that occasion, made a royal progress 
through it, attended with like results to its roads. 
High Street is named from being on a hill, and by no 
means from the altitude of the houses composing it. 
These, with St Annes Square (a sort of trapezium 
that would puzzle EucUd), containing the mansions 
of the town-major, judge, and rector, with the 
addition of the before-mentioned lanes, constitute the 
capital of Alderney. Besides this, there are, along 
the north shore of the island, Craby, the watering- 
place; Bray, the old town; Ncwtoun, the navvy 
locality of tiie higher class ; and Mauznez, that of the 



906 



GHAMB£RS*S JOURNAL. 



lower. On the aonih and west aides, the rooks tte 
pxeciptonsy and the beach, where any exists, imap' 
proachable. The ground slopes down from this to 
the north and east, where there are several small 
bays with sandy beaches. 

Aldemey is enclosed between two remarkable 
currents well known to the mariner — ^the * Swinge,' 
ronning about north-east on the north side of the 
island ; and the * Race,* in a more northerly direction 
on the south of it, both of which currents meet at 
the east end of it, and run past Cape La Hague. 

The language of the natives is far from pure, being 
a compound ci Norman ' patois ' with certain English 
provincial dialects, imported from time to time by the 
immigrants and navvies from our own shores. 

The current coin is of a similar adulterate descrip- 
tion ; the gold and silver being represented by French 
napoleons and francs ; while the paper and copper 
are issued by the states of Guernsey, in the shape of 
thick and* dirty one-pound notes, and coins called 
•eight doubles — equal to one penny Knglish. 

The government of the island was originally vested 
in a ftmiily of the name of Le Mesurier, and descended 
from Uk^er to son in regular rotation, until some few 
years back, when the son of the last governor 
resigned for a ' consideration ' the patent which had 
■0 long diffnified his family. Aldemey is now included 
in tiie nmitary district of Gkiemsey, the lieutenant- 
governor of which is represented by one of his staff, 
who is located in the ancestral hall of the ancient 
lords. 

Aldemey possesses a large, handsome, and well-built 
church (the ^ift of the son of the last governor); a 
school-room hcensed for public worship ; imd the usual 
proportion of Roman Catholic and dii^enting chapels. 
I may here remark a point worthy of note in the 
construction of St Annes, the capital Being in no 
part more than three-quarters of a mile from the sea 
on either side, there is not a house in it that has any 
better look-out than the opposite side of the street, a 
dunehill, or a haystack; and any houses that are 
newly constracted, are carefully protected, in defudt 
of anv ready-made obstacle of this nature, by a care- 
fully-built aind lofty wall, utterly precluding a glimpse 
of anything but its inside fac& 

Aldemey has of late years been the object of much 
attention on the part of her Majesty's government. 
The Admiralty set to work to make a harbour of 
refuge, and the inspector-general of fortifications, in 
oonsequence, to build forts to protect its mouth when 
completed. As the former, during the last ten yeara^ 
have approved of and adopted no less than eig^t 
different designs for this harbour, each of course pro- 
posing a new site for the entrance, the skill of the 
royal engineers has been somewhat severely tested 
in its protection, for as soon as one fort was planned, 
and perhaps constructed, the mouth of the narbour 
was found to be designed for a diffsrent spot. They 
have, however, executed their task by placing forts 
and batteries to command every possible spot whidi 
their Admiralty brethren could sdect for an entrance 
to the harboiu*, besides adding a few more in various 
parts of the island, in case an enemy might prefer 
attempting a landing on some other spot. Thus 
Aldemey now presents the imposing^ appearance of 
five square miles of rock gamishML by fifteen or 
sixteen forts, barracks, and batteries, and garrisoned 
by two batteries of urtillery, a winff of an infantry 
re^menti and half a companv of royu engineers. 

The forts, with two or three exceptions, bear the 
ancient Norman names of the rocks or promontories 
on which they are placed : Clonque^ Tourgie, Flatte 
Saline, Doyle, Grosnez, &c The patronymics of 
the natives are few — Robilliard, Le Cocq, Sandford, 
and Tourtel comprising nearly all the f^iwilioa, and 



the magisterial bench of twentv oontAining, with 
scarce an exception, none but tneee names. Most 
of the abcnigines are of independent means; their 
sires and ^randrires probably never having lost si^^fat 
of tiie mam chance during the good old smuggling 
times, since the whole island womd scarcely produce 
the incomes enjoyed by one or two old matrons at 
present residing in it. 

Of cows, heifers, 9us. approaching in breed tha 
pure Aldemey, there are in the island scarcely more 
than fifty, and these, by some miracle of nature, pro- 
duce the '1000 pure Aldemeys' that are annually 
imported into ErTgland * by one dealer alone ' {vide 
Txmti advertisements). They give beautiful milk 
certunly, but this, like the butter, is very dear. 

Aldemey, from bein^ near to France, and having 
no duty to paj on foreign wines, spirits, and tobacco, 
is tiie emponum of the vilest mn wdwavrt under 
the name of claret, wretched imitations of port and 
sherry (tiie latter much adulterated with sulphuric 
acid), and the most unsmokable tobacco that \a 
anywhere offered for sale. Shooting ib allowed 
without a licence, which, considering that twelve 
brace of woodcock only, with two and a half of wild 
fowl, annually visit the island, is not a great boon to 
the sportsman. 

The civil jurisdiction of the place is intrusted to a 
resident judge and six jurats, or magistrates, who are 
asdsted by an inferior bench of twelve douzainers (the 
parliament or chamber of deputies), who are elected 
by the islanders. These, with an executive power of 
four constables, manage to keep the island in a 
state of tolerable quiet and order. 

The waters around the island abound in almost 
every variety of fish — ^turbot, plaice, mackerel, bream, 
whiting, pollock, and x^ed mullet being at the disposal 
of any one who takes the trouble to catch them — ^bnt 
no regular fishing is carried on. One day, mackerd 
may be purdiased for Is. a dozen, while two davs 
after, ana perhaps for a fortnight, a fish cannot be 
obtained for love or money. 

On a fine day, the view from the hishest part ol 
the place is beautifid, comjnrising the adiaoent ooaafc 
of Irance, Guernsey and its cluster of little idets, 
Sark and Jersey ; but the Channel fogs, proverbially 
so thick, generally preclude all chance for the exer^ 
cise of a sketcher's abilities, limiting one's landscape 
to an area of fifty to sixty square yarda When this 
is not tiie case, the wind is frequently so violent that 
there is some ride of the observer being blown away. 

For about six months, a company ran steamers 
from Weymouth to Cherbom^ viA Aldemey, so that 
a reguk^ communication with England and the 
continent was insured to the island ; but findinjg 
that traffic was scarce (the natives preferring thev 
old style of cutters), and their steamers having mors 
than once to lie within half a mQe of the ahcce^ 
without seeinff it for six hours, owing to foos, they 
gave up their laudable enterprise^ and the old system 
of communication rtsumed its sway. Tliis oonsistB 
of a small steamer, belonging to the Adadralty con- 
tractors, which plies to Guernsey whenever the 
weather and owners will permit ; and of sundry little 
cutters, of from twenty to forty tons, that are venture- 
some enoush to brave the winds and currents that 
prevail in wis part of the world. I have known Alder> 
ney to be a forfaiight without anv mail-ccmmunicatioii 
whatever, and at the end of that time, one or two 
bags only conveyed, at two shillings and sixpence * 
hundred letters, by one of the open cutters. Li 
the summer-time, Aldemey is the resort of many 
excursionists, who are enabled, in a two days' trip, to 
see almoit blue water, the French coast, and genuine 
fortifications, to say nothing of the cows, which, 
probably, rather astonish some of those who have 
known the breed in England. But to a pexwn 
confined to the island, as I have been, it is anythins 
but a pleasant residence, owing to the absence <x 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



207 



L 



say TCSonroes of amiiBement, and to its delightful 
jfuklity of 'tightness,' which equally prevents any 
mdindiial leaTing it who may desire to do so, or any 
news reaching those who are there. 

THE MONTH: 

8CIBNCB AND ARTS. 

Thk approach of spring, as nsoal, wakes np the 
artists; and photocraphera as well as painters 
•n mdcmg, « pnnUg to mske, the ij^nae 
of the davB of 8nnsnin& Of course, some of the 
oft-mootea qaestions are again revived ; and in the 
fact that more than 1200 pictnrps were sent in for 
exhibition to the British Institution, and that one- 
half were r^eoted for ' other reasons ' than want of 
wall-Bpace, Mme see a motive for increasing the 
nnmber ol exhibitions, and thereby giving a chance to 
every piotnxe. There are some people who like bad 
pictmres, and why should they not have opportunity 
to see a ocUection all at once ? The scheme mi^t l>e 
worth trying, if only for the sake of convincing a con- 
siderahle number of ' artists ' that they arc much more 
likely to niooeed as house-painters or fumiture-decor- 
aton, than as rivals of Rubens or Claude. It may be 
said that we do not want more painters of pictures, 
bat we do want more artists with a knowledge of 
those prinoiples by which house-painting may be 
made hannonioua in its details and effects ; aspiring 
arcfaiteot% too, may remember with advantage that 
they have ample scope for the exercise of real ability 
in ue huUdi$iff of houses, in contradistinction to what 
11 ciJled mnning them up. 

Of noftioeaUe facts in photography, one is that the 
eidiilntion of the Photographic Society is remarkably 
good, and that a fac-simile copy of Domesday Book is 
about to be taken under the direction of Colonel Sir 
H. James in the Photographic Office of the Ordnance 
Department at Southampton. We mentioned some 
tDM ago the process by which these copies could he 
taken and multiplied, and would take leave to su^st 
that it should be applied to any of our national 
arehives that shew signs of decay. We have seen 
copies of ancient documents which are under the 
cire of the Master of the Rolls, differing in no respect 
from the originals, except that they are sound and 
fresh; and we may believe that Englishmen of the 
fotine who will look back on our times through as 
long a vista as we look back on the Conquest, will 
th ank n a for handing down to them a perfect image 
of William the Norman's wonderful book. 

In a small work published at Paris, M. Testelin 
shews, while diacussmg the theory of tlie formation 
of tiie phokpsraphio imace, that it is a physical, not a 
chemi(»l smct, depen&nt on well-known ph}rsical 
laws which are recognisable in other phenomena. He 
oomnders 'electric polarity * to be the exciting cause, 
and thns puts forth the question to undergo discussion 
hj tiioee photosraphers who have most studied the 
eoects produced on their interesting operations by 
cosmieal or meteorological causes. 

A Bobject which seems likely to have an important 
bearing m inyestigations of atmospheric phenomena, 
haa heen treated of by Dr TyndaU in lectures before 
the Royal Institution and Royal Society. Starting with 
some of the experiments made by the late Professor 
MeUoni of Naples, he has examined the effects of 
heat-radiation, and obtained remarkable results 
denumstratiye of the power possessed by certain 
tranipazent and impalpable media of absorbing or 
intercepting rays of heat For instance, if defiant gas 
be placed between the source of heat and the galvan- 
omefeer by which the amount of heat is measured, an 
immediartiB check is observable, and scarcely a trace of 
heit passes. This result is the more surprising, because 
of the extreme transparency of the gas ; and at first 
asfst it appears hardly credible that the passa^ 
of heat ahoold be stopped by something which is 



invisible. Similar results are obtained with sulphurio 
ether, and other kinds of gas, and Dr Tyndul has 
tabulated them as a basis for further experiment. 
It should be explained that the heat-rays here in 
question are derived from an obscure, not an illumin- 
ated source— from, in fact, a small cistern of water 
kept at a boiling temperature. It is thought that 
meteoroloeiBts and astronomers will be able to turn 
these resufts to account when studying tiie phenomena 
of our own atmosphere, or that of remote planets. 

The discussion on the Origin of Species i^ews 
but little signs of abatement, for whatever may be 
the merits m Mr Darwin's theory, his book has, to 
use a popular phrase, supplied 'a want,' and set 
many mt^Uigent minds thinking on a profoundly 
interesting subject The discussion has extended 
to the continent, and crossed the Atlantic to New 
England, where it has been earnestly taken up, as 
may be read in the Proceedings of the Boston Aca- 
demy of Sciences. According to Professor Oray, 
unity of origin is much more likSy to be demonstrated 
in the case of plants than of animids, seeing that the 
former have such immense powers of multiplication 
to start with; but to insure a fair solution of the 
question, a wider and more accurate knowledge of 
palffiontological botany than at present previms it 
absolutely essential * It could be shewn,' said 
Agassiz, taking part in the discussion, ' that the 
present distribution of animals was linked with that 
of earlier periods in a manner which excluded the 
assumption of extensive migrations, or of a shifting 
of the florsB and faunae from one area to another.' The 
fact is now well established, that many plants of 
the present era were in existence before the ' glacial 
period ; * and the Vaudoise Society of Natural Sciences 
at Lausanne, having had an unusually laree reindeer 
horn brought before them, which was found three feet 
below the surface in excavating for a railway, argue, 
that when ice prevailed from Ijapland to SwitzerlMid, 
the reindeer thep existed contemporaneously with 
the cavern-bear and the mammoth ; out when, by the 
change of climate, the plants needful for sustenanoe 
of the reindeer perished from the lowlands, the animal 
also perished, and left its bones to illustrate the history 
of jgeol(^. 

The Proceedings of the American Geographical 
Society contain interesting particulars concerning 
the arctic expeditions which sailed last year from 
New London and Boston : Dr Hayes, whose object 
was to search for the open Polar Sea which has long 
been supposed to exist in the highest oircumpcdar 
latitudes, and which was seen by the Russian 
explorer, Admiral von Wrangell, in one of his adven- 
turous journeys, had written from Upemavik that 
his prospects were encouraging, that he hoped to 
winter at Cape Frazer, Grinnell Ijand, latitude 79" 42^, 
and then cany forward his equipments and provisions 
as far towards the pole as possible, and there leave 
them, in readiness for travelling -parties in the 
spring of the present year, who are to push north- 
wards, and, if possible, discover the mysterious sea. 
Possibly, they may have a chance of getting to the pole. 

The other expedition is still more striking. Mr 
C. F. Hall, a prmter of Cincinnati, a man of daunt- 
less spirit, who has taken especial interest in recent 
arctic voyages, impressed by the notion that Sir 
Leopold Mxlintock has not exhausted the search 
for relics of Sir John Franklin's unhappy J^tyf 
sailed last June in a whaleship for Davis' Strait, 
where he intended to pass the wmter at Cumberland 
Inlet, in acclimatising himself, and acquiring, as far 
as possible, the habits and language of the Esqui- 
maux. This accomplished, he purposed starting in 
the spring with a boat, convertible at pl^ure mto 
a sledge, accompanied by a few picked natives and a 
^d pack of dogs, for King William Land ; and hav- 
mg made certain explorations on the way, he will then 
devote himself to a carefid and minute examination 



208 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



of the route taken by the crews of the Erebua and 
Terror, including^ the mainland about the mouth 
of Great Fish Kiver. By this means, emplcmng 
two or three years if desirable, and sojourning, from 
time to time, among the natives, Mr Mall hopes to 
hear of or discover every trace and relic which may 
vet remain of the Franklin expedition; and wo 
heartily wish him success. If, as we hope, he be 
aUve and well, he is now probably thinking of his 
start, and making preparations. Excepting natives, 
he anticipated being quite alone, and he will need 
courage and endurance to carry him through his self- 
imposed task in so desolate a region, and to sustain 
him until he shall return to the shore of Davis' Strait, 
to watch for some whaler that will give him a voyage 
home. Should Mr Parker Snow persist in his inten- 
tion of exploring the same country, he may now 
calculate on meeting with a companion. 

The culture of the vine is becoming more and more 
an object of attention in North America : the Academy 
of Science at St Louis, Missouri, has published an 
able paper thereupon, in which it is shewn that there 
are, m the southern parts of that state, alone the 
banks of the Osage, the Niangua, and in lands 
bordering on the Missouri river, 5,000,000 acres of soil 
excellent for vineyards. It is a limestone region, and 
bears wild-grapes of good (quality, and if we may judge 
from a lithographic drawing, has a striking resem- 
blance to the scenerv of the Khinc. The author of the 
paper shews that this extent of acres equ^ that of 
the grape-bearing districts of France, and that if 
planted with vines, it woidd employ 2,000,000 people, 
and yield 1,000,000,000 gallons of wine annually, 
woi^ 500,000,000 dollars. Besides the money vsJue, 
thete might be a i»omotion of sobriety, by the sub- 
stitution of pure grape-juice for the villainous 
compounds so largely sold m the States as wioe and 
branudy. 

Some of our readers will be interested in learning 
that a^oultural improvement is not neglected in 
the Umted (or Dis-united) States, as appears from 
an official Report, which is published m the form 
of a stout ootavo; the results are given of the 
operations carried on in the government experimental 
and propagating garden at Washington ; fertilisers 
are treated of, breeds of sheep, plants used for food 
by man, the culture of vegetable fibre, and, for 
the benefit of the agricultural population, there is a 
well-written chapter on the best way of building 
farmhouses, and how to inhabit them without 
the slovenliness that too often appears in backwoods' 
dwellings. Aociimatisation of animals and breeding 
of fish are largely noticed ; and we commend to the 
attention of our newly formed AcclimatiBation Society, 
a passage concerning the golden-breasted agami 
of South America. NLt is a bird,' says St Hi&ire, 
<tbat has the instinct and the fidelity of the dog; 
it will lead a flock of poultry, or even a flock of 
sheep, by which it will make itself obeyed, although 
it is not lazier than a chicken. It is not less useiral 
in the poultry-jrard than in the field; it maintains 
order there, protects the weak against the strong, 
stands by youn^ chickens and ducks, and divides 
among them their food, from which it keeps away 
others, and which, itsdf will not even touch. No 
animal, perhaps, is more easily taught, or naturally 
more attached to man.' The Society might, moreover, 
inquire for that Siamese bean, named &o-mu), which con- 
tains so much oaseine that it can be made into cheese. 

A paper read before the Society of Arts by a 
brother of the indefatigable Mr ledger, to whom 
Australia is indebted for the alpaca, gives an interest- 
ing account of the habits of that animal, its breeding, 
and trade derived therefrom in Peru, and briefly, of 
Mr Ledger's toils and privations during the nine 
years tlmt he was occupied in gathering a flock 
together, and driving them by t^ous and round- 
about ways, to evade the Peruvian authorities, until 



he at length arrived at Oopiapo, and there shipped 
322 of the valuable animals for Melbourne. We 
trust that no colonial jealousies will prevent his 
receiving his well-earned reward. At present, tlie 
flock is taken in charge by the government authori- 
ties of Victoria ; and by a moderate calculation, it is 
shewn, that in fifty years hence the number of alpacas 
will be five million and a half, producing forty million 
pounds of wool every year, worth 2s. a pound. 

Among lectures dehvered at the Royal Institution, 
one by the Rev. A B'Orsey of Cambridge, * On the 
Study of the English Language as an essential Part of 
a University Course,' h^ been much talked of in 
literary and scholastic circles, because of the obvious 
truths which it enunciates. Many a graduate who 
can tell you to a fold what was the disposition of a 
Roman toga, is unable to write grammatical English, 
or even to spell correctly. It is a scandal that those 
who have to write, teach, or speak a language so rich 
and forcible as ours, should take so little pains to 
cultivate it. English oratory, to quote the lecturer's 
words, presents us with * nominatives in vain search 
of misaing verbs — verbs pursuing nominatives without 
success; plurals and singulars joined in ungrammati- 
cal wedlock ; premises laid down from which no 
conclusions are drawn; and with conclusions with 
most vehement *theref ores' drawn from imaginary 
premises ! ' — Mr Faraday has given a lecture on 
platinum at the same place, exemplifying St Claire 
Deville's method of fusing that mtractable metal 
in a Ume-fumace, an important discovery which we . 
noticed some months ago. Apart from its scientific | 
details, this lecture was remarkable for the burst 
of emotion with which the audience received Mr 
Faraday's affecting intimation that his career as a 
lecturer is well-ni^ ended. 

ANSWER TO A STUDENT'S SKETCH OF A WIFR 

• Not too witty, nor yet too wise ;' 

Instead of her tongue, she must speak with her ejn; 

And this the beauteous eyes must say : 

' I love thee, Georgius ! night and day.' 

Nought else, save, perhaps, that ' Bread has riseB,' 
And matters to which no man need listen ; 
For gossip's a sin, reflection a worse. 
And knowledge you deem in a woman a curse. 

She must love your person, admire your wit, 
Revere your wisdom, and follow it ; 
In short, to be plain, thy wife must be, 
In all things mental, a second to thee. 

Ah me, ah me, alas for the soul ! 
That maketh itself a loved one's goal ; 
The Upas-tree Ego has spread itself there, 
Blighting the flowers that else might be fair. 

Ah me, ah me, alas for the wife ! 

Who yieldeth thus up her spirit-life. 

With no wondering thoughts in her heart to hide 

Of Ood, Love, Truth, or aught beside. 

The man the centre, the wife the ring. 
Drawn closer and closer by a human string — 
Closer and closer, till they merge in one, 
One atom of dust fh>m the ' vile earth sprang ; ' 

He the Sun, and she the Star, 
With no counter-attraction to draw her afar— 
Afar to the regions of light that lie 
Beyond this world's material sky. 

First withered, then scorched, then lost in the fire 
That she fancied a Heaven, all life will expire— 
And she'll lie on her husband's heart, a blot, 
Instead of a halo, a darkening spot Alphjl 



Printed and Published by W. & R Chambers, 47 Pater- 
noster Kow, London, and 3:59 High Street, Edinbuboh. 
Also sold by William Robertson, 23 Upper Sackrille 
Street, Dublut, and all Booksellers. 




S citnct anb ^rts. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM -AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 379. 



SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1861. 



Price IW. 



THE MODERN INQUISITION. 

I AX none of jonr bigots. I believe that the new 
times are better than the old. I do not think so 
poorlj of tbe goyemment of the world as to imagine 
iti affiura to be more mismanaged, and its inhabitants 
<tf with each reyolving year. 



I doubt not, through the ages, one increasing purpose 



And the thonghts of men are widened with the process 
of the luns. 

Only there are victims I crave leave to pit>'. It is 
cbabtleai expedient that a gentleman should not receive 
hia commiflaion until he has cured himself of the habit 
of ipeUing it with a single 'm : ' it is well that another 
•hoold not become a divine imtil he gives a better 
answer to the question of * What profession was Cor- 
nelnia, the first Gentile convert?* than that time- 
hallowed one, ' A musician ; because he was leader of 
tibe Italian band : ' it is good that a public servant, 
before being appointed to any high official position in a 
eokmy, shoold be required to state, without resort to 
an atlaa, in what quarter of the globe that favoured 
^ot is placed : it is satisfactory that another proof 
of eligibility for the bar of England should be now 
demanded, than that of being able to eat certain 
dinnen, insomuch as the brain and not the stomach is 
the thing by which one's fitness for that calling should 
be ertimated : in a word — it is undeniably wise and 
ri^^ that Examinations should precede all appoint- 
ments which demand trustworthiness or confer emolu- 
ments Only let me say a few words for the Examined. 
I contend that whether these succeed or not, they 
are entitied to some pecuniary recompense for the 
ordeal they have had to go through. 

Oh, gentlemen of England, who live at home at ease, 
^inth yachts which you may spell y-a-t-c-h, an you 
please, 

yoa enjoy a position now, which is indeed superior to 
that of yonr fellow-creatures ; since, in a member for 
a county, or even in a foreign minister — as we have 
hitely se^ — neither grammar nor orthography is 
indispensable, and you sit secure a1)ovc the thunder 
which echoes from a thousand vivd voce Examinations. 
Ton do not know the miseries of them : you under- 
rate the sufferings of your kindred — younger brothers 
and the like — who must needs undergo them. 

In yonr idle Lotos-land, you live and lie reclined 
On the hills, like gods together, careless of mankiad ; 

Ton smile, yon find a masic centred in a doleful song 
Steaming vp^ a lamentation and a modem tale of wrong 



Chanted from an ill-used race of men of your own 
nation, 

Who cannot fill the humblest * place ' without Examina- 
tion. 

It is true that there are some geniuses for whom such 
things have no terrors ; and some dullards who come 
up to them apathetically, as to a cannon^s mouth, and 
with the same result — they are floored incontinently, 
but then they expected it for certain. The majority of 
competitors, however — as may have been observed 
by the public — are not geniuses, nor feel by any 
means confident of success ; nor are there many 
blockheads so fortunate as to be perfectly assured of 
failure. For the most part, candidates, as their name 
implies, are in a state of apprehension (candidati, 
white with funk) for the whole time the ordeal lasts, 
and until its result is known ; and of suspense that 
is only a little less painful than that of being sua per 
col. This statement may seem exaggerated, but I 
myself have been a candidate for all sorts of things, 
and well know what I am talking about ; nor will a 
man easily be found to contradict me who has under- 
gone the other operation more than once. I have 
known strong men tremble, red men grow pale, the 
eloquent turn stammerers, and the well-informed 
become little better than drivelling idiots, when in 
presence of * a board ; ' while at the well-meant, * Take 
time, take time, my good sir,' of a kindly examiner, I 
have personally experienced such a confusion of all 
time, that had I been asked whether Lord John 
Russell accepted the command of the Spanish 
Armada offered him by Sir Sydney Smith, I should 
have replied, *Yes, sir/ with that sickly smile with 
which the candidate ever seeks to propitiate. 

With some of my fellow-competitors, the rcsiUt of 
an examination has, of course, been of paramount 
importance, and their nervousness has been intelligible 
enough ; but with the majority (and I am thankful to 
say with myself) this has not been the case. It is the 
ordeal itself, and not the thought of the prospects it 
affects, which unhinges most of us, just as high- 
mettled horses "will sweat profusely before starting 
in a race, witliout any reference to the stake they 
may be contending for. I have run a good second 
in several races in my time, and have never been 
utterly distanced, and yet, at the starting-post, I 
always find myself trembling in every limb. 

My first examination was a military one, and the 
most trying (in appearance) that can bo conceived. 
It is bad enough when the members of these imholy 
inquisitions are white -tied smooth -countenanced 
civilians, who lure us on with stereotyped smiles to 
our destruction, and receive, in a complacent and 
almost congratulatory manner, what even wo ourselves 



210 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



know to be the most besotted and undesired replies. 
Bat when theae men are all in uniform, hireute, 
moustached, girt with swords, and sitting in a dread- 
ful semicirde, as thoueh upon court-martial, with 
one's self for the oriminsd, the horrors of the situation 
are much intensified. The knees of the candidate for 
military honours are loosened with dismay, as he 
enters their chamber, and he wishes from his heart 
(which is in His mouth) that he had made choice of 
civil engineering, the church, market-gardening, or 
any other profession, so long as it were one of peace. 
These cannibals, too, are choice in their eating. No 
victim is ever served up before them who luui not 
previously undergone a medical examination, and been 
pronounced to to without spot or blemish ; and that 
previous ordeal is not of a diaracter to put a modest 
young fl^entleman (who was aware of beins very short- 
8ighte<C perhaps, although it did escape me notice of 
the iEsculapius) entirely at his ease. It is true that 
the majority of the court may be 'dummies,' and 
know nothing whatever of the subjects required of the 
candidates ; but they look just as fonnidable as would 
Euclid himself in cham-armour ; and when the working- 
member puts his questions, some will make guttural 
noises, expressive of contemptuous triumph, and as 
though they would say : ' Ha, ha ! my young friend, 
I think that is a stamper, eh ! ' and change their legs, 
with a horrid clanking of spurs. Do not, however, 
oh unhappy candidate! be discouraged; these men 
are easily appeased, and more astonished even than 
yourself whcSi you answer correctly — the material 
with which they have ^nerally to deal being far from 
good. A large proj)ortion of the competitors for the 
burel-wreath are, indeed, exceptionally obtuse, and 
for an average specimen of the Exammed, we must 
look to those who aspire to the parsley crowns at the 
universities, or to those of mint, and anise, and cumin 
which form the more solid rewards of the Civil 
Service. 

These much-suffering youths, then, may be divided 
into six classes. 

1. The young gentleman who knows everything; 
who sits down to an examination-paper as if it were 
luncheon, and takes his ease over it in an airy and 
nonchalant manner ; who treats mod voce as though it 
were an interesting conversation, and evolves dates, 
▲.K. or A.i>., B.a or A.U.C., old style or new style, 
from his retentive memory, with the precision of a 
calculating machine. 

2. The much more offensive competitor who imagines 
he knows everything, and does not ; who writes out 
elaborate treatises in reply to the most simple ques- 
tions ; who areues with the examiners, and disput^ the 
authority of books ; and who hovers over his written 
replies with his elbow, like a hen over her offspring, 
lest either of his neighbours shotdd get a s^ht of t^osc 
valuable documents, and thereby adueve fstinction. 

3. The candidate who knows nothing, and who is 
quite aware of the fact, but who still r^es upon luck, 
and ' something tuming up,' which will enable him to 
'poll through' after alL He is commonly a parasite 
of Nos. 1 and 2, and as soon as he finds himself seated 
next to one of them — and after a pretence of looking 
down the examination-paper himself, where, of course, 
he discovers nothing he can do — he whispers in a 
hoarse voice : * Give us a look, old chap ; it will help 
me, and it can't hurt you, who arc such a stunner. 
If the request be made to No. 1, he will probably give 
the |)Oor wretch the opportunity of a httie plagiarism ; 
but if to No. 2, he will surlily refuse, witiS a look 
over his shoulder at the exammers, as much as to 
ny : ' Beg again, and I will call the police.' No. 3, 
therefore, either assiduously collects the overplus from 
the rich man's store, or applies himself to cutting his 
own initials upon the desk before him, with the date 
of the present examination and his discomfiture. 
I have seen it myself, on more than one piece of 
teniture beLonging to her Majesty's gDvemment: 



' J. Hardlines, went another mucker [this refers to pre- 
vious misfortunes of the same sort] A. d. 18 — .' Wnen 
ho has finished this wood-cut, he plays with his wrist- 
studs and waistcoat-buttons until the hour cornea for 
release from his arduous labours. 

4. The candidate who possesses a little inf onnation, 
but not enough for practical jiurposes. This gentle- 
man is always unlucky in having deprived himself of 
rest the previous night, in order to study the wrong 
subjects — matters to which the present questions have 
unhappily no reference. In vivd voce, he vainly 
endeavours to 'force' his superfluous knowledge 
upon the examiners, as a conjuror strives to make 
you take a particular card, when you have fixed 
your mind upon another. He knows nothing about 
Aenophon, indeed (which is the thing reouired), bat 
with regard to the departure of the uraclites out of 
ISgyut, he is full of the most interesting detaila He is 
in tne deepest ignorance with regard to the j^reater 
and lesser prophets, it is true, but he is copious in 
unsought infonnation respecting the Wise Men of 
Greece, and also the Seven Wonders of the world. 

5. There are always two or three delicate and 
neat-handed young gentlemen, whose talents may lie 
in the musical and plan-drawing lines, but who certainly 
confine themselves to those directions. These are the 
veiy dUettanti of Examination-rooms. Their cali- 
graphy would gain the prize if they were competin£ 
for a writing-mastership, or they would be high 
wranglers if ' flourishes ' were problems ; but as 
matters stand, they are generally plucked. The 
length of time they occupy in merely setting down 
what they have to say to tneir own satisfaction, woold 
preclude their doing much of the paper if th^ wqeto 
even competent to do so. They sometimes write, ' I 
do not unaerstand this question,' in the most beautifol 
Roman hand, in explanation of having omitted to 
answer it. 

6. The unconscientious young gentlemen who intend 
to 'get through' honestly if uiey can, but at aU 
events to get through, and who look upon their 
Examiners as foes to the human race, acainst whom 
all devices are fair. These youths have cnarts of the 
world arranged microscopically within their watch- 
cases, and sjrstems of chronolo^ inscribed in pencil 
upon their fin^-nails. It is to these that Mr 
Darwin's doctnne of Natural Selection especially 
applies, although he has omitted to instance them. 
Ijiere is an exc^uisite adaptation of their organisatLow 
to the condition in which they find themselves — 
namely, as subject to competitive examinations ; and 
this adaptation is communicable, and even, peiiuip8» 
hereditary. 

I knew four brothers at the university, any one of 
whom a certain valuable living awaited, if he ocnld 
only pass through the necessary simple ordealsi 
Their father, who, in his youth, had himnftlf earned 
off a good piece of preferment from the rest of his 
family under precisely similar circumstanoes, was well 
aware that he might consider himself fortonate if 
even one of his sons should arrive at the goal in 
question, and therefore held forth the reward to 
whomsoever should first attain it. The elder ones, 
of course, in order of their seniority, had the earliest 
chances, but were cast back so often from ' little Go^' 
' Great Go,' and ' Voluntary Theological Examination ' 
— ^just as ' men ' in backgammon have to begin their 
toilsome march over agam, after being cast in. their 
adversary's chequer— that I beheld the whole four at 
last in one examination-room. Never were young 
gentlemen so provided with appliances and meani 
to insure success, and never aid yoang gentlemen 
more need them. They had, idl of them, booka of 
reference tucked under the backs of their waist- 
coats ; they had, all, memoria teehnkoB of the most 
startling description, and twenty times more difBoolt 
to recollect than the facts they were supposed to 
suggest. I maintain that ^ey ought to have been let 




throogh by reason of their assidiiity, and perscveranco 
in overooming natural ob8tacle& One of them — I 
think it wai the youngest — did at last succeed in 
their oommon object; whereupon, the other three 
fpaqooited Examination-rooms no more, and, pcrluqw, 
led a conntry-life with him at his comfortable rectory, 
for they 'wers an attached family, and praiseworthy 
in many respects, after all In particular, they were 
fcry careful, when copying from good-natured persons, 
to make their own replies sumciently different to 
dude su^ncion, so that others should not suffer on 
fheir aooonnt — « matter al>out which many cleverer 
yonihs do not at all concern themselves. 

It will be urged, of course, that I am very lax and 
latitndinarian in my notions of examination-morality. 
I reply, that it is not so, but I have an exceeding 
dianty towards all Examined persons. A fellow-feel- 
ing makes ns wondrous kind, and a fellow-examining 
makes ns eseeasively antagonistic : or, it may be, that 
my good principles have indeed been sapped by these 
oonnant ordealsL They may be good for the country, 
bat ihej are an unmitigated evil to us; and the 
euimUy onght to know at whose expense the benefit 
is conferred upon it. It is all very well for the 
nation to endorse the remark — 

'Let the indindual wither, and the world be more and 



.» 



mine; 

but the indlTidaal who withers— the examined person 
at loBSt worthy of pity, if not of consideration. 



ABOUT 8PITZBEKGEN. 



(literally, *the sharp-topped mountains') 
was, in tbe seventeenth century, the seat of the most 
flonrishing whale- fisheiy ever known, as many as four 
or ^ve hundred tail, mamly of Dutch and Hombuxgers, 
iSBortinff there in a season. New Amsterdam, aliaa 
ftneerenoerg (or Blubber Town), to the north-west of 
iti had, indeed, arrived at such a pitch of civilisation 
es to prodnoe hot rolls for breakfast every morning, 
irinle even tiie charms of female society were provided 
tsriadden the not icy hearts of the arctic fishermen. 
*Hothinff can exceed,* says Mr Lament, whose inter- 
edingvmnme* of adventures in the northern seas now 
lies before us, ' the sublime grandeur of a redly fine 
d^ in these regions — ^the sea as calm and brieht as a 
iixfrar,and covered with countless floating icebergs of 
a dsirKwg whiteness, and of all imoginame sizes and 
■hopes ; no sound to be heard but the terrific peals of 
thsnder eansed by the cracking of the glaciers, the 
hosne bellowing of the walrus, and tne screams 
and croaks of the gulls and divers. All this 
makes up ssch a scene, that no man who has once 
beheld it eu ever forset it. Alas ! that there should 
be a revose to this beautiful medal ; but often ten 
niinites snfRce to change the face of everything 
entirely : a chilling blast of wind comes from the etemiu 
ies-Aelds to the north-east; thick fog and probably 
■now follow immediately ; the brilliant sugary -looking 
ffMom we hidden, and nothing remains of the 
^cnoos panonuna of sea, and ice, and hills, and 
gtacisn^ but a dim, and cold, and misty circle of an 
sers in extent around the boat.* 

In winter, of coarse, the second and more sombre 
sf these pictures is the only one visible from Spitz- 
benKOy when the sunless atmosphere admits of 
snything being seen at all. The place had i)lenty of 
SBiiiiner Tisitors, but at the approach of the Icy iting, 
an men forsook that inhospitable treeless shore, and 
saflsd soothward. Every one dreaded delay, as well 
they mi^t, when once the arctic current in earlv 
September overcame the remnant of the warmer Gulf 
Stream, sad brought down the polar ice to seal 
tiks bajB, sad build its adamantine wall around 



wkk tk§ Sm horaet . By James Lament Hant and 



Spitzbergcn. This miglity current runs at the rate of 
seven or eight miles an hour, and doos its gigantic 
jailer's work in a very few days. 'Hien woe betide 
the lucklcra vessel that gets becalmed up some long 
bav or fiord, for she is fast in winter's indissoluble 
hold for nine long months, and almost certain death 
awaits her crew. Although, therefore, the adx^intagee 
of having something of a permanent settiement in 
Spitzbergen were obvious, and the merchants offered 
large rewards to volunteers, none could be induced to 
try the exiwrimont of wintering there. It was thought 
that human life could not be supported through so 
severe a season ; and since nobody was ready to settle 
the question, in person, of his own free will, an English 
company obtained a * grant' from government of 
certain criminals, and determined to make involuntary 
experimentalists of tliem. These persons being under 
sentence of death, at once acceded to the conditions. 
*Thcy were taken out in one of the whalers, and a 
hut was erected for their winter-quarters ; but when 
tlie fleet was about to deport, and they saw the 
awful gloomy hills, already white with the eariv 
snows, and felt the howling gales of north-east wino, 
their hearts uttcrlv failed them, and they entreated 
the captain who had charge of them to take them 
back to London, and let them be hanged, in pursuance 
of their oridnal sentence, rather tlian leave them to 
perish in such a horrible country ! The captain seems 
to have luul more of the "milk of human kindness** 
in him than his philanthropic employers, for he 
accodetl to their request, and took them back to 
London. As hangui^ them would not have beon <d 
any pecuniary benefit to the company, they were 
then good enough to procure a pardon for tho men.' 

Soon after the failure of this enforced colonisation 
plan, the experiment of wint^^ring in Siiitzbercen was 
tried involuntarily by thostc famous four Kussian 
sailors of whom we have all heard so much in our 
childhood. * These poor felluws had nothing but 
what they stood up in, with one gim and a few 
charges of ammunition; but they appear to have 
been men of a very different stamp from the London 
iail-birds, and they at once set to work to make the 
best of things. They built a hut, and killed some 
reindeer with their gun ; and then, their ammunition 
l>cing exhausted, they manufactured lx>ws and arrows, 
spears and hai]X>ons, of drift-wood. They pointed their 
wea|K)ns with bones and pieces of their now useless 
gun, and twisted their bow-strings out of reindeer's 
(entrails. They made tra^Mi and nets for birds and 
f«)xes. With these rude and imjperfect weaiwns, they 
not only provided themselves with fotnl and raiment, 
but ke^it off the assaidts of the polar bears. It is 
almost incredible ; but these men not only survived, 
but preserved ^ood health for six long years. It 
seems extroordmary that such energetic fellows as 
they clearly were, should not, in all that time, have 
contrived to travel across the country, or round the 
shore, to the west coast, where they would have been 
certain of relief every siunmer, especially as they 
were on the most desolate part of the island, and one 
often inaccessible and always little frequented by the 
whalers. In the sixth year of their captivity, ono of 
the four dioil, and the sur\'ivor8 began to lose all hope 
of deliverance, and to fall into a state of despondency, 
which would certainly have soon proved fatal to them 
all, had not a vessel at this time fortunately approached 
the coast, and rescued them. During their lone 
banishment, these poor Ixobinson Crusoes had killed 
such quantities of bears, deer, seiils, and foxes, that 
the proceeds of the skins and blubber made a small 
fortune for them.' 

Other parties, after this, either left on the island 
accidentally, or remaining there on purpose, were suc- 
cessful in keening themselves alive dunng the winter; 
and an Archangel company set up a pennanent 
establishment there for the purix>sc of hunting the 
seal and walrus, reindeer and polar bear. * Their men 



212 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



were left there in September or October, and were 
distributed in small parties of two, three, or four 
individuals each, in wooden huts, which had been 
constructed in Archangel, and were erected in different 
parts of the coasts and islands of Spitzbergen. The 
men were paid by a share of the proceeds, and were 
supplied by their employers with provisions, consist- 
ing principally of rye-meal, salt pork, and tea. They 
had a sort of ncad-quarters establishment at Hvalfiske 
Point, which was under the charge of a superintendent 
or clerk, who distributed the supplies to the hunters, 
and collected the skins and blubber from the different 
outposts ; and the company sent over a vessel in the 
month of May eveiy year, to relieve the men, and 
carry the proceeds of tneir labours to Archangel.' 

This plan was found so trying to the human con- 
stitution, that the men ouly remained alternate 
winters on the island ; and in 1858, there was still 
living at Kola, in Lapland, an aeed Russian who had 
thus actually wintered thirty-nve alternate seasons 
in Spitzbergen. Many hundreds of his comrades, 
however, must have died, since the traveller in these 
awful solitudes comes frequently across the ruins of a 
small log-hut, with two or three green cairns of stones 
in front of it ; and it is also common enough to see 
the human skeleton bleaching beside those of the 
bear and reindeer. The quantity of animals killed, 
and the consequent profits, miist have been very 
great, as, in spite of the loss of life, the establishment 
was kept up imtil about seven or eightyears ago, when 
such a dismal tragedy occurred at Hvalfiske Point, 
that the company was broken up, and no one has 
ever wintered in Spitzbei^n smce. During the 
summer of the year in question (either 1851 or 1852), 
' a prodigious quantity of heavy drift-ice surrounded 
Hvalfiske Point and all the southern coast of East 
Spitzbergen. The men belonging to the Russian 
establishment had all come in from the various out- 
posts, and were assembled at the head-auarters te the 
number of eighteen, waiting to be relieved by the 
annual vessel from Archangel By a concurrence of 
bad fortune, this vessel was lost on her voyage over, 
and was never heard of again. The crews of the 
other vessels in Spitzbergen knew nothing of these 
men ; or if they dio, they naturally supposed that the 
care of relieving them might safdly be left to their 
own vessel, as nothing was yet known of her loss either 
there or at Archangel. The ice in the summer 
montiis prevented any vessel from accidentally 
approaching Hvalfiske !roint, and no one went near 
it until the end of August, when a party of Nor- 
wegians, who had lost their own vessel, travelled 
along the shore te seek for assistance from the Russian 
establishment; but on approaching the huts, they 
were horror-struck te mid its inmates all dead. 
Fourteen of the unhappy men had recently been 
buried in shallow graves in front of the huts, two lay 
dead just outside the threshold, and the remaining 
two were lying dead inside, one on the floor, and the 
other in bed. The latter was the superintendent, 
who had been able te read and write, and a journal- 
book lying beside him contained a record of their sad 
fate. 

' It appeared that, early in the season, scurvy of a 
malignant character had attacked them; some had 
died at the out-stations, and the survivors had with 
difficulty assembled at the head-quarter station, and 
were in hopes of being speedily reheved by the vessel ; 
but the latter not amving, their stores got exhausted, 
and the unusual quantity of ice surrounding the coast 
prevented them from getting seals or wild-towl on the 
sea or the shore. In addition te the scurvy, they then 
had the horrors of hunger to contend with, and they 
^ptdually died one after another, and were buried by 
their surviving companions, until at last only four 
remained. Then two more died, and the other two, 
not having strength te bury them, dragged their bodies 
outside the hut, and left them there, llieee two then 



lay down in bed together te await their own fate, and 
wnen one of them died, the last man — the writer of 
the journal — had only sufficient strength remaining te 
push his dead companion out of the bed on te the 
floor, and he had soon afterwards expired himself, 
only a few days before the Norwegian party arrived- 
The Russians had a large pinnace in the harbour and 
several small boats on shore, but the ice at first pre- 
vented them reaching the open sea ; and latterly, -^en 
the ice opened out, those who survived so long were 
much too weak to make any use of the boats. The 
shipwrecked Norwegians, therefore, took advantage 
of the pinnace te cfifect their own escape to Hammer- 
fest, carrying with them the poor superintendent's 
journal, which the Russian consul at that port trans- 
mitted te ArchangeL* 

What a curious product of our civilisation it is that 
a gentleman of easy circumstances — as our author 
would seem to be — in company with a real live lord, 
should be induced te visit this forbidding coast * for 
fun,* and to shoot what he is pleased to term 'sea- 
horses' — walrus ! At Hammerfest, the most northerly 
town in Europe, they exchanged their comfortable 
English yacht for a vessel better fitted to contend 
witn icebercs, but so impregnated with the odours 
of ite dreacuul trade of blubber-collecting, that a 
bottle of chloride of lime with the cork out was 
necessary to their existence in its state-cabin, 
an apartment of seven feet by four, but so con- 
structed that its inhabitants could neither stajid 
up nor lie down in it ; while, towards the close of the 
expedition, when the produce of their own harpoons 
got to be rather * high, the awful effluvium caused by 
the commingling of putrid walrus oil with bilge-water, 
compelled them to oum pastilles before retiring to 
rest. Only conceive pastilles in a blubber-ship! 
Again, how anomalous does it seem that our author 
should watoh for polar bears through a double opera- 
glass ! ' Strange sights,' he soliloquises, ' has that 
hirge, old, battered opera-glass seen in its day, for, 
besides its legitimate occupation of gazing at the 
beauties in the opera-houses of London, Paris, rlorenoe, 
Naples, Havanna, and New York, it has seen ff9^ 
races at Epsom, great reviews in the Champ-de-Haoi^ 
great buU-fights in the amphitheatre at Seville. It 
has stalked red-deer on the hills of the Highlands, 
scaly crocodiles on the sand-banks of the mle, and 
read the hieroglyphics on the tops of the awful temples 
and monumente of Thebes and Kamak. It has peercd. 
through the loopholes of the advanced trenches at th& 
frownmg, dust-coloured batteries of the Redan and. 
the Malakoff. It has gazed over the splendid cane- 
fields of the West Indies, from the tops of the forest- 
clad mountain-peaks of Trinidad and Martinique ; 
over the falls of Niagara; over the Bay of Naples 
from the top of Vesuvius ; over Cairo from the tops of 
the Pyramids ; over the holy city of Jerusalem from 
the top of Moimt Calvary ; and now it was occujaed 
in quietly scanning the colossal proportions oi a polar 
bear, amid the icebergs of the frozen north.* 

Of this last anomaly our author appears to be fully 
conscious, but there is a curious contusion apparent in 
his views with respect to polar hean and special 
providences. Like a good Scotehman, Mr Lunont 
was a rigid observer of the Sabbath, never lookmg for 
deer or seal upon that day, like other wicked people 
in those parts, nor even shooting them when they 
came in nis way, except on one yerv tempting 
occasion, when he * forgot.* Still, it must be confesMd 
he ran this pious custom exceedingly close. *'We 
always considered Sunday to terminate punciuaOv at 
midmght ; in these regions, it is just as light in July 
at mi(uiight as mid-day, and it was a singmar circom- 
stance — might I not venture, without being deemed 
presumptuous, te suggest that this might be more 
than merely accidental? — that we saw our first bear 
a few minutes after this Sunday had expired.' 

Surely this notion of reward ia a bttle stutling: 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



213 



and 'might wc not yentorc, without being ])resump- 
tiUNis, to suggest' that Mr Lamont's watch was fast? 

About three o'clock one morning— luckily a week- 
day — ^tho two * centlemen-sportsmen ' were awakened 
by a cry of 'Walrus on the ice,' and upon going on 
deck were regaled with a delightfid spectacla * Four 
laive flat icebergs were so densely packc<l with 
wa&os that they were sunk almost awash with the 
water, and had the appearance of being solid islands 
of walrus I The monsters lay witli their heads 
reclining on one another's backs and sterns, just as I 
have seen rhinoceroses lying asleep in the African 
forests ; or, to use a more familiar simile, like a lot 
of fat hogs in a British straw -yard. I should think 
there were about eighty or one hundred on the ice, 
and many more swam grunting and spouting aroimd, 
and tried to clamber up amongst their friends, who, 
like BUily people in a full onmibus, grunte<l at them 
angrily, as if to say : ** Conf oimd you, don't you see 
that we are fnU!"' 

The narrative of the slaughter of these poor 
unwieldy beasts is not very pleasant. About one out 
of eveiy three that are shot eludes the hunter by 
slicing off the ice ere he can come up with it, and 
dyinff imder water ; while the unselfish anxiety of the 
females for the safety of their young exhibits itself in 
a most painful and touching manner. ' I never in my 
life witnessed anything more interesting and more 
affectinf than the wondcrfid maternal affection dis- 
played oy this poor walrus. After she was fast to 
the harpoon, and was dragging the boat furiouslv 
amongst the icebergs, I was going to shoot her through 
the head, that we might Lave time to follow the 
othiOB; but Christian c^lcd to me not to shoot, as she 
had ft ** jnnger** with her. Although I did not under- 
stand his object, I reserved my lire, and upon looking 
dosely at the walrus when she came up to breathe, I 
then perc&ved that she held a very young calf under 
her right arm, and I saw that he wanted to harpoon 
it; bnt whenever he poised the weapon to throw, the 
old oow seemed to watch the direction of it, and inter- 
posed her own body, and she seemed to receive with 
pleasure •several harpoons which were intended for 
the young one. At last, a well-aimed dart struck the 
calf, and we then shortened up the lines attached to 
tile oow, and finished her with the lances. 

'I don't think I shall ever forget the faces of the old 
wains and her calf as they looked back at the boat ! 
Hie countenance of the young one, so expressive of 
abject tenor, and yet of contidence in itis mother's 
power <tf protecting it, as it swam along imder her 
wing ; ana the old cow's face, shewing such reckless 
dflfianfle for all that we could do to herself, and yet 
soch terrible anxiety as to the safety of her calf ! 
The plan of getting hold of a junger, and making 
him gnnt to attract the herd, is a well-known 
*^dodgiol** amongst the hunters.' 

The 'skyppar' of a sloop was once seized upon by a 
bereaved cow-walrus, and dragged by her twice to the 
bottom of the sea without receiving any injury beyond 
having a scar ploughed on each side of his forehead bv 
her tasks ; and it is his opinion that she did not wiui 
to hurt him, but .mistook him (uncomplimentarily 
enoo^) as he floundered in the water, for her 
calf! It is, however, in general, very dangerous to 
he upset among walrus, who have been some- 
times known to tear an imfortunate harpooner in 
half wiib their terrible tusks. The 8pitzbcrgen hunt- 
iiu and fishing trades, indeed, are both cbngerous, 
aiSl entail more hardships perhaps than any other 
pursuit ; consequently, as often happens, those who 
loDowthem are ever ready to repay themselves for 
toil and abstinence by excess. These northern sailors 
aze^ indeed, so greatiy given to drinking, that some 
propsietors will only intrust their ships to teetotal 
dews, nor is this to hie wondered at, when we remember 
that tiie safety of a whole ship's company, who may 
have taken to their boats after walrus or other game, 



depends upon the sobriety of the one or two men left 
in charge. Some five years a^, a small sloop from 
Hammerfest came to a certain island off Spitzbergen, 
where many walrus had been killed the previous sea- 
son, for the puqK)ae of looking for bears who might be 
feeding on the carcasses. They found upwards of fifty 
bears congregated there, and holding a sort of carnival 
over the remains. 

* The crew of the vessel consisted, as is usual, of 
ten men, of whom the skyppar and seven others 
landed to attack the bears, anier having anchored their 
sloop, securely as they thought, to a large grounded 
iceberg close to the island, and given the two men left 
on l>oard strict injimctions to Keep a good look-out. 
They had a most successful *'l)attue, and killed 
twenty-two or twenty-three of the bears, the rest 
making good their escape to sea; but this chase 
occupied many hours, and meanwhile the two E^p- 
keepers took advantage of the captain's absence to 
institute a search for a cask of brandy which was 
kept in his cabin — merely ^Hth the harmless intention 
of smelling it, of course ; but from smelling they not 
unnaturally g(»t to tasting, and from tasting the^ soon 
became helplesslv drunk. While they were m this 
happy state of oblivion to bears, icel)erg8, and things 
in general, one of the sudden dense fogs of the norui 
came on, the tide rose, the iceberg £)ated, and in a 
few minutes it and the sloop along with it were out 
of sight of the island, and drifting away in the fog. 
The hunting-party had thought nothing of the fog, as 
they imagined the icel)erg to be " fast ; so when they 
had flensed all their bears, tliey rowed round to where 
they had left the sloop, and were mightily disconcerted 
at seeing neither sloop nor iceberg. They shoute<l, and 
fired signal-shots, and rowed out to sea, and rowed all 
around, until they got so bewildered that they lost the 
island themselves. However, after a great deal of 
trouble, they found the island again, and waited upon 
it for sever^ days, expecting, of course, that when the 
weather cleared the sloop woidd return. The weather 
cleared, but no sloop appearing, there stared them in 
the face the alternatives of passing a winter of star- 
vation and almost certain death on the island, or of 
attempting to cross the stormy 480 miles of sea which 
divided them from Norway, in -a small open boat ! 
like bold fellows, they chose the latter chance for 
their lives, and abandoning one of their boats on the 
island, the whole eight got into the other one, Mith as 
much bear-meat as they could stow, and rowed for 
dear life to the south ; four rowed while the other 
four lay down in the bottom of the boat, and being 
providentially blessed with fine weather, they actually 
succeeded in reaching the coast of Finmarken in 
about eight days' time, but half dead with hunger, 
thirst, and fatigue, as mav be supposed.' 

Thus were these men almost miraculouslv preserved 
from the fate of the poor Russian colony, tiic scene of 
whose calamity Mr Lament himself visited and photo- 
graphed. In London drawing-rooms, therefore, has 
doubtloss been often witnessed by ladies, whom no wind 
has been ever suffered to visit too roughly, the very 
counterfeit presentment of that appalling spot — that 
lone Spitzbergen scene where so many strong men 
perished of s^rvation, ice-bound, and cut off for ever 
from the rest of their species. Everything in that 
picture remains as the dead men left it : their weapons, 
their cooking-utensils, the bones of the creatures they 
killed, and even the very fragments of their clothes 
and bedding lie scattered around. *The huts were 
all formed of logs dove-tailed into one another at the 
comers, and were tolerably entire except the roofs, 
which had been flat and covered with earth, but had 
now mostly fallen in. The principal one, about twenty- 
four feet square, had been used both as sitting-room 
and dormitory ; off this was a small wing with a brick 
fireplace, evidently used as a kitchen. Another hut 
was the store-house, and a third — of all thin^ in the 
world — a Russian bath-house of a rude description, in 



214 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



which I suppose they had enloyed the national luxury 
it parboiling themselves, ana then rolling in the snow 
at a temperature of ~5(f or so. The roof of the 
main hut nad fallen in, and a little elacier, about as 
larae as a boat turned bottom up, had formed in the 
middle of the floor. On a gentle eminence, at a dis- 
tance of two 6r three hundred yards from the huts, 
they had built up a sort of lookout-house of loose 
stones ; and here we may conceive they passed alter- 
nately manv weary hours in watching the ice-laden 
sea before them. They may even have oeen tantalised 
l^ seeing the topsails of vessels passing outside of the 
icy barrier, but far beyond their reach. On a little piece 
of level ground, not far from the huts, they had Kept 
themselves in exercise by plaving at a game resembling 
cricket, as was evident by the bats and rude wooden 
ImJIs l^ey had used still lying on the mossy ground. 
Altogether, there was something inexpressibly sad and 
desohtte about the remains of uiis unfortunate estab- 
lishment; and by the rude Norwegian sealers, the 
pilace is regarded with a degree of superstitious awe 
which perhaps may be the reason for the huts being 
in such a good state of preservation.' 

Upon the whole, then, Mr Lamont has invested 
Spitzbergen for us, for the future, with a romantic 
interest which we did not believe could have belonged 
to that sterile and man-abandoned region ; and for 
this we more especially thank him, although to many 
the chief attraction of his volume will be its adven- 
turous sporting scenes. Both himself and his com- 
panion, mdeed, appear to have been excellent shots, 
and resolute and indefatigable sportsmen. Some 
notion of their success may be gained from the fact, 
that they almost cleared the heavy expenses of hiring 
the odoriferous Anna Louisa, its *skyppar' and crew, 
for the whole season — in blubber, the produce of their 
own rifles and harpoons ; their total game-list being 
as follows: forty-six walnis, eighty-ei^it seals, eight 
polar bean, one white whale, and sixty-one reinde^. 

THE SCOTCH TALLY-TRADR 

A TALLY, in the <mginal meaning of the name, is a 
sort of oounteriMurt or duplicate, serving as a reckon- 
ing or mode of keying accounts. The burning 
of a large number of Exchequer tallies is believed 
to have been the cause of the destruction of the 
Houses of Parliament in 1834, These tallies were 
wooden rods or sticks, split lengthwise into two por- 
tions, having notches of corresponding sizes and posi- 
tions in bo^L In commercial transactions in former 
days, notches were cut in a stick, to denote quantities 
of goods or siuns of money, and the stick was tiien 
so split that each piece should shew all the notches : 
one was kept by the buyer, and one by the seller; 
and the two were called ialliet, doubtless from the 
French tailler, to cut. The same two sticks served 
to record other dealings between the same persons, 
bv the cutting of new notches at similar purts 
of the length. In the days before there were Oom- 
misaioners of Woods, Forests, and Crown Revenues, 
the sovereign of England received regular annual 
rents like any other landowner, but paid either to the 
sheriff of the county or to the Exchequer in London. 
The crown tenants, mostly uneducated country -people, 
were wont to pay their rent partly in money, partly 
in com, and partly in homespun and home-woven 
doth : a system that required the aid of experienced 
judges of commodities, to render the accounts eauit- 
able. When, at a later ds^ the rents and royalties 
were paid wholly in cash, a taUyer, or keeper of the 
tallies, was the cmly chief-officer of accounts needed ; 
and tbis was the prototype of the functionaiyafter- 
wards caUed the teller of the Exchequer. When a 
tenant paid rent into the Exchequer, the tallyer wrote 
out an account of the transaction, and sent it to the 
tallv-court ; the taUp-cutter took a four-sided stick of 
well-Masoned hazel, and cut notches in it— different 



sizes and kinds of notches being understood to mean 
different numerals and sums of money. Hie taUy- 
writer then wrote upon two opposite siaes of the wood 
a copy of the bill ; and the chamberlain cut the stick 
in two exactly equal pieces, giving one to the payer 
of the money, and stringing the other on a cord to bt' 
preserved on the part of the crown. As long as theru 
was room on the tally and counter-tally, subsequent 
payments by the same person were similarly entered. 
The various Exchequer officers were paid by fees on 
these transactions. How the tally-system became 
superseded by the keepmg of regular account-books, 
need hardly be said. The ssrstem, in one or other of 
several forms, has been in use in many different ages 
and countries. The Romans were accustomed to uso 
a piece of wood or metal called a symbolum^ the two 
halves of which were kept by the two contractors to a 
bari^pun; and the practice was followed by other 
nations in later times. 

Such was the nature of the tallies employed in past 
days, as records of transactions between buyers and 
seUers, or of payments between debtors and creditcn. 
Down to our own times, a few isolated examples of 
the system are observable. Milkmen frsquently keei) 
a score by chalking marks on a slip of wood or tally, 
to denote the number of pennies or other small sums 
due to them for milk. Bakers frequently use small 
tin tallies, one of which, given to the owner of a pie 
or a joint of meat, has a particular number upon it; 
and the other, with a similar number, is kept by the 
baker ; but this is not a record of a payment — it is 
simply a means of identifying a particular pie or 
joint sent to be baked. Some bakers, however, in 
the poorer streets of a town, as well as small dealers 
in other commodities, still use wooden taUies as 
substitutes for account-books. Instances have been 
known in Warwickshire, within the last few years, of 
tally-sticks being produced in court in proof of debts ; 
a notched tally, called a toandt is often used by the 
miners of Cornwall, to record payments of wages. 

We have briefly noticed the Above examples of the 
use of taUy-stioka, because they unquestionably gave 
rise, although with a gradual change of meaning, to 
the credit nealingB by tally, in which written papeia 
instead of notched sticks are the tallies now 
employed. A tallyman is often looked down upon, 
as a dealer versed in tricks and deceptions ; but it> 
remains to be proved whether this opinion is t^ 
correct one. As we shall presently shew, wh»i is 
called the Scotch Tally-trade is quite a pecnlia£~ 
institution, although there are in London, and othf*!' 
large towns, taUyshopa, where goods can be purchased, 
on credit, and paid for by weekly instalmaita Iib> 
these cases, we believe, sureties are demanded for th^ 
security of the debt. The keepers of these diops an^ 
not the Scotch tallymen. The latter keep no shops^ 
They travel about in daily rounds, endeavouring tcr 
find customers for goods, and calling once a week for' 
instalments of payment. They are thus not tally- 
shop keepers. On the other hand, ^y are not> 
exactly pedlers, hawkers, or packmen; tnese lattexr 
take their worldly goods with them, and get rid o^ 
them day by day according as good-luck supplies then^- 
with cu sto mers; whereas the tallymen carry very^ 
little with them ; they obtain orders, and furnish the? 
goods on the following week. Another point of dif — 
ference ii, that the pedlers and hawkers mostly detuX 
for ready money ; whereas the tallymen both receive? 
and give creditb Moreover, pedlers and hawkers dei^-^. 
in a wide range of commodities, tidlymen almo»"C> 
exclusively in articles of clothing. To add another t^^ 
the points of contrast, the pedlers and hawkers ma^ 
be and are English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish ; wherea-^ 
the tally-dealers, almost to a man, are bom north o - 
the Tweed, although they cxereise their vocatioB ii - 
the land of the Sjucon. And let us not suppose tha^ 
it is an insignificant body of which we are speaking ; 
they form a brotheriiood ten or twelve thoosan^l 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



215 



■traog. and 8|>eiid six or seven millions sterling a year 
in purchases from wholesale houses. 

il is a curioos trade this. The precursors of the 
praKnt race of tall3anen were itinerant tea-dealers. 
At a time when the importation of tea was wholly in 
the hands of the East India Company, and when tea 
of moderate quality conmianded ci^ht shillings a 
poond, the wonuns-classcs obtained httle of it Tea 
was earned about oy hard-walking and hard-working 
agents, who contrived to iind customers, and made the 
im>de of payment easy. But we believe little of this 
is now done; tea is more plentiful, lower in price, 
and yields less proiit per pound; and there are 
small ahopa in every town in England where a single 
pennjTwoith of tea can })e bought. Under these 
cucomstancea, a tally-trade in tea is hardly likely 
to mMTitAin its ground. AVhere and when the tally- 
men begaxi to add clothing and drapery to their 
dealingB, is not quite clear; but it was probably 
about the period when the China trade was thrown 
open. At anyratc, as drapery went up, tea went 
down, in the estimation of tall^'men; and at the 
present time the dealings are almost exclusively for 
the outside of the body, not for the inside. 

Why is it that the tallymen are almost all Scotch - 
meQ ? Probabl V for the same reason that the servants 
cl the Hudson s Bay Company arc nearly all Scotch- 
men. In the one mode of life as in the other, there is 
a probation of hard work and short commons, l)efore 
a young fellow can obtain a rise; or, at anyrate, 
a state of things in which luxuries and personal 
indnlgenoes are quite out of the question. It is of no 
UK for Englishmen to conceal the fact, that Scots 
beat them in self-deniaL They come southward with 
a determination to work their way in the world ; and 
they know that personal frugality is one of the means 
to this end. They can resist the tom])tation of a pint 
of beer better than a Southerner ; and they are not 
m BtxoDsBj imbued with a belief that a meat-dinner 
k fasantial to human wellbcing. Poor yoimg Scotch- 
men, when they come to England to seek their bread, 
are willing to live with great frugality, and to servo 
with great fidelity, while occupjing the lower steps 
of the ladder; while i)oor young Englishmen, imder 
parallel circumstances, if as faithful, are not on an 
average so frugal. How it is that an incipient tally- 
man is forced to be frugal, as the very condition of 
hii being a tallyman at all, we shall be the better 
able to understand after having glanced at the nature 
of the trade itself. 

John Brown is a working-man with a wife and 
fmily ; his wages are sufficient^ if he lays them out 
well, bnt he h^ nothing to spare for luxuries. He 
wants a new coat, and is a little puzzled how to pay 
for it| far the price will be more than one weeks 
wages ; and if he pays all at once, there may not 1)c 
money left for the other purchases of the weeL Here 
is the point where the sa^'ing8-bank becomes invalu- 
able ; and we regard it as a grievous thing that such 
mstitutums are so much neglected by the working- 
mtn of England. They do not, as a class, make 
■ay proviuon for the future ; and hence it is a formid- 
able thing for them to pay any sum of money whatever 
in laiger portions than fractional parts of a week's 
wages. This is the opening for the tallyman ; and until 
WDKmen become so provident as to render buying on 
endit unnecessary, the tally-system is not necessarily 

J< 



unfair on& John Brown, we say, wants a coat. 
Duncan Mackenzie, the tallyman, ])erhaps happens 
to make his first call at this juncture. Duncan, a 
shrewd cautious fellow, docs not go to work in 
the dark ; he endeavours to Icam as much as he can 
about John — whetlier he is a drunkard, or a man who 
flits about from lodging to lodging, or a man of loose 
pinciples concerning meum and ivum. If the result 
be uuavourable, he gives up John Brown ; but if 
^Toorable, he offers to supply a certain kind of coat 
it a osrtain price. John is prepared for a price a little 



liigher than that chan;ed by the shopkeeper in the 
next street, because the mode of payment is made 
easy to him. This mode is— one shilling in the 
pound per week ; insomuch that twenty weeks are 
allowed for payment If the coat were thirty 
shillings, eighteenpencc a week ; IE two pounds, two 
shillings a week; an<l so oil At about the same 
hour on the same day in every successive week, 
Duncan calls, and receives a shilling in the pound 
on his debt. He enters the rcceint in a book, which 
has a column for John Brown ; tnis is his talli/f and 
he gives a counter-tally to John. The Scotchman does 
not intend, if he can help it, to let liie Englishman 
slip through his fingers ; the payments are punctually 
made, and the customer is worth retaining. Before 
the coat is quite paid for, negotiations arc opened 
vdWx the good-wife about a new gown — or rather, 
* dress ; ' for * gown ' is looked down upon with some 
contempt in these days of ours. It may be that she 
first broaches the subject, or that John makes a 
promise under an impulse of liberality; but the 
probability is that Mr Mackenzie takes the initiative. 
He points out how well Mrs Brown would look in a 
dress of a certain pattern that he produces ; and he 
names a price which does not profess to be *dirt 
cheap,' but which is a fair price for an article of 
fair quaUty. The dress, or material for a dress, is 
purchased ; and a new era of twenty weeks begins, 
marked by weekly instalments of payment. Thus 
matters go on, it may be for years. Brown is always 
in debt to Mackenzie, but he always knows exactly 
how much his debt amounts to, and he knows, more- 
over, that a very small portion of his weekly earnings 
will suffice to discharge the obligation in a stipulate 
time. 

This Brown-Mackenzie theory will serve as a 
t3rpe of the trade which is now imder notice. It is 
supiwsed that there are not much less than twelve 
thousand men thus omplojring themselves in, and 
supporting themselves oy, the tally-drapery trade 
— Scotchmen almost without exception. Every man 
has his * round,' as he calls it He divides the six 
working-days of the week into six routes, each route 
extending over mariy miles. He calls on all his 
customers during the six daj^s, receiving money from 
most of them, and onlors from some, and taking home 
goods which had been bargained for in the ]>rcvious 
week. This is no chilas pla3\ In winter and 
summer, in heat, wet, cold, snow, wind, sleet, mud, 
dust, the tallyman goes his romids ; his appearance 
at a particidar house is almost as punctual as the 
striking of the clock, and it is no slight obstacle that 
will keep him away. 

There are wholesale warehouses in which this kind 
of trade is esjiecially attended to ; and the owners of 
these warehouses, hke the tallymen themselves, are 
nearly all Scotchmen. Whether it is that they can 
trust each other better, or that some other cause 
operates, we do not know; but certain it is that 
hitherto Duncan Mackenzie has generally purchased 
his goods of some other Mac. English houses are, how- 
ever, now entering into the trade. The usage of the 
trade is — six months* credit It is always under- 
stood tliat the tall>-inan will not he required to pay 
for the goods until half a year after he has received 
them. He pays in one sum after twenty-six weeks ; 
and he receives in twenty sums during twenty weeks ; 
if the reader be clever at commercial arithmetic, he 
may be able to calculate the relative rates of interest 
under this curious arrangement Honesty is the very 
foimdation of the whokj system. If the tallyman 
fails in his payments, he will obtain no more supplies 
from the warehouses. As Mackenzie looks well what 
sort of a mail Brown may be before he trusts him, 
so docs the wholesale dealer take gomi measure of 
Mackenzie himsolf. A black sheep would soon l)e 
driven out of the flock. The tallyman buys vrry 
little on 8i>eculation ; he generally contrives to obtain 



f 



216 



CnAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



orders by sample or pattern, and then buys the exact 
kind and quantity needed. He keeps no shop; he 
may be a housekeeper, or may live in lodgings ; but 
in either case a very small amount of space would 
sufSce for his * stock in trade.' 

But suppose that the talljnnan's trade has become 
too large for him to attend to single-handed. There 
arc always young Scotchmen waiting for opportunities 
to push themselves up from a position in which their 
worldly wealth is — ntl ; there are, of course, English- 
men also, and Irish and Welsh ; but, as before stated, 
the Northerners bring peculiar qualities to bear on this 
subject. If the tallyman hapx)ens to know no one 
just at hand, he senJs down to Scotland. Advertise- 
ments occasionally appear in the Scotch newspapers, 
to the effect that an opening exists for a young 
man in this trade. We believe that some such name 
as *■ credit-drapery trade ' is then employed, possiblv 
because the name of * tally-trade' is not in aU 
quarters welcome. A young Scot sets forth, to 
London, or wherever it may be, and binds himself 
for three years to the tallyman. The arrangement 
depends much on mutual reliance. Very little in 
the form of legal document is employed. The 
aspirant receives no wases for three years; he is 
boarded, lodged, and clothed by his master. He has 
no facilities for dissipation, even if he have the wish ; 
for he has no money wherewithal to indulge in it ; 
or if there be any, it is just a trifle for minor ex- 
penses. The young man nas a *■ round ' intrusted to 
nim, a group of customers on whom he caUs during 
six days of the week. A temptation is offered to him 
to make the business as good as he can, for he has a 
reversionary claim to it. According to the engage- 
ment, if he serves his three years f aitnfully, his master 
then makes over the * round' to him, and becomes 
security for him to the wholesale dealer, to a certain 
amount and for a certain time. The dealer has reUed 
for many years on the honesty of the tall3rman, and 
on his recommendation now trusts the new-comer who 
succeeds to the * round.' Or rather, the tallyman does 
not exactly become security, but makes over to the 
other all tne claims due in the * round,' and trusts to 
him for payment within certain defined limits of time. 
The whole system would fall to the ground, were it 
not that these men rely on the fidelity of each 
other. The tallyman No. 1 has had three years' 
service rendered to him, for a small expenditure in 
board, lodging, and clothing ; and tallyman No. 2 
comes into the possession of a business, as a return 
for his abstinence, assiduity, and faithfulness. Dtirine 
the whole of his time of probation, he has a powerfm 
motive to make the * round' as good as he can, for it 
will be his own by and by. Some tallymen keep a 
large number of young hands thus unoer them, ex- 
tending their trade on zSi sides according as tiiey have 
hands to attend to it. 

A 'round' is a property, an estate, a capital, an 
investment. If a tallyman dies, or gets into trouble 
(as tallymen, like other men, will sometimes do), his 
'round' is put up to auction, and sold. A room is 
engaged at an inn for a few hours, and twenty, fifty, 
or a nundred persons attend. The tallyman's books 
are minutely examined. How many customers he 
has on his round, and how much is owing by each, 
are points carefully investigated ; and an attempt is 
also made to determine the character of the debts — 
that is, whether any of them are likely to prove bad 
debts. None but a person already conversant with 
the trade can possibly tell how to make these investi- 
gations. When, however, so many shaip-witted 
and experienced men are thus loolong out for an 
investment, it is probable that the property goes for 
very near its exact value, neither more nor less. The 
biddings are made at so many shillings in the pound. 
If the debts due on the roimd amount, for instance, 
to one hundred pounds, there is first the considera- 
tion whetiher any are likaly to prove bad debts ; then | everything, and 'left his '^own le^ web-sfniiing 



the consideration of the interest of money — cash paid 
down for that which will be repaid only by instal- 
ments ; and then the chance of luture custom in the 
same 'round.' All these points determine whether 
the bidders will give five, ten, fifteen, or twenty 
shillings in the pound for the round, or whether they 
will even buy it at a premium, on the prospect of an 
increase of trade. There is something equivalent to 
this in the nulk-trade, when we see ' a milk-walk for 
sale ' heading an advertisement. 

There are many points about this tally-trade worthy 
of note. It is bebeved, as we have said, that very littie 
less than seven millions sterling is annually {Mud fay 
tallymen to wholesale clothiers and drapers ; and, ol 
course, the sum received by them is much higher. 
The retail shopkeepers do not like these tallymen ; 
nor do the licensed hawkers and pedlers and itinerant 
dealers in miscellaneous wares ; nor, in some counties, 
do the magistrates, who set their faces against the 
summonses taken out occasionally by the tallymen 
against their non-paying customers. But, with all 
tms, the trade has its good points. Generally sjieak- 
ing, the garments and textile goods supplied are of 
serviceable quality; and there is this evidence thut 
the prices are not inordinate — ^that John Brown and 
his compeers would not continue their purchases 3re&r 
after year, if they had any proof that they were 
cheated or overcharged. The shopkeeper charges a 
price that will reimburse him for tne ^ra expenses 
of keeping a shop ; the talljnnan charges a jnioe that 
will return him interest for the credit given ; and boitik 
charges find their level in the course of time. How 
f ar S is wise in working-men, or persons of hmnble 
means, to adopt the syrtem of credit at all, is qnte 
another question. The Scotch tally-trade is, at all 
events, not the worst form of the credit-system ; woA 
we have been induced to describe it, partly because 
it is very little known excejit to those immediately 
concerned, and partly because those who only imper- 
fectly understand it have a tendency to frown upon 
it more than it deserves. Many a wnTn iny is paid to 
the tallyman, that would otherwise go indrink. 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

CHATTKR XXYII.— I5TaiODXS AT TU COTTAOI. 

The acquaintance begun in the Hotel Gilbert betweeo 
Mr Charlecot and Adolphus soon ripened inis 
intimacy; and in less than three weeks from tint 
date, the former had crossed the Channel, and was 
staying at Hose Cottage with the Arbours as a recog- 
nised mend of the family. 

It may well be wondered at that Uncle Ingram 
should take to his fashionable guest so re^idily as did 
his nephew ; but nevertheless, within a day or two of 
Mr Charlecot's arrival, that gentleman was idmost as 
great a favourite with the head of the finn as with 
&e junior partner. His manners, indeed, were a good 
deal toned down, and had no longer anything ot the 
rtmi about them. Madame, wit£ a dota^n of ten 
thousand francs, had bidden him adieu for ever, and 
consented to remain in Paris, where lovers are not 
scarce. There was a sobriety in his voice and manner, 
when conversing upon commercial matters, which, 
contrasting with nis habitual liveliness, gave uicressed 
weight and importance to what were in teahty 
attractive and specioas plans. The profuseness of his 
personal expenoiture by no means detracted from 
his trustworthiness as a prudent adviser in ^e old 
merchant's eyes, who set it down to the habit of one 
who had always enjoyed a superfluilrjr of weAltli,aiid 
in secret perhaps admired it accordingly. 

Mr John Arbour, who, like tiie astute Adolphui^ 
had a relish for expensive amusements, combined with 
a disinclination to enjoy them at his own chai^gai; 
esteemed the companionship of his new friend bsyond 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



217 



toaeoompany him to London and elsewhere, whenever 
oppoiinnity offeredL 

Above all. Miss Maria, whose personal charms 
mn by no means enhanced by the revolving 

iyein, luid who had begun to sneak of matrimony 
as an indelicate institution, unaoapted for persons 
ef serious dispositions, set her cap, or rather put 
aside tiie cap which she had almost resolved to 
adcmt, and set her slender tresses to entangle Mr 
Frederic Charlecot. It was surprising how large- 
hearted sad charitable she became in her judgment of 
moral deliaqaencies, when manifested in the person of 
ihb Bebved Object. It was scarcely to be denied that 
Mr Frtdenc Charlecot was a worldly minded gentle- 
flisiiy with no particular * views' with regard to the 
wearing of the surplice, and other nice ecclesiastical 
questions. That ton^e, so eloquent upon the com- 
asncial advantages uiat would flow from the intro- 
duction of luffUy ornamented earthenware spittoons 
among the Ho^entots, was dumb upon any more 
deddedly religious missionary effort. To offer him 
an improruut tract, was only to facilitate his vicious 
habit of smoKinff by supplying him with a spill ; while 
to take him to chapel, was but to administer a soothing 
theological opiate, for no matter how * awakening" 
the aeimon, Mr Frederic Charlecot never failed 
to deep through it alL The task of conversion which 
Miss Msria set herself, however, was not altogether 
without its fruits ; she combined (as is not unconunon 
with that peculiar class of theologians to which she 
beloiued) spiritual endeavours with temporal — she 
prewmed to him and made love to him simul- 
taneously — and one-half of her labours at least was 
crowned with success. Slie used to take him out 
gudgeon-fiahinff in the punt— the same which had 
Dome Dick, ana Maggie, and his mother, up the river on 
the last day they spent together— and, ancnored within 
view of the cottage, for propriety s sake, she would ply 
him alternately with sentiment and improving talk. 

' I was more than pained, Mr Charlecot, yesterday — 
I was terrified — to see you asleep while Mr Stinren 
Warmleigih was ezpouncUng.' 

' I had a heavenly vision, Miss Maria, nevertheless,* 
would reply the Incorrigible, * for I was dreaming of 
yoo.* 

• Now, Mr Frederic, if you go on in that light way, 
I shall leave the punt.' 

'I think that would be dangerous, my dear young 
la^ ; the tide runs deep and strons ; not but that 
yoa would fall a cheerf id martyr to tne maintenance 
ol amr good principle, I am well convinced.' 

' xcfo. think too highly of me, dear Mr Charlecot. I 
do bmnfaly hope, however, that if a time of popery 
and peneontion should again arise, and the racK, and 
the itakap and — and ' 

'And liie chop,' suggested Mr Charlecot gravely. 
* My dear Miss Maria, how dreadful an image does 
lliaife present to me : the keen and cruel axe ; those 
zaven tr e s ses ; that snowy neck ; that palpitating ' 

' Mr Charlecot, I am astonished at you ! ' 

'Pardon, fair lady, pardon; my imagination w^os 
indeed leading me too far.' 

'Ah, how I wish you would be less volatile, 
Mr Charlecot, I mean ! You seem to fly 



bom the oontemplation of all serious subjects.' 

*J)o I seem, then, impatient of your society?' 
demanded tbe unabashed Frederic slily. 

*Yoa are very wicked, sir; and yet, somehow, I 
eamiot reprove you as I would another. What is it» 
I wonder, that disarms my righteous indignation? 
Wbst mysterious affinity can exist between us — chil- 
dren of two different worlds, as it were — that draws 
US tiros together?' 

'That's a bite!' observed Mr Charlecot inteijec- 
ti<»any. 

'A what, sir?' exclaimed the nymph in a tone 
somewhat sharper and shriller than the observation 
towairanti 



* A gudgeon, my dear young lady — a gudgeon : did 
you not see your float bob ? You are looking in the 
water at your own reflection, instead of attending to 
your line, and indeed I can hardly blame you. If I 
had not the original by my side to look at, I should 
be content to eaze for ever upon its pictorial represen- 
tation myself. 

* Be quiet, Freder Mr Frederic I Take your 

arm away immediately ; I insist upon it. They can 
see us from the cottage.' 

* Let us pitch the boat upon the other side of tho 
island, then.' 

' We will do nothing of the kind, sir ; and, besides, 
there are always baT;^s there. Why is Margaret 
sitting at that open wmdow, I should like to know, 
staring out at us in that fashion ? I think I had rather 
be put on shore.* 

* l^erhaps she wishes to be here instead of you,* 
replied Mr Charlecot, smoothing his moustaches. 

* You are a vain and naughty man,' returned Miss 
Maria, reddening; 'and I am sure that the child 
wishes nothing of the sort' 

This was a most accurate assertion ; for Marnuret 
was the only one of the Arbour household upon whom 
the late arrival had totally failed to make a ravourable 
impression. 

' Your uncle seems to be exceedingly fond of your 
sister,' remarked Mr Charlecot carelessly. 

* He is getting very old,' replied Maria spitefully ; 
* and when one £ very old, one dotes.' 

* Exactly so ; and yet the law seems to take but little 
cogxiizance of the fact. How often we see old persons 
wming away their entire property to one incuvidual 
in no way more worthy tnan the remainder of 
their relatives, who are left, in consequence, quite 
insufficiently provided for.' 

'That, however, will not happen in Margaret's 
case,' returned her sister : ' she nas — in consequence 
of certain circumstances — ^been excluded from all 
future share in my uncle's property.' 

* Poor girl ! ' renuirked Mr Frederic Charlecot, 
with as much astonishment and sympathy as a man 
could assume who was quite aware of the fact before- 
hand, and did not recret it. * And yet it is in just 
such a case as hers uiat one often hnds the excom- 
municated person left a millionaire after alL The 
old gentleman repents at the last moment — thinks 
he'll "hedge" as regards the other world — ^forgives 
everybody, and leaves tho object of his greatest 
indignation every farthing he has in the world.' 

At this api)alling pictiure of death-bed penitence, 
Miss Maria's counteiumce fell, from Resignation to the 
calamities of others down to Despair on one's own 
account. 

* Good Heavens ! Mr Charlecot, you alarm me more 
than I can say; not indeed with regard to the disposi- 
tion of my good uncle's property, when it shall please 
Providence to remove hmi trom this sublunary scene, 
for riches are but vanity and a snare, and it is better 
far to be without them; but lest ingratitude and 
disobedience should come to be rewaroed instead of 
punished. If such a change should threaten the 
interests of morality, what course would you advise?' 

* A Deed of Gift, my dear young lady. Excuse my 
conciseness as a business-man, when the moral cir- 
cumstances of the case seem to demand dilation ; but 
if I were your brother Adolphus, I should put a limit 
to this doting fondness of your uncle while there is 
yet time. I shoidd address him something in these 
terms : '* You are a most charming relative, and I have 
the highest confldence in your judgment and good 
sense ; but you are too tender-hearted ; that is your 
one weak point, my beloved uncle, and a very amiable 
weakness it is. You have announced your determi- 
nation to leave your possessions to those who have 
shewn themselves docile and obedient to your wishes, 
and they naturally look forward to it — ^though not as 
money, but as a better thing, as a mark of the esteem 



t= 



216 



CHAMB£RS*S JOURNAL. 



and regard from him who was so dear to them while 
in life. Now, they cannot conceal from themaelves 
that that determination is wavering. Yon aa^ it is 
not) my dear uncle : very good ; you think it is not, 
because you are unaware of the excessive amiability 
of your own nature. It is in your power, however, to 
prove whether you or they are right — to shew the 
world that your judgment and moral sense are as 
keen as ever — by the execution of a Deed of Gift 
By this means you can put it out of your own power 
ever to be cajoled by designing persans." ' 

' But to whom is my uncle to make over the money?* 
inquired Maria, with an anxiety singular enough in 
one with whom the recipient could be only an object 
of pity as exposed to increased temptations. 

* To Adolphus and yourself, for instance ; or, if 
necessary, it may include your brother John. But as 
your uncle will thus confide to your hands the entire 
management of his own property by the deed in ques- 
tion, he may well trust you to do all that is right 
and generous to others.' 

* I think it would be better not to tell John anv- 
thing about it,* observed Maria decisively ; ' it would 
only unsettle his mind, and provent him attending to 
his nrofeesion.' 

* My dear Miss Maria, I reverence you more than 
ever; you are, I perceive, a woman of business as 
wcU as of piety.' 

* I am afraid not, Mr Charleoot ; it is not my wish, 
as it is not my gift, to meddle with such matters. I 
am of an unsuspicious disposition, and am of opinion 
that the direction of all money-matters should be 
intrusted to brothers, husbands, and the like. I 
know nothing but the affairs of the house. I became 
a housekeeper at a very early age, and flatter myself 
I understand my duties in that way as well as any 
person.* 

* There's another nibble, Miss Maria; I saw it 
distinctly ; he veiy nearly took the float under water ! 
Throw in some more ground bait, and I think vou will 
be almost certain to catch him the third time. 

These were the sort of canversations which took 
place often enough between Mr Frederic Charlecot 
and his lover, but which we would not recommend as 
the basis of a serious flirtation for other youns persons. 
He was well aware that the ladv would oecome 
his wife for the asking, but he was by no means pre- 
pared to take her * for richer, for poorer,* but only 
' for richer.* If her inheritance from her uncle could 
be secured in the manner suggested, the blood of the 
Gharlecots might possibly consent to an alliance with 
trade ; but in any other case he felt the sacrifice to 
be a little too 'alarming.* In the meantime, Mr 
Frederic Charlecot found it difficult to suppress his 
sense of humour — by no means the proper element to 
be suffered to appear in a love-passa^ and pregnant 
with danger even to the most promismg of suits. It 
is not pleasant to have one*s sentiment made fun of 
under any circumstances, and least of all when one 
is an elderly lady taking aim with one's last arrow 
at the heart of a male. 

We would not wrong Mr Frederic Charlecot's 
reputation as a man of taste, by letting it be supposed 
wat he chose ^liss Maria in preference to her sister 
Margaret ; or that conversations such as that which 
has been described were carried on with the former while 
anv chance of securing the latter, upon equally favour- 
able terms, reznained. The probability of Mr Ineram 
Arbour's altering his determination m fi»vour of his 
younger niece had struck kim long before he confided 
his suspicions to Maria, and had moved him in the 
first instance to try his fortune with her more comely 
sister. On the first opportunity of his finding himself 
alone with her, which did not happen very early 
during his stay at Rose Cottage, ho took occasion to 
express, with respect and delicacy, his sorrow for the 
dissnnsions amonyg that family by whom he had been 



so hospitably welcomed. ' Do not imagine, madam,* 
added he, 'that my intimacy with your brother 
Adolphus misleads me as to who is to be blamed for 
this.* 

'I am not aware, sir,' responded Margaret with 
quiet dignity, 'that the intimacy you s^ak of is 
either so deep or so long-founded as to justify such an 
interest as yon speak of, and least of all as regards 
myself.' 

' If my behaviour, madam, has led you to imagine 
that my sympathies are enlisted upon any side save 
your own, it nas only played the ^paxt which I have 
set it to do. I thought I should place it more in my 
power to benefit you by such a course, than if I had 
manifested the deep regret which I feel at the cold 
and cruel conduct of those who should have known 
how to estimate you better.* 

' I thank you, sir,* returned Mar;^aret : ' my position 
at home must indeed be pitiable, smoe a stranger can 
thus be moved to address himself to me upon such a 
subject.* 

' That I am a scranger, dear madam, is a misfortune 
which time will remove ; that I am a genuine and 
disinterested friend, I hope soon to be able to shew.' 

'I am not altogether friendless, sir,' rmlied she, 
' however it may appear ; and the few frienoiB whom I 
possess are sufficient for me.* 

' It is not well, madam, to reject friendship, even 
though it may be tendered by so humble an individual 
as myselL* 

At these words, contrasting so strongly with the 
self-assured and confident manner of the speaker, 
Margaret could not repress a smile. 

* You smile, my dear young lady, which is rare with 
you — a misfortune to be regretted by aU : a day may 
come, however, which perhaps is not even now a creat 
way oS, when your whole me will be a smile. I see 
already signs of repentance in one who has done yon 
wrong, and who has x>ower to redress that wrong 
tenfom. If I read the heart of the man aright — an 
accomplishment in which I am thought to have some 
skill — ^your Uncle Ingram only waits for some excuse 
to take you once more into his lovine favour.* 

' I am not aware, sir, that my Uncle Ingram has 
shewn himself in your presence as at all wanting in 
tenderness and affection. 

'Not at all,* responded Mr Charlecot eagerly; 'and 
I augur from that fact the best results. I refer rather 
to the nnkindnma which he proposes to commit after 
death ; to the unjust and unjustifiable' 

' Sir,' interrupted Margaret firmly, * your knowledge 
of the heart of man may be accurate and subUe 
enough ; but with respect to the feelings of woman, 
or at least so far as mine are concerned, you shew 
yourself fallible. The habitual want of cheerfulnefls 
which you attribute to me, is caused in no wav by 
the knowledge that my uncle purposes finaliy to 
dispose of his property as he thinks fit.* 

'1 envy you, my good young lady,' returned Mr 
Charlecot bluntly, 'that superiority of mind which 
sets you above the attractions of mere wealth. In 
my experience as a man of pleasure, I have seldom 
seen its parallel, and as a man of business, never ; the 
contemplation of it is channing, and cannot but be 
elevating to the moral sense. But with regard to 
this matter of your uncle's "will, is there not another's 
interest involved, another's prospects sacrificed? 
Forgive me, if I have been midmonned.' 

* Go on, sir, if you have anything to suggest, I pray,' 
replied Margaret : ' if you have really any further and ^ 
better end in view than that of wounding my feelings -^ 
pray hasten to it.* 

'I was about to say, my dear young lady, that witL^- 
respect to that oUier person, something, perhaps, 
through proper management, might yet be (lone.* 

' Could you indeed do anything for my poor brother 
Dick ?' cried Maggie anxiously, her face suffused with 
a sudden glow ofexpectation, and the ^l^n^^sff of her 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



S19 



nuimer changed at once to passionate appeal ' Oh, 
if you oould, sir, you would indeed prove youiaelf to 
be my friend.' 

The bold ^yes of Mr Frederic Charlecot glowed 
with nndisffoiaed admiration as he replied : * I can, 
my dear Mia Arbour, and I wilL A word or two 
from me to your uncle, at the proper time, will, I 
nledge my zv^mtation, brine forth not a little fruit. 
Nor do I oespair of putting both you and your brother 
Biehard into a position from which you may pay back 
•com for soom, and insult for insult, on those * 

' Yon are uain strangely mistaken, Mr Charlecot/ 
mtennpted ]£iggie hastily, ' in the character of the 
pemn.yoa address. All that I ask is, that the harsh- 
ness dealt oat to my unfortunate and misrepresented 
brother may be mitigated, and perhaps some amends 
be made to him.' 

*They shall, they shall, my dear Miss Margaret!' 
cried we other eagerly. 

* But the pqrment, sir — ^the rnice of ^onr assistance ? 
I haTe nnhapmly nothing to offer you in return.' 

* This little iumd ! ' exdaimed Mr Charlecot passion- 
ately, anatehiog her gloved fingers — for sue was 
di cased for garbling — uid pressing them with ardour 
tohislipa. 

So instantaneously did Maggie withdraw the out- 
raged member, that the enamoured swain was left to 
bestow his caresses upon the well'Bhai)ed but tenant- 
less cauntlet she used for protection against thorns. 

Yoa are impertinent, air!' cried she with flashing 
eyvsL 'How dare yon offer me this insult ? Is it the 
aot of a ^pentleman — nay, of a man — ^to take advantage 
of one m my position, without natural protector, 

althon^ ' She stopped suddenly, and her colour 

raw efpBi hifdier than before, as the thought of one 
nearer and aearer than brother flashed across her, 
whoae aim, had it been by, would not have hung idly 
down dming the last few minutes. 

Mr Charlecot, at least for this once, read her mind 
azicht. ' I am anticipated, as it seems,' said he ; * nor 
do 1 wonder that such excellence should have attracted 
another before me. But still, let me conjure you, if 
your affections are not yet wholly bestowed, to give 
me hope — to give me time rather to prove myself 
worthy of a hope ' 

She waved him off as he approached her with a 
geatare that almost suggested loathing. 

' A« you blease, madaSn,' continued he in an altered 



* I offered you my friendship, and you rejected 
it ; I offer you my love, and you disdain it A time 
inU come, perhaps, when you will regret both 



She answered him not a word ; but if Indignation 
and Bconi had had any Meduseon power in them, her 
ooQntenamoe would have changed nim into Trap, or 
ether hiferior description of stone, upon the spot. 

* A charming attitude,' continued Mr Charlecot 
intolently; 'but the statuesque is not inv taste. 
MarUe as you fancy yourself, it may be that I possess 
a weapon which shall yet find your heart out.' 

* li yoa do, sir, I do not doubt that you will use it 
wxihoat scrapie.' 

'Bot not upon you, madam,' returned he with 
bittameas; 'yoa do me wrong, if you deem me so 
nnkaightly.' 

'Upon another, then!' she answered vehemently. 
'Yoa will strike at me through my affection for my 
brother. wretched man, who, by your very lan- 
nage, tell me that you behold the depth of your own 
aegradation, from what have you fallen that you 
thoald play ao base a part ? Know that not even for 
his sake, whoae misfortimes you threaten to aggravate, 
and ndio IB to me the dearest ' 

'Save <me,' interrupted Mr Charlecot mockingly; 
' and that one has a father, has he not ? on old man, 
wadded to some foolish trade ; indebted to it perhaps 
for his daily bread — for his daily happiness certainly. 
Woald you not weep if this dcliglit, of this subsistence 



were withdrawn from him ? Beware lest it should 
be sa He clogs the wheels of commerce with his 
prudent sluggishness, and they would run the better 
if freed from such a drag.' 

Every word the man spoke was dropped upon his 
listeners ear like vitriol on a wound : and he watched 
her writhe beneath the torture mercilessly. 

' You are net a man,' cried she ; ' you are not even 
a coward ; you are a fiend I ' 

' You compliment mc, madam,' returned he ; * I am 
merely one whom the world has agreed to Ul-use, and 
who repays the world after his own humble fashion.' 

*To ill-use?' cried Maigaret indignantly. 'Nay, 
rather one on whom all good usaee is thrown away ; 
whom no prosperity makes thanluul, and no increase 
content ; one who seems bom to flout at Providence 
by putting its lavish gifts to evil ends. You to com- 
puun of uie world's usage — you I I know far better 
men worse used, worse spoken ol I know of one, 
vour superior in all qualities that become a man, who, 
lacking your money, manners, powers of persuasion — 
shall f say, rather, your douole-dealing craft, your 
seeming luiowledge (ha! you blush at that; that 
touches you), who wanting that lacker of "position" 
then, that pretence of soundness, has suuk to low 
estate with few to pity him.' 

*■ You allude to Mr liichard Arbour, I presume, at 
present the second Butcher in a travelling menagerie 
of wild animala. Th^ post may have ito scientific 
advantages, but it is certainly not socially higk' 

'Second Butcher!' rei>eated Margaret to herself. 
' I wonder whether this man is lying or no.' 

* I have no prejudices myself,' continued Mr Charle- 
cot calmly ; ' but other business-men, such as ^our 
respected imcle, for instance, would be excessively 
disturbed at the notion of having a second Butcher in 
their family.' Then, after a pause, he added : * So we 
are to be enemies. Miss Margaret, are we? that is 
settled?' 

* I am not your friend, sir ; I would not take yoar 
hand in mine for worlds.' 

*■ Very good,' repUed Mr Charlecot coolly. ' I see 
your charming sister coming this way, who, I flatter 
myself, will scarcely share your prejudices in that 
respect. Are you for an hour's gudgeon-fishing, Miss 
Maria ? ' 

Mr Frederic Charlecot had thus declared open war 
with Margaret before courting the alliance of her 
sister, and he was not long before he put his hostile 
intentions into action. He shewed himself to possess 
at least that modicum of virtue which is implied in 
the expression, 'being as good as one's woitL' He 
insinuated, with the utmoat subtlety, into Mr Ingram 
Arbour's failing mind the danger that he lay in of 
stultifying his own determination, by rescinding that 
sentence of excommunication passed against the 
scapegrace of the family and his abettor. £very kind 
w6rd which the old man addressed to his younger 
niece was carefullv treasured up by the three con- 
spirators, and used as a weapon against her. Every 
generous action was pointea to as a probable fore- 
runner of that great gift which should make amends 
to the disobedient pair for alL When these things 
failed to effect their final purpose, in causing the old 
merchant to put the disposal of his property out of 
his own i)ower, it was hinted that his nephew Ilichard, 
disinherited though he was, was calculating upon his 
uncle's decease, and actually borrowing money upon 
those expectations, which he had been so solemnly 
warned did not exist ; while finally, Mr Arbour was 
informed — thanks to Mr Charlecot, who had by some 
means possessed himself of that secret— what ]X)st 
that young gentleman was occupying in Mr Tredgold's 
establishment, to enioy which ho had Quitted that 
eminently respectable one provided lor him in 
Dorkendim Street. 

All the im^)ortunities of his two designing kinsfolk, 
aided by their skilful al{y, could not, howover, provaiJ 



220 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



upon the merchant to sign any Deed of Gift. He had, 
he said, the highest confidence in the rectitude of 
Adolphns, the greatest reliance upon the dutiful 
affection of Mana, the warmest admiration for the 
judgment of hia young friend Mr Frederic Charlecot, 
but to take off his clothes before he retired finally to 
rest, still seemed to him an unnecessary proceemng. 
*Who,' he in(^uired querulously, *had so much as 
heard of so anticipatory a measure before ? Had they 
themselves ? Had anybody ? Where was their pre- 
cedent for such a suicidal and unnecessary act ? ' 

*King Lear!' whispered Mr Charlecot to Maria 
sardonically; and, in her great desire to convince, 
the young lady was within a hairsbreadth of quoting 
that royiQ example. 

The Deed of Gift, then, was never executed ; but as 
if to compensate for his obstinacy in that respect, Mr 
Ligram Arbour lent himself more and more to the 
commercial schemes of Adolphus and his speculative 
adviser, and allowed them entirely to overrule the 
more temperate suggestions of Mr Mickleham. So 
craftily, indeed, did they sow the seeds of disagree- 
ment between the head of the firm and that gentle- 
man, that the latter very soon forbore to give 
expression to any remonstrances at all. The trusty 
Master to whom the Captain had formerly been wont 
to appeal on all grave occasions, had now to sit 
sorrowful and idly in hia cabin, while the good ship 
was being piloted by inexperienced and reckless 
hands. 

CHAPTER XXVIIL 
THK PITCHSB 18 BBOKJBN AT LAST. 

After the night with the lioness, and the punish- 
ment of Mr Bairman for his somewhat murderous 
practical joke, matters went on in the travelling 
menagerie as usual until the summer days came 
rouna again, when an honour was conferred upon it 
about e<|uivalent to that of Knight Companion of the 
Bath with Mr and Mrs Tredgold, ana C.B.8 with 
the rest of the company. The whole establishment 
being in the neighbourhood of Windsor, and the draw- 
ing-rooms, pink, white, and blue, at tiie castle being, 
I suppose, voted dull in those July evenings, it was 
commanded to exhibit itself before majesty in one of 
the courtyards. 

Such a green ribbon had never before been 
conferred tipon any but a Wombwell or an Edmonds 
(although Mr Tredgold had often hinted, boUi vocally 
and in his bills, to the contrary), and the excite- 
ment was proportionally tremendous. Mr Mopes, 
who was not to bd permitted to enliven the royal 
mind by his usual dissertation upon natural history, 
alone was discontented, and entertained no expec- 
tation of knighthood. Everybody else hoped that 
some comparatively harmless animal would make its 
escape, so that he might distinffuish himself by inter- 
posing between royalty and certain destruction. 
Extra pains, however, were taken to prevent the 
possibihty of any such incident ; every bar and board 
were examined narrowly four-and-twenty hours before 
the great event came off. The Lion-tamer of Central 
Africa was literallv in the highest feather, and had 
been presented by his proprietor with a new leopard- 
skin — his old one being considerably dimmed as to its 
spots, if it could not be said to have chanced them. 
It was rightly concluded that upon him womd mainly 
depend the success of the exhibition, as well as the 
fame of its proprietor. His own reputation as a 
zoological monarch was now to be established in the 
presence of a queen of an empire upon which the 
sun never sets, and wherein every variety of wild 
animal is to be found. In future, *As perfonned 
before the Queen, the Archbishops of Canterbuir and 
York,* and as many other grandees as should chance 
to be present, or whose names, if absent, might be 
good for a bill, would be appended to the public 
advertisements of his performance. The occasion, in 




short, was * supreme,' and Tickerocandua felt it 
be so. , He was determined to outdo himself as 
tigress-compeller. The blood-thirsty Bengal we hav^ 
idready spoken of was a beast of few accomphshmen 
and did not exhibit those she possessed with an.^^ 
great willingness. It was Tickerocandoa's intentioK^ 
for this great Once at least, to induce the animal t^^> 
enact a part in a dramatic representation with h^^^ 
cage-companion, the lion. The piece was simple 
enough in plot, but abounded in 'situations' ati^ 
hoops. The rehearsals were numerous, and succeeded 
one another very quickly by reason of the little time 
that was left for preparation. On the evening 
before that of the grand castle performance, there 
had been no less wan three rehearsals, and the 
tigress was even yet imperiect in her cues. Her 
magnificent companion roared and bounded to admi- 
ration whenever the action of the drama demanded 
those exertions, and finally represented rampant his 
portion of the royal arms for the concluding tableau ; 
but the Bengal was all tail and teeth and stuck in 
the hoops. 

*Treagold has promised me a tenner,' observed 
Tickerocandua confidentially to Dick, *for every new 
trick that the beasts will do to-morrow ; and if all 
goes well, he will raise my salary to two hundred. 
And now here's that ere pig-headed Semiramis a- 
jibbing at her jumps, with only time for one more 
teaching of her.' 

* There is not even time for that, I fear,' returned 
Dick. * I have been putting out the meat already in 
the barrows, and it will never do to put it back again, 
now that they have once caught sight of it.' 

* I can't help that,' returned the Beast-tamer dog- 
gedly ; ' I must give Semiramis her last lesson befoie 
I go to bed to-ni^ht.' 

* Surely not with the food before her eyes,' enxw- 
tulated Dick : * you have often told me yourself how 
dangerous it is to meddle with the beasts at such a 
time. With the temper, too, which that brute has, 
it would be madness.' 

It was a rule in Mr Tredgold's establishment, thst- 
no man should interfere with the^mB while they vece 
feeding, or even while their food was within t^gfsi of 
them; the attention of wild animals, like that o^ 
some tame ones, being apt to be concentrated upon. 
their dinners, any attempt to divert them from whidL 
is extremely perilous. 

- ' Her ladyship must whisk her tail a little more 
fiercely before sne frightens me out of two hundred 
a year,' responded Tickerocandua. ' It's only her 
obstinacy I know, for she is as sharp as Ajaz if Ab 
chooses.' 

The beast-tamer was not relerring to the aharp- 
ness of the Grecian hero characterised by the poet 
as acerrimue, but to the saoadty of her ladyship's 
companion of that name, the lion. 

* There is none so deaf as those who won't hear,' 
replied Dick didactically. ' You may drm a tiger 
to water, but you can't make him turn a mm ner sa uttB.* 

* Birds as can sing, and won't sing,' retorted the 
Beast-tamer srimly, * must be made to sing.* 

Apt and iUustrative of the case in point as this 
counter-proverb might be, it was, however, a perilous 
determination of spirit that took the Beast-tamer 
back to his grim pupils, tired and sick as ever hnman 
actors were of their reiterated rehearsals, and hongiy 
for the suppers which they ^pazed upon thnnim 
their bars. Dick heard the clmk of a bottle as ae 
left the caravan of his friend, whereby he goened 
that Tickerocandua was refreshing himself ere going 
about his wearisome task — a thing which, freqiient as 
it was with him after a performance, he had never 
yet known him to do before entering a den. It was 
impossible, of course, to give out tiio meat at the 
usual hour, and Mr Richard Arbour employed hianif, 
in the meantime, in another duty — ^that of looking to 
the ventilators of the caiees. These were placed abiyre 



OHAMBBRS^S JOURNAL. 



281 



nuuB, like the lamp-boles in first-class rail- 
iaffes, and through them the occupants of the 
^S be reconnoitred in safety, as from that 

Tantage at which Darius the kins is repre- 
L the peep-shows looking anxiously down upon 
of Hens to which Daniel has been committed 
rerioiis evening. Dick presently came to that 
ur ventilator which opened upon Semiramis 
X, whom the Beast-tamer was by that time 
\g* for their dramatic representation. The 
I performing his part with an unwilling obc- 
pnltiiig in an occasional inarticulate protest 
aim of a protracted roar. The tigress was 
and noiseless, walking round and round 
iidna, and making an unreserved exhibition 
emendooa teeth, but b^ no means identifying 
x> much as could be wished with her part in 
lA. Intensely wrapped up in the pros^ct of 
L meat that offered itself to her within the 
Ml — which, it being long i)ast the closine 
m entirely destitute of spectators — she would 
1 anon put her nose to the bars, and inhale 
tfdl periume. * Man, man ! * roared she with 
fill impatience, and then, returning to her 
cold sniff and sneer around him, as though 
d observe that there was as good meat withm 
sr all, as lay outside of them. 
;ood friend,' cried Dick, speakine through the 
, ' do pray come away for to-ni^t, and leave 
lie to her supper. To-morrow morning, she 

tractable enough, but to-night' 

I got the taste of my predecessor in her 
ih ! ' interrupted Tickerocandua grimly. * She 
■he mayn't, for all I care, but she shall go 

ilie double-hoop, at all events, as sure as 
ving man.' And as he spoke, he held up the 
snt in question, and cracked his whip for 
M twentieth time — in vain. 
le instant — in a quarter of a second — in a 

short that Dick's eye could scarcely follow 
)ii; Tickerocandua was down — tripped up by 
388^8 fore-paw as a wrestler trips his rival — 
nd bifcten through the thigh with those cruel 
» that the strong man in ms acony gave forth 

more like a cry from some of the wild crea- 
ind him, than any human speech. Then he 
nt, mercifully stricken dumb and senseless, 
te beast stood over him, licking her bloody 
id with every hair in her wicked, beautiful 
X with fury and lust for blood. 
s thee, thou striped devil ! ' cried Dick from 

above, and rained his hate upon the brute 
dy and suddenly, that she slunk away, and 
nto the furthest comer of the den. * Murderous 

«rer of the hand that fed thee I come, 

id; stir not, move not for your life Foul 

I sneaking coward ! ' continued he, not daring 
traw eye or voice from the orifice, while with 
i^ed liand he gashed the tarpaulin roof of the 
th his clasp-knife, so that ne might thereby 

immediately, and open the cage-door the 
— * for every mark of thy damned teeth thy 

wa of persons connected with the exhibition, 
rhom was Mr Mopes, wringing his hands with 
anguish, were collected round the bars of the 
rrified at what was doing, but not daring to 
I between the enraged animal and the com- 
of her bloody work; nor must the general 
be too hastily condemned, since not one of 
id ever been inside a den with a lion, far less 
I, while he who would enter the one in question 
i not only to secure his own safety, and that 
uohappy Beast-tamer, but to prevent the infu- 
imiramis from escaping by the door which 
d him, and so scattering woimds and death 
unknown numbers. To Mr Tredgold's credit 
^ bo stated, that though stron^y fortified 



within his own residence, and only trusting his voice 
through one of the shutter-slides, he never ceased 
to caU upon others to fetch firearms, and rescue his 
faithful Tickerocandua at the cost, if it were neces- 
sary, of the lives of both lion and tiger. The only 
unsympathising spectators were the lion himself — ^who 
calmly lay down and yawned, as though the business 
was none of his, and only to be regretted inasmuch 
as it stiM further postponed supper-time — and Mr 
Bairman, who, from a considerable distance, was 
regarding the spectacle as though he could never 
have enough of it. 

For nothing of what was passing within or without, 
did the animal who had worked aU this mischief seem 
to care, but with eyes wandering from her prostrate 
victim to Dick's face above, she appeared to be divided 
between the desire of prosecuting her vengeance and 
the fear of the consequences of such a proceeding. 
Whenever his voice ceased, were it but for an instant, 
she shifted her hind-legs restlessly, as if to spring, and 
sunk down again dissatisfied, but trembling, when the 
tones were renewed. At last, when Dick had sawn 
a hole in the tarpaulin sufficiently large, he squeezed 
himself through it, and swung down by his hands into 
the interior of the show. 

Eapidly as he effected this, the vengeful brute 
was yet beforehand with him. Taking instantaneous 
advantage of his withdrawal to renew ner attack, she 
seized me stiU unconscious Tickerocandua by the 
chest, and cracked his breastbone in her dreadful 
jaws. Still in swoon, however, the poor Beast-tamer 
knew it not, and neither stirred nor moaned. Then 
it was, singularly enough, when it was evident to all 
that the man was des^ and no further harm could 
happen to him, that Mr Mopes began to open the 
cage-door, determined, at all hazards, to save the 
inanimate form from desecration ; but he was thrust 
aside in the very act by Dick, who, seizing a crow-bar, 
leaped into the den, and, dealing a tremendous blow 
at the cowering tigress, lifted ms dead friend out — 
lightly and tenderfy as a bride — and bidding the 
people close the door, as though it had been any other 
cLoor, would have borne him unassisted to his own 
dwelling, had not Mr Mopes, reverently taking up the 
feet of tno corpse, assistea him. The rest were scarce 
more struck with the horror of the spectacle than 
with the courage and affection manifested by the 
young xnAn, and with one consent forbore to follow, 
and interfere between him and his grief. 

' Shall I run for the doctor ?' inquired Mr Mopes of 
Dick, as of his acknowledged chief in this dreadful 
matter. 

* Nay,' replied he sadly, * not all the doctors in the 
world coula give him breath for a single moment. 
We will fetch one presently; but, in the meantime, 
tell the people to be silent, and not spread the news 
abroad, for Mr Tredgold's s^e. If tnis gallant soul 
could speak, he womd sav the same, for I am sure 
that his last thought would be for others. If it gets 
about that the Lion-tamer is dead, the performance 
must needs be put off for to-morrow, and perhaps 
the establishment be permanently injured.' 

* And who is to help it ?' exclaimed Mr Mopes, in 
astonishment. * How on earth can it be otherwise, 
now that i)oor Robinson has come to this V 

It was observable that whoever now spoke of the 
dead man called him by his real name, ana not by the 
assumed title by which he had been always formerly 
addressed. 

* That is for our master to consider,' returned Dick 
gravely. * Am I not risht, my friend ?' continued he, 
apostrophising the deaa bodv. ' Ah, Mr Mopes, you 
do not Know how kind and nonest a heart hes here, 
that will never beat again. I have neither father nor 
mother, and this man was both to me.' 

* He hasn't left an enemy in the world,' cried the 
tender-hearted lecturer, * unless, at least, it be Bair- 
man ; and to have Bairman against one is a matter 



2tt 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



creditable to anybody. He was always risky for him- 
self, and careful for other people. He has not left his 
equal for Hon and tiger taming alive. There's his 
new leopard-skin, see, a-hanging up so Sfick and span, 
and who's to wear it?' 

There was a gentle knock at the door that opened 
into the interior apartment. 

*Come in,' criea Dick mournfully; * there's nobody 
to be disturbed here now ! ' 

A diminutiyc female figure, of a day colour, entered 
quietly, and approached the dead man with a swift 
but noiseless step. She took no notice of either Diok 
or his companion, but taking from her left ann a 
bracelet of shells, placed it at the feet of the ooipse, 
at the same time reverently inclining her head. On 
her return, the door was gently opened for hear by an 
unseen hand, and the Earthman was heard modulat- 
ing his harsh gutturals with some success, and throw- 
ing; an unmistakable pathos into his ' Woggadaboo ' 
imd *Wi^dy.' The sorrow, almost inarticulate as 
it was, ^the two poor Earth-people, touched the 
hearts of both spectators deeper tlutn the most 
eloQuent panegyric upon the aead man's memory 
could possibly hare done. Bou^t and sold, exhibited 
and laughed at, as those two half-naked savages had 
been, there jet lay a feeling within them for one who 
had been uniformly kind to them, more beautiful b^ a 
thousand times than any mental product of civilisa- 
tion. The Earthwoman had given her bracelet as the 
woman in the parable had Mstowed her mite. 

'0 Lord! Lord! to think of that poor dumb 
creetur with her shells ! ' cried Mr Mopes. * I had 
rather that that had been done to my dead body, 
than to have been buried in Westminster Abbey.' 

'God bless her I' exclaimed Dick fervently. 'God 
forgive me that I ever laughed at one of his creatures 
so much better than L' 

* How all the gug-guff-goodness of a chap seems to 
come out at a moment Iulo this,' sobbed Mr Mopes. * I 
mind me now how he nursed me three years ago, just 
as though I was a suckling infant, when I had broxen 
my W off the dromedary. He hadn't a fault, hadn't 
ppor Robinson, except perhaps it was Old Tool* 

^ * Hush! ' replied Dick reproachfully ; ' this is not a 
time to speak of a man's faults, even when one is sure 
of them. I don't think he ever drank for diinking's 
sake.' 

Mr Mopes looked up with amazement, as thou^ he 
would like to know wnat better reason need be given 
for any man's drinking than that of his liking it. 

*He never took kindly to his trade,' continued 
Dick, *and therefore the greater the credit to him 
that he did it so welL He often drank spirits because 
he felt himself unequal to his work without them. 
Since vou and he were friends, and in order that you 
ma^ defend his memory, I will let you see what is 
written down here in his pocket-book. Look at the 
fiffures set opposite to these last dates: 4480, 4481, 
4482, are all in this day's woric, and there is a space 
still left for the 448a' 

' What does it mean ?' inquired Mr Mopes. ' What 
can it mean?' 

*It means, that whenever that brave man went 
amonff these devilish beasts, it was with the certain 
knowTedffe that that must one day happ^ which has 
hi^)pened to-day. If he had come out alive to-ni^t, 
it would have been, according to his judgment, his 
44S3d e$eape.\ 

Dick filled in the fijgures with his own hand, wrote 
after them, ^periit Heitrt Robinson,' and put the 
note-book into his own breast-pocket 

* Ajid yet to see him amons them roarinff creetnrs,' 
gasped Mr Mopes, ' one wouKl have thou^t >»^tw as 
composed and cheerful as though they were so many 
sofa-cushions. Why, if he was afraid, who, in the 
name of wonder, will be found to take his place 
to-morrow before the Queen and court ? ' 

'That is Mr Tiedgold'i business,' returned Diok 



quietly; 'and I must now go and speak with him 
upon that subject The strangers will be coming 
presently whose office is with this dead body, for 
whom, alas, no friend can now do anything more.' 

HOLY WEEK IN VIENNA. 

AvTBOVOR the ceremonies of the Church during tlw 
Holy Week are not, in Vienna, of such an extra- 
ordmaiy nature as in the more southern domains oi 
Romanism, where th^ are under the immediate 
supervision of the visible head of the Church, still 
they are by no means devoid of interest, as mij^ 
be anticipated, when it is borne in mind that his Impe- 
rial, Royal, and Apostolical Majesty the Emperor, 
is the Church's weU-beloved eldest son. During 
Lent, all the churches present a very sombre aspect, 
the altars beine, without exception, hun? with black ; 
a huge black cloth screen suspended behind the high- 
altar itself, concealing the altar pictures and orna- 
ments; and the silver crucifix, which occupies a 
conspicuous position on every altar, carefully wrapped 
in a covering of violet-coloured silk. 

On the &turday preceding Palm-Sunday, there 
may be seen in uie streets a number of women 
selung palm8i or rather what passes with us under 
that appellation — namely, the catkins of the palm- 
willow, which are always in bloom about this time. 
These palm-bnnches, decorated with the gayest, or 
rather gaudiest of artificial flowers, riblMus, and 
tinsel, find a ready sale, and are seen in the hands 
of young and old. 

The ceremonies of Palm-Sunday commence with 
the * blessing of the palms,' by the cardinal archbishop 
at St Stephen's, and by the officiating priests at the 
other churches. Great numbers of the gaudily 
decorated palm-twigs are carried to the churchy 
particularly, though by no means exclusively, bj 
children, to receive the benediction ; and throu|di- 
out the whole day, crowds of people panuie the 
streets, bearing larger or smaller branches in their 
hands. This ceremony is succeeded by a prooessiOB 
within the church, m which all the pnests and 
assistants, includins a number of students of theokwy, 
carry in their hands a long sceptre-like reed, sinmar 
to that put bv painters into the hands of our Saviour. 

The Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, ^thoudi 
they have their special attributes, are not very reman- 
able, the erand and characteristic services commencing 
on the Aursday. On this day, Holy Thursday, or 
Or&nclonnerstagf as it is styled, the archbishop in full 
pontificals proceeds in grand procession to the hi^i- 
altar, and there perfonns mass; and the Host, as soon 
as consecrated, is solemnly carried and deposited in 
the KreuzcapeUty or Chapel of the Cross, which im 
then carefully dosed up until the following day. 
This chapel is in a distant part of the cathedral, 
and fitted up specially for the occasion. It is hnn^ 
witii black — with tapers burning before a cruci- 
fixion scene — and forms the chief centre of devotion 
throughout the day. After vespers, the eeremonies 
are terminated by stripping the high-altar of all 
its movable ornaments, preparatory to the services 
of the crucifixion-day. The principal event of Holy 
Thursday, however, is the imperial FusswaMhtrng^ 
or washins of the feet of a number of poor and aged 
bunkers by the emperor in person, by which he 
shadows forth his humility, and nis readiness to follow 
the great example of our Saviour. This ceremony is 
also performed m many churches. Thus, at the catiie- 
dral, the cardinal prince archbishop washes the feet of 
twelve poor old men, and a bishop does the same at 
the Schotten-kirche, or Scoteh Church. But tile 
grand attraction is, of course, the pedal ablution of 
twelve poor old men and twelve poor old women hr 
his apostolic majesty himself. This takes place with 
great pomp in the Cerem<mim-8aal of tiie baig» 
or palace^ and is a magnificent spectacle. Only 



pomril^ed persons are admitted, and tlic invited 
reaoh the Saal through long, double, bristling lines 
of fixed bayonets; indeed, the display of military 
on this oocaaion is something extraordinary; the 
officers all in their richest uniforms, and covered 
with decoratioiiB, and the nobles in their gala-dresses. 
The twelve poor old men, and equal number of women, 
none of whom are less than eighty years old, and 
many of whom have reached the patriarchal age of 
ninetv, are uniformly clad. A table is liberally spread 
for them, and the emperor acts pro tern, as their 
servant ; but at this period of the ceremony they do 
not eat, though doubtless they are ampl^ supplied 
when it is concluded. The emperor, kneclmg on one 
knee before each of the poor recipients, and attended 
on one side by a chamberlain holding a golden basin 
with water, and on the other side by a second l)earing 
a snow-white napkin, having removed the stocking 
from one foot, pours water over it, and wipes it with 
the fine linen. The empress performs her part of the 
ceremony in a similar attendiuice upon the twelve old 

women. Baroness A , who had been present at a 

Fuszwaachung by the late emperor, Ferdinand, and 
his empress, aasiued me that, not content with wash- 
ing, they each kissed the feet that they had so regally 
pimfied ! 

These poor old men and women acquire a sort of 
sanctity oy this operation, and are weU known after 
it by a pecoliar costume which they adopt. Of course, 
they are never suffered to want. 

Good -Friday [CharfraUig^ char being an old 
German word si^;iiifying holy) commences with the 
aennon and Passion, at which every one who attends 
the Uofcapdley or Coiut Chapel, is required to be 
dressed in black. The office is performed at the 
altar, stripped of ornament, and without lights ; and 
the officiatmg priests wear the funereal robes of black, 
edged with g^old. At the cathedral, the archbishop 
enters in procession, every one, as he passes in, 
turning roond to that distant part of the cathedral 
where the KreuzcapeUe was situated, and making 
to it a profound reverence. 

In the National Italian Church I witnessed the 
ceremony of the EnUiiiUvncfy or unveiling of the cross. 
It will M remembered that the small crucitixcs sur- 
mounting the altars were all enveloped in a covering 
of violet-coloured silk. At the end of the * Passion/ 
the officiating priests retired behind the high-altar, 
and pat off their sable robes, presently reappearing 
elothed in simple white linen tunics. The chief of 
them having mounted some steps, brought down the 
enveloped cmciiiz, which stood on the top of the pyx 
on the high-altar. It was then slowly imcoverea or 
unveiled, and earned with great solemnity to the 
opposite nde of the choir, where a large black 
pall-like doth, on which an immense white cross was 
figured, wia spread upon the ground. On this the 
crucifix was laid, and the priests advancing one by 
one ilowly, and with many genuflexions, stooped 
down, and having kissed the hands and feet of the 
image, again retired. When they had all performed 
this ceremony, the chief-priest again advanced and 
raised the crucifix ; the black robes were again donned, 
and it wae carried in solemn procession to the Chapel 
of the Holy Grave. This Chapel of the Holy Grave 
requires some notice. The whole of the Komish 
ceremonies at this time, as, indeed, always, are highly 
symbolical ; and this being the day on which our Saviour 
descended into Hades, a grave was depicted in every 
church witli more or less taste, artificiality, and 83an- 
boliauL The universal elements were, a dark chapel, 
from which all light of the sun was excluded, hung all 
round witli black doth. On the altar, lights were 
burnings and behind it was some device in white upon 
the Uaek ground, such as clouds with the gilded rays 
« ol a rifling sun. In St Peter's was erected a tall 
white eron ; and the whole chapel, which was spacious 
and lofty, was decked with evergreens. But the most 



artificial one was in the Church of St Michael, whxdi 
contains the remains of Metastasia Here, the end 
of the chapel represented, scenically, an open rocky 
sepulchre, m which a plaster-group, life-size, repre- 
sented the entombment. On the summit was a 
cross entwined with a linen cloth ; and the whole 
scene, illuminated by invisible lamps, was hij^y 
dramatic. 

Into this Chapel of the Holy Grave, the consecrated 
Host was carried, and deposited upon a conspicuous 
pinnacle, and covered with what looked like muslin ; 
and here the people flocked to adore that Saviour 
who, they imagined, was repeating his sacrifice^ 
and svmbolising his burial All uiat night, the 
cathecfzal doors were open, and the Chapd of the 
Holy Grave was full of oevotees. 

The following day, called Charganutagy or Holy 
Saturday, is the last and chief of the ceremonial-dayi 
of the Holy Week. Walking into St Stephen's in me 
afternoon, I was struck with the great cnange which 
had come over the church since the previous day. 
All the black screens and hangings, which for nearly 
seven weeks had given such a sombre aspect to 
the interior, had disappeared; the crucifixes were 
uncovered ; and the wnole dioir was hung with 
damask of the richest and brightest yellow and 
crimson ; the altar had resumed its ornaments ; a 
magnificent canopy and throne were placed beside it 
for the archbishop ; and all was ready for the grand 
and crowning festival of the resurrection. Only the 
Chapel of the Holy Grave was still unchanged aiul 
sombre, and crowded with worshijipers or sight-seers. 
The order of the day, which was well known to the 
public through the medium of advertisements attached 
to each church-door, and copied into the daily news- 
papers, was, that immediately after vespers, the 
festival of the AvferdeJiungy or resurrection, should 
be celebrated, and the Host carried in procession from 
all the churches through the neighbouring streets, if 
the weather should be favourable. It was doubtful, 
however, whether this last condition would be ful- 
filled, for it had been threatening all day, and a few 
drops of rain had fallen at intervals. The chief 
attraction was the vicinity of the Court Chapel, where 
all the nobk*s, and highest military and state-officers, 
were assembled, as at the Fuszwaschung, in their 
gala-dresses; and had the weather been fine, they 
woidd have marched in procession through the 
courte of the palace, headed by the emperor and 
cm])ress in person. Great numbers of people there- 
fore assembled, but only to be disappointed, for as 
the sky was threatening, the procession only 
perambulated through covered-ways, and did not 
appear in public. After waiting, therefore, a consider- 
aole time, the dispersion of the guesto in their 
carriages certified the fact ; and all l£at was seen b^ 
outsiders was the splendid costomes of the notabili- 
ties as they drove away, and the sometimes more 
gorgeous dresses of the Jdgera and servante, who 
formed part of their equipages. 

Directing my steps to the nearest church, which 
happened to bo that of St Michael, I there witnessed 
the whole ceremony of the Auferstehung. I have 
already described the holy grave in this church ; and 
now the path leading to it was lined on either side 
with men and boys, holding large lighted wax-tapers, 
and with the Onterlied^ or Easter liymn, in their hands. 
Vespers being concluded, the priests advanced to the 
tomo, and the banners, canopy, and music being 
hastily arranged, the chief officiating priest mountea 
and brought down the Host from its elevated position. 
It was then uncovere<l, and the priest suddenly turn- 
ing round towards the assembled multitude ejaculated 
some words, and a flourish of trumpets announced 
that * Christ was risen.* The voices of the singers 
immediately commenced the Easter-song, accompanied 
by the music ; and the train of banners, candle-bearers, 
and priests was put in motion, the priest who 



S24 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



carried the Host bringing up the rear, under a canopy 
borne by four supporters, and preceded by the censers 
of incense. The Dells set up a jingling (not a peal, 
which is never heard except in England), and thus 
the procession marched slowly out into the street. 
At the end of every verse of the rather doleful Easter- 
song, there was a flourish of trumpets, and the pro- 
cession having very deliberately performed a circuit 
of little more than a furlong, re-entered the church. 

Knowing that at the camedral the ceremony would 
take place later, I walked in that direction. The 
Stefazrs-platz was crowded with expectant persons, 
and a broad line of boards was laid all round the 
church. To enter the cathedral was impossible, for 
it was already densely crowded ; and after waiting a 
quarter of an hour, the jingling of the g^eat bells — 
which had been ominously silent since Thursday, or 
only struck with wooden clappers — announced that the 
ceremonies within were concluded, and a flourish of 
trumpets and kettle-drums proclaimed the exit of the 
procession. Singers bearing lighted candles, priests, 
students, and doctors of theology intermingled with 
the lay-servants of the church, bearing crucifixes, 
flags, and banners, formed a long and imposing caval- 
cade. Immediately before the sacred canopy walked 
four priests, two carrying before them the plain silver 
mitres of bishops, the third the gold, richly embroi- 
dered mitre of the archbishop, and the last tiie scarlet 
cap of the cardinal The canopy was supported, as 
usual, by four men; and beneath it marcned, with 
stately step and abstracted air, the cardinal prince 
archbishop of Vienna, holding aloft the Host, and 
supported on either side by a bishop and other priests, 
all clothed in their richest festal robes. In the midst 
were the musicians, with trum])ets and kettle-drums. 

Having perambulated the church, they now re- 
entered it, and the Easter ceremonies were over. At 
St Peter's, men were already busy in stripping the 
holy grave, and canying away the evergreens which 
adorned it. 

During these last three days, the open-air chapels, 
which are numerous in Vienna, are h^hted up with 
variously coloured lamps ; the figures m the open-air 
chapels, especially those of our &iviour, which appear 
in the numerous rude and gaudily painted reuefs, 
are crowned with artificial flowers, and day and 
night, great numbers of persons of the lower class 
crowd round them on their knees, re}>eating prayers 
and singing hymns. 

It is somewhat remarkable that, with all this 
church-going and ceremonial, none of these days are 
Feiertagey or holidays. The shops, which are always 
closed on Sunday and festivals, are open as usual 
during the entire Holy Week ; the newspapers 
appear daily as usual ; and the Bourse is only closed 
on Good-Friday. On the afternoon of that day, a 
grand promenade is held in the principal streets of 
the city, and I have never seen it so f ml as on such 
occasions. Carriages are, fortunately, and, I suppose, 
by common consent, comparatively rare ; indeed, 
there is no room for them, even in the open jpsatB of 
the city — as, for instance, the Graben, which is the 
centre of the briHiant crowd. Meantime, the churches 
are receiving and pouring out their numbers of 
worshippers, and appear to be all full to overflowing, 
notwithstanding the crowd in the streets. Indeed, it 
is a Longchamps in miniature. 

But although Grllndonnerstag, Charfrcitag, and 
Charsamstag are no holidays, and business goes on 
as usual, Ostermontag (Easter Monday) is a general 
holiday ; not that any particular eccleaiastictd cere- 
monv or service takes place on that day or on Easter 
Sunday; but this is a sort of opening spring-day — 
the first grand promenade in the Prater ; a sort of 
earnest that winter is nearly over; and the leafless 
trees of the Prater look down upon an expectant and 
hoping multitude, who are weary of frost, and snow, 
and east winds, and longing to breathe the balmy air 



of the beautiful environs of the city. So on East^ 
Monday thev flock out to spy the nakedness ^_ 
the trees, to form a better judgment of how long tin^ 
must elapse before they are clothed with verdur^^^ 
And this furtive visit is confirmed on the Ist of Ma»^." 
when, with new equipages and brilliant liveries, tl:^^^ 
Prater season is opened by the highest rank at^^l 
gayest fashion of Vienna. 



* WHAT THE HAND FINDETH TO DC* 

Mt true love laid her hand on mine. 

Her soft and gentle hand, 
*Twas like a wreath of purest snow 

Upon the embrownM land. 

As white it was as snow new fallen, 

Like snow without its chill ; 
And the blue veins marbled it sweetly o'er. 

Bat left it snowlike stilL 

I looked at her hand, so white and soft ; 
At my own, so brown and hard : 

* This is for strife and toil,' I said ; 

* And that for love and reward. 

' This is to keep the Wolf of Want 
Away from the hearth of home ; 

And this to welcome me tenderly. 
When back to that hearth I come. 

' This is to labour with tireless nerres. 

Perchance at tasks that soil ; 
And this to greet with a loving clasp 

The palm that is rough with toiL 

' This is to win through rock and wood 
A way, where way seemed none ; 

And this to chafe the poor proud limbs 
That droop when the goal is won. 

* This is to grasp in the world^s long fight 

The weapons that men must wield ; 
And this to bind up the aching wounds 
Ta*en on the well-fought field. 

' This is to put forth all its strength 
In Earth's rough tasks and strife ; 

And this to kindle the sweet love-fins 
That brighten the march of life. 

' For hibour, and sweat, and scars is this ; 

And this to scatter round 
The flowers of beauty, and love, and hope. 

On Home's enchanted ground. 

' I would these fingers, for thy sweet sake. 
Might a giant's strength command. 

To toil for and guard thee worthily — 
Bat Love will strengthen my hand. 

* And if ever its weakness o*ercoroe its will. 

And it fail in its toilsome part, 
The fate that disables my fainting hand. 
As surely will still my heart* 

E. QR 



Printed and Published by W. & R Chambers, 47 Pater- 
noster Bow, LoNDOX, and 339 High Street, Edinbuboh. 
Also sold by William Robkbtson, 23 Upper Sadnrille 
Street, Bubun, and all Booksellers. 



S titntt snb %ti6. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 380. 



SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1861. 



Price 1^. 



SOME REMARKS BY A PERSON OF 
NO CONSEQUENCE. 

Thk great majority of mortals are for ever toiling and 
moiling to obtain an elevated position for themselves 
itpon the flodal ladder. Round after round they win 
With painful assiduity, and the more pertinacioiisly do 
they need to hold on, with each advance towards the 
Empyrean. The blasts of scandal and detraction 
blow so severely in those upper regions, that, it is 
said, nothing short of a coronet can be kept on with 
any ease to the wearer; while every rise attained, 
although yielding a gratifying view of some left below, 
has still ito drawbacks in the sight it opens of others 
yet to be passed, as well as in the increased trouble 
from those who will persist in clinging to our skirts, 
all cold looks and positive kicks notwithstanding. 
As to the behaviour of those upon the same level, 
as we pass them in the tedious ascent, it is said to 
be but inadequately described by the comparison 
of the conduct of one upon a material ladder, whom 
we should come up to, and endeavour to overclimb 
at a considerable height above the earth, and where 
a fan would be fatal 

I speak of these facts with the greater confidence, 
becauae^ while almost everybody else, assiduously 
CDgaged on the ascent in question, has neither leisure 
nor opportunity for watching the exertions of others, 
I myself have declined the struggle altogether, and 
observe the whole affair from below — from the very 
bottom. I was once, indeed, upon a round myself — ^not 
throogjh any fault of mine, but through the misfortune 
of baTing been bom there — for I remember a sort of 
confoaed scramble taking place over my family, which 
we an resisted down to the baby in arms ; but as soon 
as I got to understand the discomfort of the elevation, 
I descended with the alacrity of a lamplighter. This 
feat was acoomphshed amid the smiles and bows of 
a number of aspiring persons, who had literally 
obtained by my resignation what is called in militaiy 
circlea a step ; and I most unf eignedly hope that they 
win adorn it and enjoy it better than I did. 

I thank my stars (metaphorically that is, for, of 
course, I have no stars, nor the slightest mark of 
distinction whatsoever) that I have long been a person 
of no oonaequence, and that what I do is of no 
concern to anybody, so long as it does not call for the 
actual interference of the police. Applied socially, 
instead of physically or metaphysically, that dcfini- 
Hion, of pleasure which declares it to be the absence 
of pain, exactly suita my case : I am a happy man, 
because there is nothing to bother me. I have no 
enemy, for I have made haste to get out of every- 
body's way in the world; 1 have no detractor, for 



there is nothing about me of which any person with 
social aspirations could i>os8ibly be envious. The 
single exception which I can recall, only proves the 
general truth of what I aver; it is that of old Lady 
Almond (whose late husband, before his knighthood, 
was in the Italian warehouse way of business), who 
detesta me because I do not happen to share her 
difficulty of pronouncing the letter h; which surely 
is the very midstmmier madness of jealousy. 

My father — and pray, do not suppose that I say 
it boastingly, but, on the contrary, with the heartiest 
pity for my respectable parent— was in what is 
termed (by a frightful misnomer) * easy circumstances,' 
and * enjoyed (that is the sardonic phrase, I believe) 
the confidence of his fellow-townsmen;* and it is 
only by a comparison of his experience with my own, 
that I can convey any adequate notion of the comfort 
of my present lowly condition. 

His circumstances being easy, lus indoor occupa- 
tion mainly consisted in drawing cheques for consi- 
derable amounta in favour of hoepitals, schools, 
refuges, home and foreign missions, martyrs and 
public gymnasiums, the advocate of one or other of 
which was as constant to the front hall as the 
umbrella-stand, and would remain there coupling 
suggestively behind one black-gloved hand (the other 
being bare, for the purx>ose of signing receipts), until 
he got the money : if females, these locusta stormed 
the study, and obtained still larger donations, partly 
because of their importunity, and partly because my 
father went in bodily fear of them. They were 
always in deepest mourning, and their temperament 
and demeanour was what is described in certain 
sectarian circles as ' cheerful ' — ^perhaps the dreariest 
and most unsatisfactory state in which the elderiy 
female mind (and it is capable of much despair) can 
possibly be plunged. 

His enjoyment of the confidence of his fellow- 
citizens compelled my parent to appear upon all sorts 
of platforms in the advocation of innumerable causes, 
each of which he gave the public to understand would 
be found engraven upon his heart after his decease — 
a metaphor, I believe, borrowed from Queen Maiy in 
connection with the town of Calais, but which he had 
used so often as to imagine it original, and to become 
excessively indignant if it was adopted by anybody 
else. A second image, itself also by no means novel, 
concerning a light-house, a tempest, and a ship in 
difficulties, formed the bone o{ contention between 
himself and another eloquent gentleman of our town ; 
and when either of them anticipated his rival by 
making use of it, the other always left the meet- 
ing with precipitation, as though outraged by the 
invasion of a vested right. My good father would 



226 



CHAMBEBS'S JOURNAL. 



have died fuller of yean, although not of honoura, 
bat for the importance of his position, which he 
thought necessitated his presence at pablio dinnen. 
Lnkewann dishes and inferior wines cannot be per- 
sisted in for years with impunity; nor can the same 
toasts, the same songs, and the same stereotyped 
falsehoods which accompany those awful banquets be 
long listened to without detriment ; he died, as might 
well have been expected, of a combination of gout in 
the stomach and water in the brain. 

Once, and once only, have /been ever asked to pat 
my name to a subscription list; the indefatigi^le 
Miss Macgurgoyle had the temerity to ask me to 
make one of a party of benevolent persons interested 
in clothing the Caffires. I drew her out (with my 
cheque-book in my hand) upon that interesting subject 
for four hours, and then, under the title of * A Friend 
of Civil and Beligious Liberty all over the World,* 
subscribed ninepence in coppers, with a proviso that 
the money should be spent in procuring goloshes, 
solely, llie dear lady has gone about ever sinoe 
proclaiming me a low and sordid person, without proper 
pride, or the least sense of what is due to society, and 
thus confers npon me the most inestimable benefits. 
It is so very hard to get yourself quite dear of the 
Ladder without some such external help: I had 
thought myself perfectly onhsmpered in that respect 
until Miss Macgurgoyle's application undeceived me ; 
like the Turkish bath, which manifests one's self to be 
by no means immaculate, although in our own opinion 
86ap and water had previously made one as white as 
the driven snow, or nearly so. 

However, as for my being invited to uppeat upon 
any public platform, it is just as likely that a 
national subscription should be entered upon for 
idacing my statue during my lifetime in West- 
minster Abbey. Not only am I exempt from 
Public Dinners, but I also run no risks of humi- 
liation in endeavouring to get invited to the private 
tables of the Best, or other Circles. Far less am I 
to be found, like hundreds of my less fortunate fellow- 
creatures, upon landings of stairs and in draughty 
passag^, waiting (but not paid for waiting, like the 
white-tied professionals) at the entrances of drawing- 
rooms, wherein the diversions of dancing and drink- 
ing sherry and hot water are being carried on: 
dippers and dressing-gown are the only wear for me 
after 9 p.m.; whereas, if I were in society, a pair of 
light and shining boots, and a costume distressingly 
magnificent, would about that hour reward me for the 
labours of the day. Nobody, therefore, ever beheld 
me solenmly circulating my printed name— playing at 
paper-chase with nobody after me— in return for the 
above hospitalities; and you might leave a card upon 
me, with all its four comers turned down, without 
thereby communicating to my mind the slightest 
information. 

If I smoked, which I do not happen to do— not at 
all because the habit is disrespectable, but because it 
makes me sick— I might smoke in the street, I know, 
without the slightest remonstrance from the most 
fastidious of my friends; and I stop to look and laugh 
at Punch, and play tunes with my stick upon the 
area railings with the unchecked abandon of boyhood. 
When the wind blows boisterously, and all men with 
the least pretensions to fashion are holding on to their 
top-heavy hats (pressed down upon their foreheads 
although those already be, and indenting the same 



I 



with a bar of rsd flesh), I stroll about.the streets in a 
Glengarry cap, and defy the elements. In vain does 
my tailor, with an enthusiasm deserving of a better 
customer, dilate upon any garment of discomfort as 
being the Howard, the Cavenduh, or the MontmortncL 
In vain does my hair-cutter adjure me by his waxen 
gods to purchase the Balm of Jehoshaphat, so popular 
with the aristocracy and the light-drs^^oon regiments. 
I am far out of the circle of pegtops, nor do I enjoy 
that status in society which emits any particular per- 
ftune ; and I find a pot of shilling bears-grease keeps 
my hair down when it is inclined to be ' feathery,* as 
satisfactorily as the best cosmetics of Shaduldam or 
the fragrantest odours of Amberabad. 

It may be said by some cavillers, that it is my igno- 
rance of what good society really is that makes me 
thus antagonistic to its conventionalities ; I reply (with 
the deepest humility and thankfulness) tiiat I am, it is 
true, entirely ignorant upon that subject, but that I 
read the papers, and therein I find recorded the 
ceremonies by which the very highest society inaugu- 
rates the introduction of its members to royalty. TbB 
neophyte must, it seems, attire himself in an antique 
costume, and one which, though he be a civiliaiv 
entails the wearing of a sword, upon which half his 
attention, at least, must be always concentrated, lest it 
get between his legs, and throw him. After infinite 
perils, he approaches the person of his sovereign, 
kneels, touches her hand with his lips, and then — ah 
then, this is how he retires. He must not leave the 
room in the fashion that Nature suggests and Beason. 
insists upon : he must walk some forty or fifty fee^ 
backwards, which not even the lowest animal conde- 
scends to do except on the application of foroe ; bu^ 
since such an e£fort would (with the sword) be quit^^ 
impossible, two gentlemen ushers, who have been per- 
forming this feat all their lives, attend him on exther* 
side, like tame elephants in chaige of a wild one^ aii& 
so see him safe out of the presence, when they reton^ 
for a fresh convoy. 

It may be urged by other objectors, that ^ium 
wholesale and unmitigated contempt for the iifisiqu 
of society savours dt affectation, since a nuda]i9 
course is alwavs open to a man of intdlect anA 
sagacity. To this I reply, in the first place, that ife 
may be open, as we are dten told the prime misis- 
terahip of England is open to the hunu)lest of oar 
fellow-subjects, but it is almost as seldom taken ; and 
in the second place, I am by no means a man of intel- 
lect and sagacitjr. Do not suppose that when I gaw 
up all social position, it was to obtain greater leisure 
for the pursuit of intellectual fame. That would 
indeed have been to have flown from filcyUa to 
Charybdis — ^which I flatter myself is not so unusual 
and far-fetched a trope as to brine xxpao. me the 
charge of being recondite and pxxfou^ in my reading 
No ; I am, if an^thina, rather bdow the average of 
mental capacity, m adcution to which m^ opinions an 
essentially vulgar and commonplace. It is tins, joined 
to the fact of my being a person of no consequence, 
which gives tiiem their value. 

For who, as yet, has ever had the chance of reading 
the opinions of such a person ? A man may be dull in 
intellectual matters — for nineteen out of tw e n t y are so 
— but he dares not publicly exhibit his dulness, sinoe 
that would diminish the importance which he piquM 
himself upon possessing in other matters. He 8ufia% 
therefore, the public writer — novelist, essayist, divins^ 
or what not — ^to say just what he believes about 'the 
common run of meiv *the majority,* *the herxl,' lp&, 
without contradiction, although he may be weU aware 
the public writer is gronly misrepresenting him and 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



227 



his friends. Now /, who hare no sort of importance 
to lime, who am influenced by nothing except the facts 
of the case, foel myself called upon to set some of these 
matten riflht. As the oi^gan of the largest constituency 
in tile world — as the representative blockhead — I claim 
to say a few wosds in behalf of my order. When the 
eioqaent speaker has said : * I put it to the most ordi- 
nary mind;' when the classical professor has scorn- 
fully TWTisrked; 'Does not every school-boy know?' 
whcoi tibe learned lecturer has witheringly inquired : 
' Need I teQ any man in this vast assemblage, how- 
ever lowly born, however humbly educateid, that 
I refer to Sardanapalus,' for instance (or some other 
person about whom the audience generally entertain a 
Tague uncertainty as to whether it is a male or a 
female), the answer up to this time has invariably been 
cheers and nothing else. I now propose, upon the part 
of * the nu»t ordmary mind,' and the others — ^that is 
to say, upon behalf of some twelve millions of the 
inhabitants of Great Britain — to say a few words that 
shall have both truth and novelty to recommend them. 
I widi, as one of themselves, to express, for the com- 
mon run of persons, what, with regard to one or two 
intellectual matters are their real feelings, which, up 
to this time, have been misrepresented by every 
book, magazine, and newsiuiper toat has attempted to 
deal with them. 

'Mitton' (f<Hr example), says a certain writer, who is 
also the greatest historian England ever saw — * Milton 
is of all oar poets the most popular with every class of 
people, old tand young; ' ana this dictum, or something 
like it, having once cone forth with regard to us poor 
ordinazy folks, has been endorsed by Sie inteUectual 
eooles. Now, the fact is, that there is no x)oet so 
insQJBEerably wearisome to us as the author of Paradise 
Jj<mL It is like a dreadful lesson (only extending to 
infinite lindts) out of EnfiMs Speaker^ and we cannot 
make op oar minds as to whether it is what we called 
m fihilnhond ' a Sunday book/ or a work of intense 
pnrfanity. Moreover, three lines out of every five 
eotifjun allusions to the classics or to ancient geo- 
l^infay, which, for all toe understand about them, 
nu^it just as well have been written in Sanscrit. I 
eonfidently affirm, that not one out of a hundred 
*H"ifln^ of us, beyond the age of seventeen, ever 
took up that immortal bard for the purpose of read- 
ae him, dnrine the whole last year of grace, 1860. 
Tms false conclusion of the historian had its origin, 
p**T*t in the disingenuousness of some of our own 
00^; he may have neard them aver (as they, alas 1 
often do), in defending themselves from the charge of 
a e gbeliu g modem p^try, that 'for their part th^ 
most oomesB that Shakspeare and Milton were enougiL 
for them;' which, indeed, they are, and more than 
ffwrn^. Perhaps they added (as they often do), 
that the modem writers were too obscure for them, 
whereas the thoughts of the old dramatist and the 
epic poet were, as is universally acknowlec^ed 
(slthoog^ I cannot imagine wherefore) like crystu in 
their jperspicoity. Now, the real truth is, if I may be 
penrntted to state it, that we detest poetry of all 
liunds, and only read religious poetry — such as that of 
the Bev. Robert Montgomery, which the critics call 
teak— imder the idea uiat we are thereby performing 
a nous, thou^ by no means pleasant du^. 

It is to this notion that Tupper's Proverbial Philo- 
tofkjf owes mudi of its gigantic success. He appears 
to «s to have something in common with Solomon — 
sMun^ this is rather vehemently denied, I under- 
steod, bv intellectual persons — and to be, after a 
fsshinn, tnblical — a sort of demi-semi-sacred writer. 
Moreover, his work may be said to be the acm6 of 
eommon-place effort, and just what any one of ua 
woold have written if we oould ; its thoughts, too, 
all lis within our reach, a fact which affords us a 
Uttle eomplacent satisfaction, such as we derive 
from ihe perusal of few other poets. It is this 
amsnuoe it oon for even the mere husk and form of 



religion . which leads us to purchase serious novels, 
sermons, lectures, prophecies, to that wholesale extent 
which makes the critics and intellectual classes stare 
so ; and to us a book like A dam Bede is welcome, not 
for its subtle delineation of character — which is throws 
away upon us — but for the pious and preaching parts of 
it, to wtiich we are accustomed, and which we can fully 
comprehend. Similarly, when, under the designation 
of ' all men,' * the whole world,' * even the most illite- 
rate,' and other titles to which we are well accustomed, 
we ordinary folks are set down as admirers of the 
Spectator y of HaaaeiaSj Prince of Abyssinia, and other 
wearisome matters of that sort, written in irreproach- 
able English, the explanation is this : we never liked 
them, but at one time we placed them in our book- 
shelves for the sake of their turgid morality, which 
gave us a sort of sense of self -improvement, and the 
being drawn nigh to virtue. 

A book like Oil Bias, which we are always being 
told has been our delight for generations, we can 
in reality hardly get tmrough; the adventures are 
too brief, and too like one another; and as for 
the knowledge of human nature with which every- 
body says it teems, we know nothing of that What 
a fuss has there been made about the old archbishop 
who did not like being told that his sermons 
were getting stupid I why, of course he didn't ; and 
for my part — ^that is, for our part — I see nothing so 
wonderiul in Mr Le Sage for having recorded the 
fact. 

The same sort of remark is also applicable to 
Don Quixote, whose whole story I affirm to be 
uninteresting and ridiculous in the highest degree^ 
and which, I am certain, not one of us, since a£lee- 
oence, has ever looked into. If character- writers 
wish to be understood by us, let them name their 
dramatis persona:, so that we may know what to 
expect in their actions : such titles as Mr Waverer, 
Mr Faithful, and Mr Byeways, are to our minds alike 
sensible and characteristic ; and that reminds me to 
say ib&t John Bimyan has, in his great work, the 
Pilgrim*s Progress, combined almost all the requintes 
for acquiring popularity with the very respectable 
class to which I belong. Yet, for all that, I think if 
we were polled to-day, the great majority of us would 
be for the DainjmatCs DaxLghler, or for a still more 
modem work (not perhaps tiiought highly of by the 
Aihaueum) called Queec/iy. 

It is in vain for any person, however astute and 
talented, to contradict these statements — opposed, 
though I am well aware they are, to received 
opinions — ^for I am at the heart of the matter, and he 
can only regard it from without. Nay, the more 
talented he is, the less chance he has of knowing what 
/know. 

A clever author lately took the pains to collect 
the whole of the penny periodicals — some of which 
enjoy a circulation of a quarter a million a week 
— and to read through a specimen number of 
each. The excessive sameness of the stories; the 
absence of humour from all of them; the moral 
platitudes ; the sirigular jumble of profane and sacred 
things: these seem to have astonished his powerful 
intellect to an extreme degree. They would not, how- 
ever, have astonished me m the least. The informa- 
tion I have given elucidates the matter not a little ; 
it ia entirely to be depended upon, and would be 
corrobOTatcd by any one of us in question, if he also 
chanced, like me, to be a person of no social conse- 
quence. This is, however, so very rarely the case with 
* ordinary' people, that my own circumstances may 
be said to be almost unique. Feeling this, I have 
thou^t it my duty to come forward, and put ourselves 
right upon one or two points with the literary and 
other Worlds. I may have been presumptuous-— 
although I cannot have been mistaken — and laid 
myself open to all sorts of censure in the way of style 
and composition, but that is a matter of the SBOit 



complete indifference to me: the whole ntlue of 
my opinions consists in the fact of their having no 
weight, and the main importance of my statement 
in the circumstance of my not being of the slightest 
consequence. 

UNDERSEA TELEGRAPHS. 

A Discussion on the Maintenance and Durability of 
Submarine Cables lately occupied four evenings at 
the Institution of Civil Engineers ; and even during 
that period it was found impossible to notice the 
effect of temperature upon wires, the comparative 
advantages of screw and paddle steamers in laying 
and repairing cables, and other important circum- 
stances which affect this complicated problem. The 
two great points, however, wnich mamly affect the 
question were much dwelt upon : first, the necessity 
of thoroughly surveying a route before laying down a 
cable ; and second, the application of some exterior 
protective covering for cables in aU waters — shallow 
and otherwise. 

The old surveys and sounding were perhaps suffi- 
cient for the purposes of navigation, but they are 
quite inadequate for the submergence of a telegraph. 
The mean mterval of such soundings in deep water 
was, it seems, twenty miles. Now, on the Valen- 
tia side of the Atlantic, there has been ascer- 
tained to be a dip of 7200 feet in ten miles, and 
near the east coast of Greenland of 3468 feet in three 
miles ; while the recent examinations of the proposed 
line from this country to Labrador, shew that near 
Icdand there is a series of abrupt elevations and 
depressions at short intervals, producing a saw-like 
surface composed of volcanic rock, which never loses 
its abrasive chimMster. In selecting a route for a 
submarine telegraph, *deep water should be avoided, 
wherever that is possible, even if a considerable 
detour has to be made. In a depth of 100 fathoms, 
a cable is bevond the reach of attrition, and as 
little likely to be injured as when laid at a depth of 
200 or 300 fathoms; whilst it can be repaired 
almost as easily as if it lay in water 30 or 40 fathoms 
deep. The nature of the bottom is most important, 
as where rough ground and rocks exist, the cable 
can not be grappled. To ascertain this correctly, 
the use of the soundins-lead alone is not sufficient ; 
a mushroom anchor, wnich will brinff up a bucketful 
of the surface material, and occasionuly deep-pronged 
srapnels, ought to be employed. The line should be 
divided into short sections, ol sav 100 miles in length ; 
for although it might be possible to '* work'' through 
500 or 10(X^ miles, yet when one section is damaged, 
the consequences are more serious. 

The submarine cables for shallow waters are four : 
1. The hempen cable ; 2. Galvanised iron ; 3. Unpro- 
tected iron cable ; 4. Iron cable with protective 
covering. The first is commonly destroyed by aln»- 
sion in a veiy few days. The second is durable when 
buried in mud or sand, but if exposed to the free 
action of the tide, it is liable to corrode. It possesses, 
however, a durability of about three years over Na 3, 
but after that period the zinc senerally disappears. 
Indeed, all undersea cables, whether galvanised or 
not, are subject to corrosion ; a defect supposed to 
result from l3rinff upon protrudui^ veins of copper ore, 
or other matenal electro-negative with respect to 
iron. The first cable laid b^ween Hurst Castle and 
the Isle of Wight, five or six years since, became so 
deeply corroded in eighteen months that a ship's 
anchor broke it. This was replaced by a smaller 
cable, which did not last a year, and subsequently by 
a third of stronger construction, and that is now being 
superseded by a fourth cable. 

Submarine telegraphs have foes more numerous and 
insidious than other marine creatures of the eel 
species. * It frequently happens, in repairing a cable, 



that on the surface of the gutta-percha there is found 
a small lump, a little hole, or a piece blown out, as if 
burned b^ a fiash of lightning. These effects have 
been attributed to lightning. On the other hand, it 
IB contended that the great enemy in the working of 
a cable is ozone. When the smallest pimcture admits 
the least drop of water in connection with the cable, 
the decomposition which takes place generates ozone, 
which is known to attack, in a rapid manner, all inor- 
ganic substances like india-rubber or gutta-percha. 
As to the comparative merits of india-rubber and 
gutta-percha as insulating materials, the electrical 
qualities of the former have been proved to be far 
superior to the other; and the only thing wanting 
to justify the use of india-rubber for long deep-sea 
cables, is positive proof of its durability.' 

The submarine cables laid in 1852 for connecting 
Hampshire with Hurst Castle, and also crossing the 
Yarmouth River in the Isle of Wight, were coated 
wiUi india-rubber, which is now as good and durable 
as when first laid down. The great thing needed for 
a submarine telegraph, is continual attention ; nor does 
there seem any reason why cables should not be 
taken up, examined, and repaired periodically, and 
the communication preserved uninjured for an almost 
indefinite period. At present, however, we are far 
enough from any such satisfactory consummation. 
Deep-sea cables will rarely bear much lifting; and 
that between Toulon and Algiers is considcrea excep- 
tionally tensile, which permitted itself, upon the 
occurrence of a * kink,' in its paying-out, to be hauled 
back for three miles out of water 1600 fathoms deep. 
The cable in question had an outside covering of 
hemp and steel, like the more celebrated Rangoon, 
one, with which more pains has been taken than per- 
haps any other of its snaky sisterhood. One of th» 
chief causes of failure, is the neglecting to thorotu^y 
test cables under water before they are deposited in. 
the ocean. ' In the Bangoon case, a complete recordL 
was obtained of the copper and gutta-percha resist- 
ances of each mile of cable, so that when the core wa» 
joined together, it was possible to detect the slightest 
defect, 'miich, if allowed to pass, might afterwards 
develop itsdlf into a fault. Moreover, in laying th^ 
cable, or afterwards, any decrease of the insulatiozB. 
was at once known. It was orisinally intended thaC^ 
the Bangoon cable should never Te&ve the water ; thafe 
it should be kept in tanks during the process otS 
manufacture, and be payed-out from tanks into th0 
sea. As, however, the taiiks could not bear the ffreat; 
pressure, the cable became exposed to atmospoerio 
influences. It was soon observed, that there. was • 
decrease of insulation, indicating a considerable 
increase of temperature. Subsequently Uiis became 
so great, that it was necessary to test tne temperature 
of the coil of cable in eveiy part. For tiiis porpoee 
a peculiar thermometer was used, constructed upon 
the principle of the resistance of copper wire to the 
eleciaic current, or tube of metaL J n coiling the 
cable on board, several of these thermometers were 
inserted at different layers of the coiL When tested, 
after being on board only one week, it was discovered 
that a spontaneous generation of heat had taken 
place, and that the heat developed itself unequaUy 
throughout the mass, the highest temperature odng 
about 3 feet below the upper surface of the coiL A 
large quantity of water, at a temperature of 42* 
Fahrenheit, was poured upon the cable, and this was 
observed to issue from the bottom of the hold at 72* 
Fahrenheit. This occurrence seemed to shew, that 
other cables, more particularly the Atlantic cable, 
which had been coiled on board wet, might have been 
ruined from the same cause. If the heating had been 
allowed to continue a few days longer, the guita- 

Sercha would have been softeneo, and the ooppo^oon- 
uctor would have become eccentric to the insulating 
materiaL It was considered probable, that this 
generation of heat was due to fennen t ation o£ the 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



229 



hemp covering, whilst it had also been attributed 
simzxly to the rusting of the iron.* 

Notwithstanding all this scientific care, indeed, it is 
the opinion of engineers that the Rangoon cable 
cannot last more than three or four years, even under 
the most favourable circumstances, and if repairs are 
required, that it will be foimd too decayed to bear 
lifting ; and it seems to be a matter to be greatly 
resretted that this cable, after being designed to connect 
Fumouth with Gibraltar, should have its destination 
changed to so much warmer a climate, since the 
electrical conductivity of gutta-percha is greatly 
increased, and its insulation impaired by heat 

The fatlnres of deep-sea tele^phy have been 
indeed, and are, exceedingly disheartening. That 
which now lies, ghost-like, at the bottom of the Red 
Sea, and of no earthly advantage to any odc except the 
zoophytes, who are said to be closely attached to it, 
cost the pubHc thirty-six thousand pounds a year. 
The Great Atlantic cable conveyed, we understand, 
only a ain^ complete message from the Old World to 
the New, and then began to babble isolated words — 
for want of insulation. One Lieutenant Somebody, in 
London, who was a shareholder, even went about 
declaring that no message was ever sent by the telegraph 
at all, but went over to America in the usual course 
of post. We believe this was a scandal, but it certainly 
did seem strange that a single interchange of civility 
between the Queen and President shouldhave arrived 
at each end so fortunately without the loss of a word ; 
and that the poor cable should have so immediately 
afterwards turned idiotic At all events, Hioae 
messages cost considerably more than a quarter of a 
million, which appears to be a good deal of money for 
a coople of compliments. 

' The details of the Atlantic cable,* say the men of 
science, 'were arranged before anything was practically 
known about deep-sea cables; but it was designed 
n^n enhghtened principles, and perhaps could be 
laid at the present day with the probability of 
enduring, although the conductor, owing to its snudl 
sixe, would not enable the same rate of working to 
be- attained- that is now possible. Great mistakes 
were, however, made in organismg the undertaking — 
ike radical fault being the precipitale manner in which 
Uie conirada toere let, precluding any preliminary 
practical experiments. The laying of the cable ought 
also to have been postponed. The Red Sea cable was 
anoiher instance in which a disastrous waste of public 
money had its origin in causes entirely apart from 
seisntific difficulties. After the concession had been 
purchued, it was found that, owing to a complication 
of anatigements, the directors had also acquired an 
engineer abd a contractor ; that, practically, the form 
of caUe wiu decided upon ; and that little remained 
for the hoard to do but to pay.' Some of the chief 
eanses of the failure of telegraphy do really, therefore, 
'seem to fall rather within the scope of the mondist 
and the man of the world than of the man of science.' 
If a telesraph could be established to-morrow between 
tfaiB earu and the very purest of the heavenly bodies, 
people would be found to make a job of it At the 
meeting of engineers to which we referred at the 
hywnmg of this pai)er, it was made abundantly 
evident unat 'there were, in electric telegraphy, other 
eonsiderfttions beyond scientific knowledge and mecha- 
nical skill, and those "who had to deal with the subject 
must be prepared to cope with difficulties arising 
frtRn other and far different causes. A piece of cable 
on the table was an instance in point ; it was taken 
from a line laid between England and the continent 
for the International Telegraph Company. It con- 
tained four conducting- wires ; and whilst the cable was 
coiled, the whole acted perfectly ; but when it was laid, 
only three of the wires were cajutble of performing 
thetr duty. The contractors expended a large sum in 
meffiMtoal attempts to raise the cable, and to discover 
the cause of tiie uilure, during a stormy season. On 



the return of propitious weather, they were more 
successful, and they then discovered that a nail had 
been very skilfully inserted into tiie cable, in such a 
maimer as to destroy the action of one wire. A person 
who had been on board during the submersion of the 
cable, at length confessed that he had been in the pay 
of other parties ; had, at their instigation, sought for 
employment under the contractors ; and had, imder 
instruction, inserted the nail I ' 

From the iiourish of trumpets that is being so 
incessantly sounded concerning the progress of Science, 
the public are apt to imagine that we Uve in a much 
more successful age than we really do. They will be 
astonished to learn, that two-thirds of the speculations 
involving submarine telegraphs have been up to this 
date gigantic failures. Upwards of 9000 miles of cable 
have Deen laid down, of which 6000 miles are now 
almost utterly useless. Nevertheless, the successful 
lines comprise some thirty undertakings, which have 
been at work for many years, and some of which have 
been laid in very deep water ; while their cables have 
cost an inconsideraole percentage in maintenance 
since submersion. Comparing, therefore, these facts of 
failure and success together, it seems likely enough 
that, though there may be much lamentable want 
of knowledge, and great practical errors, ti^e present 
deplorable state of submarine telegraphy cannot be 
referred to these mainly; the obstacles to success 
have been more of a moral than of a mechanical 
nature. There has been imderhand-work under Ihe 



sea. 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

CHAFTXa XXIX.— ▲ DASOSBOUS PROPOSITIOV. 

Mr Tredoold*s caravan was more difficult of 
entrance upon the night of poor Tickerocandua's 
death than it had ever oeen before. Dick's proprietor 
even proposed to that yoimg gentleman (through the 
shutter) that their conversation should be earned on 
as in that scene of Romeo and Juliet where one 
occupies a post of vantage, and sentimentalises out 
of the winctow; but the youth would by no means 
consent to this. 

•What I have got to say is for your private ear, 
Mr Tredgold, and is of some importance to us both.' 
So the patron of lion-tamers undid bolt, and bar, and 
chain with lingering fingers, and when the young 
man was admitted, refastened them with excessive 
precipitation. 

' One cannot be too careful,' observed Mr Tredgold, 
'with such an awful example before us as has 
happened this day. It is a lesson against foolhardi- 
ness that oud^t to last every man (3 us throughout 
our lives. How I have warned and warned that 
poor fdlow Robinson not to be so rash, no mortal 
can tell.' 

Dick bethought himself of the ten-pound premium 
offered to ' poor Robinson ' the preceoin^ evening for 
every new mck, and began to aespise his proprietor 
very heartily ; and yet there was little or no cause 
for his indignation. Mr Tredgold had warned the 
deceased Lion-tamer again and again, and it was 
against his express orders that the tigress had been 
meddled with while the food was before her eyes. 
Blame of a very serious nature, too, was likely to attach 
itself to the owner of the beast for what had happened, 
and he was naturally anxious to make his own case 
good to whomsoever he could. Besides, although De 
morhtis nil nisi honum is an excellent sentiment in 
irreproachable Latin, there is a temptation for minds 
not absolutely magnanimous to shift the burden of 
tiieir faults ux)on shoulders that are better able to 
bear it; and what shoulders can be more adapted for 
that purpose than those of a dead man ? 

* For my part,' continued Mr Tredgold testily, ' I 
foxgive him from the bottom of my soul; although, 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



after what has happened, I may just aa well shut up 
my establishment, and take to uie workhouse.' 

'He didn't get killed on purpose,' observed Dick 
bitterly; 'I saw the whole oocuneooe myself, and 
oan assure you of that' 

*You are wronging me. Arbour,' returned Mr 
Tredflold with some dignity. 'Heaven knows I 
woula have gladly sacrifioed five hundred pounds to 
have securedthat tmhappy man's safety. If he has 
any relative at this moment living who has any 
cuam. upon him, I ' 

'What a mercy,' exclaimed Mrs Tredgold, enter- 
ing the apartment a little hastily at this juncture — 
'vniat a mercy it is that that poor chap has left 
neither chick nor child behind him I There 's always 
a something to comfort one, even under the worst 
circumstances; leastways, it is so with most people, 
although Mr Tredgold and me, it seems, are like to 
be T^e exceptions. You don't know what Mr 
Robinson was to us. Arbour, and therefore cannot 
fully appreciate his loss. We looked upon him more 
like a brotiier than as one in our employ, I do assure 
vou; and now,' sobbed the lady, putting her pocket- 
handkerchief to her eyes — ' and now he is sono away 
from us for erer, and a matter of three hundred a 
year along with lum.' 

' Ay,' aSded Mr Tred^nld, 'and such a name as we 
should have made if it nad only happened, say next 
week, or the day after to-morrow. Dut now, nere'q 
the Queen herself a-oominff to look at us, and nothing 
to shew her but Ninus ana them loppeting elephants. 
I must let Mopes ^ve her his lecture, I do believe; 
and yet if he isn't m a ffood temper, as is like enough, 
he wul abuse the poor dumb creeturs — ^just as thoi^ph 
they were his property — so as it makes my blood 
quite boil to listen to him. She has got the pro- 
granm:ie, too — gUt letters upon white satin, Dick — 
with all poor Robinson's new tricks upon it, and 
nobody to so through with theuL After what has 
happened, if it sets abroad, maybe they will not let 
us exhibit at alL I have half a mind to ^ down to 
the police myself, and insist on their stonpmg us.' 

' We must be at the castle by five,' ooeerved Dick 
musing, ' if we mean to get everything ready by the 
afternoon. She's as punctual, they say, as clook- 
work.' 

' There 's nothing tocet ready,' returned Mr Tred- 

gold despairingly. 'Wno will care to look at them 
ons witn never a man to shew them off? ' 

'What would you give, if a man was found to 
venture his life and go in among them?' inquired 
Dick carelessly. 

' What would I give?' returned the proprietor with 
animation. 'I'd give anything; that is to say, any- 
thing in moderation. I 'd give a ten-pound note.' 

' niat was the sxmi you offered for each trick to a 
man who had been with those creatures more than 
four thousand times before.' 

'Ay, for tricks; but just for going among them 
and standing there — why, it 's the easiest thing in tilio 
worid, my good ^oung man. There is no real Sancer ; 
none whatever, if you only keep up a bold front. It 's 
the meddling with them — it's the forcing them to 
pretend to go a-hunting as them lions don't like ; it 's 
the hoop-business that riles them, bless you. But as 
to just going in and staring at 'em, why, my dear 
younj^ sir, the power of the human eye is such' 

'Very well, then,' interrupted Dick; 'if that be 



the case, I think we can manage the matter. You 
and I will go together into the cages.' 




down first upon this here table the whole of the 
National Debt in golden guineas. I feel wet — ^positively 
wet with perspiration, sir, at the very notion of it. 
A pretty thing, indeed, for me to be swallowed up in 
the presence of my rightful sovereign I ' 



' But I thou^t you said it was so easy,' reasoned 
Dick, 'and that there was scarcely any real danger 
in it.' 

' So it is,' repeated the unabashed proprieto r — 'so it 
is, for any pecson that is any way used to them. I 
have never liad anything to do with lions myself, as 
you have had. The cockatoos are my favourites. I 
don't mind tiie cockatoos or the marmosets; but my 
nerves — ^I give you my honour — are so wngnlariy 

constituted with respect to the larger animMS 

Gxaoious mercy, what in the world is that ? ' 

A savage 'limine — a whine of a hundred horse- 
power — ranff through the apartment, and froze tiie 
current of Mr Tredgold's speech. 

'It's only the tigress — ^it's only Semiramis,' 
explained Inok with coolness. 'They have taken 
away her supper to-night in punishment, and she is 
complaining of it a little : that 's alL A ten-pound 
note, it seems, is the price you consider reasonable for 
making her aoquaintuioe to-morrow.' 

'I said fifteen,' replied Mr Tredgold hastUy; 'and 
if I didn't say fifteen, I meant iL Fifteen for 

Sem What a fearful tantrum she is in I Do, 

pay, let somebody eive her her supper, or she'll 
be out. Fifteen for the tigress, and toi for the liona. 
One pound a minute for merely standing atall, Mr 
Arbour: what do you think of Uiatf^ 

' A pound for the fint minute, and the rest of the 
money jtaid to my executors,' replied Dick drily: 
' what do yon think of OuUf^ 

'And a hundred a year, if you take to the bustneas, 
and teach a trick or two,' added Mr Tredgold, as if 
the intervening remark had not been made. 

' listen to me one moment,' replied Dick gmvely. 
' I came here to-nieht with a certain purpose in my 
nund, whii^ iiiartp«iBaui-«iid ycmn&^^^ 
any — ^would ooosider a mad one. What has uzge^ 
me to take it is no affair of yours, nor is it your dut^ 
to dissuade me from an enterprise for which I cost-' 
sider myself fully capable. Look upon my proposal- 
simply mmi a business point of view, and then ezths^ 
accept it or reject itb 1 offer myself to fill Tickero— 
candua's place before the Queen to-morrow; and C 
take advantsce of a pressing emergency and ai^ 
unpreoedented occasion to demand better tenns tomr 
myself than I oould have otherwise procured. I ask^ 
if I shall be successful to-morrow, the same aDnnaB. 
hioome of two hundred pounds which you promiaeS 

to your deceased servant Staj, let me qteak U> 

the end — ^if otherwise, I shall require only a grave iia. 
Windsor churchyard by the side of my dead friend. 
Let the posters and aavertiBements remain, as th^ 
run now, in Tiokerocandua's name. I will not di»- 
flrace it by any jmsillanimous conduct; while, if I 
oie, I shall do no worse than he has done. I know 
the nature of the creatures with whom I have to 
deal as well, if not better than he did, and I lolly 
comprehend the means whereby their obedience is 
secured.' 

'But the tricks?' expostulated Mr Tredgidd, aghast 
at the audacity of the proposition, but by no means 
blind to the advantues which it held fwtiL 'You 
will surely never do the tricks? ' 

'/ shau not, but the animals will,' replied Dick 
decisively. ' Semiramis will perfbim her part in the 
new drama to-morrow, or tnere will be an element 
introduced into the performance of a very tagic 
character, you may take my word for it.' 

'I tell you what, young Arbour,' exclaimed Mrs 
Tredgold with quite a bmst of enthusiasm, ' I wish 
you was a son it my own, I do indeed ; although, I 
suppose, if I had happened to have had one, he 
wouldn't have made this offer of £[oing among the 
animals, the feeling against lions being doubtless an 
hereditary jnejndioe. If I was indeed your mother, 
I 'd say this instant: " Qo; go and distinguish yourself 
before your suffering monarch ; " but being only, as 
it were your guardian, I say : " No; stop a bit; vunk 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



231 



the mafcter to-night. Don't take up the thing 
Tmtdj and in a huny ; but if in the morning, you are 
of the same brave mind, why " ' 

Dick was touched by this unexpected tenderness 
on the part of his mistress, and took her hand in his. 

'Why, it certainly would be a first-rate opening 
lor a young man,' added Mr Tredfold in conclusion. 

< Stuff and nonsense I ' retorted his spouse. ' Let 
the young man choose for himself, and do not lure 
him on to what may chance to be his destruction. 
Let his Uood be at least upon his own head, and not 
onooiiL' 

Mb Tiedgold was quite in a virtuous glow of 
disinterestedness by this time. When selfish per- 
MDS do make a self-denying proposition, and find 
it duly appreeiated, there is often no knowing where 
tbey wm stopu 1^ Tredgold began with reason to 
be alaxmed* 

' You pig-beaded old she-unicorn' he began, as 

usual 

'Don't be ansry,' interrupted Dick with a grave 
smile, *yoa need not fear that your sood wife will 
chaqge m^ pnrpoee. I have quite made up my mind 
as to takms; poor Robinson's place, and to-morrow 
moming wul not alter it. Two hundred a year, 
then, aie the terms you agree to, Mr Tredgold ? ' 

*■ Two hundred a year ! reiterated that gentleman, 
caetxng im his hands. ' Why, you are a gentleman 
made. What a tremendous income I ' 

' Three hundred a year is, however, a still greater 
one,' responded Dick quietly. ' You will clear that 
non of money after all, your wife herself allowed.' 

Mr Tredgold threw a glance at his consort which 
pQvtended squalls and stormy for the matrimonial 
uyrameter of that night. 

• And then consider the Queen,' added Dick. ' What 
a poeilion would you have been placed in when the 
hour for the lion-hunt arrived to-morrow, without any 
Lion-hunter ! ' 

' The orown of feathers and the new leopard-skin 
■hall both be yours ! ' exclaimed the proprietor with a 
gash of generosity. ' Some persons would consider it 
reward sufficient to be permitted to appear before 
their monarch in a costume so unique and splendid.' 

*Yoa wouldn't have me put on evening-dress,' 
leqponded Dick sardonically ; ' people go out to dine 
ia that, but not to be dined upon.' 

' Don't talk of such a thing,' replied Mr Tredgold 
evneatly ; ' don't mention it acain — ^there 's a good 
SsUow. Now that it is all settkd, I feel quite sorry 
that you are going to risk it. I didn't force your 
jiKslinations, however, in any away, did I, Arbour? 
We are veiy good friends, are we not, Dick ? Now, 
do say thaC It would be so very much more com- 
tottalue to me to think that in case anything should 
happen; although there is not the least chance of 
such a tfamff — humanly speaking — not the least. You 
will be peitectly certam to fasten the cage-doors after 
yon, thej/irti thing, will you ? Poor Robinson was always 
esoeedingly careful about making sure of them. If any 
cf the creatures got by you ' 

• Or over me,' suggested Dick smiling. 

• Yes, or over you,' continued Mr T?edgold simply, 
'sad out of the cage among the people, you would 
never forgive yourself, I 'm sure.' 

' I daresay not,' returned Dick dnly. 

'Consider, my dear sir, that her Majesty herself 
mig^t be imperiled ; that, in such a case, it would be 
fliy duty, my privilege, as the proprietor of this esteb- 
liahment, to step in and interfere, and that my nerves 
mighi fail me. The personal safety of the sovereign — 
the stability of the very government of the country — 
are in a manner, Richard Arbour, placed to-morrow 
m your hands.' 

• I will do my best, sir,' returned Dick quietly ; 
'and Tickerocandua himself could have done no 



With these words, and after a hearty shake of the 



hand from his proprietor and proprietress, the young 
man retired to seek that repose which was so needfid 
a preparation for the morrow's work. Sle^, however, 
rdtused to visit him. Though the body of his dead 
friend had been removed in the meantime from the cara- 
van, everything in the apartment reminded him of him 
who had peruued in that very walk of life wherein 
his own feet were now set so stubbornly. When his 
thoughte escaped from that dread companionship^ 
they fied to subjecte equally engrossing, if less painfm. 
The lovely form of Lucjr TViickfeham mtted to and fro 
before his eyes, intangible and unapproachable. It 
was for her sake, or rather for his own sake as 
respected her, that he had accepted the hazardous post 
which had offered itself to him ^tiat evening after so 
terrible a fashion. As second Butcher, he could not 
even bring himself to let her know his degraded 
calling ; as the Lion-tamer of Central Africa, despito 
the exceeding ludicrousness of the situation, there 
was a nobility in ite personal peril which would rescue 
it, in her eyes, as he fondly hoped, ^m shame. 

The income was not despicable, and his sanguine 
mind already looked forward to ite increase. He 
knew how valuable his self-teught knowledge of the 
natures and constitutions of the beasts with which he 
had to deal had been and would be to his proprietor ; 
how well he could advise him — and his advice would 
now be sought for in the first instance — as to what 
animals should be purchased and at what price, and 
what were failing to * draw,' and should be disposed 
of. He had already, through an unforeseen and 
deplorable accident, adiieved a position which was, in 
a pecuniary point of view, a really good one. There 
was surely a far less unlikely diance of ite future 
improvement. A partnership with Mr Tredgold, 
and in the end a sleeping-partnership — a retire- 
ment upon a competency — such were the visions 
of promise that filled the young man's mind, xmd 
induced him to adopt one of the most perilous modes 
of life that ever fell to the lot of mortal Thev were 
indeed nothing in themselves, but what a brignt and 
shining goal tney led to. £ach success, each amend- 
ment m his fortunes, would be to him as so many 
refreshing halting-places upon his toilsome road 
towards the hand of Lucy Mickleham. How long^ 
how steep that might be, was not now to be consider^ 
— ^he had onljr just set foot upon it, and there waa 
nothing for him but to trudge steadilv on without 
murmuring ; only, lus mind's eve, overlooking every 
obstacle — arduous steep, and bridgeless river, and 
windings and turnings of the road innumerable— fixed 
itself not unhopefully upon the journey's end. 

On the other hand, Richard Arbour was by no 
means blind to the Quixotic character of his under- 
taking. He was well aware, if even the best possible 
good-iortune should happen to him in the quickest 
time, if still yoime and unharmed, and comparatively 
wealthy, he shoula come to demand his wife's reward 
from good Mr Mickleham, that Lucy might still be 
withheld from him by her prudent father. He 
could not conceal from himself that the nature of 
his previous occupation (that of a mere gladiator 
kept for the amusement of the public, and who 
risked his life hourly among savage beaste for gain) 
would militete |X)werfully, and perhaps fatally against 
him, not only with the steaidy-going old man of 
business, but with his son — a man, perhaps, not less 
sensitive to the opinion of the world, and alive to 
social prejudices, lor all lus personal sagacity, and 
keen sense of the weaknesses of others. Richard 
Arbour, who had once sat at respecteble men's feoste 
himself, and heard beUs chime to church, and helped 
to fill a family-pew, was not unaware of what Society 
would have to say, in the event of an ex-lion tamer of 
Central Africa soliciting the hand of a lady connected 
with an eminent commercial firm. Society and he had 
had not a few personal combats already, which had 
resulted, as usual, in the complete victory of that 



232 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



amazoxL Dick was hoping almost against hope — ^poor 
fellow — but still he was hoping ; nay, before slumber 
Yisit^ his eyes that night, he was doing somethiiu; 
better — he was praying. Society will be astonished, 
and probably rfiocked to hear it. He was praj^inc for 
' succour, help, and comfort' against the danger of the 
morrow; adopting phrases out of the Litany, just as 
though he had been in the habit of paying tithe and 
church-rate, and had a perfect risht to use them. He 
thought— rather Ulogically, pemaps, and certainly 
with no hesitation as to whether the passage he 
metaphorical or otherwise— of him who fought with 
the wild beasts at Ephesus, and was yet preserved. 
The Book which his dear dead mother had given to 
him was in his possession yet, ^m which an equal 
comfort flows to lion-tamer and churchwarden. Per- 
haps her sainted soul was cognizant of what her son 
was humbly doing that night, and a joy was thereby 
added to the happiness of Heaven. Albeit, Society, 
with a shudder that ruffles her crinoline, apprehends 
not, and trusts in her heart of hearts — ^her whale- 
bone of whalebones — that ' a line will be drawn some- 
where* even (here. 

CHAFTEB XXX. 
BXFOmX TBI QUISV. 

The Romans of old were scarcely less gratified and 
astonished in the persons of their commissioners of 
the pavinff, when that ugly gulf across the Forum was 
closed up oy the self-sacrifice of Marcus Curtius — that 
first mounted Volunteer — ^than were Mr Tredgold's 
company when they heard that Tickerocandua*8 vacant 
post of danger was to be filled by Dick. Mixed 
with their gratification, indeed, there was some 
apprehensions for his safety — for Dick was a public 
favourite — but these were not so strong as to over- 
power the desire of seeing a young gentleman in com- 
pany with lions for the hrst time. Mr Mopes shook 
tils nead, and only hoped the thing would turn out 
well for so bold a lad. Mr Bairman rubbed his 
sansuinary hands, and observed drily, that the a£Eair 
womd be mterestine in any case. Everybody thought 
it the acme of foofiiardiness that Dick should ti^t 
himself with Semiramis after what had so recently 
occuired, especially, too, as Mr Tredgold himseu 
declared sucn a risk to be quite unnecessary, and the 
ordinary entertainment of the establishment amply 
sufficient ; but Dick, since he had put his hand to 
the work, was determined to ' go the whole tigress,' 
and nothme less. His interview with that lacfy and 
Ajax, in their new drama, was to conclude, and his 
lion-hunt in Central Africa to commence the enter- 
tainment, with a space between the two of some half- 
hour, during which the other curiosities of the mena- 
gerie were to be exhibited. The caravans were 
arranged in a semicircle, with the ca|a^ of the 
Fdinoi in the centre, of which her Maiesty could 
command an uninterrupted view from the opposite 
bank of the courlyard. The sloping green-sward 
which surrounded the enclosure on all ndes was filled 
with spectators both numerous and select. Her 
Majesty, who, of course, defrayed the whole expenses, 
had, with her usual thoughtfulness, invited such of 
the Eton boys as chose to come to be witnesses of it. 
They clustered around the scene of attraction like 
bees, nor could they be prevented from tickling the 
noses and pulling the tails of aU such animals as 
incautioui^ lay within reach of their nimble fingers. 
The new l^ckerocandua of course was kept in retire- 
ment until the moment for action should arrive. 
He had preferred to have no rdiearsal of the rdle he 
was about to play, but to call upon the aniwuLlw to 
perform their parts while they were yet untired and 
m good temper. Whatever anxiety he might have 
been in — and it must be remembered that custom and 
knowledge had made him far more confident than 
when he had been the trembling guest of the Uoness 



— he at least betrayed none in his countenance, which 
was by no means the case with his proprietor, who 
visited his caravan for the last time before taking his 
own place at the foot of that portion of the srsssy slope 
which had b^n reserved for the Queen ana court 

* Richard Arbour,' observed he with eamestness, 
' remember that even now, at this last moment, I do 
not urge you to enter a single cage. For Heaven's 
sake, dismiss me and my interests entirely from your 
thoughts, and act only according to your own wishea 
and &elings.' 

' Thank you, sir,' returned Dick smilinff ; ' but that, 
I assure you, is exactly what I am doing. I am 
thinking entirely of mysdf and my own affiiirs.' 

He was indeed repeating 'Lucy' and 'Mageie' to 
himself alternately, as though they were diarms 
against every peril, and keeping his mind purposely 
fixed upon xm}rthing rather th^ those seven cmd 
beasts among whom the next few minutes must needs 
find him. 

'And look you, Dick,' continued Mr Tredgold 
hoarsely, and mopping his perspiring brow with his 
pocket-nandkerchief — for beside nis terror upon Dick's 
conduct, he himself had an ordeal to mideigo in his 
approaching attendance upon Majesty, the thought of 
which produced copious deliquescence — 'and look 

Qdo not hesitate to use the whip— the but-end — 
and strong, if you deem life in danger.' Ho 
added three words in a mysterious whisper. 

' Over the nose,' repeated Dick with a nave smilei 
' Yes, Mr Tredgold, I was well aware of the place 
upon which to hit them. I am no foolhardy boy, as 
some here think, but understand what I have taken 
in hand, and am fully prepared for all contingencies.' 

' They are none of tnem worth less than a hundred 
and fifty pounds,' quoth Mr Tredgold ; ' and yet I 
swear to you, that i would rather lose tiliem all than 
that you should die, Dick.' 

' I believe you, Mr Tredgold, and I thank yon. 1 
trust too, most sincerely, tlukt no such sacrifice may be 
necessary. Nevertheless, I tell you fairly that I never^ 
intended to hesitate between the loss of my own life 
and that of a wild beast' 

His tone, so respectful, yet so ind^)endent, k^- 
modest, and yet so fearless, astonished Mr Tredgold^ 
as it would have done any man who had known jDidL- 
in his former subordinate capacity. Under others,, 
and in a groove wherein original action was denied-, 
to him, Dick might have been quite easily surpasaeft. 
by those of his own age ; but now that he was in im- 
position to think and Mt for himself, there were few^ 
mdeed who would have so well acquitted themselveSr 
Dick's was one of those natures which bit and spur 
do but ruin, but which, if the rein be left loose upoifc 
the neck, rapidly devdop themselves into greatness. 
It is doubtful whether Garibaldi himself would have 
been pronounced a good soldier, if he had happened to 
have found himself m a regiment commanded liy some 
Earl of Cardigan. The Family Scapegrace is, of course, 
an always exceptio::al character, while unha^ily the 
post of lion-tamer, or other fitting situation, is excep- 
tional too, and by no means always offen itselL It 
generally, as in Dick's case, has to be sought out by 
the lad himself ; and where there is no Maggie left 
at home in that house with the shut door, nnr the 
wayward heart to turn to in its bitter moments, that 
lonely and unfriended search is too apt to be fatdL 
Between the Scap^rrace and the Scamp — ^the lire- 
claimable — the steps are perilously few, and there are 
but too many who take them at a single bound. 
There was, however, surely someti^ing of native 
nobility not altogether lost as yet in this lad's hearty 
who, on the brink of such an enterprise as his, could 
disclaim the undue imputation of magnanimity ; who 
could tell his master so ingenuously : ' This matter is 
my own affidr — a totally unheroio piece of businesBy 
undertaken for my own advantage and not yooie. 
My life, humble as it may seem, is yet ci more Tihie 









CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



233 



to me tlian any amount of property which you, sir, 
may have invested in wild animals. Do not suppose 
for a moment that I shall fall an unresisting victim 
to two or three hundred pounds' worth of teeth and 
daws.* 

Mr Tredgold regarded the young man with evident 
admiration. 'You are a right honest fellow, Dick/ 
said he : ' there is not a man in the com|)any whom I 
respect so much as I do you, and there *s my hand 
upon it. Good Heavens ! if there isn't the Queen ; I 
hear them Eton chaps a-shouting like costermongers. 
God bleM you, Dick, and deliver you, and keep you 
safe!' And off hurried Mr Tredgold, not without 
great misgivings, to the post of honour that had been 
Simst upon him. 

Dick drew on his heavy jack-boots, adjusted the 
new leopard-skin upon his stalwart shoulders, settled 
the crown ol ease's feathers upon his forehead, grasped 
his whip, and marched out of the caravan. An ani- 
mating scene was before him : his Queen and her 
nobles fonned a brilliant assemblage at no great dis- 
tance, to whom he made respectful obeisance, and a 
vast thion£ of spectators intervened, whose thousand 
eyes were fixed upon him and upon him onlv ; but he 
saw nothing of this ; his own eyes were looking upon 
two absent faces mirrored within his memory — that of 
his sister, and that of his love. A ringing cheer greeted 
him from the boys — for his gallant appearance was 
such as to call forth a cheer from aU youthful lips — as 
well as certain depreciatory remarks which school- 
boys of all ranks are prone to indulge in. ' my 
e^es, do look at his feathers — he must have been 
TBcknig a eooee ! ' * I wonder whether that is a real 
leopara*8 akin, or only a railway rug ! ' and 'I'll take 
hau-a-crown to sixpence that the lions finish him off ! * 
Mr Tred|^ld's voice, too, was distinguishable with its 
enoomagmg 'Brayvo, Brayvo!' and there was a 
delicate clapping of kid-cloves from the vicinity of 
the ooort csrcle that shomd have nerved the heart of 
any man who entertained a proper appreciation of 
the approval of the best Circles. All that Dick heard, 
however, was a clear sweet voice repeating the same 
words which had been spoken to him in a garden 
aiboor years ago : * I beheve you, dear ; I trust in 
jotL I lun sure, dear Dick, that all will yet be well 
and hapfyy with us in the end.' 

Hien, in a moment, all that he became conscious of 
wu that he was among seven lions with an iron gate 
fMtsDed between him and his fellow-men, and that it 
behoved him, if he would save his life, to feel no fear 
of losing it. Thev were all roaring in chorus — which 
was so ftf well, he knew— and parted to left and 
li^t before his whip-lash, just as thev had done 
before that of Tickerocandua of old. Tne largest of 
the Hom alone seemed to have any doubt of his 
identity with that chieftain, and stared at him with a 
pertinaetty which is considered in polite society to be 
mdenesi, miless when mitigated by the medium of an 
opera-elasa. Him, therefore, Dick seized by the mane, 
and aei on his hind-legs at once, with f orepaws resting 
upon hia own breast, that he might enjoy a nearer 
view of his countenance, and be satisfied that it 
meant Authority and nothing less. The po^e 
was magnificent^ and drew down a thunder of 
appUuiae, which, when Dick pitched the Monarch 
01 the Forest backwards, was renewed till the 
courtyard rang with it. It was somewhat rough 
usage of his majerty, but Dick's predecessor had 
alwajB done it, and he judged it safest to adhere 
im{dicitly to precedent and the prognunme. He next 
OGnipeilled the same animal, who, it is probable, began 
to regret hia manifestation of increduhty, to take the 
iBitiatiTe in leaping through the little hoop, an 
example which the others ol]idiently followed. Then 
he pennaded the two lionesses to mount their limited 
sheiTea, and form the backgroimd of that much 
admired tableau^ 'the Lion Hunter reclining after the 
GhMe ;' aftdr which, by what had always appeared 



to Dick a singular inversion of dramatic arrangement, 
but which it would have been probably destruction to 
have just then amended, followed the Chase itself. 
This was the most fatiguing, as well as perilous part 
of the whole performance. Dick had need of all his 
strength, as well as his courage, to receive each of 
the seven mighty creatures, as with open mouths 
they leaped m quick succession over him. He 
had to shift his shoulder with extreme rapidity, 
lest, thickly protected though it was, the claws 
of each temporary occupant should stxike into his 
flesh ; and to draw his face back with a jerk aa 
they left its neighbourhood, lest the snap of their 
retreating jaws should bereave it of some prominent 
feature. Their fiery eyes flashed on him as they 
passed, like sparks from flint and steel; their hot 
breath scorched him as with a furnace-blast ; and he 
was glad enough when the third revolution of lions 
was completed, and his panting breast and bruised 
left shoulder ceased to be its axis. It was a relief to 
him, indeed, to see that family of seven crowding 
together in one comer of the apartment, and cursing 
him in their voluminous lion-language, while he dis- 
charged his bulletless carbine among them as the 
victorious himter of the African plains. Never had 
the origioal Tickerocandua acquitted himself with 
more complete success than Dick did, nor received 
from any audience a more enthusiastic shout of appro- 
bation. Arrived in his own caravan, he found Mr 
Tredgold awaiting him, flown away from the presence of 
royalty itself, to convey his congratulations in person. 

' I could not help telling them, Dick, when I saw 
you getting on so well and pleasantly, that it was 
only^ your nrst trial ; and that, in consequence of an 
accident, you were filling a friend's place among them 
creeturs. The whisper passed up to her Majesty 
herself, I do believe, and you might have heard them 
Eton chaps a-cheering beyond King George's monu- 
ment.' 

The whole company — represented in the person of 
Mr Mopes — expressed their delight and congratula- 
tions upon the yoimg fellow's successful achievement. 
' But do,' observed that gentleman, ' just take a glass 
of brandy, for you look as pale as death.' 

Dick resolutely shook his head as he replied : ' No, 
my friend ; the worst part of the business is still to 
be got over ; and even if it were not so, as long as I 
hold this post, no drop of spirits shall ever cross these 
lips.* 

He drank Mr MopetCs health in a glass of water, 
who straightway betook himself to his elephants, who 
were about to exhibit their classical attitudes. 

There was a knock at the door, and in came Mr 
Bairman, cringing. 

'I congrattuate you, young man; it was a grand 
experiment, and has had a m<^ fortunate termination. 
Permit me to shake you by the hand.' 

The invitation was not a welcome one to Dick, but 
he was not in a humour just then to reject the friendly 
advances of any man. As he still held the glass, 
however, which was not yet empty, he offered his left 
hand, which the other wrung with great heartiness. 

' But you are not out of the wood yet. Arbour,* 
grinn^ the Butcher. * You must be very careful with 
Semiranus!' 

An execration burst £rom the lips of Dick in spite 
of liimHPlf. *You malicious fool, do yon suppose I 
have not calculated my chances, or wish to be 
reminded of my peril ? ' 

He spoke so wrathfully that Bairman, who was far 
more mean and cowardly than any animal ever caged, 
absolutely shivered. '1 meant nothing, my brave 
young man, except to warn you. You are so audacious, 
you are so venturesome. I thought I would offer you 
a little piece of prudent advice.' 

Through the abiect speech of the man, there glowed 
a lurid fire of saraonic hate, which he seemed m vain 
to strive to hide. 



234 



CHAMBERS'S JOUBNAL. 



'I do not need your advice, Mr Bairman, and 
certainly not yonr sympathy. I saw you looking on 
when poor Robinson perished, and your face did not 
wear one grain of human pity in it. Qo to your 
alan^te]>houae, sir ; you are a cruel coward — go ! ' 

*Ay, youngster,' renlied the Butcher menacingly, 
but taking care to lay ms hand upon the door-handle, 
' and go you, too, to your slau^ter-house. There are 
two men who have met their deaths in that den 
already, and Semiramis only waits for ' 

What Semiramis waited for, the speaker was not 
permitted to declare, for at tiiat identical moment 
bick caught the centre of gravity of Mr Bairman's 
retreating bod^ with the toe of ms ri^t jack-boot, 
and caused him to describe a parabola in the air 
instead of completing his unpleasant prophecy in the 
oaraTan. Descending with considerable violence upon 
the trunk of Ninus, who just then, luckily for him, 
obanoed to be in an inverted attitude, thiat animal 
resented the concussion by pouring through the 
injured member such a vast quantity of dirty water — 
of which he always kept a Lu-ge stock on dntusht for 
oflEensive purposes — as took away what little oreath 
the discomfited Butcher had got left in him ; and 
there he lay in the arena, Iulo a log, for several 
minutes, until carried to hospital, quite unezhilarated 
br the applause which was showered upon him by 
the youthful spectators, to whom his eccentric and 
oomet-like entrance appeared but as a part of the 
performance. 

The elephantine gymnastics being over, Dick sallied 
forth, to conclude what had, upto this point, be^i a 
most satisfactory exhibition. Me opened that cage- 
door which last swung back upon its hinges thiftt 
ISckerocandua's corpse might be borne through it, 
amid a total silence ; for it had ffot about that this 
was his most difficult ordeal, ana that the accident 
upon the previous day — the fatal extent of which was 
as yet unknown to the public — ^had taken place in 
tins very den. 

The hon was, as usual, dozing, with his great head 
resting upon his f orepaws ; the tigress, too, as usual, 
was pacing restlessly up and down the narrow space, 
at one time taking ner feline privilege of looking at 
majesty — for if a cat may look at a queen, how much 
more mav a tigress — at another, regarding a small but 
plump Etonian, who stood temptingly near the bars, 
much as he himself would regard a cherry. The^ 
would neither of them have nutde two bites at their 
respective delicacies. 

' Stop ! ' thundered Dick, smiting her ladyship across 
her whiskers with his whip ; and she stopped accord- 
ingly, though her tail made up for its vertical cessation 
by increased lateral activity. 

'Jump!' and she jumped at once through that 
double hoop, the offer of wnich had cost Tickerocandua 
his life. The whole drama, as rehearsed so often 
within the last three days was acted, in short, to admi- 
ration by all three performers; and the tableau itself 
of the Koyal Arms, with the tigress instead of the 
unicorn, was attained with perfect success. At that 
instant, while the man stood between the two — with 
Semiramis upon his left — the tigress shewed her 
teeth ; *srinned without lau^hinff' as it was afterwards 
oaphically described by the plump Etonian. Then 
she actually kissed Dicks hand as her lawful lord and 
master. With the swiftness of lightning, he corrected 
her for that liberty with a tap from uie but-end of 
his whip, and she crouched down at once upon the 
floor like one reproved. Then Dick made his bow 
amid a thousand!^ vivats, and leaving the lion, ramp- 
ant, sauntered carelessly, almost disrespectfuUy, out 
of the cage, with his left hand in his breeches-pocket; 
ascended the steps of his own caravan, let himself in — 
and fainted. There was an awful gash in that hidden 
left hand of his where the teeth of the tigress had 
met through the living flesh. 

* I will have tiiat cursed creature shot before I sleep 



this night,' quoth Mr Tredgold furiously, as he sat 
with the doctor beside the wounded man. 

* You needn't trouble yourself, sir, retained Dick 
quietly ; ' for she is dead already.' 

That swift little tap upon the nose had indeed put 
an end to the proud Semiramis. 

'There was other blood beside mine upon this handl ' 
continued Dick gravely : ' I saw it there when it was 
' too late. Bairman shook hands with me witii hia 
fingers reeking from the butcher's shop before I 
entered the caf^e. That was what made the poor 
brute bite me, for the smell of such blood always 
drives the poor creatures to madness. If I had siveD 
my right hand to him in«t>ead of my left» I should not 
be now alive to say so.' 

' Not on purpose, surely ! ' cried Mr Tredgold with a 
shudder; 'the man oould never have done such a 
murderous, such a fiendish deed as that ! ' 

' Ay, but he did, sir,' responded Dick in a terrible 
voice, and with that fearsome night with the lioness 
in his recollection; 'nor is it the fSst time that he has 
played with a man's life in that fashion.' . 

'He is no servant of mine hencefortii,' exclaimed 
the horrified proprietor. ' You shall never set eyes 
on him again, I promise you.' 

'Where is he?' inquired the wounded man with, 
sternness. 'It is not right that he ^ould have 
planned two murders, and yet escape scathless.' 

' He is in hospital,' returned the doctor, ' and by no 
means scathless, if he be the man who had that taU. 
among the elephants. He has his collar-bone and 
three ribs broken.' 

' I have not jopiven such a sood kick,' observed Dick 
thankfully, 'since I J^y^ at football at Messrs 
Dot and Carriwun'& — ^Thank you, doctor ; I think I 
shall be able to go to sleep now with a mind at 
ease.' 



CONSTANTINE'S LEGACY. 

IK TWO PARTS. — ^PART I. 

The name of 'Stamboul' puzzled etymologists ion 
a long time. The most laborious Oriental scholars 
knitted their brows in vain over that remarseless 
duosyllable. Big dictionaries were ransacked, De 
Sacy and Gilchnst, Maimonides and D^Herbelot, 
were invoked, and every known Asiatic idiom was 
rifled, to furnish forth a plausible explanation of 
the Turkish name for Byzantium. At last 'Stam- 
boul' was discovered to be Greek, a mere con- 
traoted corruption of the three words, ug Tti» wXi*, 
or 'into the city;' and from that tune forth, the 
liquid-sounding name of the capital of the Levant 
haiei been admittedly stamped with a Hellenic broad 
arrow. Nor is it only in name that Constantinople, 
the queen of all possible cities, has preservea a 
Grecian character, under all her lacker of Orien- 
talism. The stranger is unwiUins or unable, at first, 
to look behind the scenes so galuntly adorned with 
tinsel and bright colouring, Imlnd the showy multi- 
tude in turban and flowerSi silk, occupying the front 
of the stage, and to espy the mechanism wyond, the 
wires that move those stately puppeto, the hollowness 
of the decorations, and the insecurity of the whole. 
But if the stranger will stay awhile, mingle with the 
natives, and be content rather to listen than to talk, 
he will soon discern the strong imdercurrent of Greek 
life sapping the foundations of that wondeiful golden, 
throne, De&re the lustre of which Christendom onoe 
grew pale. This, however, is exactly what ths 
ordinary tourist refuses to see. The young bar- 
rister, spending his old aunt's legacy in a scamper 
through the Levant; the university man 'doiiu(' 
Marauion and Delphi, the Holy Places and the Nile^ 
in one-half of a long-vacation, the remaining moiety 
of which is bespoken by partridges or by salmon- 
fishing; or the M.P. who thinks that a week 



it MkBri's Hotel will mTe weight to his dictum on 
the EMtem Qnettion — aB theae are unwilling to recog- 
niae the existence of an anti-Mosleni element. Greeks 
are Tery well in their way, but the British traveller 
did not oome to Stamboul to see Greeks. He came 
to see a Mohammedan city, to plunge into the Arabian 
Ni^ts for a few delicious days, to steep his aoiU in 
Qnentalism, and he is ia a passion with any one who 
tells him that Constantinople is not half so Eastern 
as Bagdad or Damascus. It w, he thinks. Oriental to 
the Mckbone, or it ought to be ; either Stamboul is 
ft city where Haroun fuid Mesrour might reign and 
lainhie without encountering aught to shock their 
orthodoxy, or he, the British voyager, has been 
snandaloniily imposed upon, and has grounds for an 
action against the Peninsular and Oriental Company, 
of whoee return-ticket he Ib a holder. 

UnreaaonaUe British tourist! is not thy very 
preee&ce hen^ dad ia thy checkered suit and wide- 
awake hail ftiid puffing thy cigar under the very 
beard of a lordly believer, a sluing innovation xmd 
a blot <Hi the perfection of Oriental arrangements ? 
Ajy BWM^gtr into yonder mosque, British tourist, John 
Mazray m hand, and sneer and stare as ye list, but 
thank your stars that the Crescent is on the wane, pale 
and poor, and altogether a washed-out, pitiful crescent, 
not at all like ^at blood-red sickle before whose 
balefol gleam Europe once trembled! And yet 
ihere are men living in Pera, and not grayheaded, 
who can xecolloct when Euitypean travell^ were 
landed nnder cloud of night, like contraband goods, 
and hn d d led np to a place of concealment, in dis- 
guise, and begirt by guards, for fear of the savage 
mob and more savase janizaries. In those days, to 
enter a n|oeque was dei^ ; and thoush now ana i^en 
ft bold Briton would have admission tor his money, he 
was forced to resort thither in Moslem garb, the 
centre of a group of armed cavasses ; and the bronzed 
cheeks of his protectors were wont to blanch if the 
peering eyes of a wild dervish scanned their Giaour 
enanpanion over-dosely. No, Constantinople is not 
as purely Eastern as of old ; but it is like some ivy- 
^rown and shattered fortress, far more beautiful m 
rts decay than when the stone walls were whole and 
■ovind, and there were no wild-flowers waving on the 
lampwts, no clustering cox)sewood in the dried-up 
DOftt. We can see Constantinople now; we can 
study it as we can an old picture, dwelling on the 
tnata, and taking our time to fall into leisurely 
nptarea. And ixr more interesting is it to note the 
stnunde of jarrinc races, opinions, creeds, the East and 
the West^ the Ola World xmd the New, than to reside 
in some absolutely Eastern city where the mollahs 
and the ulemas have it all their own way. 

It is curious to mark the sultan's pompous entries 
intp the town ; and when your eyes positively ache 
with the glitter of gold, and brocades, and shawls — 
when you are dazzfed by the flash of silver battle- 
axes and jewelled scimitars — when you are sur- 
feited with gazing on opal-eyed and shark-toothed 
aegroes, prancing horses in embroidered housings, 
paidbas besnattered with diamonds, xmd slaves electro- 
plated witn gold — it is still more curious to stroU 
away to some dingy rotten booth in Galata, where 
dwells ft blear-ey^ banker, who, as the phrase 
goes, 'has the sultan under his thumb,' and could 
'sc^ him up ' to-morrow. What a debtor and what a 
creditor have we here ! The successor of the Califs, 
the Vicegerent of the Prophet, the Commander of the 
Eaitiiful, the Sun of Religion, the Great Blood-drinker, 
Padishah, Khan, Sultan (these high-sounding epithets 
are but a sample of his titles), to be under any one's 
tfamnbl And what an awfiU thumb must that be 
under which so mighty a potentate can be held captive ! 
Yon, the new resident at Constantinople, absolutely 
fed a little afraid as you tap at the shabby door of 
the proprietor of that tremendous thumb ! You are 
luilieced into an unsavoury cabin of a den. What is 



this lean old man in black skull-cap and frouzy 
garments, who ducks and crouches before you, and 
abjectly hails you as Excellency, uid cringingly 

Sroflera you the place of honour on a moth-eaten 
ivan— can he be Signor Thumb ? Siznor Thumb he 
is, the sultan's chief creditor, the ripest of all the 
Armenian money-chaneers, a man who never threw ft 
chance away, wno comd rebuild St Sophia ^m his 
private hoards, but who would grope in any miry 
puddle for the chance of finding a para. Wonderful 
craft gleams yet from the bleary eyes of Signor 
Thumb, but ne is meek, meek as a lamb to his 
customers. He fawns on you, he flatters, and begs, 
and weeps, as you and he do a little business together, 
some trine of cnanginggold or cashing a circular note ; 
and for a time Signor GSiumb will be happy, chuckling 
over the few petty coins he has screwea out of you by 
way of premium or ama But anon he will look sad 
again, for he will tmnk he has been too easy a 
baigainer, and might have extracted another piastre 
or so, now izrevocably lost Such is the man who is 
the sultan's chief creditor. There are other creditors, 
too — a legion of them. Greeks there are, and Euro- 
pean bankers, and Armenian shroffi^ and nondescript 
capitidists, besides those confiding Britons who have 
bou^t Turkish stock, and invested their spare cash 
in Abdul Medjid's pocket. Debt is, in fact, ine greedy 
boa that is swallowmg Turkey, body and bones, mines 
and minerals, land and water. The sultan is like 
one of those old Irish landlords, with a mortgaged 
property that only awaits the sharp remedy of an 
Encumbered Estates Court. The custom-house, that 
curious French graft on the old practical free- 
trade of the East, is mortgaged; the coal-mines of 
Asia Minor — ^mort^nged; crown-lands — ^mortgaged; 
land-tax — mortgaoM ; sultana's slipper-money, snugly 
guaranteed on the idands of Enodes, Chios, imd 
Cyprus — ^mortga^edtoo! Scare heir-looms and x)alace8, 
forests and quarries, jewels and privileges, monopolies 
to trade, rights to colonise — all, all are pledged in pawn 
to some accommodating individual in Constantinople, 
Smyrna, Manchester, London ! The sultan, the nation, 
the empire, are over head and ears in debt; and still 
the great flood of embarrassment rises, rises, till it 
washes and batters the very doors of the Sublime 
Porte, where princes have knelt. 

Of course, when I speak of Signor Thumb's power of 
' selling up' the sultan, I do not mean that he could 
absolutely take out 9k fieri facias against the Padishah's 
chattels, or introduce a man in possession into that 
proud seraglio that stands so nobly on the point 
between the two shores, with its golden domes, and 
cool waUs of white marble, and dusky cypresses, 
drinking in the sunbeams that cannot pierce their 
dark canopy. But Signor Thumb, or many another 
signor, Greek or Armenian, can step the fountains of 
Pactolus when he will, can cause Credit to button up 
its pockets, and check the flow of ready money into 
the lavish hands of the imperial prodigaL Nor can 
all the sultan's horses and all the sultan's men prevent 
such a consummation. If Turkey were as strong as of 
old, and if it were still the mode to lock up refractory 
ambassadors in the Seven Towers, and to deride pleni- 
potentiary remonstrances, still the sultan coula not 
pay his old debts with a new bow-string, as his neigh- 
bour the Shah can ; for the founts of wealth are in 
Christian hands now, and without the confidence of 
the Giaour, not a beschlik can be obtained : so Signor 
Thumb is safe, and will have his money, or money's 
worth, to the day. 

Who is it, then, who pays for all? What mortal 
purse can stand a cent, per cent interest, can clear 
the bills of the harem, build all those paJaces that 
might shelter half the kin^ of the earth, and which 
stand — picturesquely imfinished — along the blue Bos- 
phorus, and keep up army, nayy, and dviL service on 
a scale of proper grandeur? Who pays? Ask yon 
ragged and patient soldier, gnawing his mouldy crust 



236 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



in a comer of the barrack at Tophana, how much of 
his poor meal has been robbed from him to feed those 
BleeK and insolent blacks of the harem-guiuxl. Ask 
him why his shoes are worn out, and his coarse 
uniform in tatters, and he will tell you that it is in 
order that the veiled beauties of the Oda may have 
fresh silks and jewels from Paris. Yonder unjust 
cadi has 8om» excuse for selling his decisions as ho 
docs, for he has no salary, and had to buy his office 
from a pacha, or a pacha's favourite servant. And 
tiie man-of-war that has just put forth to sea, half- 
manned, with rotten rigging, bad provisions, and 
leaky hull, has contributed to fatten yonder jovial 
minister, rolling along on his Arabian horse, with a 
Bwarm of active slaves, pipe-bearers, cavasses, and 
pages running by his bridle-rein, and bawling to the 
crowd to clear the way. Debt taints and corrupts 
everything in poor old bankrupt Turkey, and yet 
the mighty bequest of Constantine has not been 
adjudged to its Muscovite claimant. There must 
be some good in the dominant race, after all, to keep 
their crazy monarchy afloat so long; and there is 
some good — the faculty of patient, hiuxi, honest work, 
which the Turk possesses to a degree very unusual on 
the shores of the Mediterranean. We are so used, at 
home, to consider the Osmanli as a passive, listless 
dreamer, a smoking, squatting automaton, that it is 
quite a surprise at first to behold him toiling all day 
and every day, like an ant, for his modicum of food. 

I never could feel that a Turk looked in his 
natural place when between the stilts of a plough. I 
have seen him thus Georgically employed, once and 
again ; but he had too stately an air, too picturesque 
a ^rb to suit the occupation, and the agriculture 
which is carried on by men in turbans ana flowing 
shalwars is too suggestive of a pantomime. But at 
Ck>nstantinople, the work of the city, the real hard 
manly work, is done by Moslem hands. All the 
porters are Turks ; all the grooms, carters, drivers of 
arubas and other vehicles are Turks. The gardeners 
who delve in the myriad enclosures around Stamboul 
are Turks. So are the fishermen; so are the boatmen, 
whose flashing caiques shoot all day long like glancing 
dragon-flies along the Bosphoms and the Golden Horn. 
So are the shoemakers, the smiths, the tailors, pipe- 
makers, butchers, hawkers, costermongers — imagme a 
Turkish costermon^er, in yellow turban and blue dress 
— xmd almost all tne miscellaneous labourers of the 
place. Very dirty work a Moslem wiU not do, and 
there the Armenian sets employment. Work requir- 
ing much toil of the Drain, a Moslem cannot do, and 
the Greek gets employment in consequence. But 
bankers prefer a Turkish cashier, knowing the Osmanli 
to be a sturdy watchdog, with whom ma funds will 
be safe, and who is not m the least likely to borrow 
the floating balance of his employers for a little 
private speculation in Diddlesex shares or Suez 
scrip. A Turk is certainly capable of immense toil, 
but of all Turks, the bom Stambouli, the Ottomxm 
Cockney, is the laziest. Those swarthy grooms, 
running for hours at their master's stirrap, and 
keeping pace with a trotting charscr as easily as 
a greyhound could do, are Lazes from the Black 
Sea. The same poor and industrious tribe furnishes 
the gardeners, tne woodcutters, and the 'navvies,' 
who are at work with spade, pick, and hatchet all 
over this fair land of Thrace. The hamaU, those 
stnrdy porters almost buried under their incredible 
loads, men who can pile mountains of wood or iron, 
or motley merchandise, on their brawny shoulders, 
are Turks from the Black Sea shores. Wonderful 
children of Othman are these last : nothing comes 
amiss to them — ^bricks, bales, beams of wood, furni- 
ture ; they toil about the steep and stony streets like 
a swarm of ants in harvest-time, and will endure more 
hundred- weights on their spinal columns than would 
break a Christian porter's back, or crush a pony to 
the earth. Nor are the caiquejeea to be despised. Go 



down to the water, seat yourself at the bottom of one 
of those swift kirlangiiBts — aptly named after the 
skimming swallow — and promise a few piastres for 
extra speed, and you will see a display of muscular 
energy that woidd delight Mr iCingsley. How 
they stretch to their oars, and scatter the spray 
of uie Bosphoms, those mi^htv pagans ! How their 
broad chests heave, and their boat leaps and quivers 
responsive to the slashing stroke, and seems absolutely 
to devour the water as it rushes through wave aftu* 
wave, with the angry hiss of a snake ! How the prow 
cleaves on through the parting sea ! The wild birds 
that are always flapping those waters with a tireless 
wing, the Amu damnSes du Bosphore, as they arc 
styled, scarcely outstrip the caique, as she goes, arrow- 
straight, down to the purple Marmora Sea. 

That rush and sparkle among the waters is one 
of the great treats of Constantinople. The pros- 
pect is one of such lovely, abiding beauty, Fiury- 
tand's capital rising in terraced domes and bright 
pavilions on either bank, that you might gaze for 
ever without satiety. Nor is the row itself without 
its pleasures — that is, when you have learned to coil 
yourself up after the fashion of Turks and tailors, and 
have overcome the first sensations of ignominy at 
being compelled to crouch at the bottom of a boat, 
instoid of lolling nobly in the stem-sheets. You soon 
find out why you cannot be indulged with the latter 
privilege, wnen you remark how crank and knife- 
resembling is the light swallow-boat, half in, half 
out of the water, and what a trifle would send the 
boat keel uppermost, and yourself down to the blue 
depths, where many a sacked beauty of the Oda has 
lain this many a year. But how they pull, those wild 
rowers ! how the craft trembles to their strokes, as, 
with thrilling cries, they encourage one another, and 
in their strength and excitement, you learn that the 
race has not yet lost its pristine vigour, whatever its 
foes may say. How they caper, too, those tall Anato- 
lians, as a Frank in a frock-coat appears at the 
landing-place where their long-boats are lying! How 
they leap, and frolic, and howl around him, more like 
hounds just out of a kennel, or boys fresh from a 
schoolroom, than our conception of a Turk at home ! 

But the Turkish townsman is a different being 
from the stout Asiatics who do the rough work^ 
Byzantium — different, too, from those fierce and testy 
cavasses who are driving back the crowd with blows 
as the grand vizier passes on his pampered horse of 
puro Kochlani breed. The cavasses aro Bosnians, 
from that stormy pachalic, whero life is cheapest, and 
manners most rugged, of all the pachalics of Turkey. 
See how the robust, red-shawled ruffians finger their 
yataghans as they push back the reluctant bystanders I 
The Bosnian is a mastiff that prefers biting to 
clamour, and the great men of the empire are fond ol 
such unscrupulous retainers. 

But hero is our genuine citizen at last; he with 
the white beard and turban of snowy muslin, so 
gracefully draped that no artist could improve upon 
uie exquisite disposition of its folds. This old Turk 
wears a robe of wadded silk, instead of the Mamaluke 
jacket so common in the capital ; he has yellow 
slippers lying within his reach, and a great cherry- 
stick pipe, and a rosary of large amber beads. But 
you see he is at work — ^very delicate work, too, 
charmingly designed and deftly executed; he ia 
embroidermg slippers for ladies of rank. Thero are 
blue, white, yellow, pink, and red velvet 8lipi)ei«, 
but none of green — ^green is too sacred a colour for 
even believer? feet to tread upon. The old Ttuk 
is threading seed-pearls on silk, and therewith 
embroidering yonder dainty pair of shoes, white yelTet» 
silver-edged, small enough for Cinderella. The work- 
man has a wonderful £licacy of touch, and a meet 
fertile invention, no doubt, for see how bloesoas, 
and leaves, and sprays of olive, all wrought in pore 
white pearisp grow beneath his needle! Bminr! 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



237 



thoae pfttterxui were old when his grandfather's great- 
grandtuher was a boy-apprentice, and learned to 
work them for the uttle henna-tinged feet lone 
mouldered to dust. The Princess Baooura had laid 
aude just such a pair when she fell into the deep 
slumber which allowed the Jin Danasch to carry 
her across Asia to the tower of Camaralzaman. 
Morgiana, after she had bettered herself by marriage, 
wore slippers of the identical design which this 
old man, m 1860, is so cunningly labouring on. All 
the slippers are not so costly as these, which wiU 
be worn only by the happy inmates of the imperial 
Oda and the vizier's housenolds. But all along the 
street — a street of shoemakers, where every house 
is full of leather, beads, velvet, and silken thread, 
and ingenious humanity crouching at its task — you 
see pretty fairy slippers, flourished and embossed with 
B^d thread, for the wear of pachas' wives, neat yellow 
ooots and walking-shoes for respectable Moslem 
females, and dingy ^d. ditto for the accommodation of 
feminine infideb. The next street is a colony of 
tfulors, and these too are Turks. One Hadji, in a 
men turban, is brandishing a ' goose,' as if it were 
lae two-edged sword of the Prophet; a score of 
nimble-fingered lads are mutely plying their needles 
on the ahop-boards beyond. A heap of wide trousers, 
slashed jackets, vests wrought with floss-silk, blue 
frock-ooats, and imitations of European attire in 
general, shew how various is the trade of the estab- 
hahment. 

As for the pipe-makers — busy among their stacks 
of jasmine, their heaps of rose-stems, their bundles 
of cherrv-sticks, and their crates full of earthen 
pipe-bowls, red or fawn coloured, and more or less 
gilded anid valuable, their amber mouthpieces, 
and their water-pipes with flexible tubes, vases of 
Bohemian glass, ana jewelled inhalers — they are truly 
ingenious and prosperous. Thoy drive a good trade 
in a land of smokers. Those amber mouthpieces range 
in value from eight pounds to about half a sovereign. 

I do not mean those extravagant temptations yonckr, 
peeping from the coffer, and ringed about with a 
aooole circle of brilliants— but the plain ones, such as 
merchants use. The diamond-adorned pipes are for 
the lips of seraskiers and capitan pacnas, wholesale 
robbers who can afford to invest some thousands 
fteriing in their smoking apparatus. But the plain 
moothpieces are hxmdsome enough, great semi-trans- 
psient knobs, like small apples, perforated for the 
admission of ambrosial vapours. The best are of 
white amber ; we seldom see white amber at home, 
for the Turlu buy it wp, having a ptrejudice against 
the yellow varie^, wmch conhnes it to the use of 
eccnioniical smokers. There are glass mouthpieces, 
too^ dsncned for those poor Lazes xmd Anatolians 
who are bearing the burdens and hewing the wood of 
the inhabitants, and who are thrifty men, living on a 
little, that thev may cairy back a small hoard to the 
bleak hills and barren valleys, girt by black pines, of 
their native provinces. In the corner, are squatted 
four or five meek, sleek Armenians, waiting for 
employment. The lordly Turk will not smoke a 
raw pipe; his chibouque must be seasoned ere it 
be worthy of his use; and so the Armenians earn 
a trifle by fumigating the new make of pipes with 
tobaoco^ just as watermen and crossing-sweepers are 
paid to blacken those sable little clay implements of 
which my friend young Rapid, of the Life Guards, 

II io ostentatiously and obtrusively vain. Those 
amazing scarfii and kerchiefs in the bazaar, those 
tobacco-pouches, and other silk and muslin utilities 
embiroidered so gorgeously in gold, with flourishes 
and arabesques of blinding splendour, are the work 
of Tnrkii^ ladies, who thus eke out their pin-money. 
There is nothing opprobrious in the idea of paid 
labour to a Turkish mind; the Moslems do not, as 
we do, exalt the drone above the worker; on the 
oontrary, every pacha and bey learns a trade, that 



may serve him if degraded xmd beggared. Even the 
sultan learns a calling of some kiml; Mahmoud the 
janizary-slayer was a slipper-maker, and gave slippers 
made by his own impenal hands to his ministers and 
friends. Abdul Medjid is, I understand, a pipemaker. 
It is this work, this hearty love of work, and tiie 
honourable estimation of work, which keeps the 
leaky monarchy afloat. If a great man rises to 
rank from small beginnings, he never feels shame 
at his origin ; he never searches the Herald's College 
for a branch of somebody's family-tree, nor tries io 
hide the root he sprang ^m, but rather blazons it, 
calling himself, * Coalheaver Pacha,' * Butcher Pacha,' 
or the like. 

A curious people are the Turks ! It must be owned 
that they are poor sailors, though hardy oarsmen. 
The commanders of their frigates will tell you that, 
but for renegades and seafaring Christians, tney could 
hardly manage a fair-weather cruise. The Turks hate 
the duties of a seaman, and can scarcely be taught to 
distinguish between the ropes. Gunnery alone they 
have an aptitude for, and even Russians confess that 
the despised Mohammedans can work cannon with 
most remarkable accuracy xmd spirit They have, hke 
most semi-barbarians, a taste for the enormous, and 
they attach a superstitious reverence to those mon- 
strous pieces of ordnance that guard the Dardanelles, 
and throw half a ton or so of stone at any audacious 
ship that forces the passage, like that huge globe that 
snapped in twain the mizzen-mast of Admiral Duck- 
wortn's vessel, and which now reposes, in company 
with a twin Titan, in the garden of an old Berkshire 
halL 

But the Greek is not asleep in the city where 
lus sires were supreme ; he is the same that he was 
under Andronicus and Justinian — keen, voluble, greedy, 
a reaper of grain sowed by other hands, a middleman 
rather than a producer. Here, in this little square, 
are two Greeks conversing beneath the shadow of a 
kiosk, close to a fountain. The kiosk is built of fawn- 
coloured stone, traceried over with a most delicate 
pattern in gold ; its latticed windows admit the cool 
breeze ; its projecting eaves, horseshoe Mooridi 
arches, and Sutu^enic pillars, are lavishly gilded and 
picked out with vermilion ; they glow and sparkle in 
the dappled light that falls through the rustling leaves 
of the plane-tree. As for the tountain, it is a pnre 
deep cup of whitest marble, over whose lip the clear 
gurgling water flows with a cool splashins soimd, not 
unmusical ; there are latticed sides to the ^untain, and 
these are of white marble too, cut as delicately as point- 
lace ; and there is a roof of gilded wood, and a slab of 
lapis-lazuli bears on its shining blue a gold-lettered 
inscription, which tells what true believer of old time 
built the fountain and raised the kiosk for the love of 
Allah and the comfort of the poor. And all around 
the spot sounds the soft murmur of a thousand pigeons, 
sacred birds that are fed and protected, as most 
creatures are, wherever Islam reigns. See how securely 
they exhibit their jewelled backs and snowy bosoms 
on those gilt eaves, and on the roof of the fountain, 
and among the boughs of the plane-tree, and coo, and 
strut, and flutter, as if earth were Eden, xmd there 
were no death or suffering in the world. Ah! my 
poor birds, you must take wing from the Thracian 
soil when the Greek steps into empire again. Those 
two talkers under the plane-tree eye you from 
time to time, as if they should like to furnish 
forth a pie at your expense. But how earnestly 
those Greeks converse ! What shall we overhear, as 
we approach them invisible ? They stamp, they frown, 
they gesticulate, they fling abroad their lithe limbs, 
and spread their hands, and knit their fingers into 
signs and emblems. They whisper and scowl, and 
anon comes a philippic hot and withering, and then 
fresh whispers. Mercy I what a pair of conspirators 
have we here ? Venice Preserved suggests itself : the 
tall Greek is JafBer, the shorter Hellene is Pierre, no 



donbt, and they must be plotting a rayah revolt at 
tile least, terminating in a grand holocaust of the MO0- 
lemah, ti^e extinction of Abdul Medjid, and mass in 
St Sophia's. Alas ! we are at their elbows by this, and 
what do we hear hissed out with such jpassionate 
earnestness? 'A thousand piastres?' *Only nine 
himdred, my life, my joy I * * Hear me, brother, for 
the Panagia's sa^a' 'Nine hundred; ask no more, 
friend of m^r heart ! ' It is Jaffier refusing Pierre 
seventeen shillings and sixpence. Plenty of winged 
words succeed. Their voices eclipse in flexible 
variations the pretty doves cooing and sindng love- 
songs above tiiem. Now they howl like jadcab, now 
they rant like Demosthenes to the stormy Agora; and 
anon Pierre is pleading so musically, softly, that no 
JtwM Prtmier on the stage could be more flutin^ly 
persuasive. How he sobs, and clasps his tremblmg 
nands, and throws his soul into his eyes, and humbles 
himself at Jaffier's feet! Stony-hearted Jaffier! he 
sticks to his price. Nine hundred piastres for the 
calico, or the cigars, or the Sheffield razors, not an 

S)er more, for all the entreaties lips can frame, 
en come curses and threats, harsh words roughly 
bandied, reproaches as cutting as the east wind, old 
villainies dragged into the li^t of day. Pierre has, 
in popular phrase, turned over a new leaf ; * pirate ! ' 
'knave I ' *• bankrupt ! ' are the softest of his epithets ; 
and Jaffier is not slow to hail his friend as a cheat, a 
coiner, a poisoner, a firenuser. Ugly accusations are 
pitched across and across Uke shuttle-cocks, and we 
mvisible eaves-droppers get but a poor idea of Perote 
morality. The matter reaches a climax. Pierre will 
denounce his friend before the cadL Jaffier will hasten 
to lus excellent protector, the deputy-dragoman of 
the Kussian embassy. Jaffier shall be bastinadoed. 
Pierre shall have rowing exercise at the gallevs. 
Aha ! out come the daggers from the sashes ; Jaffier 
■eems on the point of striking ; Pierre's poniard is at 
Jaffier's throat ; a shriek, a cry, more wmged words. 
Is anybody dead? No, but the disputants are in 
each others arms, locked in a fraternal embrace. 
They are friends now — ^brothers — never, never to 
quarrel acain until the next opportunity for a little 
niggling turns up. They have split tiie difference. 
Nine hundred and fifty piastres ! and etcxnal affection ! 
See, they are writing it down, the terms of their 
bargain ; they havepaper, pens, inkhoms, ever ready 
at their gircQes. The da^ers are tucked away in 
their cummerbunds amn. TThey never meant to use 
them, of course, but Pierre could not have got that 
ei^t-and-ninepence without a martial demonstration, 
and Jaffier could not otherwise have forgiven himself 
for being beaten up in the terms. Off uiey so, arm- 
in-arm, to drink at the wine-shop. And the fountain 
■till plashes, and the plane-tree still rustles, and l^e 
pigeons flash their variegated feathers in the kindly 
sunbeams, and coo and murmur like a brook, exactly 
as they would do if Jaffier were lying under the plane- 
tree, stabbed to the heart. 

All Stamboul brawls do not finish so harmlessly. 
In the wine-shops of Pera and Oalata, there are 
nijghtly quarrels between very different persons from 
Pierre and Jaffier. There cluster and drink, by the 
light of smoky cressets, in dark wooden booths, a 
motley mob of choleric Ionian sailors, snake-eyed 
Malt^e, sulky Hydriotes, refugees from Italy and 
France, and those stray rosues from Candia, Syria, 
Smyrna, who lounge about Constantinople, leading a 
* hand-to-mouth ' fife, which in Turkey often means 
'hand to the khanjar!' These agreeable guests 
squabble and dispute over their Tenedos wine and 
fiery arrack, and the knives flash forth, and over go 
tables, and benches, and lamps, and all is darkness, 
and clamour, and groans ; and when lanterns 
are brought, there are red pools on the floor that 
are not all of spilt wine, and one or two sprawling 
forms are seen among the wreck of furniture, 
never to brawl again. Enropean sailorB, English 



especially, are apt to get hurt in these dens. Jack 
comes in reeling, drinks and bawls his forecastle 
songs, and gets maudlin and helpless, in the midst 
of a set of sharks who would murder him for the 
chance of half-a-dozen dollars in the pocket of his 
monkey-jacket. But the regular ti^quenters are 
much on a par with each other on the score of morals 
— awful scoundrels, for Stamboul is the Paradise of 
the eastern adventurer. A sad but frequent sight 
used to be that of the ragged Hungarian exiles, in 
their tattered honved or hussar uniforms, starving 
at Constantinople. In the Turkish burying-plaoes, 
under the plumy cypresses, among the coloured 
turban-stones, they used to sit, patient, hollow-eyed, 
despairing. Their clothes were ragged, their shoes 
gone, their home shut out to them ; rebellion against 
Austria had made them wanderers less cared for than 
the wild-dogs prowling about them. The Polish 
renegades wore the Padishah's cloth, and ate of pilaff; 
but there was no place in the army for a Christian, 
and these poor Hungarians refused to barter their creed 
for a meaL Then came the war, and there was some 
employment for the Magyars, and peace came all too 
soon for those whose only chance of food was to fight, 
and they were flimg back to famish. G^ieeks are not 
fond of those who do not belong to their communion ; 
even in servitude they are bitter sectarians, and to fire 
an Armenian's warenouse, to stab a Catholic, to pelt 
a sly pebble at an Englishman, are anything but sins, 
to their fancy. I never knew a Turk reafiy uncivil, 
even far from consuls and frigates; but a Greek 
seldom loses a chance of insultmg a British heretic, 
when he can contrive it with safe^ to his own bones. 
Greeks, however, are almost as easily dealt with as 
Arabs ;^ there is but one maxim, to take the upper- 
hand, and to keep it ; and so long as you are firm and 
hard with him. Signer Polychronopulos is your ser- 
vant. Be dvil to him, and look out for squalls! 
Poor creature, he never heard any reason assigned 
forpoliteness, save fear alone. 

Tnere is a sort of cellar at Constantinople where 
they shew you a number of marble pillars of the 
Greek era. There they stand in shadow, white and 
ghostly, like buried ghosts of the past They are the 
remains of a Byzantme palace, erst imperial, escaped 
from the mattock of the Turk and the tooth of Tune. 
Then there is the Hall of Many Waters, where the 
long aisles glimmer, and the far-reaching columns rise 
dimly out of the flood, and the bats d!art across the 
red streak of torchlight, or hang in clusters from the 
damp roof, as the boat glides in. A Stygian voyage 
that! with a crazy pimt for a craft, and a white- 
haired old Charon with one eye for a oonductor, and 
the prospect of being lost irrevocably, should one of 
those wheeling bats Knock the torch out of Charon's 
feeble hand, and the boat go off on a groping voyage 
through that undeiground labyrinth of pillars. But 
that piece of excitement is denied to the traveller of 
to-day. The roof has fallen in, here and tiioe, and 
the columns have cracked and crumbled, and the 
Hall of Many Waters is a sealed mystery. 

Not many are the fragments of clasiio Constan- 
tinople. But there stands St Sophia's in its maieety 
and strength, with the crescent high on its giant dome 
where the Greek cross used to be, with a ooat of 
iviiite-wash laid over its inner walls, through whidi 
peeps out the golden mosaic, the many-hued marUei, 
the glitteringfigures of the Panagia and the saints, 
inwrought. There they wait, in the ex-cathedral, 
behind a screen, as it were, until Greek lumdi shall 
scrape away the white-wash, and tiie golden poor- 
traite flash forth again. No doubt such a day wiD 
come, and bells wifl tinkle, and black-robed priesli 
with floating hair and square caps will gesticulate 
and bend, and drone out htanies before the iUumined 
altar, just where those Turkish boys are selliqg 
pennyworths of tiie broken mosaic to M< 
Smith, Brown, and Bobinson, who are going 




with paponches oyer their unholy boots, and red hand- 
books open. Has that dervish any notion of the coming 
change, I wonder, he with the high cap, and sem 
robe, and rsttlhiff calabash, who is preaching in the 
doorway to the Knot of veiled women ? How they 
liften, and how he extends his lean arm, and shakes 
his gourd full of stones from Mecca, and exhorts to a 
pare life and good works ! Whatever 1i/e may think, 
the Greeks have no doubts. It is a question of time, 
and time only. The empire was theirs, and will be 
theirs, sad they look on the Turk as but a bird-of- 
passage. The Turk, perhaps, thinks so too, in his 
secret heart, else why does he will that his bones 
shall rest in Asia's faithful soil, not in this Europe, 
where he feels himself but encamped? See, a proces- 
sion of barges bound for Scutari, where the vast ceme- 
tery ffUmmers white with millions of headstones under 
the cuurk cypresses. They bear the body of some rich 
pacha, and the howls of the professional mourners 
come floating on the breeze. Old Hassan could not 
lie in Thnuaan earth, it seems, lest Giaours should 
blaspheme over his grave. To prayer ! to prayer ! 
How loud and dear is the Muezzin's voice as he 
stands there in the high minaret, and calls the faith- 
ful to their knees and their devotions. But do they 
come? Is real Koran religion a thins of the past? 
Many heads are bowed, many a bead counted, but 
wheie is the burning zeal of other times ? 

AK ICE-BOAT ADVENTURE. 

Mt Tariooa wanderings over the globe had introduced 
me not only to every land-conveyance extant, from 
the howdah to the bullock- wagon, but to every species 
of boat in which mankind endeavours to rule the waves. 
I had haxiled a rope in a surf -boat among the breakers, 
and feathered an oar in a whale-boat pursuing a 
whale ; to say nothing of having ventured my precious 
person in every craft m the sisterhood from a man-of- 
war's boat to a catamaran. But an ice-boat was an 
utter atranger to me, and to obtain an introduction to 
it, I would have travelled far further than from 
Toronto to the lower end of Lake Huron, where the 
partner of my outward voyage, the son of a settler 
lending there, had promised me that pleasure. 

In compliance with Edward Mostyn's desire, I 
anived at the Sumachs in the beginning of December. 
But the ice was not yet strong enou^ for the pro- 
posed expedition, and the interval was filled up with 
erery amusement which the warmest hospitality could 
devise. Such rambles as we had amons the gray old 
woods in quest of game, when, if we failed of the hoped- 
for deer and moose, we shot abundance of partridges 
and hares I such glorious skating along the borders of 
the lake, and merry slcishing-parties over roads, billowy 
as the Atlantic itself, out without its accompanying 
sea-room, for we often fell foul of frozen headlands, or 
suffered wreck upon snowy Gk>odwins, whence we 
had to extricate ourselves amid the rapturous mirth 
of our companions ! Then we wound up the evening 
with aonigB uid tales around the hu^ wood-fire, or, if 
we coula capture guests from the neighbouring farms, 
a backwoods ball on the puncheon floor. It was the 
morning after one of these festivities that the ice 
was first declared in fitting order ; and as a favouring 
breeze was blowing alons the shore, no time was lost 
in unlocking the uied v^ere the ice-boats had been 
bidden, and bringing them forth to view. 

StrsDge-looking craft they were, though doubtless 
suited to the frozen element they were designed to 
travene, with their double keels, like enormous jNurs 
of skates, and quaintly fashioned hulls, one displaying 
tlie outlines of a huge fiery dragon, with erect cres^ 
eniling tail, and outspread wings, rigged to act as 
Muls ; the other representing the deep curving shell of 
A gigmtic nautilus. Above it rose a tall lateen sail, 
from which fluttered a deep blue streamer ; while the 
dmgim shewed a tongue long and fiery enough to 



have frightened St Geoi^ himself. As might have 
been anticipated from we well-known leanings of 
unregencrate humanity, the old Dragon proved at 
once the favourite, and odds in the forthcoming 
race were freely bet upon bim iQdeed so little 
regard was had for the Nauiilua, that it was need- 
ful to decide her crew by lot. Somewhat to our 
disappointment, this fell upon Edward Mostyn and 
myself; while two smart young settlers, with their 
militia buttons decorating tiieir beaver overcoats, and 
bright gold bands gleanung on their otter-skin caps, 
triumphantly mounted the Dragon, Then, amid^a 
hurricane of cheers, we hoisted our sails, and started 
on our novel voyage. 

But I was by no means prepared for the speed 
our ice-crafts shortly attained. Swiftly almost as 
shadows we sped over the sparkling ice-fields: 
and noiselessly as the spirits of antediluvian fish and 
reptUe revisitmg their lormer haunts, we glided past 
bay and headland, past tumbling cascade, congealed 
into waves of glittering crystal, ami tall leailess forests, 
whose ice-dad branches gleamed in the sunlight like 
arabesques of silver ; past icide-himg cave and waving 
pine-crest — the only shadow on that broad lancU 
scape of brilliant white. It was a strsuige sensation, 
this fleet, almost motionless travel ; and side by 
side we sped along, each admiring the otiier^ 
bird-like grace; whue huge American eagles, and 
lai*ge white northern owls, looked down astonished 
from their eyries on the heights ; and soft-eyed 
deer rose from their brushwooa couches to gaze in 
wonder at the strange passers-by. 

As we drew from shore, the wind freshened, and we 
began to forge ahead of our rival Despite their 
utmost efforts, each moment increased our superiority, 
until, ere long, amid triumphant shouts, that rolled 
over the lake and through the silent woods beyond, 
we ran them fairly otLt of sig^. For an hour, 
we continued to sweep along, enjoying our victory 
and our voya^ over that crystal sea, with the 
bright sun shining down upon us from the clear 
blue sky, and flashing in a thousand prismatic hues 
on the winter gami&re of the vnld and beautiful 
scenery around us. But at the end of that time^ 
the sun beginning to dip behind the pine-trees^ 
reminded us of the necessity of returning. Having 
come before the wind, we must, of course, tack badk 
against it, an infinitely less agreeable process. But 
as there was no alternative, we trimmed our lofty 
sail, and putting our rudder hard a-port, commenced 
the first of our zigzag manoeuvres. Again, we were 
pleasantly surprised by the sw if tnes s of our boai^ 
which sped along like the wearer of seven-leacne 
skates. Undoubtedly, she proved to make consider- 
able leeway, but it was notnii^more than an extra 
turn or two would remedy. While we thus tacked 
about, the sun set, and the short day ended, ushering 
in one of the darkest nichts I ever saw close above 
the snow. Black clouds, like evil spirits, came creep- 
ing over the sky, hiding the brilliancy of the stan^ 
and casting a ghastly shadow over the snow-clad 
landscape, while long gusts of sobbing wind swOTt 
fitfully past us. Then, as the hours went by, the 
wind mcreased, imtil a furious storm howled over the 
frozen wilderness, breaking like reeds the ancient 
trees upon the shore, and sending their fragments, 
mingled with thick drifts of snow, far out upon the 
lake ; while in the distance we could hear the thinner 
ice crack and moan, as if it too were about to yield 
to the violence of the tempest. 

Meanwhile, through the raging storm, like some 
wild-horse of the pnurie, careered our ice-boat, hurry- 
ing on through the darkness to probable destruction. 
At the commencement of the ^e, we had lowered 
her canvas, but she still presented sufficient body to 
the wind to dash away in tiiat storm with scarce 
abated speed, while by some accident or mismanage- 
ment of ours, she refused any longer to obey her heun. 



840 



CHAMBBRS'B JOURNAL 



The Diebt, too, was intensely cold ; the bitter wind, 
fresli ^m the polar ice-fields, diulied against uiir 
faces like tiny icicles, wMle its Herce gusta swept 
through OUT thick aarmeDia as though they hivd been 
gossamer. EvcD the buffalo robes m whioh vo had 
■wrapped ourselves were unable to prevent our limbs 
stiffening, aud our blood thiijEening m our reins ; anil 
wheo wo tried to addreaa some warda of hope oi 
consolation to each other, our teeth chattered so that 
we could not be comprehended. 

Faster uid faster, meanwhile, our ice-skiff flew 
before the gale, sometimea appearing by its move- 
menta to leap wide chasma— for in the thick dark- 
ness we could not see before ua— at others, rising 
and falliDg on what leemed the waves of a frozen 
■ea; yet still speeding on as it demon-driven, until 
each, moment we expected it would be dashed to 
pieces against some rock rising above the water, or 
else engulfed in the open centre of the lake. And 

!'ct we could do nothing to aid ourselves. To have 
aft our boat in that fierce tempest, would have been 
certain, olmodt immediate death i and though with 
each rood we sped along, we seemed to become more 
hclplcaa and more wretched, we retained our places, 
and silently awaited the coming of that power which 
would chance us into stone. Our thoughts flew back 
to happy homes, and bright lirosidcs, to beloved 
forms and loving voices, between whom and us 
loomed the dark shadow of a miaciable death. 
Suddenly, it seemed to fall upon us, and all was 
blank. Cold and exhaustion had done their work, 
and we sank down together in the bottom of the boat 
in a deep torpid sleep, that was like to have no 
waking; while oar boat still bore ns od, with the 
same arrowy speed, guided by an unerring Hand past 
countless dangers. 

Wlien I again awoke, all was still and silent, and a 
■oft silvei^ ught was shlningadown upon me through 
some semi-transparent substance : it was snow, whii:h 
by falling tliickly upon us, and keeping ua warm, had 
most probably saved our lives. My lirst movement 
roused my companion, and we p^eeted each other as 
they would who, though side byaide, had never thought 
to speak again. The storm of the night had been 
succeeded by a complete calm, and around us lay a 
vast, dreary wilderness of untrodden snow, in whach 
the runners of our boab were deeply imbedded. 
Opposite the sun, faint and blao in the distance, 
sh'etched the northern shore, along which, far to the 
eastward, lay the Somacha. 

The great question now was, how we should get 
back to it. Even if we would have trusted ourselves 
again in the Saulilus, she was fixed in the snow, and 
must be abandoned ; ao, thoagh we were both weak 
and faint from eiposoro and wont of food, there waa 
nothing left oa but to undertake the journey on foot, 
and without a moment's delay, we commenced it. 
The newly fallen Bnow lay soft aa down upon the ice, 
and as we had no snow-shoes to support us on its 
surface, we flank at every step, sometimes wading to 
our knees among its clogging masses, at others 
fltruggljQg through heavy snow-drifts, which almost 
overwhelmed us; while the sun Hashed and glowed 
among Hm glittering particles with blinding brifliancy. 
With each passing hour, our weariness and exhaus- 
tion increased, until, when night at length came, 
and the shore was reached, we had scarce power to 
enjoy the fire Moatyn built above the snow, or cat 
the hare he kiUed and cooked. All we seemed able 
to appreciate, was the luxury of lying on a pile of 
brushwood beneath a tree. 

Three more such toilsome days we travelled u;ainst 
the sun, skirting the lake-shore, until on the fourth 
day, when we were utterly travel -aitcnt, eye-sore, and 
ready lo yield to our fate, the smoke curling above 
the Sumachs blessed our eyes. How we rejoJMd over 
that homp-ooming, and how far more its inhabitants 
rejoiced over ua ! To them we were as beicjja restored 



from the dead, for the unsuccessful return of the 
various parties who had gone out in quest of us had 
destroyed every ho]>e. More fortunate than ourselves, 
the J>nufOn and her crew had returned in safety, and 
there was nothing to cloud the general joy. But ever 
since then, I have carefully eschewed the acquaintance 
of all maritune noveltica, and not for all the gold in 
California would 1 undertake another expedition in 
an ice-boat 



A BAILOR'S 



sre I see, l\ 

'a lio» dear Vj 



O brighi, bright was the Uay-tlme through which La 

Bat to me more wan and dreary than November was Ibtt 

wintr; ninJi beat keen with sleet, O cold seas rsg^s 

and foam. 
But calm Kill be, and bright to ms, the day thai brings 

Katie, plajinK on the floor — Jackie, at my knee. 
When father sits beside the 6re, how happy irc ihalt be E 
habe unborn, that when he comes shall blisi my happ ,^ 

Qod send my baby safe to me, to kia him with the rest 

And many a pretty thing he'll bring for little TTate 

Jock— 
Carved wooden mas and funny beast, and shell 

sparkling rock ; 
A monkey, perhaps, so clover, with Kate and Jock to play, 
And a rainbow-coloured parrot, that will chatter all t' 



Unless you get one dear as he who 's dear to me as life. 

Move swiftly on, lonesoma hoars ; tick quicker on, 

clock, 
And bring (he hour wheu at my breast my baby I stisll 

When in my arms my blessM babe shall laagh, and Ic^ 

And I shall leach its little eyes its father's faoe to knoir. 

Thon who gaid'st the stormy winds — Thou who ml'st 

theses— 
God, look dnwn in mercy upon my Inbes and me ; 
Through storms and perija of the deep, hold him in 

Thy hand. 
That we may bless Thj blesstd name when safe be tresda 

the strand. 

wives who 'ro blessed with plenty, how little do you know 
Th« blessinas that on such as I your riches would bestow. 
John, come back with half enough to keep yon ait 



>rinted and Published by W. Ji R. Chakbbbs. 47 Patu^ 
noBter Eon, London, and SKt High Street, EiiiVBinton. 
Also sold hy Wii.j.iAK KoBKHTBON, 23 Upper Suknlis 
Street, Dublin, and all Buokscllen. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAH AND BOBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 381. 



SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1861. 



Price IJJ. 



DOOR-STEPS. 

The door-itep with its furniture is the most charac- 
teristic feature of the house. Who sees the huge 
letters painted on the second-floor fronts of the shops 
in Oxford Street? Next time you walk along that 
thoronghfare, look up, and you will be surprised at 
the capital information which has hitherto |)assed 
oTer your head. What we see on the ground attracts 
OB moat The man who jyaints in crayon on the 
troUoir beyond the Edgeware Road, is bettor known 
to the people than many a Royal Academician, for 
we are, alas ! a good deal more apt to look down than 
npu Door-steps which arc flush with the flags, are 
door-steps only by courtesy. They always nm the 
risk of losing their independence ; like Belgium, they 
inyite annexation, and passing dogs and gamins 
make uptm them sudden inroads. Now, the door- 
step with a natural granite frontier checks roving 
aggression. No urchins play upon it without suspicion 
of discomfitorc, or open dcflance of authority. Even 
the struggling little nurse-girls with their babies, like 
ants canying pupoe, do not rest there without a shar^) 
look-ont for the opening door, and the advancing 
creak of the policeman's boots. I mean, of course, in 
the grander streets. Where houses are crammed to 
litdir eaves with the families of poor people, there is 
always a fringe of human surf on the door-step, 
fanned, as in a tide- way where two currents meet, by 
the outward pressure of the street and the overflowing 
of the tenement itself. This holds its ground with 
the tenacity of natural law ; but where the house is 
subject to one will, the liberties of the public are 
precarioa& Poor little children ! a mansion to let is a 
god-send, specially if it have a porch. I remem1)cr 
one, Jong untenanted, in a gloomy west-end square. 
In winter, it was a very Malakoff" for snow-balls, and 
in summer its ample granite stops struck a continuous 
diill through a row of grateful nurses. But some 
grand door-steps have attractions which no repeated 
discomfitures can dim — ^they give not only a scat but 
a back. I have often seen the session adjourned only 
for a minute, even when a big carriage pulled up at 
the door with a crash like a flrc-engine. Tilly 
Skuwboy merely stands aside ; she knows her ladyship 
is out* and that the process will not be long. Jcames 
jumps down, touches his hat, and plays the footman's 
aolo on the knocker. Not at home ; the house- 
flunkey, disgoises his indifference with an expression 
of lug^-hred politeness, while Jeames touches his hat 
again with the negative, hands in cards, i>okcs a joke 
in with them in a grave whisper; touches his hat 
again for fresh directions, acknowledges them with 
nlntatiQii Na 4, and jumps up behind. Coachee 



lends his right ear ; Jeames leans gracefully forward, 
balancing himself l»y sticking out one leg — coachee 
catches the word; Jeames resumes the perpendicular; 
house-flunkey looks up and down the street, winks 
into the next area, shuts the door, and by the time he 
has foimd his place again in the Advertisfr^ Tilly 
Slowboy is reseated. In the suburbs, she is denied 
this coveted repose by an outer wicket, and can only 
admire the distant steps, flanked by scrapers and 
geraniums, planted in stone imitations of copus cups. 

But we must get back to the proper city door-step 
— sound or cracked, sharp or worn. Some of them 
set right the declivity of tiie street, as if to say to the 
master of the house : ' Here, if you will,, the ups and 
downs of life may be corrected.* Happy he who can 
read the hint, can see that it is a little level resting- 
place for the sole of his foot ! Yes, ho carries with him 
the ' Open, Sesame ' which will admit him to whatever 
blessings he can claim in the abundance of the world 
— a latch-key. There he comes, spent with a day's 
swimming against the stream; up to within a few 
strokes of his home, strange eyes look out upon 
him out of strange heads, but, with his foot on the 
door-step, he is at home. Oh, the want there is to 
those who know no such sensation! — governesses, 
perhaps, when a pupil sleejis in their room, and they 
have not even a chamber of their own where they 
may laugh or cry in their pet position and favourite 
undress — no hole of their own where they may uncoil 
themselves at exue. 

But we must wait at the door-step. How many have 
waited there ! Butcher-boys, with stumpy pencil and 
order-book, set up against the door-post, as a perpen- 
dicular desk; lovers, with a final glance at their 
bouquet and boots before the door is opened, and 
they go in to win or die ; mutes, in soiled silk, and 
black Saxony suits at L.2, lOs., waiting with impa* 
tience until ' the body ' be ready ; dtms, "with cunning 
tactics oC approach, and the simulated knock of an 
unprofessional visitor ; policemen, in the dead of night, 
when a curl of smoke has been seen from a reddening 
window, and the battery at the door wakes up all but 
those who need the simmions. 

Our sense of observation is most acute when we 
stand upon a door-step. We all know of the musical 
gentleman who, going out to dinner, forgot his friend's 
number, but remembered that his scrax>er was in G, 
and so scraped all down the street till he touched the 
hospitable note. What a variety there is, not only in 
the langimge, but in the feel of knockers ! Some are 
BO rickety and loose, that the most skilful peal soimds 
cracked. Some are stiff", refusing to do justice to the 
art of the visitor, giving only the broader features, 
the rough sketch of a knock, leaving out all the 



242 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



L 



delicate shades of xnampnlation. Some there are 
which look like knockera, bnt are in reality bell- 
handles, and balk the intentions of the applicant. 
How various, too, bell-handles ! Some so deep-set, as 
to graze the inserted knuckles ; some responding to 
the touch, others only to a lengthened draw and 
sudden release ; some with short ^id pert, some with 
long and stringy action ; some tight in, like large nails, 
others loose, and remaining out, when once pulled, 
like the stops of an organ. VVe notice all these little 
things when we stand on a door-step. Self-conscious- 
ness, too, is then most active — we feel our collar and 
neck-cloth ; fumble about for our card-case, if it be a 
■light acquaintance whose presence we seek, and on 
whom we wish to leave a favourable impression. Or 
it may be that we wait on the door-step after a long 
journey, and we doubt whether all be well. Expec- 
tation and anxiety are brought to a focus in the 
interval between the ringing and the answering of 
the belL Then, again, on tne door-step, we stand 
between public and private life. At the clubs of the 
great, and common lodging-houses of the small, which 
are neither homes nor inns, there is no proper door- 
step : the entrance is free — at least you don't knock 
or ring. In poor lodging-houses, you must rap at 
promiscuous room-doors to find an inhabitant. 

The outer door is a great test of respectability in 
England, especially in London. Even in Victoria 
Street, where each flat is a separate household, you 
must knock or ring at it before you can gain the 
common staircase. Do you know that a policeman 
mounts your door-step every night after you are in 
bed, bumps against your door with his shoulder, 
and puts your address down in a little book, if he 
can burst it open ? 

Again, areas and their railing are eminently English. 
Somebody says an Englishman's house is a fortress, 
defended by a diy diteh with an iron palisade, and 
approached by a stone bridge. Abroad, the house- 
wall often starts straight up out of the ground ; 
there is, moreover, no projection before the door. 
Many streets in Naples are only just the width 
of a carriage, which fits them as wadding does 
a gun : unless you get into a* doorway when a vehicle 
approaches, you must retrace your steps till you come 
to the next turning. I have seen a butcher hold 
back the carcass of a sheep which was hanging before 
his shop, to let mo drive nast ; this was in Sorrenta 
There we have found few aoor-steps, xmd a consequent 
abuse of domiciliary visiting, when there is only 
one step from the street into the house, half the 
sanctitv of independence is wanting ; there is no 
pause for reflection on the sacredness of home. With 
us, a door-step is the fly-leaf between the history of 
public and private Ufa There, we open or furl the 
umbrella ; tnere, when we sally forth, we catch the 
first warning stine of the east wind; there, we bid 
adieu to a cold, osculating world, in the shape of an 
ungrateful cabmxm; there, we stamp and scrape off 
the dust of the city ; there, wo feel the coldness or 
good-will of friends, and measure our estimation in 
tne eyes of our acquaintance ; there, we are irritated 
at the first svmptoms of a cut — * Not at home.' 

We never before heurd that communication as long 
as we had a door-step of our own. It used to be, 
'Master is pertikkelerly engaged, but I think he 
would see you, sir.' The absorbing pursuit was all 
moonshine. We used to walk straight into the old 
fellow's den, light one of his cigars, and poke his fire 
before screening him from its heat with subverted 
coat-tails. Now, the consciousness of the change 
flashes on us while we stand upon his door-step — * Not 
at home.' We hand in our card to an impassiye 
flunkey, see Smith's hat in the hail, and turn right- 
about face with bitter composure. But if the door- 
step be an open clause in the covenant of friendship 
between the master and his visitors, it is the scene 
hallowed by the tenderest recollections in the mind of 



Betty his maid. There, Coiydon pleads — ^hearts are 
broken — ^vows are exchanged. I have often thought 
what a choice of faces the postman must have had 
before Mr Rowland Hill made us cut little sb'ts in 
our doors ; now, the knocker alone returns their grin. 
An underpaid letter is now a happy opportunity. 
Even valentines must be dropped into the imfeeling 
box. The butcher has it all his own way. I suspect 
he has private reasons for that elaborate disposition 
of his hair, and haste with which he drives from one 
interview to another. The door-step is dear to Betty. 
What mistress ever heard her complain of having to 
scrub that portion of her territory ! It is her p£ice 
of contact with the attractions of the outer world, 
as it is Paterfamilias's landing-pier from its troubles. 
To them both, and to their friends, it is the common 
spot in which all social sympathies are touched, and 
from whence their paths radiate into the calm of 
home or the bustle of public life, into the bitterness 
of neglect or the joys of hospitality. Depend upon 
it, some of our clearest recollections were first stamped 
upon our memories when in the goings in and comings 
out of the years that are past, we stood upon a 
door-step. 

CENTRAL AUSTRALIA. 

When we studied geography in our younger days, we 
used to turn with curiosity to the maps oi Africa and 
Australia, and wonder what could exist in those laige 
blank spaces which presuming ignorance had styled 
deserts. But nature, from whom all secrets are 
reluctantly wrested, has been lately so hard pressed 
by one explorer after another, that x>erhap8, with 
the exception of Borneo and New Guinea, no country 
exists whose interior has not been visited by 
the white man. Andersson, in his Nimrod expedi- 
tions, hunting through the Damara and Ovampo 
land, makes known the barren regions of souta* 
western Africa ; Speke and Burton in liieir travels of 
recreation, and Knipf in his missionary wanderingSr 
unfold to us the lake regions and immense plateaus 
of Central Africa, all revelations of minor import* as 
compared with the past and present researehes of 
Livingstone; nor have there been wanting fearless 
men, who, in the face of far greater obstaSes, have 
endeavoured to solve *the problem of the interior 
of Australia.' The gloiy of effecting so great an 
achievement has been won by an intrepid Scotsman, 
John Macdonall Stuart 

Prior to the close of 1859, innumerable efforts 
had been made from all tiie outskirts of that 
laige continent, not only to add to the known terri- 
tory, but to penetrate into the interior. Sir Thomas 
Mitchell, Leichardt, and others, have pushed their 
researches from the Sydney side ; the brothers 
Gregory, from the western or Swan River district ; 
Sturt and Ejyre, from the southern or shores of the 
Gulf of St Vmcent ; while the elder Gregoiy followed 
the Victoria River from its entrance into the sea on 
the north-west coast back to its very sources. The 
tracks of all these travellers fringed the ooast-line, and 
penetrated a little way inland, but all returned with 
the same tale — that their progress had been stopped by 
barren deserts and want of water. No one had as yet 
unfolded to us the secrets of that unknown centre, or 
ventured to map out its surface with streams and 
mountains, till, m the middle of last year, Stuart 
and his two companions not only reached the centre, 
but pushed forward to within one hundred miles of 
the northern coast. These undaunted explorers hairo 
especially distinguished themselves, sinoe not only 
have they earuM the name of being the first to 
cross Australia, but have left behind on the earth's 
surface no similar arena on which future travellen 
might equal or surpass them. Equipped with 
thfteen horses and rations for three menus, Stuart 
remained out from March 2 to September 8^ 












CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



243 



Tiflited and reTisited several times that point of 
ambition, the centre of the continent ; and traversed 
three thousand miles of unexplored territory. His 
diary (from which we extract) is of that plain 
mstter-of-fact style which mi^ht be expected from 
one who had spent the most of ms life on the outskirts 
of civilisation; and though describing to us boundless 
traclu of pastoral country, contains no mention of 
startling pxtxiigies, cither in physical or natural history, 
which have lone been attributed to Australia. 

Starting cm the 2d of March from Chambers's Creek, 
situated in lat. 30 degrees south, and long. 137 degrees 
east, he made towaras the north-west, and in three 
weekfl^ time came ujwn two magnificent creeks, the 
Neales and Myall, both flowing to the westward. 
Along the banks of the former they travelled for five 
da^, and en>erienced great difficulty in crossing it, 
owing to the extendi boggy water- courses con- 
noctS with the main stream. At one port, where 
several tributaries joined, this creek spread ont 
into a sheet of water a mile in width, a feature 
hitherto unknown in Australian scenery. The latter 
stream was leas slus^nsh, running at tne rate of five 
miles an hour, and^aNing a breadth of upwards of 
130 yards from bank te bank. During the month of 
March, their progress was much impeded by the 
heavy lains, which made the groimd exceedingly 
boggy; BO much so, as te cause thum the loss of an old 
horse, which they were unable te extricate, and on 
one occasion flooding them out of their camjiing- 
nound, and soaking their provisions. To add to these 
vonblea, the horse which was freighted with the 
instraments unfortunately l)rokc its girths, and in the 
bJl the sextant was injured. Hitherto, the country 
they passed through had been o])cn and well grassed, 
or covered with salt bush and swamps ; but on f ollow- 
mg a branch of the Neales, they had te force their 
way throngh a mulca scrub, so thick that they could 
not aee one hundred yards before them. In doing so, 
llieir saddle-bags and packs were much tern, costing 
them a day to repair. By the end of the month, he 
had reachea 26 degrees south lat., and came upon the 
Frew, another large creek, supplied with fish, muscles, 
and crabs. Large water-holes were connected with 
this stream, and the surrounding countrv was covered 
with graas a foot and a half his^h, wild oats, wheat, 
md rye. The waters here would appear to be per- 
manent, from the frequency of kangaroo tracks, 
together with the number of natives' graves and habi- 
tanona; in many of the last, their fires were still 
smokinff. From the Frew and the Stevenson, creeks 
met with in lat. 2G degrees south, Stuart kept a 
nearly due north course during the whole of the 
month of ApriL Already the exposure to the gLorina 
rays of the sun had l>egim to produce that form oi 
ophthalmia so troublesome to all Australian explorers ; 
so much 80, that in taking observations of tne sun, 
he complained that he saw two images of that body 
at once. The first symptoms of scurvy had she^ni 
themselves, and their liands were disabled with 
festering spots, indicating an irritable state of con- 
stitution. 

Myriads of flies hovered about their faces ; settled 
on the comers of their mouth and eyes, in the vain 
Gideavoor to extract moisture ; and often bunged up 
the latter, by injecting a poisonous fluid into the skin 
through a bite at the inner comer. On Cth April, 
they met with one black fellow, who was so startled 
cm Deing spoken to, and seeing the horses coming 
towards him, that he took to his heels, and made on 
into the bush at once. On the same day, they met 
wiOx one of the most remarkable objects recorded on 
fheir journey ; this was a perpendicular sandstone 
pillar, 105 feet high, 20 feet broad, and 10 feet thick, 
standing on the top of a small hill. The apex of the 
pillar was crowneii by two peaks, and named by 
Bfcoart, Chambos's Pillar, after Mr James Chambers 
d l^^m^*^ the promoter and main supporter of the 



expedition. In the vicinity of tliis singular freak of 
nature were many small sand-hills, beanng at a short 
distance the a]){)carancc of being the ruins of old 
castles, while the grass of the surrounding country 
was as luxuriant as would have admitted of its being 
mowed with a scythe. Tliis district seemed prolific 
in tropical trees, since we lind the India-rubber and 
cork-tree mentione<l, besides a species of palm with 
small broad light-green leaves, spreading out like the 
top of the grass-tree The fruit has a large kernel, 
with a hard shell like a nut, and about the size 
of an egg ; the inside has the taste of a cocoa-nut, but 
when roosted, is like a potato About thirty miles 
from the centre, in the hilly land aroimd Moimt 
Hugh, Stuart was successful in discovering a large 
reser\'oir of water about 300 feet in circumference, 
and from twelve to twenty feet deep. 

On the 22(1, we notice the following interesting 
insertion: * To-day, I find from my observation of the 
sun, that I am now camped in the centre of Australia. 
About two and a half miles to the north-north-east, is 
a high mount ; I wisli it had been in the centre. I shall 
go to it to-morrow, and build a cone of stones, phmt 
the British flag, and name it Central Mount Stuart* 
On the following day, ho says : * Went to the top of 
the mount, which I lind to be much higher and more 
difficult of ascent than I sup])osed ; but after nume- 
rous slips and knocks, we reached the top ; built the 
cone of stones, in the centre of which I placed a pole 
with the British flag nailed to it. On the top of the 
cone I ]>laced a small bottle, in which is a slip of 
paper stating by whom it was raised. We then gave 
three hearty cheers for the flag.' This flag had been 
worked by the ladies of Mr Chambers's family, with a 
view to being placed in the centre, should Stuart ever 
reach it. 

In May, their third month out, Stuart made two 
unsuccessful attem])ts to reach the Victoria llivcr, on 
a north-west course from the centre. This river, inade 
known to us l)y Grccoiy in 1851, empties itself iuto the 
sea, to the westward of the GuLf of Carpentaria. Gre- 
gory had traced it to its source in about 20 degrees 
south, and had explored the fertile country on its banks. 
To connect the territory lying between the centre and 
the source of tliis stream, was therefore one main 
object of Stuart^s exx>e(Ution. Leaving Mount Denison, 
they pursued a north-west course for three dsiys 
without flnding water, till, fortunately, on the fourth 
morning, they came upon a creek, since named the 
Fisher, in which, after a great deal of search, they 
discovered a native well about four feet deep, at 
which they wfitered their horses with a quart-jiot, 
each horse drinking no less than ten gallons of water. 
Nothing daunted, tluy continued two thiys longer on 
the same course, over a * horrid plain ' of apinif ex and 
gum-tree, devoid of a drop of water, till seeing all 
chance of penetrating in that direction lioi>eless, Stuart 
d(?temiined to retreat to tlie centre. On the night 
after making this resolution, they again proWdentially 
came upon another native well, but with such a scanty 
supply, that though waU»ring their horses all night 
through, they could only give them five gallons each. 
On the following day, they retraced their steps to the 
native well in the Fisher, which they found hiid fallen 
in ; and notwithstamliu)^ the want of rest on tlie previous 
night, continued watering their horses till three A. M. 
As a luxury, he says, * we had a pot of tea, which wo 
could ill affonl, and lay do^^^l and got a little sleep, 
thoroughly tired and worn out with hard work and 
want of rest.' After exmtiating on the enormous 
quantity which horses will drink, when subjected to 
such long abstinence, Stuart commends in high terms 
the Ijchaviour of his companions, who worked cheer- 
fully and without grumblmg, not^^'ithstanding liavinf 
had only two hours' sleep in forty-eight hours of such 
intense privation and suffering. ' Spelling' the horses 
for a few days, he again stood towaras the north-east ; 
but after two days' struggling through a scrub and 



S44 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Bpinif ex country without a drop of water, and being 
nearly killed by lus horse taking fright at a wallaby, 
throwing, dragging, and kicking him about the 
shoulder and face, he was obliged to return to the 
centre, which was reached on 15th May, where, for 
five successive da^, his azonies were so excruciating, 
that he almost wished that death would come and 
relieve him from torture. His hands were one mass 
of sores, rendering him utterly helpless ; his mouth 
and gums were so bad that tne only food he could 
swallow was flour and water boiled ; the muscles of 
his limbs changed to a yellow-green, and from that to 
a black colour. At last, after three nights of intense 
suffering and restlessness, he obtain^ a couple of 
hours* sleep. He was determined, however, not to 

S've in, and moved about as much as possible, 
aving despatched Kekwick, who was also suffering, 
in search of water, he returned with the joyful news 
that there was plenty in the Hanson, a creek fifteen 
miles from the centre. He had also seen a couple of 
natives armed with spears, but avoided them. They 
accordingly moved across to the Hanson, where they 
camped tor several days to recruit their strength, at 
the same time making several short excursions, in one 
of which Kekwick again fell in with a couple of 
natives, along with two children, who, on seeing him, 
immediately made off as fast as their legs would carry 
them. 

Starting from another point, to the north-east of the 
centre, on the 2d June, Stuart nmde a final endeavour 
to reach the Victoria River. Up to the 6th, they 
were successful in meeting with water every day, 
though the country generally was very . sterile ; 
but from the 7th to uie 11th, the horses had to 
go without ; in consequence of this, even Stuarf s 
unflinching resolution gave way, and after i)enetrat- 
ing to north of 19 degrees south latitude, he fell 
back towards Bishop^s Creek. Nor was his retreat 
begun a day too soon, since, owing to a want 
of water for 101 hours, while prosecuting a journey 
of 112 miles under a burning hot sun, over a heavy 
sandy soil, three horses knocked up, and though 
lightened of their load, they were ooliged to leave 
them to perish. Owing to the intense thirst, one of the 
others became mad, and rushed wildly about, kicking 
horses and men : on the following day, it died, when 
within a few hours* distance from the water. Some of 
the others likewise shewed symptoms of madness, but 
continued to work well, till, fortunately, on the 
evening of the 11th, they reached Bi8hop*s Creek. 
It was a hard matter to keep the animals m)m over- 
filling themselves, and Stuart was in great anxiety 
about them imtil they had eaten some mouthfuls of 
grass. 

For the six following days they remained at 
Bishop*s Creek, refreshing themselves and the horses. 
During their stay, they were visited by two natives, 
young men armed with sx>ears and boomerangs, the 
latter more scimitar-shaped than those in use in 
South Australia. They were at first very shy, 
brandished their spears, and exhibited other signs 
of defiance ; but after a little pantomimic interchange 
of signals, prefaced by holding up a bunch of green 
leaves, Stuart induced one of them to venture upon 
a conference at two 3rards* distance, which, however, 
resulted in no definite information. These aborigines 
are described as being tall and powerful, perfectly 
naked, wearing their nair long, and enveloped in a 
net of a red colour. 

Thrico foiled in his attempt to reach the Victoria, 
Stuart now started on the 18th, and kept a 
course to the north-east till he reached lat. 18" 
4T south, from whence he was again driven back 
by want of water. In this short excursion he disco- 
vered one or two splendid water-holes, a mile in 
lengthy which he cnristened Phillips* Creek and 
Kekwick*s Ponds. To the latter he was obliged to 
return, after a day and a half s further advance, since, 



though the country consisted of rich grassy plains, he 
dared not venture to risk his already enfeebled horses 
for any ereater length of time without water. While 
resting tor a few days at Kekwick's Ponds, they were 
again visited by several natives, two of whom brought 
them some opossums and parrots — a great treat to 
men who had been living on dried meat and five 
pounds of flour a man per week. like all aborigines, 
they had litUe respect for the law of 'meum and 
tuum,' but began pilfering and laying hands on every- 
thing within ^eir reach. Stuart detecting one of 
them clandestinely tucking the rasp used for shoeing 
horses under the netting round his waist, had to 
take it from him by force. Two of them wore hel- 
mets composed outside of net-work, but inside of 
feathers tightly bound together with a cord, till 
they were as liard as wood. This, he presumed, was 
used either as armour or as a protection from the 
sun. One old man, who seemed a leader, and was 
marked with many scars, made a masonic mgn to 
Mr Stuart, which the latter returned, much to tiieir 
astonishment and satisfaction, as the old man patted 
him on the shoulder, stroked his head, and continued 
making friendly signs till out of sight. 

On the 25th of June, Stuart started on his last 
attempt to push to the northward, and reach the 
GuH of Carpentaria. This time his course was made 
nearly due north, through a most beautiful countiy, 
about equidistant from the last two tracks, until he 
reached lat 18** 50^, long. 134^ 40' east, where he 
was finally repulsed by the natives. Soon after leav- 
ing Kekwick s Ponds, he crossed a large creek with 
long sheets of water, on which were innumerable 
birois of the duck, black shag, crane, and native 
companion species, together wiw abundance of fish 
and crabs. On the succeeding day, they croned 
another large gum creek, likewise furnished with 
long water-holes, and continued their journey still 
furuier north for about fifteen or twenty miles, till, 
finding the countiy become more sandy, covered with 
spinifex and thick scrub, he resolved to return to the 
water he had passed in the morning, endeavouring^ if 
possible, to avoid the natives, who were hovenns 
about them in numbers. But the latter were resolved 
not to let them pass so easy, and made a most resolute 
combined attack, which we describe in Stuarf s ovn 
words. *I was moving on to the place where ire 
crossed the creek in the morning, and had jut 
entered some scrub, when suddenly up started three 
tall powerful men, fully armed, having a number of 
boomerangs, waddies, and spears ; their distance from 
us being about two hundrea yards, it being also near 
dark, and the scrub we were then in being very 
disadvantageous for us, I wished to pass on with- 
out taking any notice of them ; but such was not 
their intention, as they continued to approach us, 
calling out, and making all sorts of gesl^iies, appar- 
ently of defiance. I then faced them, making all 
sorts of signs of friendship I could think ot They 
seemed to be in a great lury, moving their boomer- 
an|^ about their heads, and howling to the top of 
their voices, also performing some sort of danca 
They were now joined by a number more, which, in 
a few minutes increased to upwards of thirty : every 
bush seemed to produce a man. Putting the horses 
on towards the creek, and placing ourselveB between 
them and the natives, I told the men to get their 
guns ready, for I could see they were determined 
upon mischief. They paid no regard to all the signs 
of friendship I kept constantly making, but were 
still gradually approaching nearer. I felt veiy un- 
willing to fire upon them, and continued mAlring signs 
of peace and fnendsliip, but all to no purpose. An 
old man (the leader) who was in advance made signs 
with his boomerang for us to be off, which proved to 
be one of defiance, for I had no sooner turned my 
horse's head to see if that was what they wished, 
than we received a shower of boomerangs, acoompanied 



CHAMBBRfiPS JOURNAL. 



245 



by a fearful yell ; they then commenced jumping, 
dancing, yelling, shcwmg their arms in all sorts 
of postures, like so many fiends, and setting fire 
to the grass. I could now see many others getting 
up from behind the bush ; still I felt unwilling to 
me upon them, and tried to make them undersSind 
that we wished to do them no harm. Thev now came 
within fortv yards of us, and again ma<le a charge, 
throwing their boomerangs, which came whistling 
and whizzing past our ears. One B]x^ar struck my 
horse. I then gave orders to fire, which stayed their 
mad career for a little. Our pack-horses, which were 
before us, took fright when tliey heard the firing and 
fearful yelling; and made off for the creek. &eing 
the blacks running from bush to bush with the inten- 
tion of cutting us off from them, while those in front 
were still yeUing, throwing their boomerangs, and 
coming near to us, we gave them another reception, 
and sent Ben after the horses to drive them to a more 
favourable place, while Kekwick and I remained to 
cover our rear. We soon got in advance of our 
enemies, bat they still kept following bcyoud the 
reach of our guns, the fearful yelling continuing, and 
tires siiringin^ in every direction ; and it being now 
qnite oork, with the country scrubby, and our enemies 
numerous, bold, and daring, we could easily be 
snrromided and destroveil by such dotermine<l fellows 
as they ha^e shewn themselves to be. Seeing there 
was no chance with such fearful o<lds against us (ten 
to one), and knowing the <lisadvantag(is under which 
we laboured, I very imwillingly made up my mind to 
posh on to last night's camp, which we did.' 

Retreating to Heyward's Creek ou the evening of 
this eventful day, Stuart seems to have called a 
council of war, and very reluctantly to have abandoned 
all idea of again trying to reach the Gulf of Carpen- 
taria. When the prize was all but within his reach — 
when a few days would have enabled his party, like 
the remnant of the Ten Thousand Greeks, to exclaim 
'The sea ! the sea I ' — this fearless man, o^-ing to the 
inabili^ of his small party to cope with so many 
determined and wily enemies, was obliged to turn 
his horses* heads southward. The tactics displayed 
by these northern aborigines, who resembled Malays 
nore tiian Australians, gave rise to the supposition 
that they had encountered white men before, since 
the cunning rascals watched the track made by Mr 
Stoart^B ])arty in the morning, and knowing that no 
water was to be had in that direction, stationed them- 
selves BO as to intercept his return. Nor did they 
attack in a disorderly manner, but charged in double 
cdaftm, BO that the party of cxplonrrs had to take 
steady aim in order to make some impression. With 
such formidable foes in front — with the rapid evapora- 
tion in the water-holes Ix'hind (only two showers of 
rain having fallen since March) threatening to cut off 
his return — "with but one month's rations in hand, 
8tuart and his party did wisely in retreating, other- 
wise, sharing a mysterious end like that of Leichardt, 
all the information he acquired would have perished 
with him and his companions. Mr Stuart followed, 
with a slight divergence, nearly the same track 
homewards as that by which he came, continuing 
to make short excursions from his line of route, and 
reveal other patches of well-grassed country and 
ejctenaive water-holes ; till, on 3(1 Sejiteuibcr, he 
reached Chambers's Creek, having been six months 
absent, and traversed upwards of three thousand 
miles of unknown territory. During this period, he 
had made three unsuccessful attempts to reach the 
Victoria — two to the north-east of the * horrid [ilain ' 
of Btunifex and gum-tree ; and one to the north-west, 
in toe latter of which he lost three horses. On the 
first two courses, he hail gone within two hundred 
miles of Gregory's track ; ou the last, two hundred and 
■ix; and had overlaiipcd it in latitude exactly one 
hmtdred miles. Afterwards, he made two efforts 
to reach the Gul^ in tihe first of which he was 



driven back by want of water ; in the last, by the 
natives. 

Such are a few of the facts gleaned from a diary of 
one of the most enterj)rising journeys on record. 
When we considtT that the party num1)ered but three 
— that they had no guiding landmarks, or track of 
previous explorer to go by— that from the first they 
were put on half-rations a day — that they were 
opposed by numerous savages, and prosecuted their 
journey though four times driven bact by thirst — ^we 
may affirm that, for daring and determination, Stuart's 
exploration of Central Australia stands without a 
parallel 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

CHArTEn XXXI.—PROFESSIONAL. 

The burning though negative shame which attaches 
to all Scapt'graces, and especially distinguishes them 
from the go^ young men of their own generation, 
was now at least remove<l in the case of Richard 
Arlx)ur. Dick did belong to a profession. No friend 
of his father — well-to-do, apoplectic, and severe — 
could meet him now and ask, * What he was doing 
for himself,' with the previous knowledge in his 
respectable but malicious mind that he was doing 
nothing. We do remember in that epoch of our own 
hot youth, when, to the great scandal of our friends, 
we shrank from Law, and I^hysic, and Divinity, the 
dreadful trade of Arms, and the still less unmitigated 
horrors of a Naval life, and preferred to compose the 
most rejectable pai>ers for the i)eriodicu]s, now we 
ourselves were worried by such inquisitors. They 
were always persons who professed to have enter- 
tained a friendship for our deceased parent, but who 
did not extend that privilege — except in the thinnest 
and most theoretic form —to ourselves. They neither 
lent nor left us money. They confined themselves 
entirely to inquiring what we intended to do for 
ourselves, with the sole object of seeing us blush 
and stammer, and reply that at present we had no 
settlecl i)rospects whatever. Goade<l to madness on 
one occasion by a i>ersecutor of this kind — a pre- 
bendary of a cathedral, whose own office, by the by, 
was a total sinecure — we replied that our walk in life 
was (with many thanks to him for his obliging 
interest in our fortunes) thoroughly chalked out for 
us, and that the name of it— was ti^t-rope dancing. 
With equal force, and greater truth, Dick might have 
now staggered any such questioner by the reply that 
his was * lion-taming.* 

As soon as his liand got well, he was formally 
installed into the office and emoluments of the 
departe<l Tickerocandua. The death of Semiramis — 
although that lady was valued by her proprietor at 
upwards of two hundred pounds — was at once forgiven 
him, and the more cheerfully, perhaps, because the 
coroner's jury at the inquest upon poor Robinson had 
expressed their conviction that so sanguinary an animal 
ought to be at once destroyed. Mr Tredgold sent his 
politest compliments to the foreman, ana begged to 
assure him that the creature liad 1)een destroyed 
within four-and-twenty hours of the fatal occurrence ; 
and in return the proprietor received the eulogiums of 
the county press for his reacly sacrifice of his private 
interests to the general good' of the human species. 

*My dear Arl>our,' ol)served Mr Tredgold, some 
little time after the exhibition at the castle, but with 
the gracious expressions of royal approval yet ringing 
in his ears — *I tnist you "will never be dissevered 
from the establishment of Tredgold, late Trimming. 
I hope this golden beginning may be the earnest to 
you of a prolonged career of successful experiments.* 

Dick replied that he hoped that also ; albeit with 
some little insincerity, for the teaching of hoop- 
jumping to the fdinai is not exactly an employment 
for extreme old age, nor what a sanguine mmd looks 



forward to as the end and crown of existence. More* 
over, his Lucy might scarcely like the peripatetic 
character of such a domicile as the caravan, even 
if the Earthwoman (which did not seem probable) 
should turn out to be a sisterly and agreeable person 
to dbare a home with. 

' I am perfectly satisfied with you, Dick, perfectly 
satisfied,' continued the proprietor, but at tne same 
time casting a wistful look at the object of so com- 
plete a eulogy, ' only there are some bills here that I 
should like you to look at and say you would not 
mind.' 

' To look at them and say I wouldn't mind,' replied 
Dick, ' wdH, that sounds easy enough, I 'm sure. But 
as to putting my name to the back of them — if that is 
what you want—why, you must be aware, Mr Tred- 
gold, that I am a mere man of straw ' 

'Why, bless my life, Dick, it's the posting-bills / 
mean. You see, were is something in a name, what- 
ever the poet savs to the contrary. Now, Arbour 
ainH a name ; a-leastways, not a name for a blank 
wall in a leading thoroughfare. Robinson was the 
same, poOT fellow. Bobinson would never have done 
for a draw for the general public Bobinson the 
Invincible would have sounded next kin to nonsense. 
The Lion-hunter of Central Africa ought to have a 
title, as it were, suitable to that locality, eh ? Now, 
don't you think so? Bichard Arbour — you will 
excuse my freedom, Dick — is rather a foolish name. 
It don't stir your blood, like, when you see it printed, 
no matter how big one gets the type.' 

Dick was compelled to admit that, so far as he 
knew, the appearance of his familv name was not cal- 
culated to have an exhilarating effect upOn the public. 

'Exactlv,' continued Mr Iredgold; *I knew you 
couldn't ddEend it for a moment. Now, just look at 
this.' He unrolled a posting-bill of the most gigantic 
proportions. * Here's a conception for you ! Here 's 
a hit, although I says it as shouldn't say it, which, in 
tiie present juncture of circumstances, will be wcnrth 
its weight in gold : 

Abbobino thb InyinoiblsI Mini!!!! 

If the space would have admitted of them, we 
would have had half a hundred notes of admiration 
instead of eleven. Tou can't read it, ^riiaps, at this 
short distance ; that 's the beauty of it. The public 
will have to retire half a mile of^ in order to take all 
the letters in. That will be one of the great attrac- 
tions. All the people walking backwards away from 
the wall in order to learn w£tt it is all about. The 
principal thoroughfares will be impeded; the police 
win mterfere : ue thing will cet into the papers. 
Arborino the Invincible will be advertised for notning 
through the length and breadth of the land. Tou 're 
a devuish lucky fellow, Dick ! I congratulate you.' 

It was with a rueful countenance that Dick eyed 
the shapeless rainbow of print — for every letter was a 
different colour — and vainly endeavoured to decipher 
his new and magnificent title. 

*You don't mind?* expostulated Mr Tredgold 
earnestly. ' I 'm sure you are not the man to let the 
establishment suffer just for want of a couple of 
syllables.' 

* No ; I don't mind much, Mr Tredgold.' 

And from that moment, to the world at large, our 
Dick was known as Arborina He became not only 
lion-hunter to the establishment, but presiding genius ; 
director, ^rime-minister, and factotum of the pro- 
prietor lumself. In consequence of his skilful care, 
far fewer animals died during the winters than had 
been lost before. Beasts of the highest value were 
purchased and parted y,'\\h at a word of advice from 
hiuL When, in course of time, he asked of Mr Tred- 

Sold that a certain percentage of the increased profits, 
erived directly from these services — and exclusive of 
the taming department — should be allotted to him, 
it was granted with a readiness that made him regret^ | 



perhajM, the modesty of his demand. His wants were 
few, his expenses trifling, and he had reasons of his 
own for saving money. It was no wonder, therefore, 
that he soon possessed a considerable sum in hand. 
Mr Tredgold's returns were large, but he was some- 
times glad of a little ready cash, and Dick's was 
always at his disposal, for a consideration. With aQ 
this prosperitv, it was creditable to the young man 
that hard work did not grow hateful to him, or, at all 
events, that he was never known to shirk it. He 
was always ready to go throu^ the dangenras 
drudgery of the lion-hunt to the minute, nor had Mr 
Mopes once to nnn out his lecture upon natural 
history because Arborino linsered in nis caravan. 
Unless, indeed. Business is to oe considered a thing 
inseparably connected with folded papers, red tape, 
u^l^ wafer-stamps, mustiness, spectacles, and sus- 
I»cion, the Familv Scapegrace was turning out to be 
a very excellent Business-man. 

The last dutv— thouch Dick little knew ft was to 
be the last — which fell to his lot while in Mr Tred- 
gold's establishment, was one that the majority even 
of lion-tamers mifi;ht have hesitated to perform with- 
out disgrace, and which still fewer persons, with 
monev in their purses, and the means ozenjoying life, 
woula have unaertaken. 

The time was autumn, and the village where the 
establishment was remaining im a night was not very 
far from that same Salterleigh, in Devonshire, where 
Dick had made his first acquaintance with il Tht 
exhibition had long been closed, and Nidtit and 
earliest Morning were comx)eting in that hopeless 
struggle which tiie former still maintains in spite of 
so protracted an experience, when Dick was aroused 
from the heavy sleep which always weighed down his 
eyelids upon Saturday niehts, by ue Earthman 
ejaculating his usual formulsB with unwonted animi^ 
tion, and pressing upon him, by unmistakable signs, 
the loan of his bow and arrows. Dick declined the 
weapons, but was endeavourinff to decipher his meaning 
when in rushed Mr Mopes, nead foremost^ with the 
startling information that the lions were oat, and tlis 
devil was to pay. 

'What lions?' inquired Dick. 

' All of 'em,' returned the natural history piof ew or. 
'They're a-wandering about the town as comman as 
cats.^ 



Without waiting to attire himself completely, but 
rather taking the Earthman for his model in tiiat 
respect, Dick was out of the caravan and in front of 
his ca^ within the minute. 

'All the lions' that were 'about the town,' or ebe- 
where, were at once reduced by tins personal inspec- 
tion to two — ^Ajax and another who had been pat 
in the place of the defunct Semiramia. They had 
gnawed their way through the floor — the only portion 
of their apartment that was not sheatiied with iron — 
like a couple of Baron Trcncks, and were oirt for the 
nig^t on some pleasant Devonshire ramUa In such 
a case, it was not likely that Mr Tredjgold would be 
veiT useful, and, indeed, upon being mfonned, from 
without, of what had occurred, that gentleman im- 
mediately rolled himself up in his beddotiies, after 
the manner of a hedsehog, and so remained in a 
torpor of terror ; while nis lady- wife, no less tenified, 
but thus left insufficiently provided with the same 
means of concealment, shut herself up^ erects in a 
cupboard. 

Neither woxdd Mr Mopes move in the matter, 
nor the Earthman — who was the &vouiite fbod 
of lions in his own country — nor any other peraon 
in the establishment. So long as the beasts were 
in their natural and proper places, namely, their 
cages, argued the first gentleman, he, for his part, 
was readv to attend to them ; but since they had 
escaped therefrom into the world at large, they had 
placed themselves out of his jurisdiction : the matter 
reaolved itself into a case of lion-huntings whenin it 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



247 



TTM clear that lion-hunters were alone concerned. 
An inhabitant of the village, who kept late hours, 
had met the two animals in question — whom terror 
and his previous potations had ma^iiicd to eight— 
trotting tranquilly down the little lii^h Street, and 
had started off at considerable speed, and in the 
icverse direction to that in which he had been fi^ingi to 
inform Mr Mopes, with the whereabouts of whose 
lodging he happexied to be acquainted. The Earth- 
man uuL heard and interpreted arij^t the cry of 
exultation that Ajaz had indulged himself in upon 
setting his foot on the land of freedom. 

This was all the information that Dick could glean, 
before he started, with a couple of lon^ strong cords 
about his middle, in pursuit of the formidable truants. 

Esrly aa it was, the news had already percolated 
through, a great part of the village, the inhabitants of 
which, in every variety of undress, were at their upi)er 
windows beseeching Dick to take away the lions out 
of their land, just as the knight-errants of old were 
im^rtuned in the case of dragons and other devas- 
tating monsters. Upon his part, Dick besought the 
good folkfy with some superfluousness, to remain 
within doors, and on no account to anger the creatures 
hy miwrilew, or otherwise, if they chanced to return 
toat way. The door of only one cottage was open 
—left BO on the previous evening in consequence of 
the autumnal heat — wherein a bedridden old woman 
lay oomjdaining that two of the bii^gest dogs sho 
had ever seen had just been in and chased away her 
favoorite black cat. 

'Are you quite sure they were not lions ?' inquired 
Dick with anxiety. 

* Gad a mercy,' exclaimed the old woman, * I dunno 
what they was ; but I 'U have the law on thee if thou 
bekmgrt to them, and they have banned my black 
cat!' 

Ajaz and his companion had indeed begun their 
holiday by giving chase to this insignificant animal, 
who faiad flea from her far-away and gigantic kindred 
into a neighbouring cornfield. Dick perceived the 
two piusuers leaping up, ever and anon, above the 
abmaing crop, and the ripple of the com over their 
hsada as they dashed along as through their native 
jangles. He had a difiiculty just twice as great as 
that of Samson's before him, but one to be overcome 
less by the strength of Samson than by the cunning of 
Delilah. He had not even his trusty whip with him ; 
hot only a heart full of courage and a handful of 
eovda. As soon as the lions saw him, they came 
springing and bounding over the toll ears towards 
him, aa though they would say : * Here we are I Ain't 
it joUy? Am't it prime? We'll have no more of 
that cage- work — any of us — will we ? How glad we 
are that you take a similar view of the matter, and 
have oome out to play with us !' 

Then Dick lay down, and the unsuspecting lions 
with him ; and having treacherously fastened the two 
oords to each of their four legs, respectively, he pulled 
ihem sharply together, and knotted the cords, whereby 
the majestic creatures were securely * hobbled.' Then 
Mr Mopes and other brave men came with flat boards, 
whweupon the hampered beasts were strongly bound, 
and ao, Dome shoulder-high, though not altogether in 
triumph, back to their apartment, which was already 
■ecnrdy refloored for their reception. 

Everybody was enthusiastic about Dick's cour- 
ageous coniluct, the very parish-clerk of the place 
being moved to confess that no similar feat had oeen 
performed in that neighbourhood for a series of years. 
Sir Tredgold's gratitude was as overpowering as his 
previous fears nad been, and he offered a qiiarter- 
■hare of his proprietorship to Dick on the spot, before 
l»'eakfast. Everything that morning, in short, seemed 
to point to the young man's becoming the kin^ of 
lion-tamers, and enjoying a prolon^d and glorious 
lewi — untU the post come in with a letter for nim. 

Sow often, at some apparonUy crowning point, does 



a change occur in men's fortimes ! How often, at 
short whist, with all the honours in one's hand, and, 
as it seems, the gome, a * cross ruff' or some other unex- 
pected invention of the enemy gives them their one 
thing needful, the odd trick — for the enemy, that is to 
say the chances of life against us are always * at four.' 
And then how we blmdly roil at the less blind 
Fortuna, who is doing her very best, perhaps, for us 
after all, and is only taking the first game away that 
we may win the succeeding two and the lon^ odiis I 

There would have been much repining m Dick*s 
heart upon the receipt of this missive, on account of 
the mal-d'propos time at which it called him away 
from the menagerie, hod it not brought a far 
deeper sorrow with it-— an apprehension for the life of 
her for whom alone he toiled and lived — which over- 
whelmed all other thoughts. The letter ran thus : 

* Dearest Dick — We want you here — at once — 
immediately. There is one in this house, sick even 
unto death perha])s, for whom (if I know you) you 
would sacrihce your right hand if it could smooth 
the pillow better than another's; as it can. — Your 
loving Maooik.* 

This epistle was dated from the house of Mr Mickle- 
ham, ana left no doubt in Dick's own mind as to the 
identity of the person of whom his sister wrote so 
urgently. His beloved Lucy must indeed have been 
very ill to have excused Ma^e for leaving her imcle, 
who, in these last days, coida scarcely bear to let her 
out of his sight. He knew this by previous letters 
both from Maggie and Lucy, who nad kept him 
informed, too, cl the influence which Mr Frederic 
Charlecot exercised over the House, as well as of his 
marriage with Maria, which had taken place some 
few months b<ack. But of late there had been a long 
and imwonted pause in their correspondence. In a 
tumult of apprehension, Dick x)ackea a few clothes 
together, concluded certain business arrangements 
with his proprietor, and was off in a gig to the nearest 
railway station to cateh the Sunday maiL How long 
secmca that iron way ! how tardy the flight of thai 
'resonant steam eagle' which boro him, though it 
sped over valley ana river, and dashed through rock 
and hill as bird could never do ! When the train was 
exchanged for the cab, his impatience grew to fever- 
heat ; he passed that portion of the journey half inside 
the vehicle, half out of the window, exnorting the 
coachman to drive fast, and yet, when the well-known 
house— dearest to him of all dwellings — was in view, 
he durst not look at it ; for fear — as upon that awful 
morning in Golden Square — ^ho should nnd that Death 
had been before him. 

Ere the cabman could ring, however, Maggie had 
opened the door, and kissing him fondly, wluspered 
the answer to that question which he diured not putk 
* Yes, dearest, you are in time, thank Heaven ! But 
you must be prepared for a great change. Will you 
see any one else tirst, or go at once' 

* At once, at once ! ' cried Dick impatiently, and was 
hurrying up-stairs to what had formerly been his dear 
Lucy's cliamber, when Maggie called him back. 

* Nay, this way, brother/said she, opening softiy a 
door on the hall-floor ; ' our invalid is here.' 

The spare room had been mode the sick-room, and, 
in its ample bed, there lay, propi)ed up by pillows, 
and weak, and won, and white, the scarcely recog- 
nisable form of Uncle Ligram. 

CHAPTER XXXIL 
KECOXOILEIl. 

If for an instant the deep shadow of sorrow flitted 
from the young man's brow, and his breath was drawn 
more lightly, because his beloved one was safe and 
well, and another, where he had looked for her, wfw 
sick, it was for an instant only. Nothing but tender 
and eager pity was to be read on Richiurd Arbour's 
features after that first surprise. 



J 



248 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



The spectacle before him might well indeed have 
moved a harder heart that h^ been more deeply 
wronged. Those firm, gray, fiint-like eyes, where- 
from the impatient fire had often msuhed, but 
from which no tear had been ever seen to &dl, 
were now dull and filmy ; the cheeks were ghastly 
and sunk ; the large hands lay outside the counter- 
le, gaunt, thin, and motionless. An awful smile 
)rted one half of the face ; the other was 
all that was now left to represent the man, whose 
every muscle and lineament had been wont to 
play their part in setting forth the ener^ and 
strength witnin. By the bedside sat Mr MicSfeham, 
hazard and pale too, with an anxious solicitude 
in ms gaze that gave place to a sorrowful smile of 
welcome to Dick, and then returned intenser yet, as 
thou^ he reproached himself for even that momentary 
oblivion of his stricken friend and master. 

' You see he is not here,' murmured the sick man 
peevishly, with his eyes fixed upon the new-comer. 
' I knew he wouldn't be : he never tcould do what he 
was told; and why should he, now that I am a 
be^ar?* 

Tne sreat strong-bearded man who had quelled 
lions, feU down upon his knees beside the bed, and 
asked forgiveness, from this powerless, half-childish 
fellow-creature, for all the ungrateful wilfulness and 
disobedience that he had shewn towards him during 
his past life. 

'Is this my nephew Richard? Can it be Dick?' 
asked the ola man with a quavering voice. * Wipe 
my eyes, William; the sun gets to them through the 
blmd. Please to wipe my eyes.' And indeed there 
were no dry eyes in the room when Uncle Ingram 
spoke these words. 

' I can't shake hands with you, Dick — I am a little 
weak from my late illness — but I forgive you aU. 
You shouldn't have put the stone in the snow-ball, 
you know ; you must see that now, I 'm sure : I hope 
Dempsey is going on welL* That name had not been 
mentioned in the Arbour family for more than ten 
years past, nor had it perhaps ever passed the old 
merchant's lips before. *But, then,' continued he, 
apologetically, 'that was notlung like the ^ame to 
the House. In all the papers, I daresay, by this time, 
is it not, William?' 

The two male auditors were of opinion that 
the sick man was refening to the chai^ brought 
long ago against Dick in the case of Coimt Got- 
Buchakoff; but Magcie made a hasty gesture of 
silence, and answe^^ for Mr Mickleham: 'Yes, 
uncle.' She divined that he was contrasting in his 
mind the respective behaviours of Richard and 
Adolphus, and that his speech referred to a much 
later calamity, the suddenness of which had brought 
on paralysis, and reduced him to his present pitiable 
condition. 

'You know all about it, I suppose, Dick,' he 
went on; 'you must have heard it wherever you 
were. We are all beggars together now. I 'm in the 
workhouse; this is t£e doctor; that is the nurse. I 
have nothing to complain of, however — nothing. 
What right 1ms a pauper got to complain of anytiiing? 
That is what I have always said. Adolphus plotted 
it all— aU : he and his friend Mr Ch-Ch-di ' 

'Dearest uncle,' whispered Maggie, 'try and sleep 
a little ; you are exciting yourseLTabout things that 
are all past and cone.' 

•I like to taSt to Dick,' replied the sick man 
drowsily, 'though he does wear a beard Uke Mr 
Ch-Ch-Ci ' 

The old man fell into one of those heavy slumbers 
that aro mora like Death than Repose, in a vain 
endeavour to articulate the name of the man who 
had ruined him. 

The House of Arbour had fallen with a tremendous 
crash, and thero had been nothing saved for the 
owner out of the rains. The liabifities of the firm 



might perhaps be met, but that was all that could 
be reasonably hoped for. The mighty snow-bftll which 
Mr Ingram Arbour had toilsomefy pushed before him, 
increasing with its every revolution, up the long hill 
of life, had escaped his fin^rs, and rolled to the 
bottom, broken in a thousand pieces. He was well 
aware that that Sisyphean labour was not such as 
could be undertaken anew at seventy-four, and the 
sudden consciousness of his helplessness had been too 
much for his already enfeebled frame. Mr Mickle- 
ham's house (for his own was inhabited by those now 
hateful to him) had been thrown open to him at onoe, 
as home and hospital, but that gentleman's aflEairs, of 
course, were themselves stricken by the same blow 
which had ruined his employer. 

'I am poor enouffh for you now, dearest Dick,' 
sobbed Lucy Mickldam in the course of a channing 
interview which took place on his leaving his uncle's 
chamber: 'you needn*t complain any more of my 
being so ricL My face is my fortune, like the poor 
little milkmaid's in the song I used to sing to you, 
and that 's not half so plump nor so well worth look- 
ing at as it was — ^is it? Did you ever see such 
eyes?' 

She pointed with a fairy finger to the long lashea 
plentifully drenched with dew, and Dick replied, 
* Never ! ' with enthusiasm. 

' We must all work now, as you do, Dick, and not 
be proud any more. Willy wantd to do it all himself, 
dear fellow ; but I, for one, don't mean to let him. I 
'can get seven-and-8ixi)ence a piece for hand-screens 
of my own painting, such as this, at a shop I know 
of, and they donU cost me seven-and-threepence to 
begin with, as he insists.' 

It was a pretty screen, representing the usual 
umbrageous landscape, but in the background there 
was a hermit's cell, which Dick's eye rapturously 
recognised as the idealised presentaient of that 
garden-bower which had witnessed their last parting. 

' That is mine,' cried he; ' I will give four hundred 
pounds for it; that is mine for evermore! ' and he 
seized the banner, albeit her little hand defended it 
gallantly, and only surrendered it under the dread 
compulsion of a kiss. It was a long price to offer fcr 
the article, and one certainly much aoove its market 
value, but Dick considered the very struggle to obtain 
possession cheap at the money. 

'There,' cried he gaily, 'we have now cot 8onie« 
thing to furnish with ! One cannot make a begimiing 
too soon; although, dearest Lucy' — and his voice 
sank, and his look lost its brightness as he said it — 
' although there is many a weary year, I fear, lying 
between you and me.' 

Lucy did not answer in words, but her face, with 
the sudden cloud upon it, and the raindrops gathering, 
spoke for her, saymg : ' Alas, and is this tme, love ? 
I thought that since we were both so poor, we mi{ght 
both be happy.' 

It was a terrible trial to Dick to have to tell her 
how far asunder they were yet ; but he did tell her 
all, for he knew that she had a heart as brave as 
loving ; how that, even as matters had stood before, 
it was impossible that they could have married until 
he had put by money enough to do so, independently 
of his present mx>fession, or had attained such a part* 
ncrship in Mr Tredgold's establishment as should do 
away with the necessity of the hazard of life and limb. 
She shuddered even to hear him talk of that. Then 
what, reasoned he, would be her anxiety to see him 
encountering such apparent perils — ^for, in reality, 
there was httie danger, he said— daily, nay, hourly? 
Moreover, even if her father and brother should have 
consented to it, Dick himself, he owned, would no 
more have permitted wife of his to have accompanied 
the menagerie in its peregrinations, than would the 
Archbishops of York or Canterbury. Now, it wonkl 
be mere weakness to conceal from themselves, afbim 
were even in a still less hopeful position. 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



249 



owB necessities, it now devolved upon him to supply 

those of sick and ruined Uncle Ingram 

'Dearest Dick!' assented Lucy softly, with quite 
a radiance of approval shining, rainbowlike, in her 
tesrfal eyes. 

* And Maggie, too, our own dear, darling Maggie,* 
added Dick ; ' for well I know that you would scorn 
to think of me, did I dream of happiness while Maggie 
was within the reach of the cold hand of Want.' 

'Dearest Dick!' sobbed Lucy once again, partly 
because she approved of his sentiments, and partly 
because she took a crcat satisfaction in the mere 
utterance of that couple of words. 

Maggie's arms were round her as she spoke, or at 
least one of her arms, the other being in the custody 
of Mr William Mickleham the younger, who accom- 
panied hor. 

*I he^ your pardon, brother, for eavesdropping,' 
observed that centleman laughing, ' but wc only 
beard that concluding sentence of yours which con- 
cerned ourselves. It is very pleasant to be spoken 
of in that fashion by friends behind one's back, and 
therefore Magffie cries about it. Lucy and she always 
cry wheneverUiey are very much pleased. It's a pMt 
of the contrariness of their femmine natures. But 
Diok, my boy, you see you must leave your sister out 
of these kind calculations of yours. She and I are 
one, or shall be so in a little time, I trust ; and I have 
always had an excellent knack of providing for 
Number 1. Thank Heaven, too, we shall have some- 
thing over, not only for our dear father, but for others 
also. Let us two, however, form ourselves at once 
into a committee of Ways and !Mcans, if at least 
Lucy can spare you. She has only been talking to 
you two hours and a half at present, so it is sc<ircely 
to be expected that she can have communicated half 
her ideaSi' 

' We have scarcely been half an hour ! ' exclaimed 
Lucy with virtuous mdignation. 

There was a tell-tale clock in the room, so that 
even Maggie herself was obliged to join in the mirth 
excited by this audacious statement. 

•Well, I am sure that you and Willy,' retorted 
Lucy, commencing that line of defence denominated 

the tu quoque, * are often hours and hours' 

' By the by, I have quite forgotten Uncle Ingram's 
lemonade ! ' exclaimed his niece precipitately, as she 
na out of the room, pursued, in her turn, by the 
laoflhter of the company. 

*0f all the i>eoplc who ever lived in a glxiss-housc, 
Willy,' continued his sister, 'and yet persisted in 

throwing stones' 

•My dear Lucy,' interrupted her brother pityingly, 
'I am neither a melon nor a cucumlx^r, and I live at 
Somerset House. Nobody knows what you mean, 
nor whom vou are talking about. You will find 
her an excellent young person, doubtless, Dick, but 
flighty — certainly wl^t you call flighty. With 
icgara to business-matters, however, since she is 
detennined to remain here and be present at* our 
conference, she had better be the hrst to give in 
her sdiedule of available capitaL Item, a hand- 
screen' 

'Willy, be quiet!' ejaculated Lucy, upon tiptoe, 
and endeavouring to close his provoking mouth with 
her little hand. 

'A screen painted half in oil and half in water- 
coloore — for she was crying' 

• Ah, story-teller, what hbs ! — what wicked fibs ! * 

' Ci^dng all the time she was at it, just as thoueh 
she had been working at an onion ; and it 's exceedingly 
like — only the scene is in Brittany, she says — the tm>l- 
honse in our back-garden, where she and you, I 
believe' 

Here Lucy set up a scream of positive terror, and 
patting her fingers mto her ears, ran off, as Maggie had 
oooe before her, scarlet, and left the two bread-winners 
to tibeir o(mf erence upon Ways and Means. 



' The failure of the House is as bad as bad can be, 
Dick,' began William gravely, 'and wo may just as 
well look upon it as though it had never existed* 
Now, tell me at once, my dear fellow, in order that we 
may clearly see our way, how much — if anything — can 
you calculate upon contributing to the common stock 
per annum? How much do you now make, a year, 
with your bear and your hurdy-gurdy?' 

' Just now, and in my improv^ position, the profits 
of which are only just commencing,' repUed Dick 
modestly, 'I have something over three hundred a 
year. I think, indeed — for my own exi)en8es, Uving 
as I do in a house on wheels, are next to nothing — that 
I can easily spare that siun.' 

'The deuce you can!' exclaimed the government 
clerk in a tone of sublime astonishment. ' Then all I 
have to say, Dick, is, do you hapx)en to have a vacancy 
in your establishment? It is true that my own income 
is double yours, but then it has taken me five times 
the number of years to earn it.' 

' I don't think you would quite like my mode of life,' 
returned Dick smiling, as he pictured to himself this 
scrupulously attired and rather self-complacent official 
amid the whirl of the lion-hunt. * It would doubtless 
be as strange to yon as Somerset House would be 
to me.' 

* Dick,' replied Mr William Mickleham solemnly, 
'you are an impostor and a humbug. You have 
misled the World — you almost misled me — to consider 

you a half-daft ne'er-do-weel, whereas By the 

by, have you got any ready money in your possession, 
Dick?' 

(' I am not sure,' whispered the government clerk to 
himself, * that this isn't all moonshme after all.') 

Dick drew out of his coat-pockets a bunch of 
enormous keys, a tolerably sized bale of tobacco, a 
prospectus of his own performances for that evening 
at Plymouth, a drenching-horn, and a Banker's book. 

His future brother-in-law watched the appearance 
of these various articles with an interest unmixed with 
wonder, until his eye lit upon this last. 

' I should have been less astonished,' murmured he 
aloud, * if I had seen the fellow with the Bible itsell' 

' I always do carry a Bible,' said Dick simply, pro- 
ducing his mother's gift, and lidding the volume to the 
heterogeneous assemolagc upon the table. 

' Please to draw a cheque,' observed Mr William 
Mickleham ; ' do : when you have done that, the 
thing will have reached its climax. I am in a dream 
at present. It is the transfermation scene of a 
pantomime, only reversed. You were the clown; you 

are Why, what's this for — ^theso cheques for 

six and for four hundred pounds ?' 

' ITie one is for Uncle Ingram ; for that money he 
sent to me was never mine, but lies to my account at 
his banker's. The other is for value received,' rephed 
Dick. ' It belongs to Lucy properly, but now it's 
yours, as her share and that of my uncle of the com- 
mon expenses, past and future, of the household. X 
settled accounts with Tredgold yesterday, before I 
came away, and this was the balance in my favour.' 

The unegotistic simplicity with which Dick gave 
tins hopeful schedule of his pecuniary affairs, and the 
entire absence of any consciousness that he was doing 
more than what was perfectly just and reasonable, 
filled the government clerk with an admiration that 
he rarely allowed himself to entertain for any man 
save one. 

* Do you know, Dick, that I consider you one of the 
finest fellows with whom I have ever had the honour 
of shaking hands?' 

*Ah, but you should see me with my crown of 
feathers and my leopard's skin,' returned the Beast- 
tamer, laughing bitterly : 'then I'm fine indeed !* 

' It will be better when we can dispense with these 
ornaments, certainly,' answered the other ; ' althou^ 
indeed, they are no more to be asha m ed of than the 
ermine of the judge or the lawn of the bishop. Even 



COAMBEBS'B JOURNAL. 



Wudom and Piety most Deeds v 
duzle the crowd in this world.' 

' Thank you, brother,' replied Dick aadlj, ' for 
tlTtDg for my sake, ta pennode youraeU of that. I 
eomiot perauade Tn^self of it. My dear Lucy know? 
' ' worst, tliaok Heaven, uid ii conteat to hide her 
e for me. But it's a dreadfiO thing, William, to be 
the Scapegrace of a family, after all.' 

The young man coveied. hii swuiiiy face with hia 
hands, and groaned alond. 

The eovemmeiit clerk, vho would nerer hare 
lu&ered hia own feelinga to have thua exhibited them- 
lalveH in another's preaance, waa almost aa much 
■candaliscd as touched. 

' Take soma water, Dick ; tske lome brandy and 
rater, my good fellow '. Take a turn in the gmilea — 
liiak of Bomctbtne clso, if you can ! Why, there's B 
letter for you—a Tetter from France — wluch urived 
this Tery morning ui hoar before youiaelf, only we 
forgot to give it to you.' 

'Yes,' replied Dick, recovering himieU, and breakmg 
the (eol, 'I know who it comes from' (for he forgot 
that DO letter npoa businesa could have po«db^ reached 
hia pieaeut address) ; ' it 'a from the Jardia da Planla, 

about the exchange of a giraffe for Grackous 

Heavenl where is mydearest LucyT' 

' La the dining-room, in your uncle's room, out in 
the tool-house — what does it matter where nhc is T — 
vou can tell ins your ncwa, I auppoae, in the meantime. 
Have they elected you Emperor of the Prencb by 
nnirerial Buf&age I / Bhouldn't wonder. What is it, 
Dick?' 

'It's for Ijicj first,' cried Dick in occeata half 
choked with emotion; 'it's for Lucy and Maggie first; 
and no ean ahall hear it before theirs.' 



HDGH PETERS. 

«E artista whoae main instrument is the voice, 
saSer a hind of death to which they whote instru- 
ments arc less intan^ble and eltuive, bxv not subject 
We believe in the greataes* of Michael Angelo and 
Lord Bacon, because we can see and read what they 
have pamted and written ; bat we believe in the 
nity of Botinna's acting, and the aweetnesa of 
Farinelli'a ainging. solely upon the testimony of others. 
If we had heard Bacon dictate, or seen Michael 
Angelo handle the brush, our evidence of the grandeur 
of their work could be no surer than it is. But if 
the world should take upon itself to doubt the verdicts 
which have been given in Roscius's and FarinelK'i 
favoor, these artists could say nothing for them- 
■elvea. Finished and delicate tones, noble physicsl 
oairii^e, wonderful facial imitations of the scale of 
passions, ore things which paisb in the very moment 
of their making. 

The same Nemesis foDowi successful pulpiteers. I 
say pulpitxera — a distinct class tioia' preachers. The 
works of Bishop Taylor and Dr South are still vrith 
us, nod still valued, for in them nuttier as well as 
wamer was excellent — they were great preocSert 
But the pulpiteer, like the demagogio rhetoricians of 
old, and like present Btump-orat(»s, cares only to 
make an eSect for a time — at the longest, bis own 
lifetime. He may use bu^oouery — he may use an 
insipid lachrymosity — he rnay use an insulting dog- 
matism — he may use a budget of filched learning 
from books which are caviare to his hearera. 

[ugh Peten has had, for two hundred years, Uie 
creditor being tiie very pontiff of burlesque pulpiteers ; 
the grave chancellors, the sober bishops, the wits, tho 
poets, and the news-writers, who were hia btcraiy 
contempotaiies, all alike declare it, One would 



expect, then, 
detractors, to find quite a cumtroua load of pulpit 
oddities, so many, indeed, as to make selection diffi- 
cult. Quite otherwise. White every one who beard or 
knew that truculent old army -chaplain, agrees in 

many proofs of his burlesq^uenesa i the same two or 
three stories do that duty m every book. It ia this 
defect of proof, I soppose, which has mode some 
penons deny tjie allegation oE Hugh's contempo- 
raries, and assert that there was really nothuig 
burlesque about him. What if people should alio say 
that Keon and Gorrick were mere ranters, and that 
Cuzzoni croaked * If universal tradition be not the 
best rule of belief in nearly ail cases, it ia the second 
best. Benjamin Brook, in his Livea of lAc Puritaas 
(voL iii. pp. 350—369), entirely contradicts the asaer- I 
tions of those who had themselves listened to Peters 
in his pulpit ; while a Rev. Dr Peters of the United i 
States has written a life of hia namesake, in which j 
he charitably osaumes that hia hero and Archbishop 
Laud were both of them saints in earnest, both to a 
qcrtoin extent judicially blinded, though at the anti- I 
podes of ccclesiaatical thoughts Hmria, the biographer 
of James L and Charles L, has written a ' critical ' 
biogniphy of Peteis, 'after the manner of Bayle,' 
that la, a bundred lines of note to every two or 
three li4lea of text. Mr Carlyle, has, of course, in 
hia Cromadl occasionally to make mention of a n 
whose fortunes rose to their highest with the aacei 
ency oE the great Protector, and who was so often 
about his person. Mr Carlyle says very little about 
him, but that little betrays an evident tenderness T 
Mr Peters. Petera was for Cromwell ; Peters 1 
been generally scooted and abhorred: two facts which 
alone are enough to dispose Mr Carlyle 
good in him. ' A man, saya he, ' concerning whom 
the reader has heard so many falsehooda.' 

Hugh Petera waa bom in IE99, at Fowey, in Com- 
walL A full account of his fomdy is givi'u in the 
third volume of Gilbert's parochial flMtoryq/" Co mioo^ 
They seem to have been persons of much snbatoitce 
and good standing. There were three boys in the 
family, all of whom went together to some Comiih 
free achoo!, said by some to be Launceston. Thoma^ 
who became a clergyman, was sent to Oxfoid; Hughi 
to Trinity College, Cambridae. By 1622, he \" 
taken successivdy B.A and M.A. degrees. 1 
conduct while a student appears, however, to have 
been very diagracefui : he was publicly whipped, and 
expelled from the university. The author of tbe 
Ht»ioTy of tte Life and Death of Hugh Peters, that 
ArrA-iraUoT, from his Craddl la the Galloioes — a 
book of bigoted Cavalier bias, published in ICOl, 
immediately after the execution of Fcteia — decUres 
that his £ist crime was deer-steoUng, and that 
his companions were caught and punished, but that 
Peters meauJy escaped by aacrincing them. I" 
second crime was the mahcious poisoning of sevei 
deer ; and it waa on Ibc discovery of this that be w 
expelled the university. The vereion of Brooks, the 
Piuitan biographer, runa thus miliily : ' During his 
residence at the university, be was )n^atly addicted 
to the follies and vain delights of youth.' 

There is the ETcatest difference in tho accounts of 
the manner in which Hugh Peters spent his immedi- 
ately post- university days. He seems to have applied 
to some bishop for holy orders, and to have been 
refused. Benjamin Brook rays; 'By attending the 
preaching of Dr Sibbos, Mr John Davenport, Mr 
Thomas Hooker, and othei?, he waa awakened b 

sense of hia ains, and turned from the error of 

way.' Granger, in hia excellent Biographical Hii/oru 
(vol iii p. 63—55), tdlo us that on being eijieUed 
from the university, he took to the stage, and 
'acquired that ecsticulntion and buBooncry which 
be practised in ^e pulpit' Indeed, it has even been 
asserted that he joined himself to Shakapeare'a 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



251 



oompany, always taking a clown's part. We cannot 
Tvy well settle this point now-a-days» as it was not 
customary, before tne Restoration, to print the 
names of the actors in the dramatis persorue. Genest 
(AeoomU of the English Stage, voL i pp. 15 — 17) gives 
aome evidence that Hugh Peters was a stage celebrity, 
and the scandals about nim matters of common staee- 
chat. If he himself, however, was really a histrionic, 
it must have been previously to his conversion, as 
nothing coold be more opposed to one another than 
players and Pniitans ; while, on the other hand, the 
j^igh Churchmen, against whom Peters set himself, 
-were rather partial &an otherwise to the theatre. A 
natioaal church cannot proscribe, with health to 
itself, any national tendency so great and general as 
"was the theatrical tendency of Englishmen in the 
bMnnning of the seventeenth century. 

The author of the History of the Life and Death, 
^tc, which I have quoted above, says that on the 
expulsion of Hugh Peters from Cambridge, 'he 
hovered up and down the country among the lay- 
committee, preaching, so that he was taken by them 
for a small prophet;' the whole bent of his sermons 
Iwing (so tms author tells us) directed against the 
universities, as profane places needing refinement and 
purgation. 'He set up the trade of an itinerary 
preiboher,* says Bates [Lioes of the King's Murderers), 
* never being constant or fixed to any one phice or 
Iwnefice; and he roved about the world like the 
universal churchmen called Jesuits.' In other words, 
lie was one of those plagues obtruded upon the 
Church of England at tnat time — a ' lecturer, one of 
a set of men who, as Thomas Fuller's Church History 
of Britain says (vol. v. p. 560), generally supplanted 
-Uie incumbents of livings in the affections of their 
parishioners, and gave uie greatest jp>wth to non- 
conformity ; ' men who had aJl the parish honour, but 
did none of the hard unseen drudgery of the parish 
priest; men whose doings the bisiiops, after much 
patience, were forced at last to brin^ under due r^;u- 
lation ; many of whom, thereupon, m great dudge^ 
betook themselves to Holland. 

Hugh Peters, however, previously to the flight to 
HoUandt had been ordained by Dr Mountain, then 
bishop of London. He got a lectureship at St 
Sepulchre's Church in the city, where his peculiar 
pulpit talents made him highly popular. * There were 
•iz or seven thousand hearers,' says he, in his Dying 
Fiatker's Last Legojcy, ' I believe,' he adds, * above one 
hundred everv week were persuaded ^m sin to 
Christ' In the Ixmgnage of oettcr and more trust- 
wortiiy rnxnters, he r^cd incessantly against his 
bishop and metropolitan, broke every law and canon 
of the church by which he was bound, and made the 
pulpit a political engine. Nye, Marshall, and Peters, 
nys Wood {Athena Oxoniensis), 'went beyond any in 
meddling with civil affairs.' 'News was novelty,' 
nys the author of the History of the Life, &c., 'and 
none could declare more in a private alehouse than he 
oonld in a public pulpit.' 

Brook says, that his ' great popularity and useful- 
ness aitrakened the envy and malice of his enemies ; 
he was noticed by the ruling prelates.' In other 
words, he prided himself in disobeying laws under 
which, in our free age, no clergyman holds himself a 
slave; he put up the most insulting prayers for the 
oneen, one of which was, according to the Puritan 
ne^gprapher, the immediate cause of his leaving the 
country for Holland. Granger, Langbaine, and all 
other writers, however, assert that the real reason of 
his fiiffht from England was a prosecution of him by 
a butdier in St Sepulchre's parish for supplanting him 
in the affections of his wife. There is a play extant, 
written in Peters' own times, in which the relations 
between Phanaticus, a Puritan, and Flyblow, a 
butcher, are exactly those supposed to have existed 
between Peters and the butcher of St Sepulchre's 
parish. 



The next place, then, where we find our pulpiteer, 
is in Holland, mimstering to an Independent congre- 
gation at RotterdanL £ook would represent him to 
have had an immense influence both amongst the 
English malcontents and the Dutch. He on^ as 
evidence the fact, that Peters was afterwards the 
agent in gettine from Holland the great sum of thirty 
thousand pounds, as a subscription for the poor Pro- 
testants who suffered from the rebels in Ireland. As, 
however, Peters only arrived in Holland in 1633, and 
quitted it alto^ther for America in 1634, we can 
hardly credit this. 

Hugh Peters found himself more at home in New 
England. He was chosen pastor of a congregation at 
Salem. He must have b€«n very popular Sicre, for 
the very year after his arrival, he was made one of 
three commissioners appointed to assist to invent *a 
draught of laws agreeable to the word of God, which 
might be fundamentals to the commonwealth.' The 
New Englanders, however, wearied of him ; after 
seven vears' stay, they sent him to England, ' under 
colour, says an admirer, of a mediator for ease in 
Excise. He arrived in London in 1641. It was the 
very time for such a man. Any one with the vulgar 
arts of popularity so completely imder his control, was 
sure to succeed. The parliament found him too valu- 
able to allow him to go back to the colonists who had 
got rid of him ; they gave him an army-chaplaincy, 
that of Lord Brooke's regiment. His grotes<^ue man- 
ner was the delight of the soldiery ; while, m return 
for their favour and applause, he made the most 
blasphemous comparisons. ' His wild prophecies,' says 
one who attended him at his death (Dr fiarwick, the 
ill-used Dean of St Paul's), 'were received by the 
people with the same veneration as if they had been 
oracles.' Sir Walter Scott, in his notes to Lord 
Somers' Tracts (voL vii pp. 69, 70), gives a specimen 
of the terrible sermon in St Margaret's, Westminster, 
in which he pointed out the red-coated soldiers as 
the Saviour, and appealed to the parliament to save 
' Him ' from His mimlcrers. 

Peters took the most violent republican ground of 
any living preacher. With whatever is liberal and 

Sand in republicanism, with that which charmed a 
ilton and a Sydney, he, indeed, had no sympathy. 
For his prophecy that Cromwell would be king, Mr 
Carlyle, of course, admires him. ' Mr Peters himself,' 
writes Sir Edward Hyde to Richard Browne in 1653, 
'now professes that monarchy is the best govern- 
ment.' There is no doubt that Hugh Peters was more 
guilty — or, if the act was a grand and right act, more 
huidable — than any one else in the matter of the 
king's execution. 'To London,' writes Evelyn, 
January 14, 164^-49, where 'I heuxi the rebel Peters 
incite the rebel powers met in the Painted Chamber, 
to destroy his majesty.' The extracts given by Sir 
Walter Scott from the St Margaret's sermon, confirm 
strongly the feeling of that age, that our pulpiteer was 
the main agent m working up the hatred of the 
military against the king. He found the parliament 
a most considerate muter, with whom, so far as 
money went, he got on welL At every few fresh 

?ages in Whitelocke's Memorials, we find: 'Mr 
'eters was called in; he gave an account of the 

engagement at ; of Captain 's skirmish; 

of the taking of .' He was thanked ; was pre- 
sented with L50; with L.100. At hut, he had, 
out of the sequestrated estate of a nobleman (the 
Earl of Worcester), L.2(K) a year for life settled 
upon him. He was rewarded, too, in other ways: 
they made him one of the triers. After the murder 
of Archbishop Laud, they granted him that prelate's 
library, and even the archici)i8coiial palace and 
estate at Lambeth. 

Peters, however, did not shew them much grati- 
tude ; when ho saw that the parliamentary star was 
setting, and Cromwell's rising, he forsook his old 
masters; nay, he made violent attacks upon them. 



262 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



more tuo, in the palpit. A specimen of these has 
been left us. One aay, while preaching at St Albans, 
he suddenly stooped down, hiding himself from the 
congregation. Bobbing up again, he said : ' I have 
been in heU, and have seen a great many parliament- 
men there.' 

In a satirical sermon, called Pda^s Paitem, published 
while Peters was at the apex of his success and glory, 
there is an account given (possibly exaggerated — ^thou^ 
very like the man) of his conduct as a trier. Two 
candidates for some vacant living came before him ; 
he asked them : * What is faith?* The first answered 
according to the definition of the schools. The 
second answered : ' Faith is a sweet lullaby in the 
lap of Jesus Christ.' Hugh Peters, elevating his hands 
to heaven (a frequent custom of his, noticed by his 
contemporaries), cried: 'Friend, thou, according to 
thy deserts, shaU have the livinc,' asserting that he 
must have received the definition by revelation. 

Undoubtedly, however, the army was Mr Peters' 
favourite arena. On a necessity, indeed, he could 
even fi^t. In Ireland, he haa the leading of a 
brigade, which, says Brook, *he brought on with 
honour and victoiy.* But his idiosyncrasy was army- 
preaching. Ho hved in camps and fortresses: the 
soldiers delighted in him, and he in them. They were 
his ChrigtuB meus, as we heard at St Margaret, 
Westminster. *It was a principle evidently too 
prominent with Mr Peters,' confesses Brook, * that the 
saints should have the praises of God in their mouths, 
and a two-edged sword in their hands.' His circum- 
stantial accounts of sie^ and skirmishes enchanted 
the grim parliament his master. Mr Carlyle has 
nven one of these accounts at length, including 
Peters' praise of the excellent wine found in the 
cellar. When Sir Thomas Fairfax was about to 
storm Bridgewater, * Mr Peters,' Whitelocke tells us, 

* in his sermon on the Lord's day before, encouraged the 
soldiers to the work.' He was also sent into Wales, 

* with the commission of a colonel, to raise a regi- 
ment; but having nusspent his time, and raised omy 
three companies, Cromwell's wife drew up articles 
against him.' The cunning Peters immediately be^an 
to settle an Independent meeting in the principahty, 
making every one think he was well employed. In 
his sermon at St Sepulchre's, on the afternoon of the 
Sunday after the kins was sentenced, he took for his 
text, ' Not this man [the army and parliament], but 
Barabbas' [Charles I.], in which he said, that* the 
soldiers who assisted in this great work had Emmanuel 
written on their bridles ! ' 

Thurloe says, that Hugh Peters was preacher at 
Dunkirk to the English carrison in 1658. At the end 
of that year, he came back to Enghuid. He stiU 
loved to be with soldiers. When General Monk was 
on his momentous march from Scotlimd to London, 
Peters was with him, and was appointed to preach 
before him on a fast-day (January 1660) at St Albuis. 
Bishop Kennet {BegUter^ p. 36) gives an account of 
the sermon, which he received mmi an eye-witness. 

* He made it,' says he, ' with some dexterity (allowing 
the cantings of his expressions) ; his text was Psalm 
cviL 7, "He led them forth by the right way, that 
they might go to the city where they dw3t " ' Monk's 
way, at that time, was so utterly contrary to the way 
the Puritans, and especially Peters, had promised 
themselves to go, that it must have required much 
dexterity and much brazenness to make his sermon 
pleasant both to the general and to his own_party. 
'With his fingers on the cushion,' writes Bishop 
Kennet's friend, *ho measured the right way from 
the Red Sea through the wilderness to Canaan ; he 
told it was not forty days' march, but God led Iwael 
forty years through the wilderness before they came 
thither. Yet this was still the Lord's way, who led 
hispeople crinJdedom cum crankledom /' 

Five months afterwards, the parliament had become 
loyaL The evil days of Hugh Peters began on the 



16th of May, when the House of Commons ordered ' all 
books and papers of the late Archbishop [Laud] in the 
possession of Mr Peters to be seized.' 

Soon, however, it was far worse with our pulpiteer : 
order was given for his apprehension. I have before 
me a folio single sheet, printed the 3d of October 
1660, about a fortnight before the execution of Peters ; 
it is called The W£h Huhhub, or the Unkennelling and 
Earthing of Hugh Peters^ tluU Crqfty Fox. It con- 
tains about two hundred lines of doggerel rhyme, and 
asserts that he denied himself to be ^ters. 

Of his conduct at his trial, in prison, and at his 
execution, we have sufiiciently proved testimony. He 
was brought before the court on Wednesday, October 
10, 1660. It was difficult to get any answer to the 
charges made against him — charges printed at foil 
in Brook's Puritans^ in the State TrudSy and other 
books. ' When called ux)on,' sajTS Bishop Kennet, * to 
answer whether guilty or not guilty, he lift up hiB 
hands and eyes, according to his custom, and said: 
"Guilty! No, not for ten thousand worlds!" and "he 
would be tried by the Word of God.'" That he vxis 
guilty — if this generation will allow the execution of 
Charles I. to have been a murder — ^there can be no 
doubt. The author of A Looking-gloM for Traitors — 
which contaios a steel engraving of the trial — says : 
' Mr Peters would say noming agsunst that jury of 
witnesses that appeared i^gainst nim.' One of the 
charges shews little more than the remorseless dispo- 
sition to pun which beset the man. 'En^and can 
never be settled till a hundred and fifty oe taken 
away; which is, L-l-L-l-L, or the Lords, the Levites^ 
and the Lawyers.' 

He was the only man, of all the late king's judges, 
who died without di^ty. However fanatical he 
may have been in his earlier ilife — and I do not 
beheve he was the least so even then— certainly no 
shadow of fanaticism gave him courage in his imprison- 
ment and death. Dr John Barwick, the Dean of St 
Paul's, and I>r Dolben were sent by Charles IL to 
attend all the prisoners. Peters was deaf to all their 
advice, and even to that of Cook, his fellow-prisoner. 
'Lethargic unconcemedness,' Dr Barwick calls it. 
* Here is a poor brother,' said Cook to them, ' I am 
afraid that ne is not fit to die at this time.' And 
the two clergymen were so struck with his utter 
senselessness to religion, that they entreated the kins 
'he might not be executed with his accomplices/ 
and 'hurried into another world.' His friends and 
sympathisers have been compelled to admit the truth 
of this fact. The year of his death, a quarto of soma 
hundred pa^es (called Speeches and Prayers qf some 
of the kUe Kin^s Judges), was published, ' to let all 
see,' says the preface, ' the riches of grace magnified 
in these servants of Obrist.' Major-general Harrison, 
Cook, and the other regicides are made out to be 
most finished saifits. JBut of Peters the author 
writes : ' Mr Peters, as is well known, was exerdsed 
under a ^preat conflict in his own spirit, during the 
time of his imprisonment, fearine (as he would often 
say) that he should not go throu|n his sufferinss with 
courage and comfort ; and he said to friends uiat he 
was somewhat unprepared for death, and therefore 
unwilling to die, and other things omitted which 
troubled nim.' 

Whether Hugh Peters was as great a favourite with 
the civil as with the military moo, we cannot tell ; if 
he was, the fickle favour of that great estate waa 
once more singularly shewn in his death. Of all the 
regicides, the execution of him alone seemed to give 
any pleasure to the midtitude. They shouted as wey 
saw nim go up the ladder ; and asain, when the haltor 
was put round his neck. But ' when his head was cut 
off, and held up aloft on the end of a spear,' says 
Bishop Kennet, ' there went up such a shout as if the 
people of Enja[land had acquired a victory.' Only hs, 
says Burnet in lus Own Times, ' had neither the honesty 
to repent^ nor the strength of mind to suffer f or it» as 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



263 






I 



aU Hkb rest did. He was observed, all the while, to 
be drinking some cordial liquors, to keep him from 
fainting.* 

There is one portrait of Peters extant ; it is pre- 
fixed to an edition of his Dying Legacy, 



CONSTANTINE'S LEGACY. 

IN TWO PARTS. — CONCLUSION. 

LriTLE thought the imi)erial founder of Constantinople, 
when his dying eyes cast their last fond look on the 
stately city which he had despoiled Rome to adorn, 
what a Babel of opposing creeds, races, tongues, and 
opinions would one day seethe and simmer in his 
jllrling capital — that legacy to modem ages which has 
preserved the name of the testator. Stamboul is the 
choicest hunting-ground of the diplomatists of all 
nations; it is the arena of religious disputants, and 
a sort of neutral territory where wit and darinc can 
be pitted against dissimulation ; East and West, North 
ana South, meet there to try each other's powers in no 
sportive encounter. The state religion, of course, is 
orthodox Mohammedanism — Islam pure and simple — 
after the strictest canons of the Soonies» Abdul Medjid 
is calif as well as sultan, and not only defender of 
the faith, but the faith's chief pontiff to boot. And 
venr considerable is his authority, no doubt, backed 
as it is by the ulemas and that imposing personage 
the grand muftL Yet Islam is crumbling to decay. 
The Wahabee doctrines on one side, the mfluence of 
European opinion on the other, are fast impinging on 
that once mighty creed whose apostles earned fire 
and sword as far as the Atlantic. The more erudite 
and virtuous Turks are g^rowing into rationalists ; the 
lower class are becoming formalists, without serious 
belief in the tenets they profess ; and the mollahs sich 
over the decline of the old school of believers. The 
dd conquering creed is faint and feeble now ; high on 
his minaret the muezzin utters his call, as in days of 
M, and around the fountains carpets are still spread, 
and turbans are bowed in prayer, and water still 
vpnakles Moslem hands, and the amber-beads are 
counted, and the Bismillah is breathed. But the 
Turk of the new stamp, with his little feet enclosed 
in Paris boots of patent leather, with French kid on 
his hands, French cloth on his shoulders, and nothing 
eastern about him except that hideous little red cap, 
that shews so meanly beside the turban, he is neither 
Moslem nor Christian, and unites all the rogueries of 
Euope to the vices of the Orient. 

A very different personage is the black-capped 
priest 01 the Greek Church, who shuffles by in 
his purple slippers, sable robes, and cassock trimmed 
with violet ; the reverend gcntleman^s head is 
half-shaven, and the long locks that the razor 
has spared, fall over his shoulders like Medusa's 
black snakea The face of that papas, sallow, 
bony, with fierce eyes flashing hungrily from 
their cavernous orbits, would make a painter s for- 
tune. It tells of vigils and cruel fasts, and the hard 
discipline of the grand monastery on Mount Athos 
—of zeal, ambition, hate, rage, slyness, and the 
suppression of a strong nature, all at once ; and a 
charming ecclesiastic nas the system produced. 
Russia manages her intrigues by the aid of these 
p re sby ters, ^nio are hers in heart and soul. The 
tidiops and patriarchs are too timorous to be of much 
use, and, besides, their authority would bo lessened 
under the sway of the schismatic czar, who is a pontiff 
as well as hu Ottoman neighbour. The humbler 
Greek clergy have no such scruples ; they scorn 
their cautious diocesans as lukewarm prelates who 
tmckle to the Turk, and study the aspect of Europe : 
they belong to Russia, for Russia alone is likely to 
plant a guded cross on that towering dome or St 
8ppliia*B ex-cathedral, and to make root and branch 



work with the infidels. To be sure, the czar is some« 
what a usurper in matters spiritual ; the official church 
of Russia has expimged too many of the fasts which 
the wisdom of ine Chalcedon synods had ordained, 
but all their hopes of supremacy rely on Muscovite 
arms, and they pant for the day when they shidl 
crush their enemies. 

And here, along the wooden bridge that spans 
the Golden Horn, comes the chief of those enemies, 
most abhorred of all — ^the Jesuit himself. A 
stout, portly der^man this last, with a whole- 
some rosy complexion ; a quick bold eye, that does 
not avert itself in the least, but rather challenges 
inquiry; a suit of decorous black, relieved by uie 
famous little blue collet of the order. Their tactics 
have changed, it seems — the tactics of the all-per' 
vading Society — and they can renounce the cat-like 
tread and stealthy glance for a bolder bearing in this 
age of publicity. The Greek papas grinds his teeth 
as he encounters this importation horn. Rome, this 
poacher on his demesne, who prowls about the Byzan- 
tine sheepfolds, wins favour with viziers, and ndlies 
the Armenians imder the banner of the keys. Half 
the stru^ling, and a good deal of the bloodshed at 
Constantinopre, is occasioned by the conversion of 
Armenians. It is on these passive sheep that all the 
clerical gentlemen concentrate their efforts, for there 
alone are triumphs to be won. Missions Roman 
Catholic, missions Protestant, missions Anglican, 
American, missions of every variety of religious faith, 
are maintained by foreign gold in the Queen of the 
East, and poor and scanty is the harvest. Moslems 
cannot be converted by any known process of per- 
suasion. The most zealous missionaries in Turkey, in 
Syria, in India, are compelled at last to recognise 
this bitter trulli. The Mussulman will sometimes 
listen and talk : if you seem virtuous and sincere, 
he will respect you as a good man under a delu- 
sion ; if you dazzle him with oxyhydrogen micro- 
scopes, galvanise his harem, cure nis sick children, 
shew him the wonders of science, and prove yourself 
his superior at all points, you may make him regard 
the Koran as a fable, and the Prophet as an impostor ; 
but there ends your power. Sydney Smith, Professor 
Faraday, and Richard Coeur de Lion, could not, by 
combining their efforts, have induced a Moslem, who 
had once shuffled off his faith in Islam, to indue a new 
creed. The Moslem only changes into a philosopher. 
As for the Greek, he is a convert eoually hani to 
obtain ; his religion is a national one, he links all he 
knows of patriotism along with it ; he somehow con- 
nects the glories of Pagan Hellas with the triumph of 
the Panagia and of the eight-pointed cross. The Jew 
generally needs to be bought, and those who are 
bought are mere lip-Christians, the meanest of their 
race, and ever ready to run back to the s3magogue and 
the rabbis. 

Now the Armenian will turn anything but Turk. 
Armenians furnish gratifying ensamples of conver- 
sion to all denominations. Rome gets the lion's 
share, and henco the savage Easter riots, when the 
blood of the orthodox is thinned by fasting, and their 
brains are on fire, and the knife and the conflagration 
end the wordy war. The Turk looks on sublimelv 
from a sort of tobaccofied Olympus of his own, which 
he calls ktf^ or the perfection of complacency, and sees 
the representatives of Christendom doing battle in his 
metropolis. He watches aU with indolent calm, a 
turbaned Gallio, reckless who triumphs, so order be 
maintained. The grand vizier, the sultan himself, is 
sorely plagued by the rival parties. Imagine the 
padishah, poor tottering voluptuary in high-heeled 
Paris boots, sitting in his palace, hearing the long- 
winded complaints of the Russian ambassador about 
the maltreatment of some deacon or archdeacon in 
far-away Bulgaria. What can the poor Grand Turk 
do to conciliate his tormentor, what but promise that 
justice shall be done, and compensation granted? Then 



S54 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



oomeB the elchee of France, bellicoee and impetnoiu, 
to d^^mwi'^ Tengeance on the Greeks who have insulted 
Catholic rayahs, to which demand the Muscovite 
rejoins that, in Oriental quarrels, the Greeks inyariably 
are the lambs, the Catholics bein^ the wolves. Then 
come civil altercation, bland denial, masked threats^ 
covert taunts, and inuendoes pitched like shells into 
the enemy's camp. To these disputants enters yet 
another elchee, ne who represents the Majesty of 
England; and his Excellency is not slow to express his 
opinion, that while neither of the antagonists is 
absolutely in the right, nobodv is so utteny in the 
wrone as the luckless padishah nimself , at whose door 
lies the blame of all that is done or left undone in the 
Ottoman empire. This is the first Turkish reien in 
which a sultan has been perpetually pelted with nard 
facts and truths of an unpalatable nature. Abdul 
Medjid, who only wants to oe left in -peace with his 
champagne flasks and zenana, and a plentiful supply 
of loose cash, is forced every day to ' see himself as 
others see him,* to eat thepie of humility, and smoke 
the pipe of resignation. The immediate cause of this 
is the altered position of tiiose all-important inter- 
preters whom we call by the name of dragoman, 
nobody knows why — ^the natives using the word 
terjimazL In by^ne reigns, when Turkey was still 
strong and exclusive, even ambassadors were in peril 
of the Seven Towers ; and the dragomans, subjects of 
the Porte, were at the mercy of tl^ liege lord when 
a war broke out. Naturally, these gen^ were dis- 
posed to soften down all menaces ana words of 
reproach calculated to goad their suzerain into wrath ; 
they saw bow-strings and scimitars in every curl of a 
vizier's bristlins moustache, and read untold basti- 
nadoes in the ughtest cloud on the sultan's august 
forehead. Where was the use of taking a high tone, 
in those days, when the hail-storm of diplomatic 
threats was refined away into a shower of sugar-plums 
and soft flattery ? Why should an ambassador speak 
words of mighty import, when his leonine roar would 
reach the siUtan as gently as the murmur of cooing 
doves? So it was, nowever ; and as linguists were 
rare, and no European could talk the tongue of the 
Osmanli, the monopoly of the dragoman was undis- 
turbed; and the monopolist being venal as well as 
timid, contrived to save his skin and fill his coffers 
at the same time, much to the detriment of public 
business. 

We manage things better now. There are always 
attaches who can nmke a fair guess at the purport of a 
Turkish sjieech, and probably tne envoy knows a little 
of the language himself, and has a private secretary or 
aide-de-camp of some half-recognised nature, who 
could soon catch a dragoman tripping from the letter 
of his duty. Nor is the draeoman now a sheep ready 
for the shearer. He is no Turkish subject now; at 
least he is not a responsible subject; he cannot be 
punished, because he is a bcrathlu. Singular tjtH«m<vTit 
are those beraths, documents which a small sum of 
mone^ and a little European protection will obtain for 
any Christian rayah of the sultan, and which magi- 
cally convert Dhemetri or Adamos into a Russian, a 
Frenchman, or even a genuine John Bull And yet 
the berath is not a certificate of naturalisation ; it 
professes to leave the sultan his subject, but it reduces 
the subject to the condition of little Master Good- 
child's pocket-piece, to be looked at, but not expended. 
Many of the greatest ruffians in Stamboul invest 
their little all in one of these wonderful papers, which 
they regard as a licence to rob and rifle. Under the 
shelter of the berath, they con snap their fingers at 
cadi and cavass; the consul of their adopted country 
will back them in difficulties, and they are pretty 
sure to escape punishment for any offences. Kussia 
in especial fosters swarms of berathlus, who spread 
her propaganda on condition of being saved from 
police court and military conscription, and whose 
■ervioe as ipiei ib not aeldom of yalne. The weak 



government yields up everything, as it yields to this 
monstrous abuse of tne beraths. What can a vizier 
do? Ministry after ministry is turned out by the 
envoys of the great powers. The successive serasklers 
and capitan pm^has take care during their brief tenure 
to provide for their followers, and to feather their 
nests ; and most erand viziers do the like, staving off 
with fair words the haughty demands of the foreign 
excellencies as long as fair words can serve. 

The sultan's court is not a gay one. He holds his 
divan, of course, and is bored by some tiresome 
visitors every day or twa The old rule was, that the 
padishah ^ve pipes and coffee only to noblemen, but 
that rule is much relaxed. In fact, when the Comte 
Lampion, and the Hebrew Baron Goldenkram, were 
admitted as honA-fide, aristocrats, it was haid to 
exclude untitled English gentlemen. So, first, the 
Honourable Augustus got a pipe; and then privy- 
councillors were admitted, and the Ri^t Honourable 
Julius Tapeton pressed his lips to the imperial amber; 
and before long a seat in parliament conierred one at 
the divan, and the honourable member for the IcJe of 
Dogs was entitled to a diamond-circled cherrv-stick. 
The next peries suin^ for adnussion at the Sublime 
Porte were deputy-lieutenants; and then came the 
Russian war, and its crush of foreign visitors, and 
Abdul Mediid occasionally found himself in company 
that must nave astonished him. Peace raised the 
standard a little, and at present the * gem-adorned 
chibouque' is only bestowed on such happy smokers 
as the envo]^ will vouch for. A dull court is the 
padishah's, without balls and dinners, without visible 
ladies, a court where hospitality soars no higher than 
a thimbleful of scalding coffee, and a saucer of Lumps 
of Delight, and where the attendants offer yon 
your choice of tobaccoes, instead of dry and sweet 
champagne. But it is peerless stuff, the Sjnian weed, 
perfumed and delicate; the pipes are the superlatiyeB 
of their kind; and it is something, after all, to have 
smoked and sipped in company wim the great Blood^ 
drinker and Lieutenant of the Prophet. Such an 
honour costs — or should cost — five pounds or so in 
fees to the imperial household. Turkish Jeames most 
have his vails, as well as his brotherhood in the West. 
That is one of the plagues of Eastern travel, by tlue 
way, the number of sateUites that hang about a 
grandee, and who are disposed to ' bum Sie grand- 
father' of the caller who forgets their backshiaih. 
But the abuse is beine modernised away. A quarter 
of a century age, the servants of a mere pacha 
expected twenty potmds from any travelling infidel 
who dined with their master. A large visiting 
acquaintance was a ruinous thin^; and when the 
ambassadors called on the grand vizier, it positively 
rained gold and silver. The viziers now-a-aays have 
little to bestow, so tremendous are the mortgages on 
the Grand Seicnor's property. Once, the ministers 
were besieged oy applicants for the rank of spahL 
The spahis, properly speaking, were the knjghts and 
squires, the country gentlemen of Turkey. Aey hdd 
their lands by milita^ tenure, and they and their vaa- 
sals furnished that world-renowned cavalry that won 
Mohacs and engirdled Vienna. Then the viziers took 
to providing for their worn-out servants — for Elfi the 
pipebeorer, for Mustapha the steward, by the cheap 
present of a fief ; just as our own viziers, forty years 
since, converted their superannuated valets into queen's 
messengers. Messrs Elfi and Mustapha took lessons 
in riding, bought a fine dress, and went off to their 
estates, and presently the famous horsemen were seen 
no longer beneath the horsetail standards. There are 
a few spahis of the old stamp left, gallant Paynim 
gentlemen, whose crimson turbans and curveting bazht 
shew what the Ottoman was in his palmy days ; but 
jealousy and corruption have nearly destroyed the 
breed. 

The ambassadors are about the most importHit 
dweUen at Constantinople ; they entertisin rqjiUyi 



CHAMBERS^ JOURNAL. 



255 



and iHiether in their Perote palaces, or their snperb 
tiUm on the Bosphoms, they affect a costly grandeur 
by no means universal in embassies. And there is 
one great chann in their mighty gatherings together 
of hot fellow-creatures, the reality, the interest, that 
gives a zest to the gossip of the assemblage. Else- 
where, there is gossip enough, at Paris, Vienna, every- 
where, but there is but a poor half-pennyworth of 
fact to an intolerable deal of fiction. Those well- 
informed countesses who whisper so tramcally behind 
tiieir absurd fans, might just as well be oawlmg their 
intellieenoe through a speaking-trumpet : their lady- 
ships know no more of tne czar s real mind than their 
children in the nursery. Even my diplomatic friend, 
young Fred Waxington, whose collar is adorned by 
the magical scrap of black velvet which bespeaks a 
bantling of the R O., is just as deeply versed in the 
real intentions of Napoleon IIL as the rest of us. 
And I believe that any hordheaded reader of the 
Times can give as good a guess as to European politics 
as his Excellency vonder, for all the wonderful gold 
embroidery that blazes on his padded coat, ana all 
the stars and crosses that twinkle on the breast 
thereof. But at Constantinople diplomatists do other 
things than bow and look wise ; they plot and 
counterplot, they wheedle and they bully, they 
employ agents of not too scrupulous a character, and 
wrangle tiercely as they crowd around the ruin of an 
empire. This makes a conversazione a party where 
there really is something to converse about, for small 
secrets are always oozmg out, and stratagems of a 
very queer character are discussed, admired, or laughed 
at, while the antagonism never comes to an end. The 
Turks are too weaJL and needy now to refuse anything 
point-blank ; the padishah has been too often under 
the lash of censure to face his £uro{)ean taskmasters ; 
but the Porte not unnaturally plays off "power a^inst 
power, and by dividing, governs stUL The siutan's 
only comfort is their mutiml jealousy, and the fact 
that they pull different wayn. llussia still mutters 
daik counsel in his ear, points to the graycoatcd hosts 
beyond the Pruth, jKtints to the seething discontent of 
the rayahs, and coquets at once with the Panhel- 
lenists and the old Janizary party. The French 
eagle utters her indignant scream, and exhibits 
her steelv talons, those bright bayonets she loves 
to flash before the dazzled eyes of mankind. That 
tollen fowl of the some kind, witli inky plumes 
and two erim heads, has something yet to say to 
the enfeebled son of Othman. And England, ever 
grumbling at lavish expense and certain ruin, ever 
uimsting odious balance-sheets Ixifore the disgusted 
eyes of the diademed prodigal, threatens to stop the 
supplies, without which Abdul Mudjid must collapse, 
like a broken soap-bubble. It would be hard to lind 
fault with the Grand Turk for pitting one of these 
troublesome advisers against the other, for turning 
and veering -with the march of events, and trimming 
his tattered sails to every blast that blo>^'S. 

Next to the ambassadors come the dragomans and 
the consuls. There are many Armenians, Greeks, and 
nondescrii>t Levantines, who are not esteemed tit to 
rob elbows with the guests of an ambassador, but 
who make n]> a little court for the intcr|)retcr of tliat 
legation which takes thum under its win^. Ver}' good 
fun, in their way, are those dragomamc receptions, 
twice as pompous, and nearly as crowdwl, as the 
swarming saloons of the ministers themselves. Nor 
does a dragoman think himself the least of earth's 
dignitaries. He smokes with viziers, he is the right- 
hand man of envoi's, patriarchs sit on his divans, and 
bishops wait in his antechamber. He may wear yellow 
■Uppers, he and his wife, and his children and grand- 
chudren, as if they were believers. Madame is a per- 
■onajge too : she is caUed Madame the Dragomaness ; 
■he Eu her flatterers and satellites, we may be sure, 
and reigns in the queenliest manner over the spouses 
of irwJthiwit Greeks. Those dragomanic balk and 



tea-drinkings should be attended by any one ^dio 
wants to study Perote life, and the gossip is sure to be 
of a pungent and lively nature, while all that Peora 
boasts ot beauty may be found there. The consuls — 
who are magistrates over their own coimtiy people, 
and in autSiority and salary are not to be con- 
founded with the gentlemen who issue a five-franc 
passport in the Queen's name, in French seaports — 
are the centre of a system of very worthy folks in the 
carpet interest, or the rhubarb interest, or the Turkey- 
red interest, and of miscellaneous Euroxteans who 
improve estates, work coal-mines, and speculate in 
steam-tugs and sponges. Then there are other coteries, 
where dis'ap]X)inted Parisian journalists tell their 
griefs to irr^;ular physicians in search of patients; 
where impresarios torment every one to join them in 
setting up a Grand Opeiu, and enticing over half the 
talent of Europe to astonish the Turks; and where all 
manner of adventurers strut and swagger, and advertise 
their specifics for the cure of the Sick Man, vice- 
gerent of Mohammed. A theatre and a circus, and 
plenty of gambling-houses, and caf§s not a few, amuse 
these exiles a little ; but they are not all fit for the 
Monthyon prize for virtue, audi am afraid that they live 
by robbing one another, when no better prey turns up. 
(me great resource of these waifs of Pans, New Yort, 
and London, is the army. A Turkish officer is poorly 
remunerated, but he gets a sufficiency of pillaf and 
timbuk after all ; and many a man who came out 
looking for pachaliks and receiverships of finxmces, is 
glad to draw the modest pay of an ixifantry ensign, if 
he can only get leave to wear the padishah*s cloth. 
Let us enter ponder barrack, and see what are the 
charms of soldiering under the Crescent and Star. 

We may pass over the honest little privates, brave, 
ragged, patient creatures, who seldom get jmv or 
clotnes until hunger drives them into mutiny, ana yet 
who are very hard to provoke, very slow to learn the 
evil lesson thus taught them. We may pass over the 
swarthy and scarred groups of chaousnes and on- 
boshis, or ' leaders of ten,' and the Arabs and Nubians 
of the band. But this slim Turk in blue is an officer, 
as you ma^ see by his hom-hilted sabre, the quaint 
brass cartndge-cases stitehed te his breast, and his 
embroidered collar. He is only a mutsellim or ensign, 
and enjoys the enormous annual salary of L.20, when 
he con get it. And here comes his commanding officer, 
a bimbashi, whose pay is handsome, and perquisites 
more handsome still, and who is buying lanus and 
villages with the profits of long and judicious i>ecula- 
tion. When colonel and ensign converse, a curious 
sight is te be seen. How supple is the subaltem*s 
backbone, how docs he kneel, and crouch, and make 
elaborate pretences of kissing his commander's boot- 
tee ; and now blandly does the colonel receive the 
homage, complacently gazing on the creature grovel- 
ling at his feet ! This extravagant adulation, this slavish 
fttUTiing, are the bane of the Turkish service, especially 
when combined with fraud and deceit of all sorts. 
The junior officers are subservient as spaniels te their 
chiefs ; while yonder proud bimbashi will prove just 
as pliant at his pacha s lev6e ; and the pacna will in 
his turn lick the slii)i)er of the potent seraskier. Such 
Englishmen as remain in the Ottoman army preserve 
their sclf-rcsjMJct, and fare none the worse for it ; but 
many of the continental renegades are as gross 
flatterers as any bom Oriental ever was. To be sure, 
it is hard to bo a Turkish officer, and remain an honest 
man. The Anglo-Turkish Contingent was all very 
well, with its pay guaranteed by Britain, but the 
regular service is one in which the subalterns must 
starve or steaL Free quarters, contributions, bene- 
volences — such are the technical terms for the neces- 
sary extortion from the country-folks; and Major 
Dalgetty would have been in his element while 
wringing a maintenance out of the tillers of the soiL 

The Turkish militaire dines at the fanner's cost, and 
fills his pipe with the price which he demands joculArly 



256 



GHAMBERS*S JOURNAL. 



for ' the wear and tear of his teeth.' But thia is not 
poflsible in Constantinople. There, at least, kibaubs 
and sherbet must be paid for, and in consequence, the 
garrison are always hungry and querulous, eager for 
arrears or the route to some land of milk and nonev, 
though their chiefs are intriguing their way towards 
pachaHks and governments. Veiy different was the 
spirit of the old janizaries; fast who might, .their 
camp-kettles were filled wiih. the best that Turkey 
could produce. I never saw more than four of the 
ex-members of this famous corps, and of those four 
only two had been soldiers. The others were a baker 
and a fii^erman. The baker had adventures to relate — 
how at the time of the massacre he had climbed over 
his roof, and escaped amone the bumin^^ houses ; how 
he had been slightly wounded, had fled to a mosque, 
and spent two days in sanctuary, without food or 
water; how his friends had carried him away at the 
bottom of an aruba of facots ; and how he liad been 
a wood-cutter for years in Western Boumelia before he 
dared to return to StambouL He shewed me, with 
much mystery, the marks of a fish and a dagger, the 
emblems of his oda, stained in blue upon a panel 
of his inner shop, where they had been overlooked 
by mob and police. 

The janizaries are cone, with all their crimes 
and then* valour; but uiey have their mourners and 
admirers, and the reactionary party, the Conservatives 
of Turkey, take the name of Janizaries. This party 
is not contemptible, headed as it is by a prince of 
the blood, comprising many rich landholders, many 
powerful pachas, and those long-descended Bosnian 
oeys who are the only hereditary aristocrats of 
European Turkey. Curiously enough, Russia encour- 
ages these ultra-Moslems to conspire and cabal ; and 
more curiously, there are En^Usmnen who keep no 
other company than this stnct and anti-Christian 

faction. There is Mr A , for instance, called 

Daoud Bey, a well-known character at Constantinople. 
He Ib a siniple Kentish gentleman, who has spent 
half a life at Stamboul, wearing the turban and ell- wide 
shulwars of a spahi, and consorting almost wholly 
with Turks, whose tongue he speaks fluently. Daoud 
Bey is Turcis Turcior, as somebody said of the 
Norman-Irish, more Oriental than Haionn Alraschid; 
and I remember his being ignominiously turned 
away from Missiri's Hotel, the landlord of which 
would endure no such amateur Mohammedan within 
his Cockney caravanserai The only Eastern inno- 
vation suffered in that famed hotel was the use of 
the chibouque and narghile in the great saUe^ after 
dinner. In few places were more pleasant and well- 
informed Britons to be met with than at that same 
table-d'h6te, where almost everybody came from 
Sjrria or Anatolia, and was full of anecdotes of 
Palestine or the Nile. The dervishes, by the way, 
deserve to be remembered. The whirling or * dancing' 
dervishes at Pera are more curious than interesting; 
but the howling dervishes over at Scutari, on the 
Asiatic side, are \ far more remarkable. They are 
said to be * very dangerous people,' and affiliated to 
the fanatic Janizary puty ; but this may be only Perote 
scandal I know tney are reaaid&i dubiously by 
many learned doctors of the A^hammedan law, and 
they are shrewdly suspected of having borrowed their 
wild cadences and artificial excitement from the 
ancient Baal worshippers. There is only one more 
clique deserving mention, that of the Fanar. In that 
dinjry and BiXes^/aubourg dwell the subtlest intriguers 
of the Levant, the princes descended from ancient 
families of imperial Byzantium, and who used to 
supply a crop of hospodars to Moldavia and Wallachia. 
It needs good recommendations and much tact to 
stand well with these people, nor are their parties 
much ^yer than funeral feasts ; but there is a certain 
charm m being the ^est of a Palseologus, a Conmenus, 
an AndronicuB, of sipping weak tea with the children 
of the purple-bom, and handing an ice to a lady whose 



ancestor presided over early Christian councils. T 
visit in the Fanar, is to be on friendly terms wi 
the ghost of the Lower Roman Empire. 

A BOMBAY 8UN8BT. 
Farvii) by the cool sweet evening air, 
The Bonder-boat glides softly by ; 
Around are scenes sorpassing fair ; 
Above, an Eastern sonaet sky — 
An Eastern sky, whose every hue 
Is but a varying splendour. 
Old beauties melting into new, 
Each exquisitely tender. 
Where the sunlight so long around 
The whole horizon fondly dwells, 
That distance seems instinct with sound. 
To echo out prolonged farewells ; 
As though some glorious voice had sung. 
Whose accents strong, in dying might, 
Bound all the sky awhile had rung. 
Then changed from harmony to light ; 
As though th' expiring orb of day. 
Its vain regret too late expressed. 
Had tum^ to scenes far, far away, 
Ere sinking upon ocean's breast ; 
And strove to light the distant east, 
Which scarcely owns its lingering ray, 
But from whose hills not quite hath ceased 
The memory of the dawning day — 
Hills, that now bathed in dazzling light, 
Crowned with fantastic shapes appear. 
Old castles, huge in ponderous might. 
Their phantom battlements uprear. 
Thus childhood's years stand forth when viewed 
By saddened memory's wistful eye. 
And youthful dreams once more renewed, 
Assume a mock reality. 
When on those hills the sunset throws 
Soft changing lights that play and quiver, 
Each jewelled crest so richly glows, 
We would those hues might last for ever. 
When on the past remembrance turns 
Its last long gaze of wild regret, 
Though trampled passion fiercely bums, 
Ah I would we, if we could, forget ? 
But, see ! the darkling sky is blest 
By the still morning of the night ; 
The sun hath sunk down to his rcBk, 
Glory hath fled — there still is light ; 
Light — for amid her starry train, 
With timid grace, the moon appears — 
A moumfnl queen, whose early reign 
A solitary aspect wears ; 
Lonely^although a brilliant throng 
Of glittering courtiers round her wait, 
With pensive step she moves alon^, 
As though half-wearied of her state. 
Thus oft, methinks, a life goes by 
Companionless, and quite alone. 
Like that sad moon in starlit sky, 
That friendless queen upon her throne. 
Yet not unblest, if round it shine 
All glorious as night's fairest star, 
Actions that make names half divine. 
Good deeds conspicuous from afar; 
That when both sun and moon are 8ot» 
Our lives on earth have ceased to be. 
Our memories may linger yet. 
To glitter o'er time's wondrous sea; 
A light to guide, when, tempest-tost, 
Some heart hath all but lifeless striven, 
A hope to cheer when hope seemed lost, 
A star whose brightness is of heaven. W. R B. 

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Pater- 
noster Bow, LoKDON, and 339 High Street, Edikbusgh. 
Also sold by William Robebtson, 23 Upper SaakviUo 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 




S zitnzt nn'b %xts. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBEIIT CHAMBERS. 



No. 382. 



SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1861. 



Price UJ. 



SILVER-SMUGGLING. 

I WAS once a smuggler; bat I beg that this candid 
confession of my past i>eccadilloc3 may in nowise 
identify me with ordinary ofifenders against the 
revenue, and far less with the late Mr William Watch. 
I have no connection with those interesting mariners of 
Kent and Sussex to whom our grandfathers and 
grandmothcn owed the cheapness of their tea and 
their brandy. I never Uved in a cavern, nor haunted 
Black Gang Chine, nor *ran' a cargo of kegs and lace- 
hales on a moonless night, nor flung gangers over the 
cliffs, nor pistolled spies, nor immolated even the most 
obnoxious of custom-house officers. It is a positive 
fact, that my smuggling was achieved in a British 
naval uniform, and in strict compliance with the 
orders of my lawful superiors. If blaine there be, let it 
lie at the doors of the Admiralty: we, the actual 
offenders, did but our duty in the matter. It came 
about thus : 

We were cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, in 
H.M.S. Triton, of seventy-four guns. We had 
oome out with sealed orders, I believe ; but at any- 
rate, our captain was a reserved and uncommuni- 
cative man, and he gave us no reasons whatever for 
the instructions which kept us beating up and down 
the coast from Colorado to Yucatan. Once or twice, a 
iharp-built pilot-craft had brought us dispatches in 
cipher, but however satisfactory to the skipper and 
his first-lieutenant, they were Ebrew Greek to the 

rest of us. Captain M was in the secret, and so 

was Mr Parchley, the first-lieutenant, but no others. 
Onr conmiunication with the shore was frequent. 
Mexican canoes and feluccas brought us plenty of 
fruit and v^etables, of fresh water and fresh pro- 
visions; and we twice spent a week in Vera Cruz 
harbour, getting liberal leave to go on shore, dining 
and dancing as sailors love to do, but utterly unable 
to satisfy the inquiries of the natives as to the object 
of our cruise. We kept the secret admirably, for it 
was a secret to ourselves. For aught we knew to 
the contrary, our presence might be designed to keep 
Santa Anna in check, or to strike awe into the church 
faction, or to alarm the captain-general of Cuba, or to 
prevent Yankee inroads. A man-of-war often brings 
a protocol-proof country to reason, and the presence 
of a squadron of armed steamers has been known 
to succeed where all the pr^is writing of the 
Foreign Office had collapsed. 

Nor was the Triton, although alone, by any 
means an insignificant fact in a warlike point of 
view. She was one of the old seventy-fours, to be 
■ore, but she had had the advantage of a dockyard 
•dncation, and had been taught a number of new habits, 



that, if oak can meditate, must have considerably 
astonished what remainc<l of her primitive timbers. 
She had been shortened by one administration, and 
lengthened by another; she had been rasGed, and 
banked up, and cut in two, and put together again, 
and mutilated and patched like old JEaon in the hands 
of his dutiful daughters. The ingenuity of naval 
architects had found many an ordeal for that poor 
old patient Triton, one of the stoutest and slowest of 
the leviathans of the deep; and different Boards of 
Admiralty hail passed miscellaneous and confficting 
sentences upon her destinies. She had been * con- 
verted' into a paddle-steamer, and before the conver- 
sion was complete, had been ignorainiously turned 
into a coal-hulk. She had been laid up as a store- 
ship, and then suddenly was sawn in two, like a 
wooden Agag, to be adapted as a screw-steamer. By 
the time the projxiller was in, the Admiralty were out 
of office, and their supplanters insisted that the Triton 
had better stick to sails, and abjure steam altogether. 
Then * my lords * commanded that the Triton should 
be a blockship, and next the fiat of Somerset House 
bade that the old war-dragon should be condemned 
and broken up ; but before the doom was effected, * my 
lords' changed their versatile minds, and sent the 
Triton to sea with all possible hurry, well found and 
well manned. Still, what did we do there, in the 
lukewarm Gulf of Mexico, where our draught and 
tonnage precluded the notion of our catching any craft, 
whether laden with slaves or fillibusters, that should 
possess a light pair of heels? At last it oozed 
out that our secret orders had reference to some 
underhand service, and that smuggling was the heart 
of the mystery. 

Let mc explain. Wc— the world at laige, must 
needs have a circulating medium, and we mainly 
rely on the precious metals, of which we consume 
an enormous quantity. For many centuries, the 
relative value of gcId and silver has remained 
nearly unaltered, but modem civilisation has raised 
the demand incalculably since Solomon drew gold 
from Ophir, and Cajsar from Spain. California, 
Australia, and Columbia, a wealthy sisterhood, 
have opened to us perennial fountains of the yellow 
dross, but we are dci>endent for our silver on the 
old soiupces. We seek in vain for a sUvcr Cali- 
fornia, with argentiferous * placers.' Mexico and Peru 
must still be to us pretty much what they were 
when Drake and Morgan pillaged their coasts and 
robbed their galleons. Now, for many reasons, 
Spanish America has fallen off in its yield of silver; 
revolutions and wars, flooded mines, a depraved 
people, and endless dvil broils, have thinned the pro- 
ducts of Potofli and Durango. What is worse, the 



iji 



258 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Mexican government prohibita the exportation of 
silver, wiuiing to keep the precious ore at home, 
to pay laigesses to its troops and partisans, so 
Mexico denounces death to the smuggler, and carries 
out the threat in eminently practiou fashion. But 
silver we lack, and silver we must have, as sure as 
demand conjures up supply. Every artificial barrier of 
law does but create the smuggler, even when luxuries 
the most trivial are concerned, for men will brave 
any risk for the sake of profit But silver is a thing 
with which we cannot oispense ; we must have it, 
were fifty governments to deny it free transit. We 
make great use of it : you may read in the city article 
of the Times how many hundredweights, in bar and 
ingot, the Bank of England absorbs. France, too, 
has a greedy maw for silver, despite the aureous 

C'srences of the Elected of the Mdlions. Birming' 
has gigantio firms. Titans of electro-plating, 
which demand annually a mountain of silver. What 
on a];]gentine harvest, too, is required to be hammered 
into feaf, and drawn out into wire, and rolled into 
Meeting, and moulded into fork and spoon, and 
salver and mug sponsorial ! How much silver shines 
upon our sidewards, glimmers in our tea-trays, orna- 
ments things the most various, and is put to purposes 
the most opposite! Lastly, how prodigious is the 
appetite of ner Majesty*s Mint, and how rapid 
and continual the transformation of dull white 
bars into span-new shillingii^ freshly struck half- 
crowns, florins newly milled, and sixjiences wet from 
the die! Naturally, the world wants its change, 
and commerce her me-blood. Add to this, that we 
cannot help the drain that sucks off our silver to 
China and India — not only English silver, but that 
of all Europe. We cannot an^ more prevent the 
argentine current from setting in strongly towards 
the pockets of Ram Bux and Ching-ching, than we 
can turn back the Gulf Stream or ai^est the Pleiades. 
Tea, silk, and Patna rice, with indigo, and a few 
minor trifles, we cannot do without, and Ram Bux 
and Ching-ching will only sell for silver, and are not 
to be tempted bv our ^oods, hitherto. It is there the 
money goes, to do buried and concealed in the most 
remote £ast ; and the continent, with its silver stand- 
ard of currency, feels the drain for more severely 
than we ; but still we are all one family in Europe, 
and cannot be fat when our brothers are in atrophy. 
Silver we must have ; and therefore did her Maj^y's 
ahin Triton take her turn at smuggling. 

For months past, the treasure of which we were 
the destined recipients had been slowly accumulating. 
It had travelled in all manner of disguises to its 
temporaiy hiding-places; some of it crossing the 
coimtry on pack-mules, concealed in sack and Dale ; 
some jolting wearily in awkward Mexican carrettu; 
some voyaging in the custody of guardians the 
most incongruous, of sham beggars, muck priests, and 
spurious s^diers. At last, in louely ranchos and 
herdsmen's huts, had been collected a ^reat sparkling 
heap of dollars and ingots, a willing tribute rrom the 
New World to the Old, which was impatiently await- 
ing the supply. Of course, I do not mean that the 
precious store actually belonged to the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer; far from it. The banks of Kndand 
and Franco ceitainly were to come in for a handsome 
slice of the prize, but a great deal belonged to private 
bankers and buJlion-dealers, to Hebrew barons and 
Greek discoimters. 

It was of the last consequence to England and 
Europe that the costly cargo should arrive safely. 

Captain M would receive his freLght^ no trifle on 

■o large a sum, and the good graces ofthe Admiralty ; 
while our share was the excitement of danger, and a 
school-boy love of frolic and mischief. It was the Ist 
of October wiien we got an inkling of what was before 
OS ; and as a ship, packed with men like a hive of bees, 
is anything but a place for keeping secrets, before 
kog. ervy bod J, inm tiw mazme cmen to tiie oook'B 



boy, knew the cause of our sojourn in those steaming 
seas. Before longi a sort d uneasiness, which I 
am bound to say (fid not begin in the gun-roam, began 
to diffuse itself over the floating community. It was 
October already; we had dawdled away the fine 
summer weathor of light breezes and glassy seas, and 
before long we were certain to see the appsrentlv 
eternal snme of the tropic sky disfigured by a black 
frown. It was drawing on for the period when the 
Norte begins to blow ; and when that cold keen gale 
comes tearing up the waters of the Gulf, navigation 
becomes anything but a sinecure employment. 

Now the TViton was not fit for hairl)rcadth escapes 
and grazing of lee-shores ; the brave old craft required 
a great deal of sea-room, did not steer well, came 
round slowly in stays, and was anything but lively 
in a headway. Irreverent mariners, belonging ta 
other ships, likened her to a tub. At anyrate, we 
all of us felt that she required a wide stage, such 
as the Atlantic, to do us credit, and were by no 
means delighted at the prospect of being caught 
by the funous Norte off the Mexican coast, ^ot 
that we feared drowning, but it is a ticklish thing 
to belong to a castaway man-of-war, and throws back 
a man m his promotion for many a day. Courts- 
martial may exonerate and acquit, admirals may 
testify. Boards report favourably, and even the Timet 
lend a good-natured leader to help over a stile the 
unlucky wights who have lost H.M.S. Blunderhuss, 
from circumstances over which they had no controL 
It is of no use. Years must pass by before ' my lords,' 
or their understrappers, cease to shake their heads 
ominously at the names of those who were once rated 
on the books of that defunct vesseL It mutt have 
been somebody's fault, the wreck, and Napoleon was 
not the only idolator of success at any price. We all, 
therefore, wished to be well out of the Gulf before the 
fuiy of the impetuous 'norther' should pour upon us. 
And at last came the decisive day. We were bowHiff 
along under easy sail, in the 23d degree of noru 
latitude, and the low blue headland in view upon our 
larboard beam was that at the moutii of the Rio de San 
Fernando. We knew the coimtry well, a sterile sandv 
tract, with a most ugly coast-line fringed by shoaft 
and swampy islands, inside of which even a canoe 
could hardly find water to float her. Only at tihe 
mouths of the rivers could a vessel of moderate tonnsfs 
escape brushing the bottom with her keel, uid of 
course the huge Triton could find no haven dt rest 

The sun was sloping redly across the distant ran^e 

of sand-hills when Captain M threw off the mzSk^ 

and gave his orders with forethought and precision. 
Mr Farchley had been diligent, for weeks past, in 
keeping the boats free from poultry and fruit-nets, 
ana all the miscellaneous lumber that is apt to gather 
there during a tropical cruise, and in an incredibly 
short space of time all was ready. The boats ware 
lowered away, the oars in readiness, the coxswains 
handling the tiller-lines with as jaunty an air as if 
they had been the reins of a four-horse coach; and the 
provisions, water-casks, arms, and gregoe were being 
stowed away rapidly and neatly. The crews, chosen 
hT>m amonff the b^ and smsurtest men, were being 
rapidly told off at the ^ngways, each man with lui 
cutlass and pistols in his broad belt ; while musketo 
and cartridges, to say nothing of a sufficiency of toma' 
hawks and^ boarding-pikes, were stowed aft beneath 
the tarpaulins. 

At last we were all aboard. A few earnest words 
from the captain, with nothing of a theatrical turn in 
them, and with a hand lifted to repress cheering, and 
we were off. Three boats — ^the launch, the ya^n, and 
a cutter. The launch, the largest by £&r, was com- 
manded by Mr Parchley himself ; I, being third- 
Ueutcnant, went with him, and we had not ooiy 
the boatswain on board, but the gunner too^ tfaie 
latter presiding over a thirty-two pound canuoade, 
which eoostitirted a main fsfttaxe in our annament. 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



259 



In additzon, we had three or four mates and mid- 
shipmen^ and a strong crew of seamen and marines. 
The yawl and cutter, commanded respectively by the 
second-lieutenant and a master s mate, were loss 
imposingly warlike, Imt each carriinl her sting in the 
shape of a light boat-gun, and both were full of armed 
men. There was a sort of race between us at starting, 
for the lieht breeze that tilled the top-gallants and 
royals of uie lofty-mastc<l Triton was scarcely available 
for us, with our stumpy masts and low-lying canvas. 
The smooth green. w<ater hardly shewed a ripple, and 
the sun glared like so much heated iron, as our rowers 
1x!nt vigoroosly to their tough ash-staves, and sent us 
flashing over tiie waves in the direction of the indigo- 
coloured shore. 

Meanwhile, the Triton stood out to sea, as if 
determined on a1>andoning us alt<^gethcr; we saw 
her top-sails darkling against the eastern sky, 
which had already passed from blue to green, 
and was fast changing from green to gray. But 
in front of ns, the water was in a flame— sea, 
and skv, and coast were all blended together in one 
grand bJaze of varicigatcd light, blooil-rod in the 
middle, bat passing through every sha<lo of deep 
crimson, fiery scarlet, and rosy ])iuk, and so into 
flaring orange and delicate violet, like the hues of a 
humming-bird^s breast. The sea quivered in many- 
tinted radiance, and the flying-tish that leaped up 
from the waves, shone in all the colours of tlie rain- 
bow, while a strange lustre fell on the he^ivy bedn 
of weed through which we went plunging ever and 
anon. Presentiy, we approached the river's moutli; 
the water lost its pellucid green, and l>ecame dirty 
and discoloared ; streaks of white foam gleamed 
here and there; the sea h'..>aved more palpably; 
anil anon a line of frothy yeUow, where little waves 
leaped and bubbled as iu a boiling caldron, 
pointed oat the bar. The chocolate-coloured Kio 
San Fernando, swollen by the long continuance 
of the rainy sea.'^Dn, was coming down in floo(L We 
did not cross the bar, but striking into a deep 
eddy that swirled around the point of the neigh - 
booiing shoal, wc (laddled our course to a broad 
creek, and moored close to a bank of hanl yellow 
and. The kedge of the launch and the gra])uels of 
the two smaller boats bit deeply into good ground, 
and the height of the sloping banks concealed us 
from observation, so long as we cliose to keep our 
heads down. By this time, it was getting dark ; the 
ion had plunged down behind the sand-hiils, and the 
ihort twilight of the tropics was succeeded by night. 
The sky looked black as a cra}>c-veLl, s])eckle<l with 
white stars, that came out in aU their l>eauty to peep 
at the swart sea. A light fleecy haze, like a hoveling 
ghost, began to mark the course^, of the brawling river, 
wreath aner wreath of vapour softly rising and gliding 
away. 'Eh, sirs, but that's a gruesome sight! — the 
vomito prieto itsel — real yellow fever making itsel 
visible,* growled our old surgeon, and we all ^-rapped 
Ofor pea-coats and boat-cloaks tlic closer around us, 
for already a strange chill was in the air, the more 
Idt after the sultry day, when the wind-sails at the 
hatchways had ])roved nearly useless, so trifling was 
the breeze. The boldest of us felt that an iin|)alp- 
able enemy, more potent than guardacostas of 
Mexico, was at hantL Time dragged on, and the old 
lieatenant grew more and more fldgety as he sat 
in the stem-sheets gnawing his noils, according 
to his custom, when perturbed. Two otiier })oi'sons 
seemed also to be ill at ease— the l>oatswain, and an 
old quarter-master who had broiled away forty years 
of his life near the ec|uator. The former kept 
nofwling oat an inaudible soliloquy as he looked at 
tile sky and sea ; the Litter was perpetually extending 
his horny palm to *■ feel for a wind,' or tossing shavings 
of tobacco-leaf upon the sea, and watching atteu- 
tively the coarse they took. Suddouly, young 
Penrnddock, tha latest addition to the reefers' mess. 



exclaimed, admiringly: *Wliat a beautiful constel' 
lation ! StTen stars ! Can it be the Southern Cross ?' 

* Wrong side of the line for that. Pen,' said an 
oldster, bringing a gl.iss to bear on the horizon. * But 
that can't be a cluster of stara ; looks like lights at 
the masthead of a ship ! ' 

*So it is,' said 1; ^ seven lights p3Tamidically 
placetL' 

Mr Porchley took the glass. * Signal from the 
Triton! concerted signal to the shore! — silence in 
the boats ! ' was the great man's rejoinder. 

Not many minutt^s elapsed before the quick gallop 
of a liorse, falling softly on the deep sand, became 
audible, and rapidly drew nearer. The sound appeared 
to skirt the shore, as if the rider was in iierinexity, 
and then a voice called out in smotherca accents: 
* Aqiii soy.* 

* What does the fellow say ?' inquired the gruff 
boatswain. 

*He says, here I am,' rejoined one of the most 
accomplished of the reefers, while Mr Parchley, who 
in the course of years had picked up a smattering of 
Ca.stiliau, answered the hail in his best Sj>anish. In 
a moment more our now acquaintance, a lean swarthy 
ranchero, in a strii)ed mantle and huge sombrero, 
reined in his lean but active horse on the edge of the 
sand-bank, and ix'cred cautiously down u|X)ii us. 

' Los senores lugleses ! los mismos ! ' said the rider, 
in a tone of profound conviction, dolling his broad hat 
with Castilian gravity. 

* W/urt is he talking about?' grumbled the boat- 
swain contemptuously. 

* He says, wo 're our own selves, and nobody else,' 
replied young Callaghan, while Mr Parchley spoke 
sharply and vehemently in Spanish. 

I'he Don gravely nodde(l his head, wheeled his 
horse, and went ofl* in a wliirlwind of loose sand. We 
could hear the quick hoof- strokes for a few minutes, 
and then a dead ttilence sneceedod. The moon rose as 
we waited, and shed ample light on the scene ; a dull 
re<l moon she was, however, not at all like the honest 
yellow moon that had silvered our sails for many a 
night past. The l>oatswain muttered dark things 
between his teeth, and the old quarter-master drew 
on himself a reproof for his restlessness. Still Mr 
Parchley, one of the Iwst seamen in the service, never 
movtnl a muscle, and seemed indilTeront to the ugly 
signs of a change in the weather. His whole attention 
was riveted on the shore. An<l now we heard 
the heavy tliud of givlloping hoofs, and the rattle of 
harness, and the smothered voices of men. Nearer 
and nearer they drew, and presently up came a whole 
caravan of mules and horses, fitted witli pock-saddles, 
and urged along by a score of wild riders in Mexican 
garb. They cUisheU. up to the sand-bank, flogging, 
spurring, and cursing, and rapidly springing from 
their deep demipi(|ue saddles, began to unload the 
baggage-cattle. 

vJuinp ashore, some of you,' cried our commander, 
^ind iHitOr a hand till we're freighted.' Quick as 
lightning, a dozen men were un to their waists in the 
dark-green water, and the worlc of shipping the silver 
began. The silver was iu canvas bags or leatnem pack- 
ages, and heavy as it was, the sturdy strength of our 
forecastle Jacks, aided by our wild allies, soon trans- 
ferred it to the boats. The big launch absorbed by 
for the larger ]>art of the treasure, but even tlie yawl 
and cutter soon contained a prince's ransom apiece; 
and still the men toiled and wa<ied, and still the heavy 
sacks of rattling dollars were flung like ballast into 
the boats. Ever^'thing seemed to be done in the 
most hap-hazard style : the sailors laughed like school- 
boj*s, as tht^y bandied the coin to and fro ; the Mexi- 
cans rushed about like demonitocs ; and the precious 
store was stowed in most cavalier fashion beneath our 
loose tarj«iidins. Suddenly a cry of alarm broke from 
the Mexicans on the bank, and with that cry mingled 
the beat of hools upon the sand. 'Los enemigps! 



2eo 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Cuidado!* cried our allies, each man springing to 
catch his horse by the bridle. Some of the silver still 
remained on shore. 'Quick, you lubbers, quick!' 
thundered the first-lieutenant, and our men scrambled 
up the bank to seize the remaining bags. As they 
did so, the moonlight shone like silver on the caps and 
lances of a squadron of Mexican soldiers, who came 
spurring furiously along the shore of the river. They 
set up a loud shout at the sight of the caravan, and 
charged with levelled lances. Our men splashed 
through the water with the last bags of treasure, 
while the smugglers scattered and Hcd, hotly chased 
by small parties of the cavalry. The main body never 
reined in until they checked their foaming steeds upon 
the edge of the creek, where they shook their spears 
at us, with volleys of the foulest abuse of which their 
language is cai)able, and a stray pistol-shot or two. 
But we were out of their reach ; and the sight of a 
score of levelled muskets cooled their courage con- 
siderably, while our oars flashed in the water, and the 
rowers settled to their work. Off we went, the 
light craft leading, the launch bringing up the rear ; 
and as we started, some of the yoimgsters took off 
their hats with mock politeness, and wished the 
baffled soldiery a *buenos nochesl^ — a civU attention 
which provoked them to fury. But scarcely had we 
emerged from the creek, before we saw the tall yards 
and broad sails of several lateen-rigged vessels gutter- 
ing in the moonlight, as they crossed the bar of the 
river to give us chase. 

' The guardacostos ! ' exclaimed fifty voices at once ; 
and then, by an involuntary but unanimous impidse, 
the men broke out into a hearty Britiiih cheer of 
defiant excitement. 

* Silence, fore and aft ! * bawled Mr Parchley. * Give 
way, men. Mr Lanyard, be good enough to trim the 
sails, and pass some of the small-arms aft, will you ?* 
The rowers bent to their oars, disregarding altogether 
the summons to surrender, which came again and 
again from the Mexican feluccas as well as the 
hurtUng of grape and musket-balls, and the pop, pop ! 
bang, bang! of cannon, pateraroes, and arquebuses, 
which instantbr succeeded. Then began a regular 
chase. The Mexican force consisted of no less than 
five great two-masted feluccas, full of men, and 
spreading an amount of canvas that loomed like the 
wings of so many condors. Hard on our track they 
came, firing their carronades and small -arms, and 
veiling out threats and orders to yield at discretion. 
We cheered and dashed ahead, the rowers pulling 
gallantly, the oars sparkling as they lashed the blue 
deep, and the sails spread to take every advanti^e of 
the light and inconstant breeze. The men were hig;hly 
excited ; it was hardly possible to repress their cheering, 
and they were eager for a brush with the pitif id foe 
before whom they were compelled to flee. But our 
business was to carry silver: we were simple 
smugglers for the nonce, and not naval knishta-errant. 
The uiot dashed the water in our faces, splashed and 
ricocheted all over the dimpling sea, for in the moon- 
light we afforded an admirable mark, but nobody was 
hit, nor coidd the Dons even succeed in damaging our 
oars. The latter were our chief dependence, for our 
sails were toys compared with the amount of cloth 
displayed by the five feluccas ; and we could, I believe, 
easily have been overhauled, had our pursuers l>een 
resolute. Instead of attempting to close, however, 
they continued to play at long-bowls ; a one-sided 
game, since hitherto our proceedings had been as 
pacific as if we had been dele^ate^ from the Peace 
Society, instead of British mariners. But practice 
improved the aim of the Mexicans ; the moon lent 
an unwelcome light; and before long two of our men 
were hifc, and sank groaning into the bottom of the 
boat. The old doctor was itutantly busy in attending 
to their hurts, which were fortunately not mortal ; but 
we all felt that the time had arrived when the British 
lion must shew his teeth. The great gun was loaded 





under the eye of Mr Trunnion himself, who s 

ready to tire at the word, while the launch yawed 

as to bringthe grim muzzle to bear upon the near _ 

felucca. There was a thrill of excitement that peir- . 

vaded us all, and then the most thoughtless becam 
hushed and mutely expectant of the si^aL On cam 
the felucca, racing through the foaming water, ha 
great sails drawing wonderfully well, her deck blac~ 
with men, as they clustered like ants around the bow^ 
and gunwale, their sabres and muskets glinting 
the lurid lustre of the moon. Nearer and nearer can^e 
the light vessel, till she was almost on our quarter*, 
and loudly did the guardacostas repefit the summon^ 
to surrender. 

* Sheer off! I say, before we fire,' hailed Mr 
Parchley, repeating his warning in Spanish. The 
answer was a storm of epithets and a volley of 
musketry, which hurtled sharply over our heads, and 
the seaman who pulled the bow-oar dropped severely 
wounded. 

*■ Let them have it ! * roared our comlnander, and 
the bellowing report of the great gun succeeded, 
the recoil shaking the launch from stem to stern, 
while the deadly shower of grape-shot swept the 
deck of the Spaniard, cutting down men as the 
reaper's sickle levels the ripe com. Again quickly 
was the gim sponged and loaded. * Fire ! ' was the 
word, and a ruddy flash broke on the darkness of the 
night as a fresh shower of iron poured into the felucca, 
while at the same time our marines commenced a 
crackling discharge of musketry. A howl of pain 
and rage burst from the wretehed guardacostas, and 
we comd see by the pale light that their deck was 
cumbered with dead, but not with dead alone. Num- 
bers of the miserable wounded were crawling like 
crushed worms about the deck, clinging to the bul- 
warks and riffging, or writhing as they essayed in 
vain to stancSi the ebbing blc^ that poured from 
their hurts, while calling noarsely on all the saints 
for succour and revenge The hdm was abandoned, 
the sails shivering in the wind, and the vessel floated 
like a log upon the fast-increasing sea. Our men 
instinctively ceased firing, and I will own that a 
twinge of compunction and remorse ran through me 
as I marked this sorrowful spectacle, and remembered 
my own share in the matter. After all, these men 
were in the right, we in the wrong. The guardacostas 
were but faithfully obeying the orders of uieir govern- 
ment, whose laws toe were wantonly infringing. True, 
that Mexico is a semi-barbarous state ; true, that she 
is reckless with regard to her own obligations ; that 
the restriction on exporting buUion is absurd and oflen- 
sive ; still, we were tbe aggressors, and this was no fair 
deed of arms. But all such thoughts vanished as the 
other four feluccas bore down upon ns, firing with 
cannon and musket, and their crews uttering vengeful 
shouts of * Mueran loa Ingleaes!^ But iJthough a 
running-fight instantly commenced, we were not 
destined to shed more blood on that eventful night. 
Suddenly, there came a sullen boomins aoond across 
the waters from the direction where the TrUon lay. 
Another cannon-shot, and yet another, and then the 
red gleam of a Bengal-Ught shewed ominously against 
the eastern sky. 

* The danger-signal ! * cried twenty voices at once. 
We ceased firing ; the feluccas imitated us ; every 
one looked around for the cause of this warning 
demonstration. Just then, something like a black 
veil seemed to overspread the sky, moon and 
stars alike vanished ; there was a rushing sound in 
the air, faint but increasing fast, like tiie noise of 
mighty wings flapping in the dim empyrean. *I 
thought as much ! ' exclaimed boatswain and quarter- 
master together — *Mr Parchley, sir' But the 

lieutenant heeded them not, for already his keen eye 
had distinguished something like a white wall driving 
towards us with lightning speed over the agitated sea. 
*Up helm!' he shouted— * trim the hotX fismrd 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



'<«, and shin tboao oars. Down with every rag of 
I for your lives, ineii, for your lives '. ' Scarcely 
I the Beamm time to obey, before the Beethiog 
re. nulk-whito aod hissing hke a thousand serpeatB, 
s boiling imd Icapiog aiouod us, and the might of 

remstleu iiorthEr was upon us in its fury oud its 
M. Away, away we aped, like an arrow huinched 
D a bow, urgeil by the impetuous tornado, which 
.t down the wavcH, and levelled all the eea alike 
D • man of ereamy foam. For bouiB we were in 
ninent pisnL The atorm-jib which we set, and 
jMmt which wc coulil not have ateerage-way, was 
ity momeDt in danger of being torn away, and it 
< all we could do, by inceasant baling, to keep the 
its from filling and Koiag down, na we swept before 

Norte like a withered leaf before the wind. We 
n lost si^bt of the fetuccsa ; but to oar great joy, 
en monung dawned upon a waste of broken water, 
' fiiat wtaUi of thp gate being somewhat spent, we 
jui that the yawl and cutter were still afloat at no 
«t diftanoe. Still, no sign of the Triton conld wc 
I ; and when, after nearh' a week of tcmpc«tuouB 
flying, WB reacHod the Havannah, we found that 
ptoin M — - had given o» up for lost, and the 
oer* of the treasure hail littlo prospect of ever 
inng benefit from it But we tliil arrive, safe and 
md. The Triton mode a very fair voyage back to 
gUiid; themitliona of shining silver duly glatldencd 
1 befula of merchants and banken ; and we were 
it to the Mediterranean, as n reward for our dili- 
ice and success. But for all that, it was an ugly 
linesB ; and there are pleasonter portiima of a 
Lot's checkered hfo than those spent in silver- 
uggling on the coast of Mexico. 



■LUKE'S IRO>f OROWN.' 

IKHTED among the lines eootributed by Dr Johnsou 

G<Jdimith's Tracdler. and for excelling them iu 

itical life, is the following coaplet : 

Ihe lifted axe, (he agonising wheel, 

Latc't iron crotro, and Domien's bed of steel. 

' Luke's iron crown,' obscure to 



...t day. BoBwuU, in his life of the great 
rrapher, after pointing out the lines contributed by 
^^on, goes ou to remark ; ' Goldsmith, in the 
i^!t which he inserted himself, mentions Luke 

a person well known, and suiwrficial reodera 
re passed it over quite smoothly, while those 

more attention have been oa much perplexed 
Lnke as by Lydiat in the VaiiUn of tiuman 
Ma. The truth is, that Goldsmith is himself in 
nistake. In the Itetpubtica Hiingarica, there ' 



rerity of torture was exercised on the Earl of 
ihol, one of the murderers of King James I. of 
[rtluid.' Such is Boflwell's statement, in which 
ia followed, in whole or in part, by several succeed- 



Prior, i: 



n his Lift of Qoldsmilh, adopts this account, 
amg a sliijht error of his own to a graver one of 
•well's. He says that the allusion to the 'iron 
iwd' occauoned some difBculty to readers, till it 
A recollected that, in ' a rebelhon in Hungary in 
14, headed by two brothers named Zack, George 
d Luke, the former, not the latter, was jiuniihed 

its suppression by having his head encircled by 
"ed-hot iron crown. The short and obscure nature 

the reference probably occasioned the poet i 
luble. To name the actual auflerer, Ofiirge. might 
vc been construed, by those who knew not the 



historical fact, as implying Bomu sneer or irrerereoce 
to his own sovereign ; while it is certain the Eumame 
Zaek, which would have suited his pnrpose, both in 
sense and sound, was forgotten. The substitution of 
the latter for Luku would render the whole historically 

In putauance of thb strange su^cstion, which, oa 
we shall presently see, ia whoUy anwarraoCcd by the 
facts, as for aa the name Zeck or Zack Is conccmed, 
various recent editors of the Tracfiler have actually 
clianged the text of Goldsmith, and caused the line 

Zeck's iron crown, anrt Datn^en's bed of Eteel. 
This is, perhaps, the lirst accasion □□ which an 
intentional chauoc was ever made in the known 
authentic text of a classic poet, for the sake of 
making it ' historically correct.' * 

It might be inferred, from the passage cited above 
frem BoBweU's Johnton, that Coldsmith derived this 
sorrowful allusion from the RfgpuHira Hungariai,oue 
of the Latin compendia of history and geography 
published by the Elzevirs. It would appear, how- 
ever, from the following passage in Forater's Lift of 
OMtmith, that he drew it from a different source. 
Forster says: 'Who was Lnke, and what was his 
iron crown, ia a question, Tom Daviea tells us, be 
had often to answer, being a great resource in difG- 
culties of that kind. " The doctor referred me," he 
says in a letter to the Eev. Mr Granger (who was 
compiling his BioQrapltlcal Hiitory, u n d wished to be 
cxatrt't') " to a book called Otographit Curieiisi for an 
explanation of Luke's iron crown." The explanation 
dill not mend matters much. " Luke " had been taken 
simply for the euphooy of the line. He was one of 
two brothers Zeck, who headed a revolt against the 
Himgorian nobles at the opening of the sixteenth 
centmy; but, though both were tortured, the special 
horror of the red-hot crown was inflicted on George." 

The preceding accounts ore correct in stating that 
there ia a historical error in Goldsmith, as far aa the 



smith was led into this nustake, is not so clear. It is 
not likely, we think, to have been a pure blunder, 
still less an intentional chanoe for the sake of 
euphony. As to Prior's suggestion, that the change 
waa made to avoid the appearance of an irreverent 
sneer at Georao III., it is on a par with his proposed 
correction of tne text. A reference to tbe BegpubCUa 
Jluagariat. or the Oiograpkif Curiaix, minht clear 
up this point. It ia not unlikely that the historical 
compendiiun in which Goldsmith found the at«ry, 
spoke of both tbe brother* as subjected to the same 
tortnro ; or some brief allusion to it, which fell in his 
way, may have been so obscurely expressed as to 
leave it uncertain whether Luke or George was the 
principal sufferer. 

The commentatotB on a pasBaae in Bklmrd III. 
have collected several instancea of a similar pimiah- 
ineiit The lines in Sbokspeare ore : 

would to Qod that the inclasiic tgt^ 
Of golden metal, that most loand mj brow. 
Were icd-hot steel, to sotr me to tbe brain I 



mt n'sTEl tfaal Lbs uilbnr of the TranUrr (dtcui rrptlila 
iliweUt) ihnuld hart mtdrrvoluni iujfwiiu Kftr ni la irrilt a 
iinciHct .' '— Uiin^i Siogrnfhiitl BUtor]t, TOL It. p. 40. 



262 



CHABCBEBS'S JOURNAL. 



Bit80iL*8 note on these linet ii m follows : ' John, the 
son of Vaivode Stef^ien, having defeated the anny of 
Hungarian peasants called Croimidoet in 1614, caused 
their general, ** called Qeorge, to be stripped naked, 
upon whose head the ezecunoner set a crown of hot 
burning iron." — Goulart^s Admirable and Memorable 
Hiatariea, 1607.' * This is the fact,' continues Eitson, 
* to which Goldsmith allndes — 

Lnke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel, 

though it was Georoe, and not his brother Lake, who 
was so punished ; out George would not suit the 
poet's metre. The Earl of Athol, who was ezecnted 
on account of the murder of James L, king of Scots, 
was, previous to his death, " crowned with a hot iron." 
See Holinshed.' 

Such is Mr Ritson's note to the lines in Richard III. 
Boewell, the son, in his edition of Shak£n>eare, adds : 
*See also Boswell's Life of Johnson, from which 
Mr Bitson's note is taken almost verbatim.* 

BoBWcU here claims too much for his father, and 
allows too little to Bitson, to whom we are apparenUy 
indebted for the important citation from Goulart, 
which authorises the interesting conclusion, that 
Shakspeare and Goldsmith refer to one and the same 
incident. It is true that Shakspeare could not have 
derived it directly from Goul^, if that work was 
first published in 1607, inasmuch as Richard III. 
appeared in 1597. The passa^ in Goulart, however, 
shews that this bloodjr narrative had found its way 
into the poptular compilations in Shakspeare*s time. 
Mr Knight^ in his note on the passage, says : * It is 
probable that Shakroeare had access to the story 
which is detailed in Goulart's Admirable and Memor* 
able ffidories, 1607, how John, the son of Vaivode 
Stephen, ftc.' Goulart, as far as we can gather from 
Biteon's reference, says nothing of Zeck as being the 
family name of the mif ortunate brothers ; nor are we 
able to state on what authority BosweQ gives them 
this name. Whatever his authority, it is imquestion- 
ably a mistake. Their name was neither Zeck nor 
ZadL, but Dosa, as will sufficientlv appear from the 
following extract from the Biograpkie UniverseUe : 

* Dosa (Geor;ze), proclaimed km^ of Hungary by 
the peasants, who had revolted agamst the clergy and 
nobility, was himself but a Transylvanian peasant, 
who liad made himself known by his enezsy and 
courage. Finding himself at the head of a mmtitude 
exasperated by vie cmelty of the nobles, he laid 
waste Hungary for four months, and committed great 
excesses a^;ainst the royalists. John, Vaivode of 
Transylvania, attacked him in 1514, routed his aony, 
and took him prisoner. The wretched Dosa was 
given up to the most horrible tortores. He was 
seated upon a throne of red-hot iron, with a crown 
on his head, and a sceptre in his hand, both also of 
red-hot iron. A ^ass of blood was then taken from 
his veins, and given to his brother Luke to swaQow. 
Luke had seconded the revolt' The rest ol the 
narrative is still more horrible. 

This account is evidently abridged from that which 
is given, with still further detaus, in Mor6ri's great 
dictionarv, whidi Zedler's Lexicon Unitferaale appears 
also to have followed. They both cite Itmvanfii 
Regfni Hungarici Historian and Chihqfredi Chronioon, 
wmch are hkely to be the orLonal authorities. The 
Universal Lexicon (1845) of Herer, in a very short 
article, alludes to the principal victim as Geom 
Dosa. There cannot be a doubt that this was the 
family name of the two brothers. 

We see from this, that there is no foundation for 
Boswell's statement, whenoesoever derived, that their 
name was Zeck, and that Prior's idea of chan|;ing 
Luke to Zackj for the sake of malrmg « the wnole 
historically correct,' is as erroneous as it is tasteless. 

But though we do not know precisely with whom 
the error originated — and there is certainly no resem- 
blance between Dosa the true, aadZeck the imaginaxy, 



name — ^it is quite easy to see how the mistake arose. 
The two brothers were Szeklers, or, as the word is 
sometimes written, 2«ecklers. This is the name of one 
of the native races of Transylvania, allied to the 
Magyars, and said to speak their language with some 
dialectic peculiarity. The Latin writers upon Hun- 
garian affairs generally call them Sieuli : the meaning 
of the word is variouisly nven. In the German bio- 
graphical works, George Dosa is mentioned with the 
descriptive addition of Szdder or Zedder; and ^ther 
throueh abrid^ent or misapprehension, the first 
syUalue of this appellation was mistaken for his 
family name. 

The first step in the process of this change may be 
seen in a French work, entitled Hietoire dcs RSvolu* 
(ions de Hongrie, where the event is alluded to in the 
following terms : * Ce f ut en ce tems q'arriva la r6volte 
des paysans centre leur seigneurs. Un nomm6 
Szekdy se mit it leur tdte,' &c. We learn irom. the 
preface to this anonymous work, that it was written 
by a Hungarian, and the sentence just cited is 
evidently a nnstranalation. The origiiud, no doul^ 
described the chief of the revol&a peasants as a 
* Szekely ' — that is, a Szeckler or ^ckler. From ' on 
nomm6 Szekely,' to *un nomm^ Szek' or 'Zeck,' the 
transition is easy. But the matter is too dear to 
need elaborate illustration. 

If it were not too painful a subject for a jest, we 
might say that this unfortunate person has reason, 
among his other sufferings, to oomjdain of beiiu^ 
robbed of his good name. He starts m the sixteenta 
century as Georee Dosa, and comes out in the 
eighteenth as Luke Zeck ; like the individual men- 
tioned in one of Smollett's novels, who left Scotland 
by the name of Ferguson, and turned up in Jamaica 
as Peter Gun. 

We are rather disposed, however, to close with a 
reflection upon the embalming power of poetical 
genius as exhibited in one hau line of Goldsmith. 
Wheresoever the FiU^lish language shall be read or 
spoken, to the end of time will this poor Transylvanian 
peasant be commemorated. His iron crown is turned 
by three burning words into an amaranthine garland, 
on which the latest posterity will gaze with interest^ 

When victorf' wreaths and monareh^ gems 
Shall blend in common dust. 



THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. 

ciuma xxxiiL. — tbs biqiknxho or ▲ hoicxt-moox. 

Wb have spoken of the old mcrchant*s undone week 
as Sisypheiui, and indeed the great House of Arbour 
had fallen much as a huge stone is toppled from ths 
summit of a hilL There was a briesf period of inde- 
cision, when it rocked, and hung, and hesitated upon 
the brink of the steep, and then down it went, 
' knicketty knock,' like the pebble in Carisbrooke WelL 
It was a case of Crisis, Crash, Crash, Crash, and 
Ckm^pan^, from the moment that Mr Adorns and 
his ingenious friend got the chief management of the 
oonoem into thdr own hands. One t£ing only had 
too confiding Uncle Ingram stickled forbefore that 
happened : & had insiirt^d that the hi^y connected 
and desirable Mr Charlecot should, before taking any 
active part in the business, espouse the mature id^ria; 
perhi^ from a shadow of suspicion that even a gentle- 
man ol his sagacity and disinterestedness might need 
a family tie at once to steady and to stimulate him ; 
or perhi^ from that last weakness of commercial, as 
well as other minds, which derives satisfaction from 
being connected with aristocracy. The wedding 
whicn took place at Rose Cottage, was, by the express 
desire of thie bridegroom, as quiet and unpretending 
an affair as though he had been a German sovereufn 
contracting a morganatic marriage. He waa^ he 
said, ashamed to otrnfeas that it would be useless to 
invite his hig^-bom but prejudiced xelativea to that 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



263 



interestiiiff ceremony ; that the Faubourg St Germain 
must ueeoB be separated for the present from Dark- 
endim Street by an impassable gulf, although he did not 
deipair of one day canying his wife in triumph to the 
ancestral arms — a merchant-princess, whom it would 
be as absurd to confound with >id<:;ar trade, as to 
mix up the Earls of Zetland or Balcarres with the 
•mall-coal line. 

On the mominj^ of the marriage, Uncle Ingram 
bestowed a splendid trousseau, and the promise of ten 
thousand poonds after his death, upon Maria, but 
only her own portion of six hundred poimds for the 
present The airy mirth with which Mr Frederic 
€3iarleoot receivea that bagatelle of a cheque would 
have been worth twice the money to an actor of 
genteel comedy. He cnunpled it up, and thrust it 
into an outside pocket, as though it had been driving- 
gloves, to the great scandal of his future uncle, and 
the absolute terror of Mr John Arbour, attomcy-at- 
law, whose sympathies were easily excited at the 
prospect of anybody's losing money, one sliilling of 
whidi mig^ otherwise, by possible chance, have come 
his way. 

' Six hxmdred pounds ! my beloved Maria,* laughed 
the bridegroom merrily ; * and I would not have had it 
one penny more for worlds. It charms me immenf3ely — 
I like it~--jt is to characteristic What delight it would 
give to my lady-mother if she only knew it! "It 
serves Fred rijpt," she would say; "it is just what 
he deserves !"* 

'He gave me fifty pounds, however, Frederic, beside 
mytzoussemu,* remarked Maria apologetically, although 
alie was by no means so tickled with the diniinutive- 
ness of her portion as was hcr^nc^. 

*Did he mdeed? Was he so generous?' observed 
tiie bridegroom carelessly. ' Shall I carry it for you, 
dearest ? It will be safer with me than yoiL* 

'No, I thank you,' returned Maria decisively; 'I 
have been always accustomed to take care of my own 
money mjrself.' 

Over Mr Charlecot's expressive countenance there 
piMTil an angry shadow, to which the eye of even 
about-to-be- wedded love could not be blind. Was it 
then possible, thought the lady, that this light-hearted, 
impmaiye, brilliant being that had dropped at her feet 
as from the skies, had a will of his own I It was 
then of the last importance that she should intimate 
to him at once that he was not to exercise it. 
An hour or two, however, was yet wanting to that 
ceremony, not till after which the great question of 
' Who shall be master?' can be satisfactorily settled; 
so she temporised, Uke a judicious general who is 
expecting remf orcements, and in the meantime declines 
the offer of battle. 

'What can you want my fifty -pound note for, 
dearest Fred?' 

' To^ve to the postillions,' returned that gentleman 
cortly, with a laugh that was not altogetJier good- 
natured. ' You make as much fuss about it as though 
it were fifty thousand.'. 

A oonyersation likewise took place between the 
bndegroom and one of his new brothers-in-law that 
same morning, which was not altogether consonant 
witii the ceremony that was about to unite them in 
the bonds of mutual relationship and confidence. Mr 
John Arbour, who was not a httlc afraid of his high 
and fashionable relative, had managed to secure his 
eoat-button, if not his attention, in the garden for a 
few minutes, under the pretence of needing his tasteful 
sid in the selection of a bouquet for Maria. 

' I say, Charlecot, my dear fellow, I want to say 
just half-a-dozen words to you upon business ' 

' Not to-day, my dear John,' re|)licd the bridegroom ; 
' sorely not to-day of all days. Let four-and-twcnty 
hours at least be devoted to Love, Champagne, Aspir- 
ations, and Four horses at full gallop ! The lato 
lamented Samuel Johnson used to observe, that the 
bang whirled rai)idly through the air in a postchaise 



was one of the most delightful of sensations; how 
much more cliarmin^, then, must such a recreation 1)e, 
when< your companion in that vehicle is Beauty, 
Youth, and ' 

* Yes,' interrupted the other drily, * I daresay it is, 
and I sincerely hope you ma^ find it so — although, 
for the matter of that, Maria is not a chicken. But 
what I wanted to say to you was this, for I have been 
talking to Adol|)hus about it, and he refers me to you. 
Now, you know I don't doubt either of you in the 
least. I have the very highest confidence in you both, 
especially in you, my dear fellow ; but you must be 
aware with regard to your business relatious with 
Uncle Ingram' 

* I beg your pardon for interrupting you,' observed 
Mr Frederic Charlecot with a sweet smile, * but you're 
actually gathering hollyhocks. Hollyhocks are the 
very last fiowers — with the single exception, perhaps, 
of sunflowers — which are adapted for wedding- 
bouquets. Roses ! ah ! that 's much better ! ' 

' I was about to say,' continued Mr John Arbour 
in a harsh and grating tone, as though he were shar]>- 
ening his voice, ' that you know, as well as I, that 
Uncle Ingram is not so wise as he used to be by a 
good deal, and that you and Adolphus can wind him 
about your little-fingers. Now, I myself am a quiet 
contented fellow enough, but ' 

' A thousand pardons,' interposed Mr Cliarlccot 
silkily, * but, douotless in a moment of inadvertence, 
you have again gathered a couple of hollyhocks.' 

*Confou£Kl your hollyhocks,' returned the other, 
purple with rage. 

'They are not my hollyhocks, my dear John,' 
returned Mr Charlecot coolly. 'As a person whose 
profession must needs accustom him to use the most 
accurate definitions of proi>erty, your looseness of siyle 
amazes me. You are m a passion, too, which renders 
you quite \infit for the calm discussion of business 
matters. What you woulil say, however, as far as I 
can gather from your excited manner, is this : you 
distrust — abeolutely distrust — ^your own brother, and 
the influence he is able to exercise over your uncle ; 
and that now that I am about to be made a partner 
in the firm, you begin to entertain a doubt even of 
myself, connected though I am about to be with you 
by the most sacred tie. Such a suspicion is cruel and 
unjust in a very high degree, and pains my sensitive 

nature more than I can express I wouldn't put 

sage in that nosegay, John, if I wore you, for thou^ a 
thing justly estimated for the stufiliug of ducks — thank 

you It pains me, I say, although, I confess, your 

feelings are not altc^ther unnatural: you would 
like, of course, my dear John, to be made a partner 
yourself.' 

' I insist upon being made so, sir, or I will expose 
the whole concern ! I will shew how Adol])hu3 and 
youTBelf, for your own ends, and to the exclusion of 
his other lawful kindred, have practised u|>on an old 
man of waning and enfeebled powers ' 

'This is eloquence, genuine eloquence, my dear 
John, and I did not think you had it in you. "Wan- 
ing and enfeebled powers ^' — good ! Thei-e he is, my 
good sir, leaning upon Adol]>hus's ami at this very 
moment. You had better go and tell him, at once, 
the oi»inion which you have formed concerning tlie 
state of his mind.' 

Mr John Arbour bit his lips, but stopped where he 
was. He had not yet worked himself up to such a 
{liteh of virtuous indignation as could induce him to 
take a step so ])erilous as that. 

* Now, look here, my sagacious younc friend,' con- 
tinued Mr Charlecot candidly ; * just listen to me. 
I am not a man to do an act of Quixotic friendship 
evtai for you ; but I am quite ready to bene lit you, or 
any other fellow-creature, if you make it worth my 
Mliile to do so. Your brother is stn)ugly opposed to 
your being admitted into partnersliip 'with us ; I am 
op}X)8ed to it also, because the less number of persons 



264 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



tbere are to share certain profits, the greater are the 
individual ^ains. It is true that, in this case, the 
gains will in all probability be enormous, but the 
tendency of the human mind is not upon that account 
at all the less inclined to be exclusive. Still, a paltry- 
sum like this which I hold in my hand — some six 
hundred pounds, I say, in ready money — if paid to- 
day, paid now, to mc — ridiculous as is the dispropor- 
tion which it will bear to the idterior benefits you 
will derive from the investment — would make me 
take quite a different view of this matter. I would 
represent that view to Adolphus. Your uncle 
would be led to look on the thing in a new light, and 
the House of Arbour, Arbour, and Charlecot wotdd 
open its paternal arms to another brother. You 
would not look for a lion's share of the profits of 
course, but you shall have that of a lion cub's.' 

' I have only five hundred pounds of ready money 
in the world, sir,' responded the other doggedly. 
* Your proposition is imquitous and grasp ' 

* Not grasping, no,' ejaculated Mr Chanecot hastily ; 
'whatever you call it, John, you shall never call it 
msping. ^ve hundred pounds paid to me by cheque 
uiis morning will do, my friend. I believe yon, when 
you tell me you have not a penny more. I can't 
conceive, for my own part, how you could have ever 
managed to put by so much. I am afraid you must 
have denied yourself many luxuries. There it is that 
you exclusively business-men have the pull over men 
like me. You have such extraordinary powers of 
forbearance in your personal expenditures. Now, 
I can never deny myself anything. I can't do it — 
and indeed I don't try. If I have this money, then, 
before I start, I pledge you my word that you shall 
be admitted into the concern wiih. the rest of us. If 

not But why should we picture to our minds 

unpleasant alternatives ? You are willing, and we are 
agreed. This day, then, has given to me a new com- 
mercial relation, in addition to those connections by 
marriage whom I had already reckoned upon.' 

Nevertheless, the expression upon Mr John Arbour's 
face was not quite fraternal as he stepped indoors to 
write that cheque ; while as for the weading-bouquet, 
he had picked it to pieces, hollyhocks and aU. 

The happy pair departed from the cottage without 
any of that effusion of tears which mars so many 
bridals, and at the risk of being convicted of a want 
of deUcacy, we propose to accompany them upon their 
blissful travel The house in Golden Square had 
been placed at their service for a fortnight — half a 
honey-moon being considered ample in the case of a 
bride so serious and a bridegroom so newly dedicated 
to commerce; and thither Mr and Mrs Frederic 

Charlecot hurried, borne upon the wings of well, 

it was the Limited Express, at all events, and carried 
them over fifty miles within the hour. 

To the mind of any youth — and Mr Charlecot was 
but eight-and-thirty, which is youth in the marriage- 
market, except in the case of such impetuous 
lunatics as wed upon three himdrcd a year — ^it 
surely ought to have been a pleasant and exhilarating 
journey. Nor do we wonder that Maria looked 
blacker than usual, when, upon that her nuptial 
morning her husband purchased the Times and Ptmeh 
at the railway station, as though he conjectured 
the way would be a little tedious. And yet, although 
the brideeroom kept that broad sheet spread before 
his face auring the sreater part of the distance, it 
is but fair to state tiiat he was by no means occu- 
pied with its contents. The fact was, he did not wish 
his countenance to be too nearly scrutinised by the 
penetrating glances of his Maria. Incredible as it 
may seem, in the case of one who had eleven hundred 
pounds in his pocket, and the prospect of untold wealth 
about to accrue to him, Mr Frederic Charlccot's mind 
was far from being tninquiL It had been a blessed 
relief to him, when, at the commencement of the 
jooxney, a near-sighted and nervous young dei^gyman 



had taken his place in their coup(, and b^gan the 
perusal of the OuardiaUy unconscious of the withering 
mdignation displayed in the countenance of the bride ; 
and when that di^'ine hod awakened to a sense of his 
situation, and precipitately left the carriage at the 
next station, Mr Frederic Charlecot yearned after 
him, as he was by no means wont to do after clerical 
persons. Two hours before, as was seen in the matter 
of the fifty-pound note, he had been half inclined to 
carry matters with a high hand; but now that the 
knot was tied, he seemed quite submissive, and con- 
tent to play second-fiddle in that just commencing 
matrimonial duet — a mere slave of the rin^. 

* What makes you dull, my Frederic ?" demanded 
Maria, as soon as the obnoxious intruder had made 
his escape. * Is it possible that you have any care 
unknown to me?' 

* No, love, certainly not ; that is' 

' I know, my own pet,' interrupted the lady triumph- 
antly : * the eye of woman's love can fathom deeper 
far than you imagine ! ' 

Mr Frederic Charlecot looked exceedingly uncom- 
fortable at this mysterious speech, and waited appre- 
hensively for more. 

' You are thinking about your own family connec- 
tions, Frederic, and of the impediments that lie in the 
way of introducing them to your beloved vrife.' 

'Heavens and earth,' ejacidated the bridegroom, 

thing I was 




discernment of us 
poor women, no less than our independence of charac- 
ter. We are not ambitious of social elevation ; \ce are 
not influenced by mere rank and wealth. If I were in 
your position, small thought of inequality be1;ween us 
would arise in my bosom. To love and to be loved, is 
all we women ask ; and it is nothing to us whether 
the object of our affections be low or high bom, so 
long as he is well principled and devout.' 

*I am truly gratified, my dearest Maria, to hear 
you express such sentiments,' returned Mr Charlecot, 
with an admiration such as he rarely bestowed upon 
Maria's moral reflections, ' I, too, for my own part, 
care nothing for these artificial distinctions. Here we 
are at London, however — a city, by the by, teeming 
with such narrow and miserable prejudices. I have 
ordered a carriage-and-pair to meet us at the station, 
that we may not be mixed up with the mob of 
jostling cab-seekers.' 

In that exclusive equipage the bride and bridegroom 
were whirled genteelly away to Golden Square. A 
maid-servant — not the same who had attracted the 
young affections of Adolphus — opened the door, and 
Mrs Trimming was not, as usual, in the hall to 
receive the visitors. Splendidly attired, but a trifle 
paler than usual, that lady was nervously awaiting 
their arrival in the dining-room. She cost her arms 
affectionately around Mana, who endured her einlH«ce 
with complacency, but without returning it — ^predsely 
as if she was having a new shawl tried on — and then, 
to that young lod^s intense horror, transferred her 
caresses to the cheek and shoulders of Mr Frederic 
Charlecot. 

*Mr8 Trimming,' ejaculated the outraged bride^ 
* this is a liberty whidi can never be permitted to a 
person in your position ! ' 

'What! Have you not told her, Dick?' said the 
old lady reproachfully. ' Have yon not had the courage 
to own your poor old mother?' 

* His mother I ' shrieked Maria, turning straw colour 
— which was as pale as her complexion permitted— 
and sinking backwards upon the sofa. 

'Pardon me, dearest,' exclaimed Mr Charlecot, or 
Jones, or Trimming, throwing himself on his knees 
beside her — 'pardon this lov^s stratagem. Bather 
than lose you, I would have pretended to have bees 
the Prince of Wales ! * 

' Foigive him, my dear daughter, for such yoa ort 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



^65 



now, and it can't be undone,' cried Mrs Trimming ; 
* he 18 a husband that any womxm may bo proud o^ 
no matter who she be. The handsomest, bravest, 

kindest But there, I shall leave you together to 

make it up, which you will do all the better for the 
absence of an old woman like me.' 

She left the room, but Maria remained perfectly 
RtiU, more like a lady of distinction lying in state, 
than a bride with her groom at her feet ; though Mr 
Richard Jones, to do him justice, was eloquent enough 
by this time — ^the consciousness of having committed 
a felony, hv marrying under an assumed name, stimu- 
lating, doubtless, his desire for a reconciliation. 

* To love and to be loved,' whispered he, * is all that 
/ ask now, my queen. What does it matter, to use 
your own beautiful and touching language, dearest 
Maria, whether the object of our affection is of high 
or low degree ? It is true, I have deceived you, but no 
one need* to know it except yourself and my mother. 
I have the manners, the feelings, the cai)acity for 
business— an that made up the Frederic Charlecot I 
assumed to be, in short, except the name. That name 
I can continue to bear. Say, then, that you formve 
your own dear penitent Frederic — let me seal uiat 
foreiyeneflB upon these lovely lips by one fond kiss.' 

n he had suited the action to the word in a proper 
fashion ; if he had been as rapid in the execution of 
the matter as in the talking about it ; if he had saluted 
the beloved object with an eagerness at all propor- 
tioned to the circumstances of the case — it is possible 
that all might yet have been pardoned him. But, 
hovering over the lady's unattractive features as he 
did, not so much like a bee over a flower as a ^ntle- 
man who stands upon the brink of the ice in his first 
skates, she suddenly started up with a shrill cry of 
rage, and administered such a box upon his ears, with 
her yiigia hand, as made them ring again. 

CHAPTER XXX I v. 
TRS XOniS A88I8T8 THS U0If-(H17MTEB). 

"Frcan the first moment that Mrs Trimming in- 
fonned her son of the disagreements in the Arbour 
family, and of the characteristics of the yoimg man 
who would, probably, sooner or later, succeed to his 
imde's wealth, Mr Richard Trimming, alias Jones, 
alias Charlecot, had nourished the idea of aggrandis- 
ing himself at the expense of her master. He had at 
first intended to introduce himself to the domestic 
drde by means of Dick, of whose boyish heart, as we 
have seen, he soon made easy conquest ; but finding 
that faYOur was not to be gained by that road, he had 
dropped the young gentleman's acquaintance (until 
it waa once more forced upon him), although, perhaps, 
not without some regret. Thorough scamp, indeed, 
and selfish profligate as this man was, he was not 
altoeetfaer heartless. There were more elements of 
in him than in his wife or in his brothers-in-law, 
l]^iu and John, who would each have committed 
their felonies with less compunction than himself, 
except for the penxdties which the law and society 
have attached to such acts. Savefor that viscous but 
inezpUcaUe attachment which had existed between 
Mana and her eldest brother— a mere adaptation to 
doable harness of that cart-rope with which they 
equalty drew iniquity — not one of those three had the 
Inst affection, friendship, or regard for a single fel- 
low-ereatore. Now, Mr Richard Trimming had, in 
reality, certain genial sympathies, although his love 
for himseU outweighed all other considerations 
whoUy. He was fond of his mother, although he 
deceived and pillaged her ; and of Lucidora, whom he 
bad mined, and i^osc wrongs he had just put it out 
of his power to ever redress. Without this attraction 
and capacity for love, ho would have been compara- 
tively harmless. Up to that present hour, he had 
ki^ his undisputed place in the hearts of those two 
women, and used his influence there for ill. He had 




persuaded his poor doting mother, from the first, into 
secrecies and deceptions entirely foreign to her charac- 
ter, until at last — but always with the notion that 
her Richard would be a prize to repay the fortunate 
possessor for anything that was lacking else — she 
had connived at his scheme of marrying her master's 
daughter under false pretences and a borrowed name. 
From such a height of doting fondness did she 
regard him, that the wilful and eccentric motions of 
this Will-of-thc-Wisp son of hers were, from her point 
of view, almost unobservable ; and the infatuated 
woman would scarcely have conceded a greater 
constancy to the pole-star itself. He had so thoroughly 
inoculated her with that idea of his being such a 
* precious high fellow,* that she was far from surprised 
at his seeking an alliance in a rank of life so sux)erior 
to his own, and, not without difficulty, had been 
persuaded by him that any dissimulation on his part 
was necessary for the attainment of that object. As 
for Miss Maria, she was conscientiously convinced 
that that young lady ought to be thankfid indeed. 

Of Lucidora — of whom, by the by, that other lady 
had never heard, and never did hear, so ignorant are 
we, from first to last, of the real modes of life and 
springs of action even of those who are dearest and 
most familiar to us — with still greater truth than of 
Mrs Trimming might it be said that she had loved 
not wisely but too welL To the mother, the know- 
ledge of the real character of her darling had been 
mercifully denied, nor did she ever behold her Richard 
as he was, but only a certain splendid mirage of the 
man, which no familiarity nor near approach could 
dissipate. His mistress was doomed to learn, in spite 
of herself, how nearly allied can fickleness and fond- 
ness be; how selfish may be the heart that is not 
callous, and what tortures it m<ay designedly inflict 
without being cruel. Since she learned all this, 
and more, without learning not to love the man, 
it is no wonder that this w^oman should have been 
touched, as has been seen, by the sorrows of young 
Richard Arbour. Her first serious quarrel with 
Mr Jones was upon that lad's account — ^when she 
told him of his mother's illness, and thereby induced 
him to leave the photographce's — and the ill treat- 
ment she received in consequence of it doubtless 
augmented her interest in his future welfare. A 
sudden access of prosperity, for which he was indebted 
to fortune, through the humble but rapid medium 
of a dice-box, enabled Mr Jones to repair to Paris, in 
the character of Mr Frederic Charlecot, coincidently 
with the visit of Adolphus Arbour to that city — an 
opportunity thus offering itself to the Adventurer, for 
the first time, of obtaining that young gentleman's 
confidence. Tlieir meeting in the caf6 was planned 
by the former beforehand, whose ready mind had 
also previously possessed itself of the most delicate 
intricacies of the china trade. Mr Charlecot did 
not speak falsely, although he meant to do so, when 
he declared himself to be mentally qualified for a man 
of business. The billiard-sharper, menagerie-keeper, 
peripatetic lecturer, photographce, and gentleman of 
fashion, could doubtless have performea the rdle of 
dealer in earthenware, so far as brains were concerned, 
as well as any other. He had, in reality, only adopted 
the speculative schemes of Adolphus, aliliough disguis- 
ing them, by extension and improvement, so that their 
original inventor was but so far conscious of the plagi- 
arism, as to be flattered by the consideration given 
to his own ideas by so great a commercial genius. 
Perhaps by this time Mr Charlecot had got to 
believe in those plans himself, the hazardous nature of 
which was exactly suited to his reckless character. 
He certainly entertained no intention of ruining the 
Arbour family — of killing his geese with the golden 
eggs — but was anxious enough to enrich them, since 
by that means he enriched himself likewise. 

Lucidora, however, who had so often seen Mr Jones's 



866 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



schemes miscariy, and the preciouB metals melt in 
those spendthrin hands, as soon as they reached 
them, was well aware of what was oertain to happen 
to the House of Arbour if Mr Frederic Charleoot 
should obtain any powerful voice in its management. 
She had absolutely refused to aid in his machina- 
tions, or even to remain quiescent, unless she should 
esAasfy herself of Adolphus Arbour's hostility to Dick. 
U, when he entered that sumptuous chamber ia the 
Hotel Gilbert, the young man had betrayed but one 
touch of tenderness towards his outcast brotiber, it 
mi^^ have saved him and his house from ruin and 
disgrace. The in£Eituated woman was not sudli a 
slave to her companion that she would have let him 
hann the friends of the lad she loved so weU and 
purely. But if they were not his friends 1 Mr 
Frederic Charlecot permitted her to assure herself 
upon that point, being well convinced that he mioht 
do so wiui p^ect safety. No aiyiments of liis 
own could have influenced the impulsive Luddoia «o 
decisively against the youn^ mercuiant, as that denial 
of the veiy existence of his brother heard from lus 
own lips. From that momeni^ she assisted his bewitch- 
ment and subjugation by all means within her 
power. She was content to remain in Paris alone 
and friendless, and in lodgings very different from 
those of the Hotel Gilbert, while Mr iVederic 
Charlecot prosecuted his commercial undertakings at 
Rose Cottage. He had promised her to find some 
opportunity of permanently befriending Dick, and of 
promoting meanwhile, as much as possible, his 
interests and those of his sister Ma£^ with their 
estranged uncle. We bave seen how little this man 
keipt ms word with her in these respects ; and how, 
foigetting what he owed to the ^oor girl, who had 
sacrificed herself, weakly and gmltily, bat still for 
him, he had deliberately plotted for the hand of 
Maoj^ie first, and afterwards of her sister Maria^ Not 
unuTthe day before his marna||e had he mastered 
ooorace to write and inform Luodora of the step he 
was about to take. He did not attempt to exculpate 
himself in the least, but heajMiig upon his own head 
the sackcloth and ashes of invective, bade her at once 
disclose, if she pleased, his real name and position, 
whi(^ would only enta^ he admitted, a just punish- 
meot for his perjuries and desertion in his utter 
and immediate ruin. 

Mr Biehard Trimming did not boast himself, with- 
out some reason, of his knowledge of the hearts of 
those with whom he had to deiJ. liucidora read that 
letter in her Parisian garret without one thought of 
revenge. She sat with it open in her hand, staring 
at it with a fixed blank gaze for hours, although the 
words were engraven upon her mind, and neecud no 
reperusaL No tear welled up to her crjres ; the veiy 
fountain of tears had been trodden out by those cruel 
feet of his ! Dismoed, deserted, guilty, the poor sirl 
never dreamed of injuring the wretch who had l£ns 
cast her off; not throu^ tenderness for him — that 
feeling, deep-rooted as it had been, was plucked up 
now, never to rise in her heart again — ^but rather from 
her loathinff of so base a creature. Her lips could not 
have formed his name, althou^ their doinff so should 
have been able to blast him ^lb an evil <maim. She 
shuddered as she wrote it upon the blank envelope 
re-enclosing that five-pound note of his — ^'all he couid, 
unf (Mrtunately, spare at present,' and with which he 
afterwards purchased a very handsome meerschaum. 
From that hour, she never left her attic — ^where she 
now supported herself with her needle— ^except to 
purchase food, and to peruse, for a few minutes every 
da^, the £n^^ journals. She was looking for some- 
thing in their Commercial Intelligenoe, and at last her 
eye encountered that it sought. 

Then she went home, arraycMl herself in her best — 
wherein, however, she looked like the mother of the 
Lucidora of a few months back, so deeply does Time 
set his autogiaph when Titrable guidea his pen — and 



took her way to the hotel of one 4d. the imperial 
ministers. This gentleman was unknown to her; she 
had never even seen him; but she had oonfidpncft 
that he would both give her au d ien c e, and grant her 
prayer. She had alwa^ heard of him as oae of those 
few admitted to the imperial councils in whom the 
people also reposed a trust. The situaticm of a warm 
iriend of liberty, such as he was known to be, in the 
court of the emperor, was strange and anomalous 
enou^ but it was not unparalkleo. His own party 
were understood, for certain valid reasona, to acquiesce 
in it. He by no means concealed t2M>se opinions 
whidi had at one time made him obnoxious enou^ to 
the rulers of France, but, on the oontrazy, was supposed 
to five no little effect to them. Louis Napoleon, it i» 
said, is not at all times averse to take the advice of 
an enemy; nor was the e:q>edition to Italy one likely 
to be planned in the brain of a despot or at the 
suggestion of mere courtiers. Let this be as it may, 
however, the Count de Crespigny was an impeiial 
minister, powerful and yet popuutr; and his hotci wis 
in consequence besiesed by suitors. Precedenoe 
being, as usual, acoor&d to ladies, Lucidon &>ond 
herself in the presence of the count far sooner iium if 
she had belonged to the less privileged sex. He wss 
seated at a massive table in the middle of a vast 
apartment, which to some might seem scantQy for- 
nished for the reception-room ofa minist^ ; to othen, 
as admirably adapted for interviews which, altbou^ 
pubUc, were not mtended to be overheard by eavet- 
droppers. 

The count regarded Lucidora with a grave bit 
kindlv look, and bade her, in the English tongue, be 
seated. 

' You have a reputation for iMit f orgettixiff an «Ui- 

tation, sir,* said sne ; ' I am come to remind yot of a 
ebt that is still left unrepaid.' 

* To yon, mad am, tHen I trust,* replied the French- 
man gallantly. 

* No, sir ; not to me. To Richard Smith, who, while 
an apprentice at a barber's near Leicester Square' 

* 1 remember,' replied the count ; * his real nine 
was — ^Arbour was it not ? He was acquitted on a 
change of abetting the death of a oer^un Rusaaa, 
in consequence of a representation from this coontiy. 
He was an honest lad, and I have a great kindiw 
for him. After he was released from the police-oooi^ 
he retiuned, I understood, to his own friends.* 

< He had no friends, sir, or at least none who cosU 
helphinL The munler* 

* There was no murder,' remariLed the coast 
quietly. 

* The execution, then, of this Russian, and the lad*i 
appearance in the police-court in connection with it, 
were the means ot the poor boy's ruin. His vau^ 
and family disowned him. He has been wandering 
about the country ever since in the humblest empkiy 
ment — a beast-tamer in a travelling menagerie.' 

' And why did you not inform me of these anhsfp^ 
circnmstAnces before, madam ?' 

*■ Because, sir, when he had only himself to provide 
for, he would have Referred to have done so iwassisted > 

at least, I think that, with regard to yourself* ^ 

Lucidora hesitated and coloured. 

' Pray, proceed, madam : the poor lad had perlisji#* 
some prejudice against me.' 

* He loved you, sir, before the — the — execution otf 
the Russian gentleman — ^the statement concemiB^ 
which was put into my own hands by some unknowi^ 
person at the doors of the poUoe-court ; but since 
time' 



* He shrunk from me, you would say, as from 
assassin, or at least from an executioner. Ignorant 
as he was of the nature of the circumstances, I cannot 
blame him for that I say to you for his ear, what 0- 
would say to no other woman U\'iiig — but you, lik^ 
him, I r^d, are to be trusted — that he need diitnrl^ 
himself upon that account no longer. It so chaiicei^ 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



267 






tiiat Miather hmnd than mine performed its duty upon 
the occuion of which we apeak. I owe him taat 
oonteuop* at least.* 

*He will be trulv glad to hear it, sir, I am sure. He 
if now in eril plight enough. The father of the young 
lady to whom he is en^^ged is reduced in circum- 
itannf by the failure of the young man's uncle, in 
whose serrice he was chief -clerk.' 

' I remariced the stoppage of the house but srester- 
day evening;' said the count : ' the name attracted me.' 

* If then, air, it lies in your power, as I doubt not 
it does, to assist Richard Arbour, I leave you in the 
ccnfideDoe that he will not be forgotten.' 

* 1 thank yon, madam, for your good opinion, and 
I should be fjiad to prove myself worthy of it We 
have, however, but few places, I fear, such as ^^Ush- 
mm can filL Tou say that he has been accustomed 
to the care of wild animals; well; I will see what 
can be done for him. I have your address written 
down, madam, and you shall hear from me shortiy.' 

Incidon bowed her thanks, and was about to leave 
the nom. Her wan appearance, and face, from which 
all expresBon save tnat of aettled melancholy had 
died oat at once, now that her mission was ended, 
touched Hie count. 

' One moment, madam,' exclaimed he with gentle- 
neaa. ' Ton tell me that it was your own haiul that 
conveyed to this young and innocent sufferer in a 
great canae the statement which set him free from 
the gnap of the law, although not, as wc had vainly 
hoped, from all evil consequences. We are therefore 
indebted to you alaa Is there nothing that can be 
ofleved in repayment?' 

' Nothing, sir, I thank you.' 

' Nay, madam, such dimnterestcd suitors as yourself 
are ao rare here, that we cannot pennit them to leave 
ua emp^-handed. You have troubles, wrongs, perhaps 
vsnts Of your own, madam — am I not right ?' 

No single word of kindneas or of sympathy had 
£dUen npon Lucidora's ear for many a day ; ahe had 
b^gon to deem her heart incapable of feeling such 
agun, ao ahrunk and withered it seemed to have 
l^own within her; but this unexpected tenderness 
touch e d it, as Moses* rod the rock m Horcb, and she 
Mt down again on the chair from which she had risen 
to depart, ukL covered her face. 

'Is poverty, madam — and nobody has experienced 
non bitterly the wretchedness of being poor than he 
fte is now speaking to you — or any obstacle that 
BMmey can remove, stonding between you and happi- 
neas? between you, perhaps — ^for I have known it to 
do so— and one without wnom life itself seems to you 
not worth livinc for' 

She held up ner hand in piteous entreaty that he 
dioold cease. * life is worth nothing now to me, sir,' 
Ktnmed she after a little, xmd her tone was even 
more hopeless than her words. * When I have received 
tins favour at your hands for Bichard Arbour, I have 
done with happiness.' 

' Suppose that I find some employment for him here 
in Paris, will it not be happiness for you who love 
him, and who by your own advoca^ have obtained 
it, to welcome him and his bride ? When we look no 
more for pleasure upon our own account, it oftentimes 
befalls US throu^ uiat which we can coi^fer on others.' 

'No, air — no ; I would not aee them for worlds. They 
■nat never know that I demanded aui^ht for them. 
Thxonffh me it is, in put (although they know it not), 
that uiis last misfortune has befallen them ; and 
therefore it is fit that tiirough me the reparation 
ihoold come. But for myself — for me — I am not one 
to welcome to her home a bride, a wife. I shall be 
far away when ahe arrives.' 

'Yoa intend to leave Paris, then,' returned the 
minister. * May I ask whither, and in what capacity ?' 
I 'All places are the same to me, sir,' answered 

I Luddora rising; *bo, at least, that I meet no eyes 

II whidi used to know me. I can work with my needle ; 



w 



I can tend the aick ; therefore, I am not one to starve. 
Wherever I am, and whatever I do, however, I shall 
not forget the kindness of Count de Crespigny to an 
unknown, friendless, fallen woman.' 

Upon the next morning, Lucidora received two 
letters, one of which concerned herself, and ran as 
follows : ' You my, mcuUtm, you can tend t/ie sick, and 
wish to leave Paris, The office of female sub-superin- 
tendent at the MarseUle Comxdescent Hospital is now 
vacant, and at your service. The duties and emolur 
mentM are as subjoined.* The other letter — which was 
left open for her inspection — ^was official, and directed 
to Richard Arbour. The first smile which had visited 
Lucidora's lips for months played round them as 
she addressed the missive to Air Mickleham's house 
at Kensington ; where, however, she little guessed that 
Dick would be found in person. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 
MABaiKD AV1> 8KTTT.BD. 

In spite of Mr William Mickleham's impatience 
and sarcasms, Dick kept the contents of his letter to 
himself until Lucy and Maggie were both in the room 
to hear them. iJncle Ingram was asleep, and Mr 
Mickleham the elder had taken that opportunity to 
leave the sick man's bedside for an hours fresh air, 
or the ne^'s would perhaps have been discussed in 
family conclave, since it certainly concerned tihem alL 
In that letter, than which, since the invention of 
letters, scarce any could have conferred a greater joy 
upon its recipient, was offered the post of Aide-nalu^ 
raliste at the Jardin des Planles in Paris, for the 
youne Lion-tamer's immediate acceptance. Appended 
to the official document and certain aatuuctoiy 
details concerning salary and house-acconmiodation, 
there were a few sentences written in a hand which 
Dick remembered to have somewhere seen before: 
* / wrUe these few lines after visiting your new home, 
cts I hope it wiU be, my brave young sir. It seems to me 
pleasant enough, and one to which no young gentleman 
need be ashamed to bring his bride. The sitting-rooms 
are certainly prrferable to those saloons qf Monsieur 
Tipsaway which you and I recollect so wdL As soon 
as you arrive in Paris, U is my wish to wdcome you 
ana yours with this hand — whidi is as stainless as your 
own. De Cbebpiony.' 

'What the deuce does he mean by atainless?' 
inquired Mr William Mickleham, in secret pcrhaxia a 
Uttle outraged at the prospect of Dick's entering the 
respectable guild of government officials. 

'It's only his French way of expressing himself,' 
explained Kichard, half -smothered by the audden 
embraces of the two ^oong ladies. How they huntt 
around his neck and cried for joy, and smiling throu^ 
their tears, looked all the lovelier — ^like laniucapes m 
the shower while the sun shines ! How near, now, 
after all, was that great happiness which had a few 
minutes before seemed so far distant, without one 
sign however small — like the doud out of the sea 
that was but as a man's hand — ^to tell of its propin- 
quity I How thankful they all were I 

' How I wish dear papa was in ! ' cried Lucy, 
'that he might tAuae our joy! He is miserable 
enough just now, I fear ; for he is gone to Darkendim 
Street, whore the sale begins to-day.' 

' Then let us go there, too,' cried Dick ; and in five 
minutes the two young poo])lc were away together. 
Never before had Mr Hicnaru Arbour so appreciated 
a walk to the city ; never had the warehouse — tush I 
— never had tnat Bower in Darkendim Street 
appeared one-tenth part so beautiful and attractive. 
There were, however, certain material chan^ in 
ite aspect, as well as that ideal metamorphosis into 
the Halls of Dazzling Light which the wand of love 
has power to effect even in the most impromising 
localities. The sombre street was thronged with an 
unwonted population. A great tide of people swept 



268 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



in through Uncle Inffram's doorways, without the 
breakwater of a single clerk or warehouseman to 
check the babbling waves. In vain the gigantic crates, 
bursting with hay as usual, opposed themselves like a 
volunt^r barricaide to the invaders. They surged up 
the narrow staircase that led to that abode of vertity 
the pattern-room, with the indecent haste of votaries 
of the Temple of Vice. Connoisseurs, dealers, dilet- 
tanti, dowagers with a mania for china dragons and 
monsters such as ordinary cla^, one hopes, would 
shrink from forming, were pouring into tnat sacred 
chamber where Mr Mickleham had erst been wont to 
sit, surrounded by his gods of chiy and porcelain. 
Perched at the very desk from which the old gentle- 
man had first smiled a welcome to Dick, was an 
auctioneer, expatiatiug upon the rarity of each article 
as he took it down from its hook. There was one 
face in that eager crowd, the unspeakable woe and 
indignation of which at once riveted the attention of 
the two new-comers — ^that of Mr Mickleham himself, 
who was standing immediately beneath the rostrum, 
with the expression of one whose children were being 
sold into captivity to savages before his eyes. When- 
ever the auctioneer began to speak, this gentleman 
put his fingers into his ears, and kept them there 
mitil he saw the hammer brought down upon the 
wood, and thereby knew that the fate of the precious 
relic was scaled, and the torture for that time over. 
Dick and Lucy took some time to get at him through 
the throng, but he never looked round ; and when 
they reached him, she had to grasp his arm before 
she could attract his notice. 

* My dear child, my dear Dick,* cried he, * is not 
this terrible ? I positively cannot listen to the VandaL 
It is mv belief that he doesn't know Staffordshire 
from Meissen warei The Babylon brick, sir, was 
ffiven away to one of these idiots for four pounds 
fifteen ! Dick, Dick, it is an awful thing to be 
poor, let the divines say what they will ! If one had 
but had some fifty or sixty pounds in one's pocket to 
spare But there, what's the use of talking ?' 

* What is this ?' cried Dick hastily, as the auc^oneer 
held up an exquisite piece of white porcelain. * Is it 
not something that you used to value very highly ?' . 

' Value ! ah,' groaned the old gentleman, * you may 
Bay that. It 's priceless : it 's worth fifty pounds to 
any man, and to me five hundred. It's Bottcher's 
own handiwork, and yet that fellow is going to pass 
it round among these sacrilegious bunglers, whose 

fingers are Crood Heavens I I thought that Jew- 

pecDer-looking fellow yonder must have dropped it ; 
this is worse than watching a man upon the tight- 
rope seventy feet over one^ head. He is actually 
scratching tne bridge of his Hebrew nose with it ! To 
what base uses may not adversity bring the best of 
VLB. What an awful example of recluess trading. 
Master Richard, is this day's work! Now the man 
with the hammer has got it again, and is about to 
blaspheme that jewel with his ignorant tongue. 
Excuse me, but I'm deaf till it's over.' And Mr 
Mickleham again preserved his ears from outrage by 
putting his fingers into them. 

•Five, ten, fifteen, sixteen — ^thank you— sixteen 
ten; no advance on sixteen tcn^ sixteen ten for this 
exquisite piece of white porcelam ; seventeen — ^thank 
you, sir; you have an eye, I see (to Dick), for worth 
and rarity. Going, ffoing; no advance on seventeen 
pounds; then, gone/* And Dick's address was handed 
up to the auctioneer. 

'What did it go at?' inquired Mr Mickleham 
peevishly, not even looking round to see who was 
the purchaser, but keeping his eyes fixed upon the 
departing treasure. * At seventeen pounds ! That is 
robbery, sir; rank, wicked robbery. The very handle 
is wortii the money. He is coming on to the Chinese 
bottle and the Saxony vase, and he might just as 
well smasli them with his hammer as knock them 
down at the prices which they will fetch to-day.' 



Those two triumphs of the plastic art, as well as 
some others of which the old clerk spoke with espe- 
cial rapture, were similarly knocked down to Dick's 
bidding, over the very head of the imconsdous Mr 
Mickleham. It was cruel to keep him in ignorance 
of their destination, but it would have been ruinous 
to have informed him at that period, since, had he 
known his ability to purchase them, his passionate 
eagerness woiUd have raised the biddings, even if he 
had not iasisted upon naming some figure more con- 
sistent with what ho considered the legitimate value 
of the article. 

When, as the three walked home together, Mr 
Mickleham was informed of the bright prospect that 
had suddenly offered itself across the Cnannel — 
brightest, as Dick affectionately assured him, insomuch 
as that he would now have a home to offer in Im 
turn to that friend and father whose doors had been 
ever so hospitably open to himself — the old gentle- 
man's eyes were dimmed with joy indeed; but when 
Dick, by way of a diversion, spoke of the trick they 
had just been playing him, and how that all hu 
porcelain favourites, inclusive even of the Babylon 
brick — supposed to be irretrievably lost, but cunningly 
recovered from its short-sighted purchaser by an 
extra fifteen shiUings — had been bought in on 
purpose to adorn the chamber to be set apart for 
himself in their Parisian dwelling, the larae rare 
tears began to fall down the old man's che^s in a 
manner too attractive for a public thoroi]^hfare, 
and a cab had to be called to convey the deughted 
connoisseur and his children home. 

Little by little, very slowly but surely, Ingram 
Arbour^s frame recovered from its terrible shock, and 
the two young people were married. As soon as 
they returned from their honey-moon, part of which 
was passed at a south-country village, in the vicinilr 
of Mr Tredgold's establishment, in order that Dick 
might bid good-bye to his old friends, his uncle 
removed to their homo in Paris, where, amid new 
scenes, and out of the reach of all that could remind 
him of his late misfortunes, he improved more rapidly. 
He never, indeed, got to be the strong man that we 
once knew him to oe, but he coidd move about and 
enjoy the sunshine in the pleasant Jardin, leaning 
upon Richard's arm, whom he never by aiw accident 
called Dick. - Nobody but Maggie and Lucy, and 
they only by misadventure, were . now, in fact, ever 
heiud to pronounce that disrespectable monosyllable. 
Completely provided for, in a. good social position, 
mamed and settled, with a nucTntg — ^that is to say, 
they had one baby when I last heard of tiiem— 4he 
nucleus of a family already established, Dick's occu- 
pation as a scapegrace, it is clear, was utterly gone. 
Being, as he now was, Richard Arbour, Esquire, 
Aide-naturaliste of the Jardin des PlanUn, friend of 
an imperial minister, one who settled the biUs of Jiis 
household weekly, fully eligible for the office of 
churchwarden (should Paris, happily for herself ever 
have such a dignity to bestow), it is evidoit that a 
history with such a title as ours can: iM!Ooeed no 
further. The young gentleman himself, ana one other, 
were perhaps the omy persons who remembered, after a 
little, that he had ever played such a r6U as that 
of mauvais aujet. Uncle Ingram, although what is 
called his 'head for figures' was gone, often found 
himself gravely thinking whether mijtU were noV 
sometimes made mauvaisby indiscreet treatment, and 
asked forgiveness of his nephew tacitly a hundred 
times a day. Only once, however, he spoke of th^ 
matter, as he and Richard were taking tiieir accus- 
tomed walk together. 

' Do you know, lad,' said he in a troubled tone, ' i\^ 
was not / who sent for you when I was taken ilL 
yonder? I was as blind as ever. It was our dear' 
Maggie who did that of her own noble heart. How 
mudh — how much I owe to her ! * 

' Not more than I, uncle ; not more than It be- 



^ 



•me. What ahe has given me is much, but what 
she has saved me from, can never be told in words. I 
know how precious was her help, but the creatness of 
the min from which she has preserved me, I sh^ never 
know. What quicksands, what sunken rocks I have 
been amongst, unseen by me, I cannot reckon ; but to 
have escaped the visible dangers, is cause enough for 
gratitude. When this unseasoned, half-decked craft 
was most nnseaworthy ; when the storm was fiercest, 
when the night was darkest, Uncle Ingram, her love 
seemed to shine down upon me like a star, and by it 
alone I steered.' 

'And you got into port, Richard,* returned his 
uncle, mniling sadly, 'wncn the Al clipper-ship was 
lost with all her cai^o.' 

' Ay, sir,' replied the young man gravely ; * but I 
reached it by the most dangerous channel, where 
ninety-and-nine are wrecked for one that gets safely 
thioueh. I should be sorry, indeed, if my example 
ahoiila ever tempt another youne gentleman to turn 
Scapegrace ; for though the North-west Passage may 
now and again, perhaps, be adventured in safety ; for 
practical purposes, it will always be found better to 
go refund,^ 

'There is something to be said, however,' observed 
Uncle Ingram stoutly, * against dogmatical and self- 
sufficient old gentlemen.' 

'There is nothing to be said,' interrupted Dick, 
pressing the other's arm as it rested on his own, * but 
now much we owe to Maggie. I thank God that she 
has found a husband worthy of her.' 

Nephew and uncle had both the highest opinion of 
Mr William Mickleham, but they did not quite think 
thai either, although they often said it It would 
have been difficult, indeed, to have found a husband 
worthy, in their eyes, of her of whom they spoke. 

The two yoimg couples visit each other every year, 
and Mr Mickleham the elder divides his time between 
them, living six months in London, and six in Paris. 
His small but snug apartment in the latter city is 
provided, according to promise, with the chief of those 
porcelain treasures which used to surround him in 
Dazkendim Street. There are also certain other 
inanimate objects preserved with equal care, and 
poBBCBsing no less of interest with divers members of 
that household. 

Item, the screen that was to have been parted with 
at that ' tremendous sacrifice' of scven-and-six, now 
holds its place in the littie drawing-room, memorial of 
a less prosperous though far from hopeless time. 

Item, in Richard's desk, along ^'ith a tiny curl from 
the as yet somewhat fluffy and ill-provided head of 
the micZeiM, lies the lock of soft brown hair he stole 
from his Lucy when he played the barber at Miss 
Backboard's ; while not less fondly treasured by its 
aide, is the half-crown which Maggie threw to him on 
that lonesome night when he crouched, a houseless 
wanderer, outside his uncle's house in Golden Square. 

The pride and glory of the household furniture, 
however, and the espeoal delight of the nudeua from 
the time it began to 'take notice,' is Item four — a 
magnificent tiger-skin, wliich either hangs over the 
drawing-room sofa, or forms a soft and luxurious 
couch lor the infant upon the floor. Wc can well 
imagine how, in time to come, it will be young 
Ingram's highest treat to hear his father tell of the 
terrible creature whose covering this once was, and 
how it killed two men, and was within a very little of 
exterminating papa ; for this was erst the royal robe 
of Semiramis — presented by Mr and Mrs Tredgold to 
Richard Arbour as a marriage-gift. 

In Mr Mopes' lecture upon natural history, the 
most eloquent portion now is that peroration wherein 
he speaks of Arborino the Invincible ; of the feats 
he did, and of the l)east he slew, and of how he is now 
officially connected with the imperial government 
o£ France. The memory of that tremendous 
tiger-qneller is still fragrant among all Mr Tredgold's 



company, not excepting the Earthman and the Earth- 
woman, * lowest of created human beings.' Another 
hon-hunter has indeed been procured mm. the arid 
plains of Central Africa, but the striped mantle of 
Arborino has not, it is said, descended upon his 
successor's shoulders with much efficacy. 

It is fair to Mr Frederic Charlecot's reputation as 
a man of honour to state, that the promise ho miade 
to John Arbour at Rose Cottage, regarding his admis- 
sion into partnership, was kept to the letter, and that 
when the great crash took mace — early as it came — 
the youn^ gentleman found himself so securely con- 
nected with the firm, that he was as irretrievably 
ruined as the rest. The only one of the family who 
were pecuniarily benefited in the end by their 
connection with their uncle w<is his nephew Dick, 
who, without using flattery or deceit, did secure hia 
six hundred pounds, and might, had he chosen, have 
kept it. 

Adolphus, notwithstanding the house's failure, has 
not altogether given up commercial pursuits ; the last 
news I got of him was as a peri|>atetic street-vendor 
of penny microscopes, in which interesting employment 
his excellent busmess liabits will doubuess make up 
for his ignorance of science. He has a smaU income 
independent of this profession, supplied by some 
charitable hand, as has also his brouier John; who 
himself earns a tolerable livelihood, by benevolently 
inditing, in his beautiful clerkly hand, letters of recom- 
mendation for those who cannot write and have little 
merit, and excellent characters for servants who 
cannot procure them elsewhere. The police, however, 
with their accustomed harshness of epithet, entitle 
him a beg^g-letter impostor. 

Mrs Tnmming resides with Mr and Mrs Frederic 
Charlecot, whom she maintains out of her savings 
(with some annual assistance, in spite of all that has 
come and gone, from her late master), but without 
exercising Sie usual sovereignty of resident mothers- 
in-law ; Muia, it is whispered, being a great deal more 
than a match for the other two. One of the very last 
appeals in the new Divorce Court — the only one, say 
some ecclesiastical persons, which has failed in its 
abominable object — was from one Frederic Charlecot, 
praying for protection and separation from his wife — 
who, he was well aware, for her own sake, would not 
charge him with marrying under an assumed name^ — 
on the ground of cruelty. It was intimated to him, 
however, that, unless he could get proof that some- 
body else had supplanted him in the afiections of 
his consort, no reU^ could be given to him. ' Where- 
upon,' says the report, ' the applicant left the court 
with an air of the greatest dejection, exclaiming that^ 
in that case, there was no hope for him whatever.' 

I had almost forgotten to say that, soon after the 
birth of Ingram Arbour the younger, the most exqui- 
site baby-umform that was ever turned out by female 
fingers arrived at Mrs Richard Arbour's, without any 
other notification of the donor than the initial It, 
worked on the hem of the garment 

* Heaven knows how gl^ I should be to take her 
by the hand 1 ' exclaimed the young mother earnestly. 

' Thank you, love,' cried Richard tenderly. * I wish, 
indeed, that she would come and see what true friends 
are left to her.' 

' Perhaps it is better as it is, after all,' observed Mr 
Mickleham the elder, with a nervous remembrance of 
Dick's lady- visitor with that very unusual name at the 
police-office. 

'Stuff and nonsense, William,' returned the other 
grandparent, with a touch of his ancient indignation. 
* Who are we, that we should venture to make out- 
casts of our fellow-creatures, whose follies are often 
far more than outweighed by our own uncharity and 
selfishness ? 

' That is very true,* answered Mr Mickleham, with 
his customary submission to the opinions of his former 
chiefl 



270 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Luddora, however, althondi made aware, by a 
common friend, of these kindly feelings towards ner, 
has as yet remained at Marseille, where her life is by 
no means an unhappy one. 

THE S5D or TBK VAHILT ICAPSOftACB. 

RACKING. 

Rackhto is the term given in Jersey to the cnttins of 
the sea- weed from on the rocks that are so abnndant 
in the bays that snrroond the island ; and the racking- 
season, like grouse, partridge, and blackcock-shooting, 
commences on a certain day, and is continued for 
only a certain time. Racking, in Jersey, commences 
on the 8th March, and that day is usually ushered in 
by dank and tempestuous weather. Blow high or 
blow low, however, every available man amonsst 
the natives of the island — excepting, of course, me 
bcttcr-to-do classes — turns out, armed, with a scythe, 
and taking with him either cart or wheel-bairow 
whilst the women and children content themselves 
with baskets or sacks to contain the spoiL In so 
great estimation is this freshly-cut sea-weed held by 
an classes, that the failing to collect it within the 
limited time allowed them would be tantamount, in 
its results upon the soil, to a severe drought. All the 
je&T round, there is plenty of sea- weed washed up, 
which they are at liberty to collect, and which serves 
them as niel, and whose ashes are also used as a 
manure ; but this is of far less value than the freshly 
culled vraik from off the rocks. It is then full of sap, 
and juice, and freshness, both stem and leaves ; and the 
whole bcmg thickly strewn upon the ground, the earth 
absorbs much nutriment from it, as do the roots and 
bulbs of fruit-trees. Without its plentiful application 
to his m^idows, the dairyman despairs, at this season 
of the year, of getting any grass to grow in his 
meadows, on which vrill depend the proper supply of 
milk from his cows. So, also, with regard to the 
farmer's potato and other fields, and the apple- 
orchards, from which so much wealth is extracte<l 
in fruit and cider. In short, every inch of cultivated 
land or tillable soil must be covered with rack in 
March, even down to Mr Briggs*s flower-garden, which 
is only eight feet by six in dimensions, but where 
grow suncuy sweet-scented herbs and flowers. Not 
wishing to mcur the expense of employing an extra 
hand/Mr Briggs himsedf, though at other times a 
person of great dignity, will often don the unseemly 
garments and tarpaulm worn by the rackers, ana, 
calling into use the services of an old wine-hamper, 
only wait for low-water to mingle with the motley 
throng, and scale terriflcally sharp-edged and slippery 
rocks m quest of the indispensable sea-weed 

I chanced to be at St Aubin on the morning of the 
8th Mar(^ of the present year, and, indeed, had resided 
there during the whole winter. St Aubin is on the 
opposite side of the bay to St Holier, and, during the 
winter-season in particular, is a quiet, retired little 
country-place, where the monotony of everyday-life 
is only interrupted by such sad catastrophes as ship- 
wrecks—which have only been of too frequent occur- 
rence this season — or the arrival of a heavy laden 
collier, whose cargo has long been waited for by the 
shivering Aubinites. My usual prospect from my break- 
fast-room window was not of a cheering description, 
embracing as it often did a mile or two of swampy- 
looking sand and shingle, with the receding tide lost in 
a hazy mist ; nearer, a few hungry and cold sparrows, 
and a barn-door cock with five hens, with laudable 
perseverance would endeavour to beat round the 
comer of the beach or jetty, and be invariably blown 
back again as soon as they emerged from the pro- 
tection of the stone-wall into the full fuiy of ^e 
north-easterly gale. It was, therefore, with no small 
' surprise that, on this particular morning, I found 
the usually vacant space swarming with busy human 
beings. l!heir costume, which was somewhat amphi- 



bious, at first 0tve one a notion that some sudden 
eruption from the ocean had bron^t Neptune and 
his court to preside in open condave on tne shingly 
beach, the more so as a great many of the people 
were armed with trident-K>oking pitchforks; while 
Amphitrite was just as well presented by some of 
the female rackers as I have seen that injured goddess 

Eersonified by rough Bill Buntlin on board SL some 
ujge Indiaman becalmed on the line. 
The women are clad in dark, stout, and shortish 
petticoats, with rough woollen stockings, terminating 
m uncouth sabots. How they ever manage to keep a 
footing on the BUppery rocks with these on, is indeed 
marvellous. The men use huge waterproof-boots. 
When tiie tide has receded far enough, then down 
the steep banks, like a resolute storming-pi^ty, the 
rackers charge the rocks. Those furmshed with carts 
and horses nave already commenced the sea-weed 
harvest, for their horses will fearlessly go breast- 
deep into the water. The less fortunate ownen 
of barrows have to wait until they can trundle them 
to the scene of action. Away they go, helter-skelter, 
baskets and sc^'thes, barrows and pitchforks, until 
the various groups of rocks are covered with a busy 
multitude, who cannot afford to let grass or sea- 
weed grow under their feet ; for the tides won't wait 
for the rackers, and between low and high water 
they endeavour to make as many trips as they can to 
and from the shore, heaping their accumulated gather- 
ings out of high-water reopch, to be carried away from 
thence at their leisure. Some of the more fortunate, 
who are possessors of boats, go to those rocks which 
are inaccessible to others at all times save by the 
same conveyance; and these very often accumulaie 
tons of vraiK during the day. Tins occupation is not 
without danger, and almost every season fatal acci- 
dents occur. Not many years ago, a whole family, 
nine in number, lost their lives by tiieir boat capsizisg; 
and during this year, from the same cause, three poor 
creatures were drowned in St Clement's Bay. 

. This singular produce of the sea, besides affording 
bread and occupation to many a poor family, fnd to 
warm themselves with in winter, and, in the ashes, a 
fertilising manure, opens out to the Jcrseyites a wider 
field of occupation. It is now, when the scythe has 
removed tlie covering afforded by the vraik, that beds 
of oysters, limpets, and periwinkles come to li^it, 
and are eagerly gathered by the people, either for 
home consumption or for the markets. Now, alsov 
that rare and delicious mollusc, the ormeil, or 'hnmai^ 
ear,' so termed from its resemblance to one, is to h^ 
foimd, and fetches high pieces amongst gourmands^ 
its peculiar flavour, when cooked, more resembling 
that of a tender hunb-chop than any fish. At thi^' 
season, also, the more venturesome who clamber u{^ 
to the steeper rocks, collect samphire in abundance^ 
which is much esteemed, in pickle, by the people o^ 
the island Neither does the bounteous ocean ibigef^ 
the naturalist ; the finest specimens of delicate sea-^ 
weed, the most handsome and perfect shells, get^^ 
detached from the rocks with the vraik. So tb^^ 
racking season in March is hailed by all in Jenej^^ 
and the 8th is as a most welcome anniversary. 



THE MONTH: 

SCIENCE AND ARTS. 

We have, from time to time, noticed theories put 
to account for the phenomena of terrestrial 
ism, and now invite attention to that just 
lished by the Rev. Professor Challis of Camoridg& 
knowledge of mathematics is essential for the nro] 
understanding of his reasoning, but it ia possible 
give a brief outline of his conclusions. Msfineti^' 
currents are induced in the mass of the e«rth by it^ 
rotation; these currents are subiect to modifiemoi^ 
by the eiirth*8 movement of translation, as also I7 




CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



271 



want of i>erfect symmetry in it« form. 'AccordinjOf 
to these ricws, the deviations of tlie earth's form and 
matter from symmetry determine the directions of 
the magnetic streams, which ai)pear from experiment 
to enter the earth on the north side of the magnetic 
equator, and to ismie from it on the mntk side. The 
earth ia thns,' continues the professor, * a vast magnet, 
the streams of which arc of constant intensity, except- 
ing so far as they may be disturbed by cosmical influ- 
ence.' To this cosmical influence is due a circulation 
of the cnrrents after th^y have risen above the earth's 
surface, as also various periodical phenomena which 
have been discovered by years of observation. In 
this matter, the sun and each of the planets act their 
part. We have more than once mentioned the decen- 
nial period brought to light by General Sabine, whoso 
name stands foremost among investigators of terres- 
trial magnetism : other observers regard the term as 
extending to eleven years and a hadLf, on which Pro- 
fessor CluJlis rcmarlu : * It is therefore not surprising 
to find that this period differs little from the periodic 
time of Jupiter, the influence of this planet being 
likely to be predominant on account of his large size 
and rapid rotatory motion.' By following out this 
line of alignment, the occurrence of daily maxima and 
mininui in observed magnetic phenomena, of simid- 
taneous disturbances of the magnets in places wide 
apart, and other manifestations of terrestrial magnet- 
ism, oro accounted for ; and when we remember the 
author's position and qualiflcations, we doubt not that 
his theoiry will receive proper consideration and dis- 
cussion. 

The prize-list just publishetl by the Royal Institute 
of British Architects, presents a wide scope to pro- 
fessional competitors, who are invited to send in tneir 
papers and arawings by the 1st of December next. 
The silver medal of the Institute is offered for the best 
essay on the proper appUcation of cast iron, construc- 
tively and artistically ; on the application of timber- 
work in England from the year 1400 to the present 
time ; and on the principles of the application of iron- 
work in the construction of floors and roofs. — The 
best design for a museum of sculpture and pictures, 
ancient and modem, with lecture-room to hold five 
hondrcd persons, and library to hold five thoii^nd 
vdumes, is to get the Soanc medallion ; the most 
approved set of architectural drawings of a chapel, 
pleasure- house for a garden, park-gate cntrance-loage, 
moderate-sized villa, or a small market- house, will 
gain a ten-guinea prize ; Mi* Titc's prize of the same 
amount is offered for the best set of sketches or sugges- 
tions in the Italian style of architecture, for public 
buildings adapted to modem wants, such as churches, 
town-haUs, railway stations, and so forth; another 
ten guineas may be won by the author of the best 
essay shewing now four ancient camps in Wiltshire^ 
near Swindon, may be made available for defence by 
rifle volunteers ; while the student's prize of books is 
to be given for the best design of a dispensaiy suited 
for a manufacturing town. 

The Society of Acclimation at Paris have recently 
received, as a present from the Duke of Hamilton, a 
fine ox, one of the aboriginal British breed, of which 
two small herds still survive on the estate of Earl 
Tankerville, in Northumberland, and at Hamilton 
park. The Society having lost their flock of llamas 
and alpacas by epizootic disease, are taking measures 
to replace them, and M. K Roehn is to be sent out to 
South America to collect another pack, and to take 
charge of a breed of merinos, which is to be intro- 
duced at Buenos Ayres. The expeilition thus offers 
a twofold advantage; but it will be, as we know 
from Mr Ledger's experiences, both difficult and 
dangerous. — M. Koy has investigated the causes of 
the cholera and fever which prevail in Algeria, and 
traces it to the nature of the soiL In tlie region of 
folcanio and primitive rocks, the clay contains phos- 
pboruB; and this acted on by fog* and dows which 



contain ammonia, undergoes a concentration of what- 
ever noxious quality it may possess, and Ixiing diffused 
in the atmosphere, enters the lungs with respiration, 
and occasions fever. M. Koy, by way of testing his 
theory, has created an atmosphere of this nature by 
artificial means, and by breathing therein has pro- 
duced in himself all the symptoms of the Afncan 
fever. — We may exppct to hear, in the course of a 
few y^ears, of arid wastes converted into fruitful 
fields in Algeria, seeing that the French government 
still continue their beneficent work of artesian well- 
boring. There are now fifty wells in the province of 
Constantine, yielding, in all, nearly four thousand 
litres of water per minute ; and this precious benefit 
has been obtained at a cost of less than three thou- 
sand francs for each wclL If a party of well-borers 
were sent in advance of the expeditions to exjtlore the 
interior of Australia, most of the risk which now 
attends endeavours to penetrate that unknown region 
would be removed. 

M. Eugene Risler has published his researches on 
the part played by iron in the nutrition of plants, 
shewing that in the roots, seeds, and white portions 
of the growth, the iron appears as protoxide, and as 
peroxide in the green portions and in the ruddy 
leaves of autumn. Expose vegetables to air and light, 
and the protoxide becomes peroxide, and with a 
rapidity proportionate to the mtensity of the light. 
The chlorophyll is green because of combining the 
two oxides — blue and yellow; and the two form a 
voltaic pair which decompose water, and the carbonic 
acid held in solution, while the hydrogen and carbon 
enter into the organism. Nocturnal nutrition is oxida- 
tion ; diurnal nutrition is deoxidation ; and to quote 
M. Risler's description, * the vegetable tissue is formed 
somewhat like that of weavers' : night being the warp ; 
day the weft, with the iron of the chlorophyll to serve 
as shuttle.' — A curious plant, the Drowra, has been 
talked about at a scientific gathering in London, which 
instantly kills all the flies that settle on it, and is so 
exceedincrly sensitive, that the hairs with which it is 
furnished will converge on the application of one six- 
thousandth of a grain of nitrate of ammonia, while a 
single hair is afltected by one sixty-four thousandth. 
Is this to be accepted as another illustration of the 
analogy between the animal and vegetable organisa- 
tion? — ^To pass from botany to zoolo^, we take i)lea- 
surc in calling attention to the scnes of Zoofogical 
Sketches now in course of publication, comprising 
drawings, with notes, of animals in the Zoologic2U 
Society s collection. The drawings are by Wolf, and 
Mr P. L. Sclater is editor of the work; which to 
mention is equivalent to describing the publication 
as highly meritorious. — Now that Mr Du ChaiUn 
has lectured on the gorilla before the Geographical 
Society and the Royal Institution, and shewn his 
specimens, and that the narrative of his adventures 
is to be published by Mr Murray, we may expect that 
some enterprising traveller will ere long fetch over a 
few living goriUas for exhibition in iSie Zoological 
Gardens. 

The Philosophical Institute at Melbourne has 
changed its name, and is now the Royal Society of 
Victoria. Judging from the fourth volume of its 
TransddionSj published last autumn, the cultivation 
of science is not likely to be neglected in our distant 
colony : we find a paper on Ughtning-conductors — on 
the turning-point of the wind, wiui a scheme far 
developing or discovering it by a system of antipodal 
observations : another by Mr J. W. Osborne describes 
a metliod of photolithography, whereby the impression 
on the sensitive paper can be inked and transferred 
to stone. A map, as a specimen of the process, is 
published with the volume ; and a wood-cut is also 
given as demonstration that a native wood, Callistenum 
saliffnuSf is almost if not quite equal to European box 
for the purposes of the engraver. We fiml also a 
report by a Committee on the animal, vegetable, and 



272 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



mineral resources of Victoria, with remarks on the 
climate. The lowest temperature of the air recorded 
in the colony during a series of years is 45 degrees; 
the highest, 72 degrees. The mean at Melboame is 
57 degrees, but during hot winds the temperature 
mounts to 111 degrees. In 185S, the rain-fall at 
Melbourne was 234 inches, about the same as the 
annual average at London. Concerning mineral 
resources, the report sets forth that a considerable 
quantity of salt is made from the water of shallow 
lakes in different parts of the colony: it describes 
various kinds of available building-stone ; and should 
any enterprising emigrant think of establishing pot- 
tery-works, he will feel interested in the fact, that coal 
and good china-clay maybe had for the digging ; clay 
suitable for drain-pipes and tiles is also abundant; 
and the tile- works are flourishing, for experience has 
demonstrated that tiles are far preferable for roofing 
purposes to slate or iron in the Victorian climate. In 
the time of the gold-fever, bricks were made and sold 
at from L.12 to L.20 a thousand, which have since 
actually melted away under the heavy rains; the 
quality is now first-rate and the price reasonable; 
and the Chinese immi^nts, we are told, are making 
a ^od kind of blue bnck. 

The Epidemiological Society, finding publicity desir- 
able, have printed the first part of their Transactions, 
containing papers read at their meetings on the special 
subject to wriich they devote themselves; so that 
readers who wish to know what steps have been 
taken in the science of epidemiology may now gratify 
their wish. — ^A member of the British Association is 
working at a question in natural histoiy which ought 
to interest our naval authorities — namely, the history 
and habits of the teredo, the worm which does so 
much mischief to wharfs, piles, and ships, by bur- 
rowing in the timber. The cost of the havoc wrought 
bv this apparently insignificant creature in the port 
of Plymouth alone, amounts to some hundreds of 
pounds every year. The ports which lie most directly 
upon the sea are the most infested, for fresh water is 
fatal to the teredo. Hence Hull is uninfested, while 
at Yarmouth and Lowestoft the piles and sheathing 
suffer from a worm which is of the same species as 
that which prevails on the coast of Holland. The 
species f ouna at Plymouth and some places in Wales 
is Norwegian. The question is so important, that the 
Netherlands and the French government each ap- 
pointed a commission some years ago to investigate 
it ; but we hear that an appLcation to the Admiralty 
for leave to make a series of experiments at Plymouth, 
with a view to suggest a remedy, or discover means of 
prevention, received for answer, *it was not expedient.* 
However, the problem will perhaps be worked out by 
the British Association ; meanwhile, those who want 
information concerning the teredo will find it in a 
report published, with engravings, by the Royal Insti- 
tute of Amsterdam. The subject is the more import- 
ant, seeing that some of the little borers of the Medi- 
terranean pierce holes in the gutta-percha coating of 
telegraph cables, and so interrupt the communication. 

The President of the Royal Society^s first soir66 
for the season was made the occasion for exhibiting 
important scientific experiments, and philosophicid 
apparatus, besides works of art Dr TyndaU shewed, 
renected on a screen in a dark room, the spectra pro- 
duced by various metals under combustion, and many 
a spectator became aware, for the first time, of the 
wonderfully beautiful colours evolved by silver, 
copper, and other metals when thus treated.— Mr 
Wneatstone*s telegraph sent messages from one end of 
Burlington House to the other, tmt)ugh a length of 
the same cable as is used for his metropolitan tele- 
graph system ; fifty separate wires enclosed within 
one small india-rubber rope. — Of that new and 
remarkable substance — ebemte, numerous specimens 
were to be seen, having all the appearance of jet 
ornaments, fashioned into rulers, paper-knives, and 



other useful appliances ; but its chief claim to notice, 
appears to be its extraordinary electrical properties. 
The electrical machine exhibited by Mr Varle^ had a 
disk of ebenite three feet in diameter; which, for 
experimental purposes, is pronounced by distinguished 
electricians to be superior to glass. Moreover, it has 
the further advantage of not bein^ brittle, for the 
principal ingredients of ebenite are mdia-rubber and 
sulphur. — Exunples of Bunsen andKirchoff's spectrum 
analysis were snewn by Professor Roscoe with the 
coloured lines peculiar to the various metallic and 
alkaline bases in perfection. (5oncemins this subject, 
we take the opportunity to remark uiat Bunsen's 
experiments would not have been so much talked of 
as a new discovery had chemists been acquainted 
with optical science ; for the analytical powers of 
the spectrum have long been famuiar to opticians. 
Brewster's Edinbvr^ Journal for 1826, contains a 
paper by Mr Fox Talbot on Coloured Flames, in which 
the author distinctly shews that, while no difference 
could be detected in the colour of the flame of stron- 
tium and lithium in ordinary circumstances, a striking 
difference could always be discerned and demonstrated 
by means of the spectrum ; and in another place, 
describing the soda-line, he says that the spectrum 
affords to chemical analysis a means of detecting quan- 
tities however minute, and however combined, which it 
would be impossible to discover by any other known, 
analytical apparatus. It is but justice to Mr Talbot 
to recall the facts which, more than thirty ^ears aco, 
established his claim as a discoverer m higm3r 
important branches of optics and chemistiy. In. 
takinjo; leave of this subject for the present, we may 
mention that Kirchoff is applying the spectrum to 
analysis of the sun's atmospnere, and with results, 
concerning which we hope ere long to have something 
imusually interesting to make known to our readers. 

THE VIOLET. 

Sweet flower, who scarcely peep'st between 
The frondlets of thy leafy screen — 
Thine unassuming modest head 
Half buried in its lowly bed — 
Thou dost so little court the eye. 
We might, unconscious, wander by, 
Did not thy heavenly perfume 
Arrest us, and reveal thy bloom. 

Tet, though celestial is the hue 
Which dyes thy petals azure blue— 
Although the fragrance of thy smoll 
Doth e'en the boasted rose excel ; 
I know a maid as bright and fair, 
Who boasts an incense yet more rare ; 
Whose bosom is the taintless shrine 
Of virtues far surpassing thine. 

Like you, she loves to shrink from view, 
To shun the many for the few : 
*Tis hers to mould the mind of youth 
To dove-like innocence and truth ; 
To guide it through the paths of love. 
To higher, happier realms above ; 
To seek the suffering homes of care, 
And shed serene contentment there. 

The sweets that owe to you their birth. 

Rich though they be, stUl cling to earth ; 

Or dissipate in vernal air 

Their odours ; but the trusting prayer 

Of lips, first taught by her to move 

In accents of adoring love, 

With incense holier far than thine, 

Ascendeth to the throne divine. G. D* 

Printed and Published by W. & R Chambers, 47 P»*«'' 
noster Row, London, and 339 High Street, EMKBOBfiB* 
Also sold by William Kobertson, 23 Upper SadcviU* 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 




S zitrttt anb ^ris. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



). 383. 



SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1861. 



Prick 1^. 



ARMORIAL BEARINGS. 

EBALDBT is out of fashion as a science. Not that 
e world has really grown too old and too wise to 
re any longer for the tojrs that amused its nonage, 
t that modes change, and we none of us possess the 
padty for serious trifling that distinguished our 
cestors of the middle ages. So it is, that the idols 
the past hecome the playthings of the present, and 
rhaps will be the laughing-stocks of the future. 
ren now, though gaudy blazons blush on the panels 
thousands of carriages, though crests ghmmcr upon 
i-spoons and livery buttons, and though letters are 
11 sealed with escutcheons more or less superb and 
thentic, few care one straw for the royal study 
ell We Britons of to-day arc an inquiring race : 
3 force our way deep into Polar ice and African 
serts, we puzzle out cuneiform inscriptions, and 
alyae the sunbeams ; but how many of us know, or 
sh to know, that in matters heraldic ^e are subject 
the authority of four kings-at-arms — Garter, Claren- 
nix, Norroy, and Bath ; of six heralds, who bear the 
mc8 of as many ancient towns; and of four pur- 
ivants. Rouge Dragon, Portcullis, Blue Mantle, 
>nge Croix. Pretty names and fanciful are these, 
.t who cares for pursuivant or herald now-a-days ? 
as ! the stationer who * finds arms* for half-a-crown 
8 utterly undersold the grand old College which 
chard III. incorporated. England has carried free- 
ide even into the market w^here gules and sable, 
fyema and griffins, are the wares on sale, and every 
e assumes the right to annex quarterings according 

his good pleasure. When a once mighty institu- 
>n has fallen into contempt, be sure it must have 
used its power in the days of its strength. Heraldry 
'ers a case in point. Let us go back a few hundred 
ars, and behold it at its brightest and its best. 
During the feudal wars of the stormy middle ages, 
irant was felt for messengers whose persons should 

safe, and who could carry cartels of defiance or 
rrender, terms of peace, and communications in 
neral, between hostile armies. This want the 
raids, and the heralds alone, were able to supply, 
ags of truce — a comparatively modem device — did 
it meet with the respect which is allotted to them 
' the rules of civilised warfare; the minstrel was 
jtially sacred, the priest whoUy so, but neither 
tpearcd capable of competently representing the 
fl;nity of his sovereign. It was very well for 
ondel to roam over Europe, singing to his own 
litar accompaniment, O Richard! O mon rot! 
itil he discovered the prison of his king, accord- 
g to that delightful myth which we still love to 
lieve in: but Richard would have hesitated to 



intrust Blondel with his defiance to Philip of France. 
It was well that demure monastic scholars, with a 
bishopric in prospect, should amble leisurely across 
Europe, to bandy Latin with Roman officials, and 
settle their sovereigii*s outstanding business with his 
Holiness the Po]^ But another kind of Ganymede 
was required to carry a verbal ultimatum^ or a bold, 
declaration of war — one who should unite the knight's 
gallant bearing with the sanctity of a venerated 
profession — one who could look upon the face of a. 
wrathful king, and venture to speak imwonted and 
unwelcome truth to him. Such was the herald of old. 
It was required from him that he should worthUy 
present, among enemies, the dignity of his prince ; 
and for this it was necessary that he should be of a 
goodly presence, clad and decorated with prodigal 
pomp, and that his train of attendants should be ia 
all respects richly and gallantly appointed ; with aU 
that bravery of tabard and banner, of hood, and 
chain, and mantle, of housings and party-coloured 
garniture for horse and man, which old Froissart 
chronicles so lovingly. Garter and Montjoye not 
seldom outblazed the ceremonial attire of the 
monarchs whom they served. 

It is not pretended, however, that the herald was, 
in this sense, a medisval invention. The Greeks and 
Romans, the wild nations of Arabia, the wilder 
tribes of the American pine-forest, equally possessed 
a sacred order of messengers, though in most cases 
the immunity was but of a temporary character. 
That the herald's privilege was very early recognised 
io Western Europe, we have evidence enough, if 
only derived from the royal needle of Queen Matilda 
and those of her Norman demoiseUes d^honneur. In the 
Bayeux tapestry, that invaluable sampler of history, 
the herald finds his place and his label, and stands^ 
breathless but confident, before the rude throne of a 
foreign and angry prince. Eight hundred yeara ago, 
the herald was probably a mere messenger, whose 
journeys were for the most part performed on foot, 
and whose x>eculiar dress, as well as the white wand 
he bore, procured him a free ])assage everywhere. 
It is not likely that the herald of the tenth or 
eleventh century had any pretensions to learning or 
to a scientific acquaintance with armorial bearings. 
The little knowledge of the period was all in clerical 
keeping ; monks alone were capable of tracing a pedi- 
gree, of drawing out a charter, or of limning in the 
gaudy colours used for illuminating missals, the embla- 
zoned devices of the lay-patrons of their community. 
The minstrels of the time were accustomed to chant 
the genealogy and glorious deeds of great men; if 
they had scanty book-lore, they made up for it by 
retentive memories and facile invention; and a 



274 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



nobleman who was liberal of his ale and beef, his white 
bread and white money, had seldom reason to com- 
plain that the gleemcn were niggardly in their praisea. 
Heraldry, in the sense in which we conmionly define 
it, was at the mercy of monk and minstreL But, 
indeed, the whole science was a chaos. Badges of 
chivaJric or feudal distinction existed, but they were 
often arbitrary and personal, though occasion^y the 
same emblem was long continued by a noble family. 
The Saxon Earls of Mercia, for instance, bore on their 
shields and banners an eagle displayed; but the 
caprice of individual warriors was under little or no 
TOstraint, even for centuries after the Norman Con- 
quest. One knight fancied a lion for his crest, another 
painted a swan upon his shield; sons assumed bearings 
utterly foreign to those of their father, and often it 
happened that a gentleman metamorphosed his sym- 
bolic birds into beasts, or beasts into birds, twice or 
fhrice during his lifetime. Great confusion was the 
natural result, and the chief use of heraldry, as a key 
to history, was materially vitiated by such frequent 
acts of caprice. 

It was not until the Plantagenets had been for 
some time on the throne, that the ' nobil and gentil 
Bcyaunce' began to take form and shape. There 
was no English roll of arms anterior to that taken 
in the reign of Henry III., although already the 
German heralds had become famous in Europe, and, 
a Httle later, those of France gavo laws to the crude 
and imperfect system. The terms of heraldry were 
adopted throughout Europe with wonderful unanimity, 
but the laws have never been exactly similar. English 
roles vaiy from those of France ; Spanish canons are 
not identical with those of Austria ; but the principles 
ore the same. The origin of all arms is evidently to 
be traced from the nccessiiy of badges to distinguish 
one leader from another. Knights in complete mail, 
and with closed visors, could not have been known 
by friend or foe, but for the crest on the helmet and 
the badge upon the shield. To these were afterwards 
added the wreath which encircled the helmet, and 
was of the family colours, or of those pecidiar to the 
wearer; and, later still, the scarf and the surcoat. 
Nor was it the chief alone to whom a conspicuous 
emblem was convenient. The vassals and mercenary 
men-at-arms of a baron wore that baron's colours and 
badge in lieu of a modem uniform, using his name or 
motto for a war-cry ; while on the banner of the troop, 
the arms of its feudal superior were painted or embroi- 
dered. It soon became evident tiiat hereditary 
emblems were at once more widely known and more 
respected than those which had been assumed in 
accordance to the mere whim of the possessor. And 
by this time the herald was more than a mere runner; 
he had acquired some share of that learning hereto- 
fore a monkish monopoly; he was daily increasing 
in power and consideration, and the Edwards, espe- 
cially, delighted to load him with emoluments, and 
to clothe hun with delegated authority. Heralds were 
organised into a regular hierarchy, with gradual pro- 
motion, and duties carefully meted oul In addition 
to bearing cartels and messages, it was now the duty 
of the herald to precede his liege lord in all proces- 
sions and pageants ; to proclaim his titles, rank, and 
grandeur ; to vaunt the splendours of his genealogy, 
and to glorify his valour, power, and generosity. A 
good address and .a sonorous voice thus became 
adjuncts of the herald's occupation, and to these he 
was to add the skill of a painter, and the tact of a 
master of the ceremonies. 

Scrolls and banners, the linming of shield and 
crest on fair white vellum, the <ift«gning of those 



rich coats destined to be worked by fair fingers on 
standards and surcoats, claimed the heralds care. 
To ^iwi was committed the marshalling and arrange- 
ment of tournaments, of triumphal entries, of 
wagers of battle, of banquets, funerals, and weddincs. 
It was for him to explain in the tiltins-field the 
nicest points of the etiquette which govemM. knightly 

rrts, and on him devolved the still more delicate task 
settling precedence at feasts and in processions. 
For this, it was necessary that the herald should 
possess a ^b tongue and a powerful m^noiy ; 
that he should recollect the pedigree of eveiy 
man of rank, with its flaws and salient points; 
should have the history and rent-roll of each noble 
family at his finger-ends, and should, moreover^ 
unite the rare cifts of command and conciliation. By 
tibis enumeration of duties, we may see that the 
herald's office was no sinecure. But he had need of 
other talents than those of tact and unerring recollec- 
tion : it was his business to invent those allegorical 
coats of arms in which the sovereigns of the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries delighted, and which, 
under the guise of heraldic adornments, related their 
histories and boasted of their triumphs. A herald was 
not considered, like a poet, to be Dom fit for office ; 
he had a long apprenticeship to serve. He began aa 
a mere foot-runner — ^the lung's messengers of th& 
middle ages bearing scanty resemblance to the fashion- 
ably attired gentlemen who now-a-days hurry across. 
Europe by express train with the bags of the Foreign. 
Office. Seven years of diligent running caused 
the courier to be promoted to the saddle; hence- 
forth, and for another seven years, he bore his king'a 
missives on horseback, under the more imposing 
siyle of chevalier-at-arms. He rose, afterwards^ 
from a mere apprentice to a freeman of the guild. 
Pursuivant, herald, king-at-arms, into each of these 
offices he was solemnly inducted by his sovereign., 
who crowned and invested him with his own royal 
hand, and with many quaint ceremonies. Highest* 
of all were the kings-at-anns, in velvet tabards, 
blazing with the arms of the prince on back anoL 
breast, gilded coUars of SS around their stately necks, 
and strawberry-leaved coronets of virgin gold upozi. 
their dignified heads. Their emoluments were groiit r 
at every feast, tournament, or pageant, their cry o£ 
' Jj&Fgeaae ! ' was answered by showers of gold and silver 
from monarch, knights, and spectators. Kings 
delighted to honour, not only their own heralds, but 
those of their allies and enemies ; and to bid Montjoye 
drink from a golden cup, and keep it as a souvenir— or 
to filing a massive carcanet around Garter's neck, 
before a hundred applauding spectators, were common 
freaks of the capricious maj^ies of England and of 
France. Of course, the first-fruits of the rich harvest 
fell to the share of the kings-at-arms ; they it was 
who feasted royally at kingly boards, and lined their 
purses with the product of kingly generosity. Tlie 
subordinates had to look for other patrons, and luckily 
for them, the greater nobles thought it becoming to 
their dimity to maintain a hous^old herald, along 
with their minstrels, chaplains, and clerks. The lesser 
barons, unable to indul^ in so costly a luxury as a 
herald, were fond of retaining at least a pursuivant in 
their pay, at once as a safe messenger, an appendage 
to tiicir rank, and a chronicler (3 their ancestral 
honours. Prior to the Wars of the Roses — ^which pot 
an end to this particular exhibition of feudal pomp, 
and forced the heralds to renoimce pensions and 
largesse, and to live by fees — visitations had com- 
menced; progresses through the counties to register 
and examine the arms of the gentry, which, of 
course, were gold-mines to the henuds and the 
at-arms. 

But a great change was at hand. Chivaliy 
decaying, wealth increasing, and commerce sprniiDg. 
For the first time, coats of arms became matters 
of bai^gain, while on the continent^ titles and kttera 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



275 



"11 






of nobility were sold daily by money-loving min- 
isten of itate. Hitherto^ arms had bt^en* boruo by 
uuge^ or by direct grant of the sovereign. If the 
idnff rewaixlcd a humble soldier with a knight^s 
fee in land and a knight's gold spurs, tlic heralds had 
been accustomed to devise him a coat. But presently 
came Commerce, in the f(»rm oi some thriving citizen 
of Cheape or Cripplegr.tc, and jingling down a glitter- 
ing shower of broad pieces on the tables of Heralds' 
College, demandeil an equivalent. It was not to be 
expected that such a Danae as the learned coq>oi-ation 
conld be coy to such a shower ; indeed, the connection 
of heraldzy with chivalry had always been of a mer- 
cenazy character ; the men of tabards had been ever 
a set of flattering bawlers, h^^nining the pniise of the 
powerful, and vociferating for pa^-ment. K"o wonder 
that demand created supply, and that the heralds set 
to work to accommodiite their cu.stomcrs. And be it 
remarked, that whereas at iirst armorial bearings were 
no proof of nobility, but merely its iuvai-iable adjunct, 
by the time of the later Tudor monarchs they had 
become the indispensable test of high birth. They 
marked the broad gulf between the * crestless yeomau' 
and the esquire. It was necessary that a gentleman 
should be able to write himselt Armigoro, like Master 
Shallow, J. P. And tlie heralds and lovers of heraldrv 
took advantage of the printing-press to i)ut fortii 
some of the moat outrageous boasts and extiTiva^ut 
doctrines ever published on any subject. IferaJdry 
was puffed into unnatural proportions, like the fro^ in 
the mble; it was exalted over all sciences and studies ; 
its most fantastic rules were called sacred mysteries ; 
its most trivial terms were regarded as hierogly|)h8 of 
deep and vital import Xay, it was miule a religion, 
and relu^on was interwoven with it. Abraham, 
Moses, St Paul, and personages still more sacred in 
the Old and New Testaments, were authoritatively 
pronounced to have been 'gentlemen of blood and 
ooat-annour.' Crests and quartcriugs were assigned, 
not only to the patriarchs, but to uie apostles also. 
It would be im])ossible, without giving offence, to 
reproduce the wonderful farrago of TX)ni}M)us absurdity 
by means of which men strove to blend Christianity 
inth their favoured science, and to lend what they 
deemed the authority of the latter to the sanctity 
of the former. It must be remembered that tlie 
heralded heads were turned by the extravagant 
esteem in which they had for centuries been held. 
KinjBp and queens studied their ndes with profound 
att^tion; great nobles and ladies, who were quite 
nnable to spell, and could scarcclv scrawl their names 
on charter or muniment, were well versed in hawking, 
kimting, and the blazoning of arms. Even the most 
petty and ignorant esquire had a fair smattering of 
heraldry, the very root and groundwork of gentle edu- 
cation. So it came to pass uiat when the nation grew 
richer and more erudit<\ every rich trader who turned 
his crowns into land hurried to ask the heralds for a 
nant of arms. They had a monopoly, those pompous 
Garten and Norroys— for fancy stationers were as yet 
unheard of; but, to do them justice, they did not very 
moch abuse it. Their fees were high, but they drew 
coats well and simply — a great point in the eyes 
of a connoisseur; and though a ship or a weaver's 
befun had to be charged on the shield, instead of 
the lions with horrent mane and grinning jaws, the 
flame-breathing dragons and bloody ponianls of the 
bygcme warriors, the effect of the whole was neat and 
modestb 

It has been left to later times to besjiatter a coat 
with that rainbow collection of cockatrices, bee-hives, 
grifiEms, carving-knives, and two-necked swans, in 
gules, or, sable, vert, azure, purpurc, and murrey, 
whidh we now admire on the panels of so many car- 
riages* 'From the Reformation to the French Revolu- 
tion, what with civil war and high treason, what with 
extravagance, and what with natural decay, so maiiy 
' '*' disappeared, and so many new ones rose, alien 



Ehonixes, on their ashes, that the heralds drove a 
risk trade. But by the reign of Anne, they were 
obliged to lower their tariff^ and to divide their sove^ 
reiguty in a measure with the coach-painter. The 
last visitation of tlio kings- at-anns was that of the 
famous DugcLilo, ("lailer King, at the close of the reign 
of Charles II., and from that time nu herald has filled 
the same authoritative position. 

The art has had its enemies iis well as its friends. 
The Puritans demolished nearly as many carved 
escutcheons as tliey did stained eh lurch- windows. 
But their enmity was trifling compare<l with the 
fury with which in Frauce the rcv(»lutionary spirit 
of 17S9 broke upon the old institutions of feudal 
vanity. Arms were prohibited by statute, and 
were destroyed by the mob wherever they could 
be reached. The French soldiery carried out the work 
of the French i>opulace, and waged war in Spain, Italy, 
Flanders, against every sign of arist(x;ratic pretension. 
In 1848, the mob of I'aris again gratiiiwl their love of 
equality by a crusade against armorial beiirings. But 
human pas<siona are short-lived, and self-love is more 
enduring than the rest of her sisterhooiL In France, 
in Belgium, cverj'where, you lind the coach-painter 
and the seal-engraver Hoiirishiug as of old, and toiling 
at countless quarters and coronets. Vienna is, how- 
ever, the great arbiter of continental heraldry, tlie chief 
authority on all the important ndes that govern the 
art, insomuch that Viennese heralds cousider no coat 
to be accurately drawn that is embhizoned elsewhere. 
Out of Europe, the science can scarcely be said to 
exist. The Moors of Spain excelled in it, and loved it 
as thev loved all learning and chivalry, l)ut when they 
were clrivtm back to Africa, they speedily forgot their 
refinement. Curiously enough, the Aztecs of Mexico 
were foimd by Cortes to ] possess rogidar coats of arms, 
gaily embroiderer! on their surcoats, banners, and 
shields ; and iu the tattooing of South Sea savages, 
and the blue fotem indeUbly marked on the bare bosom 
of a Xorth American Indian, may be trace<l some 
analogy to the ' nobil and gentil sc^'aunce.' 

Many English rules, as l)efore mentioned, differ 
radically from those in force up<m the continent. The 
use of qnartorings is quite distinct, while the ci'ests 
employed in these islands to replace the coronet which 
surmounts a foreign coat-, are with difliculty imder- 
stood abroad. Coat-armour, borne by right of descent 
or legal grant, constitutes nobility, in the foreign 
acceptation of the term, though Enghsh law limits 
the distinction of nobility to the ])eerage and their 
immediate descendants. No foreigner comprehends 
all this fineasing. If you are a patrician, says he, you 
should l>ear a coronet^ and Ijc count or baron, or, at the 
least, a chevalier ; if not, you have no business with 
arms at all. So he shnigs up his shoiddcrs at Mr Bull, 
and gives him u[) as a hopeless riddle. But ^Ir Bull 
is use<l to an isolated position iu other than a geogra- 
phical sense. On account of sea and rehgion, of lan- 
guage and customs, he has long l>ecn sent to Coventry 
by tne other memliers of the Kuro]K'an family, and he 
takes the deprivation lightly. He is rich, and loves 
his own way. Nor, in spite of all the ridicule and 
abuHC that have been poured on it — in spite of keen 
democratic wit and downright abuse — does Mr Bull 
choose utterly to renounce the old heraldic toys that 
his forefathers cherished so tenderly. He uses them, 
he sneers at them, he scarcely knows whether he has 
in his heart more contempt or affection for them, but 
he will not give them up. Writers may flout them, 
orators denounce them, ])hilosophers pick holes in 
them, but still John likes to retain his glowing 
carriage-door, his neatly engraved spoons, his ele- 
gant hall -chairs, his snug hatchment, Ids siguet, or 
his embossed envelopes. 

Kespectability once was defined to bo the keepixig 
a gig ; more accurately, it may be said to consist in 
daVibline a little in the motley sea of gules, argent, 
azure, ilalf-a-crown is a fluiall charge for what must 



276 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



be, to many, an actual and lasting pleasure. A few 
atill ao to the College, and pay their forty ^piineas in 
the <3d orthodox style. But, as Cicero said of the 
augurs, it must be oifficult for two heralds to look 
in each other^s faces now-a-days, and preserve their 
gravity. 

THE LANDSEER OF LITERATURE 

The man who has read Bab and his Friends without 
loving tiiem, must be either very stu{)id or very 
wicked. We had almost said, without loving the man 
who wrote of them ; for Dr John Brown possesses 
that rare quaUty of an author which compels his 
readers, in tneir exceeding sympathy with his writings, 
to yearn towards himself. What a great-hearted, 
genial, glorious old gentleman this must be, thought 
every one who took the first Horct Subaecivce into nis 
hand ; and here he is again, one is glad to see, with 
a second series, and as grimly jolly as ever ! He may 
possibly — for the present writer, unhappily for him- 
sdf , has not his ac(^uaintance — be a rigid medical body, 
who snubs his jumors, and is always dreading to lose 
foothold of his x)ersonal dimity; but this does not 
seem in the least probable. We can as easily fancy Mr 
Dickens to be a morose and miserly person, like his 
own (unregenerate) Scrooge ; or Mr Anthony Trollope 
in a prebendal stall ; or Mr Charles Lever an attorney. 
No : if ihe author of * Our Dogs ' in this new volume * 
be anything but a kindly catholic soul, he must 
indeed be a Jesuit of the first-water, and able to 
hoodwink the entire Protestant Alliance. 

It is, however, one of the characteristics of this 
lovable sort of writer, to have plenty of faults ; to be 
by no means too bright and good for human nature's 
daily food ; to have lots of unaccommodating nodosi- 
ties about him, and splinters that are against the 
hand of everv man ; and Dr Brown is no exception to 
this rule. There is quite a cactus-hedge of old-world 
prejudices aroimd the pleasant garden of his mind, 
although, when it is once surmounte<l, one easily 
foirgets among the fruits and flowers what one has 
suffered in getting through it. He is a pagan suckled 
in a creed outworn, in many respects. He thinks the 
'witnessing intense energy in action,' as exemplified 
in a dog-fight, to be edifying to the youthful mind. 
He is impatient of novelties, and can see nothing 
whatever to admire in Mr Bailey's Festus, Numbers 
of his hiends assure him, that here he is mistaken ; he 
himself confesses that it is even possible this may be 
the case, but immediately afterwards reiterates his 
former conviction ; precisely like some Qld gentleman 
at dessert-time, who, after acknowledging against his 
will the superior advantages of railways, and being 
thoroughly put to silence upon the subject as a matter 
of argument, will exclaim, as he shoves his chair back, 
and rises to join the ladies in the drawing-room, that 
•'there is nothing like the old stage-coach, sir, after 
all, you may take my word for it.* Deeply and finely 
humorous, too, as our author really is, he stoops now 
and then to the merest Joe Millerisms — complicated 
italicised jests, entirely unworthy of him, as when he 
describes the finding of lus terrier, Dick, under the 
title *Dick Mihi\ or Our Why,' under an erroneous 
impression that it is a good heading for a chapter. 
Moreover, a considerable portion of his book will be to 
all but Scotchmen foolishness ; consisting, as it does, 
of exaggerated praise of very worthy persons of that 
nationTbut whose reputation is by no means European. 
Hugh Miller is described as ' standing beside Bums, 
and Scott, and Carlyle ;' and there is a page and a half 
devoted to the personal appearance of Dr Chalmers. 
These matters, however, are but as motes in the sun- 
beam, after all. If Dr John Brown prefers to tell his 
charming tales like a privileged person among a com- 
pany of young people, there is no such great harm ; 

* Sorm 9tAst $i t m , Second Serien Edaonttaii tad Dong Its. 



we are glad enough to stand at his knee, and listen to 
him. HorcB Subsecivce^ indeed ! we would that many 
an author's JIorcB Studiosissima were half as well 
employed. We are generally rather apt to distrust 
this description of hterature: lucubrations ostenta- 
tiously declared to have been ' thrown off' after pro- 
fessional hours, in the intervals of business, between 
shower-bath and shaving-time, and so on, commonly 
bear within them the most unmistakable ^roof of 
solicitude and pains : but Dr Brown's volume is really 
what it pretends to be — something written in the 
precious parings of tiie time of a weU-oocupied gentle- 
man, who is a healer of men, as well as an assessor 
of a universitv. He adorns most things he touches, 
but he especially adorns dogs. 

What Xandseer is upon canvas, that Dr John 
Brown is upon paper. The canine family was never 
before so well represented in literature. A great 
living genius has recently devoted a chapter to 
town dogs — combining both wit and humour, and 
exhibiting, as usual, most marvellous faculties of 
observation ; but it is made evident that the dogs are 
a secondary consideration with him; he more than 
once betrays that he has left his proper beat — which 
is the watching of the human — to turn his bull's-eye 
upon the animal creation, and he is glad to revert to 
his own fellow-creatures when opportunity offers. 
Now, Dr John Brown is never tempted into such a 
base desertion as this. He could supply a whole 
Parlour Library with biographies and ana of does of 
lus own personal acquaintance, were the world yet 
ripe for the reception of so comi>rehensive a work. 

* We — ^the Sine qud non^ the Duchess, the Sputchaid, 
the Dutchard, the Ricapicticopic, Oz and Oz, the 
Maid of Lorn, and myself — left Cfrieff some fifteen yean 
ago, on a bright September morning, soon after day- 
break, in a gig.' 

Five of uiese individuals are but one many-titled 
terrier, and the chapter is more devoted to her than 
all the rest of the company. The Duchess is 'away 
after a cat up a back entry, doing a chance stroke of 
business ; ' or 'is engaged in minor matters close at 
hand, catching and eating several large flies and 
humble bees ; ' or the doctor, upon the occasion of a 
startling phenomenon, hears her ' give a cry of fesr, 
and on turning round, there was she with, as much as 
she had of tail between her legs, where I never saw it 
before, and her small grace making down to the river, 
a haiiy hurricane.' The cook asks what shaU be dressed 
for dinner, and this is the reply : ' I would like a 
mutton-chop, but then, you know, Duchie likes minced 
veid better. 

Again, Grub, 'the mugger's (!) dog, grave, with 
deep-set melancholy eyes, as of some nobleman in dis- 
guise (say the Master of Ravenswood), had a great look 
of tiie ki^t Honourable Edward Ellicc, and had 
much of his energy and wecJU.* 

The way by which Dr John Brown became the 
exponent of canine life to the human family was in this 
wise : ' I was bitten severely by a little dog when with 
my mother at Moffstt Wells, being then three years of 
age, and I have remained " bitten " ever since in tlie 
matter of dogs.' The first dog, the forerunner, we 
should think, of several jMicks (of at least fifty-two 
each) which Dr Brown at various times, and one at a 
time, possessed, was Toby, a creature no less si^gadoiis 
than his namesake who accompanies the peripatetic 
Punch. ' Toby was the most utterly shabby, vulnr, 
mean-looking cur I ever beheld ; in one word, a tyke. 
He had not one good feature, except his teeth and eyes, 
and his bark, if that can be called a feature. He was 
not ugly enou^ to be called interesting ; hia colour 
black and white, his shape leggy and cTumsy ; alto- 
gether, what Sydney Smith would have called an 
extraordinarily ordinary dog; and, as I have said, 
not even greauy ugly, or, as the Aberdonians have it, 
" bonny wi' ill-fauredness." 

'My brother William found him the omln of 



CHAMBERS'B JOURNAL. 



277 



n to a multitude of small blackguards who 
owning him slowly in Lochend Loch, doing 
t to lengthen out the process, and secure the 
amount of fun with the nearest approach to 
Even then, Toby shewed his great intellect, 
nding to be dead, and thus gaming time and 
ration. William bought him for twopence ; 
le had it not, the boys accompanied him to 
Itreet, when I happened to meet him, and 
Jbe twopence to the biggest boy, had the 
ion of seeing a general engagement of much 
during which the twopence disappeared; 
ly going off with a very small and Bwiit boy, 
other vanishing hopelessly into the grating of 

laffnosiB of this animal — ph3rsical and mental 
omed with exceeding care, and has been pre- 
> VB complete. * He had a tail which I never 
ailed ; indeed, it was a tail per w. It was 
ase girth, and not short, and equal throughout, 
•hoeman's baton. The machinery for working 
' great power, and acted in a way, as far as I 
n able to discover, quite originaL We called 
der. When he wisned to get into the house, 
vrhined gently, then gave a sharp bark, and 
ae a resounding, mighty stroke which shook 
e. This, after much study and watching, we 
ui done by his bringing the entire len^h of 
[ tail flat upon the door, with a sudden and 
stroke. It was quite a totir defoi-ce, or a coup 
', and he was perfect in it at once, his first 
ithoritative having been as masterly and 
3 his last.' 

lad a creat desire to follow Dr Brown's father 
ere (who didn't want him), and especially to 
I preach. * My father's good taste and sense 
y, beside liis fear of losmg his friend (a vain 
hade this companionship; and as the decision 
cter of each was great, and nearly eoual, it 
sn a drawn game. Toby, ultimately, by 
it his entire object, triumphed. He was 
lowhere to be seen on my fatner leaving ; he, 
, saw him, and lay in wait at the head of the 
ad up Leith Walk he kept him in view from 
site side, like a detective ; and then, when he 
was hox>eles8 to hound him home, he crossed 
ngly over, and joined company. One Sunday, 
;one with him to church, and left him at the 
oor. The second psalm was given out, and 
;r was sitting back in the piupit, when the 
ts back, up which he came from the vestry, 
I to move, and gently open ; then, after a long 

bhick shining snout pushed its way steadily 

congregation, and was followed by Toby's 
)dy. He looked somewhat abashed, but snii^- 
fnend, he advanced as if on thin ice, and 
Dg him, put his fore-legs on the pulpit, and 
there he was, his own familiar chum. I 

all this ; and anything more beautifid than 
of happiness, of comfort, of entire ease, when 
Id his friend, the smoothing down of the 
ears, the swing of gladness of that mighty 
lon't expect soon to see. My father qmetly 
the door, and Toby was at his feet, and 

to all but himself. Had he sent old Greorce, 
nister's man," to put him out, Toby womd 
' have she^-n his teeth, and astonished 

rly life, Toby w^ peacefully disposed, but 
ds he got to be a very warlike animxd, the 
aking place almost instantaneously, in conse- 
jf a victory obtained over one Scrymgeour 
K *Tob^ was in the way of hiding his 
bones m the small gardens before his 
1 the neighbouring doors. Mr Scrymgeour, 
)r8 off, a bulky, choleric, red-haired, red- 
an — torvo vultu — was, by the law of con- 
great cultivator of flowers, and he had 



often scowled Toby into ttll but non-existence by a 
stamp of his foot and a glare of his eye. One day his 
gate being open, in walks Toby with a huge bone, and 
making a nole where Scrymgeour, two minutes before, 
had been planting some precious slip, the name of 
which, on paper and on a stick, Toby made very light 
of, substituted his bone, and was engaged covering it, 
or thinking he was covering it with his shovelling nose 
(a very odd relic of paradise in the dog), when Scrym- 
geour spied him through the inner glass door, and was 
out upon him like the Assyrian, with a terrific gowL 
I watched them. Instantly, Toby made straight at bii-n 
with a roar too, and an eye more toi've than Scrym- 
ceour's, who, retreating without reserve, fell prostrate, 
tnere is reason to beueve, in his own lobby. Toby 
contented himself with proclaiming his victory at the 
door, and returning, finished his bone-planting at his 
leisure ; the enemy, who had scuttled Ixshind the class 
door, faring at bW' '' 

Evcntualiy, Toby fell a victim to the savage criminal 
code which prevailed in the times he lived in. He 
did but steal a cold leg of mutton — ^the shank of which 
would stick up in the garden, although he thought he 
had buried it — and they hanged him in chains — his 
own chain — from his own lamp-post. 

* William [the doctor's brother] found him dead and 
warm, and falling in with the milk-boy at the head of 
the sireet, questioned him, and discovered that he was 
the executioner, and had got twopence, he — ^Tob^s 
every morning's crony, who met him and accompamed 
him up the street, and licked the outside of his can — 
had, with an eye to speed and convenience, and a want 
of taste, not to say principle and affection, horrible 
still to think of, suspended Toby's animation beyond 
all hope. William instantly fell upon him, upsetting 
his milk and cream, and gave him a thorough licking, 
to his own intense relief ; and being late, he got from 
Pyper, who was a martinet, the customary palmies, 
which he bore with something approaching to pleasure. 
So died Toby. My father said little ; but he missed 
and mourned his friend. There is reason to believe 
that, by one of those curious intertwistings of exist- 
ence, the milk-boy was that one of the drowning party 
who got the penny of the twopence.' 

The next dog, Wjrhe, was quite another sort of 
creature, 'an exquisite shepherd's dog, fleet, thin- 
flanked, dainty, and with all the grace of silky waving 
black and tan.* Though she was often i)ensive, as 
if thinking of her old work upon the hills, she 
made herself at home, and behaved in all respects 
like a lady. ' When out with me, if she saw sheep in 
the streets or road, she got quite excited, and helped 
the work, and was <mriously useful, ibe being so 
making her perfectly happy. And so her little life 
went on, never doing wrong, always blithe, and kind, 
and beautifuL But some months after she came, 
there was a mystery about her. Eveiy Tuesday 
evening she disappeared ; we tried to watch her, but 
in vain, she was always off by nine p. SL, and was 
away all night, coming back next day, wearied and 
all over mud, as if she had travelled far. She slept 
all next day. This went on for some months, and we 
could make nothing of it. Poor, dear creature, she 
looked at us wistfully when she came in, as if she 
would have told us if she could, and was especially 
fond, though tired. 

* WeU, one day I was walking across the Grass- 
market, with Wylie at my heels, when two shepherds 
started, and looldng at ner, one said: "That's her; 
that 's the wonderfu wee bitch that naebody kens ! " 

' I asked him what he meant; and he told me that, 
for months past, she had made her appearance by the 
first daylight at the " buchts," or sheep-pens in the 
cattle-market, and worked incessantly and to excel- 
lent purpose in helping the shepherds to get their sheep 
and lambs in. The man said with a sort of transport : 
^ She 's a perfect meeracle ; flees about like a speerit, 
and never gangs wrang ; wears, but never grups, and 



278 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



beats a' our dogs. She 's a perfect meeracle, and as 
soople as a maukiiL'' Then he related how they all 
knew her, and said: ** There's that wee fell yin; 
we 11 get them in noo.*' They tried to coax her to 
stop and be caught, but no, sne was ^[entle, but ofif ; 
ana for many a dav that " wee fell ym " was spoken 
of by these rough fellows. She continued this amateur 
work till she died, which she did in peace.' 

The south-country shepherds seem to have the 
same re^krd for their dogs as Arabs for their 
horses. Professor Syme had a shepherd for a patient 
one midsummer, who came to him with his dog. * Mr 
S^e noticed that he followed the dog, and not it 
lum, though he contrived to steer for the house. He 
came, and was ushered into his room ; he wished 
advice about some ailment, and Mr Syme saw that he 
had a bit of twine round the dog's neck, which he let 
drop out of his hand when he entered the room. He 
asked him the meaning of this, and he explained that 
the magistrates had issued a mad-dog proclamation, 
commanding all dogs to be muzzled or led, on pain of 
death. " And why do you so about as I saw you did, 
before you came into me ? ' ** Oh," said he, lookins 
awkward, " I didna want Birkie to ken he was tied. 
Where will you find truer courtesy and finer feeling ? 
He didn't want to hurt the dog's feelings ! ' 

Wasp was another of Dr Brown's friends, who 
could ao all that may become a dog, from killing a 
pole-cat to watching a child ; * but it was as a mother 
that she shone; and to see the gipsy, Hagar-like 
creature nursing her occasional Ishmael — ^playin^ 
with him, and fondling him all over, teachms his 
teeth to war, and with her eye and the curl of her 
lip daring any one but her master to toudi him, was 
like seeing Grisi watching her durlinff "Crennaro," 
who so litue knew why and how much we loved him. 
Once, when she had three pups, one of them died. 
For two da3rs and nights, she gave herself up to trying 
to bring it to life, and licking it and tumm^ it over 
and over, growling over it, and all but worrying it to 
awake it. She paid no attention to the living two 
— gave them no milk, fltmg them away with her teetii, 
ana would have killed them had they been allowed 
to remain with her. She was as one possessed, 
and neither ate nor drank, nor slept, was heavy and 
miseraUe with her milk, and in such a state of 
excitement, that no one could remove the dead pup. 
Early on the third mominff, she was seen to take 
her pup in her mouth, ana start across the fields 
towaras the Tweed, striding like a race-horsa She 
plunged in, holding up her burden, and at the middle 
of the streiBun, dropped it, and swam swiftly ashore ; 
then she stood and watched the little durk lump 
floating away, bobbing up and down with the current, 
and losing it at last far down, she made her way home, 
sought out the living two, devoured them with her 
love, carried them one by one to her lair, and gave 
herself up wholly to nurse them. You can fancy her 
mental and boaQy happiness and relief when they 
were pulling away, and theirs.' 

There seems to us to be even a greater amount of 
dog-power in that description than even in the popular 
Bab, for the pathos was there largely borrowed from 
human woes, whereas here it is wholly canine ; and ' 
vet how true and touching ! As might reasonably have 
been expected, one of our author^s many dogs, at least, 
was a mad dog. * Jock was insane orom his birth ; 
at first an tunabilis insanioj but ^^pc^i^rg in mischief 
and sudden death. He was an T^gliah terrier, fawn 
coloured; his mother's name Vam^) (Vampire), and 
his father's Demon. He was more properly daft than 
mad ; his courase, muscularity, and prodigious ft«iwiftl 
spirits making nim insufferable, and never allowing 
one sane feature of himself any chance. No sooner 
was the street-door open, than he was throttling the 
first dpg paasinc, bringing upon himself and me end- 
less grief. Gats ne tosMd up into the air, and crushed 
their spines as they felL Old ladies he upset by 



jumping over their heads ; old gentlemen, bv running 
between their legf. At home, ne would think nothing 
of leaping throujp^ the tea-things, upsetting the urn, 
cream, &c ; andat dinner, the same sort of thing. I 
believe if I could have found him to thrash him suffi- 
ciently, and let him be a year older, we mi^^ have 
kept nun ; but having upset an earl when tb^ streets 
were muddy, I had to part with him. He was sent 
to a clergyman in the island of Westray, one of the 
Orkneys ; and thoujB^h he had a wretched voyage, and 
was as sick as any <&g, he signalised the first moment 
of his arrival at the manse l>y strangling an andant 
monkev, or "Puggy," the pet of the minister — who 
was a bachelor — and the wonder of the island. Jock 
henceforward took to evil courses, extracting th& 
kidneys of the best young rams, driving whole hinels 
down steep places into the sea, till at last all the mna 
of Westray were pointed at him, as he stood at bay 
under a huge rock on the shore, and blew him intc^ 
space.' 

It would be far from tedious to narrate the histo- 
ries of the doctor's other dogs : of John Pym, ' who8» 
life was full of seriousness,^becanse he could never- 
get * enuff of f echtin ; ' of cheerful Puck, who is me^ 
trotting along Princes Street with a rope round his 
neck in custody of a policeman — ^in the dog-days — 
and wagffing his unsuspicious tail ; and of many nobl^ 
animalfClong since departed to the kennels whither* 
ffood dogs go. But we must forbear. Dr Brown for- 
bears to t^ us of his present living dog for a charm- 
ing reason : ' it was not,' he says, ' the custom among 
the ancients to aacrifice to heroes uniil aJUr wnM? 
He defers his sacrifice till Dick is dead. 

He gives us, however, some excellent canine advice 
at parSnfi. ' I think every family should have a dog : 
it is like naving a perpetual baby : it is the playthimr 
and crony of the whole house. It keeps them atl 
young. All unite upon Dick. And then he tdls no 
tales, betrays no secrets, never sulks, asks no troidtle- 
some questions, never sets into debt, never coming 
down too late for breaHast, or coming in throudk his 
Chubb too early to bed — ^is always ready for ab^ «f 
fun, lies in wait for it ; and you may, if ohokric, to 
your relief, kick him instead of some one else, wiio 
would not take it so me^y.' 

Dt John Brown, we tmmk you ; in the name of 
dogs and men ! 



SERFDOM IN RUSSIA. 

SxRFDoai, once universally estabhshed throughout ^ 
north of Europe, was abolished in Prusna in 1702, ia 
Denmark in 1766, and in Anstna in 178L R aoD- 
tinued to exist in France until the Revolution swept 
it away with the rest of the old inirtitutioins of t^ 
country. In England, during tiie Saxon era, serfdom 
was deeply rooted in the land, and for two hundred 
yean after the Conquest, the cultivaton of the soil 
were slaves to all intents and purposes. The change 
from serfdom to freedom was the gradnal work ol 
oenturies. The ancient labour-rents beoame almoit 
imperceptibly commuted for definite servioes, payabie 
in kind, and the villeins obtained a legal right to ^ 
occupation of their hereditary copyholds. QmeeD 
Elizabeth had her bondmen and bondwomen, witii 
whom she commuted in money for their ]nanumis8i0D> 
As the growth of the population increased the nmnbtf 
of fi^ee labourers, the practioe gained ground, till tii* 
bondage of the peasantry came to an end. The Isi^ 
claim of vUleioage recorded in our courts of law ws^ 
made on the 15th of Januaiy 1618; but in Scotiasd 
the salters and colliers had to wait for their freedtfiB 
till the end of the eighteenth century, up to wUch 
time the sons of colliers were prohibited ifff^ 




CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



279 



f oUowing any other calling but that of their fathers, 
and forbidden to work in any mines but those of the 
lord of the manor upon whose estate they were bom. 

Y^en and with whom serfdom originated in the 
empire of the North, is a question upon which 
Rusaian historians are at variance. According to one 
•et of writers, Boris Godounofif, after removing his 
predeocMOET, Feodor, by ix)ison, and taking possession 
of his throne, discovered that his peasant subjects 
were cnxsed with a propensity for rambling, and a 
distaste for settling down quietly in their native 
villages. To remedy the evils springing from this 
nugratory tendency, Boris issued a ukase binding 
every peasant to the commune in which he happened 
to be on the night of St George's Festival, in the year 
1603^ and forbidding the tillers of the soil from ever 
again quitting the districts to which they were thus 
arbitrarily attached. Other historians, however, laud 
this veiy monarch as the emancipator of his country- 
men from the slavery into which they had been cast 
by their Mongol tyrants, who styled all Russians, 
from the poorest peasant to the richest noble, ' serfs 
and peasants of the khans of the Golden Horde.' If 
these authors speak truth, previous to the imposition 
of the Tartar yoke, the only slaves in Russia were 
prisoners of war, debtors, and those who had volun- 
tarily sold themselves to their superiors. The foreign 
rnlera of the country made every peasant a serf, and 
the Czar Boris Godoimoff set them free. It was left 
to Mifthftpl Komanofif, the founder of the reigning 
dynasty, at the suggestion of his father, the patriarch 
PMlarete, to rebind the unfortunate labourers to the 
soiL 

Whoever forged the chains of the peasantry, they 
▼ere undoubtedly riveted by Peter the Great, who 
le-established the poll-tax, and ordered a census of 
the population to be taken for military purposes. In 
this census the peasants were mingled together with- 
out discrimination, and so all distinction between the 
■erf and the slave became obliterated, although some 
difference remained between the X)OBitions of the seris 
bdonging to the crown and those belonging to private 
individuals. The czars and czArinas adopted the mis- 
chievous plan of rewarding successful generals and 
in^onous panderers by bestowing upon them crown- 
lands, and the serfs belonging thereto. Dependent 
upon the produce of their small allotments for their 
daily sustenance, the failure of the crop or the ravages 
of an army often reduced the poor peasants to utter 
destitution, which could only be relieved by the lord 
of the soil, who expected to be repaid in the only 
coin at their conmiand — additional labour. He, too, 
was their only protector, the arbiter of their quarrels, 
and the punisher of their transgressions. So the serfs 
were powerless to resist further encroachments on 
their slender modiciun of liberty, and gradually the 
landlord assumed the right of removing them from 
one estate to another, as suited his convenience or 
ci^nice. What was tacitly allowed in one generation, 
liecame the law of another. For a serf to leave one 
estate for another, except at his master's command, 
was an offence visited with oondign punishment ; and 
so the serf became an utter slave, his happiness or 
misery depending upon the temper of his owner, who 
was absolute lord of him and his, and had unlimited 
power of disposing of him as he "vviUed, as an article 
of traffic and merchandise. 

The first step towards ameliorating the condition of 
the Russian helots, was the making them immovable 



fixtures of the soil; but this was for a long period the 
only concession wrung from despotisuL Tne privilege 
of possessing 8er& was confined to the hereditaiy 
nobles, and the enslavement of freemen, with or with- 
out their consent, declared illegal ; but a noble might 
place any orphan he picked up, when imder eight years 
of age, upon his serf-rolL By marrying a freeman, 
the serf- woman becomes free ; and a free woman 
retains her liberty, even if she becomes the wife of a 
bondsman. Owners are not permitted to force their 
serfs into a marriage contrary to inclination, but they 
can prohibit them entering the matrimonial state 
altogether. Serfs cannot be sold by auction, nor is 
the separation of families allowed. Offences may be 
punished with the lash, so that no more than five 
lashes be inflicted at one time ; but, unfortunately, 
the law leaves the interval to elapse between two 
floggings entirelv to the discretion of the owner, who 
may maltreat ^e unhappy offender as much as he 
pleases, so long as he neither kills nor maims him. In 
case death should follow the infliction of punishment 
within twenty-four hours, the murderer is liable to 
lose his own life. Should he prefer transportation to 
flagellation, he may send his slave to Siberia upon 
paying all expenses. Should a serf be killed by 
accident, the slayer pa3rs his proprietor six hundred 
silver rubles; but if the act was premeditated, is 
handed over to the tribunal, and probably afterwards 
to the executioner. Whatever wrong the serf may 
receive at the hands of his lord, there is no redress 
for hiuL It is true the law pretends to suard the 
peasant from the infliction of certain acts oi violence ; 
but the same law also expressly declares that, * if any 
serf, forgetting the obeoience he owes to his lord, 
presents a denunciation against him, and especially if 
ne presents such a denunciation to the emperor, he 
shall be handed over to juntice, and treated with all 
the rigour of the laws — he and the scribe who may 
have drawn up his memorial' There is one excep- 
tion to this barbarous enactment, in the case of a serf 
denouncing his master for treason, when, if he proves 
his accusation, he is rewarded with the free^>m of 
himself and family. 

Runaway serfs must be restored to their original 
owners, however long a period may have elapsed 
between their flight and oiBcovery. If the fugitive 
has married in the meantime, his or her partner 
becomes the property of the proprietor of the recovered 
property ; but when a female runaway has married a 
nree man, she is not compelled to return to bondage, 
if her husband indemnify her master in money. 
Every landowner is compelled to find each serf 
enough land to support himself and family. The 
average allotment of land to each serf is a dedatine, 
or nearly three acres, upon which he may labour 
three da^ in the week, the other three being cm- 
ployed in his owner's behalf. In the Georgian 
provinces, the master exacts but one day's work in 
the week, receiving one-seventh of the crop raised by 
the peasant, in lieu of the labour due to him. The 
remaining obligations of the lords of the soil consist 
in providing uieir servants with food in times of 
scarcity, with seed-corn and cattle for the plough. 
When a serf is drafted into the army, or from any 
other cause is disabled from supporting his family, the 
task of doing so naturally falls on the owner of the 
estate to which he is attached. The fatherless family 
are usually handed over to the care of other serfs, who 
receive money-compensation in return. 

As the serf-population on an estate increases, the 
land is absorbed by these allotments. When this is 
t^e case, the peasants pay the lord of the manor an 
annual tribute, called obrok^ the land being appor- 
tioned among them as the head of the commune may 
think advisable and just. Besides this obrok, or 
rent, there is a capitation-tax of six shillings a-head 
levied by the government upon every male serf of 
fifteen years and upwards. There is a great hardship 



280 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



connected with this impost. Although it is collected 
annually, the levy is made only oocasionallv ; and the 
taxpayers being obliged to pay the six shillings for 
everj' male member of their family when tlie levy 
was made, the poor peasant often has to |)ay for sons 
and brothers whom death has released from bondage. 
Should a serf fail in scttHng accounts with the govern- 
ment collector, his owner is answerable for the 
deficiency; but he is not troubled till every means 
has been adopted, down to the last expedient of 
putting out the family stove and building up the 
chimney, so that the unready serf is imable to 
€njoy that necessity in Russia — a fire. It is very 
seldom that the peasant fails to obtain, by some 
means or other, the wherewithal to satisfy the 
agent of his father the czar. When he does so, 
or commits any other great offence, he is turned 
out of his hut, and everything td^en from him 
but his agriciUtural implements. Tools are * scored 
against the master ; ' but, as might be imagined, the 
said tools are of the most primitive character: the 
serf has no inducement to overcome the inherent 
dislike to new-fangled modes of working, which he 
shares with the majority of the landed proprietors of 
Russia. 

The highest tribute is paid by the serfs who have 
left their comitry villages for the large cities of the 
empire, where great numbers are to be foimd as 
day-labourers, journeymen, servants, coachmen, cooks, 
and tradesmen. They are permitted to follow what 
calling they please, but must carry on their trading 
under their owner's name. Many of this class con- 
trive to accumulate money ; but they are liable to 
have it all seized by their ])roprietor, whenever his 
avarice or need requires it. One of the Scheremeteff 
family in this way became possessed of no less a sum 
than twenty thousai^d pounds, which lay at the Bank 
of Moscow to the credit of one of his serfs. Here is 
small encouragement for the energetic trader or skilful 
mechanic. Hard, indeed, for a man to bear to see 
the savings of years of labour and anxiety snatched 
from him, to be dissipated in folly and debauchery. 
*0f such unhappy wretches,* says M. Jerriman, 
the existence is one of wailing and despair; they 
pursue their occupation mechanically and without 
mterest, and sink at last into complete indifference 
to everything — a sort of dull semi-idiocy. Their 
decaying habitations resemble the dens of wild beasts 
rather than human abodes ; their food is bad and 
unwholesome; their half-starved bodies are clad in 
squalid rags. Should they continue, in spite of still 
recurring exactions, to accimiulate property, it profits 
them not. Fearin^j; to be dispossessed of it by their 
tyrant, they bury it in the ground ; and it has often 
liappened, after the death oi ])oor wretches who had 
led a life of abject poverty, that considerable sums of 
money belonging to them have been foimd in cellxuv, 
bams, and ouier hiding-places.' 

The obrok exacted from some of the out-service 
serfs is very heavy ; but those belonging to the crown 
are free to exercise any trade, and choose their own 
field of labour, without paying any higher tribute 
than those who are content to remain at home. This 
obrok, and the capitation-tax together, amoimt to from 
twenty-two to thirty-one shilUngs of our money. 
Schools are provided on the crown -lands to the 
number of 2511, attended by 90,178 boys, and 19,486 
girls, whose little learning is doled out by 2803 
teachers. In theory, the crown-serfs should have 
little to complain of ; but in practice, they are 
exposed to the exactions and oppressions of roguish 
emphySs; and the nearer they seem to the fountain 
of justice, the less likely are they to receive the 
benefit of its waters. 

The Englishwoman in Russia rather indignantly 
remarks, mat *at the entrance of the villages we 
generally saw, jtainted on the same bouxl, the number 
of men and oxen contained in each — the fair sex were 




not thought worth the trouble of being onomerated.' 
The enumerators of the Russian census take no 
account of the women, as not being available either 
for taxation or military service. Landed proprietors 
do not reckon their wealth by acres, but by * souls,' 
by which they mean male serfs only. No one pos- 
sessing less than a hundred souls comes under the 
denomination of a landowner, while the proprietor of 
two thousand souls ranks as the owner of a very large 
estate. In 1834, a serf- population of 10,704,378 * souk ' 
was shared among 109,340 masters, of whom 1453 
owned above a thousand human cattle ; 2273 above five 
hundred, and less than a thousand ; 16,740 above one, 
and less than five hundred ; 30,447 were masters over 
more than twenty, and less than a hundred; and 
58,457 coimted not more than twenty serfs as their 
own. In 1857, out of the male population of Russia 
in Europe, 37 percent. — that is, 10,844,902 — were serfs, 
while not less than three-fifths of this large number 
were hypothecated to the crown and baims for the 
debts of their lords. 

Tlie Russian serf is strong, healthy, and of middle 
stature ; neither sex, as a rule, have much to boast of 
in the way of beauty, the women having none of what 
we call * figure ' about them. Living in a wheat country, 
where meat is cheap, the Russian peasant eats no 
better bread than that made from rye, and lives chiefly 
upon vegetables ; millet, beet-root, lard, and salted- 
cucumbers are the leading items in his dietary ; but^ 
his favourite dish is a gruel made from buckwheat 
^ts, flavoured with strong vegetable condiments. 
Water is the serf's usual beverage, unless he can- 
procure spirits, in which case he invariably makes ^. 
beast of himself, drinking till he is stupified — ^th& 
great aim with a Russian of all * liquoring.* Th^ 
men ai'e clothed in a long coarse coat ofdrugectv 
fastened round the waist with a belt. In wmter.^ 
they wear sheepskin, with the woollv side inwards, 
linen trousers, cloth WTappers supplying the plac^ 
of stockings, as matted bark often does the place of 
leather in their boots. The women go about ven^ 
lightly clad, as if they were less sensitive to the col '^ 
of the climate than the rouj^her sex. The cottages 
the serfs in Podolia are built of laths and mud^ bu 
elsewhere wood and stone are used. The floor is o: 
clay, and in its centre stands the stove, round whicb^^ 
father, mother, and children, the married and unmar^ — 
ried of all ages, lie huddled together through the lonj 
nights on dirty benches, or the still dirtier floor. 

Although, as has been said, and no doubt truly saic 
that two Middlesex mowers will cut as much grass i 
a day as half-a-dozon serfs, the Russian peasant i 

considering the disadvantages of his condition, indua ' 

trious ; and he is certainly patience itsell He hai 
been compared to a spaniel for his fawning humility 
but he also possesses the higher canine charac 
teristic of fidehty. If it be true that he will kiss th< 
hem of his master's garment for a glass of brandv, i 
is also true that, if kindly treated he will sacnfic 
everything, even to his life, for his master, 
is fond of singing songs — songs breathing of love * 

patriotism, and happiness — songs of the time wher^^^^^ 
serfdom was unknown in the land. . He is vei^^^tf 
religious after a fashion of his own, ' abstaining fron:::^:^^^^^-^ 

worK, and adhering to whisky on saints* days wit' "^ 

extraordinary scrupulousness ; * but he is very wise! 
averse to discussing theological questions, unlets 
he has been imbibing pretty ueely. Utterly nnedu^ 
cated, or possessing, at most, a smattering of *th 
three Jfa,* and dependent for spiritual teaching upoL 
a depraved priesthood, it is not very surprising tna':::^^ 
the agricultural serf does not shine in a moral poin' 
of view, being generally drunken, and often thievii * 
His love is fierce, but transient, and both sexes 
the marriage-bond very loosely. A Russian no 
told Custine that one of his mechanical serfs, 
worked at St Petersburg, was allowed to revisit 
home and wife after an absence of two yean. O 







CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



281 



retaming at the expiration of his holiday, his master 
asked if ne was satisfied with having seen his family. 
* Perfectly bo,' was the reply. * My wife has presented 
me with two more children, and the sight of them 
gave me great pleasure ;' and this was said not 
ironically, but in perfect simplicity and good faith I 

Free cultivators have existed in Russia since the 
nth century. By a ukase issued in 1725, it was 
declared that the * Polozoniki,' not being serfs, 
might, under certain regulations, go where they chose. 
They hold their land under a tenure by which they 
pay half the harvest as rent ; the tenant finding 
stock and the labour for erecting farm-buildings, the 
materials for the latter being supplied by the land- 
lord. Their leases run from six to twenty years, but 
twelve months' notice is required to be given by either 
landlord or tenant before the connection can l>e dis- 
solved. In 1804, a further extension (»f the system of 
free cultivation took place, Count Sergeir Roumianoff 
being authorised to establish free colonists upon his 
southern estates, while all landowners received per- 
mission to set their serfs free upon the following con- 
ditions : first, without land ; next^ ])y investing them 
with the proprietorship of the soil they tilled ; and 
lastly, on condition that not less tlian eight acres p^r 
soul was granted. Unfortunately, these concessions 
were afterwards rendered almost nugatory by certain 
restrictions, which led to innumerable actions be- 
tween heim-at-law and emancipated serfs, in which 
the latter, unless supportetl by some rich and noble 
protector, usually went to the wall. 

From time to time, the government did something 
to ameliorate the condition of the serfs; and some 
years ago it introduced a measure, called the * inven- 
tory,' by which the relative positions of lord and serf 
were dearly defined. Copies were ordered to lie in 
the church, the house of the priest, and the court- 
house of every district, so that the people might ascer- 
tain their rights for themselves. The law was, how- 
ever, generafly evaded ; but it put an end to the serf 
being suddenly turned out of his holding at the whim 
of the master, and afforded some check on the latter's 
selecting such days for working on the estate as were 
most favourable to his own interest. Alexander I. 
was the first of his family to entertain the idea of the 
oitire emancipation of the peasantry; and the first 
step towards that desirable end was made in 1816, 
when the serfs of Esthonia received their freedom, 
and Courland received the same boon the year follow- 
ing. In Livonia, the scheme did not meet with much 
success ; the serfs who could not jKiy their rents were 
turned out of house and home. It was afterwards 
ordered that only half the peasantry should become 
freemen in 1823, the remainder lieing left in their old 
condition till two years later, but all children were 
declared free from their birth. 

By a ukase of the 5th of December 1857, it was 
decided that the emancipation of the entire popula- 
tion should take place within twelve years after the 
terms of settlement had been resolved upon, the 
interim to be used in preparing the peasantry for the 
momentous change in their position. In every govern- 
ment of the empire, a committee has been appointed, 
consisting of two deputies from the nobility of every 
district, and two representatives of the crown ; their 
labours being revise<l by a central committee sitting 
at St Petersburg. It is for the decision of this body 
that the serfs are now waiting in anxious expectation. 
Tlie announcement of the promulgation of the decree 
of emancipation on the 1st of March, seems to have 
been premature ; but there is UtUe doubt that Alex- 
ander IL will, before long, earn the gratitude of forty- 
two millions of people, by issuing the long expected 
vlkn/ot 

However commonplace the history of the coming 
months of the year may prove to be, with three sucn 
events as the disruption of the American confedera- 
taooy the resuscitation of Italy, and the enfranchise- 



ment of those to whom Russia owes its material 
greatness, its strength, and its prosperity, 1861 will 
be a memorable year in the annals of the world. 



FRANCES BROWNK 

Few of our readers can be unacquainted with the 
story of Eurytus, the blind Si>artan, who, when he heard 
that the Three Hundred were defending the pass of 
Thermopyhe against the Persian host, called for his 
arms, ordered his helot to lead him to the field, and, 
rushing on his country's foes, was pierced by the 
spears and arrows of the invaders. The Spartan's 
chivalry has been the theme of poet's song and histo- 
rian's page, and after the lapse of more than two 
thousand years, still stirs the heart and dims the eye. 
But there are nobler deeds than his, wrought by 
weaker hands, tried by greater privations. To risk a 
life upon which the shadow of darkness has faUen, 
with the certainty of gaining after death an immor- 
tality of fame, is not the most exalted heroism. Many 
have sought the shadow of death as a refuge from the 
shadow of darkness, and with the knowledge that 
their name and memory would be burieil with their 
bones. But to meet the decrees of fate with a calm 
and undaunted front ; to fight the battle of life single- 
handed against poverty, blindness, and a host of 
relentless combatants, when you must first dig for the 
iron wherewith to forge the armour and fashion the 
sword ; to contend day after day, and year after year, 
for no guerdon but bread, and no statue but the gtatu 
quo : tms is a heroism greater than that of the Spartan, 
and deserving more honourable reconl than that 
at ThcrmopyEe : * Stranger, go tell the world that I 
strive on obedient to the god? commands.' 

Yet this heroism has oeen displayed in our own 
day by her whose name stands at file head of this 
paper, and whose long and hard struggle for the means 
of life has hitherto left her little leisure for doing 
justice to her powers in a work of sustained effort ; 
but who, by the munificence of the Marquis of Lans- 
downe, in prcscntinc; her with a gift of one himdred 
pounds, at a time when health and f luds were much 
exhausted, has at length foimd an opportunity of 
giving to her country's literature a work of fiction 
worthy of her pen. The publication of these volumes* 
affords us an occasion for sketching the brief story of 
the life of their authoress. 

Frances Browne was bom on the 16th of January 
1816, at Stranorlar, a mountain village in the county 
Donegal, Ireland. Her great-grandfather managed to 
run through a good estate, and his descendants were 
left with limitai means. Her father was glad to fill 
the office of postmaster in the village. Frances was 
the seventh child in a family of twelve ; and at the 
age of eighteen months, not having received the 
benefit of Jenner's discovery, she lost her sight by the 
small-pox. She had no teacher even in the elements 
of learning. Her knowledge of grammar and geo- 
graphy was acquired by listening to her brothers and 
sisters, as they read aloud their lessons for the village- 
school ; and we have heard her say, that the first 
geographical problem which puzzled her was, how 
Columbus comd have hoped to reach the coasts of 
Asia by sailing west, till a neighbour solved the 
difficulty by explaining that the earth was a globe ; 
*but to comprehend tnis fully,' she observed, *cost 
me the study of a sleepless night.' To understand the 
world's angles and asperities was a problem still in 
store for her, and soon to occasion her many sleep- 
less nights. 

Meanwhile, the pursuit of learning was followed 
with an ardour which alone animates those who have 



• My Share of tJU World; by Frances Browne. London : 
Hurst and Blackett. 1861. 



282 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



to contend against the greatest obstacles. Step by 
step, she advanced along the ragged road to the 
jealously guarded tree of knowledge. There were no 
euide- posts to direct the wayfarer, and many toUs were 
demanded of her. To gain time for her brothers and 
sisters to read to her, she did the household work 
assigned to them. To gain their inclination, she 
bribed them by telling them stories of her own inven- 
tion, or which they nad formerly read to her, but 
forgotten. She acquired a knowledge of French in 
exdiange for lessons in English grammar, given to 
the daughter of the village teacher. She impressed 
on her memory the day's reading, by rex)eating 
it all over to herself in the silence of the night. 
Among the works that were thus mastered were 
Himie^ England^ and the twenty-one volumes of 
the Ancient Universal History. But it was a great 
event for the future novelist when the Heart of mid- 
Lothian fell into her hands, her acquaintance with 
works of fiction being previously limited to such books 
as Suaan Gray, the Nefpro Servant, and the Adventures 
of Baron Munchausen ; for in Frances Browne's youth 
tiiere was no bookseller's shop within three counties 
of Stranorlar, and circulating libraries were things 
undreamt of. 

About the end of her fifteenth year, having heard 
much of the Iliad, she obtained the loan of Pope's 
translation. * It was like the discovery of a new 
world,' she writes to a friend, * and effected a total 
change in my ideas on the subject of poetry. There 
was at the tune a considerable manuscript of my own 
productions in existence, which of course I regarded 
with some partiahty; but Homer had awakened me, 
and in « fit of sovereign contempt, I committed the 
whole to the flames. After Homer's, the work that 
TOoduced the greatest impression on my mind was 
Byron's Childe Harold. The one had induced me 
to bum my first manuscript, and the other made me 
resolve against verse-making in future.' In this 
resolution she persevered for nearly ten years, till, in 
the summer of 1840, bavins heard a volume of Irish 
songs read, she could no longer keep silence, and a 
poem was composed, called The Songs of our Land, 
which was first printed in the Irish Penny Journal, 
and may still be found in Duffy's Ballad Poetry of 
Irdand. Then followed contributions to the Athe- 
ncaim, Hood's Magazine, and Lady Blessington's 
Keepsake. Her verses were copied into the jour- 
baIb of the day ; and she felt herself a poetess. 
At length the tnought came to her in the long sleep- 
less nights, could she not, though sightless and friend- 
leas, make her own way in the world ? Alas ! the 
golden age had gone by, when, like Blind Harry, 
uie could earn food and shelter by reciting the pro- 
ductions of her muse to chiefs and dames. Yet 
there were other walks in literature where bread 
might be got as well as fame. She would leave her 
native hills — ^but not Parnassus — and make the ven- 
ture, though clouds and darkness rested on it. This 
purpose was carried into effect in the spring of 1847, 
when the terrible famine which made such devasta- 
tion in her country began. Having no resources but 
a pension of twenty pounds, ^:untcd from the Royal 
Bounty Fund by Sir JRobert Peel, and no compamon 
but her sister, &e crossed the channel for the land of 
Bums, and as she went, she sang : 

I leave the spring-time bj thj streams, with dreams 

that will not part. 
And on thy hills what kindred names without one 

kindred heart ! 
They will not miss my steps at hearth, or shrine, or 

social band ; 
Oh, free the homeless heart goes forth — yet fare-thee- 

well, my land ! 

Edinburgh was the city selected for her residence. 
There her genius, worth, and industry procured 
her the means of life, and made her many friends. 



among others, Christopher North, and the proprie- 
tors of this Journal, to which the second piece of 
prose composition she ever attempted was contri- 
buted.* She wrote tales and sketches, essays and 
reviews, leaders and songs, for various newspapers 
and magazines; refusing no employment, however 
uncongenial, and acquitting herseli as conscientiously 
in a story-book for chudren, as in writing for 
the entertainment of their elders. During her resi- 
dence in the northern capital, she published a volume 
of Lyrics and Miscellaneous Poems, which she dedi- 
cated to the late Sir Robert Peel, in grateful recollec- 
tion of his liberality and kindness; a series of Legends 
of Ulster, her native province ; and The Ericksons, a 
tale for the young. She found her abilities for prose- 
writing gradually strengthen and improve, but her 
fortunes did not Drighteu in equal proportion. Some- 
times ill-health, sometimes a dishonest publisher, was 
the drawback to her prosperity. Yet when things 
were at their best, there were two to be maintained ; 
and ever mindful of the claims of kindred, Frances, 
out of her poverty, contributed to the support of her 
mother, as she has done for seventeen years past. Ko 
wonder if at times she felt the burden of life heavy, 
and mourned in the bitterness of her soul, * that the 
waters of her lot were often troubled, though not by 
angels.' 

In 1852, after a residence of five years in £din> 
burgh, she removed to London. Her sister married, 
soon after, and returned to Scotland; and upon i^ 
friend condoling ydih. Frances on her loneliness, sh^ 
smilingly re|)lied : ' Oh, you know, in the absence o^ 
other relatives, an author may manage very well witl»^ 
the help of the relative pronouns.' Since that period^ 
she has had the assistance of a secretary for a fe\p^ 
hours every day, her lengthened service to litcraturlB^ 
not yet enabling her to have one entirely at her com — 
mand. In those hours she has written songs whicLs. 
have pleased many who little guessed under whaft^ 
circumstances they were dictated. 

Frances Browne's poems are, in truth, her bes^> 
biography, for they shew us her energy of mind, hez:* 
resolution of character, her scorn of mean and souUesj^ 
men, her love of the brave, the wise, and the good..— 
Unlike the poems of Blacklock, which abound witts- 
complaints of the difficulties and distresses of his situa — 
tion, his * rueful darkness* and * gloomy vi^s,' he: 
lyrics contain little allusion to her outward life, am 
are altogether silent on the subject of her grea' 
calamity. With Voltaire, when some one was holding 
forth on De la Motte's blindness, she thinks that th 
public is concerned only -with the powers of th< 
author's mind, and not with the misfortunes of ~ 
body. But the circumstances of her life have nven 
colour to, if they have never formed tbo buraen 
her song. Poverty having been her portion from 
cradle, her sympatiiies are with the poor — * tiie wea 
of the worla's old clothes.' Years of lonelin^ hav 
made her look longingly forward to that better tim 
when * none will lead a stranger's life,' and to tha 
happier shore, * where hearts will find their 
She deems this age but a material one, wherein 
statesman's notion of the highest good is, that 








while 



People and press no questions ask. 
Bat joyf ally pay taxes ; 



The sum of the priest* s millennial views. 
Is no dissent, and all the dues ; 



and the trader's, that 

There will bo no Gazette to fear, 
Bnt profits quite surprising ; 

With wages falling every year. 
And the markets always rising. 



* 4 



The Lost New-year's Gift,' Jfareh 8, IH^ Kol 62, M 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



a» 



a inch an a^ the T>oet is, she complams, out 
I place. 'Tis a cruel fate, which banishes him 
•om his nafciYe heaven, and hinds him to the day 
-cniel as that which brings the wild-swan from the 
Dple heights of mom, to the dust and duhiesB of 
nth. This thought is beautifully expressed in the 
lUowing touching poem, called 

THE WILD-SWAN. 

An arrow sent from the hunter's string. 

When the moorland sky was gray. 
Had smote the strength of the wild-swanks wing, 

On his £Gtr and upward way ; 
nnion and plnme of rigour reft, 
Drooped like boughs by the tempest cleft 

On some green forest tree, 
And nerer might that wild-swan soar 
To the purple heights of morning more ; 
Or westward o'er the hill-tops cleaTe 
His ooorse through the cloudy isles of ere, 

Aod the sunset's golden sea. 

The light of the lovely lakes that lie 

Among green woods was gone 
Prom all his days, but the years went by, 

And the lonely swan lived on, 
A captire, bound to the dull earth then, 
With wingless creatures, and weary men 

Who could not quit the clay ; 
He grew like them, as a dweller must, 
At home with the dulness and the dust, 
Till faded from his memory's hold 
The life and the liberty of old, 

Like a far foigotten day. 

Yet ever as from wood and wave 

The smile of the summer went. 
And his kindred's march passed south, above 

The spot where he was pent, 
With their wavy lines, and their wings of snow. 
And their trumpet's notes sent far below 

To bid that lingerer rise. 
The swan would gase as the host swept by, 
And a wild regret was in his cry. 
As if for the nobler part and place 
He lost, in the freedom of his race — 

In the joy of streams and skies. 

Palls not that wild-swan's fortune oft 

On souls that scorn the ground. 
Whose outspread wings the deadly shaft 

Of an earthward fate hath found ; 
And narrowed down to some dusty scope 
The tameless strength and the tireless hope 

That for the skies were bom ; 
Till in the lore of that lifeless lot 
Their glorious birthright seems forgot. 
As dimness deepens and grayness grows. 
And year by year with its burden goes 

To the night that knows no mom ? 

Yet over the prison-house at times. 

Great thoughts and voioes go. 
That wake with the mind-world's mighty chimes, 

Their buried life below ; 
And the bowed of bondage lift their view 
To the heaven that lies so far and blue 

In its boundless beauty yet, 
But never can they that r^dm regain. 
The wing is withered, the cry is vain- 
Bo downward turn they, eye and heart. 
And learn, but not with a ready heart, 

Of that wild-swan—* Forget !' 

at wherever our poet finds heroism, honesty, worth, 
icre she reverently bows down; and never did 
^eaeher convey more beautiful a lesson on the 
titherhood of all good men, however their lots may 
ffer, than is oontained in t^e poem of MarVt McfAer, 



Mark, the miner, is full fourscore, 
£nt blithe he sits at his cottage door, 
Smoking the trusty pipe of day, 
Which hath been his comfort many a day, 

In spite of work and weather ; 
It made his honest hwrt amooids 
For the loss of strength and the death of friends ; 
It cheered his spirit through the lives 
And management of three good wives — 
But now those trying times are done, 
And there they sit in the setting sun, 

Mark and his pipe together. 

From harvest-field and from pasture-ground. 
The peasant people have gathered round : 
The times are rusty, the news is scant, 
And something like a tale they want 

From Mark's unfailing store ; 
For he is the hamlet's chronide. 
And when so minded, wont to tell 
Where their great-undes used to play — 
How their grandames looked on the wedding-day«- 
With all that happened of chance and change. 
And all that had passed of great or strange, 

For seventy years before. 

But on this evening, it is plain, 
Mark's mind is not in the telling vein. 
He sits in mience and in smoke, 
With his thoughts about him like a cloak 

Wrapped tight against the blast ; 
And his eye upon the old church spire. 
Where falls the sunset's fading fire — 
And all the friends his youth had known 
Lie round beneath the turf and stone. 
While a younger generation try 
To touch the keys of his memory 

With questions of the past. 

* Good Mark ! how looked the Lady Boie, 
Whose bower so green in our forest grows. 
Whom old men name with a blessing still 
For the tonenVs bridge, and the viUsge miU, 

And the traveller's waiynde well V 

* Like my good mother, neighbours dear. 
How long she lies in the chuiohyard here !' 
< Well, Mark, that Ushop of kindly rule. 
Who burned the stodcs, and built the sdiool. 
How looked his Grace whai the diurch was new?' 
' Neighbours, like my good mother, too. 

As those who saw oould teU.' 

* Then, Mark, the prince who chedced his train. 
When the stag passed through your father's grain t' 

* Good neighbours, as I live, his lofok 
The li^t of my blessed mother^s took. 

As he bade them spare the com.* 
Loud laugh the peasants with rustic shout : 

* Now, Mu*k, thy wits are wearing out. 
Thy mother was but a homdy dame. 

With a wrinkled face and a toil-worn frame ; 
No earthly semblance could she bear 
To a, bishop learned, and a lady fair. 
And a prince to kingdoms bom.' 

' Nay,' saith the pastor, passing by. 

As the stars came out in the evening sky — 

* That homely dame hath a place and part 
Time cannot wear from the old man's heart. 

Nor many winters wither ; 
And know ye, friends, that the wise and good 
Are all of one gradous brotherhood ; 
Howe'er their fortunes on earth may stand. 
They take the look of their promised land — 
So bounteous lady, and bishop kind. 
And prince with that royalty of mind. 

Were like Mark's blessed mother.' 

With the above — ^which would be a snffident answer 
to thoee critioa who imagine that, like her own Ben 



J 



284 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Ezra, she only * sees of each soul the losing side ' — we 
must conclude our notice of Frances Browne's poetry, 
and take a rapid glance at the prose work already 
referred to as her latest effort, My Share of the World, 

This book is the autobiographjr of Frederick Favour- 
sham of Liverpool, by turns artist, tutor, phrenologist, 
writer for the daily press, private secretary, holder of 
a government office, and finally of a large estate and 
many thousands. The scenes to which the author 
thus introduces us are various, shewing considerable 
knowledge of men and things. The characters that 
play their part in the story are numerous — perhaps too 
numerous — but some of them are undoubtealy originaL 
There is a young gentleman of fifteen, who despises 
Jcuck Uie Oiant-hiller and Bobinson Crusoe^ and con- 
siders the learning of his letters just a waste of time, 
but who dotes upon Foxe's Martyrology and The Inqui- 
sition Displayed^ and will at any time lay down his 
knife and fork to hear about eternal pimishment, or 
to meditate upon a tract he is composing on The Fall 
of Man. There is an old lady who is haunted at the 
full of the moon by the fear of the Jesuits, and goes 
shouting through the house : * Down with tie pope ! * 
There is a fem^ue phrenologist, who proves to be one of 
the women whom our heras father had wheedled into 
a pretended marriage, who advises Frederick * to take 
care of his conscientiousness,* and evinces her own by 
employing him as her assistant at the rate *of sixpence 
for every single, and a shilling for all double characters.' 
There is a newspaper contributor who grumbles that 
his talents are not appreciated by editor or proprietor, 
and promises to revenge his wrongs by * pillorymg the 
whole staff to all posterity in his great poem, The 
Guild of the Giftless ; ' solacing himself meantime by 
ascribing all the misfortunes oi his life to his wedding- 
day, which * furnishes him with satisfactory reasons 
why he is not rich, wise, and celebrated — even the 
shortcomings of his previous life being laid at its door. 
" Mr Favoursham," ne would sav, in moments of extra- 
ordinary confidence, " how could I succeed, with that 
fate hanging over me ? It cast a shadow on my pros- 
pects, though I did not know it : a man never does 
well who has something looming in the distance." ' 

Nor are actors of a higher type and finer mould 
wanting in the drama. There is Frederick's mother, 
who is so lonely and heartbroken under her husband's 
desertion and profligacy, yet whose dying injimction 
to her son is, * Never foi^et he is your father, and do 
not let him want in lus old days ; and if you marry, 
be a good man to your wife, for women have a poor 
turn m this world; and if you don't, live like the 
holy virgins, that will come in white to the gates of 
heaven.' There is Frederick's first and only love, a 
fine ideal nature, *with a bom relationship to the 
arts and the muses,' whom the fates join to a reckoner 
of sums and manufacturer of ginghams, surround 
by savers of candle-ends and makers of economical 
puddings, and consign at last to * the night-duty in 
this inglorious campaign of ours.* There is her 
grandfather, a kindly old squire, with good word and 
hearty greeting for ])easant and retainer, but who has 
never l^en himself since the murder of his only son, 
and who is quite bowed down by the suicide of his 
granddaughter, the sole comfort of his age. There 
IS a brave and gifted Frenchman, whose love for the 
memory of the first Napoleon is greater than his love 
of friends or kindred, of fame or fortune; who has 
led a life almost as wandering and full of adventure 
as Candide's ; who turns up in Frederick's painting- 
days, and be&iends him in various emergencies, gets 
his father off a trial for bigamy, and our hero himself 
off a platfonn when he breaks down in a lecture, 
consoles him on the marriage of his first love with 
the remark : * You have missed Lucy somehow, but 
not the dream of your youth : you will never frown 
upon her because the joint is overdone, or the linen 
not mended ; * who sings him the finest of songs, and 
givee him the wisest oi counsel — except on the subject 



of astrology, and the partiality of Providence for red- 
haired people. 

Then we have quaint pictures of the goings on of 
an * unco righteous family, startling pictures of lives 
of blood and darkness, comic pictures of the whims 
and caprices, the failings and follies of men of the 
brush and men of the pen. We have glimpses of the 
homes of two brothers who had made their fortune in 
the slave-trade, one of whom turns to the deaconship 
of a chapel, the other to rum and limes, for consolation 
in his old days. We have sketches of mercenary love, 
hypocritical love, revengeful love, love to the wrong 
person. We have the portrait of a son unconsciously 
engaged in taking down his father's trial for bigamy. 
We nave — but type and paper fail us to tell more 
than that we have the promise of another novel from 
the author, who, in the person of Frederick Favour- 
sham, thus addresses the reader : * Having told my 
own tale, it would please me to tell some other' 
people's whom I have mentioned in the course of it» 
thus taking a hint from the lady of the Arabiam^ 
NightSy to prolong my literary life.' 

We think that that capncious calif, the Public., 
will be as pleased to listen to Frances Browne's 
stories as she will be to relate them ; and as one of 
the ministers of his royal pleasure, we promise, whei^ 
his majesty next yawns, to clap our hands, an^ 
usher in for his diversion the author of My SJuire o/* 
the World. 

THE QUEER LODGER 

Emma and I did not exactly run away; it was no't- 
requisite, for nobody would have gone in chase ; bu't 
we concluded a match of our own making, in spite of 
the good advices and evil prophecies of all our friendis 
and relations. I was an under-clerk in Barclay's 
Bank, with a salary of eighty pounds a year. Emmsu 
had no fortune but herself : and it was enough for e^ 
better man. My home was with three maidera. 
aunts, who required to know where my odd sixpences 
went; hers was with a step-mother and six Btej>^ 
sisters. We had waited for something to turn upi» 
till both began to see that we were not growing, 
younger; and after talking it over for some woeks^ 
we came to the desperate resolution of facing povert3?^ 
together. My aunts thought I should have waiter- 
ten or twelve years, and got into a better connection.^ 
Emma's step-mother found out that she might hav^^ 
had old Saunders, who was just retiring from busi — 
ness with fifty thousand and the gout; but our min< 
were made up. I went for the licence. They all gav 
us their blessings, together with the comfortabl 
assurance that we had nobody but ourselves to blame 
and the business was done at Marylebone Church on 
Saturday morning. 

Having advised and prophesied to no purpose, tb 
relatives on both sides left us to our own resourcesB- 
We had been genteelly brought up. Emma's fatli( 
was an artist, and mine had been a barrister. Th< 
was spirit enough between us to maintain a respect 
able appearance, and owe nobody anything, wbatevi 
the indoor deficiencies might be ; so we took a 
in Adelaide Place, St John's Wood, furnished it 
all the money I had saved, and made great endeiu-^ 
vours to let our first-floor. All the acquaintances wh 
called to see if we were not starving, were shewn th_ 
drawing-rooms, back and front, with all their advnxm^ ' 
tages of air and outlook. All the bank-clerks ^ 
knew were asked to come and see them; all tlk-^ 
tradesmen with whom we dealt were advertised o0- 
the subject; and at last ^irs Lesley — I mean n^^ 
Emma — consented to put a card in the window; ^ 



I ; 






CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



885 



remained there so long without any effect, that we 
were beginning to despair of a lodger. Adelaide 
Place, though quiet ana genteel, was rather out of 
the way for men of business, and not frequented by 
aingle ladies in search of apartments. The first 
qoarter^B rent became due, and still our rooms 
remained empty. The second was drawing on, and 
my poor girl was thinking of doing without the char- 
woman who acted as our temporary servant, when 
one evening, towards the end of September, as I 
returned home from business, she met me with a 
joyful countenance, and the annoimcement that the 
dnwing-room was let. A single gentleman had called 
that afternoon, liked the rooms, did not object to the 
rent, left a deposit, and was to take possession on 
the following evening. 

' I'm sure he's a German, from his manner of 
speaking,' said Enmia. 'He did not teU me where 
he had been lodging, nor why he wished to move 
so quiddy; but the rooms have long been empty, 
and ne looks respectable.' 

Highly respectable his two references assured us 
he was. One of them was a bill-broker living near 
Capel Court, the other was an attorney in Ohanccrv 
Lane, and both were very like Jews. He himself 
was not Hebraic, although unprepossessing. He was a 
thin man, and would have been tall but for a stoop, 
which seemed habitual to him. His face, his hair, 
his whiskers, and his moustaches — for he wore that 
continental ornament — were all of a whity- brown 
colour; his features were, every one, large, except 
the eyes, which were small, keen, and cunning ; and 
he had a slow, civil manner of talking and moving 
about. Though a German, he was our tellow-subject, 
being a native of Hanover — for mv story takes place 
before the accession of her present Majesty. His name 
was George Neffer. His nabits and dress were those 
of a well-to-do man ; there was evidently no want of 
money troubling him, though he followed no business. 
His rent was punctually paid; he found very few 
fmltB, was easily serv^, kept no late hours, and 
was, on the whole, a first-rate specimen of the 
genua lodger. 

I don't think letting a first-floor necessarily makes 
people curious, but it does afford them special oppor- 
innitioa of Studying their neighbours' affairs. Ijnma 
and I had business enough of our own in the way of 
making both ends meet, and were inclined to mind 
it ; but for the lives of us we could not help taking 
note of the gentleman in the drawing-room. He 
had no visitors, and got very few letters. He never 
went to church, but frequented the theatre and 
other places of public amusement. Sometimes he 
was out, night after night, for weeks together, then 
he would suddenly stay fast at home, tiU the going- 
oat fit came on again. As I have said, he foUowea 
no business, and, when within doors, his time was 
tqpent in playing the German flute, reading news- 
papers, and entertaining himself with a sort of 
German nine-pins, which it appeared he could play 
alone. These were the observations of the first few 
weeks ; but as the evenings grew longer, we noticed 
he had ways of his own which were still more 
peculiar. Though generally slow-going and quiet, 
oe would sometimes come to our door with a knock 
like one pursued by his enemies, especially after dark ; 
and when it was opened, he would rush in with such 
haste and terror, tnat we were often on the point of 
aaking what had frightened him. At times, too, as 
we . sat by our parlour-tire, Emma at work, and I 
reading, we would hear him jump from his seat, open 
his room-door, and run half-way aown stairs : there he 
would stop for a minute or two as if to take breath, 
and then go leisurely back to his paper or nine-pins. 
Emma to& me tiiat he had often a frightened look 
when idle went to see about his breakfast in the 
morning, and it was soon evident that he did not rest 
well at jiight ; we could hear him moving about and 



lighting his candle at all hours; indeed, at last he 
kept it burning the whole night, and we came to 
the conclusion that Mr Neffer was rather a queer 
gentleman. 

Our lodger had been civil from the first, but as 
the winter drew on, he became positively friendly, 
lingered to talk with us on all occasions, told us tno 
news of the day, made us trifling presents, offered 
the loan of anything he had, and was particularly 
attentive not to give Emma trouble. In our frequent 
chats, we observed that he took opportunities to 
reflect on his own loneUnesa; he did not care for 
sitting down to meals by himself — it was a cheerless 
thing to be the only one at a table. I ventured to 
hint once or twice that our first-floor might accommo- 
date two, and a man with means and sense was not 
bound to live alone ; but Mr Neffer would not hear 
that, and his drift was at length made clear; for 
one day, in my absence, he proposed to Emma, in 
the most direct manner, to board with us, and 
become one of the family. Whatever she may want 
of beauty, fortune, oi' connections, no man wul ever 
regret marrying a sensible woman. Mrs Lesley told 
me our lodger^s proposal that evening, and her own 
opinion of it. * He 's a strange man, Charles, and has 
strange ways. I don't think there are any bad inten- 
tions in his mind towards us. He's a good lodger, 
and the rent is useful ; but there is something al^ut 
him that I should not like to sit down with always. 
We don't know what he has been; he has got 
nothing to do, and that frightened look of his makes 
me doubt his head is not quite steady; in short, 
Charles, I think we are better by ourselves.' 

I felt exactly as Emma did on the subject ; and 
being a good oeal the cunninger of the two — not an 
uncommon case for all that is said to the contrary — I 
advised her to lay the responsibility of refusal on my 
reserved habits and dislike of strangers. Emma said 
she could not help pitying him, he looked so dis- 
appointed and downcast at our determination to do 
without his company ; and I observed that he paid me 
particular attention ever after, as if to remove my 
objections to his strangership. 

He must have thought lumself succeeding remark- 
ably well in this endeavour, for before the uiort days 
of mid- winter came we had grown familiar, and almost 
confidentiaL He asked me up to his room ; he came 
down to chat in our parlour; and, whether by accident 
or design I cannot say, but he often met me on m^ 
way home from business. One Saturday evening — it 
was in the beginning of December, a clear, frosty 
night, and I was postmg along the Queen's Road to 
Emma — he overtook me, and seemed strongly inclined 
to talk ; indeed, I had latterly thou^t he had some- 
thing particular to say, and now it was evidently 
cominf . He drew close up to my side. There was 
scarcely a soul to be seen along that quiet road, but 
the bright fires flashed up from all the Idtehens with 
the sounds and odours of preparing tea. 

* A nice quiet neighbourhood tms,' said Mr Neffer. 
' I suppose there is never anything troublesome or 
impleasant happening here; no house-breakers, no 
followers after people for bad purposes, you under- 
stand ;' and he looked at me with nis keen cunning eyes. 

* I don't know ; I 've never heard of the like.' 

'0 yes, but tiiey do come,' he said hastily; 'I 
have been troubled that way myself, and you must 
know it, Mr Lesley. Haven't you seen him ? ' 

*Who?' saidL 

'That old man that won't keep away from 
me!' and he crouched in closer to my side. *He 
follows me home through the streets at night, 
and he gets in, and comes up staurs; you must have 
seen him. And, Mr Lesley, if you would only keep 
him out — ^talk to him, bid mm go away, I have money 
to spare, and I jshould not mind giving a hundred 
pounds or so. Would not that be of use to you ? ' 

We were hard by a gas-lamp; the man was looking 



286 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



me straight in the face, and speaking in a low husky 
tone, with a terrible touch of fear in it. I felt 
convinced that our lodger would soon get apart- 
ments at Colney Hatch, or some other convenient 
asylum ; his manner was so alarming that the 
hair under my hat began to rise, and it was with no 
small perturbation that I assured him I had seen no 
old man coming about our house, at the same time 
inquiring what the intruder was like. That question 
all at once changed Mr Neffer's tune, and seemed to 
put him unaccountably on his ^ard. 

' Oh, he *8 just an old acquaintance of mine, out of 
his mind, I think ! Dear me, what a cold night it is ! ' 
—and he went off in a dissertation on the weather, 
which lasted till we reached the door. * Here,* said 
he, thrusting a little paper into my hand, as I stepped 
over the threshold ; * oblige mo by taking it ; you 
have been kind to me ;' and before I could say a word, 
he had run up stairs and shut his door. 

The present was a very handsome but old-fashioned 
watch, with chain, key, and seal, all of solid gold, 
except that the signet was a bloodstone, on ^mich 
was engraved the figure of a mermaid with a scroll in 
her hand. It was a valuable gift, and I knew it 
meant silence on the subject of our conversation. 
That was the only secret I ever kept from. Enmia. 
My poor girFs health was delicate that winter ; she 
had much anxiety about our straitened means, and 
besides my conviction of losing our lodger in the 
manner b^ore mentioned, his words had struck such 
a strange terror to my own heart, that I resolved not 
to frighten her with them. The gift oi; the watch, 
however, was made public. It was a capital time* 
keeper, of old Grerman make, and had somebody's 
name, so effaced that I could not read it, inside the 
case. Emma spent a great many dajrs wondering 
why Mr Neffer nad parted with it, for though weU 
supplied, he was not liberal ; but the gentleman and 
I were naturally greater friends than before, and it 
is unnecessary to say my supervision over his doings 
was vigilant and special 

For some time, nothing remarkable rewarded my 
vigilance. He went on much as usual, and there 
was no further news regarding the old man. I had 
begun to persuade myselfthat it was aR ridbt, and that 
Mr Neffer was only a little eccentric. Moreover, I 
thought proper to exhibit his present at the bank, as 
my own watch, being originally a cheap one, had gone 
permanently out of order. The golden magnificence 
was, I must confess, produced whenever occasion 
served, and greatly adnured by my mates of the desk, 
but by none, I fancied, more than Mr Rensall, the 
head-clerk of our department. He was a silent, 
punctual man, who said little and did much. He had 
a steady look, black hair, which was getting grizzled, 
and a manner which kept the most conceited of the 
clerks in awe. They had a tale that his family had 
becoi bankers, or doing bank business for seven gene- 
rations, and that they had come over from Hanover 
with the fir^ of the Georgest Mr Rensall was a man 
in great authority over us, and feeling flattered that 
he should admire my watch, I lost no opportunity in 
letting him see it. He evidently had some thoughte of 
his own about it, but said nothing, till one day, when 
I happened to be sitting alone making out vouchers 
for Calcutta, and the head-clerk had business at my 
desk. The watch had been referred to, but as a 
matter of convenience, for its novelty was wearing 
off my mind. 

' You have a handsome watch, Mr Lesley,' he said, 
with tincommon condescension — ' allow me to look at 
it. Quite a gem of its kind, of the old Gottin^en 
make,^' he continued, examining my present, but with 
more of scrutiny than admiration m his look; 'it 
must have cost you a considerable sum.' 

I felt bound to rebut the charge of extravagance, 
and immediately informed the head-clerk how and 
wheze I had oome by iL 



' Oh, from your lodger ! ' said he, letaming the watch 
to my hand. * He must have a great respect for you,^ 
and also be a man of some wealui, to gjre ama.y suclh^ 
a valuable watch.' 

It was not often that Mr Rensall chatted so mucl^ 
with one of his inferiors. I was pleased, and honoured^ 
and knowing he had some innuence in the way o^ 
reconmiendi^ for promotion, I gave him fuU parti-> 
culars regardmg our gentleman in the drawin£-roomt, 
always excepting the prospects of Colney Hatcm. Mx' 
Rensall listenea with gx^at affability, said he wae 
glad to hear we had such an agreeable lodger, and 
wished me good-morning. After that, he never failed 
to take friendly notice of me at the bank ; I rose 
immensely in the estimation of my brother-dlerks in 
consequence ; and there was a general impiression on 
their minds, that Lesley must have sood connections. 
These omens of good-luck were baEuiced by home- 
signs of a less encouraging character. Enmia was 
not getting stronger, wmto: wants and prices were 
telling on our slender income, and oar loo^mr^s mani- 
festations of an approach to the strait-waistcoat 
began to increase. His frightened knocks and ruM 
into the passage became more frequent ; he burned 
two candles now every night ; and as t^e new year 
came in, a singular addition was made to his stock 
of queemess, for we heard him conversing very 
earnestly when there was not a soul in the rooms bat 

It was one of those nights, wet, windy, and cold, 
which come in the dreariest part of the London 
winter. Ihad returned home late, and poor Emma had 
got a sad headache ; so she left me, for the first time, 
sitting by our fire alone, and went up stairs to try 
and sleep it off I had been reading about the settle* 
ment of the Belgium question in the Morning Adver* 
tUei'a leading article, and was not much interested. 
There was not a sound in the house but the wind 
and rain that beat against the windows ; our maid 
seemed to be asleep m her territory below, and I 
crept up stairs to see how my poor girl rested. 9ie 
was fast asleep. I closed the door softly, and nu 
stealing down, when, on the first-fioor lobby, my e» 
was caught by Mr Neffer in one of his conversations. 
I don't admire the character of an eaves-dropper, and 
never had much inclination to imitate Paul Fry ; but 
nothing in this world could have taken me past that 
door without seeing what was going on inside. With* 
out further ceremony, then, my candle was set down, 
and my eye was at the keyhole. Mr Neffer sat on 
one side of his fire, looking steadily at the other, 
where there stood an empty sofa. I nev^ saw such 
fixed and frozen terror in any face ; but his iHiite 
lips moved, and his words came slowly, as if he were 
talking to somebody who sat there, and would answer 
him. 

* I'll give up your money to your heirs, if yon only 
name them ; out don't come here — don't come after 
me ! You know it was not my fault that you fell in ! ' 
Here ho stopped, as if some one spoke in reply ; but 
there was neither voice nor sound that I could hear. 
'That's true; I don't deny it,' he said in a sort of 
moan. ' I should have helped you out, but I did not ! 
It 's all over now thou^ ; and I served you faith- 
fully for nearly twenty years. What good does it do 
to come after me this way ?' 

Mv knees were positively beginning to shake witii 
the thought of whom he might be talkmg to, but theire 
was nothing to be seen. I had a good conscienoe, 
and was taking up my candle with wat comfort, and 
the conviction that my wealthy lodger could 8can)dy 
boast of the same, when a thundering knook at 
the street-door startled our maid, to the great demoli- 
tion of crockery-ware, as a crash from the kitchot 
testified, made Emma jump from her bed^ asod, 
brought me scouring down stairs. What was my 
amazement on opening it to see policeman A ol thiie 
D division, whom I partially knew, becaoae his beat 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



287 



-was at the bank, accompanied by two tall men in 
foreign unif oim. 

' Yeiy aorry, Mr Lesley/ said he, * but we have a 
wanrant acainat yonr first-floor lodger.' 
' What for ? ' said I, holding the door. 
*A charge of murder!* said the policeman. *He 
has been traced from Hanover. These are two 
of the police come for him : you have nothing to do 
m the badness but let us pass. 

Here our maid, having sot up just in time to see 
the policeman and catch 5ie word murder, opened 
such a fire of screams as made me run to bundle her 
down staiiVt lest she should alarm the neighbourhood. 
In this I aocceeded, with the help of Thnma, who had 
come down to see what was the matter ; and when 
I got back, the policemen were in the first-floor. I 
heard them talking in Nefler's room ; but it was not 
long before he came down with them as quietly as any 
man could, and upon m^ word, looking less frightened 
thaa he did while talkmg to the empty sofa. When 
they were fairly outside, A of the D division stepped 
back to me : 

* Mr Lesley, you got a watch from that gentleman ; 
and if yon please, it muat be given up to the Hanover 
police. — I was bidden, sir,' he added in a lower key, 
' to tell you in private that Mr Rensall would make 
up any loaa you might come to : he is a principal 
party m this business.' 

I gave up the watch without further parley ; and 
they marched off with our lodger. But that was a 
woeful nifht for Emma and me. Our moid held on 
at what we justly called the *• screeching stirks ' — I 
honestly believe, to efface the memory of the broken 
crockery — for a couple of hours, at the end of which 
time I had to see her home to her mother, the laundrcs^ 
who dwelt half a mile off in Clarence Lane. Then 
the respectability of our house had been endangered ; 
our <ir»wing.room gentieman was gone, and with him 
the weekly rent. The prospect was not overbright ; 
bat things might have been worse. The wind 
prevented our neighbours from hearing Mary-Ann's 
performance. The affair did not appear at any length 
m the newspapers, which merely stated that a 
Hanoverian, accused of murder, had been arrested at 
a house in St John's Wood. So we kept our own 
coonsel ; and if our ex-maid edified Clarence Lane on 
tibe subject, the sound of her trumpet did not reach 
oar ears; for having got her wages in advance, 
the young lady's health continued too delicate to 
return. 

We were wondering what we should do ; both our 
minds were made up against letting, we had got 
enouglh of that ; and i l^A gone to my desk at tb.e 
bank for weeks without seeing Mr Rensall — ^whose 
duties were being performed by a deputy-clerk; 
bat one morning there he was, silent and punctual 
as ever. ' Glad to see you again, Mr Lesley,' he said ; 
*will you dine with me this evening at the London 
Tavern ? — ^we have some matters to talk over.' 

I dropped Emma a note, to prevent her waiting for 
me, and went to dinner, with some hope, and more 
curiosity. Of course it was a private room ; but Mr 
Rensall talked of nothing except the markets and 
the weather, till we were sitting over the port, and 
then he commenced explanations. 

* You remember your lodger and your watch, Mr 
Lesley?' 
I assented. 

*" Well, as the story concerns myself, I will tell it 
from the beginning. My family were Hanoverians ; 
they emigrated to this country with the old Elector, 
commonly called George I., whose private banking 
busineas they did till the end of his days. RoysJ 
fsYonr and employment passed from them, however, 
as the Houae of Brunswick took root in England ; but 
they continued to be connected more or less with 
bmIua^ which seems to have been tiie family vocation. 
In piinraanoe of it, my father's only brother returned to 



his parent-country about fifty years ago, estabUshed 
himself at Gottingen, and in process of time Rensall'a 
bank did all the money-business of that steady and 
flourishing town. The pareute and guardians of 
stndente who come there m)m all parts of the north of 
Germany, sent their supplies through it ; the merchants 
vested their profits, and got their bills discounted 
there. In short, it was a safe concern ; and thou^ 
my uncle always kept the oversight and chief manage- 
ment in his own hand, he took m partners with less 
capital to do the daily work, and lived retired in lus 
latter years. His house was one of the oldest in the 
town, and had formed part of an ancient nunnery. 
It had grated shutters, a granaiy with a great hand- 
mill in it, and a deep draw-well in the 3rard. With 
these appliances a^inst a siege, he lived a strict 
and economical bachelor, his household consisting of 
his confidential clerk and his old housekeeper, with 
her son the errand-boy. 

*Hifl confidential clerk was named Peter Brantz, the 
orphan son of a notary, who had neither means nor 
mind enough to follow his father's profession. He 
had been with him for nineteen years, and could 
speak English as well as Grerman, for my uncle not 
only retamed the language of his youth, but did a 
considerable business m English bills. Brantz knew 
all the secrete of the firm, and it was thought the 
old man could not do without him, though they had 
frequent disputes, chiefly on the subjecte of work and 
perquisites, which rather increased as master and 
clerk grew older. I was my uncle's heir-at-law. We 
had been always on friendly terms, and I visited him 
every summer ; but his house would not have been an 
agreeable residence, and it was his special policy to 
keep his relations at a distance. The last letter I 
had from him was at the Christmas-time, about five 
years ago, and the old man never wrote another. On 
Christmas Eve, he allowed old Betine, his house- 
keeper, and her son to go and make merry with a 
friend of theirs who lived in the outskirte of the 
town, at the same time sapng that he and his clerk 
would go to spend the Christoias at the house of a 
wealthy miller, about an English mile from Crottingen, 
with whom he had an old mendship. When Betine 
and her son returned, they found the house still shut 
up, though it was the day after Christmas. No 
knocking could obtain admission; back and front 
doors and windows were fast ; and after waiting and 
wondering the half of the day, the authorities were 
applied to, and an entrance effected. The house was 
foimd all in order; drawers, cupboards, everything 
stood undisturbed, but neither master nor clerk was 
to be seen, and on inquiry at the miller's house, it 
was ascertained that tney had not been there. A 
woodman going to his home late in the winter even- 
ing, had seen two men answering to their description 
on the banks of the Leine. The river was dragged, 
the tovm was searched, the province was advertised* 
but neither clerk nor master could be heard of. My 
uncle's partners were keen men of business; his 
death could not be proved, and they rcfosed to 
receive or acknowledge me as heir, till the time 
idlowed by the laws of BEanover expired. The bank 
remained in their hands ; the landlord of my uncle's 
house let it to a Lutheran clei^gyman, with a lar;^ 
family. It was the general impression that on their 
way to the miller's house, which passed by the pre- 
cipitous banks of the river, the old man might h&ve 
slipped and fsdlen in, and his confidential clerk, in 
att^pting to assist, was probably drowned with him. 
One thing, however, puzzled me and the partners: 
notwithstanding the undisturbed state of the house, 
several English bonds and securities which my uncle 
was known to have kept in his own possession were 
nowhere to be found. ¥ ears jwssed, and I discovered 
that those missing bonds were in the market, and had 
been realised by somebody. My faith had never been 
firm in the drowning of xdb confidential clerk, but all 



288 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



my inouiries failed to find the sUshtest account of 
him, tul you produced that remaraahle watch one 
day in Barclay's bank. My uncle had often ahewn 
it to me as a rare and valuable pledge left in his 
hands by an officer of the Hessian troops in the 
service of England, who never appeared to redeem 
it. I knew that, however the watch had come into 
your hands, there was the key of the mystery. 
Yoiir description of your first-floor lodger tallied 
exactly with i^t of reter Brantz. I lost no time, 
in conveying information to the Gottingcn police. 
He was traced out and arrested, as y^ou know. There 
might have been some difficulty in setting clear 
evidence against him, but he saved us idl trouble by 
volunteering a full confession. It was to the effect 
that on the Christmas Eve, when he and his master 
were alone in the house, the old man, whose mind 
had begun to fail him, reopened a charge he had 
against tiie clerk of throwing the kev of a certain 
drawer where his small-change was kept into the 
draw-well in the yard. Peter declared himself guilt- 
less of th&t fact; but it seems my poor uncle had 
taken a notion of looking into the well, and always 
recurred to it when the key turned up in his memory. 
He had gone out by himself while Peter was up stairs, 
and whUe looking, must have fallen in. The clerk 
heard his cries for help, but did not come down; and 
when all was over, he accommodated himself with 
the English bonds, as the least likdy to lead to 
detection ; shut up the house when the streets were 
quiet; and set off on foot from Gottingcn to the 
north. About Hambiirg and the Elbe country he 
spent some time, till the search had gone by ; then 
came to England, realised the bonds, and lived rich 
and idle; but he protested that wherever he went 
to lodge or live, tne old man haunted him ; and it 
was in hopes of getting rid of his company, that he 
01 ve you the watch, tnat he had taken from among 
the bonds, with which it was kept. Parting with it 
did not serve his purpose ; he said the old man came 
oftener than ever. On the strength of his confes- 
sion, the well was examined by the Gottingcn police. 
The honest clergyman had covered it wiw a broad 
flagstone, because there came such an unpleasant 
odour from it in summer-time that he thought the 
old convent sewers might have emptied themselves 
there ; but the bones were found wedged in the 
mouth of an ancient aqueduct, twelve feet below 
the surface. There was no leeal evidence to convict 
Brantz of the murder, but we robbery was clear 
ajgainst him, and he was condemned to htuxl labour in 
the public works; and the curious part of the business 
is, that since his conviction, he has been entirely 
freed from the visits of his former master.' 

' Well,' said I, * one ought not to believe in old 
women's tales about ghosts and the like, but somehow 
I think he was haunted ; ' and I related the doings and 
sayin^^ which had frightened myself. 

'There was no haunting in the case,' said Mr 
Bensall. ' Your lodger had an idle life, a weak head, 
and a burdened conscience — which micht well enough 
accoiuxt for the ghost as an illusion of his brain ; yet 
the result was singular. But let us to business. The 
proof of m^r uncle's death being now clear, I inherit 
his interest in the Gottingcn bank, and intend to open 
a correspondine-house in London, with some English 
partners. WiS you accept the position of head-clerk 
m it, Mr Lesley ?' 

It is unnecessary to say that I agreed, and have 
been head-clerk in the bank of Bensall & Co. for 
five-and-twenty jem. During the greater part of 
that time, our rdations have been holding up Emma 
and me as patterns of wisdom and prudence to their 
families. Of course, we never let our first-floor now ; 
and the handsome Geneva watch which Mr Rensall 
^ve me in exchange for his unde's, keeps capital 
time ; but Emma says she can never look at it witnout 
recollecting our Queer Lodger. 




COAL-OIL PABISH LAMPS. 

It is now some time since the volatile oil, obtained b: 
distilling coal and coal-tar, has been applied in place 
animal oil, in producing light Large quantities of thi. 
fluid are prepared at once from the gobI in Scotland, an« 

much is also obtained by distilling coal-tar. When 

it is limpid and colourless, and closely resembles, if ^ ^ 
be not identical with, naphtha. A large district aboi:^^^ 
Fitzroy Square and Charlotte Street has been lighted b:^;^ 
this fluid, burned in lamps particularly constructed for ; ^ 
by Major Cochrane ; they are patent, as well also as tT^^ 
application of the oil to this purpose. The flame in the^^ 
lamps is very short, but extremely bright, and certains 7j 
far surpasses a common street gas-flame in that respect, 
if it does not also an Argand -burner supplied by coal-gas. 
It has happened now and then, when the wick has been 
too high, and the oil used has been obtuned from coal-tar, 
that the flame has smoked, the wick become charred, and 
at times so much vapour has collected in the lamp, as at 
last to explode and burst it to pieces : but this has Dot 
happened with the Scotch oil The lamps in the district 
above mentioned have now been in use for a considerable 
time, and are found to be attended with perfect succesR. 
— Quarterly Journal of Science, Literatwre, and (he 
Arts, voL xL 1821. 



OUR VILLAGE AT DAYBREAK. 

'Tis daybreak over the village ; I look from the rustic ion, 
And watch the widening sunshine its day*s bright march 

begin, 
As the burnished clouds turn fiery red, and the lark 

awakes his kin. 

In the very heart of the village, where the double hammer 

rings. 
You hear the joyful blackbird in the parson's croft that 

sings. 
Where the thankless wasp sucks at the grapes, yet while 

they feed him, stings. 

The cobbler, up an hour ere dawn, carols long psalms all 

through. 
Stitching away with piying eyes at the miller's daughters 

shoe; 
She's the deftest foot in the country-side, and beauty 

enough for two. 

The wagon-team went jingling out a good halt-hour ago; 
The sturdy lad, who smacked the whip, seemed to be all 

of a glow ; 
The ploughman's horses stride along, broad-chested, in > 

row. 

The cock crows shrill ; the lark is up, the rooks are loud on 

the tree ; 
The flowers are out ; the brook chirps on, each happj in 

its degree ; 
And the ripples of red run over the sky as the wind 

shouts in its glee. 

Now the doors slip back their trusty bolts, and the shntteis 

rattle down ; 
Glad faces look up at the morning sky, and voices fill the 

town, 
While drowsy girls at the village pump brim up the 

pitcher brown. 

Day 's up ; and I must sally out for many a happy mil^ 
Through flowery lanes, by river-sides, resting at many * 

stile 
(A vagrant artist, on the tramp), and singing all the 

while. X. X* 

Printed and Published by W. & R Ghahbrbs, 47 Fi^ 
noster Bow, Lomdok, and :X3& High Street, EDlKlOStJ^ 
Also sold by Wiluam Kobebtson, 23 Upper Saflk^ill^ 
Street, DUBUN, and all Booksellers. 



S tit net anb ^ris. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 384. 



SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1861. 



Price Hd, 






A VOLUNTEER CENSUSTAKER, 

I WAS not paid for it, or I would be the very last man 
to compUun of it I did my duty for the first time in 
my life (being a lawyer) without a fee ; and I at 
least bave the right to speak about it I can't have 
been bound over to secrecy, because I never com- 
mitted myself in i^-riting : as to being restrained from 
feelings of honour and so forth, there was not one 
word about that in the Census paper from beginning 
to end. 

The Artisan Rifle Volunteer Company in our town 
were in distress for knickerbockers. They had no 
money to buy them with, and it was plain that they 
could not defend their hearths and homes in mere 
trousers. Wo lawyers, therefore, agreed to deliver 
and call for the Census papers without pecuniary 
recompense, in order that the money allowed by 
government for that purpose should be set aside for 
]aocuiing the indispensable patriotic equipments. 
Thus it was that I became an eniunerator of the 
people. 

By Friday the 6th of April, the day preceding the 
commencement of this duty, I began to feel somewhat 
too overwhelmingly impressed with the sense of its 
importance. Upon the result of the Census, we had 
been officially informed, would depend the figure which 
Great Britain would make for the next seven years in 
the eyes of the world. Napoleon III. would be decided 
by it as to whether it would be expedient to make a 
dash at the British metropolis or not. The Emperor 
of the French, in fact, was waiting with hand on hilt 
lot me! If the return I sent up should be inaccurate, 
there was no knowing what dire effects might not 
spring from it. If under the mark, the very knicker- 
bockers might not be turned out from the tailors' 
hands in time to repel invasion ; if above the mark, 
the government of my country might be induced to 
take some presumptuous step which our numerical 
strength did not in reality warrant. I could do cmn- 
pound addition — pounds, shillings, and pence — pretty 
wen ; but as to enumerating people — men, women, 
and children — I had never tried my fingers at it, and 
distrusted my powers. Punch (the liquid) restored 
my self-confidence, but at night I had a tremendous 
nii^tmare. I dreamed that I was one of Mr 
Babbage's calculating-machines, with a pebble in my 
interior putting all the machinery out of order. 

There were some hundreds of houses included in 
my particular beat, and several of them were very 
queer ones. A ' si)orting public ' was one of them, 
where the money for approaching prize-fights was 
always advertised to bo 'ready' in disrespectable 
aewspi^pen, and in the backyard of which all sorts of 



iniquities were said to go on. Skittles, with a 
glass of spirits placed between each couple of pins, 
was, by comparison, a drawing-room amusement 
there ; while dog-fighting was a daily practice. It 
was a place, in short, which, if I had had ihy way, 
should have been levelled to the earth, and the site of 
it sown with gunpowder; one which the military 
should have been called in to clear with bayonets fixed, 
and without regard to sex or age. Yet the Three- 
legged Duck, I, as a numberer of the people, was bound 
to enter that morning; /, who at the same matu- 
tinal hour was usually up at the Court-house, in a 
white cravat, pleading — with an artificial head of hair 
— the purest interests of justice and civilisation. I 
had once, too, been personally instrumental in getting 
Mr Hookey Barnes, the landlord, convicted of some 
offence which consigned him to a year's retirement — 
combined with healthfiU but compulsory exercise — 
from public life ; and an interview with that gentle- 
man was therefore fraught with peculiar embarrass- 
ment He was standing at his own door, smoking a 
coal-black pipe, and wiSi one of his eyes, as usual, in 
mourning, and watched me as I came up the street, 
performing my official duties, with a sardonic leer. I 
did not waste my time upon him with any reference 
to the beauty of the day, or the general mildness of 
the season, but at once presented the document with 
which I was charged. 

' No,* said he, waving me away with a gesture of 
disgust ; * not if I knows it I never takes papers 
from anybody's hand — not I. How do I know as it 
mayn't be a writ ? * 

* It is the Census paper, Mr Barnes.' 

*How do I know whether that ain't a he, now?' 
replied that gentleman. *Why, your very trade is 
lying' — it was thus he spoke of tiie honourable profes- 
sion of barrister-at-lnw — * and you know it is ; no one 
better. I say, Sambo.' 

At these words, an enormous negro — ^the darkness of 
whose visage was much intensified by a huge strip of 
white plaster, sanguineous at the edges, which crossed 
it diagonally — came out of the passage, bringing with 
him (in addition to the aroma jieculiar to his race) a 
gush of perfume from the house, the combined frag- 
rance of many ends of bad cigars, and of remains of 
flat, but doubtless not unprofitable beer. 

* Tracks be blowed ! * was his observation upon 
catching sight of the Census paper. * A man and a 
brother,' he had doubtless often been the object of 
misplaced missionary effort 

' It is the Census paper, my good friends,' said I, in 
a tone of conciliation ; although, I confess, my heart 
was not exactly yearning towards either of them. 
The black man shewed his teeth — as many of theoi, at 



290 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



least, as the knuckles of the spoiler had spared. The 
landlord expectorated contemptnoosly. 

'And suppose/ said he, * I don't choose to take in 
the p{^)er ? ' 

* Yon will be fined five pounds,' returned I, with 
some little warmth. 

* And supxKme I don't pay it ? ' inqoired he, with 
increased insolence. 

* Then you 'U go to jail, as you did hrfore^ answered 
I in a rage. 

I never shall forget the demoniaoal change that 
came over that man's countenance— and he had not 
been pretty before. His blxu;k eye in }>articnlar 
seemed to be shot with a malicious green. 

* Very well,' remarked he with calm ferocity ; ' you 
know him now. Sambo. You'll not foieet lum. All 
rieht. You'll kaow what to do with him, I think, 
when opportunity offers. Good. I don't thmk you 'U 
ever come round with another Census paper, Mr 
CounseL' 

It was evident that the ruffian was darkly hinting 
that I should meet with a violent death within the 
next ten vears; but I smiled contemptuously upon 
him and his myrmidon as he took tne paper, and 
proceeded with my duty elsewhere, although perhaps 
in a somewhat lower stratum of animal spirits. I 
should have been still more desponding, if I had fore- 
seen that my reputation as well as my life was to be 
endangered through that interview. It has since 
been averred that I delight in low company, and have 
become a habitual dnmkard; for I was seen on a 
Saturday morning, before eleven, * coming out of the 
Thrte-l^ged Duac ;^ nor was the circumstance want- 
ing to the falsehood, for it is added, *and wiping 
his mouth with the back of his hand.' 

Again, but a few doors further on, my moral char- 
acter was exposed to another shock of a different but 
not less dish-essing nature. I was endeavouring to 
impress the importance of my official nussion upon 
the unintelligent domestic of Miss Maostinger — a 
lady of uncertain age, but unmistakably from the 
north — ^when her mistiness, leaning over the balusters 
of the stairs, informed me (in the Aberdeen tongue) 
that no followers were allowed in ker house, and least 
of all at that time in tbe morning, to the hindrance of 
work. She added that I had better be off, since the 
policeman had already got his orders to keep an eye 
on me, this not being the first time, by many, tliat 
she had watched me lurkins about the house with 
amatory intentions. Even wnssa I had explained to 
this dreadful woman the real circumstances of the 
case, she was by no means to be driven from her first 
position. 'It's all verra weel, young man; but I 
dinna fa' under this heading' — and she pointed to a 
column of the Census paper — 'I am neither deaf 
nor blind; and 111 just thank you to leave our 
Jeanie alane for the future.' 

She talked so loud, and seemed so thoroughly to 
believe in her own scandalous suspicicms, t£it the 
perspiration stood upon my forehead ere I left her 
door. Having a strip of garden at the back of her 
house, and ensagLng a boy to weed it once a fortnight, 
she set those circumstances (as I afterwards discovered) 
down in her Return, as the statement of her position 
in life as an eipployer of labour. Also, there beine 
plenty of room in the document, after she had described 
thcrem herself and Jeanie, she occupied it with some 
severe strictures upon the government for supposing 
it possible (as it did bv the terms of the paper) that 
anybody belonging to her should be either travelling 
or out at work upon a Sabbath evening. 

This lady's Return was, however, Tucid and prac- 
tical, compared with that of some householders A her 
sex ; one of whom had the temerity to put ' Engaged,' 
and another ' Interestinff,' under the head of Condition. 
Xike Miss Macatinger, uie majority of them seemed to 



be averse to leave any unoccopied space in the record, 
and filled it ap witii domestic mtelligence that was by 
no means re<inired; or furnished us with volantaiy 
contributions to these /ToumAoU TToreif, in portions of 
their past bic^riH?^^ "f> ' Formerly in good eircnm- 
stances,' or, ' Formerlv living in the Isle of Man, but 
now in Ehigland for educational purposes.' The babies 
were set down as 'scholars,' because thejr had learned 
to say Pap-pap, ' in the course of regular tuition at 
home.' 

It is certain that the gentle sex took no little pride 
in the matter, and enjoyed making the Return- 



great deal of difficulty m persuading 
that it was her husband's duty, and not hers, to compiy 
with the soveniment requiedtions ; at last, she sent 
for her inferior half from somewhere below stairi, 
where I fancy she generally kept him, and informed 
him of the honour that had been thrust upon hia. 
He took me into his 'study' — ^which was painfully 
neat and orderly, except that it had some female 
garments airing before the fire— and.there received my 
instructions as to how he was to proceed. To him, 
poor creature, the filling up of the Return was as a 
|»oblem paper. Years oftynmny, I think, had softened 
the marital brain. He chuckled, however, at haying 
to style himself Head of the Family. It was a jtanr 
lege, he said, that had not befallen him for the last ten 
years — ^that is, since the last numbering of the peofde. 

' There 's she^ said he, pointing towards tne ixx 
(behind which it is my behef that she was listening), 
'and there's my mother-in-law!' He meant, poor 
fellow, that there were two at least in that household 
who exceeded him in dignity. 

I beheld other domestic scenes of an almost eqaaOy 
distressing character ; but I forbear to disclose than. 
The memory of them, indeed, is obliterated, or at 
least much impaired by a misfortune that overtook 
mysell The enumerators of the people are not 
exempt from the terrific operations of the Census in 
their own homes. There is an old — a middle-affed 
lady residing in my house, who is a Fnndholder 
of suspicious temperament. We have 



irom. her, and it is of course most important that she 
shall never be put out of humour. She was 64 at the 
last Census — I mean she returned herself at that age 
— and therefore it was almost as a matter of foim 
that I said playfully, with pen in hand : *WeIl, my 
dear Miss Nugget, and what was your age last bnth- 
day?' 

' Sixty-six ! ' said she. 

I knew her pretty Well, I flattered myself, but I did 
not give her credit for such audacity. It was really 
eoing a little too far — or rather not isx enough by ik 
kast ten years. 

' Wlw', you must have been bom in leap-year, then^ 
Miss Ku^et, and only had a birthday once in four 
years,' said I, in my cheerful humorous manner. 
^Sixty-six! my good lady — ^is that serMUsly your- 
Return?' 

' Is this your return, sir,' cried she in a fory, *far 
all that I have done, and cill that I have uUended to d(^ 
for you and yours ? I will let you know, sir, that I 
am not a person — although I may not be peihajfMa 
what ^ou may choose to consider younff — to be insulted 
with impuni^.' 

With that she flounced out of the room, and into her 
own chamber — ^where she keeps her will, I know— toad 
there she has remained for the last ei^it-uid-foictv 
hours. How it will all end, goodness knows. Iretuned 
her at 5fi, and hallooed through her keyhole tint 
I had done so; but she answered nothing, and has 
made no sign of reconciliation up to tiiis date. If tiie 
worst comes to the worst — ^that is to say, if she leaves 
her money to my brother's children — ^it will be USOOO 
lost to me and mine on account of a Census pcpcr. 
Poor satiifaotion will it be to me lAe» to know wt I 




CHAMBBRffS JOURNAL. 



S91 



hidped to procure knickerbockers for a rifle company. 
I had not the heart to collect the papers myself upon 
Monday morning, but accompanied my (uerk upon 
that dirty. For my part, I had had quite enough of 
oonntiiig people. 



THE ANTENUPTIAL LIE. 

IK TWO PARTS.— PART I. 

On the mominc of my twenty-third birthday, I awoke 
early, andwiu a profound sense of happiness and 
thaokfolnesL My tive yean of married hie, without 
having been a realised dream or sentimental idyl, 
had eodosed the happiest and worthiest period of my 
existence. Tradnff the details of it, I rejoiced to 
think my worst difficulties were oYcroomc, and that 
strong ameetion and deep-rooted esteem had changed 
course of duty into blessedness and 



My husband, Mr Anstruther, had yielded to my 
earnest wish to celebrate our wedding anniversary in 
our eoontry home, and had granted me just three 
days, snatched from the toil of active parliamentary 
hie, to taste my hohday ; and I was tasting it slowly, 
but witii intense enjoyment, as I stepped out that 
xnondng upon the dewy lawn, and devoured, with my 
achingliondon sight, one of the loveliest park-land- 
Bcapes in England. I looked in the distance upon 
low ranges of hills, blue in the early mistv light, and 
muting, here and there, peeps of the adjacent sea, 
ueeping quietly beneath the rosy amber of the eastern 
sky, and nnmediately at my feet upon flower-gardens 
planned and cultivated with all the exigence of 
modem taste, and glowing with a hundr^l dye& 
My mind recurred involuntarily to the narrow court in 
which my fatber*s house was situated, and to the 
dreary prospect of brick and mortar, of factory 
chimney and church steeple, which for eighteen years 
had bounded my horizon; and if the recollection 
brought with it the old inevitable association, I was 
aUe to thank Grod that now no pulse beat quicker, no 
traitorous thrill responded. 

How strange it seems that fate should come upon 
w with such overwhelming suddenness, that we arc 
not suffiered to hear the approaching footstep or see 
the outstretched arm, but are struck down instantly 
by the blow which might perhaps have been with- 
stood, had a moment's wanung been granted ! I went 
back to the house that morning with the most 
absc^ute sense of security and happmess ; but on the 
threshold of the breakfast-room I met my husband, 
and the first glance at his face told me something was 
mcfn^ His huce was always grave — it was now stem ; 
his manner was always reserved — it was now severe. 

I had approached him naturally with smiling face 
and outstretched hand, anticipating his congratula- 
tions ; but I stood still at once, as CT&dently arrested 
as if he had held a drawn sword at my breast. 

' That is right,' he said ; * come no nearer ! ' Then, 
after a pause, he added : ' You have been up some 
time ; let us have breakfast at once ;' and he opened 
the door of the room for me to enter. I took my 
place, and went through the accustomed forms 
without a word. I saw he wished me to eat and 
dzmk, and I did so, although the eflbrt nearly 
choked me. Indeed, I was thankful for the few 
nunutes' respite, and was striving to command my 
naouroes for the approaching conflict with all the 
■tnogth of mind I possessed. I was not altogether 
igDOcast of what had come upon me ; there could l)e 
between us but that one point of disunion, that 
one cause of reproach; and surely, surely, neither 
God nor man could condemn me as without excuse 
iqionthat score! 

While I ate, he walked deliberately up and down 
the room, making no pretence to eat ; and as soon as 
I had fimahedy ne rang the bell to have the table 



cleared, and then sat down before it opposite to mc. 
' We have friends asked to dinner to-day to celebrate 
the double anniversary of our marriage and your 
birthday — have we not ?' he said, leanmg his arms 
heavily on the table, and gazing steadily into my 
face. * I shall not meet them. I fear it will be 
impossible for me ever to recognise you as my wife 
again I' 

I think he expected that the cruel abruptness 
of this announcement would strike me swooning, or 
at least convicted, at his feet ; but it did not. My 
heart did for a moment seem to stand still, and every 
drop of blood faded from my cheeks, but I did not 
tremble or flinch under his hard scrutiny. I was 
even able to speak. 

* Tell me at once,' I said, * the meaning of this. You 
are under some delusion. What have I done ?' 

As I spoke, his face softened; I could see, in spite 
of the iron mould of his physiognomy, the instinctive 
hope, the passionate yeammg 2)roduced by my manner ; 
it was very evanescent, however, for almost before I 
ha<l gathered courage tram the look, it was gone, and 
all tne hardness had returned. 

' I am not the man,' he said, ' to bring a premature 
or rash accusation especially against tne woman I 
have mode my wife. I accuse you of having deceived 
me, and here is the proof.' 

Ho opened his pocket-book slowly, and took out a 
letter. I recognised it instantly, and my heart sank. 
I had sufficient self-command to repress the or that 
ro^ instinctively to my lips, but no effort coula keep 
back the burning glow which dyed face and hands 
like conscious guut. 

My husband looked at mc steadilv, and his lip 
ciu*lacL * I will read the letter,' he said. 

The letter began thus : * You have told me auain 
and again that you loved me : were those words a lie ? 
You imall not make ^ood your Moloch oflering, and 
sacrifice religion and virtue, body and soul, youth and 
happinesn, to your insatiate cravinc after position 
and wealth. This man is too good to be cajoled. 
What if I shewed him the pledges of your love ? taught 
him the rehance that is to be placed on your faith ? 
Why should you reckon upon my submission to yoiir 
perjury?' 

The letter ran on to great length, mingling vehement 
reproaches with appeals and protestations of such 
unbridled passion, that as my husband read them his 
voice took a tone of dee{>er scorn, and his brow a 
heavier contraction. 

The letter was addressed to me, on the l>ack of 
the same sheet on which it was written; it was 
not dated beyond 'Tuesday evening,' but the post- 
mark, unusuallv legible, shewed May 19, 1850 — 
just three days before we were married. My husband 
indicated these facts with the same deliberation that 
hod marked his conduct throughout, and then he said : 
* I found this letter last night in your dressing-room 
after you had left it ; perhaps I ou^t not to hzve 
read it, but it would now be worse than mockery to 
make any excuses for so doing. I have nothing more 
to say until I have listened to your explanation. 
You tell me I «am under a delusion — it will therefore 
be necessary for you to prove that this letter is a 
forgery.' 

He leaned back in his chair as he spoke, anil passecl 
his hand over his forehead with a gesture of weari- 
ness ; otherwise, he had sustained his part in the 
scene with a cold insensibilil^ which seemed im- 
natural, and which filled me with the most dreadful 
foreboding of failure and misery. I did not misjudge 
him so far as to suppose for a moment that he was as 
insensible as he appeared, but I perceived that his 
tenacious and inflexible nature had been cut to the 
quick both in its intense pride and love, and that 
tnou^ the wound bled inwardly — ^bled mortally, 
perchance — he would never utter a cry, or even allow 
a pang. 



292 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Alas ! alas ! he would never formve me. The 
concealment, the deception, as he would call it, which 
had appeared to me justifiable, would seem crime and 
outrage in his eyes. I lowered my head beneath his 
searckins gaze, and remained silent. 

* You nave nothing to say?' he inquired, after a 
vain pause for me to speak. * You cannot deny that 
letter ? Grod is my witness,' he said solemnly, * that 
I wish to be a merciful judge. I may hold extreme 
views of a girl's folly, a woman's weakness : you would 
only be vam and faithless, like your sex, if you had 
played with this young man's feelings, and deceived 
his hopes. Is this your explanation ? ' 

It was a very snare of Satan offered for my faU — 
one easy lie. * I deceived him, but never you. And 
the way of forgiveness was open. I saw he was 
clinging to the hope with a concentrated eagerness it 
was impossible for him entirely to disguise. Oh ! was 
it necessary for my punishment that the hard task 
should be made harder by that relenting glance ? 

I only hesitated for a moment ; the discipline of 
the last five years had not left me so blind and weak 
as even in this supreme emergency to reject truth for 
expediency. However he might judge me, I must 
stand clear before God and my conscience. 

'No, Malcolm,' I said desperately; *the truth is 
rather as it first appeared to you. I have been 
gmlty in this matter, but my fault is surely one that 
you will consent to pardon ; for even were it greater, 
I think our five years of happy union might l^m the 
scale in my favour.' 

* Yes,' he said ; * you have borne with the difficulties 
of my temper ^ith angelic patience, until the passion 
whicn induced me to marry you, despite oi many 
obstacles, was weakness in comparison with the love 
I had for you — ^yesterday. Only tell me I have not 

been your dupe throughout — only ' He broke off 

abruptly. *I can bear no more fencing round the 

Eoint,' he said harshly ; ' one word is enough — did you 
>ve this youth?' 
' I did, from childhood, with all my heart and souL' 

* Up to the date of that letter?' he asked quietly, 
but the muscles worked round the clenched lips. 

* Yes, and beyond it,' I found courage to say ; but 
hardly had the words been spoken, when I felt I had 
exceeded the limit of his enourance. An involuntary 
oath escaped his lips. 

I saw there was no hope* for me in deprecation and 
irresolution ; I must speak to the point, and decisively. 
' I have a right to be heard before I am condenmed,' 
I said, * and I claim my right. I confess I loved the 
youth who wrote that letter, but it would have been 
a miracle had it been otherwise. You know from 
what a life you rescued me : a prisoner in the dull 
rooms above my father's book -store, without a pleasure, 
a friend, a hope in life. You were astonished at my 
proficiency in unusual studies : if at that time an 
active brain had not driven me to intellectual labour, 
I should have gone mad in the midst of my austere and 
desperate loneliness. I was scarcely fifteen when 
Duncan Forsyth, a kinsman of my father's, came to 
study medicine in our city university, and to live as 
boarder in our house. I say it was inevitable that 
such a connection should in due course ripen into love. 
He was young, gifted, and attractive, but it would 
have needed but half his endowments to win my 
heart then. I was nothing but a blind, passionate 
child, neglected utterly till ne flattered, caressed, and 
wooed me. I think he loved me with all the facidty 
of love he had, and for a time we were very happy. 

To me, it was a delicious dream Have patience 

with me, Malcolm; I must tell all the truth. My 
dream, at least, was brief enough ; I soon awoke to 
discover, it little matters how, that the lover I was 
canonising in my imagination, as the type of heroic 
virtue, was imworthy. For a while, I would not 
believe; when conviction became inevitable, I clung 
desperately to the forlorn-hope of reform. It was 



in vain ; his vices were too confirmed and iynumott^ 
for even my influence — and it was great — ^to overoom^^ 
Then I gave him up. I thought the straggle wonl^^ 
kill me, for my foolish soul clung to him c£peratel>^ 
but I could not mate with drunkenness and di^! 
honour. My father, who had approved of oi.>j. 
engagement, and who did not know or believe tl:^^ 
facts concerning him, upbraided and coerced m^ . 
Duncan himself, rcl3dng on my weakness, tried st]/ 
the skill he had to move me, till I was nearly frantdc 
in my miseiy. 

*■ It was just at this crisis that you first saw me, 
visited my father^s book-store, and desired to be 
made known to me. What followed, I need not telL 
You told me you loved me well enough to many me, 
despite of social inferiority, if I thought I could love 
you in return — if I had a young girrs free heart to 
give you. You insisted upon tms, Malcolm — I dare 
not deny it — and I came to you with a lie in my 
right hand ! Here lies my offence, and, God knows, 
I do not wish to palliate it ; but before you ntteriy 
condemn me, consider the temptation. My father 
forbade Duncan the house, and threatened me if I 
dared to tell you the truth concerning him; but I 
hardly think that would have moved me, had I not 
persuaded myself also that I was justified'in deceiving 
you. Had I told you I loved Duncan Forsyth, you 
would have given me up, and shut against me all the 
vague but ^orious hopes such an alliance offered; 
but more than all, I knew this tmworthy love most 
soon die out, and that my deep recognition and 
reverence for your goodness and exbeltence would 
end in an affection stronger and deeper than the 
weak passion of a girL Before God, I vowed to do 
my duty ; from that hour, I have striven, with Hii 
help, to keep my vow; and save in that preliminaiy 
falsehood, Malcolm, I have never wronged you.' 

My husband had recovered his self-command while 
I was speaking, but the last phrase seemed to 
overthrow it again. * Wronged me ! * he repeated, 
and the intonation, quiet as it was, thrilled me 
like physical pain, it was so hard and unrelenting. 
*I wish to be calm, Ellinor,' he continued, 'and 
therefore I will speak briefly. You seem to tiunk 
you have extenuated yoursdf by your confesnon. 
To my heart and mind, you are condemned past 
forgiveness. Nay, do not plead or protest,' he said, 
wi& a haughty movement of restraint, as I was 
about to approach him ; * it is a point for f eding, not 
casuistry to decide. You understand fully the 
delusion under which I married you. I imanned I 
took to my arms a pure-hearted girl, frtSh and 
innocent as her seclusion warranted me to believe 
her: instead of that, I find myself to have been 
cajoled by a disappointed woman, with a heart 
exiiausted by precocious passion. You think it 
excuse sufficient that it was your interest to deceive 
me; to my mind, the fact adds only innilt to the 
injuiy. Ellinor, you have ruined the hafipiness of 
my life. While I have been resting on the solace of 
your love, worshipping you for your sweet patience 
with a temper roughened by many causes unknown 
to your inexperience, it has all been the insensibility 
of pre-occupation, or at best a miserable calculation 
of duty. So gross is your sense of conjujgal faith, 
that because your treacheiy has been onJy of the 
heart, you dare to say you have never wnmmd mc, 
and to call upon God to approve your virtue liecause 
the lapse of time and better influences, I trust, have 
enabl^ you to school a disgraceful passion, and <^er 
a measure of regard in return for the immeasorable 
devotion I have felt for you.' 

He paused in spite of himself, unable to proceed, 
and before he could prevent me, I had thrown myaelf 
at his feet. It was in vain to ai^e — ^to fight against 
his hard words ; I could only im^ore. 

• Malcolm,' I cried, * you cannot believe what you, 

y. Your affection has been the chief hannaeM o£ 



say, 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



293 



my liAPpy life; you could not desire, you could not 
exsuct from a wife a deeper love, more entire and 
minute, than I feel for you. Forgive this one 
deception, Malcolm ; believe me now/ 

I would fain have been eloquent, but bo1>8 choked 
my voioe. I was completely overcome; and when 
he forcibly extricated himself from my hold, I fell 
ahnoBt prostrate at his feet. He lifted me up coldly, 
but courteously, and placed me on the sofa. 

' Pardon me,' he said ; * this excitement is too much 
for you, and can do no good. When you are calmer, 
we will oondude this matter.' 

There was the same cruel decision of tone and 
aspect in his manner which had marked it through- 
out the interview, and which convinced me he still 
adhered to his original purpose. I felt my situation 
was desperate, and that the time for prayers and 
tears was over. Were all my hopes of the future — 
his happiness, too, in which was mvolved my own — 
to be ouudied to pieces against the rock of his unjust 
severity? Was it requir^ of me to submit passively 
to disgrace and misery? In a moment, I too had 
taken my resolve, ana conquered my agitation; I 
rose up nerved and calm, and spoke acconundy. 

* One word before you leave me,' I said. * However 
this ends between us, you do not, I suppose, desire 
to inflict upon me unnecessary shame ana exposure? 
I reouest you, as a personal favour — it may be the 
last I shall ever ask — to postpone your decision till 
to-morrow, and help me to-day to entertain our 
friends as much as possible in the accustomed manner. 
Doyoa hesitate, Malcolm?' 

£us face flushed; some impulse seemed to incline 
him to refuse, but he checked it. *It shall be as 
you desire,' he said coldly ; and left me alone — alone 
with the conviction of a blasted life ! 

For a few moments, with my hands clasped over 
my eyes, to shut out the redundant sunshine, I sat 
trying to realise my position. Granting that the 
threatened separation was effected with a so-called 
due regard to my honour and future relations with 
society; all that I valued and cared for in life would 
be irremediably destroyed. What honour remains to 
the wife repudiated by an honourable husband? 
What chance of happiness for her when at the same 
time he is the centre of her affection, of all her 
worldly ambition and hope? Doubtless, I was tolerant 
to my own transgression, but I alone knew the force 
of the temptation. I ' alone knew — what, alas ! I 
fdt mjr husband would never believe — how near 
extinction was the old love smouldering beneath 
its own contempt, and how strong the gratitude 
and esteem he had already excited. Oh, could I 
but convince him of my love for him! I rose up 
and paced the room. I felt he judged me harshly, 
was severe even to cruelty; but then I knew the 
innate inflexibility of his temper, and his rigorous 
sense of truth and duty. I knew how love, pride, 
and self-esteem had been all alike wounded, and I 
pitied him even in the extremity of my misery almost 
more than I pitied myseli Still, I would not accept 
my ruin at his relentless hands; I was a true wife, 
and would not submit to the position of a false one. 
I had vowed to love and honour him till death 
parted us, and nothing but compulsion should make 
me abandon my post. 

I scarcely know how I got through that day ; but 
the necessity for self-command was so stringent, that 
I could not but UMset it. Fortunately, our guests 
were only a few country neighbours, for it was in the 
height of the London season, and I in some measure 
supported myself by the belief that their unsuspicious 
coroiality was not likely to make any discoveries. 
Mr Anrtruther's hospitality was always splendid, 
and his deportment as host peculiarly gracious and 
inviting, and if there was any difference on this occa- 
sion, it would be impalpable to all but a very keen 
ohwarer. I perceived, indeed, a change in the aspect 



of the countenance I had long studied so closely, and 
beyond that, the intonation of his voice when aadres8« 
ing me fell hard and constrained upon my shrinking 
ear. It was over at last ; and I saw our last guest 
depart smiUng and congratulatory with the consola- 
tion at least left me that I had acted my part 
successfully. 

The next day, tlie trial was renewed. Mr An- 
struther wrote me a few words, saying it was his 
intention to return to his parliamentary duties that 
day, and that he deemed it advisable I should remain 
in the country. His final determination and all 
accessory arrangements should be made known to me 
through the family lawyer, which would spare the 
pain of a seconc^ interview. * Cruel ! ' I said to myself, 
crusliing the leUer in my nervous hand, and for a 
moment a passionate feeling rose in my heart that I 
would suffer things to take their hard course, and 
leave duty and effort unattempted. It was but a 
brief paroxysm ; for at the same instant, I saw a tiny, 
white-robed figure flitting across the lawn towards my 
o{)en window, and the swe^t shrill voice of our little 
daughter crying aloud, * Mamma, mamma, may I come 
in ? I stepped out and met her ; stooped down and 
kisscil the eager, upturned face ; and with that quiet 
kiss I renewed my vow, and strengthened it with a 
prayer. 

*My darling,' I said, *go into papa's study, and 
tell him mamma is coining to spesQi to him, if he is 
not busy.' She ran away on her errand, and I followed 
at once ; I did not mean to be refused. It was well I 
did so, for he had already risen, as if to leave the 
room, and had taken the child in his arms, to carry 
her away with him. As I entered, his face flushed 
with a mixed expression of anger and pain ; but he 
was soon calm again, sent away our little girl, and 
then placed me a chair. * There is no occasion for me 
to sit,' I said, with a voice as steady as concentrated 
resolution could make it ; * I shall not need to detain 
you long. I come to say, Malcolm, that I am quite 
willing to obey you so far as to remain here while 
you return to London, but that I must positively 
refase to have any interview with your lawj'cr.' 

* You refuse ! ' 

*I do refuse, and that finally,' I pursued, *for it 
would answer no end. I could only tell him what I 
come now to tell you, that no power save physical 
coercion shall separate me from you. I know it is in 
vain to extenuate my fault in your eyes, but it is at 
least one on which no legal proceedings can be raised : 
you cannot divorce your wife because she told you 
an ante-nuptial lie. It remains to you to abandon or 
malign her, but I will be accessory to no mutual 
arrangement. My duty is by your side while life 
lasts, whether in weal or woe, and I will hold my 
post. That is, henceforth I will consider this our 
home, and will remain here, unless driven from it. I 
am now, as before, your true wife in heart and soul, 
as in word and deea ; as anxious to fulfil my sweet 
duty to you, with no hope in life so strong as your 
foj^veness.' 

i had said my say, and was going, for I dared not 
trust myself longer, dared not even look into my 
husband s face to read the effect of my words, but he 
arrested me with a peremptory motion. 

'Am I to understand, Elhnor, that you mean to 
defy my determined purpose ; and in spite of alien- 
ation and contempt, to insist upon the snelter of my 
roof, or rather to exile me from a place which would 
be intolerable under such circumstances ? Do not be 
afraid, if you will consent to a formal separation, that 
the terms of it shall fail in all possible delicacy and 
liberahty, but I cannot live with the wife who has 
cheated me of her first kiss.' 

* I am resolved,' I answered. * I am able to say no 
more. I think I see my duty plain, and I mean to 
strive to do it You must follow your own will ; it 
will be for me to endure.' 



294 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



He paced the room in sia^ng excitement. 
. * I cannot bear it,' he said ; * it would eat my life 
out ! You shall have our child, Ellinor, if she is the 
motive of this strange unwomanly resolution : far be 
it from me to torture the heart of the mother ! She 
shall be yours unreservedly, and her interests shall 
never suffer one whit. You know how I love that little 
creature ; tiiere was but one thing dearer : judge, then, 
by this of my intense desire to sever the connection 
between us.' 

' Cruel ! unmerciful ! ' I exclaimed, with an impulse 
of bitterness I could not resist, but I stopped as soon 
as the words had escaped me : to upbraid, was no 
part of my purpose. 

* It is in vain,' I said, * to think to move me by any 
words, however hard. I have nothing more to say. 
Let me go, Malcolm ;' and I turned and fled from the 
room. 

PABT IL 

Then began as hard a struggle as any woman could 
have been called upon to enchure. M^ husband went 
up to town that same day, and parliament sat late 
that year. During all that time, he never wrote to 
me, nor, save from a casual notice of him in the 
papers, did I know anything of his movements. The 
mtolerable suspense and miseiy of such a separation 
may be conceived. My love for him, indeed, was no 
mere dutiful regard, but of that profoimd yet passion- 
ate nature which men of his stern and reticent char- 
acter seem calculated, by a strange contrariety, to 
excite. Add to this, that I knew myself to be exposed 
to the pitjong wonder and suspicion of the world at 
laice. 

Mr Anstruther's character stood above imputation, 
but I at the best was but a successful parvenuej and 
had at length no doubt stumbled into some atrocious 
fault beyond even his infatuation to overlook. The 
very servants of the household whispered and mar- 
velled about me ; it was inevitable tnat they should 
do so, but all this added bitterness to anguish. 

Worst of all, there was a wistful look in Florry*B 
childish eyes, and a pathos in her voice as she pressed 
afiodnst my side, to stroke my cheek, ana say : 
* Poor mamma ! ' which almost broke my heart with 
mingled grief and shame. She, too, had learned in 
her nursery that her mother had become an object of 
compassion. 

It was the deep sense of pain and humiliation which 
my child's pity excited, which aroused me to make 
some attempt to relieve my position. I sat down, 
and wrote to my husband. I wrote quietly and 
temperately, though there was almost the delirium 
of despair in my heart. I had proved that an appeal 
to his feelings would be in vain, and I therefore 
directed my arguments to his justice. 

I represented to him bridfly that his prolonged 
neglect and desertion would soon irretrievably jilace 
me in the eves of the world in the position of a guilty 
wife, and that for my own sake, but still moro for 
the sake of our daughter, I protested against such 
injustice. I told him ho was blightins two lives, and 
entreated him, if forgiveness was stm impossible, at 
least to keep up the semblance of respect. I propped 
to join him in London immediately, or to romain 
whero I was, on condition of his returning homo as 
soon as parliament was prorogued. 

I waited with unspeakable impatience for a reply 
to this letter, and the next post broi^ht it. How 
I blessed my husband's clemency for this relief ! My 
trembling hands could scarcely break the seal ; the 
consideration of the sad difference between the past 
and present seemed to overwhelm me — it was not 
thus I had been accustomed to open my husband's 
letters, feeling like a criminal condemned to read his 
own warrant of condemnation. 

The letter was brief, and ran thus : 



* As the late events between us have been tlie aub- 
ject of my intense and incessant deliberation aiaoe we 
parted, I am aUe, Ellinor, to reply to your letter at 
once. I consent to return and attempt the life of 
hollow deception you demand, under Hid expectation 
that you will soon become convinced of its unpracti- 
cability, and will then, I conclude, be willing £o con- 
sent to the formal separation which it is still my 
wish and purpose to eflect.' 

* Never ! ' I said, crushing the hard letter between 
my hands, and then my passion, long nippreesed, 
burst forth, and throwing myself on my knees by my 
bedside, I wept and groaned in agony of sguL On I I 
had hoped till then — hoped that time misht have 
softened him, that the past might have pleaded with 
him for the absolution m. that one transgression. Had 
my sin been indeed so great that the punishment was 
so intolerable ? And then I thought it all over again, 
as I had done a thousand times before in that dreary 
interval, weighing my temptations against my offenccip 
and trying to {dace myself in my husband's positioiL 
I did not wish to justify it : it was a gross doceptaon^ 
a deliberate falseness ; but then I was willing to proa- 
trato myself in tiie dust, both before God and my 
husbanX and to beg forgiveness in the lowest t^ms 
of humiliation and penitence. But the pardon mranted 
me by the Divine, was steadily refused by the nnman 
judfe — against his hard impenetrability I might dash, 
my oleeding heart in vain. What should I do T What 
sliould I do? Which was the path of duty? And 
frail and passionate as I was, how oould I hold oa in 
such a rugged way? Had I not better succomb? 
—suffer myself to be put away, as he desired, and 
close the door of hope on what was left of life ? My 
child — he said he would give me up my child. Then 
resolution arose renewed. For that child's sake, I 
would not vield. I oould not endure the thou£^ of 
separating her from such a father's love, care, and 
protection, and of chastening with sorrow and humilia- 
tion her opening girlhood. N'o ; with God's help, she 
should yet honour and revere her mother. However 
my husoand judged me, that one fault had not cut me 
oS from all moral effort hereafter. I would not be 
vanquished by it. I would, as I had said, keep my 
post as wife, insist, if need be, on external forms, and 
leave no means untried of patience, meekness, and 
womanly art, to melt down the iron barrier between 
us. 

I should weary the reader if I detailed all the 
minute plans I formed, but at last I rose up from 
the prayers by which I strove to strengthen and 
sanctify my purpose with a firm heart and new-bom 
hope oi. success. That evening, I sent for Fk>ny to 
keep me company in the drawing-room ; I told her 
her favourite stones, played her her favourite tunes, 
and joined with her in singing a si^le evening-hymn, 
which was her supreme delist. Then I took ho* up 
to the nursery myself, and bade her good-night with 
as much of the serene feeling of old as perlu^is I oould 
ever hope to know again. 

I also, holding my husband's letter in my hand, 
told the asaemb^ servants I expected their maatier 
home to-morrow, and gave the necessary orders in 
such a natural and coUected manner as must have 
gone far to disarm their suspicions. Then the long 
night — then the expected day. I knew the hour 
when he must neoessarily arrive, and, taking Flony 
with me, I went to a certain part of the grounds 
which commanded a view of the public road. I was 
externally calm ; the morning's discipline had made 
me that, but the subdued excitement was intense. 
Florry ran and chattered by my side as children do, 
little guessing, poor innocents, the cruel strain they 
often make on t)ieir mother's patience. It chanced, 
as sometimes happens, that the very intensity of our 
anxiety caused us to miss our object ; the train was 
evidently behind time, and our attention, so long kept 
at full stretch, began to slacken, so that when Fkny, 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



295 



who had wandered to some little distance from me, 
espied tiie carriage, it was so near the paric-gates, 
that tliere was no chance of our reaching the house 
hefore it. I was vexed at my purpose being thus 
partially defeated, and, taking the child's hand, 
nurried back by the shortest route. ' 

Mr Anstnither was waiting us in the accustomed 
room. Stall holding Flonys hand, I went in to face 
the dreaded meeting. The first glance at his face 
nearly orercame me, ne looked so worn and harassed : 
tme, that might have been from parliamentary hojrs 
and hard fiommittee-work, but it is a plea a woman's 
heart can rarely withstand. Florry ran into his arms, 
talking eagerly of how glad we were to see him, 
and how dull poor mamma had been without him, 
and the momentary diveruon gave me time to rally 
my fuling calmness. * We are very glad ^ou are come 
home, Maleolm,' I said at last, approaching him, and 
laying my hand on his. * Are you very tired T Do 
not tronlMe to dress before dinner to-day.' 

Perhaps my self-possession was overdone, so diffi- 
cnlt is it in such cases to keep the golden mean ; for I 
saw the unusual colour mount even to his forehead, 
and he replied in a hurried voice, as he slightly 
retimied the pressure of my hand : * I could scucely 
sit down to table in this stute — I shall not keep you 
waiting Imig ;* and with Florry in his arms — I could 
see how he tightened his embrace of the child— he 
left the room. 

I did not sit down and weep, although I was sick 
at heart I had imagined it would be something like 
this, and had fortified myself to endure it. I sat 
there thinking, till I heard him come down stairs, 
and then I went into the drawing-room. Immedi- 
ately on my entrance, dinner was announced, and 
he offered his arm to lead me to the room, just 
as he had alwa3r8 been accustomed to do when we 
were alone. There was no liesitation, no perceptible 
difference in his manner ; I saw he had made up his 
mind to do it. During dinner, we talked but uttle, 
bat even in days of old he had been wont to be absent 
and taciturn. Florry came in with the dessert, and 
her sweet prattle was felt to be a gracious relief 
by both. I soon rose and took her away with me, 
keeping her with me, and amusing her with talk 
and music until her bedtime. My husband joined 
me at the usual time, and though he did not volun- 
tarily converse, he replied to anything I said without 
apparent constraint. Before the servants, his manners 
were scrupulously as of old ; indeed, so undemon| 
strative was his natural character, that it required 
no very great effort for him to appear the same. I 
indeed felt a radical difference, which cut me to 
the heart: the hard tone, the averted or chilly 
glance convinced me of the reality of our altered 
relations. Could I live such a life as this ? — so near, 
yet so far off. I had a vague perception that eveiy 
day we spent like this would make the separation 
more complete and fatal Had I not better make 
one last attempt, before I was chilled into silence 
and fear of him ? Pcrha])8 he resented the dignified 
and an but peremptory tone I had assumed m my 
letter, and was still to be moved by entreaty and 
penitence. Acting on the vague hope, I put down 
the work on which I had tried to engage myself, and 
went up to the sofa on which he was lyin;^. 

* Malcolm,' I said, leaning over the head of it, partly 
to sustain my trembling limbs, partly to secure a 
position of advantage, * is this the way we are to 
five together ? I cannot resign myself to it without 
a word, without knowing Ixittcr what are your feelings 
towards me. Am I to believe you v^ill never forgive 
me ? Do you hate mc ?' 

He rose impatiently from his recumbent attitude, 
so as to be able to look into my face. * What do you 
mean by forgiveness, Ellinor?' was his answer — *the 
old love and esteem restored ? Your own sense must 
convince you you ask an impossibility — a broken 



mirror can't be pieced again. Don't let us rake up 
the miserable ashes of our feud. I am here at your 
denre, willing to maintain your credit in the eyes of 
society. I have yielded so far out of regard for our 
little girl, of a solemn consideration of my own 
marriage-vows, and your exemplary performance of 
a wife's extenial duty. Do your duty now, Fllinor, 
and obey me when I char^^e vou not to uige me on 
this topic again ; it is imwise.' 

* This ni|^t shall be the last time,' I said ; * so suffer 
me to ask yon one more question. Do you doubt my 
assurances of affection for yourself ? Can you believe, 
in the face of the evidence of all our married life, that, 
however I deceived you in the begiiming, I did not 
soon bring to a wife's duty a wife's entire and 
passionate devotion ? ' 

* Ellinor,' he exclaimed with sudden excitement^ 
* you are mad to torment me thus ! You compel me 
to sav what had better remain unsaid. I repudiate 
your boasted love, which you parade as if it were the 
triumph of virtue. Had it been mine, as I believed 
and you swore it was before God, it should have been 
the crown and glory of my life ; as it is, I care nothing 
for a sentiment provoked by habit, and cherished as a 
jHiint of calculated duty. One word more : you think 
me cruelly intolerant, but 1 must follow the bent of 
my nature. Some lies I coiUd forgive — or even, per- 
haps, some grosser sins — but yours cheated me into an 
irrevocable act, and defrauded me of the best and 
strongest feelings of my nature. Do I hate you ? No, 
I cannot hate Florry's mother and my own intimate 
and cherished companion ; but I hate myself for having 
been befooled so grossly, and almost loathe the wealth 
and its accessories for which you ^icrjured your soul.' 

I was silent, but it was by a powerful effort. I could 
scarc(}ly restrain myself, with all my power of self< 
control^ from saying: *Now that I understand you 
fully, let us part ; I could not brook the mockery of 
intercourse.' But the thought of Florry closed my 
struggling lips. * For her sake, for her sake,' I repeated 
to myself. * The last hope, the last, the last chance of 
happiness is gone, but duty remains.' I looked up at 
my husband, deadly pale, I knew, but calm. ' Arc 
yon resolved,' I asked, ' to sepamte from me eventu- 
ally? I claim it from your honour to answer me that 
question now.' 

' I care little,' he said bitterly. * The sharpness of 
the sting must abate some day, and we shall become 
indifferent, like our neighbours ; meanwhile, the effort 
may be salutary. No,' he added haughtily, as he 
l)erceived I was not satisfied with the reply, *■ I am 
willing to pledge my word that I will never force you 
into a sejiaration on this account. So long as you think 
proper to claim my protection, it is yours, only wo 
must avoid such scenes as these;' and so the case 
stood between us. 

From that time, my life became a hard monotony. 
To all appearance^ there was no change in our rela- 
tions ; we went the same round in social life as 
of old, and, as I have said before, my husband's 
natural character gave little scope for self-betrayal. 
Occasionally, some outside comments reached us, but 
they were generally expressive of the belief that Mr 
Anstruthcr's temper was becoming more morose than 
ever, and of pity for the poor wife who was allied to it. 
He certainly did become more irritable and exacting. 
I could see daily the bitter effects that his disappoint- 
ment in my sincerity produced, how his fine nature 
was gn)wing warped and sourecL It was not so much 
towards myself tliat these effects were manifested — 
he kept too rigid a control over our relations ; but it 
grieved me to notice it in his impatience with his 
inferiors, and even with our little tender Florry, and 
in his cynical and cruel judgment of the world at 
large. He had always been very much abs()rl)ed in 
political affairs, and ambitious for distinction, but now 
he seemed to throw heart and soul without reserve into 



296 



CHAMBBRS*S JOURNAL. 



the arena, and to strngRle for the stakes with the eager- 
ness of a gambler. %ere had ceased to be any com- 
munion between us. In past days, hopes and schemes 
had been discussed with me, and I was proud to believe 
my influence had often availed with mm for good. I 
cannot describe the intensity of my misery at this 
time. Not to speak of alienation and mistnist in the 
midst of daily intercourse, which alone contains almost 
the bitterness of death, I saw myself the cause of 
deterioration in one dearer to me than life, and He 
who meted my punishment to my offence knows that 
no heavier cross could have been laid upon ma Once 
or twice, I again attempted expostulation, but I soon 
learned to desist ; it was of no avail, but to provoke 
some hard reply, which would otherwise have remained 
imspoken. Then I turned to my daughter : it was for 
her sake I endured this life, this daily martyrdom, 
and I would not miss my reward. 1 devoted myself 
to her education, so far as my numerous avocations 
allowed, for I was scrupulous in the performance of all 
the duties of my station, and in any which my husband 
would suffer me still to perform for him. I strove 
with intense anxiety to make her attractive to her 
father, and to cultivate her affection and esteem for 
him. That he loved her passionately, I knew, but, as 
was his wont, he manifested the feeling but little; 
perhaps in this case he was checked by her inevitable 
preference for her mother, or by the difficulty of ever 
having her to himself. To me, she was the one solace 
and spur of existence, and life began to brighten when, 
resigned to suffer myself, I dreamed and planned her 
future. 

Thus, more than a year passed on monotonously ; 
fruitlessly, so far as I could see, for my husband was 
as far off from me as ever. Sometimes, indeed, I 
hoped I had extorted some portion of respect from 
him by the sustained performance of my routine of 
duty, but his heart seemed turned to stone. 

At last the gloomy depth was stirred. O God ! I 
had prayed for the movement of the healing angel's 
wing, not for a stroke of judgment ! 

One evening during the session, I was sitting up 
awaiting his return from the House. I was not accus- 
tomed to do so, but on this occasion, I was deeply 
interested in the result of the night's debate, and 
added to that, I was uneasy about florry, who had 
been slightly ailing all day, and seemed increasingly 
restless as the evening advanced. When he came in, 
he looked surprised to sec me up, for it was already 
nearly three o'clock in the morning, and I could sec 
that he seemed wearied and annoyed 

* You are anxious, I suppose,' he said, * for the news 
I bring ? Well, the ministers are thrown out.' 

I knew he, and, indeed, the country in general, had 
been quite unprepared for such a result, and that i)er- 
sonally it was a severe mortification to him. As I 
involimtarily looked at him with an expression of 
earnest concern I hardly ventured to express, I saw 
his face soften. Perhaps in that moment of vexation, 
he yearned for the sympathy of old. Should I dare 
to risk another appeal ? 

' Malcolm,' I said ; but at the now unfamiliar name, 
his brow clouded again, and I finished my speech with 
some measured expressions of regret. I knew I 
should damage my cause if I were to attempt to press 
into my service a momentary weakness he was 
ashamed to feeL I could not, however, command my 
feelings sufficiently to speak of Flornr, and after 
leaving him, I flew up stairs to my child's room, and 
putting down my candle, sunk on my knees by her 
bedside. Oh, how my heart ached ! I felt this life 
was killing me, and that one of my moments of aban- 
donment was come. Before, however, I gave full 
vent to my tears, I paused midway, as it were, to look 
at Florry, and that look dried them up. I felt my 
cheek blanch, my eyes start; I felt — who has not 
lelt it ? — a premonitory horror chill my blood. I had 
left her pale and restless an hour before, now her face 



was tinged with a crimson heat, her lips dzy uid 

Earted, and she was moanins heavily. I touolied ha 
uming hand, her burning brow, and the ahadow of 
that awful calamity seemed to fall before ma I did 
not moan, I did not even appeal ; despair straitened 
my heart 

Mr Anstruthcr I knew was still up. I went down 
stairs with a strange quietness, and re-entered the 
room. 

* I do not wish to alarm you,' I said, and my own 
voice had a strange sound to me, * but Florry is not 
welL She has. been ailing all day, but her appear- 
ance now frightens mc. Will you send some <me for 
a physician at once ?' 

I waited for no reply, but went back to the room. 
The fire in the grate was laid, but not lighted ; 
I kindled it. I changed my evening-dress for a 
morning-gown, doing aU mechanically, aa if under a 
8|>ell I could not resist Then I sat down by the bed- 
side to watch my child and await the doctor. I seemed 
to hold all my faculties in Busx)ense; no tear must 
blind my eye, no tremor unnerve my hand, until this 
agony had reached its crisis : then let life and hope 
go out together. 

My husband and the doctor came in after what 
seemed to mc an intolerable interval, bat at first I 
only saw but one. Who kno^^ not in soch cases 
how the very soul seems hanging on the physician's 
first glance, drinking life or death from it ? I drank 
death. The steady professional gaze did not deceive 
me, but the stroke was beyond my taxed endurance, 
and I fell senseless on the floor. 

Thank God, it was but a brief weakness. For the 
few days that that sweet life was left to me, I held my 
post unconscious of fatigue, enabled to comfort sw. 
sustain, and even smile upon my darling through her 
brief stru£;glo with death. Goa bowed my stubboim 
heart, ana strengthened me with the mignt of sab- 
mission. I seemed, in the strong light m. this fier^ 
trial, to see the past more clearly, to acknowledge that 
I had not humbled myself sufficiently xmSa the 
chastisement of my own sin. 

It was midnight when she died. I was holding her 
in my arms, hiished and grief -stricken, when I saw 
that unspeakable change pass over the sweet &oe 
which tells the sinking heajrt the awful hour is come. 
Her laboiiring breath fluttered on my cheek, the look 
of love that still lingered in the glazing eyes fixed 
upon my face died out, and I was childless. 

My husband was standing at the foot of the bed, 
watching the scene with an agony all the keener that 
he suffered no expression of it to escape, but as the 
last faint struggle ceased, and the baby-nead fell prone 
upon my breast, I saw the strong frame quiver, and 
drops of perspiration start xx^n hu forahoad. 

' Grod forgive me,' he said in a stifled whisper, 'for 
every harsh' word spoken to that angel child ! Then 
as his eyes fell, as if involuntarily, upon me, the 
expression of stem anguish softened for a moment to 
one of pitying tenderness. *Poor EUioor. — poor 
mother ! he iMded, ' you think me a hard man, but 
God is my witness, I would have saved yoa that little 
life at the cost of my own.' 

* It would have been but a cruel compromise,* I 
answered; *and yet— O my darling, how I have 
loved you ! ' 

My husband had turned away a moment, as if to 
j»ce the room, but at the soimd of my cry of impres- 
sible anguish, he came back hastily to the bedside, 
and bending over me, tried to separate me gently from 
the dead child in my arms. 

As I felt the touch of his hand, his breath upon my 
cheek, caressing, warm as of old, it recalled, even in 
that moment of supreme bereavement, the passionate 
yearning of my heart, and yielding to the uncontrol- 
lable impulse, I threw my arms round his neck. 

* Only give me back what is in your power,' I 
cried — * give mc back your love and trust-'^-ovr old. 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



297 



hanpiness, Malcolm, and even the death of our child 
-will not seem too hard a sacrifice ! ' 

There was a moment's breathless pause, then he 
raised me in his arms, and strained me to his heart in 
a cloBe vehement embrace. 

' €rod forgive me,' he said, * for what I have made 
you snffier! If your love has survived my long 
mtoleranoe, I may well trust you, EUinor. If I have 
the power left to comfort you, be to me again all, and 
more than all that I remember in the sweet past. A 
hmidred times during the last few melancholy days 
have I been on the point of confessing my injustice, 
and entreating your forgiveness ; only it seemed to me 
a mean thing to take advantage of the softness of 
sorrow. Life is not bearable without you, £llinor : 
only satisfy me once more that I have not worn out 
your heart-— that it is not magnanimity, but love.' 

I did satisfy Imn. We began henceforth a new life, 
chastooed, indeed, by the uiadow of a little grave, 
but a life, I trust, humbler and more blessed thaii the 
old past had been. 

ALL THE WORLD OVER. 

Let the world tremble ! It is proposed that the 
observations and experiences of more than a dozen 
enterprising British tourists in all lands shall be 
gathered together yearly, and published in one 
volunfe. 'A Chiel — a whole family of Chiels — is to 
be annually let loose to overrun the universe, taking 
notes, with the most decided intention of printing 
them. The first instalment of this tremendous series 
now lies before us, under the insidiously harmless 
title of VtxccUion Tourists and Notes of Travd 
fji I860.* The volume is 'made up of no less than 
thirteen contributions, and surveys mankind from 
Suthezlandshire to Peru. There never was a more 
comprehensive and resolute invasion of the privacy of 
national life. The Maronites could not have been 
exhibited and commented upon with greater freedom 
had they been Marionettes ; although tney will doubt- 
less find a comfort in the fact that the Druses are 
treated no better. The character of the whole Moslem 
race, indeed, has been nowhere so ingenuously set forth 
aa by that member of this Travelling Association who 
'does' Syria, nor did wc ever understand the full 
aignification of the phrase *a re'j(ular Tiurk,' until 
we read his account of him. *They do not keep 
faith with each other, much less with Christians. 
They seem, in most cases, insensible to kindness, and 
deficient in gratitude. They say that a Christian 
who does them kindnesses involving self-sacrifice, is 
bat an instrument in the hand of Allah to benefit 
his elect; and so it is to Allah, and not to the 
poor Giaour, the elect should be gratefuL The name 
of God is always upon their lips. The vendors 
of sherbet and fruits in the streets of Cairo and 
Damascus ciy, "May God enable mo to sell this 
well ! " When friends meet, they utter a series of 
salutations, in which the name of God is always used. 
Also when a camel trips, they exhort him *' to mind 
his steps, to go on, and put his trust in God." They 
wfll utter the most fearml imprecations, in which the 
name of God is also mixed, on man and beast. '' Out 
of the same mouth truly proceed blessings and curs- 
ings." Their compliments to one another, or to 
strangers, are astonishing. " All that I have is yours." 
'* Whose is this house ? " you ask the owner. 
"Yours," he insists. You acunire this article, and 
however costly — ** It is yours, pray take it." Awkward 
atraneers sometimes take them at their word, much to 
the cu^^ust of the courteous Turk. However, they 
often do give handsome presents, but generally expect 
to gain some greater advantage by so doing, besides 
the present 'v^ch etiquette obliges you to make 
in return.' 

* MscmlUnn, Cambridge and London. 



Mr Francis Galton, with whose Art of Travd wc 
are most of us acquainted, has been very fitly con- 
stituted editor of this rambling volume. His own 
contribution is, however, for such a nomad as he^ 
quite a home-sketch, being an account of Spain as he 
saw it under the late eclipse. Had he made its 
acquaintance under brighter auspices, he would 
certainly have got hims^ naturalised, and become 
a hidalga The Senoritas quite bewitched him, so 
that he praises them at the expense of his own 
countrywomen. Indeed, he extols everything he 
found in Spain, and that without saying one word 
aliout its acknowledged excellences — its flies, its 
onions, its loans, its liquorice. He protests that the 
demonstrative grace of the ladies' fans is such, that 
each twitter betrays what they are thinking of. He 
was, we regret to say, exceedingly interested in these 
ventilating movements during church. *I felt con- 
vinced I could guess the nature of the service at any 
particular moment by the way in which the fauB 
were waving. The difference between a litany and 
a thanksgiving was unmistakable; and I believed 
that far minuter shades of devotion were also discern- 
ible.' The Spaniards are so musical that their very 
babies are made to keep time — since they can't keep 
step — to the military bands. They come in hundreds, 
borne of course in their nurses' arms, and form a very 
striking feature of the audience. *The instant the 
music began, every nurse elevated her charge, sittiiur 
on her lumd, at naif-arm's length into the air, ana 
they all kept time to the music oy tossing the babies 
in unison, and slowly rotating them, in azimuth (to 
speak astronomically), at each successive toss. The 
babies looked passive and rather bored, but the 
energy and enthusiasm of the nurses was glorious. 
At each great bang of the dnunmers, a vast flight of 
babies was simultaneously projected to the utmost 
arms' length. It was ludicrous beyond expression.' 
Other members of the National Travelling Associa- 
tion (whose liability, we should say, is quite unlimited) 
express their opinions upon all they meet with, with- 
out compliment — ^to say the least of it; but Mr 
Galton's face is always favourably set towards Spain 
and the Spaniards, rerhaps, as he is always travel- 
ling, he thinks it politic to speak well of every nation 
except his own ; at all events, he expresses his beUef 
that 'the honesty and morality of the Spanish 
peasantry is very high, much higher than in England. 
However, the use of the knife is rather common? As 
though one should say they are charming people, but 
greauy given to assassination. We owe Mr Galton 
much, however, and could forgive him, even had he 
not redeemed himself by telling us this pleasant 
incident of the late eclipse. * One very unlucky piece 
of foi^etfulness is rumoured to have been made by 
an emment photographer, not of the Himalaya loaxty. 
He went, partly on commercial grounds, excellently 
provided with instruments, and i&. the way overland, 
on purpose to photograph the eclipse. Everything 
was prepared, the day was glorious, the totality came 
on, and the slide of the camera was carefully inserted. 
When all had passed, and the- slide was opened in 
the dark chamber, alas! the operator had forgotten 
to put YnRpUUe into the slide/' 

Of the determined spirit of espionage which per- 
vades the writers of the volume, wo need say no more 
than this — one of them has been actually carrying out 
the inquisitorial designs of the society among the Lapps I 
' The first of this race that I saw,' says ne, ' made a 
great impressionr upon me. It was shortly before we 
reached Tromso, on our northward voyage, and as I 
was walking one morning towards the bows of the 
vessel, my nostrils were suddenly assailed by a pecu- 
liar goaty smell. Led on rather by curiosity than 
pleasure, I discovered, to my great delight, on the 
further part of the deck a nomMl Lapp, enveloped in 
untanned skins, from which the unamiable odour pro- 
ceeded; but thinking that, like the Nubian young 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



ladies, who anoint their sweet selyes with castor-oil, 
he might be more agreeable if seen from the wind- 
wmed side, I took up a safe position in tiiat qoarfcer, 
and re^irded him from thence. He was a very little 
man, not more than four feet hi^ ; his legs, which 
were short in proportion to his b^y, were yery wide 
j^Mtti at the nips, and bowed outwards. His face 
was not less peculiar, the most marked points being 
the narrow slit of the eves slantinjg downward towards 
the temples ; the small pupils, the high cheek-bones 
set very far apart in the nead, a yellow beardless skin 
like parchment, and the falling in of the face towards 
the chin. Some of these puticnlars might remind 
one of the description of the Huns. His upper dress 
was a loose coat of reindeer-skin, fastened by a cirdle, 
below which were leegingB, and loose boots, luso of 
reindeer-skin, tied with bands round the ankle.' 

The Lapps are Christians, and a highly moral 
people, only <me of the nation lutving been convicted 
of a crime during the year 1859 ! The writer went to 
visit an encampment of them, and indeed picnic*d 
among them — ^the compass cmly knows how far 
north — in what may be called the Lap of Luxury, for 
he brought his own Engdak Poriar with him. Thev 
had five hundred reindeer with them, none of which 
were over three feet high. These Lapps, of course, 
made small pretensions to cleanliness, but the Nor- 
wegians themselves seem to be very little better. The 
writer was once compelled to pass the ni^ht in a farm- 
house, ' and being,' says he, * of a suspioioua nature, I 
had intended to sleep on a box or bench, but in an 
unwary moment we were persuaded by our conductor, 
who vividly depicted the cleanliness of the natives, to 
lie down on a bed. Alas ! it was not to sleep, but to 
be crawled over, so terrible was the abundiance of 
insect life ! Between three and four in the morning 
I got up and washed my fevered face and hands m 
the icY stream hard bj, and used my tooth-brush too, 
though that proceeding would seem to be open to 
misrepresentation, if a story that we heard Sa true, 
that an Englishman under similar circumstances vras 
reported to the family with whom he lodged, as 
having been seen by the river-side tharpaUng kia teeth 
far breaJ^asL^ 

The inns themselves in Norway are by no means 
replete with luxuries, although, we are assured, that 
timber-bread and saw-dust pudding — ^that is, food 
prepared irom the bark of trees — ^uiough they are 
eaten by the people in hard times, are not (^flen set 
before the traveller. Only conceive a joint of Norway 
pine, with side-dishes of deal-shavings ! 

Another of these Paul Prvs of the Universe inves- 
tigates Iceland, where, by the nature of the case, he 
ii obliged to confine lus disparaging remarks to the 
scenery mainly, there beins scarcely any people to 
write about The way in which he bullied the Geyser 
family is deserving of the strongest reprobation. 
'Soon after our arrival,' says he, *me Little Geyser 
threw up a cloud of steam about forty feet high ; we 
then flune about two barrowfuls of earth into another 
spring, ciQled Strokr, which caused him also to send 
up a series of columns of steam and water, mixed 
with dods, to a height of at least eighty feet. The 
Great Geyser cave hopes of an eruption ; he rumblod 
with a noise like the distant discharaes of ordnance, 
and the ground shook ; but after aU, he only boiled 
over, like a gi^;antio tea-kettle. August 21. — The 
Great Geyser boiled over three or four times ; and the 
last time, between 6 and 7 p. m., he threw up a column 
of water about three feet high. The Little Geyser 
went off shortly after. Strokr also enq>ted on com- 
puleioH in the afternoon.' Strokr, it seems, is like 
an imprudent school-boy, who, having once been 
betrayed into an ebullition of temper, is become a 
subject for practical joking to all the world 

No less than four contributors to this volume belong 
to the (Alpine) Climbing Club, and give the reader 
vertigo by their descriptions of difficulties in high 



places. They axe generally * immersed in a wildemess, 
roofed and ieetooned with huge plates and stalactites 
of ice, so large that one is hsSi oispoeed to seise hold 
and clamber up them. Round, over, and under them 
we go. Often progress seems impossible; but our 
leader, perched like a bird on some projecting crag, 
contrives to find a way. Now we crawl sin^y alon^ 
a narrow lodge of rock, with a wall on one side, and 
nothing on the other ; there is no hold for hands or 
alpenstock, and the ledce slopes a little, so that ii 
the nails in our boots hoM not, down we shall go. In 
the middle of it a piece of rock juts out, which we 
ingeniously duck under, and emerge just under a 
shower of water, which there is no room to escape 
firom. Presently comes a more extraordinary place — 
a perfect chimney of rock, cased all over with hard 
black ice, about an inch thick. The bottom leads 
out into BPCMJe, and the top is somewhere in the upper 
regions. There is absolutely nothing to grasp at, and 
to this day I cannot understand how a human being 
could get up or down it unassisted. Our leader, how- 
ever, rolls up it somehow like a cat ; he is at the top, 
and beckons the second to advance. My turn comes 
next: I endeavour to mount by squeezing myself 
against the sides ; but near the top, friction suddenly 
gives way, and down comes my weight upon the rope. 
A stout naul from above, and now one iLnee is upon 
the edge, and I am safe.' 

We are assured that all this ii delightful *You 
may meditate,' observes one of these Alpine acro- 
bats — addressing us of the valley who do not care 
to dwell with Death and Mourning (for folks 
are sometimes lulled there) on the Silver Horns — 
*you may meditate till doomsday on the beautiful 
lights and shades, and the graceful sweeps of the 
mountain-ridges, but you will not be one bit nearer to 
the sensation of standing on a knife-like ridge, with 
the toe of your boot over Italy, and the heel over 
Switserland.' We do indeed most confidently hope 
that our meditations may never bring us into any 
such position. 

Peru is excellently painted, and so is Sutherland- 
shire ; but we have no space to notice either of them. 
We must confine ourselves to the first and b^ of 
these contributions — namely, that by Mr W. 6. Clark, 
upon Naples and Garibaldi He reached that city in 
time to behold the welcome given to the Liberator — 
to behold, but scarcely to take part in. Mr Clark 
seems rather to pique himself upon remaininff caJm 
and dispassionate while everybody else was wiS. with 
enthusiasm. It was rude of the Frenchman to go to 
sleep while so a^piecable a writer (and doubtless 
talker) was regretting the disturbances in Italy, and 
affirming that a Congress with threat of war might 
have persuaded Austria to erect Lombardo-Venetia 
into an iodependent kingdom with free institutions : 
it was rude, but it was not surprising. Mr Clark's 
Neapolitan friends were of what (neu called the 
moderate party, and thought Garibaldi 'a brave 
soldier, but a great fooL' The praise they had to 

E've hiin, considering that they were denizens of a 
nd which has not produced a great man for cen- 
turies, was faint enough. Still, as an example of 
opinions which are, happily, seldom heard in England, 
their sentiments are not uninteresting. 

* As a soldier,' say they, *■ Garibaldi is of undaunted 
courage, and a master of the "dodges" fpassez-rnoi 
U niot) which are required in guerilla war, but he has 
no conception of a general's duties in the field ; he is 
ignorant of the veiy rudiments of tactics, and inca- 
pable of organisation on a large scale. He is kind 
and gentle in his manners, and reluctant to hurt any 
one's feelings, while he is reckless of their lives. His 
bravery and gentleness, his generosity and disinte- 
restedness, secure him the personal affection of all 
around him, and that constitiitcs his great merit as 
a commander. He pushes his love of 8im]>licity 
to a point bordering on affectation, and is almost 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



2D9 



ostentfttioiis in hiB dislike of pomj). He is illogical, 
pnjiidioed, and obstinate to a degree never before 
combined. He thinks cavalry useless, and has a pro- 
found contempt for cannon. He is perfectly certain 
that he has only to appear before tiie walls of Rome, 
and the French will leave it, taking with them 
the Holy Father. "What if they don't?" it was 
urged. ** Oh, but they will ! " was the answer, in the 
tone of a man who admits no further discussion. He 
thinks that the walls of Mantua and Verona will fall, 
like those €i Jericho, at a shout. He is very easily 
imposed on, and believes in all those who arc about 
him. Famfliarity breeds respect, and no proof will 
convince him of the dishonesty of any one whom he 
has once tmsted. He has not the moral courage to 
sa^^No" to a request of any of these favourites. 
His isnofanoe is such that the smallest show of 
knowfedge completely imposes ui)Qn him. He thinks 
Orespi a statesman, and Dumas a scholar. However, 
in foiming an estimate of him, as of other extraordi- 
naiy chancters in history, wo ought to be on our 
gusid against the tendency natural to men to reduce 
eminence to the ordinary level by discovering a num- 
ber of small failing. And when all abatements arc 
made, there remam the great facts. His achieve- 
mentB are to be accounted for. He alone hod gauged 
coiTectly the real weakness of the Neapolitan power, 
and the strength of his own seemingly feeble means, 
and he had the courage to test practically the truth of 
his conclusions. His life-long devotion to one great 
idea, and his strenc^th of wul, have made him ** a 
king of men," and distinguish him from the crowd, 
who are always, on their own shewing, victims to 
**circamBtances over which they have no control."* 

It is needless to say that much of this detraction 
has since received a practical refutation ; while what 
comes under the eye of the writer himself, concerning 
the Dictator, impresses him favourably. He describes 
his personal appearance as being mild and philosophic, 
bearing a striKmg resemblance to the busts of Euri- 
pides m the Vatican. *He has the most benign 
expression of countenance, and his partial baldness 
and long beard give him even a venerable look.' 
There could be no doubt about the genuineness 
of his welcome to Naples. * About half -past nine, 
we heard the roar of vivas in the street, and coining 
to the window, saw Garibaldi himself, passing in 
the direction of VietrL One of the crowd, while 
cheering in the most frantic manner, suddcnlv fell 
in a kind of convulsive iit. I asked our landlady, 
a viraeious, black-eved Calabrese damsel, whether he 
had not been drinking the general's health. ''No," 
she said; "it is joy. — Ah," in a tone of reproach, 
**yoia English, who have been always free, cannot 
imagiiie iSe delight of deliverance." And she made a 
gestare as if she were about to fly.' 

This was a fine reproof, and our author exhibits no 
small magnanimity in narrating it. 

* Hie hero's name was repeated in all maimer of 
fonns, as if it was a declinable notm — Garibaldi, 
Garibaldo, Garibalda — nay, it was metamorphosed 
into Gkdlibar and Gallipot, and Galliboard ; at last the 
first two syllables were suppressed, and " Viva ^Board^ 
was the favourite cry, the soimd of the last syUable 
bcang |irolongod to the utmost. You heard, too, *' Viva 
Vittono Emmanuele," and still more frequently, 
** Viva ritalia unita," which at length was shortened 
into una; and when peox)lc got so hoarse that they 
could not articulate any longer, they held out the 
forefinger, and shook it as they pass«l, indicative of 
their desire for unity. Men, women, and boys crowded 
the carriages, and clung to them like swarming bees. 
I oounted thirteen ])er8ons in a small vehicle drawn 
by one horse. Some waved flogs, some brandished 
daggers, holding them occasionally in unpleasant 
proximity to one's throat, and shrieking with mena- 
cing scowls, ** Viva Garibaldi 1 " others danced f ranticly 
along, waving torches over their heads. I have 



never seen such a sight as the Strada di Toledo pre- 
sented as you looked up it, the long lines of stationary 
lights converging in the distance, and the flags droop- 
ing from the windows, and down below the mad 
movements of the torches, and the waved banners 
and gleaming arms. Here and -there, an excited 
orator addressed the crowd about him in wild decla- 
mation; little bands of enthusiasts, headed some- 
times by a priest and sometimes by a woman, went 
dancing through the streets, and burst into the arf^Sj 
compeUing all present to join in the popular cry. I 
was forcibly reminded of the scenes of the French 
Revolution and Mademoiselle Louise Theroigne. 
When I was in the Caf6 d'Europa, a priest rudiiea in 
with frantic gestures, with eyes starting from his 
head, with a banner in one hand and a Knife in the 
other, uttering horrible and inarticulate howlii)^;s. 
Having seen him, I can nnderstand the frenzy of uie 
ancient Bacchantes. A friend of mine saw a young 
and beautiful girl, belonging apparently to the upper 
class, who, standing up in a carnage, be^an to addtess 
the crowd quietly at first, but warming gradually 
into a fury of enthusiasm, Uie veins in face and neck 
swollen, and ending with ''Morte ai Borboni," shrieked 
out with the accents and gestures of a RacheL' 

The Neapolitan i)ea8ant seems to be by no means 
intellectually cultivated. The juicst communicates 
nothing to him even with regard to religion ; and 
xm intelligent guide of Sorrento discourses to our 
author concerning an ancient cemetery in this manner. 

'''This campo santo," said my guide, "was two 
centuries (due secoli) old ; before the world." 

"Before the world?" I asked. "How could that 
be?" 

" I mean," he said, " before this world ; in the time 
of another world, which was destroyed by a deluge." 
And that," I asked, " was two secoli ago ?" 
Precisamente, eccelenza." 
And how many years ore there in a secolo ?" 

" A hundred, or thereabouts." 

" Well," said I, with the air of an inquirer thirsting 
for information, "what happened about the deluge?" 

" The flood was sent, eccelenza, because the world 
was full of bad people ; but there was a signore called 
NoS, who was good. Dunque," he proceeded, putting 
his finger alongside of his nose, as their manner is 
when coming to the point of a story, " Jesus Christ 
made a great ship, and put No<$ in it;" and so he 
went on with the narrative.' 

The primitive simplicity of the Neapolitan faith is 
almost incredible. A woman, praying the Madonna 
to come and heal her son, communicates her address, 
at the same time, wiUi the most extreme particularity. 
No. 13 Hieh Street (as it were), third flat, second door 
on the lefwiand. 

Garibaldi himself dared not take the advice of the 
Times, and forbid the performance of the miracle of 
San Gcnnaro. Even if the liquidation of the blood 
had not occurred as usual, the failure would cer- 
tainly have told against the new regime. Mr Clark 
gives us a very graj^c account ox the ceremony. 
*An aged priest, standing within the altar-rails, 
raised aloft the vessel containing the sacred blood, 
and at once a forest of waving arms rose above the 
crowd, and the building rang with frenzied exclama- 
tions. Some other priests and assistants now appeared 
in the organ-loft, ready to lead the Te Deum wlienever 
the miracle should be achieved ; meanwhile, the old 
man continued to hand round the vessel, to let all the 
bystanders sec that there was no deception, that the 
blood was really solid. The vessel in question is a 
kind of monstrance, roimd, with glass on each side, 
and two handles, one above, one below. It is more 
like a carriage-lamj) than anything else I can think 
of. Inside arc two small phuds, containing an opaque 
su1)8tancc, the blood of the saint. In order to shew 
that it was solid, the priest turned the monstrance 
ui»ide dowa holdiiig a lighted candle behind it, and 



ti 



it 



(( 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



ahcved 

does before 

time the crowd kei 



eesturcf 



, All tliis 

Kt aSriGkin^ aai BcrcAming; the 
_', were frautic in tbeic cries find 
moaiUDg nod Bobbing, and Btretching out 



loose, which the s 
for the purpose. 

disciuaioDii were gi 



affected with this hysterical pasHion, and wept and 
moaneiJ like the women. The confuaion of ondleatly 
reiterateil prayers, uttered in anch tones that they 
resembled imprecations, reminded me of the chorus 
of the priests of Baal in the Elijah; only hero the 
trebles preponderate over the basaus. lleiidelsaohn 
may have witnessed some such scene ; but, so far as 
I know, the like is only to be seen at Naples, and in 
tlie Church of the Holy Senultlirc at JeruBalcni on 
Easter Sunday. For any other parallel, one most go 
lunong fetich-worshipping savages. 

' The priest then turned hia back on the audience, 
and the agitation of the crowd reached a paint where 
it could no longer be expressed in articnlatc erica, for 
nothing was heard but sobs and groans. A very few 
minutes had elaiued, when the priest saddenly turned 
round and exhibited the blood uqitid ! A vmd howl 
of exultation rose up ; flowers were Uirown towards 
the saint, and. strange to say, a number of birds let 

' '* ' ■'"- 'tora bad bronght with them 

r had the miracle been per- 
ere BCTecd on this, and ei^-r 
n in all juirts of the church as 
la xne exact imie it had taken. Was it three minutes 
or four, or four minutes and a half? The old women 
were wild with joy. It was clear that San Oennaro 
was in the best of tempers towanla his dear clients. 
and not at all displea^d with them for turning out 
thdr king. Two of Oaribaldi's red-shirted soldiers, 
who were making their way out of the chajiel. were 
the objects of tenderly aOectionate demonstratians ; 
old women held up their hands to bless them, others 
I>attod them on the b^ick. and smiled approvingly. 

One young prieiit, of rather attractive conn' 

tenance, came out of the chapel, his eyes red, and his 
cheeks swollen with weeping ; but most of his order 
seemed impassive, and did not attempt even to coun- 
terfeit devotion. The venerable old man in rose- 
coloured robes, who officiated, shewed no feeling 
whatever. Probably perfect seK-posscssion, with a 
little manual dexterity, is the qiinlity most requiaite 
in the officiating minister. The secret.' adds Mr 
Clark. ' is known only to the priests of San Oennaro 
and Mr IL Monckton Uilnes, who tells me that he 
has not merely witnessed, but once ]ier/t/rinetl the 

Is it not possible tbnt during the ox[ieeted 
involuntary absence of the supreme pontiff from 
Rome, that something tcmjioraiy might bo done 
with an honourable member possessing such great 
natural gift*! 



PEHFOBMING H0K8ES. 
One of the favourite stage directiona of a former 
well-known lessee of Astley's Amphitheatre was, to 
■cut the dialogue, and come to the 'oases.' This 
pet maxim was no doubt founded on an extensive 
knowledge of mankind, who, in the aggregate, are 
fond of animals of all kinds ; and it is certain that, 
to the majority of the speutatots, the ' 'osses,' aa 
Ducrow called them, are the chief attraction of a 
circus- The equestrian scenes give more delight 
than the contortioug of the acrobats, which are 
apparently fraught with pain to the performer, and 
certainly ahum a large portion of thcae who witness 
them. The scene or trick acta of the circle, in which 
the horses are provided witi a prominent nli", are 
always greatly applauded, and have a quiet charm 
about tbem, which the more exciting feats of the 



\i,,1t-tiMiiiid but hagg.ird- looking voltigenrs do not 
[lossess. The spotted horses employed in eqaestnsa 
performances have long been considered - by tbe 
uninitiated to be a hereditary breed, cultivated only 
for eihibition in the arena; but that is qnite amitlalc. 
and has doubtless arisen from the eccentric coluurs uf 
the lai^r number of circus horaes. This distjnctiou, 
however, is rapidly passing away, aniniala of ill 
colours being now indiscriminately used — the eiicui 
proprietor picking up a good horae, wherever he can 
liud one at a suitable price, zealously and patientl; 
training him for exhibition purposes, and so adding 
to his value. Some folks have even gone so far in 
their ignorance as to assert that ciimis horses an 
dyed or painted. This assertion is not true as a rale, 
although the rustic public, fastidious in their notiooi 
of colour, and not believing in a circus with honsi 
of a common hue, have before now Ihwd gulled b; 
neeessitoua moimtebanks with patntal ste^s of the 
deaert, which a pitiless shower of rain sometiiiiei 
Gipoaes, to the great discomfiture of the owners. 
The money power being granted, it is an easy matter 
to obtain liH kinds of horses ; and proprietary of 
circuses, or their ageni^ constantly travelling about, 
have every opportoni^ of pickingup suitable animals; 
but whatever value these may have for ordinnty 
equestrian piirjKises, they have a long training 10 
endure before they can be publicly christened *tlie 
fiery steeds of the Ukraine,' ' the prancing coursen 
of the god of day,' or such other sonnding name u 
may look well in the phraseology of the bills. 

The living horso which was introduced into 
Comeille's tragedy, in order to represent Pegasus, upon 
the revival of Atuiromeda in 1G83, gives us a clue to 
the mode of training adopted in the modern circus 
Means were taken in that tragedy to give the animal 
a warlike ardour. Before he was hoifltod up in t^ 
air by machinery, he waa kept fasting so long, that 
his appetite became extreme ; and when be appeared, | 
a groom behind the scenes stood shaking oala in ■ 
sieve. Pressed by hunger, and excited at sedng 
food, the horse neighed, pawed with his feet, and 
perfectly answered the end designed. By thii 
stratagem, the piece had a great run, for everybody 
was eager to see this animal, who performed to sQch 
perfection, and pranced as high in the air as he could 
have done on tirrafirma. 

Picking up a handkerchief from tlie saw-dust is one 
of the ' &ck ' -acts always taught to a circus horse. U 
and the whole teaching is achieved by the aid of a , y 
little bit of carrot, or a nandful of oats, seasoned with I 
an amouat of patience and good temper on tie part of - i 
the teacher which is wonderful to contemplate, and 
which quite bears ont the fundamental pmeifileB of 
Korcy's system of horse-taming— that the ammal is 
so constitut'^d that he will not offer resistance to any 
demand which he fully comprehends, if made in & 
way consistent with uie laws of his nature ; that a. 
hoTso has no consciousness of his strength beyond his 
experience, and can be handled according to onr wilL 
without force ;"and that wo can take any object, how- 
ever fri^tful, around, over, or on him, that does Dob^ 
inflict pain, without causing bim to fear. 

Apropos of Karcy and his manifestaiJonB, our show- 
men all maintain that he taught than nothing, hiv 
process of laying down a horse having been familial 

m the arena for j^enerations back, and i- '""'" 

use for the breafciog in of ' scene ' or ' '-^ 

All the merit assigned to Rarey by our 

men is, that he has had the Yankee tact to mate 

mystery aiid a fortune out of their know)edi{e. 

weU-kno-n-ueque-^-- ■■-- '—^ '-" *^-* " 









r instance, tells us that ' l**- 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



dOl 



lay down a horse ' can only seem extraordinary to 
those unacquainted with the equestrian profession, 
and that for his part he was alvrays too modest 
to bring a horse before an audience till the animal 
was so thoroughly trained that he would lie down, 
as in the case of the horse in Maz^^pa, without the 
use of any strap or other coercive means. Kindness, 
indeed, is laid down as a cardinal point in the breaking 
and training of aU horses. The modem system is 
founded on 83rmpathy, and the ancient cruelties of 
whip and spar are almost entirely discarded. The 
prooeas, therefore, of teaching circus horses is now a 
very simple one, and is more a matter of imceasing 
labour than the exercise of any particular art or charm 
on the part of the performer. 

To return, now, to the handkerchief. A white cloth 
containing a considerable quantity of oats is spread 
out on the saw-dust, and the horse being led round 
the drole, and taken up to it, is suffered to partake 
of the com. This is lesson the first ; and it at once 
fixes on the mind of the animal a connection between 
the doth and his food : he knows that by putting his 
head down to the handkerchief he can obtain a mouth- 
ful of oats. This, it is needless to say, he is encouraged 
to do ; and the march round the ring being once or 
twice repeated, the animal requires ahnost no further 
hint, but stops at the cloth as a matter of course — 
indeed would almost require to be forced past the 
object ol his love. ' You see, sir,' said a circus groom 
to us in the progress of our inquiry, * it 's the oats 
as does it ; the animal mil stop at them oats, and the 
reason is plain, sir — he's fond on 'em, and perhaps 
precious hungry as well, sir.' 

Hard practice for a week or two will teach the 
animal to stop at the white cloth as readily in a trot 
or a gallop as in a walk. We are all this time fancying 
our papil to be a quiet, steady, well-behaved horse ; 
but if, on the contrary, the animal be high-spirited, 
mettlesome, and inclining to kick away witn con- 
tempt the com and handkerchief, a different initiatory 
process must be adopted — a smart hoiir's gallop 
round the circle twice a day, and an occasional shoit 
allowance of oats, will soon effect a cure, and bring 
the most frolicsome Pegasus to his senses. Some 
horses are wonderfullv acute. We have known a raw 
animal trained to perform the part of * White Surrey ' 
in the space of four days. Other horses, again, take 
months to learn the most simple trick. Future lessons 
in the handkerchief business are very similar to the 
first one. The horse having been taught to know 
that where there is a white cloth he ma^ expect to 
find a feed of com, naturally enough assists greatly 
in his own teaching. After a time, the teacher doubles 
over the cloth, and fastens it in a knot — ^the horse 
shakes it, in order to find the grain, but not getting at 
it so readily as usual, he finishes this lesson oy lifting 
the doth from, the ground, which is just the one thing 
required. After the animal has done this a few times, 
ana finds that although there are no oats to be obtained 
from the cloth, he yet obtains a few handfuls by way 
of reward, he may be safely trusted to perform the 
trick in public. The next step is to persuade the 
horse to carry tiie cloth a little distance — to lift it up, 
and bring it to the ring-master. Now, as the horse 
of his own will holds the parcel till it is taken from 
him, a very little coaxing easily persuades him to 
walk a few paces across the ring, it being understood 
that he gets a reward in the shape of a little bit of 
carrot, or a handful of oats. 

Circus horses are taught many other tricks besides 
picking up a handkerchief — such as standing in 
tableaux, Wincing to waltz or quadrille time, forming 
parts of the roval arms, halting instantaneously at 
the sound of a arum, or falling exhausted after carry- 
ing Mazeppa over the wilds of the Ukraine. In 
a well-appointed circus, it is necessary for them to 
stand quiet under all kinds of excitement. They 
must hear the shrill clang of the cymbals, the noise of 



ordnance, and the shouts of the audience, without 
being tempted to move or become in any way alarmed ; 
but when a horse has learned to do one trick, it is 
much easier to teach him a second one. To teach a 
horse to make a sudden halt at beat of drum, an 
assistant must be provided ready to strike that instru- 
ment the moment the animal gets into a smart trot. 

* If he disobeys from fright, or from not understand- 
ing the signid, cause him to trot round the circle 
again in the same manner as before, for a few minutes, 
and then repeat the signal, but not so loud. Exercise 
him in this till he learns to halt in obedience to the 
signal, yourself assisting him in this business with all 
your judgment. Shoula he express fear at the sound, 
endeavour as much as you can, by your caresses and 
management, to convince him that it is not meant to 
hurt or terrify him, but as a kind of language by 
which he is to understand your desires. In order 
to impress him the deeper and sooner with the mean- 
ing of this language, let it always be used as a signal 
for the end oi his labour or exercises. The grand 
secret is invariably to use a soothing tone of voice, 
and rewarding him with an apple, or ouier httle condi- 
ment, when he obeys.' Such is the opinion of the 
experienced Professor Pablo. 

If a loaded pistol be attached to a post or other 
erection in the circus, a horse can be taught to fire it 
by means of a piece of white cloth beiiijg attached to 
the trigger, which the horse seizes in his mouth, and 
tugs under the expectation of being rewarded for his 
trouble This principle seems to be carried out 
thoroughly in all circus training. For instance, while 
teachi^ the animal to stand quietly, with his fore 
feet on a platform, he is kept supplied with portions 
of some delicacy, such as a bit of apple or carrot; 
every day this platform is heightened, till the 
required elevation is obtained, and so long as the horse 
is * good,' and is attentive to his lesson, he obtains 
some slight reward at its conclusion. 

In what the bills describe as the * Gorgeous eques- 
trian spectade of the wild horse of the Ukraine,' 
otiierwise, the play of Mazeppct, the direction given by 
the castellan is tiiis : * Bring forth the imtamed steed. 
Now bind the traitor on his back ; let scorching suns and 
piercing blaste, devouring hunger, and parching thirst, 
wiUi frequent bruises' and ceaseless motion, rend the 
vile Tartar piecemeal' The stage direction here is : 

* Music — Cassimir is now bound to the horses hack — the 
horse is rdeased, and immediately rushes off.* In other 
words, he bounds from the ring at his very fiercest 
speed, and in a moment or two we see him careering 
over the rocks at the back of the stage, which are 
supposed to represent the mountainous boundary 
between Poland and Tartary, with the helpless victim 
firmly strapped upon lus back — dashing him about at 
a sad rate. But the spectators need not be in the 
least alarmed, for while one horse is careering up the 
rocks, touched every here and there by unseen grooms, 
the real actor is qmetly smoking his pipe in his dress- 
ins-room, a duplicate horse and a well got-up dummy- 
ridier doing duty in the various ranges of hills which 
have to be crossed. By and by, Mazeppa, after hav- 
ing endiurcd all sorte of horrors, narrowly escaped 
being torn to pieces by a pack of wolves, and many 
other kinds of aeath, again enters on the scene, having 
reached his native and beloved Tartary. Both horse 
and rider are supposed to be thorougnly exhausted, 
and it is the cue of the animal immediatdy to fall 
down. From the constrained position of Mazepx>a, it 
is difficult for him to sive the beast any aid or guid- 
ance ; but so effective nas been the training of the 
animal, that by means of a few pats on the fore-leg 
with a morsel of twi§, it falls to the ground, as ii com- 
pletely exhausted; it is needless to say, amid the 
hearty applause of the audience. 

Merely to see a trick-horse perform this Mazeppa 
feat, or a manage horse do a Uttle *pa8saging' (that 
is, dancing sideways), conveys no idea of the un- 



SOS 



CHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



Ther 



pleaaantaen iiimlv«l in teaching — days of patient 
and hard work □□ the d^mp mw-diut, amid the 
gloom of > cold and cheerlos drciu. The mode 
of teaching a horse to dance, and keep time to the 
manic, ii to fasten the animal with two side-reina, 
betwwn the posts or pillan irtiich mpport the leap- 
ing bar. The teacher proridei himieU with a long 
whip, and, as the Dmme playi, he gently touches him 
with it, Qsing the wcU-known * jik, jik' of the gioom 
an he gfiea on. Being Becnrely fastened tn the posts, 
the hone con neither go forward nor backwnjil, but 
the teaching of his trainer indacei him to lift bis legs, 
and from that action he obtains the radimentarj 
movement of his lesson. After a time, the nion^^ 
lider will mount on his back ; the horse, however. 
being still &stened bj the aide-reinn, and by means of 
these, just at the time he is to raise his leg, he given 
a gentle tug at the proper side, and so aids the move- 
ment The whip applied gently to the hone's hind- 
quartiTa teaches him to bnng them gracefully ander 
bis body, and so adds considerably to the grace of the 
exhibition. After a time, the side-rBins are loosened, 
and the horse is entirely guided by the delicate hands 
nf the rider, and, if at all apt, m a few lessons he 
marks timo jvrfectly— either qoick or slow time, as 
may be desired^witli no other guide than a gentle 
jerk of his bridle. The master can then diomouut, 
and come before the horse, and teach him to dance, or 
keep time to the music, with a wave of the hand. 
This is achieved b^ simply givinff the horse a pat on 
the foot which he is reijuirM to lift An intelligent 
animnl at once takes ' the ofEce,' and in course of time 
comes to Icam what is wanted, and, like a sensible 
creatnrc, in order to bbvc the rap on the shins, lifta 
tlie leg witJiout the whin ; the mere swayioK of hia 
mastePs body being Bufiicient to shew bim what in 
eqnircd. 

IT! a great many other (eata performed by the 
IB horse, Biich be nnbuckling his own girth*, taking 
off his ninfter's hat, lifting a teo-kettlc from the tire — 
now seldom performed, oh the fire injures the horse's 
sight — su[iping with the clowu, &c. all of which are 
taught on the same principie. In all these tricks, tie 
moving influence ie the same; to recur azain to the 
practirad philosophy of the stud groom, ' it s the oats 



FAVOURED IDIOTS. 
In the department of Dordognc, in (he south-west of 
France, is situoted the pretty village of La Force. 
The climate of this favoured region ia particnlariy 
healthful 'It a' says an inliAbitant, 't«mperat'?, 
rather hot than cold, dry, and with rare eicoptiona 
we never see snow. We may ahnoet say that Aiitnnra 
comes to pass the Winter with us, in order to wait for 
Spring.' The Protestant pastor of La Force, M. John 
Bost, had some years since his attention strongly 
directed to the miserably degraded condition of two 
poor little female idiots who lived in the neighbour- 
hood ; his benevolent heart felt pity, while his firm 
and active will resolved that his compassion shoold 
not remun nnfniitfuL He had studied and reflected 
deeply on the subject of idiocy, and ho determined, 
witbout seeking assistance from others, to make the 
attempt bow for good food, kindness, and core directed 
towards their moral a9 well .is physical neoeaaities, 
might avail to reaouo these unfortunates from a state 
worse than that of brutes, in that it is abnormal, and 
that the poor imbecile ia often treated more unkindly 
than the moanEat animaL Ho took the little idiots 
into his house, overcame the natural lepugnanee 
which their habits and appearance were well fitted to 
inspire, watched over them continually, with the 



moot aniiona and judicious solicitude, and, after Ibe 
lapse of some time, had the happiness to see hi 
efforts crowned with aucceaa. One of them who, a1 
the age of wx, resembled a. mere ball of half-oniraiteii 
flesh, and inspired strong fcelinga of disgust in thou 
who camo in contact wit^ her, was able, at the aid 
of two years, to express herself in artacolatc langnsge, 
had b^nn to knit, and shewed considerable talmt fur 
singing. The progress of the other child from a i' ' 
of mute imbecility to that of aiticnlatc reason, wu 
even more striking. 

EIncouraged by these tokens of success, this excel- 
lent and energetic man, relying on the aid of Him 
who healed those that were ' lunatic and sore vexed,' 
determined to found an asylnm, to be named Betlusdi, 
for the reception of three olasaes of aufferera, nunely 
— idtnta ; bhnd, or those threatened with blindani: 
maimed, or those anffering from incurable bnt dK 
conta^ona maladies. 

Under crcat difficulties, chiefly of a necuniaiy 
nature, a nouae and grounds well a<lapt*d for the 
purpose were obtained, near la Force, and the aaylnm 
was founded in the year 1865. 'Bcthesda,' sajii M. 
Boat, ' ia for those who direct it a work of fMth, of 
charity, and of patience ; for those who inhabit it, or 
abfKlo of atmgglea, of Buffering, and of tears; al 
kinds of misery aeem to meet beneath our root' Al 
the close of laat year, the hoose contained tifty-«i^ 
inmates ; of these, nineteen are idiots, and the remsm* 
der. Buffering incurablea, afflicted with pretty nearfy 
all the ilia that flesh is heir to. We will first consider 
the case of the imlieciles, and allow M. Bost to speak 
for himself. 

' On entering the asylum, they were furnished W 
phyaiciana' certificates, testifying that they wi 
idiots, imbeciles, devoid of intelligence, incapable cf 
directing themselves, and without any prospect of 
possible development These certificates were only 
too exact ; often, indeed, the truth was nndeistated. 
Some of these poor beings have large heads, with 
immensely devciopeil foreheads, while the hinder put 
of the h™d is deficient The he.vl ia badly set, and 
fidla weakly on the breast ; in some cases, it is of a 
conical form, and falla backwards. In geueraJ, the 
eye is round, heavy, stupid ; the lips project, while a 
quantity of saliva flows from them. There ii j 
general feebleness, nbBonce of precision in the m 
ments, and a complete disorder of the system, Soms 
are rickety, scrofulous ; in others, the nervous system, 
is highly developed, and they are perpetoally itx 
motion. Their smae of taste is vitiated ; they pRpfer" 
to good food the moat filthy and unwholesome matteri- 
Their cry makes one ahudder ; their laugh is omivul— 
sive ; while the muscles of the face are so little under' 
control as to give an expresaion of the ntmost- 
stopidity. 

' l^omc of our pupils hiul scarcely ever seen the lights 
of day until they set out for Bethesda. Neglected,, 
shut up in a cellar, or iu some wretohed room without*^ 
either air or light, receiving no other nourishment? 
than an insufficient ipiantity of dry bread, these idiot*' 
reached' us in a state which wo dare not describe.^- 
Whiilesome food, regular meals, habilB of order aoX — 
cleanliness, freqncnt oaths, exercise in the open lir^ 
and as soon as the limbs began in some degree t<^^^ 
obey thfi volition of the idiot, some light ontdoocS^^ 

labour— these were the physical means by which ri "^ 

Bought to ameliorate the condition of these nnfor 

tunates. All roust be dcme with the utmost affec- ^ — ^ 
tiim and tenderaesa. The idiot brought up, oi — "" 

rather kept dnien by unkind and ignorant relatives- » 

is melancholy, solitary, usually dre-iding the pr*^^^ 
sence of othcra. We liod music, especially that e^^^ 

the orgiUB, a powerful i^nt in softeninf; and hnnunis 

ing our imbeciles. We place flowers m their budl ^P 
we seek to mate them odnrire Uio works of natnnL-— 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



303 



Soon they beoome sensible of our affection ; they seek 
oar careesee, and shew jealousy of others sharing 
them ; their hearts open ; they begin to feci that thev 
belong to the moral world ; and this point attainco, 
we hare to commence their education and instruction. 
The first thing to ascertain in the mental condition of 
an idiot is the existence of the will, of the power of 
Tohtion, and then to determine the limits of its 
development. The greatest caution is requisite here, 
for we may often accuse a child of obstinacy, when it 
is really cmly deficient in comprehension. But when 
once the idiot reaches the ])oint of imderstanding 
that IB required of him, it becomes (^uite needful to 
teach him obedience to the will of his superiors. A 
few instances will illustrate this. 

* M. A. is ten years old : she reached us in a state 
difficult to describe. Her physiognomy, her eyes 
especially, had an expression of stupidity and moral 
degradation which inspired a profound disgust in all 
those who saw her. She was false, passionate, gross ; 
her habits were such as to oblige us to separate her 
from the others, and to keep a perpetual watch over 
her. The measure of intelligence which she possessed 
seemed to serve her only for evil-doing. At present we 
have good reason to a]£rm that a complete change 
has been effected. Her features have acquired a soft 
and pleasing expression ; a gentle smile plays on her 
lipe ; she loves te walk with her companions. She 
has began a little to spell, to knit, and to sew. 

*£mma, aged eleven, was one of the first idiots 
received at Bethesda. Her intelligence has become 
wonderfully developed, but she is idle, and advances 
slowly in her studies. On Sunday evenings, we 
accustom such children as ore at all capable of the 
exercise, to relate little histories, and converse about 
them. One evening, when it came to Emma's turn, 
■he related a short tele in a manner that pleased me. 
I gave her a sou. The possession of sucn a fortune 
was an event in her life. Another little girl told the 
history of a charitable child who gave all her money 
to a poor man. She received two sous. I really do 
not know why I gave this money ; it was the only 
time I ever cud so. Emma looked vexed at having 
got but one sou. In order to calm her, I asked her 
who had told her story the best ** It was not that 
other one," she replied. 

"Tell me, my dear," I said, ** if a poor mother came 
and asked you for your sou to buy bread for her 
little hungry child, what would you do ?" 

" I womd say : Go to that other one — she has two 



8008. 



* This same Emma one day had behaved very badly, 
and tried to the utmost the patience of her instruc- 
tress. She persisted in her rebellion ontil ten minutes 
before dinner; then she tried to make up for lost 
time : she wiped her mouth, smoothed her hair, and 
by her industry and these insinuating words : " Am 
not I working well, dear mademoiselle ? Are you 
not pleased with me?** she tried to make us forget 
her former ill behaviour. The dinner-bell rang, and 
£mma was leaving her work, when a hand was 
placed on her shoulder, and a voice said to her : " You 
■hall work while your companions dine ; and as soon 
as your work is finished, you shall have a piece of 
bread." The child, without replying, took her work, 
and finished it; but when the bread was offered to 
her, she rejected it, and flying into a violent passion, 
csommenced throwing down all the stools within 
her reach. I locked her up, in order not only to 
punish, but to calm her, and to withdraw from her 
companions' even the spectacle of a furious child. As 
soon as she became quiet, her prison was opened. 
1 took her by the hand, and offered her the bread, 
which she rejected, sa3niig : " I want my soup." The 
door of the prison closed on her again. I said a few 
words to her before I turned the key ; and when at 
the end of half an hour I retiuned, the child, with 
her eyes faU of tears, said in a low voice : " Well, / 



have prayed ; 1 won't ask for my soup any more. I 
have been very nau^ty, but yoa shall see that I will 
be good." She took her piece of bread, and kissed the 
hand that presented it. 

'The inmates of Bethesda form one family: the 
infirm, the blind, and the idiots, aU live together. 
Some friends have asked if the sight of these poor 
imbeciles is not calculated to injure our sick patients ; 
I think it right to give some explanation on this head. 
Our idiots in general have a need of affection, 
and seek it. It is good for these poor creatures to 
be placed in the society of those in all respects 
their sax)eriors. The idiot, like every other child, is 
developed far more by the lessons which he takes of 
his own accord, than by those which are given him. 
Their education is received, as it were, involuntarily. 
Our idiote see what our infirm do; they hear their 
conversation ; they see them occupied in little pieces 
of fancy-work; tiiey observe the neatness of their 
toilet : all this acts and reacte on their feeble intel- 
ligence, and serves to develop it. But what, it may be 
a^ed, are tlie corresponding advanteges for the infirm 
themselves ? We bc^eve them to be still greater. 

' Nothing is worse for any one than inaction, bat 
especially for the invalid. Left to herself, she 
paisses her time in brooding over her woes. Mind 
and body act and react on each other, and life 
becomes insupporteble. In our asylum, 6ach invalid 
capable of fulfilling the task is intrusted with the 
care of an idiot : ^e presides over her toilet, and 
sometimes gives her little lessons. There is often a 
strong ana touching tie of affection between the 
invahd girl and her little prot6g6e. The former feels 
herself strengthened and consoled by discovering that 
there is yet a work for her to accomplish in the 
world — ^that God calls her, in the midst of all the 
miseries of her position, to be useful, and to do good ; 
while the poor idiot finds herself placed in circum- 
stences much more favourable to her development 
than if she were forced to live entirely amongst those 
afflicted like herself. Our sick and our idiots, how- 
ever, arc not alwa3rs together; their dormitories and 
repaste are separate. 

'Sometimes, a curious kind of friendship arises 
between two idiote. One named F., whom it has 
never been possible to teach to read or to work, has 
very strong affection for those who have been kind 
to her. S^ery night, she kneels beside her bed, and 
pra3rs aloud for her ^ends and benefactors. One of 
her comx>anions, in general a well-disposed creature, 
often places herself next her, and suggeste the names 
of those for whom she ought to pray. Alas! it is 
often needful to suppress forcibly this pious exer- 
cise. F. has her preferences, C. has hers; and if, 
unfortunately, F. prays for her own particular friends 
before naming those of C, disputes, scuffles, boxes 
on the ear, are sure to supervene. It then becomes 
necessary to prohibit this special worship. Soon 
peace u declared, and the two friends throw them- 
selves into each other's arms, uttering all sorte of 
tender speeches. This poor C. has never had 
any teeth. The only thing it has been possible 
to teach her is to tend the sick, and to love them ; 
but she is faithful to that task, and it is touching to 
see her occupied with the poor children who have 
been confided to her care. No one in her presence 
must utter a word against "the good M. Bost." She 
gete into a transport of rage if one of her friends says 
that I am wicked, and she would gladly teke a stick 
to avenge me.' 

So far, I have given a few abridged extracte from 
the very interestmg reports of the asylum at La 
Force, given by M. Best, but I may add my own 
conviction of the usefulness and almost unique char- 
acter of the institution. I had iately the pleasure of 
meeting M. Best, and of hearing from him a detailed 
account of his proceedings. He is one of the most 
active and energetic men I ever met. TaU, and in 



304 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



"1 



the prime of life, he has a countenance beaming with 
intelligence and kindness; and he exercises in an 
eminent degree that magical power which strong 
minds have over weak ones. . It is quite marvellous 
how, with the slender means at his command, he has 
organised and carries on so extensive and costly an 
invitation. He is so beloved in his neighbourhood, 
that the peasants are always ready to give him a 
day's work, and assist him in any way they can. * If 
M. Bost/ said one of them, * wants a thing done, it is 
just as well to do it at once, for he will be sure to 
have his own way.' His temperament is eminently 
kind and joyous, and he has an elastic spring of cood 
temper which bears him through all the dS^cufties, 
disgusts, and discouragements of lus most arduous 
task, and causes him to oe beloved, almost worshipped 
bv the poor little objects of his cara * They follow 
lum about,' said an eye-witness, 'stroke his coat, 
fawn on him, just like a£fectiouate does on their 
master ; and a smile, or a caress from his hand, causes 
an expression of intense joy to light up their poor 
imsightiy faces.' 

M, !D06t related several anecdotes illustrating 
the acuteness and talent for repartee of some of the 
educated idiots. One of them nad behaved so badly, 
and given so much trouble in the institution, that M. 
Bost said to her one day : * My child, if you continue 
to go on in this manner, I shall have to send you 
away as Adam was turned out of Paradise.' ' D'abord, 
monsieur,' she replied; * voua n'dtes pas Ic bon Dieu ! ' 
' That " d'abord,'^' he said, ' was irresistible. I made 
her a present of the other reasons.' A visitor one day 
asked a little girl her name : * They used to call me 
an idiot,' she said very meekly ; ' but I don't think I 
am one now.' 

Perhaps I cannot better conclude this imperfect 
sketch tnan by translating a few more of M. BcMBt's 
eloauent words; first cordially commending the 
asylum at La Force to the notice and liberality of my 
readers. 

' To gain the confidence of the idiots is the basis of our 
system of education. He is by nature timid and 
unsocial, shunning the society of men ; therefore, we 
seek to bring him into contact with rational beings, 
to surround nim with affection of which he soon shews 
himself sensible. To impress on the mind of the idiot 
our will, and to develop his, are the principal means 
to which we have recourse in order to raise the thick 
veil which covers his intelligence. Cunning some- 
times to excess, the idiot often defeats our pl^is, and 
would conmiit acts of violence, if not restrained by a 
strong and decided hand. The e^e also has a power- 
ful iimuence in guiding the imbecile. As to instruc- 
tion, properly so called we must proceed by means of 
the senses. Before opening a book, and setting the 
idiot to study the alphabet, it is needful that he 
should comprehend the ordinary language of life, and 
have conquered the nervous excitement frequent 
among some of his class, or the profound apathy 
which afflicts others. Draw his attention to the 
works of nature, teach him to dig a little or nke the 
^pround ; these must be our first steps towards awaken- 
ing whatever measure he may possess of dormant 
intelligence. Once he begins to studv, what diffi- 
culties I " This unlucky letter A, which is of no use 
whatever, which does not nourish the stomach ; and 
this slate-pencil, which is always slipping between the 
fingers, and whose scratching hurts the ear. Then 
that wicked needle, which is for ever pricking the 
finger, and drawing blood; the thread which is too 
coarse for the eye of the needle, or the eye of the 
needle which is too fine for the thread." So say, or 
so think, these poor children, who view thread and 
thimble in the fight of a galley-slave's chain. But 
by degrees we succeed in interesting the poor idiot. 
What joy she feels when she is able to read the story 
of a Uttle cat or a doll I And when she accomplishes 
embroidering a letter of the alphabet on canvas, the 



e 
d 



house resounds with her cries of joy; and caressiix^ 
her instructress, she inquires : ** Don't I know how -ft-^ 
work well?" .Music bias a pK)werful effect. on thes^^^ 
poor creatures. Sacred strains accompanied by t'^ 
organ have im especial influence in calming 
elevating their minds. 

'May we not, in conclusion, commend to yo^^-^ 
attention the words of our Lord : " Heal the s i^^ ^/^ 
cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devvC^ . 
freely ye have received, freely give." ' 



THE RAIN. 

The Rain with Uttle diamond feet 

la dancing on the glossy leaf 
Oat in my garden, where the flowers 

Enjoy a sunny season brief. 

He sleeps in radiant velvet cup, 
Soft as down, and blushing with bloom ; 

And fragrance rare steals gently up 
Hither into my little room. 

He lifts the drooping rose's head 
Tenderly up towards the sky ; 

He waves his fingers o'er the moss, 
And sprinkles it with jeweU'ry. 

He hangs a starry curtain rare, 
Tastefully 'long the garden-wall ; 

I love to watch the jewels fair 
Replaced by others as they falL 

He steals along the parchdd ground. 
And dives down to the flow'ret's root ; 

Or hides beneath the quiv'ring leaves 
That shield the blushing orchard-fruit 

To meek and modest flow'r deep down 
In nook, with herbage thick o'erspread, 

He steals with his bright jewel-crown, 
A guerdon for its lovely head. 

The brooklet to the brink he swells, 
And strikes his fairy circles there. 

In which the llUes wave their bells, 
Unheard amid the fragrant air. 

The spider on the aspen-tree 
Hath spread his nicely woven net; 

Can anything more lovely be. 
When with the sun-dyed rain-pearls set! 

Within the king-cup's chalice fair. 
Trembles his silver star so cold, 

But 'mid the yellow glory there. 

Seems changed to drop of liquid gold. 

Oh, blessed earth-refreshing Rain, 
A -falling on my garden sweet, 

I'd turn away from martial strain, 
To hear the music of thy feet. 



To Ck)KTRiBUT0R8. — On and after this date, 
requested that all Contributions to Chamberi» Jo^ "^^^^ 
may be directed to the Editor, at 47 Paternoster Boi*^'^' 
London, and not to Edinburgli. 





Printed and Published by W. & R Chambers, 47 PatejT 
noster Row, London, and ;i39 High Street, EDnniUBOH:^^ 
Also sold by William Robertson, 23 Upper Saoknll^^ 
Street, Dublin, and all BookseUcrs. 



S tit net anir ^ris. 



CONDUCTED BT WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



385. 



SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1861. 



Price 1^. 



FRENCH TITLES. 

yean ago, the Emperor Napoleon astonished his 
listen of state by a new proposition. His majesty 
} of opinion that the condition of the titled classes in 
jioe was a stigma on the nation at large ; that a posi- 
i law should be enacted on the subject of titular dis- 
*tionB ; that all claims should be duly sifted, and all 
tul transgressora punished with a yearns imprison- 
at as the penal maximum. But there are some 
Qgs that even Napoleon III., TmpercUor Francorum, 
not da The embryo edict never passed the 
ate, or attained a more complete maturity than 
t of a mere projet de loi. It still remains un- 
ched and im|)erfect, one of the addled eggs of 
yenal l^islation. And yet we cannot but admit 
.t the emperor was in the right; that soimd sense 

1 logic were on his side; and that in this case a 
poleonic ' idea ' has been unfairly stifled by time- 
nng politicians. The question of the utility and 
»ediency of titles is wide of the mark. Hereditary 
k may be a good thing, or it may be a bad thing : 

may hold with Mr John Bright, or we may rally 
nd Lord John Mannera ; but surely what is worth 
lining is worth preserving intact and pure. Let 
see what our lively neighbours across the Channel 
re done for the preservation of titles of honour. 
<*rench titles, properly speaking, embrace the 
ions distinctions of duke, marquis, count, vis- 
int» baron, and chevalier. These ranks are as old 
the time of the later Roman Empire, and repre- 
.t military offices now vague and obsolete, but 
>e as definite and clear as our modem phrases of 
onel and major. Thus, the dux, or duke, was the 
leralissimo of an army ; the marquis, a warden of 
! marches or borders ; the conuHt or count, derived 
style from being companion to his sovereign or 
der ; and the viscount was the deputy in case of the 
lence of his superior. Even the marshals of France, 
itle high and ancient, though not hereditary, were 
first, as their designation implies, merely the chief 
leing-smiths, the mar^chaux ftrrant of the army — 
unimportant post among a nation of martial bar- 
iftp a like the Franks, whose cavalry included their 
>le8 and picked warriors. In addition to these 
nitaries, there are numerous princes in France ; 
# their glittering titles are not derived.from a native 
iroe : &ey are princes of the Holy Roman Empire, 
rmanic princes, not real French Highnesses. The 
etiquette of France gives the honoun of the AUesse 
none but those who partake the blood-royal in 
iegree sufficiently near to be called Children of 
ince. But many of the most distinguished families 
Jie Gallic aristocracy are as much Belgian, Spanish, 



German, or Hungarian as French, and have, or had, 
estates, rank, and close alliances in other lands than 
that to which their allegiance is due. Owing to this, 
French society has always courteously acknowledged 
the rank of prince borne by natives of France, though 
the style is usually merged in a dukedom, the apex of 
Gallic distinctions. We must own that the transmis- 
sion of titles is well managed by our neighboure 
across the narrow seas. All the sons of a prince are 
princes, to be sure, even during their parent's life; 
but that is because the dignity belongs to the pomp- 
ous old empire of which the Kaiser Joseph is honorary 
ruler. But you will not meet in France with the 
absurd swarm 'of petty aristocrats who deluge German 
society. A prince may be the happy papa of a dozen 
little princelings in pinafores of coarse stuff, and veiy 
badly cireumstanced for bread and butter; but at 
least barons, counts, marquises, do not spread and 
multiply in the preposterous manner common else- 
where on the continent. At least, in Franco, rank 
has not to betake itself to such singular methods of 
living as in the Low Countries, for instance. In one 
small Flemish town of my acquaintance, the principal 
innkeeper is a baron, and avenges his degradation on 
the purses of the untitled public ; the fashionable tailor 
is a baron ; and the jack -booted head-postilion at 
the Hotel des Postes is a baron too, and never forgets 
to remind travellers, when soliciting an extra pour 
boire, that he has a right to wear a coronet if he likes. 
They manage mattera better in France. There, 
the eldest sou of a count is a viscount by right, and 
the younger sons are chevalien. Chevalier ought 
to stand for knight, and once did so ; but for cen- 
turies, it has represented the word gentleman, in 
Shakspeare's sense, which is exactly identical with 
the almost obsolete word gtHtUhonime^ and does not 
in the least refer to any test of manners, educa- 
tion, or office, but purely to descent. These titles, of 
course, have their appropriate feminine variations, from 
princess, duchess, and so on, down to the reductio 
ad abmrdum of chevaliire. It is only in very remote 
places, out of the way of railways and ridicule, that 
the wife of a gentleman is called chevcdUre, and then 
only by the half-educated gossips of a Breton or 
Languedocian village. Of course, the most ancient 
of these designations date from veiy dark ages indeed, 
as witness the Montmorenci family, who are vain of 
their traditionary claim to be the first Christian 
barons; the House of Coucy, whose motto is proud as 
its bearen ; and the great race of Rohan, whose family 
legend runs as follows : 

Boi ne pais. 

Prince ne daigne, 

Bohan je suis !-^ 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



tliB very aemo of lordly vaunting. Very old and vci 
baughty is the email reudoc oF the creiua of Fr«D( 
Eoliility, though tlio nulro candid of them will on 
that Oonujiy can eclipse tliiim in quartcrings, and 
tbat Spain haa longer pedigroea and Uner blood. 
It is wurth notict, that olmort all the arialocraoio 
of the continent, Freuch, Spoaiah, Genmn, Flemisti, 
Roman, and Eijflaian, look, or profeaa to look, on the 
nobility of England ae on mnBhrooms of very recent 
origin. This may probably be owing to tbs rciuarlt- 
sble ignorance respectiag British inatttutiona and 
social life which prevails everywhcro abroad, and to 
some muddled notion o£ our being a ahoplteeping 
nation, which icduccii many educated foreigners to 
confuse the House of Lords with the Lor-Maire, and 
to derive the StanleyH and Howards from the purlieus 
of Threadneedlo Street. However, it h certain that 
there are rtiil French titles in the posBcssion of tbose 
whose ancegtoni won them in the early battles of the 
Capets and the Valots ; if not, as they would bare us 
believe, under Chnrlemagne'a own banncta. 

It is ft great mistake to imagine, as many 
of ns do, that the noblesae of Franco was nearly 
eitermi anted by the pikes of the Jacobins and 
the knife of the guillotine, nod that it was in a 
flourishing state at the e^ioch of the revoliitioa of 
'92. Not BO. For hundreds of years had a rapid decay 
been at work ; tho warn of the League and the Fronde 
were fatal to as many patridana oa the conteet of 
Sylla and Marius ; Richelieu began the work of con- 
verting the feudal aristocracy from turbuteut barons 
into ruined courtiers, and the boll he set in motion 
was never suffered to stand still, Maz.iria Rrst began 
to drivD a gainful traffic in patents of nobility ; later 
miniHtera carried on a bnainess at once iucrativo and 
caay ; Louis XTV,, the quintessence of kingly pride, 
found himself obliged to gild and lacker his linan' 
cici? ; the Regent and his royal ward rained honours 
on the most unworthy and indecorous applicants. 
Prom every generation arose the same cry: 'There 
is no good blood left in France.' Any fanner of taies 
who eoidd fatten on the EUfferings of the people was 
certain of a connty or a marquiaate. Men o£ the 
TttcBt character, oaA of morali the most debased, 
' looked to be carl or duke,' and were not diaappointcd 
if they could but pay for tho coveted bauble. In 
eonaequonce, the Convention sent multitudes of titled 
victims to tho scaffold for ineivism, little rocking that 
the Hood spilled was not of the true azure tint, and 
took vengeance on tho song and gmndaons of spcculo- 
tora, money-lendets, traders, and so on, for the long 
catalogue of feudal wrongs inflicted by the hanghty race 
of the past Every coronated head was permitted 
to count in that grim list of proacription, and, as we all 
know, solemn laws abolished all titles, prohibited the 
prefii of ' de.' and banished even tho familiar address 
of Monsieur and Madlarao, to be superseded by Citizen 
and Citizenneas in a new and classic France. 

When Napoleon I. ascended tho throne as emperor, 
ho triedhardtoraUytheoldnobility around him. He 
partially succeeded, and, at any rate, he gave them 
back the right to bear tbeir ti^es, as by preBcription 
and of naage ; but, to their horror, he was a fountain 
of honour that played on very rough and rude, though, 
for the most part, very meritorious people, and soon a 
number of new ariBtocrata attempted to take place 
with those of Bourbon creation. Then, indeed, was 
there a cry of desolation througb the dreary and lim 
Faubourg St Ocrmaiu, auoh as Itobcspien-e and Marat 



had hardly elicited when the streets were full of pikea li 
and red caps, and no head was safe that wore ■ core- ' 
net. The new additions to the peerage were very ill 
received. Ridicule and abuse were poured apon them 
like doudia oF cold and hot water. Certainly, there 
was a fair toraet in which to f hint the lit^e barbed 
epigrams in which French wit la mrely lacking. The 
bravo soldiers, the shrewd snrgconH, tho aharp-witted 
comnjiasories who were tho prumotcd of the Lmpcror, 
were more at cax in a camp than a draning.room ; 
their barrack-breeding and defective education were 
ill fitted fur poliEhed circles. Their nam»( were often 
very strung, and Count Lampion, and Boron Choo. 
caused mJinia tho most decorous to break out into 
titterB and sneers ; while countesses who hod sold niti 
ordinaire and roasted chestnuts, marchionesies fum^lj^ 
with the waah-tub, and banmna who had seen the 
world from a baegage-wagou, would have provoked 
the risibility of a l»is impulaive people. Even Napo- 
leon's marshaU and their spouses fared littlu better. 
Nobody in society could be serious in mentioning that 
he tad looked in at the ball of Madame the Dncheaa 
of Tartary, or Ijad seen thePriuccsa of Cracow driving 
in the Boia de Boulogne, or had had the privileEB i3 
an introduction t« the Queen of Bulgaria, a(e Cmdion, 
and wife of a bold and lucky dragoon who hod 

Many a lit of anger liid tbia treatment of his noUes 
cost tho conqueror of Lodi ; be fumed and stormed, 
at one timp longing to uudo his own handiwork, and ' 
by a stroke of the pen to qnaah all his new creations; 
at another, making up matches between his fire-new- 
marquises and the noble demoiselles of old France, and { 
showering down places and ])<inEiaaa on the pnldent. 
family of tho bnilo. When the Emperor was caged. 
at St Helena, the nobles ho had made were mom 
cruelly Seated than ever; duels, Liwsuita, scandals 
UDUumbcrcd arose from their collision with tho relies 
of the feudal families ; while the descendants of ths- j 

Eiiblicans and ainners who had bought earoneta Axnm | 
inbois and Madame du Barry, were oa averse to nilr 
shoulders with tho succcsaful soldiers aa tiie sdoms- 
of Crusading houses. Still, Louis Dixhuit, a cold nA i 
temporising king, confirmed all Napolcon'a paieata^ I 
and Charles X. and Louis Philippe followed hi» 
eKomplc. In consequence, it tcqmres some littls^ I 
knowledge of the France of other days, of Prencla. i 
literature and court-history, to discrimmate betweeik 
tho counts whose arms were emblazoned by D'Horier^ 
and whose sDcestoi^ are embalmed in Fnnssart^s 
Boha nf Chivoltvi, and the modem nobleman whoaiv 
father won his spurs at Austerlitz or Eylau. 

That Louis rhilippe, whose monarchy was built oim- 
tho very shppery fouadatioo of tie barricades, shoDhS- 
prcfor ia recompense some of bia supporters by giving, 
tbcm titles rather than state employment, was natnrw^ 
enough ; but at fint the Citiren King was sensibly' 
chary of such promotion. Whot Louis Phflippe wa^ 
really a prodigal in, was red ribbon; miles of bluahin^^ 
ribbon md he difitributc, and grossea of little decora — 
tious, until every second Frcuchman who wore e^b' 

cloth coat bad a morsel of crimson silk at his button 

hole, and the Le|jou of Honour included some ver^^ 
ecceotrio knif^hts indeed. But it wos not till tho o!^^" 

king was in his dotage that he began to scatter coro 

""■"" broadcast among bis friends. Then, indeed, h^^^ 



creating tbem coouts, dukes, marquiaee, and so forth-- j 
in rapid succession, aiid saluting Uicm evely now un^^' 
then by some uew and sonorous title of nobility^-— 
These gentlemen, M. Guizot and tho reat, hninr vy 
unable actually to ayi'rt tho diamond spray wit^ 
which the Fountain of Honour pcrsisfled in tHBprink. — 
ling them, chose the wise course of Concealing tfaa^'' / 
rank from the bitter press and the stormy nuinlwiil h 
They locked up their patents, burked their titlea, tmA 7 
extOTted from his reluctant majesty a promise to m^ j 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



307 



nothing about the matter. It was only after the 
revolution of 1848, when the archives were over^ 
hauled, and portfolios and cabinets ransacked, that 
the French discovered what a crop of noble person- 
ages had just been driven from the lielm of state — how 
this minister had been a duke, and that chef de bureau 
a marquis. 

We all remember how the new Republic began her 
short TCiign, and how jauntily she wore her Phrygian 
cap for a while. No more titles then ! — no more 
armorial bearings ! Even the ambassadors could 
not prevent the mob from tearine down from over 
their doon the royal and imperial l>lazonrie8 of their 
august masters. Even Loni Henry Seymour, the 
most popular of ^Vnglo-Parisians, had his coachhouses 
taken by storm, and the arms on his carriajE^ panels 
obliterated by the paint-brush. Monsieur and Madame 
were banished once more, and Citoyen and Citoyenne 
became the canonical methods of address. But very 
brief was the tenure of that licence and levelling 
spirit which the French call liberty. While the 
kennels yet ran crimson with the blood spilt in the 
June insurrection, the coach-painters were at work 
with their ^es and azure, ana or and sable, filling in 
coats, marking out quarterings, and emblazoning quar- 
ten of nobility on the defaced panels of carnages. 
Monsieorand Madame returned from exile, and Citizen 
and Citijgenness slunk off again into oblivion. Then 
Louis Napoleon was elected president, and counts and 
marchionesses reappeared, like butterflies in summer 
sunshine. Next, the head of the state was called 
Prince President, and the salons waxed confident and 
gay. The Empire was proclaimed, and Napoleon III. 
made some new nobles, and, of course, conflrmed 
the old ones. Since then, we have scon Ihikcs of 
Malakhofl^ Magenta, and similar military grandees, 
sprout gaily under the imi)erial r6gime, in the true 
taste of the original Empire, while the Legion of 
Honour, though less abused than under the House of 
(Means, is still very liberally bestowed. As for 
French opinion on tiie subject, it is very hard to 
elicit a faithful expression of it. Many intelligent 
Gauls assume a sneer when the name of a count or a 
duke comes under discussion. Your doctor, your 
mooatj your railway surveyor, will tell you that titles 
aie absurd rags of the old world, ridiculous epithets 
tbat only^ elicit a laugh from contemptuous France ; 
and 3ret in Paris you will find crowds of very rich 
and hard-headed people scheming to get the entrie of 
the dullest old moth-eaten saloons in the Faubourg, 
Owning on every stray man of title they can catch, 
and ready to marry their richly dowered daughters to 
any one who can iilaco a coronet on the young lady's 
brow. You will hear high-sounding appdlations 
mouthed as unctuously, and dwelt upon with as deli- 
cious a relish, as even in America itself; while the 
poorer classes consider a title as a low-caste Hindu 
legaids the ochre streak on a Rajpoot's forehead — 
something that may be hated, but is not to be despised. 
On the whole, I should say that titles are really 
as much considered in France as in England, when 
known to be genuine, and not of the Napoleonic era. 
Bat there is the rub. Every one cannot possess the 
learning and acumen of the whole Heralds' College 
united, and there is no guide in the darkling path. 
In England, we have our charts and catalogues of 
the Upper Ten Thousand. Burke, Dcbrett, Dod, 
and other benefactors to their sx)ecies, have provided 
OS with a number of prettily lK)uud and gold-edged 
-Tohmies, wherein the pretensions of this and &at 
fasmSiy are neatly mapped out, where we learn whether 
a pedigree dates from Battle Abbey or from St Botolph 
Without^ and where we can read whom Lady Mary 
married, and when Lady Fanny was bom. But in 
France, and indeed in other continental countries, 
there is no such admirable lexicon extant. There is 
the Ootha Almanac, to be sure, which gives all the 
ly CbriBtian names of the princes and princesses — 



royal, imperial, apostohc, serene, august, or transpa^ 
rent — who belong to the reigning Houses of Europe. 
That is a valuable work of reference when sovereign 
rulers are in request, but it throws no light upon the 
galaxy of grandees collected around the monarch 
whose age and appellations it so minutely chro<- 
nicles. 

Foreigners have no * Who's Who,' no compendiums 
of titled personages ; and yet, surely, there oueht to bo 
some clue to the labyrinth of fine names mat per- 
plexes the stranger at a summer watering-i)lace. At 
iiadcn, Homburg, Ems, anywhere on the Rhine, or 
at Nice or Florence, the travelling Briton t-akes up 
the visitors' list with a feeling of amazement at the 
astoundingly superb company there set down: nine 
or ten Russian and I'olish pnnoesses, some with their 
husbands, and all i^ith a smte ; boyards of Moldavia, 
dukes of Spain and Naples, Herzogs and Erz Herzogs, 
royal highnesses and highnesses of very small position 
indeed, marquises, barons, countesses, chevaliers of all 
lauds. A pudding should be reasonably rich, of course, 
but really this pudding is aU plums. What a very 
poor ap]>oarance does Mr Wilkms of England make 
among so many superb human peacocks, with their 
jewelled necks and spreading trains ! But all is not 
gold that glitters. Many a peacock there, strutting 
and screaming with the best, is but a daw after all, 
in feathers borrowed from quite another ^species of 
fowl, and will not bear a veiy close inspectian. 
Many a lion, roaring nobly, and inaking a grand dis- 
play of royal mane and claws, is but Asinus in mas- 
querade, and no true lion, for all his fulvous hide 
and lashing taiL 

Lot us stick to the French peacocks and French 
lions, and try and find out who are genuine and who 
are impostors, leaving the dignitaries of other countries 
out of the question. The first and most conmion 
cissumption in France is that of the noble prefix * de.' 
This implies nobility, and marks, or asserts, that the 
bearer is of a gens^ or notable family, to use the old 
Roman definition which the French have adopted. 
Nothing is easier than for any man to graft that tiny 
monosyllable upon his own patronymic, and yet won- 
derful are the heartburnings, the feuds, envy, hostility, 
caused by such an adilition among the nei^bours of 
the aspirant. The prefix *de' is understood to be 
nobler, as a rule, than * de la,' though the ducal House 
of Tremouille and other great races have the latter ; 
both of these are superior to *du,' while *du' bears 
the bell over * des,' as a handle to nomenclature. A 
knowledge of this fact — never, to my belief, stated by 
any French or English writer — will help to explain 
some of the fine distinctions, the lights and shadows 
which the novelists and historians of Gaul rather 
imply than assert, and wluch escape the ordinaiy 
Bntish reader. Du and des are attached to many 
names to which they were meant to convey an3rthing 
but a twang of aristocracy, as in the familiar Dubois, 
Dupin, Dcsmoulins, and the like. Another usur- 
])ation, not uncommon, and tolerably old in date, is 
to tack tho name of an estate, a ch&teau, or even a 
farm, to a surname, as when M. Millon, the grocer, 
buys a ruinous castle and its demesne, and henceforth 
styles himself M. Millon do Lima^on, or M. Martd 
de la Tourellerie. The worthy man's sons will sign 
themselves Chevalier de Lima^on, or not impoasiray 
revive the extinct coimty of Tourellerie in their own 
favour. Louis Philippe had a pet institution, the \^een 
of France. It was not every one who could be a peer 
of France ; nor could an adventurer pretend to liclong 
to that well-known legislative body, which, in the 
amount of consideration it enjoyed, was about equalled 
by Cromwell's House of Lords. But the peers of 
France fell with the monarchy, nor has the Emperor 
thought fit to galvanise them into fresh activity. 

The lack of regular woriiLS of reference, of definite 
authorities, is the proximate cause of the unlawful 
usurpation of titles so common abroad. We, who study 



■•# 



308 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



<nxT Peerages and Histories of Landed Grentry with 
80 loving a research, cannot easily be gulled by imxx>s- 
tors. An adventurer who should assume the name of 
my Lord Tom i^oddy, or counterfeit Sir Camaby 
Jinks, would speedily be kicked out' of society and 
his leonine hide. Still more prompt would be the 
unmasking of a sham duchess, a mock marchioness, a 
Birmingh^ countess. The paste jewels could never 
pass muster, as across the Channel, for diamonds of 
the first- water. But in France and elsewhere, three 
classes of pretenders contrive to shine with a borrowed 
lustre. 

First must be mentioned the very common case 
of a youn^ man of respectable parentage, who assumes 
a countship, just as some Englishmen, forty years ago, 
dubbed themselves captain, as a ^ood travelling-name. 
A youngster of good addi«ss, ynth. a whole coat and 
clean linen, a little superfluous cash, and a polite skill 
with the pistol, can call himself baron or chevalier, or 
count if he will, upon the Paris Boulevards. None of 
the <%i/S-haunting loimgers wiU contradict him; he 
will be probed bv no over-curious queries ; society will 
accept an^ drafts the neophyte is pleased to draw 
upon his mia^ation, and wiU give him his adopted 
title on condition of his respecting those of others. 
So far, all goes softly and welL Paris contains too 
many glass-houses for stone-throwing to be generaL 
It is omy in case of a lawsuit, or, if there is a contract 
of marriage to be drawn up, that the vouth's bubble 
will burst. He can inscril>e his fanciful rank on his 
pa8Si>ort; he can travel with it; he can flash his 
imaginary coronet in the eyes of watering-place saun- 
terers, or he can convey it to Leicester Square, to 
xistonish John BulL Even if he be reduced to teach 
dancing, or his native tongue, among the children of 
perfidious Albion, he will find his title of ser\'ice to 
hinoL. There are those who feel a thrill of gratified 
vanity in patronising a foreign nobleman, and Pater- 
familias has chuckled as he remembers that httle Miss 
Kitty and Master Adolphus learned their stcjis or 
their irregular verbs from a French count. 

The second class of pretenders embraces a more 
dangerous set of conspirators against the pockets of 
MrJBuil and the hearts of his neiresses. These are 
young gentlemen who are not the rose, but are akin 
to the rose, and claim roseate honours as of right. 
They are * the king^s poor cousin, sir,' masquerading 
in the royal robes and orb-surmounted diadem ; that 
is to say, they arc poor cadets of a great family, to 
some ol^cure and impoverished branch of which they 
belong. Wc have such in Britain and in Ireland — 
small relatives of the great— yet not seldom far 
prouder and more mindful of their pedigree than the 
chief of their House would l)e fouiuL But they are 
satisfied to be thought what they really are. It is not 
so abroad. There, the fifth or sixth cousin of Mon- 
seigneur, when once away from his own province, 
and especially among foreigners, is apt to blossom 
forth in the capacity of Monscigncur himself. For 
instance, I knew a French gentleman of old lineage, 
who cultivated English society by preference, and 
who called hrmselF the Maixjuis de St Epinard, 
though his own countrymen scouted the story alto- 
gether, and made bold to laugh at the marquis's 
title before the marquis's face. His lordship really 
was a St Epinard, I believe, descended from a 
younger brother of that famous marquis who had 
the honour of being grand boot- jack in ordinary, and 
clerk of the periwigs, to Louis XIV., and whose name, 
with funny anecdotes attached to it, you will meet 
with in many of the dehghtful wicked memoirs of the 

Eeriod. The usurped marquiiMte would have done 
ttle ^ood to its holder, but that there are Britons 
who will buy foreign rank, and even sham rank, in 
the absence of the genuine article; and the electro- 
plated marquis made an excellent match with Miss 
Maty Aime Bobbles, sixty thousand pounds being 
liberally settled on his daughter the marchioness by j 



her exultant papa, Bobbles, J9^e, of Thames Street and 
MaidaHilL 

The third and most frequent category of pretenders 
includes the numerous adventurers of both sexes who 
have voted the world their ouster, and have to opea 
it by the sharpness of their wits. These seldcna, 
perhaps never, come to a good end. Even when 
money is plenty with theni, when they outblaze the 
real grandees of the earth with the splendours of their 
livenes and equipages, there is something theatrical 
and hollow in tneir display. They gim few but 
willing dupes. And when the ill-got gold, like faiiy 
gifts, has turned to emptiness, when shabby misery 
takes the place of audacious lavishneas, the sounding 
title is as a portable pillory for its wearer's disgrace. 
And yet there are flies, greedy and simple enough to 
be caught in even such coarse webs as these; and 
while there are such flies there will be spiders to est 
them. At this moment, there are persons residing ia 
the great hdtels of Paris, the huge H6tel des Prii^ei, 
the palatial H6tel du Louvre, and others, whom all 
their acquaintances, save a few simpletons, know to 
be rogues and impostors. They are called by fine 
names, they wear nne clothes, occupy the beat apart- 
ments, eat ofif gold, and take the air on thottnigh- 
bred hacks, or in carriages on which are . painted 
quarterings enough for a canon of Strasburg. And 
yet landlord, and bowing waiters, and obsequious 
shopkeepers, and even the footmen, gaudy as macaws, 
who stand behind their carriages, know these good 
customers to be knaves in grain, sparrow-hawks ia 
popinjay plumage. Yet they live and thrive, for 
a time, in a sort of unholy prosperity and goigeoiu- 
ness. Their titles are believed in by gaping pro- 
vin<;ials and stupid foreigners. Some visitOTs to 
Paris are proud to lose their gold pieces at the lans- 
quenet-table of Madame the Duchess, or to have a bet 
on a Chantilly steeple-chase with the Baron, or to 
oblige the Most Noble tlie Marquis with a loan. Thej 
take the moon's reflection in the pool for the luminaiy 
herself ; they snap, like the poor 1)east in the fable, 
and they {Mut witii their suDstance in exchange for 
the shining shadow. Very few of these cases of 
swindling ever get into the papers. The sheep lose 
their golden fleece, and go off to their pastures mute 
and msconsolate. To be robbeil is bad enough, bat 
to be caricatured in the Charivari^ gibbeted in the 
papers, set up as a laughing-stock to one's fellow* 
townsmen, is worse than the mere loss of means. 
Bold is that provincial who, in his eagerness to punish 
a false noble, will blazon his own folly, and give M. le 
Maire, and Madame the tax-gatherer's wi^ and the 
Mrs Grundy of his native place, a laugh against him 
that will never be suffered to die out, since folks in 
the provinces have good memories and few butts. 

At watering-places, the same game is played in 
daylight, and before an amused or scandalised audience, 
with more or less of success. It was to remedy this 
state of things that Napoleon IIL broached the pro- 
ject of a law by virtue of which tiUes should be 
registered and examined, and their usurpers punished 
by the civil magistrate. It was said at the tune tha^ 
the *idea' in question was not of absolutely NsuM>leoni^ 
origin, but was suggested by the Empress Eug^ni^' 
Her majesty has been much at watering-places ; sl:*-^ 
has remarkable quickness of observation, and a ke9j^^ 
sense of the ridiculous ; no doubt she has been struc- 
by the spectacle of imposture flaunting in borrowc 
magnificence, has seen the evils caused by it, 
has felt an honest wish to chock and curb 
Hence the projet de hi, which came to not! 
which was sacrificed to the spirit of compromise, 
timidity, and apathy, so fatal in aU countries 
measures the most beneficial. But it is not too mi 

to predict that the visits of the empress to a oounii 

like our own, where rank has its limits and boundsn^*^ 
so clearly marked out as almost to preclude frtnd cf^^ /y 
deceit, will not be without their results on the mat^* I 



CHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



309 



tone of French society. John Bull is no faultless 
monster ; he has blemishes and shortcomings, but he 
is in the main honest and true. He does not laugh 
spprovin^ly at successful knavery, nor consider false- 
hood wiw indifference. And when our neighbours 
and their rnlers know us better than at present, they 
may probably take a leaf out of Albion^s book, and 
settle once and for all, on a creditable footing, the 
Texed question of French Titles. 

THE PAUPER'S BANK. 

A TOOR little ragged boy was found in a close in 
Glasgow, one winter's morning of the present year, 
frozen to death, and with his small feet thrust into his 
bonnet. At that very time, and when the thermometer 
was standing at ten degrees below zero, there were 
20,000 blankets, belonging to the parents of such as 
he, in pawn in that city, oeside 422,400 other articles 
of bea and body clothmg. * In the poorer districts, 
indeed,' says one well acquainted with this subject, 
'the bed and body clothinp: in pawn so vastly pre- 
pondeAte, that the miscellanea are hardly worth 
mentioning.* In Glasgow, the average number of 
lots pledged annually by each fanuly (living in 
honaes of a rental less than ten pound) is 78 ; while 
the average number of deposits m the savings-banks 
is 2. Women have been known to strip the bodies 
of their dead, and i)awn the grave-clothes to get 
drink. A woman died recently in the Vennel in a 
fit of delirium tremens. On going into her room, her 
child, in small-pox at the time, was found lying naked 
in a handful of shavings. There was not so much as 
a rag in the room, except what the mother had on ; 
everything had gone to the pawn-shop. 

From an admirable pamphlet, entitled The Social 
ffydroj tnitten by Mr David Macrae, we learn that 
there are 79 pawnbrokers, and nearly 400 licensed 
brokers, in Glasgow, with printing-presses capable of 
tiirowing off 5000 pawn-tickets per Itonr. Nor is this 
the wont : beside these, there are the * Wee pawns ' 
(known in England as Rag-stores and Dolly-shops), 
kept by acouncurels who piuctise on the poor the most 
outrageous extortion. *■ Having no licence, they make 
a pvetence of purchasing the articles brought them, 
wmlst there is a tacit understanding that they shall 
retain them in ]^la^v'n for a week, in this way, the 
act passed in 1857, defining the trade of a jiawn- 
broKer, so as to bring the ** wee pawns " within the 
P^Kwnluroker^s Act, is evaded. Being under no regu- 
lationa, they can chaxge what interest they please, 
and sell an article intrusted to them if it will realise 
more than the owner's custom is worth. The fol- 
k)wing is the evidence of a poor man in the Vennel : 
"These wee pawns will not keep the articles for 
yon ; they will sell them as soon as you are out of 
the door, if they get a bidder for them. From my 
personal acquaintance with them, they are a great 
evil to the poor. You will see a man go to a dose, 
take off his old rag of a shirt, and sell it to get a 
jdaas of whisky. I have known parties like waging 
OLeletims for want of food, not as much on their back 
as woold dust the stour off the wall, to strip for that 
accursed drink." ' 

A sufferer from thepawn-system declares, that it is 
but seldom that the Three Balls are sought except for 
means to procure drink. 

* •• If there were no pawn-shops, folks couldna drink 
fhc claes off their backs, and they wadna." 

"But," I said, "are they not convenient when a 
person is hard-up and has nothing to eat ?" 

*" Aweel,'* she said, " but it 's drink they buy. I 
ken a dizen women in this close, and gie ony ane o' 
them a glass, and there winna be a stick in her house 
the mom!"' 

Lit is not only people in distress — in abject poverty 
— ^who frequent the pawn-shops. The house of a 
carpet- weaver — a good house — ' was found divested of 



everything portable, and an old iron hoop supplied 
the place of a grate. All had been pawned or sold to 
procure drink. Some of the neighbours, from pity, 
gave his wife a little oatmeal, which, from want of a 
table, she had to bake upon the floor, and was about 
to fire it on a girdle borrowed for the purpose, when, 
to her horror, she found that her husband had 
snatched up the girdle, run with it to the broker, and 
was, when discovered by her, drinking its process in 
the public-house.* 

A missionary calling lately upon a man and woman 
in his district, found them preparing to go to the 
pawn-shop with their grate, tne last article of furni- 
ture not already there ; and yet they were earning 
at the time 29s. a week. ' What the jackal is to the 
lion, the pawn-shop is to the pubUc-house.' 

The strongest part of Mr Macrae's argument, in fact, 
is that whicn endeavours to shew pawnbroking to be 
unnecessary. The evils, ho says, of which it professes 
to be the antidote, arc bred and fostered by itself. It 
creates improvidence, and then pretends to avert its 
consequences. * Many a man has grown up with the 
idea that when provisions are high and wages low, it 
would be impossible for him, without the aid of the 
pawnbroker, to keep the wolf from his door. Let him 
put this idea to the test, and he will find it to be 
altogether false. It must not be overlooked that the 
amount a man can raise on his personal effects is 
limited. The value of the pawn-frequentei^s effects is 
particularly limited ; and when the few pounds they 
have yielded are spent, he is reduced to absolute 
destitution. I have asked many competent authorities 
if they ever knew an honest thrifty man unable, in 
times of protracted difficulty, to borrow as much on 
his personal security as he could on his personal 
effects. The invariable answer has been "never." 
The fact is, emergencies that would soon beggar the 
pawn-frequenter, only shew the provident man how 
highly he is valued. His habits are known, and 
shopkeepers supply him on credit. Persons from 
whom he never looked for aid, help him over his 
difficulties in many ways. Society cannot afford to 
lot a provident man go down, and it seldom or ever 
does. But it is demonstrable that even the improvi- 
dent man could dispense with it, without pinching 
himself any more than he does. When he puts his 
effects in pawn, he is either to redeem them, or he 
is not. If he t« to redeem them, he can only do it 
by saving as much money as he borrowed ; that is, as 
much money as was needed to float him over his 
difficulties. The same amount of surplus-money 
applied to provision for the future, instead of payment 
for the past, renders him independent of the assist- 
ance of the pawnbroker. If he is not to redeem his 
goods, he had better sell them, because he can get 
more /or them than on them ; therefore, whether a 
man redeem his pledges or not, the assistance of the 
pawnbroker is unnecessary.' 

The above are the sort of arguments that need to 
be impressed upon the poor man's mind. It is with 
himself that the remedy lies, and the reformation 
must begin ; nor, do we beUeve, as Mr Macrae does, 
that the calling in of the strong arm of the law 
would be of any service. Common sense is a far 
better social regulator than an act of parliament. 
We ourselves, indeed, see nothing 'offensive to the 
moral sense,' in the trade of a pawnbroker. You 
may look outside his shop, says Mr Macrae, indig- 
nantly, but you yrUl not easily find his name. *It 
can only be searched out in some obscure place, 
where he has put it simply to fulfil the conditions of 
the Pawnbroker's Act. He seems ashamed either to 
shew his name or to acknowledge his business. Look 
at the entrance. No open honest doorway in front, 
huge though the premises usually are, but a back- 
stair through the common close, a little way down, 
where peo^e may sneak in unobservecl, or nold up 
their heads, and widk in with a jaunty air, to make- 



310 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



belicye they are going to the offices on the opposite 
stair. Look at the characters who frequent the place, 
— slovenly slipshod women, with bundles of clothes 
under ti^eir shawls ; men wanting money for a night's 
debauch ; now and then a thief 8linking| in with 
stolen goods ; or a young man, whose visits to the 
theatre or the billiard-room are not yet known, 
pausinff at the comer, pretending to read the posters, 
while he glances up and down the street, to see that 
the way is clear/ This picture is surely a little highly 
coloured. A pawnbroker's shop is often the means 
of saving a respectable man, who finds himself in a 
strange town and unprovided with money, from very 
unpleasant embarrassments. Its occasional patrons 
must surely be of another sort from those described 
by Mr Macrae as its habitual customers ; or that 
gentleman himself, according to his own account, 
must have run great risk of losing his character whilst 
acquiring the present statistics. The additional ten 
pounds of licence-money, which the author of this 
pamphlet recommends should be imposed upon the 
pawnbrokers, would only have the effect of increasing 
the gains of the wee-pawn proprietors, while a duty 
upon them would simply induce greater extortion. 
It is they who do by far the greatest harm. ' By 
the report of the Committee of the Prison Board of 
Aberdeen, we leam that the increase of juvenile 
delinquency is to be mainly ascribed to the influence 
of these doUy-skopkeepers. By the influence of 
ragged and industrial schools, the juvenile commit- 
ments had fallen from sixty-tluree, in 1843, to eight, in 
1851, but in 1854 they had increased to forty-nine. 
* ** The brokers have exactly followed the example of 
the Aberdeen Industrial Feeding-schools, and taken 
them as their model in every way, except the end to 
be attained. They have fed a large number of childr^i 
— ^they have procured lodgings and clothes for tiiem, 
and they have used the influence thus obtained over 
them to train them up as thieves, and send them out 
to ste^ for their employers' benefit, pointing out to 
them where property was likely to be obtained, and 
how they mi^t most easily possess themselves of it ; 
in a word, tl^se establishments were training-schools, 
for the purpose of initiating and improving Siieves in 
their profession, and preparing them to carry it 
oa wiui profit and safety to themselves and to their 
employers." The Report then gives the names of par- 
ties by whom, and the places where, those thieves' 
training-schools were kept, and that as many as from 
thirty to forty children in one case, and fifteen in 
another, were found attending these infamous places.' 

By all means, at all such cases, let the law strike 
8har|>ly and decisively; but against licensed pawn- 
broking the people must protect themselves. To 
this end, we would call special attention to the rate 
of interest which the poor man pays for borrowing 
money at this bank of his. 

' A loan of half -a-crown pays a half -penny of interest 
for a month, and every additional naif-crown pays 
another half -penny, so that LI pays interest at the 
rate of 4d. a month, or 4s. a year — uiat is, at the rate 
of 20 per cent But it must be observed that any sum 
short of half -a-crown pays as much interest as a whole 
half-crown ; thus, a loan of 6d. i)ay8 interest at the 
rate of a half -penny a month, or cent, per cent, annually 
— that is, the borrower pays, for interest every year, 
as much money as he borrowed, and has still to repay 
the original loan before he can get back his property. 
There is still another circumstance to be taken into 
account, before the ruinous improvidence of borrowing 
from the pawnbroker becomes manifest : as much 
interest is charged for any part of the first month as 
for the whole, so that a loan of 6d., redeemed within a 
week, pays interest at the rate of 400 per cent. It is 
stated m one of the Reports on the Poor-laws, that, 
when redeemed the same day, a loan of Is. pays 
annual interest at the rate of 1300 per cent ; of 6d., 
2600percent; of 4d., 3900 per cent ; of 3d., 5200 per 



cent Now, it is well known that at least nine hundred 
and ninety-nine in eveiy thousand pawn-frequenters 
are poor improvident people, borrowing pett^ smna, 
and generally redeemmc them within a few days, 
when they succeed in recfeeming them at alL Hence^ 
the most crushing rate of interest falls on the very 
persons who are least able to bear it Multitudes of 
improvident people keep their clothes in pawn during 
the week, taking them out every Saturoay for Sun- 
day use. Every Monday morning the pawn-shop and 
" wee pawn " are thronged with such customers. A 
person, whose back-window overlooks the staircase of 
a " wee pawn," says, that as early as six o'clock of a 
Monday momins, the stair swarms with women carry- 
ing bundles of clothea, The ruinous eztraTaeance of 
such a practice, in the case of people with me most 
scanty and precarious means, is obvious. They are 
paying a rate of interest 80 or 100 times higher than I 
orainary bank interest' 

Surely a man must be not only a drunkard but a 
madman, who, in f aoe of such a fact as this, shall in 
future habitually bank with a pawnbroker; who, 
like ^c Muse in the case of the Poet, not only finds 
him poor, but must of necessity keei> lum la 



THE LAWYER AND THE LOVE-LETTEBS. 

< You think you understand your instructionB. Well, 
in case you do not comprehend them perfectly, there 
is an abstract Read it in the train. There are two 
ten-pound notes; draw on us when you want more 
money. It is now half -past four ; you have just a 
quarter of an hour. To King*s Cross, cabman.* 

So spoke my chief, one dismal November afternoon ; 
and as in the office of Deedes, Fil6y, Bond, and Deedes, 
to hear was to obey, I bowed, took the rod-taped roll 
of paper and the note-case, and sulnnitted myself to 
destiny. 

The hurried drive through the crowded streets, 
and the excitement lest I should miss the train, 
prevented me from * realising my position,* as clergy* 
men say, for some time. At last, however, whss 
fairly resigned to the padded luxury of a first-daas 
carnage, 1 began to recollect myselL I had been 
a clerk for three years, and this was my most impoit- 
ant independent expedition. I was proud, of conne,of 
the trust reposed m me, and eager enough to fancy 
this the opening of an auriferous future. An advance 
of salary of L.20 per annum was the da7j'.ling visioa 
that flitted before my eyes, and I was only roused ty 
the train stopping at Bamet, from a stereoscopic 
view of a junior partnership. 

This point reached, however, I abandoned castle- 
building, and roused myself to look at things as they 
really stood. The task set me was a proS ci conli* 
dence perhaps, but, at the same time, it was an 
exceedingly hard one. Half-an-hour's talk with the 
manager kad sufficed to make me master of the chief 
points concerned, but I had not set about the work oi 
recollecting the old man's recapitulation long, when X 
found myi^ at a loss about a material point, an3> 
driven to resort to the abstract I was alone in tb^ 
carriage, so there was no scruple about the law-paper*' 
attracting curious eyes ; I therefore untied the httl*? 
roll of foolscap which had been deposited in m^ 
hands, and set about considering the case. Diveste<f^ 
of technicalities, the knot requiring the intervention^ 
of the majesty of the law was something like Ua-^ 
following : 

A certain many -acred and long -descended Si^ 
Reginald Waveney (our client) had a danght^^ 
Madeline. She had been left early without a moth9^« 
and the work of her education intrusted to goves" 
nesses. Her father had paid little or no attenti^" 
to the selection of proper teachers, and Madeline ha^ 
grown up without any of that definite informaiion 
and intelligent training whidh hw ^bcile ohaiaictar 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



dll 



ofpoaily needed as supports, and beyond a few accom- 
pbahments — skill in using a fair soprano voice, and 
m oopying lieads in cliaDL — she reallv possessed no 
reaonrces whatever. This being so, her days were 
spent in scribbling second-rate poetiy, and reading 
trashy novels; in sliort, Madeline Wavcney was a 
romantio yoong lady. Certain peculiarities in Sir 
Beginald^s household, to which it is needless now to 
advert, made it an undesirable home for daughters, 
and she continued, long after she had reached young- 
ladyhood, in a very expensive and very select seminary 

at C b Here, on a certain Sundav in April — a 

day, by the way, which she called in ner diary * the 
biruday o£ her heart * — Miss Wavenoy obser\'ed, as 
she was coming home from church, a military-looking 
stianger. They exchanged glances — for the pupi£ 
of Parthenon House were not altogether i^orant 
of the use of love's telegraph — and contnved to 
meet again. The rest can be easily enough imagined. 
Servants were bribed; letters clandestinely con- 
veyed; and six weeks after the first encounter, the 
heroine was surprised, by the French teacher, 
stepping out of her bedroom window into the arms 
of lor Effingham St Aubyn (alias Thomas Tagge), 

first walking-gentleman of the thcatro-royal C , 

Of course. Sir Reginald was written to ; the yoimg 
lady lectored, and made to see her folly, and the 
iimmdent rascal threatened and denouncedl But the 
aflftir oonld not be so got over. The actor had taken 
up an impleasant post of vantage in the matter, out of 
wnich he could not be cajoled or terrified. He was 
the possessor of six of Miss Waveney's letters, and 
it was of the utmost importance that these should be 
ffot back into the hands of the writer's father; for at 
that veiy time he was arranging a marriage for 
Madeline with a certain Captain Arthur Laslett, heir 
to one of the richest baronetcies in Castlerockshire. 
One breal^L about the boanling-school escapade, and 
the father of the intended bridegroom would inevitably 
withdraw the cautious advances which he had already 
made, and a scheme which had been the mainspring 
of a life*s diplomacy, would be defeated. 

Mr Kffingnam St Aubyn saw the cards he held, and 
knew their value. He wrote in a high melodramatic 
tone to Sir Reginald, asserting that he felt it his duty 
to apprise the deceived bridegroom 'that he would 
lead to the altar not a vnfe, but a victim.^ The baronet, 
very rashly (why will men act without advice?), 
offioed him one hundred x)ounds down, if ho would pro- 
mise silence, and restore the letters. Thus suddenly 
enlightened as to the value of the possession which he 
helc^ the actor became exorbitant in his demands. 
Several letters passed, in which advanced offers 
were made and rejected. At last the affikir was put, 
where it ought to have been put at first, into pro- 
fessional hands, and this was why I was hunving 
by express train through the fields of Hertfordshire. 
The work before me required some wariness. I 
was clad to be alone in the carriage to mature 
mv pans. I had taken a ticket for the town 
whence our friend Tagge's last letter was dated ; but 
beyond a vague idea of commenciiKr operations on 
him somehow the next morning, I had no plan. 
Several schemes, more or less feasible, presented them- 
selves. For one instant, I thought of emplo3dng a 
detective, but at once banished the suggestion as 
contemptible. Was not Jem Wakeley, after five 
years with Messrs Deedes, Filey, Bond, and Deedes, 
equal to Inspector Sharpus himself? Of course, I 
was^ This settled, I tried back, and strove to hunt 
ap precedents in the world of fiction. One capital 
story I remembered reading years ago, about the 
aeai^ers for an important packet disguising them- 
selves as footpads, and rifiing the pockets of the 
pnrloincr. From Hitchin to Peterborough I meditated 
upon this notable device, but nothing very practical 
xesolted from it Then followed twenty ingenious 
plans for surprising the actor in various disguises, 



but aU the contrivances had some provoking difficulty 
of detail which made me reject them ; and I got out 
of the train at my journey's end a good deal leas 
confident than I got into it. 

I drove to the Railway Hotel, and ordered dinner 
in the coffee-room. While it was being prepared, 
I took up a local paper, and soon lighted on tne theat- 
rical announcements. That evening, the play was the 
Rivals, Captain Absolute by Mr Effingham St Aubyn. 
This was point 1 : he was not gone. Point 2 was to 
eat a good dinner, and then to sally out to see the 
performance. I went into the stalls, for I rather 
desired to pick up the gossip of the orchestra. From 
this source, however, I only gleaned the interesting 
fact that my friend's sobriquet among his friends 
was Lanky Tom. When the play was done, I went 
round to the stage-door, and waited to see the per- 
formers come out. The man who did tiie leading; 
business came out first, and called a cab; two girls 
with rolls of music in their hands came next ; and then 
my man, arm in arm with another actor. I kept in 
shadow till they had gone some way, and then began 
to follow them. The two soon parted, and I con- 
tinued, of course, looking after my friend. He stopped 
at a small house, with a number of bell-handles by 
the side of the door, a lithographic artist's plate on 
the wall, and a corset-maker's name on a board in the 
window. Having noted the situation of the street, 
and the number of the house (5), I went back to my 
hotel, smoked my cigar, and turned in for the night. 
The next morning about one o'clock, at which hour I 
calculated Mr Effingham St Aubyn would be engaged 
at what supernumeraries call 'rehasle,' I made my 
way to Yeast Street, and called at several houses 
where I saw advertisements of 'Lodgings* in the 
windows. After some feints, made on purpose to 
give my proceedings the most commonplace natural 
character, I colled at No. 5, where there was an 
exceedingly imconif ortable back-parlour to let. After 
finding fault and abating the price in the most artistic 
style, I took the rooms cautiously for one week. 

I determined not to go to the theatre that night, 
but during my fellow-lo^^s absence, to get an oppor- 
tunity of peeping into his room. This was effected 
easily enough oy asking *Arriett, the moid-of -all-work, 
whether the room over the front parlour was lai^^ 
than mine, and if there was any chance of it becoming 
soon vacant. Under her guidance, I examined Effing- 
ham St Aubyn's quarters, and noted carefully on paper, 
while the pomts were fresh in my memory, the position 
of every article of furniture in sittmg-room and 
bedroom. I observed, besides, that the Scrubinda of 
No. 5 Yeast Street — owing, probably, to lus somewhat 
exigent demands on her stout legs, and indifference to 
her personal attractions — was by no means inclined 
to rate the occupant of the first-floor front at an 
exaggerated estimate. Congratulating myself, there- 
fore, on the discovery of an important ally, I sat 
down to mature my plans. Of course, I was not 
going to communicate all, or even a part, of my mission 
to any one else. How did I know that 'Arriett's 
host^ty to the actor might not be affected? How did 
I know tiiat the actor nad not smelt red tape and 
Deedes, Filey, Bond, and Deedes directiy I had entered 
the stall on the preceding evening? Of course, I 
didn't Of course, I was not going to trust anybody, 
if it could be avoided. Nothing of the sort But 
after much deliberation, and my third cigar, it 
appeared to me that it could not be avoidea, and 
that if I was to search my fellow-lodger's room to 
any purpose, and without running very great risk, I 
must secure 'Arriett's collusion. I wasted a whole 
day in waiting an op]>ortune moment for a secret 
investigation. However, the house had so many 
occupants, that such a moment never came. The 
landlady, or one of her five flaccid imps of children, 
or the corset-maker, or the lithographic artist, was 
sure to be about the stairs, and as certain to suspect 



^^ 



^^^ 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



hing wrong, if he or iihc saw me invading 

er lodger's territories. I therefore, on the socona 

took 'Arriett partially into my secret, proceeding 

e matter, as my wont is, circuitously. 

is breakfast-time ; I hear 'Arriett outside wheez- 

md groaning under the weight of my coffee api)a- 

ji and Mr St Auhyn*s hot water, and all the 

jers* boots, and one of missLs's twins ; at which 

nd I instantly knit m^ brows, disorder my hair, 

1 am discovered *lookmg for something' m the 

ihodox way, by throwing everything on the table 

to a maze of confusion, to which a labyrinth is 

indity. Then I utter various sounds which could 

aly be spelt phonetically, mingled with others which 

fould have to oe expressed by stors (*) and dashes ( — ) ; 

iod call an unknown person * stupid ;' and then look 

luddcaoly and hopefully into a d^k, of which I know 

all tiie contents accurately ; and finally look up from 

behind the green baize flap of this repository with on 

expression of darkling suspicion, marked and yet 

mysterious. 

' It is gone, by Jove ! ' I ejaculate. 

"Ave you bm an' loss anythink, sir?' asks the 

attendant, taking a small half-sucked wooden effigy 

of Noah's wife from between the twin's lips. 

* Well, yes — ^rather,' I reply. * You have not 
seen a ring or a snuff-box about any^'hcre, have 
you? 

' What kind of a ring, sir ?' 

'A gold one, with hair in it and two cmer — two 
green stones.' 
*No.' 

* Well, I had it yesterday, and it is not here to-day ; 
that is alL It is curious, and not particularly satis- 
factory, to come into new lodgings, and the second day 
lose a ring which you have luid for sixteen years. 
Don't imagine, though, that I susi)ect ifou or your 
mistress,* 

Without this last sentence, there would have 
ensued an indignant avowal of unimpeachcd and 
unimpeachable honesty, the clamours of which would 
have overwhelmed aU my diplomacy. But the inten- 
tion of the last sentence had the effect which I had 
calculated. 'Arriett passed instantly from the prisoner 
at the bar to the leading witness for the prosecution ; 
she left the twin to suck Mrs Noah undisturbed, 
put her fingers to her lips, shut the door, and began 
m a severe whisper. She at once accused * that p^- 
acting man upstairs ' of the imaginary larceny. He 
had fuways a lot of jewellery and crinkum-crankums 
hung on to his watch-chain, and she dared say half 
of ^m were stolen. I did not contradict these 
rather hasty inductions, but expressed unwillingness 
to make a public exposure, as I had only a few 
days to stay in the town; but at the same time 
bewailed my rin^ hinting how hi^h a value I set 
on it, and that I would gladly give double, even 
treble, the value of the trinket to any one who should 
help to restore it me. The bait took immediately. 
'Amett herself suggested that we should avail our- 
selves of tiie suspected man's absence that very even- 
ing to seurch dihgently in his rooms. A short debate 
followed as to whether the missis should be apprised 
of what we were ^ing to do; it was decided that 
she should be kept in ignorance. 

That day I wrote to my chief in Chancery Lane 
that things were progressing favourably. AU day 
I waited anxiously. At last, twihght set in, and 
the actor went out 'Arriett and I had the house to 
ourselves. The lithograiihic artist and the corset- 
maker were out, and my landlady was gone to bed ill 
with the spasms. Punctually as the clock struck 
seven, my ally tapped at my door, and, in a voice 
compared with which that of the late Mrs Siddons 
in the character of Lady Macbeth must have been 
hilarious, asked 'if I was ready.' During the long 



The ofiicers might fi 
packet which I saw before my miutrs eye nig 
_ _ day, but it could only pass agaiu into the 

houn of the day, my mind hacl been busy making I hands ; I should never get hold of it The b 
plans for a i^yitomAtio search. It is ntiiuctoiy to | of seeing it given up, and then restored to him. 




reflect, that, according to the best d my bdk^ aol 
a point was missed Many years 8ab8eqiieBtit3rt ol 
the conclusion of a case where there had OMn a good 
deal of this kind of work, I described mj fTMiiinatiop 
of the two rooms to the celebrated directive officer 
Sbarpus, and he confessed that two or Hunt places 
were s^uched by the present writer whidi vonld 
not have entered into his mind as places a£ ooaoeid- 
ment My chief difficulty was to find aa ezcoR ior 
looking into parts of uie room already 
by my companion; but this was absohitely 
sary; for she, of course, was lookiiiff lor a nng 
with hur and two emeralds, and a turer aiiiff>boK 
with a horse's head, and the initials L. P. ; lASbb I 
was thinking of nothing but six letters in uaBuw 

envelopes wiw the C post-mark, each eighi riweCs 

long, directed in a slanting, weak-looking kand to 
* Captain Effingham St Aubyn.' 

We looked, of course, in all the diawei% in aU 
the desks and trunks, in the pockets of all the 
garments, ordinary and fancy. We also took up 
the cari>ct, and examined the piUow-caaea and wob^ 
cushions. I opened and perused every letlfliv note, 
envelope, bill, or scrap of manuscript J|yi>9 on the 
table, or stuck in the looking-glass. Tm miides of 
boots and slippers did not escape me. I untied and 
car^ully searched the 1>rown Holland bags containing 
the bell-rope tassels ; I unwrapped all the thiddy 
folded comers of the yellow nets which protected 
the picture-frames ; with a cane, I poked behind all 
the chests of drawers in the bedroom and tilie book- 
case in Uie sitting-room. 'Arriett brought me a pair of 
steps, and I mounted them, and examined the top of 
the bed. Neither the watch-pockets nor the dnst- 
filled vases on the chinmey-i»cce escaped ; it did not? 
seem impossible either that a packet might bo 
crammed into the inside of the little ormolu-GlodL ^ 
and I put up and shook an umbrella and a awocd* 
stick. The search alto^ther took two hours and a» 
half, and at. the end of it I was no richer than wheim 
I began. Miss WavcneVs injudicious mannmrroti 
were nowhere to be found. There were a few ransir 
old paid bills ostentatiously displayed on a file; 
occurred to me that the letters might be ~ " ' 
between these — but no. Neither were they put intop 
the pages of his Bell's British Theatre, and Lacy*! 
Acting Edition — his only books — for I opened 
volume carefully, and no papers fell out from btlweui^ 
the leaves. I satisfied myself that he had not hiddii^ 
the precious documents m his tobacco-box, or aewi^ 
them into the worsted-work mats on which hi^ 
dishes were laid. In short, I went out complete!]^ 
convinced that the letters were not in either of thcs 
two rooms. As it had served its turn, I hod to put m 
stop to the morning's ruse about my own loss of a ring 
ana snuff-box, for of course I had no wish to bring ' 
false charge a^iinst the man ; I therefore, in tiM 
presence of 'Arriett, mode a sudden discoveiy of botl 
m the pocket of one of my old coats ; then havin 
stopped, by a judiciously applied five sliillings, sundi 
vociferations about giving poor servants aa w 
worked off their legs more work in rummaging oti 
people's rooms, I concluded my first day's act 
duty by writing re infectd in my aiar>', and confess 
myself vanqmsned. 

The conclusion was obvious : he carried the lef 
about his person. This was at least one point gai 
Directly I had settled it, my thoughts recurred t* 
stratagem of the hiehwa>inen. At all event 
some pretext or another, his pockets must be ? 
his person examined. It occurred to me tii 
might easily be taken up on a false choi^ 
searched at a police station, but then there wo 
an insuperable difficulty. 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



313 



pamfoL I abandoned the plan of a false arrest at 
onoe. 

Next morning, very much at a losa, I strolled out. 
"EoffJakaDoi generally, having nothing else to do, take 
a walk, and on this memorable morning I followed 
the example of my countrymen. It would have 
puzzied me to explain why, but after rambling about 
for several hours through various uninteresting 
streetei I foond myself staring in at the office <» 
a local paper. There was a bill in the window, 
contaming a list of the principal topics reported 
in tiie week's number — near the bottom of the cata- 
lognfl el political and local events, my eye fell 
on aoraethmg which interested me: 'Death of an 
Actor on the Stage.' I instantly thought of Mr 
Bflingham St Aubyn, and I am awamed to say had 
an hmae impulse to rush home and abstract the 
packet from his senseless corpse. Collecting myself, 
kowever, I purchased the paper, and turned to 
the paragraML My fellow-lodger's name was not 
in itl A Mr Plantagenet Fitzmauricc, whom I 
r e membered to have seen in the dreaiy part of Falk- 
land, was the unfortunate man. He had been, it 
seemed, always a sufferer from heart-complaint, and 
the excitement of a theatrical scuffle in some new 
melodiama had been the proximate cause of his death. 
I lead the account with but little concern, I am 
aitraid -and then a great idea suddenly dawned upon 
me. When first articled in the green and early 
davB of derkhood, I had been ratner addicted to 
pnvate theatricals. I determined to lill Mr Plan- 
tagenet Fitzmaurice's place. 

Having previously reduced my costume to the 
requisite combination of slovenliness and rakishness, 
I presented myself to Mr Massinger Rougemont — a 
fltcmt man, with a curly wig and a Mosaic profile — 
of the theatre. I stated my wish to 



procore an engagement. A glance told me that he 
was xatiier nonplussed by l£r Fitzmaurice's death, 
and would bite readily. He consulted lus wife, * the 
singing diambermaid of the company, also with a 
Mosaic profile, who demurred about my * inexperiensh,' 
bnt ended with striking hands. Appearing in the 
ofaancter of a stage-struck amateur, it was natural to 
be vei^ eas^ about terms, also natural to make but 
one stqnilation — ^namely, that I should be permitted 
to make mj d^but in a certain fiery melodrama of my 
own chooamg. The request was granted, for the piece 
is one which is in the repertoire of every company, 
bowevar small, and which is very easily < put on ' at 
short notice. 

I worked desperately at my part in the first two 
acta in the intenral before rehearsal ; though far from 
perfect^ I was pronounced * competent,' and the piece 
was advertised. I rushed home, told 'Arriett I might 
be obliged to go away suddenly that night, and there- 
fore would pay my bill ; did so, and sat down with 
tlie little straw-coloured play-book before me. How 
I soored and double-scored my words with a pencil — 
how I repeated my sentences, and the last word of 
tiie previous speaker, each twenty times — how I 
walked to and tro, practising scowLs qtuB affectionea 
ammi denotant before the cracked looking-glass, need 
not be written. 

The curtain rose. The first scenes passed without 
aayOaag remarkable occurring. The close of the 
aeeond act was the point which I anxiously expected ; 
at last it came. Mr Effingham St Aubyn, perhaps 
the greatest of the numerous blood-stained villains 
TTH^w^i^wi in the caste, had obtained possession of the 
hcraine, and was bearing her to that vague but ter- 
rible locality * his fort-e-ress beside the Rhine.' An 
attached domestic defends his mistress, but is over- 
powered, and falls mortally wounded (R). Wicked 
ooont ntters a fiendish, that is, trisyllabic laugh: 
then the tables are suddenly turned; two doors at 
bade fly open; "Uiere is a prodigious bang on the 



drum ; wicked count is startled, and lets go lus hold 
(I beg the reader's pardon), ' relaxes his grasp' of the 
heroine, who seizes the opportunity to escape (L.) ; I 
enter at the head of four supers in Duff-boots 
luistily (C). In the original drama, here follows a 
terrific combat, but as I cannot fence, the wicked 
count is immediately disarmed. I generously fling 
away my rapier, and a struggle ensues. A close 
observer might have detected that, during the course 
of it, my hands tore open rather heedlee»ly my anta- 
gonist's cotton velvet doublet — also that it lasted 
rather longer than most stage-struggles ; but in the end 
the count is vanquished. He continues for some 
moments dead, while other business goes on. The 
moment he faUs, however, I tvuAi out nistrionically, 
* to assure my Ermingarde that she shall hencef orwtud 
have no other fetters but the arms of Rupert' — prac- 
tically to slip through the ^;reenroom, out at the 
stage-door, and into a cab which I have arranged to 
have waiting for me. 

How that melodrama ended, I never knew ; the 
next morning found me in Chancery Lane. Without 
speaking, I placed Miss Waveney's letters in my 
chiefs hands. Mr Effingham St Aubyn continues, I 
believe, to adorn the company of Mr Massinger Rouge- 
mont. He put in one appearance at the office of 
Deedes, Filey, Bond, and Deedcs, but was rather 
speedily shewn the door. Madeline Waveney married 
Captain Laslett; and before the end of the year, I 
obtained a junior partnership. 

AN UNKNOWN PAGE IN HISTORY. 

The small town of Hexham, beautifully situated upon 
the south bank of the river Tyne, about a score of 
miles west of Newcastle, has connected with its quaint 
houses and straggling streets many historical associa- 
tions of the deepest interest. Once the seat of a 
powerful bishopric, its ancient glories in this respect 
have been somewhat questionably renewed, for when 
England was, a few years ago, divided into sees by 
papal authority, a bishop of Hexham was set over the 
north of England. Its old abbey, recently restored, 
is famous throughout the world for its architectural 
glories; and the cludr of sanctuary which still exists, 
and seated in which the blackest criminal might once 
defy the power of might or justice, is equally interesting 
in tiie eyes of the antiquary and the student of history. 
It was at Hexham that, in 1463, the contending forces 
of York and Lancaster met in deadly conflict, when 
the latter were defeated with immense loss. Often 
since then has it been the scene of border fra^ or rude 
Northumbrian warfare; and again and agam has it 
suffiered from the inroads of the Scots, who in a great 
measure destroyed the abbe^. In 1715, it was the 
head-quarten of the rebellion which broke out in 
the north of England in behalf of the Pretender. 
It was from there that the unfortunate Earl of Der- 
wentwater, accompanied by a numerous body of his 
retainers, the Fosters and Fenwicks, and many other 
unhappy gentlemen, who afterwards suffered with 
their Ie«ier for their share in the proceedings of 
that blood-stained year, marched forth te join with 
a detachment of the Scottish Jacobite army. A sad 
time was the Fifteen for the inhabitante of Hexham 
and the surrounding district. Branded as disloyal, 
their old tewn marked as a nest of papists and 
traitors, they were compelled to submit to tne insults 
of &ll around them, and to the injuries infficted upon , 
them bjr the vengeful troops of the government. 

But times had begun to unprove even for the people 
of Hexham, and things generally were looking brighter 
and more cheerful t£ui they had done since the year 
preceding that of the rebellion, when a new misfor- 
tune visited the town, which for a time plunged its 



314 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



inhabitants into the deepest misery, and threatened 
to restore to them the odium which had once been 
attached to their names. It is to this event — the 
Hexham riot of 1761, which, although occurring 
only one hundred years ago, is abnost imknown to 
the student of history — that we purpose referring in 
this brief paper. 

Although by that time the panic with reference 
to the French invasion had greatly subsided, the 
sovemment did not relax its efiforts to create a 
hurge force of Tniliti5^ as an auxiliary to the regular 
anny, and the ballot was employed to obtain 
sufficient numbers for the various regiments which 
were formed throughout the country. As a conse- 
quence of this latter measure, ereat discontent began 
to prevail among the lower cmssos, with whom the 
mihtia service was very unpopular, and nowhere was 
the discontent so great as in Northumberland and 
Durham. This feeling growing stronger, was not lonff 
in producing visible results. Towards the close m. 
February 1701, a large number of men from the county 
of Durham assemliled at Gateshead ; and by a printed 

Eroclamation, which they dchvered to the deputy- 
eutenants, who were there at the time employed in 
balloting, stated that they were resolved not to sub- 
mit to we ballot themselves, nor to allow any of tlieir 
neighbours to do so either. In order to avoid a dis- 
turbance, the officers of the lord-heutenant agreed to 
excuse those present from serving for that time, and 
the mob departed to their homes. This was on a 
Saturday afternoon; and by the Monday following, 
news having spread through Northimiberland of the 
affair and its successful issue, an immense body of 
pitmen and Tyne keelmen, both of which classes have 
ever been celebrated for their reckless diuing, had 
marched to Morpeth, and demanded their exemption 
from the hateful service. Here, however, the officers 
of the cro^^Ti were firmer, and refused to give way to 
their menaces ; but not being supported by any armed 
force, the deputy-lieutenants and others were obliged 
to flee for safety, and the mob seized and destroyed 
lUl the lists and books having reference to the militia 
ballot, and then hurried to J^xham, to see what they 
could accomplish there. 

By this time, however, the authorities had received 
intimation of their proceedings, and two battalions 
of Yorkshire militia were sent to intercept them. 
This force — ^long after known for its share in the 
events which followed as the Hexham Butchers — 
went thither on the 8th of March, and on the next 
day were drawn up imder arms in the market-place, 
in front of the town-haU. In the meantime, oands 
of excited country-people, pitmen, lead-miners, and 
husbandmen were thronging into Hexham, each little 
companv bearing flaunting colours, and vowing not to 
leave the town until the^ had obtained complete 
immunity from the requirements of the detested 
act, while the inhabitants of Hexham themselves, 
encouraged by the success that had already attended 
the rioters, and spurred on by the memory of past 
events, were only too eager to assist in the disturb- 
ance. Hour by hour, the crowd facing the troops 
in the market-place grew larger, until by one 
o'clock not less than five thousand persons were 
assembled; and a scene was taking physe which 
baffles description. Every reinforcement of the popu- 
lar party that arrived was hailed with dcafenmg 
cheers. Petitions of the most treasonable description 
were constantly being brought in from the country, 
and laid before the assembled justices in the town- 
ball, while their demands were supported by the 
solving angry sea of people beneath, with groans and 
yells, perfectly appalling. Every one in the crowd 
was ^-alWing at once, vowing vengeance on their 
ialsc countrymen who had come to mtimidate them, 
and swearing thaf in the face of all the troops in l^g- 
land, headetlby King George himself, they would not 
abate one jot in their demands. Monstrous atioks, 



clubs, and <|uarter8tafls were freely brandishsd by 
the excited noters, and the most insulting and initat- 
ing taunts and epithets addressed to the militia^ who 
alone of all present were standing olent, calm, and 
unmoved, apparently idmost hee£o8s of the confu- 
sion whidi raged around. 

At last one of the maddened populace, rushing for- 
ward, snatched a firelock from the hands of a aSdier, 
and turning it upon its unfortunate owner, ahot him 
dead; at uie same moment, one of the ringleaders 
fired a pistol at an officer of the militia, and 
inflicted upon him a mortal wound. These ontiagea 
were tiie signal for the commencement of an imme- 
diate conffict, at once brief and terrible. ^ In a 
moment, the hitherto passive soldieur, obeying the 
fatal but necessaiy word of command, levelled their 
muskets on the mob, and firing into their midst, shot 
them down like dogs. Against such an attack from a 
well-armed body of r^^ular soldiers, anv efforts of the I 
unfortunate and misguided people could avail litUe ; 
and almost before uie smoke from the firing had 
cleared away, all resistance had ceased, and the 
rioters, or at least such of them as were able to do so, 
were in full flight. Manv, however, were unable to 
move. The slau^ter had been frightful ; fifty of the 
unhappy people were killed, and uiree hundred des- 
perately wounded. As is nearly always the case in 
such .occurrences, the innocent suffered even more 
than the guilty. Women and children, aged men and 
harmless imbeciles, attracted by the noise and tumult 
to the fatal spot, were among those slain. The 
market-place was filled with the dead and dying; and 
many a nearth in the unfortunate town was rendered 
desolate by the sad events of that hapless day. 

Very quickly was Hexham deserted bv those who 
had brought such misery upon it ; and when, at four 
o'clock on the same afternoon, the troops wexe 
marched into the great hall of the old abbey, only 
those who were seeking the killed and wounded 
were to be seen in the now almost empty stroeti. 
Early the next morning. Ensign Hart, tne officer 
who had been edict at the commencement of the fray, 
died, and was buried the same evening with militiiy 
honours. This was a very wet day, *■ which,' aayi fiiie 
of the militia captains in lus acoount of the afiair, 
* was of service, as it washed away the remains of 
yesterday out of the market-place.' 

This sad tragedy, which, although almost unknown 
in history, has scarcely been paralkled in any Eng^ 
town in modem times, and which was felt with 
double force iu a place so small as Hexham, did noi 
end here, llie district was placed, as of yon, under 
the charge of the military; and large bodies of 
dragoons, stationed at Hexham, kept the whola 
nei^bourhood in a state of terror for many months 
At the assizes for the county of Northumberland, held 
in the following August, two persons implicated in. 
the riot, named I'eter Patterson and William Elder^ 
were tried for high treascoi, and were sentenced to be 
hanged, to be cut down alive, to have their entrails^ 
taken out and burned before their eyes. Mid then tcr 
be beheaded and quartered. Happily, for the sake o^ 
humanity and England, this brutal sentence— 4he pro^ 
visions of which the '15 had made too well knowi:* 
at Hexham — was not conied out. Elder receiver^ 
a reprieve, and Patterson was simply hanged 
quartered. After he had been hanged a short 
and before life was extinct, the rope gave way, 
he fell down, when it is said he exclaimed : * T"'ii^K*y 
blood is ill to shed.' A new halter was soon 
cured, and the sentence executed on the w; 
man ; but his last words were well remembered by 
spectators, and are still used as a proverb by 
natives of Tynedale. 

For many long years, relics of this bloody 
were to be found at Hexham in the persona of deeiwr^ 
men and women, who had been maimed and womaM^ 
in the ooniiict. We ourselves distinctly 





CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



315 



two of these victims, one of whom had had his 
lee broken, and was lame ever after, while the 
ouer had received a shot in iiis mouth ; indeed, it 
is only about two years since an actual witness of 
the scene died, at the patriarchal ago of 108 years. 

People now-a-days can scarcely conceive the occur- 
rence of events such as are here described. It is 
well, however, that they should be reminded of them, 
not to stir np any of the old feelings of animosity 
which once prevailed so strongly, but which have 
now happfly died out; but to warn them against 
the errom and evils of popular excesses of every kind, 
and to lead them to be thankful that they live in these 
better davs, when it seems hardly possible to realise 
that wfaiui actually occurred at Hexham exactly one 
homired years ago. 

LONDON STREETNOISES. 

Lkt Qt ay a few words about organs before we listen 
to the a>&er noises. There is only one I like, and 
that has no inside ; it is played, or rather the pre- 
tence of playing it is made by a melancholy man in a 
beard, who turns the mute handle in the midst of a 
nnmber of critical little boys. We will hope his 
aodienoe think him as deaf as his organ is dumb, 
for their remarks are excessively personal Let us 
believe him to be a deaf and dumb grinder, the 
affliction being half borne by the instrument, 
and the two being considered one and the same 
animaL My friend^s organ was originally like 
the rest of its species, though now gutted, and 
rudely patched with deaL Whenever I see him, 
I make a point of presenting him with an offering 
and a compliment. The first he pockets ; the second 
he swaUowB impassively. I tell him that his is 
the best oigan in London; that I wish all others 
were like it : he neither frowns, smiles, winks, nods, 
nor responds by word or gesture, but turns the silent 
crank. I have had thoughts of calling on my neigh- 
bours, and arranging with them, if possible, to hire 
him for our street, so that he might be always the 
man in x>o^6Bsion. The other organ-grinders are 
intolerable. There are generally two at my house 
— front and back ; they play a bar or so behind one 
tooQier all day long, beginning before I get up. 1 
don't interfere with them now ; several of the neigh- 
boas like it, and mine is a quiet street. But I have 
dismissed them in double-quick time. In Italy, I 
fdand that the regular policeman's warning was 
OammcUe ! • The first time I tried it on a grinder, the 
effect was electrical I said to my man in a business- 
like way : * Caminate subito,' and he vanished like 
an Italian tyrants There is also another plan — 
make a toes in the air with your chin. This is 
the only negative gesture understood in Naples ; it 
is reaDy the exact converse of the affirmative nod, 
and probably descends from the Latin rtnuo. At any- 
zate^ many organ-grinders understand, and would be 
more likely to obey it, better than dissentient English 
tkreats or shakes of the head. The two together are 
as if a British pickpocket, looking out for work in the 
Strada del Toledo, were to be accosted by an Italian 
cOfBstable in plain clothes, with a Bow Street wink, 
and 'Come now, muv on.' Try it next time. It is 
cectsinly better than telling a falsehood about there 
being a sick person in the house, which the signer 
does not comprehend. 

Some street-music is very sad. One cannot help 
feeling much for the owner of that cracked female 
rmob, poweifol in its wreck, which pierces through 



the closed shutters and drawn curtains on a wet 
winter's evening. Poor creature ! she has evidently 
been taught to sing ; there are the remains of musical 
education in those cadences and shakes. How came 
she to be banished from the boards to the granite 
stage of the cold street ? I am not speaking of the 
woman-performer in the drawling ballad -singing 
family, which screams Christinas carols or grand 
Advent tunes, with hearts and voices lifted no higher 
than the windows of our houses. That is bad enough, 
but it does not suggest such a professional fall as liie 
other. They never could sing. 

The Ethiopixm serenaders promise to be almost as 
permanent an institution as Punch himself. The 
hold which they have taken on the national mind 
is audible in the number of amateur performers on 
' the bones' among ambitious gamins, its cheapness 
is a great recommendation to that instrument. 

I confess to a liking for Punch. It is, as many of 
my readers probably Imow, a relic of the old miracle- 
plays, as they are called, iJiouj^ the chief represent- 
ation was of the august scene m the hall of judgment, 
made infamous more than eighteen hundred years i^ ; 
Punch being a corrupticm of the name of a principal 
character, Pontius Pilate ; and Judy, of either Judith 
his wife, or, possibly, Judas. But, apart from the 
antiquity of this show, I was long puzzled to account 
for the natural, lifelike movements of the figures 
Wo talk of pulling the wires of the puppet, but a 
minute's observation proves that no mechanism, how- 
ever ingenious, could produce their rapid and com- 
plex motions. These are effected simply by the 
hand. Punch and Judy are a pair of gloves : the 
forefinger is pushed into Punclrs block head; the 
middle-finger forms his right, and the thumb his left 
hand, the two othet* fin^^ers being occasionally stuck 
into his trousers, enablmff him to sit on the ed^ 
of the stage, and kick his Tegs. Judy is animated m 
like manner. You may notice that, however numerous 
the actors, never more than two (except the baby, 
which, fortunately, is dead to begin with) appear at 
once, simply because the manager has only two hands. 
After several successive murders, the corpses only, 
the empty dolls, are laid upon the proscenium ; they 
never return to life together, nor, inaeed, individually, 
without being first puHed below the scenes, and there 
put on. Judy has no -protGctor during her lifetime ; 
the beadle interferes too late to help her — her spirit 
derairts from her before it animates him. 

Does Codlin ever play any rec<H2;ni8ed tune, or only 
that fatal to the fabled cow ? I lancy I have once or 
twice detected a spasmodic resemblance to Malbwok. 
I had some inter^ting conversation with a showman 
the other day. It was pleasant to hear him talk, as 
he did with enthusiasm or contempt, of the various 
artists in this branch of his profession, as the lessee 
of tho Opera might of the tneatrical world. Their 
West-end house of call is a public at the comer of 
NorUi Row and Norfolk Street, Park Lane, outside 
which several theatres may often be seen standing. 
I went 'tiiere lately to order a performance for some 
children I wished to entertain. 

The most hateful noise-maker in the street is a 
man with a hurdy-gurdy or guitar, who plays it to 
three or four dancing-children. Poor little things! 
I saw them the other day performing in their muddy 
spangles, quite tired and haggard ; but the hard-faced 
master played on. I wonder where he gets them, or 
whether they are his o^n. 

There is one boy-musician about now who is quite 
a genius with the flageolet ; he has only a tin instru- 
ment, but always commands an admiring audience. 
He often plays outside gin-shops, and apparently on 
his own account. What a beginning of a life ! Bat 
who knows how famous he may become ? 

The roaring liars have lately been rather quiet. 



i^M* 



316 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



m*- 



The way in which they contrive to shout snggestive 
bits of news without imparting the secret, is very 
irritating and successful They always work in 
couples. The moment the first man begins to be 
articulate, and approaches the point of his conmiuni- 
cation, No. 2 strikes up, and blots him out with a yelL 
Perhaps they made a comfortable capital out of 
metropolitan distress during the last sharo winter; 
certainly, many of the roarers then shewed, by the 
way in which they managed their voices, that they 
were old hands at the t^ade. But success created 
amateurs. I heard of a gentleman who sent to his 
plumber's, during the worst part of the frost, for a 
man to mend some burst water-pipes, and the answer 
was, that the workmen were all absent, * doing ' the 
frozen-out gardeners. 

"With regard to the orthodox street-cries, it is 
noticeable now much more intelligible those are 
which announce articles in season only for a short 
time, such as spring vegetables, flowers, and summer 
fruit. Tlie costermongers who sell these have not 
time to become indistind;. One day they ofifer liiubarb, 
twopence a bundle; then pease; then green goose- 
beines; then the short-lived cherry; whereas boxes, 
door-mats, old clothes, last longer, some being always 
in the market; old clothes, especially, by long crying, 
are at last only Clo\ The most offensive proc&mation 
is made by the cats'-meat man, who pronounces the 
word in sharp feline tones, m-e-e-e-e-e-t. 'Milk* is 
a hard word to cry, having too many consonants to 
allow a prolonged announcement; hence, the milk- 
man has really no recognised cry at all, some shouting 
the word quickly, almost angrily, as if provoked at 
its awkward shortness; others call 'Be-low,' I sup- 
pose in reference to the area; while many let the 
metal handles drop sharply on their cans, when they 
stop at your door with the white mixture, and say 
nothing. Many residents in London, who know only 
the pnncipal streets and the parks, probably think, 
if they notice the matter at all, that street-cries have 
passed away, or nearly so; but you have only to 
step aside out of the main thoroughfares to be 
imdeceivcd. Few can stand a^inst the rush and 
iron hum of Oxford Street and riccadilly, but many 
flourish a few hundred yards off the chief arteries. 
I have several times admired the articulation 
of a man who frequents Soho; his respect for 
^e consonants is vexy great: 'Any old sshoes or 
bboots — any ummbrellas, how-evcr oldd.* He varies 
the invitation, but is always distinct and slow — walk- 
ing in the middle of the roadway, and addressing the 
upper windows of the houses on either side. In these 
by-streets, however, the principal noises are from 
children at their play. We must not confound the 
street Arab with tne civilised school-boy who is only 
taking his pastime, though to the inexperienced they 
are uncommonly alike ; the Arab, however, playB but 
little, except at pitch-and-toss. Marbles come m and 
go out, peg-tops and whip-tops have their season, 
shuttlecocks are gradually struck into inaccessible 
places till the stock is exhausted; but your Arab 
gambles throughout the year. The tools of amuse- 
ment would be impedimenta to him when the police- 
man came round a comer, or even when he hctuxl the 
creak of the constable's boots. 

To revert to musicians ; did you never notice how 
singularly out of place the songs of two or three 
itinerant Hindu tom-tom players are? Their mono- 
tonous gutturals and drumming, among a hundred 
Kngh'sh noises, always realise to me the great gulf 
between the European and Asiatic: they cannot 
coalesce. The Savoyard with his hurdy-giutiy, and 
even the enterprising Galabrian peasant with his 
national pipes, soon accustom themselves to the ear, 
and become Anglicised ; but the Hindu drum and chant 
remain inflexiSy foreign and distinct, however fre- 
quently we hear them. They belong almost to another 
world of thought and sense. But the study of London 



street-noises is well-nigh endless, from the migfaty 
roar of day to the cat-choruses when you lie awake 
at night. Footfsdls are now rare and distind beneath 
my window, and the low tide of cabs enaUes me 
to hear the scratching of my pen, and even the tick 
of my clock. Ah, that is a policeman's step; I hear 
him trying the doors down my street. Tha«! The 
clock chimes half-past one. Good-night ! 

AN INCIDENT OF BACKWOODS' TRAVJEL. 

Makt years since, I was stationed on a gairisoned 
island at the head of Lake Huron. We called it 
Hie Debatable Post, for the Americans for years 
had claimed it as being within their terriiones; 
wUle, without exactly denying the fact, the British 
government continued to hold possession; and we 
its servants hoisted our brave old flag, and saluted 
on royal birthdays with as much regularity and 
importance as if we had stood within the ehadow of 
the Horse Guards, instead of holding by a doubtful 
ri^t that remote and solitary spot ; for, in those . 
days, tibe whole district of the Huron was a wilder- 
ness, untrodden save by the hunter and the led man. 

We were but a handful of English dwelling among 
many Indians ; but few as we were, one day a Searftu 
act was committed among us, which yet farther 
narrowed our numbers. Fortunately, it wia the 
summer season, when communication was epen wttii 
the colony, and we were glad by the first opportunity 
to send tiie red-handea criminal from ambng^ us 
down to the head-quarters of his remnent ' Two 
months after came an Indian canoe witii an express, 
summoning all the witnesses of the late deed t^ 
Toronto, U> give evidence at the approaching trial; 
and should no other means of transport be availahley 
they were directed to employ canoes and Indians^ 
To my deep regret, I was one of the witnesses ; and. 
as our time was limited, three more days saw me^ 
a brother-officer, and four soldiers, seated in two bark- 
canoes, and amid the waving of paddles, and wiUE^ 
yeUs of their Indian crews, commencing our lake- 
voyage of more than five hundred miles. 

But for the thought of its object, the expedxtiei* 
would have beien a pleasant one. Skimming swifQjT' 
along in our light snallops, beneath the innnenoe dE^ 
the rapidly wieuled paddles, or, if the wind favonredL 
us, the yet stronger impetus of a blanket-sail, part^ 
rugged moimtain, rocky headland, and broad, undiuat-' 
ing tracts, covered with the primeval forest, noir" 
glowing in the briUiant tints of autumn ; whiles 
here and there stretched wide estuaries, or roared 
hoarse cataracts, hurling down the waters of nnknowifc 
rivers to increase the mke. ■ As we glided by them^.. 
there was scarce one for which our steefsniaii haA- 
not some wild legend of revenge or love, or tale oB" 
Indian valour ; and as we listened, it was easy t^ 
fancy the speaker the hero of his own recitals, with 
his high features and lofty bearing, and the long- 
flowing war- tuft, which, Neykeemie, or Thunder, alon& 
of all his tribe, still wore, for though of a broken and — 
conquered nation, the young Ojibbeway. could no 
forget that he was the representative of a long line 
chieftains. 

Twice in the day we landed to cook and reit^^ 
and when night came, we drew our canoes op 
the beach, erected our tents, and lit our fires, 
slept soimdly imtil daybreak roused us to resume 
voyage. At length, we reached the lower end 
the lake, where, leaving our canoes, we were |^ad t 
obtain an imspringed wagon from a nei^bonrin 
settler, in which to pursue the remaining 
rutty hundred miles of our journey. 

Our appearance in Toronto seemed somewhat 
scare the officials. Since the dispatch of our snminoos-:^ 
a new governor had arrived, and, as usual, his reiff^ 
had been inaugurated by an entire change of tantios^ 
one of the first being the resolve to yitSi imme^Bat^ 




CHAMBSBS*S JOURNAL. 



317 



L of our island to the Americans. These 
aed surprising tidings; but when it was 
at a vessel nad already sailed from the 
Lake Erie to bring down the troops, the 
nonnted to positive consternation; for in 
ff island I had left those dearest to me, and 
Ihought was, should the vessel arrive in my 
in what a painful position they w^ould be 
[n this dUemma, there was but one course 
M^ though not one that promised much — ^to 
the lake with all speed, so as to arrive, if 
before the vessel left. My brother-officer 

ties on the island, was to remain at 
as were the soldiers, therefore I should be 
Misenger back in the canoes ; so I resolved 
; the tents and other heavy articles in the 
B, while I pressed on in the smaller and 
le, as an incentive to the utmost diligence, 

my crew a considerable reward, arranged 
inciple of the sliding-scale. 

now the middle of October; the soft 
tifal Indian summer, which had made our 

1 voyage so pleasant, had passed away, 
>leak biting winds which precede the rigor- 
ar of the north were now sweeping over 
forest, raising the former into darK billowy 
d stripping Sie latter of its myriad leaves, 
uited looked the aspect of sky and lake to 
mtgo ; but I had no time for such consider- 
d my Indians faced them as readily as their 
ad the war-path, for Neykeemie chose the 
id strongest of his young men to accompany 

well and nobly did they do their auty. 
noming broke, they were at their paddles : 
IS too wild for them to venture on, though 

tumbling billows boiled around us, sheeting 
1 which ofttimes froze upon us ; and no wind 
ierce for them to brave, though the bitter 
ick like icicles in our faces. 

the fourth morning of our voyage, and, 
r the beams of the setting moon, we started 
wn. The air was intensely cold, for the 
7 from the ice-fields of the north, well-nigh 
he fingers which held the paddles. But we 
I gallantly, making the canoe spring like a 
i over the waves, which rollea bade from 
in muttering surges. As the day advanced, 
increased, until, about noon, it came rush- 
ns in a sudden gale, and laden with a thick 
snow that alm^t hid us from each other. 

far out upon the lake, and amid that 
ig whirl we could no longer see our way ; 
Z no alternative but to push on, trusting 

leave it behind, and guiding ourselves 
e by the wind. On we went, mile after 
le the snow still continued to pour down 
in the same blinding masses, till it lay 

every fold of our clothing, and almost 
boat. On we paddled, hour after hour, 
h each it became wilder and more dense, 
led round us in thick circling eddies, as 
bt to overwhelm us. The wind swept by 
ie, howling gusts, lashing the waters of the 
tall crested billows, wnich threatened to 

1 little bark. Silently and steadily each 
paddle, facing bravely the dangers he could 
vhen suddemy there came a violent shook 
3k us from our seats, followed by a loud 

the bow, and the next moment a wave 
-ough our canoe, she sank beneath our feet, 
\ struggling in the water, 
currence was so sudden, and the gurgling 
. glancing snow so bewildering, that I scarce 
ided my position, but by a natural instinct, 
d out my limbs to swim. Around me, the 
>emed gliding like otters, but I could scaixie 
\ox the snow-drift Loud exclamations and 

in Ojibbeway also met my eais, but they 



were so rapid, and broken 1^ the surging water, that 
I could not catch their meaning ; bat I needed them 
little^ In that icy water, beneath that pelting snow, 
and ignorant which way to seek the shore, what hope 
had we of life? And that retrospect ii the past, 
which visits the minds of the drowning, slided through 
mine — its concluding and most paimiu recollection, 
that of the beloved and expectant ones I should never 
see again. Meanwhile, the Indians continued tl^ir 
cries, apparently lest they should separate, and I 
joined my voice to theirs. But after a time it struck 
me their voices grew more distant, and I raised mine 
louder. It was answered by a whole chorus of yells, 
and afterwards by one nearer, and a minute later 
some one struck against me. It was one of t^e 
Indians ; and, linking ourselves together, we swam on 
in the direction of the voices, which now gave out a 
constant succession of cries. 

Blinded by the snow-storm, and ignorant of where 
we were, or that any impediment was in our way, we 
had dashed our canoe against a rock, and stove in her 
bow. The foremost Indian had discerned the rock, 
towering hi^ above his head, and it was the announce- 
ment of this refuge I had heard so vehemently pro- 
claimed. Guided Dy this knowledge and each other^s 
voices, aU the Indians had contrived to scramble up 
the rock, when I was missed; then, with a gallantry I 
shall never f oi^, our young chief sprang back into the 
lake, and, riskmg his own life to save mine, brought 
me back in safety. As we rose out of the water, the 
keen north wind froze our garments to the hardness 
of armour, only far more chul ; but there was a warm 
flush of thankfulness in our hearts that lessened its 
rigour. Now that the evU was accomplished, the snow 
began somewhat to abate, and enabled us to perceive 
the extent of our ark. It was a vast rock, rismg into 
a lofty pinnacle, far above the reach of the waves. 
On its sheltered side was a small cavity, into which 
we crept to escape the fierce assaults of the wind. 
Cold, sniverin^, and wretched, we were huddled 
together within its narrow limits; yet that very 
crowding probably saved our lives, for, aided by pro- 
tection m>m the wind and snow, it raised the tempera- 
ture, and enabled us to endure the misery of our 
wet clothes, which gradually dried upon us. Later, 
we caught a few gulls upon the rock, and killed, and, 
like wrecked manners as we were, ate them raw. 

It appeared we were not the only wanderers out in 
the storm. When we first arrived on the rock, we 
found only a few gulls crouching in the shelter of the 
ledges ana nooks ; but as the snow cleared and evening 
drew on, whole flocks of lake-birds came winging their 
way towards it— ducks, guUs, and loons — afi cawing, 
quacking, and shrieking, as they descended in flutter- 
ing haste, or in long swooping circles, upon the rock ; 
aiS a goodly multitude they looked as they bustled 
about. Either and thither, each seeking his accustomed 
sleeping-plaoe. In this quest, a large body of loons 
presented themselves before our retreat, which was 
evidently their domicile. For a moment, they stood 
as if astonished at its unusual appearance ; then coolly 
advanced, and endeavoured to force their way in by 
pressing against' our l^s, and climbing over our 
shoulders, as we sat crouched uj^n the rock. Seizing 
on the boldest, Neykeemie, despite the bird's struggles, 
hurled lum out of the cave, and the other Indians 
tried to scare them off by cries and menaces. These 
demonstrations, however, took quite the reverse to 
the expected effect, for without a moment's delay, 
the whole band offered battle. With ruffled plumage 
and wild cries, they dashed themselves agunst us, 
leaping upon us, and tearing us with their armed feet ; 
striking us with their long heavy pinions, and biting 
us wiUi their homy beaks ; while their hideous shrieks 
rent the air, and summoneid allies to their assistance ; 
so that in a few xmnutes a compact body of a s sail an t s, 
literally maddened witii rage, filled the entire mouth 
of the cave^ while the background was fiUed with 



318 



GHAMBSRS'S JOURNAL. 



reinforcements, screamins and quarrelliiu^ in their 
eagerness to get to the front. The loon^ strength 
is at all times considerable, and now fury and numbers 
made them no contemptible antagonists. Sooth to 
say, the battie was tolerably fierce ; for though the 
Indians used their knives vigorously, and backed them 
with yells, rivalling the loons' own screams, there 
were so many candidates for glory that the gaps were 
instantly filled up. 

At length, irritated beyond measure with this 
unsatisfactory warfare, one of the Indians, placing his 
fingers on his mouth, pealed forth the war-whoop of 
his nation. Another moment, and six other such 
fierce cries rang on the air, making the rock resound 
with their ferocious cadences, and rolling in threaten- 
ing echoes far over the lake. Even in that moment 
of excitement, every nerve in my frame thrilled 
beneath those terrible battle-cries ; no wonder, there- 
fore, that they struck affright into our feathered foe, 
who at once commenced a disorderly retreat. The 
TnrliiMig followed Up their advantage with a rush that 
completelv dispersed the enemy, and left us masters 
of tne field, tnough somewhat bruised, bitten, and 
scratched, by the singular combat. 

After a long ni^ht of cramped-up wretchedness, the 
morning broke bnght and clear, and we were surprised 
to find ourselves within half a mile of the land, which 
was Reaming and glittering in the sun, beneath its 
mantk of new-fallen snow. The lake was calm and 
bright as silver, so we resolved to lose no time in 
swimming ashore. Our plan was to encamp on a 
neighbouring point, which jutted out into the lake, 
and light a huge fire, as a Deacon of flame by night, 
and smoke by day, to our companion canoe, wmch 
was to follow on our track, and on which was now 
our sole dependence; for wo coimted that even if 
she paddled leisurely, she should be with us by the 
dose of another day. But two davs passed, and no 
speck larger tlmn the body of one of our late enemies, 
tne loons, dotted the sur^e of the lake. Each hour 
we watched with increasing anxiety ; but the third 
day passed, and still the lake was unruffled by a 
paddle, and so went by the fourth; and then we 
knew that the canoe had missed us, and that we 
must trust alone to our own resources — and few and 
poor indeed they were. 

The Indians, accustomed to the chances of the wilds, 
and the exigencies of forest- travel, bore cheerfully the 
discovery that wo were left unaided — nay, I am not 
sure that their wild blood did not bound the quicker 
at the thought of returning for a time to tne old 
forest-life of freedom and adventure, from which, 
dwelling on the verge of civilisation, they had been in 
some degree drawn. But it fell a heavy blow on me : 
not from dread of the hardships we must encounter 
— I could bear them as well as the children of the 
wilds themselves — but because it utterly blighted my 
last hope of rejoining my family before &e vessel 
sailed. When, if ever, I might reach the island, was 
now uncertain; and I could only hope that when 
the vessel sailed, they might be persuaded to go in 
her, and that both might happen ere the return oi our 
companion canoe, whose report that we had hastened 
on in advance of them would only occasion distress. 
It was the general opinion that our best plan would 
be not to travel along the shore, where the constant 
recurrence of bays and headlands would nearly double 
our journey ; but, proceeding somewhat inland, strike 
across the country westward That night the Indians 
sat late around the fire, fai^oning wiui their knives 
bows and arrows ; for though in our present camp our 
snares and hooks kept us supplied with food, it was 
desirable to have some other dependence on the 
journey. 

On the following morning, we started on this now 
phase of travel, plunging learlesslj into the depths 
of those vast woods of oak, and pme, and sycamore, 
hanging with long streamers of hoary moss, and 



garlanded by innumerable creepers, whose yet fin- 
gering leaves glowed like blossoms in the sanbeuns, 
guided on our pathless way by the bark on fhe trees 
and other forest signs which Indians can unemn^^ 
decipher. Onward we pressed through the dustermg 
underwood of juniper, with its green fragrant berries, 
and the thickets of dwarf -birch and alder ; now and 
then winging an arrow at a partridge or hare as it 
crossed our steps, until darkness bringing us to a 
halt, we encamped beside some rilL It was at ni^ 
we most felt our privations, for thoinfl^ we bnilU 
huge fires, and cut piles of brushwood to proiecU- 
us from the bleak wmds which swept through th^ 
woods, they could not banish the frosty air, whidM^ 
our lack of wrappings made us feel keenly. How-— 
ever, the ingenuity which springs from. n o c MMty 
soon taught us to supply their want by making 
blankets of hare-skins, rudely sewn together witli th^ 
animals* own tendons ; and thou^ their imsi^jbtli — 
ness almost exceeds beUef , worn with the for inwards^ 
they were both warm and comfortable. 

For five long days we had followed tbe urn's course^ 
occasionally crossing wild mountain-ranges, at others 
fording shallow rivers, or, where they were deeper^ 
swimming them, until the end of the sixth day founcS. 
us on the banks of a larger sheet of water tnaa an)r~ 
we had hitherto encount^ed. It was a new difl&colty «. 
but as night was approaching, we resolved to Adear 
any attempt to cross until ma momins^ giving our^ 
selves that time to consider what had oest be done- 
The night was bitterly cold, but we were fortuiiate in 
finding a sheltering nook among the rocks, where wcs 
built our fire. Supp^ over, the 'usual sonewha'fe 
impleasant task of skin-blanket making was com— 
menced, enlivened by a long-vmided and ^mth^'M 
Indian legend, to escape both of which I wrapped 
myself up as well as I could, and strayed away towards 
the shore. I had not reached it long when a ball ^ ~ 
shot out of the darkness, and oame cently g^idiDff up 
waters of the cstuaiy, beside whi<m I stood. Lai 
brighter, and seeming to ride on a sea of molten 
that strange light came on, until it grew upon m; 
sight a grate fiUed with blazing pine-knots, proj 
over the bow of a canoe, for spearing fish by toichL^ 
light. And though the canoe was cast in sliadow, 
could see stray gleams of light flashing on tiL< 
upraised arm of the fisher as he poised his lig^' 
weapon on high, then struck it down tanoDg 
shoaus of fish the light had drawn around him. 

Summoning Neykeemie to the beach, we both 
watching the progress of the canoe, until it was 
ciently near for uie young chief to attract its 
tion by a loud cry. To me the sound seemed nothufL^^^ 
more than a somewhat prolonged yell, bat to India^^^ 
ears, he told me, it sigmfied amity, and a dears Ic^'^ 
closer communication ; and so it seemed to be undeif^ ' 
stood, for, turning aside from the mid-channel, th 
canoe drew rapidly towards the shore ; but what 
our surprise to perceive, by the Ugiht of the pine 
torches, that the fisher wore the dotibi petticoat, 
displayed the slender arms and soft fealnes of 
Indian girl, while a keener glance reveakd that 
somewl^t rugged form wielding the paddle in ^ - 
stem was a woman also, though an older onsu Mai^^S[ 
and various as are the tasks imposed on the Id4~ 
woman, this was an unusual one, Dut how it befell 
soon told. The husband and father of the mother an 
daughter had sickened and died scarce three 
since, leaving them alone in their little wigwam by 
Huron shore. The Indian woman posseswe none of 
forest-lore of her lord, therefore the widow and her 
remained patiently where they were until the Maai'^ 
should seE^ some one to guide thorn to their peopB. 
Meanwhile there fell on Wai-o-naiBa (the Wiah-i 

wish) not onlv the usual female duties, but aleo 

masculine task of providing the wigwam witih Idoc^ 
and as she could not use ner father's rifle, she ~ 
recourse to snaring hares and spearing fish. 



1 I 






CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



319 



Kevkeemie at once proposed we should become the 
boped-for gnides> and take his coun tr y w omen on with 
ns. This met my ready acquiescence ; for even had I 
vtm hoped to arrive in time to meet the vessel, I could 
not have abandoned solitary women to winter in the 
nildemen. The permission to accompany us was 
received with joy. That portion of the contents of 
their wigwam which would be useful on the journey, 
it was resolved to take, and what was abuidoned, 
I promised to replace on our arrivaL I was also 
to purchase their canoe, for though too small to carry 
more than three at once, it wcmld be of great ser- 
Tice to US in crossing rivers and estuaries, such as 
lay before us, and it was so light, that when not 
required it could be carried on an Indian's shoulder. 
Kever were quieter, rentier, or more patient crea- 
tures than those we added to our jNirty. On the first 
morning, as soon as we had cromed the water, they 
b^^an, according to Indian custom, to load themselves 
-with all the burdens of the camp, but that Ney- 
keemie would not allow while so man^ Indians were 
idle. Afterwards, they took their station in the rear, 
in recognition of the inferiority of their sex, and 
plodded on through the livelong day meek and sQent; 
and, when we reached our campinf-ground at even- 
ing, it was found that each had ga&ered on the way 
» pile of sticks to light our fire. Nor did their cares 
end there. The fire once blazing, they glided about 
in their quiet unobtrusive way, filling their pot and 
calabashes with water, skinning hares, and performing 
all the drudgery of the camp, as those whose bounden 
duty it was to ao so. And such is the force of habit, 
that all the Indiana, save Neykeemie, loitered about, 
indolent spectators. 

To assist in menial labour is beneath the dignity 
of any Indian, far less a chief, and his young men 
looked on Neykecmie's industry with astonishment. 
They did not comprehend that homage to the beauti- 
ful which the cnivalric young chief evinced; for 
Naisa, as her mother called her, was truly beautiful, 
with her straight slender limbs, so polished in their 
glowing olive tint, her soft features, fawn-like eyes, 
and the long raven tresses banded back so meekly 
from her forehead. It scarcehr needed that most 
excellent thing in woman, the low soft voice, to win 
for her the heart of the young chief. 

Meanwhile, winter came rushing upon us with all 
its rigours; sometimes bitter mrats bound both 
earth and water in their iron grasp ; at others, vast 
quantities of snow fell amid terrific storms, confining 
us to our camp for days; when, with a fire built 
before some evergreen thicket, or rock, we would sit 
crouching in its shelter, all parties busily employed 
in £&bricating rude snow-shoes to enable us to 
proceed when the storm should be past. At 
length our wearisome land-journey was finished, 
and before us, far out in the lake, lay a group of 
islands, one of which was our destination. The 
Indians fairly whooped with joy at sight of it; and 
that night a stately dance was held in our camp in 
honour of the occasion, of which I and the two women 
were the only spectators ; that is, if the elder might 
strictly be considered so, for she kept time with a 
gourd tilled with dried pease, while those grave Indians 
danced in a circle to the rude music of their own 
voices. Then followed tales wilder than I had yet 
heard ; and songs of love and war, which, though low- 
toned and monotonous, were wilder still, and laden 
with strange rhythmical cadences, which whirled round 
in my brain long after silence and sleep had fallen upon 
the camp. With the earliest dawn, we were astir, pro- 
paring to cross the ice to the islands, which fortunately 
lay in a broad belt of ice — the rest of the lake being 
stdl unfrozen. The sun shone dazzlinely in a sky doucU 



less as that of summer, and we wero almost blinded by 
the brilhancy with which his beams flashed and sparided 
on that bed of ice, as if it had been a vast diamond. 
We had not proceeded far, ere we discovered that 



floUd as the ice appeared, it had lately been broken 
up by a swell from the lake, and had since but super- 
ficially reunited. However, it was strong enoujp^ to 
bear our weiffht ; and exhflarated by the &ouf ht that 
our toils and hardships were drawing to a ^ose, we 
sped lightly on, still preserving the old oider of moroh, 
Neykeemie leading the way as ^de, the Indians and 
I next, and, accormng to inviolaole custom, Naisa and 
her mother bringing up the rear. 

Hours passed ; we broad outline of our island was 
growing on our sight, and we could even perceive the 
long shiadow of its hills and pine-forests darkening 
the gleaming ice, when a loud report like that of a 
thousand muskets rang through tne air, and rolling 
far and wide over that frozen and silent plain, rever- 
berated among the nearest islands. I had been too 
long in Canatla not to recognise that sound, and 
involuntarily we all looked lakeward, fearing the ice 
upon our path had parted. The next moment^ the 
same sound was repeated, but louder and more 
threateningly, followed by a crashing of breaking ice, 
and then by wild, temfiea shrieks from Naisa and her 
mother. We at once rushed back, knowing that some 
evil had happened, but unable to guess what, until we 
came to a spot where the thin ice, cracking at right 
angles, had oroken into a pool, beside whicm kneeled 
the aged squaw, groping wudly with her arms in the 
water. Naisa was not there, but there needed no 
words to tell her fate. She, the youngest and lightest 
among us, stepping upon the weak ice at the moment 
it cracked, had faflien through, where so many heavier 
and stronger had passed in safety; while, embarrassed 
and weighed down by her heavy clothing, she had 
sunk at once. An exclamation of horror and grief 
burst from every lip at the discovenr, but there was 
not a moment to h« lost. Every effort was exerted. 
Indians threw themselves on the ice, and looked 
keenly down into the pellucid water; others broke the 
ice along the cracks, m case the current might sweep 
her towards them ; while Neykeemie, throwing rapidly 
aside his heavy vrrappings, sprang into the pool, and 
dived down into the depths of the lake in pursuit of 
her he loved. The minutes seemed hours ; and so long 
he stayed, that every heart began to quake lest the 
brave young chief had shared the fate of nis betrothed; 
even the weeping mother ceased her sobs for an 
instant, in breathless fear. At length he reappeared, 
but he was alone; and, only pausmg a moment for 
breath, he dived again, to rise disappointed a second 
time, and a third ; out on the fourth time, he brought 
a burden with him. The other Indians drew it care- 
fully from the water, and laid it on the ice, while all 
gathered anxiously round. But every effort was fruit- 
less ; the icy waters had too surely done their work ; 
the sweet voice of the beautiful Indian ^ud was silent 
for evermore. 

It was a sorrowful party that, later in the day, 
took their way towards the island. In all the aban- 
donment of female Indian grief, with loud sobs and 
many tears, intermingled with fond reproaches to the 
departed for thus deserting her mother and her 
betrothed, the bereaved parent walked slowly on 
beside the corpse of her child, which Neykeemie 
bore tenderly m his arms. True to the stoicism 
of the west, the young chief shed no tear over 
his sad bunlen, and his face was rigid as steel; 
but it was ha^o;ard in its unspoken anguish, and 
the red glow of his race had faded iram it. life 
is full of contrasts. That nifiht, while there was 
deep grief in Neykeemie^s lodge, there was glad- 
ness beneath my roof, for its inmates rejoiced over 
the unhoped-for return of one they loved ; while the 
vessel that had been so long my bugbear was now 
the cause of merriment, when I learned she lay fast 
locked among the ice before my door. Three days 
after, I aided Neykeemie to lay nis betrothed in the 
grave. Ere I Mt the island in the spring, I again 
visited him and Naisa's mother, whom I found in the 



320 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



yoonff chiefs lodge, receiving from him the duty and 
affection of a son. Years mer, when drcmnstances 
recalled me to the spot, the aged woman lay beside her 
daughter, and Neykeemie dwelt alone in his lodge, a 
silent and solitary man. 



Q U I N C K* 

Nkar a small Tillage in the West, 

Where many Tery worthy people 
Eat, drink, play whist, and do their best 

To guard from evil Church and Steeple, 
There stood — ahus ! it stands no more ! 

A tenement of brick and plaster, 
Of which, for forty years and four. 

My good friend Qaince was lord and master ! 

Welcome was he in hnt and hall, 

To maids and matrons, peers and peasants, 
He won the sympathies of all, i 

By making puns and making presents ; 
Though all the parish was at strife, 

He kept his counsel and his carriage, 
And laughed and loved a quiet life, 

And shrank from Chancery^ suits and marriage. 

Sound was his claret and his head ; 

Warm were his double ale and feelings — 
His partners at the wbist-club said. 

That he was faultless in his dealings — 
He went to church but once a week ; 

Tet Dr Poundtext always found him 
An upright man, who studied Greek, 

And liked to see his friends around bim. 

Asylums, hospitals, and schools, 

He used to swear were made to cozen ; 
All who subscribed to them were fools, 

And he subscribed to half-a-dozen. 
It was his doctrine that the poor 

Were always able, never willing ; 
And so the beggar at the door 

Had first abuse, and then a shilling. 

Some public principles he had, 

But was no flatterer, nor f retter ; 
He rapped his box when things were bad. 

And said : * I cannot make them better !' 
And much he loathed the patriot^s snort, 

And much he scorned the placeman's snu£9e, 
And cut the fiercest quarrels short, 

With — * Patience, gentlemen, and shuffle.* 

For full ten years bis pointer. Speed, 

Had couched beneath his master's tabic ; 
For twice ten years his old white steed 

Had fattened in his master's stable — 
Old Quince averred, upon his troth. 

They were the ugliest beasts in Devon ; 
And none knew why he fed them both, 

With his own hands, six days in seven. 

Whene'er they heard his ring or knock, 
Quicker than thought, the village slatterns 

Flung down the novel, smoothed the frock, 
And took up Mrs Glasse, and patterns ; 



* From the American edition of William Maokworth Praed't 
poems. 



Adine was studying haken^ bills ; 

Louisa looked the queen of knitters ; 
Jane happened to be hemming frills ; 

And Bell, by chance, was making fritten. 

But all was vain ; and while decay 

Came like a tranquil moonlight o'er him, 
And found him gouty still, and gay. 

With no fair nurse to bless or bore him ; 
His rugged smile, and easy chair, 

His dread of matrimonial lectures, 
His wig, his stick, his powdered hair, 

Were themes for very strange conjectures. 

Some sages thought the stars above 

Had crazed him with excess of knowledge ; 
Some heard he had been crossed in love. 

Before he came away from college — 
Some darkly hinted that his Grace 

Bid nothing, great or small, without him. 
Some whispered with a solemn face. 

That there was something odd about him I 

I found him at threescore and ten, 

A single man, but bent quite double. 
Sickness was coming on him then. 

To take him from a world of trouble — 
He prosed of sliding down the hill. 

Discovered he grew older daily ; 
One frosty day he made his will — 

The next he sent for Dr B^ley ! 

And so he lived — and so he died : 

MThen last I sat beside his pillow, 
He shook my hand — * Ah me ! ' he cried, 

* Penelope must wear the willow. 
Tell her I hugged her rosy chain 

While life was flickering in the socket : 
And say, that when I call again, 

I'll bring a licence in my xxxsket. 

* I've left my house and grounds to Fag — 

(I hope his master*s shoes will suit him) ; 
. And I've bequeathed to you my nag, 

To feed him for my sake — or shoot bun. 
The vicar's wife will take old Fox — 

She'll find him an uncommon mouser; 
And let her husband have my box. 

My Bible, and my Assmanshauscr. 

* Whether I ought to die or not, 

My doctors cannot quite determine ; 
It's only clear that I shall rot, 

And be, like Priam, food for vermin. 
My debts are paid — but Nature's debt 

Almost escaped my recollection ! 
Tom ! we shall meet again ; and yet 

I cannot leave you my direction !' 

To Ck)NTRiBDTORS.— It is requested that all Confab' 
butions to Chamhtrit Journal may be, for the fatnr^ 
directed to the Editor, at 47 Paternoster Row, LondoDi 



Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 P**^'* 
noster Row, London, and 339 High Street, EoiKBiniflf- 
Also sold by William Robertson, 23 Upper Sacktu" 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 




CONDUCTKD BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 386. 



SATURDAY, MAY 25, 1861. 



Price l^(f. 



NIX'S BABY. 

Therb are certain periods of physical life — Alpha and 
Om^^ stages, they might almost be called— in which, 
&om some deficiency on the part of the dental or diges- 
tive organs, it becomes necessary to furnish the human 
being with the kind of nutriment known as 'spoon- 
meat.* The small bald pink yoimg gentleman on the 
third floor is enabled to scream so lustily, thumping 
his lace-bedizened bassinet the while, thanks to his 
beloved pap-boat, which, failing a more natural and 
beautiful source of aliment, affords him comfortable 
support The large bald pink old gentleman with the 
crescent of white hair, and the check neckerchief, in 
the parlour, reads his newspaper so devotedly through 
his trim gold-rinmied glasses, and carries on his kind, 
good, sociable, courtly life by means of the succulent 
soup-basin, or the food carefully softened or finely 
chopped to suit the tenderness of his mouth and the 
exigencies of his stomach. As in the physical, so 
in the moral nature are there conditions in which 
food is to be presented for digestion in forms not too 
haxsh, or large, or solid — ^the oesophagus of the mind 
not to be crowded with unadvisable victuals — intel- 
lectual dyspepsia to be strenuously guarded against — 
and, in fine, learning, information, and news only to be 
proffered in a minced fashion — after the manner of 
spoon-meat. 

I wander into these remarks from a consideration 
of the state of intelligence prevalent among the 
tenants of a group of buildings which, at the time 
I made their acquaintance, bore the collective title 
of Mobb's Rents, and formed a hollow square of 
much exactness round a lamp-post, a pimip, and a 
guUy-hole, in the neighbourhood then known as 
Copenhagen Fields. I may as well at once warn 
those precise readers who love to follow an author 
out on a map, and literally nail him down to topo- 
graphical correctness, that Mobb's Rents have been long 
since collected and carted away — that they have been 
wiped clean off the face of London, and can no longer 
be picked out on modem charts. Even their site is 
hardly now to be found. They were not old enough to 
be memorable ; they were not ornamental, or even 
clean enough to be respected. Who cares to chro- 
nicle where a thistle grew, or where a toadstool shot 
vp and rotted ? 

Small states on the continent, hedged in by power- 
ful neighbours prone to aggrandisement, have yet, 
aided perhaps by natural boundaries and lines of 
demarcation, preserved for centuries their condition 
of independence and separateness ; so flourished a 
distiiict settlement, heedless of surrounding circum- 
stances, utterly uninfluenced by aught transpiring 



outside its square cul de sac — Mobb*s Rents. They 
had manners and customs, and views and opinions, 
quite of their own, had the denizens of Mobb's Rents. 
They never followed suit ; they never imitated. * What 
do they say about it at the Rents?' asked people 
outside, of such and such a thing. 'What are the 
Rents going to do?' on such and such an occasion. 
Their independence and isolation were fully recog- 
nised. For my part, I always wondered that the 
legislature, in its enactments regarding England, 
Ireland, Scotland, and the town of Berwick-upon- 
Tweed, did not also add, 'and the principality of 
Mobb's Rents, Cox>enhagen Fields.' They had different 
fashions, too, to other iK)rtions of the land. They 
ate oysters long after other Londoners had given over 
those moUusks. They took no note of the usual 
divisions of season in regard to fish and flesh ; and 
lived generally under a more free and primitive 
condition. Their house-doors were constantly open — 
their matrons sitting on the steps while the children 
played round the lamp-post, or sported with the 
pump, or toyed with the gully-hole. Even among 
the infant population, there was n noteworthy idio- 
syncrasy — the games prevalent in other jiortions of the 
town did not necessarily obtain with them. On the 
contrary, I have known shuttlecock quite the general 
rage in London, while tipcat was the steady pursuit 
of the Rents. Outside the square, tops might be 
the fashion ; but inside, buttons — nothing less. The 
children maintained rigorously the rights and privi- 
leges of the state in which they had been bom, and 
fell upon with one accord, and punished summarily, 
any intruder upon their territory. They had interne- 
cine differences, it is true, but they suspended these 
to suppress a common enemy, or repel a common 
invader. *How dare you touch our pump?' 'Get 
out of our square!' So they addressed a stranger 
visitor to the Rents; and upon a given signal — a 
violent whistle, or a prolonged yell, made to vibrate in 
a peculiar manner by striking the hand upon the 
mouth during its utterance — they summoned a general 
muster of the forces for warlike measures. 

Perhaps it is not so much to be wondered at that 
the self-sufficient and self-concentrated manner of 
life of the Rents should result in the inhabitants 
receiving mental subsistence of the spoon-meat char- 
acter only. It was like feeding in a cage, where it is 
not every morsel that can be got through the bars. 
The Rents could no more accept great pieces of 
knowledge into their intelligences, than you can 
exhibit large historical paintings in a back-kitchen. 
They were fenced off, as it were, from the great 
outside world, and only small things could get 
through to them. History occasionally flung them a 



322 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



stray paragraph or two oC her voluininotis and endless 
works, as ahe passed hy the entrance of the Rents in 
her gandy chariot drawn by politicians. The Charter 
had once stolen into the Kents on a flying- visit, but 
had received no very wann or intelligent greeting, 
and had soon made off s^ain. A dim notion and 
memory of the occurrence, however, prevailed in the 
Rents, and the thing was disinterred now and then, 
and talked over in doorways in the dusk, just as 
ihou^ it were a ghost-story; and there was a 
floating idea that some wrong or other had been 
done the Rents at some time or other, in the matter 
of what was called the ' francheese,' though the 
understanding of this was at once various and vague. 

But if the outside world was little heeded, and 
only got at now and then in bits and scraps, it must 
not be supposed that no topics of interest or events 
of importance occupied the Rents. A ministerial 
crisis, perhaps, might transpire uncared for, but the 
excitement consequent on the pump freezing was 
by no means inconsiderable. A contmental convul- 
sion, and the toppling down of a few thrones, might 
be known in onl^ nlmy outlines; but you should 
have seen the rising of the Rents when Mrs Part- 
kit's httle boy had the half -pence taken out of his 
hand, and his shoes and socks stolen (by a gipsy 
woman who sold penwipers and brimstone matdies), 
on his way to the British Lion public-house for the 
supper-beer ; you should have seen, I say, the intense 
rage and indignation that prevailed, always excepting 
amongst the O'Gradies on the third floor of No. 10 in 
the I^nts, who were rather derisive than sympathetic, 
never wearing shoes and socks themselves, and regard- 
ing the wear of such articles by others as singular 
examples of weakness of mind and general absurdity 
of conduct And the Rents dated m>m such events 
in their history : from the time when No. 7 was down 
with typhus — ^when Mrs Partlett's third little girl 
was lost for three whole days — when Mr Pat O'Gradv 
went off in that awful attack of what was called, 
throughout the Rents, 'delicious tremblings* — tearing 
up his clothes into strips, and throwing them out cS 
the window, and nearly succeeding m a dreadful 
attempt to hurl Mrs O^G. out after them, and to 
bum down the whole Rents by way of finale. 

The sun only shone in an accidental and reflected 
sort of war on the Rents ; he just hinted by a side- 
long ray flung in like a lover's letter, h^ furtively, 
that he was rising or setting, as the case might l>c. 
The full pomp and glory of those great proceedings 
on the part of his majesty were no more fully displayed 
to the Rents, than Queen Victoria's going down to 
Westminster to open or dissolve parliament ; so that 
as Mr Nix stood in the doorway of No. 3, smoking 
his evening pipe, there was but a blush of sunset 
on his massive fur-cap, reflected and shot down by 
the shimmer on the garret- window of No. 13 over the 
way. It was a fur-cap of the largest and heaviest 
pattern that could well be procured, for Mr Nix 
entertained the notion that the head could not 
possibly be kept too warm, and combed his hair 
well over his forehead, and always retained his hand- 
kerchief and other matters in his cap ; and, in short, 
thoroughly acted up to, and worked out, his con- 
victions on the subject. A stout, short man of good- 
natured, blank, not to say dull aspect, with scraps 
of whiskers on ^e summits of his plump round 
cheeks, like lichen patches on rocks. He is in his 
shirt-sleeves, which are rolled up above his sub- 
stantial elbows, and his wrists and hands are dyed a 
rich warm brown, for ho is a French-polisher by 
trade, and there is a fine smell of oil and varnish, and 
upholstery and cabinet-making about him. But Mr 
I^ is not comfortable to-night ; he fa pale and rest- 
less, and takes his hands out of his pockets and thrusts 
them in again — rubs his face all over with his warmed 
handkerchief — ^brings down his hair still more closely 
into his eye»— socks at his pipe (it is no longer aligh^ 



but he takes no account of that deficiency) — stands 
first on one 1^, then on the other — stares hard at 
the pump, as though it had been asking him a riddle 
•—conducts himself altogether as one having some- 
thing on his mind. Mrs Partlett perceives him from 
over the way, and comes across to nim r she is a stern, 
stout-looking woman, strong of mind and body. 

* I 'm surprised at you, Mr Nix.' 

* As how ?* 

* Standing a-loUoping about here, with what 's gomg 
on upstairs? 

Poor Mr Nix looked seriously perplexed. 

' In the way here — ^in the way tnere. What 's a man 
to do ? Where 's a cove to go ? ' 

' And smoking too ! O you men ! no more feeling 
than paving-stones. But it's just the sams wiUi 
Partlett ; I might be in my coffin, and a lot he 'd care. 
Smoking! and a life-and-death matter in the two-pair 
back! Ugh!' 

Mr Nix flung away his pipe moodily. It broke 
against the lamp-post. There was quite a scramble 
for the fragments among the young people in the 
court He stood upright, as though aixmt to enter 
upon some vigorous course of action ; soon, however, 
he relapsed again into his old moodiness. 

* Where 'sl£e use? I ain't no good, you know I ain't' 
*Well, you ain't,' Mrs Paitlett aoquieaoed with 

candid asperity. 

* What can I do?' 

' Nothing — that 's about it, I think.' 

' Would you go up, Mrs Partlett, please, and see if 
anythink 's wanted, and give a help like, if you can?' 
Mr Nix asked, humbly — ^doubtingly. 

'No, Mr Nix ; not if you was to ask me on your 
bended knees, I wouldn t There. Not as I've do 
f eelin's — ^they 've been my cum throng Ufe ; and not 
as I 've no regard for Mrs Nix, which I have, and 
she's to be pittied, poor crittur ; and I feels towards 
her, pertikly in her present state, poor dear, more as 
a mother or a helder sister. But isn't Mrs Wittl» 
ux)stairs ? Haven't she been asked ? and never a word 
to me till this blessed moment, though it 's thirteen 
I ' ve had, and might be thought to have had some igi- 
perience. Ah ! and aU weU and 'earty, bless 'em ! 
earning their own crusts, some of 'em; and as fine 
children — which I've tended them through hooping- 
cough and measles, ah ! and small-xwx too, for the 
matter of that, and ought to know, and am their 
mother, and that's more, though I say it — as yoa 
can find in the whole Rents ; while o^^^ people— but I 
don't want to make no ill-feelin' nor nothink of that 
sort, mentioning names — as have had but two, and 
one of them with bow-legs, and the other with the 
rickets — not as it's their fault, poor things, for it's 
the missing as makes the child, and so I ve always 
said to Partlett — their opinion's to be everything— 
they*re to be asked this, that, and the other— CVy'rv 
to give advice, and say what 's to be done, and what's 
right and what 's wron^ — and I 'm to be treated as so 
much dirt, and never siven a thought to.' 

*It'8 none of my ODing, Mrs Partlett, I*m sore,' 
murmured Mr Nix with much penitence. 

* It isn't— I know that YauWe no fool. Nix ; I will 
say that (he drew himself up involuntarily). Not as 
you've wit to spare either (he drooped again) ; bat 
you know where igsperience is to be foun^ ah ! and 
the vaUy of it; and we've been neishbours lot 
some years, ahl before yon married, fang; and I 
alwavs felt as Partlett was safe, go where he would^ 
which he was younger then, and thought more of 
gaiety like — so lon^ as I knew you was with hin. 
Though I was surprised when you brought your wife 
home, I will say that It wasn't as if she was a 
strong young woman with a willin' arm, as oould 'cip 
you m your business, which she misht — ^bot a poor 
white-faced little chit, weak and si^y lookiag^ as 
couldn't say '* Bo ! " to a goose — with a sweet 
wns lock, but no more.' 



CHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



323 



* Don't, Mrs Partlett — don't; not now. Call me 
what you like, but don't speak of her now like that — 
don't, my dear ; ' and he wrung her hand piteously ; 
and there was a look in his fat, duU face ^diich went 
straight to the heart of the larce, strong, stem woman, 
mother <rf thirteen, and she sortened. 

* I won't. Nix ; I know what it is. Here, come ; we 'U 
go up.* 

* Don't mind Mrs Wittles.' 

* Bother Mrs Wittles. Don't speak of her.' 

And they went upstairs, Mr Nix breathing rather 
hard, and altogether pale and a^tated ; Mra Part- 
lett, determined, but not rapid m her movements, 
encouraging her companion. Presently, there arises 
the tiny cry of the new-bom, and Mr Nix wipes away 
the ookI perroiration that vriU gather on his brow, 
and the tell, lean man in black, with the kind eyes, 
'who comes out afterwards, pats Mr Nix on the 
shoulder. 'A fine boy,' he says; 'and I think we 
shall pull throu^ Keep up your spirits. Ah, Mrs 
Partlett, how 's No. 13 ? I 'U come back directly.' 

Soon Nix's baby is the talk of the Rents; and 
Mrs Partiett is the centre of a ctoud on her door- 
steps, to whom she is narrative and juoidaL 

*JPoor dear! a nice crittur, but no constitooshun. 
And Nix took on dreadful, but is more composed now ; 

i'nst as Partlett was at first — quite a ravmg maniac 
le was then ; it took two men to 'old him ; out he 's 
got used to it now. Yes, a fine child, and doing 
nicely, thank yon, though I do not agree with Mrs 
Witues as to what she give it ; no, and never will ; 
and if I was on my dying bed, I 'd say it was poison. 
No, not so big as my Tommy — but he was the big^t 
duld I evor set eyes on, and so Dr Banks said mm- 
self ; and I 've seen a many, let alone having thirteen 
of my own — but a fine, wholesome, well-to-do child, 
that I will say; though, poor thing, how she will 
ever,' Ac., &c. So Mrs Partlett went on to attentive 
listenCTB. 

*€rod bless you, Polly dear.' 

' Kiss me, iSen. Is he like yon, Ben ? I hope ho 
is. I think he is, about the mouth.' 

* He 's a stunner, Polly.' 

And Mr Nix is forbidden to talk more to the poor 
fragfle little wife. He is not a demonstrative man — 
not fluent of speech ; he is, besides, possessed with the 
notion that he ou^t to suppress nis feeling But 
he is deeply moved: the tears roll down his broad 
fat cheeks ; his French-polished hands tremble so 
that he buries them deep in his pockets; and 
finding himself very hot, he is soon standing again on 
tiie door-steps, and observed by the Rents, is much 
greeted and con^tulated. 

' Ah, Nix ! ' cnes a little man with moist beaming 
e^es, a paper-cap, a fianncl jacket, and a jug of beer in 
his hand, ' so it 's all right, I hear. Little un going 
on wdil ? Have a drink — ^f or luck,' and he passes the 
beer. 

'lliank yon kindly, Mr Partlett. It do make 
a fellow alXoverishness-like. I never thought about 
being a father — never. Can't make it out quite yet' 

*Ah^ you'll get used to it, like me. You'll soon 
have a swarm of them round you, crawling about the 
floor tillyou hardly know where to put your foot 
down. They make a row, you know, and a cove has 
to work hard ; but I don't mind that a bit when 
work 's to be got, and the missus is a good manager.' 

' It 's a rum world,' cjuoth Mr Nix — a remark rather 
▼ague than profound, m the which he often indulged 
without its having any precise intelligibility, even to 
himself ; and then, as he wiped with nis shirt-sleeve 
the malt moisture from his lips, he muttered : ' Yes, 
I must work for the younker now hextra, if need be ; 
ay, and for Polly toa She won't be up in a hurry, 
I'm afeaxd.' 

I am scnry to bring a dark shadow across what I 



page; but the 
DrlBanks came 



would sooner have hod a pleasant 
clouds gathered over Mobb's Rents, 
very often now to the two-pair back, and there was 
an anxious look upon his thm kind faca The poor 
little mother lingered through the cold weather, very 
pale and weakly, with quite an aguish tremble upon 
ner, and a sharp dry cough that jarred painfully upon 
the nerves of poor Mr Nix. And then 

He gave over the fur-cap, and wore his Sunday 
hat on week-days, with a deep crape band upon it. 

And another event in the Rent»— the funeral; and 
was it too ^rand ? I know that Mr Partlett said it 
was quite ridiculously so, especially as the poor dead 
woman had no friends or family caring to mourn over 
her. Of course, the cost very much exceeded the 
amount Nix receivc<l from his burial-club. Perhaps 
he was imposed upon b^ the undertaker, or betrayed 
into extravagance by his great desire that all should 
be * nice and r^ular-like for the dear souL' *■ No 
one should ever throw thai in his face,' said the 
poor fellow. He was so low and moody now, he 
thought the whole world was turning against him 
It seemed a great comfort to him to have a funeral 
rather over-ceremonious for the Rents. It took place 
on a Sunday, after morning church; and it was 
talked about all day long, and for days i^r. Mr 
Partlett was one of the mourners, and wore the 
usual long crape drapery attached to his hat, rather 
proud than not of the mournful decoration ; and pos- 
sibly he deemed ho was payins only a due compli- 
ment to the occasion wh^ ne kept his hat on, even 
during his tea and supper hours, and removed it with 
evident reluctance when he retired for the night. 
Mrs Partlett begged Mr Nix to look in and have a bit 
of supper at eight o'clock, promising the ohildre»i 
should all be snug in bed, and everything very quiet. 
But he had no heart for it. 'No stomach for my 
wittles yet,' he said himself; *but thankee kindly 
all the same, Mrs Partlett ; ' and he wished very much 
that it was Monday, that he might get to his work. 

And he did work, when the opportunity came. He 
was at it all day lon^. 'There's the younker/ he 
would say explanatorily, if any spoke to him on the 
subject. 'I've need to work, I have.' And he 
brou^t work home with him to be French-polished 
at night. He was seen rubbing with great vehe- 
mence and persistency a large sideboard out in 
the centre of the Rents by the hght of the lamp-poet. 
' It does a cove good to work, specially when ne 's 
summat on his mmd,' he said. ' i can't stick indoors 
now as I used to — ^when — when she was here, you 
know. I never was a good hand at reading myself 
but she could, oncommon; and I liked to see her 
drawing it all out of a big newspaper. And I can't 

go to publics, you know ; I ain't that sort, so I don't 
ear the news much now, but I stick to my work.' 

' How are you getting on. Nix ?' occasionally asked 
some friendly neighbour of the good man, as he rubbed 
hard at his mahc^ny in the open court. But his 
replies were long in coining, and not always relevant 
to the inquiry. 

'Biled linseed, that's what I alwa^ use; with 
dragon's blood or rose pink, may be, if the wood 's 
very yaller. I puts the Prench on arterwards. But 
there 's nothink to begin with like biled linseed and 
lots of elbow-grease.' 

He had thought the question had reference to his 
trade. 

And the baby? Well, the baby was doing well, 
as the phrase is. ' Please give a heye to the younker,' 
Mr Nix always requesteaof Mrs Partlett, or some 
other matron of the Rents with a kindred soul, before 
he left in the morning to go to his work. And the 
Rents grew to be very proud of Nix's baby, little Ben ; 
he was so fair and plump, and had, O such open eyes 
and mouth I and guigled and gasped, and crowed and 
choked in a maimer very fascinating to m o thers. 
There was quite a struggle who should aid Nix's 



324 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



baby the most. Even little Pat O'Grady the incor- 
rigible — as dirty a little savage as the Rents had ever 
produced— softened in favour of little Ben, and relin- 

Suished his favourite toy, a dead rat rapidly ncaring 
ecomposition, to play with Nix's baby. * Plase, *m, 
and mayn't I nurse him ?' he petitioned Mrs Partlett 
•No, not till you*rc clean,' was that stalwart woman's 
sentence. ' Clane is it?' says Pat; and for the first 
time in his life he spends half an hour at the pump in 
an endeavour, praiseworthy though futile, to remove 
some portion of the grimincss that clings to him as a 

Srment, and is amply rewarded for his exertions by 
rs Partlett's permission to carry little Ben two or 
three times round the Rents. * Ah, the darlint ! and he 
didn't cry, divil a bit, though he knocked liis head 
agin the lamp-post.' 

It was quite clear that Mr Nix never clearly under- 
stood his babv ; it was always to him a great mystery, 
over which ne spent many and many an hour of 
cogitation and self-examination, and numberless 
pipefids of tobacco. He was greatly proud of it, and 
intensely fond ; but he approached it with a sort of 
awe, and only a very partial compi*ehension. He was 
as a workman contemplating an elaborate piece of 
machinery'', which he only imderstands sufficiently to 
marvel at. There it was, wonderful and beautiful ; 
but what did it mean? And Mr Nix put out his 
hard, work- stained forefinger, and watched it clutched 
b^ the pink, plump liands of his child with a strange 
air of amazement and perplexity. He had evidently 
never given his mind to babi^ ; they had never been 
to him objects of study, and he was quite astounded 
when, one day, his son commenced to articulate sounds 
something like words, and turned quite pale when, as 
he entered the Rents after his work, the child quitted 
Mrs Partlett's skirts, tottered a few paces, and caught 
hold of his parent's right leg, just in time to save 
himself from falling. * There — think of that ! ' cried 
Mrs Partlett ; * beginning to walk by hisself . He 's 
felt his feet long since, and not fourteen months 
old. You may well be proud of him, Mr Nix.' But 
at that moment I think he was rather frightened 
than proud Little Ben had before this crawled all 
round the Rents on his stomach, barking like a dog ; 
he had extraordinary imitative talent, every one 
admitted — even the mothers of children of the same 
age — that was wonderful enough. ' But to see him a- 
standing up on his hind-legs, going on like a human 
crittur ! oncommon ! ' quoth Mr Nix, wiping his warm 
head. * Well, it is a rum world ! ' 

And he was such a good baby ! Why, he never 
thought of crying, not even when Pat 0' Grady let 
him slip do^n a whole flight of stairs, and his fore- 
head was black and blue with bruises for weeks after ; 
not even when he was teething, and well-intentioned 
peoj>lc were always rubbing his gums with hard 
foreign substances to an extent that would have 
keenly irritated an adult ; not even when there was 
that dreadful alarm of fire in the Rents. O the 
excitement that prevailed! two engines besides the 
parish, and a man in a 'hcmblet' walking about the 
Rents for days after, as though the place belonged to 
him — thought by the younger inhabitants to be a new 
order of policeman, though he was in fact a fu'cman. 
And when Nix*s l)aby was found by httle Pat sitting 
in the two-pair back, though the room was so full cS 
smoke that one could hardly see, let alone breathing — 
sitting there as good as gold, sucking his two thumbs 
like a little king as he was; wli^t joy there was 
when Nix's baby was known to be safe ! Happily, it 
was in the middle of the day, and Nix was away at 
liis work, and knew nothing of it until all was over, 
and little Ben fast asleep in the same crib with 
Mrs Partlett's youngest out two, or I think the 
poor father would have quite gone out of his mind. 

He never fairly recognised the juvenility of his 
offspring. He had not that power of nonsense, talk, 
and xuirsery modley for the amusement o£ the baby, 



which I have seen at the command of some fathers. 
He could not hold it comfortably in his arms, or nurse 
it properly. He had no notion even of tha simple 
pastimes of * riding cock-horse ' or * catchee-catchee,' 
which are quite the rudiments of the art of baby- 
pleasing. He did once bring home with him as a 
j)resent for baby a large peg-top, which, though it 
would have been an acceptaUe gift to a school-boy, 
was somewhat ill adapted to an infant in amis, as was 
discovered when little Ben made desperate endeavonn 
to put out his eyes ^^^ith the peg, and choke himself 
by thrustiog the top in his mouth. Much angry 
derision and expostulation from Mrs Partlett resulted 
from this mistaken, though well-intentioned, effort; 
and Mr Nix, who had not arrived at the step without 
much meditation, and had anticipated, and even con- 
gratulated himself beforehand upon a well-meritefL 
success, suffered acutely from his failure. An endea- 
vour during his Whitsun holidays to introduce lu» 
tiny son, not then two years old, to the learned. 
splendours of the National Gallery and British. 
Museum, was attende<l with no better result. Little 
Ben, on account of his tender age, was refosed admis-* 
sion to those institutions, much to the amazement 
and indignation of the parent, who was slow either to 
understand or forgive this slight upon his infant's 
intelligence. 

Mr Nix now began to lay greater stress than he 
had hitherto done upon tne subject of what ho 
called * edication.' * I never were a scholard myself, 
not to speak on — ^wus luck. He 'U soon set b^onA. 
me ; but I can teach him summat, perhaps? And he 
now and then bought a newspaper, to improve himself 
in his reading, preparatory to imparting instruction to 
his 8on« He read, not without exertion and muclx 
bending of brows and movement of lips, and ooeasional 
turning of the paper many ways, to get at hard words 
in new lights. It was a great delight to Mr Nix, on. 
fine summer Sunday afternoons, to cany litUe Ben on. 
his shoulders to the Regent's Park, where they would 
both sit down on the pleasant green-sward, and the 
father would read from his well-thumbed newspaper* 
such paragraphs as seemed to be edifying and not toc» 
difficult to decipher. Meanwhile, baby put datsies irs 
his mouth, and rolled and tumbled upon the graaec, 
and crowed and chuckled in a state of excitement 
that seemed to border upon delirium. 

* Throw open the Dar-dan-neel-lees, and what will, 
be the attitood of — Rooshia ! ' so read Mr Nix. 

' Boo-oo-gurroo-oo-goo,' broke in httle Ben. 

His father contemplated him with much serious- 
ness. * I don t quite understand what he means,' bc9 
muttered ; * but I shouldn't wonder but what he i^ 

2uite right. Chiklrcn is wonderful things, (meommoU'-i* 
t 's a rum world.* 

And after much reflection, he resumed the new»^ — 
imper, and read aloud, for the instruction of 
child, with occasional stoppages from anfonsee 
obstacles in the form of polysyUabic wofds lying i 
wait for him here and there, and *"*^'"«^ M wor 
of the medical man's evidence, foil pvtieiilars o: 
what the newspaper called the frightnd tragedy 
the Commercial Docks ; little Ben the while peimit 
ting himself to make such comments, in his ~ 
pecuhar dialect, as seemed good to him, or 
circumstances of the case appeared to require, 
Mr Nix becoming always interested and vespeotfoL 
and marvelling as usual 

So let the curtain fall, upon a scene, not upon 
drama. A lapse of years comes, bat I hmre 
further act to bring upon the boards. I h 
known Nix and Nirs baby for awhile, and t 
they have passed away from me, just as two 
run parallel for a few minutes, the iMosengsin 
each so near they can sx>eiUc to each other and shi 
hands, if they list ; and then a whistle, and 
pointsman at work upon the switch — the 







CHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



325 



diverge, and the carriages and travellers part com- 
pany, and see each other but as a speck in the distance, 
and then no more for ever. Metropolitan improve- 
ments, as has been said, have swept away MobVs 
Rents, JQst as a duster cleans off a speck from a 
mirror. And Nix, where is he ? And Nix's baby ? — 
not a baby now, at anyrate. A Guardsman, perhaps, 
with A white^ medal on his broad breast, honestly 
won; an engineer on the G. N. Railway, whirling 
royal carriages by express train to the north. Alas ! 
I can bnt guess. I nave no real information to give. 
Yet, I do hope — more, I believe — that, be he where he 
may, little Ben is a credit to Mr Nix's love, to Mrs 
Partlettt^s bringing up, to Pat O'Grady's fidelity, and 
generally to Mobb^s Kents. 
• ■ 

MORE PLUMS FROM THE LAND OF CAKES. 

He who coold write a popular volume ui>on an almost 
inexhanstible subject, ana refrain from attempting * a 
continuation,' would be more than man, and a ^at 
deal more than author. If, in addition, one receives, 
as did the author of Reminiscences of Scottish Life 
€tnd Ckarader, congratulatory communications upon 
his .first venture *from Connecticut, U.S.; from 
Melbourne, Australia; from the shores of the Bay 
of Fandy» Nova Scotia; and [especially] from Oporon, 
in Hatno, in Poland,' the putting forth of * a second 
series' ceases to be a temptation, and becomes a fate. 
No livinff dean could resist it, and we very much 
doubt whether an archbishop would not have suc- 
cumbed. Moreover, Dean Ramsay really stands in 
need of no excuse; for, although overwhelmed with 
voluntaty contributions from his fellow-countrymen, 
which his good-nature has now and then admitted 
without sumcient winnowing, his present volume* 
contains as good things as did his last. 

Surely no minister expressing the public wants in 
respect of weather was ever more particular in his 
prayer than he whom our author describes as appeal- 
ing thus : ' Lord, we pray thee to send us wind ; 
no a rantin', tantin', tcarin' wind, but a noohin,' 
sooghin,' winnin' wind.' Another divine seems to 
have been equally exact and specific in his objections 
to swearing, since in his * fencing the tables ' (that is, 
prohibiting the approach of those who were unworthy 
to receive the sacrament) he proclaimed : ' I debar all 
those who use such minced oaths as Faith, Troth, 
Losh, Gosh, and Lovanenty ! ' A third minister, who, 
if he had been in St Paul's place, would certainly not 
have healed Eutychus, observed one of his flock asleep 
daring the sermon. * ** Jeems Robson," exclaimed he, 
"ye are sleepin'. I insist on your waukin' when God's 
.word is preached to ye." "Weel, sir, ye n^y look 
at your ain seat, and ye 'U see a sleeper forbye me," 
anrwercd Jeems, pointing to the clergyman's lady in 
the minister's pew. ^* Then, Jeems," said the minister, 
** when ye see my wife asleep again, hand up your 
hand." By and by the arm was stretched out, and 
sue enou^ the fair lady was caught in the act. Her 
hoflband solemnly called upon her to stand up and 
receive the censure due to her offence. He thus 
addressed her: "Mrs B., a'body kens that when X 
SQt ye for my wife, I got nae beauty; yer frien's 
Een that I got nae siller; and if I dinna get God's 
grace, I shall hae a puir baxgain indeed." ' 

The clergy, however, do not form the subject of so 
many stories in this second series of Reminiscences as 
thoy did in the first ; nor are there so many founded 
upon intoxication. Yet the following, perhaps, may 
hear comparison with any in the former volume : * The 
old veneration of Galloway Ixurds were a primitive 
and Aospitable race, but their conviviality sometimes 
led to awkward occurrences. In former days, when 
xoad3 were bad, and wheeled vehicles almost unknown, 

* Mrwrimmxnees of Seottiih Life tutd Character* The Second 
fleriea. Edmomton and Douglas. 



an old laird was returning from a supper-party, with 
his lady mounted behind him on horseoack. On 
crossing the river Urr, at a ford at a point where it 
joins the sea, the old lady dropped ofl^ but was not 
missed till her husband reachea his door, when, of 
course, there was an immediate search made. The 
party who were despatched in quest of her arrived 
just in time to find her remonstrating with the 
advancing tide, which trickled into her mouth, in 
these words: "No anither drap; neither het nor 
cauld."' 

There are some admirable, though rather shocking 
examples of the Scottish matter-of-fact view of death 
and absence of sentiment, one of which we cannot 
resist quoting, wherein the coolness and calculation 
of the reply is so excessive, that the brutality of 
the speaker is lost sight of. *An old shoemaker in 
Glasgow was sitting by the bedside of his dying wife. 
She took him by the hand. "Weel, John, we're 
gawin to part I hae been a guid wife to you, John." 
" Oh, just middling, just middling, Jenny,' said John, 
not disposed to commit himself. "John," says she, 
" ye maim promise to bury me in the auld ku'kyard 
at Stra'von, beside my mither. I couldna rest in 
peace among unco folk, in the dirt and smoke o' 
Glasgow." "Weel, wed, Jenny, my woman," said 
John soothingly, " we '11 just pit you in the Gorbals 
firsts and gin ye dinna lie quiet, we '11 try you sine in 
Stra'von-'^' 

In the above anecdotes, as in the great majority of 
the collection, it is observable that the speakers have 
no intention, nor even knowledge, of saying anything 
humorous, and even that the diief point consists in 
their ignorance of having done so. Of intentional , 
humour, there are, however, one or two excellent 
examples, and singularly enough (and to Mr 
Thackeray's confusion) all occurring in the female 
sex. The box of an old Scotch lady was not forth- 
coming at the railway station at which she was to 
stop. When urged to be patient, she exclaimed : * I 
can bear ony pairtings that may be ca'ed for in God's 
Providence ; out I canna stan' pairting frae ma claes.' 
It is just possible, though scarcely probable, that 
this may have been the result of pure simplicity; 
but the speakers in the remaining anecdotes were 
without doubt genuine humorists. A country minister 
had been invited with his wife to dine ana sleep at 
the house of a certain laird. Their host was very 
proud of one of the very large beds which had just 
come into fashion, and in the morning asked the lady 
how she had slept in it. * Oh, very weel, sir ; but, 
indeed, I thought 1 'd lost the minister a'thegither.' — 
An old maiden lady at Montrose, during the time of 
expected invasion at the beginning of the century, 
was solicited for a subscription to raise men for the 
king. * Indeed,' she answered sturdily, * I '11 dae nae 
sic thing; I never could raise a man /or myael, and I 
am no gaen to raise men for King George.' — Miss 
Sophia Johnstone of Hilton (commonly called Soph) 
entertained somewhat freethinking opinions, and the 
celebrated Dr Hugh Blair accor<£ngly took an 
opportunity of having a little serious talk with her. 
* Tlie doctor, shocked to find her mind in such an 
unsettled state on some fundamental points of the- 
ology, had dwelt at some length upon the great facts 
connected with the primeval condition and the FalL 
Soph heturd it idl with much gravity, and then coolly 
replied : " Weel, weel, doctor, it wud hae been sma* 
pleasure to me to rin about naked in a garden, eating 
green apples." * — Never was a reproof to cant better 
administered than by old ' Mrs Robison (widow of the 
eminent professor of natural philosophy) to a gentle- 
man whom she had invited to dinner on a particular 
day— he had accepted, with the reservation, " if I am 
spared "—"Weel, weel,'' said Mrs Robison, " if ye 're 
dca<l, I '11 no expect ye." ' 

Of wit, as distinguished from humour, there are but 
two really good examples in this volume, and the 



genuineness of one of those is more than doubtfuL 
*A little boy had lived for some time with a yerv 
penurious uncle, who took good care that the child s 
nealth should not be injured by over-feeding. The 
uncle was one day walking out, the child at his side, 
when a friend accosted hmi, accompanied by a grey- 
homuL While the elders were talking, the little 
fellow, never having seen a dog of so slim and slight 
a texture, clasped Sie creature round the neck with 
the impassioned cry : " O doggie, doggie, and div ye 
live wi your uncle tae, that ye are so thin ! " * We 
confess that we do not believe in that attenuated 
and very sharp litUc boy. The second example is, 
however, both excellent and authentic. ' A conceited 
packman called at a farmhouse in the west of Soot- 
land, in order to sell his wares. The guidwife was 
startled by his southern accent, and his high talk 
about York, London, and other big places. "An' 
whaur come ye frae yersel?" was the question of 
the cuidwife. " Oh ! I am from the Border I " " The 
Boraer. Oh! I thocht that; for we ave think the 
selvid^ is the wakest bit o* the wab ! ' Is it pos- 
sible wat Douglas Jerrold ever s})oke Scotch, or wore 
petticoats? At all events, the reply was in everyway 
worthy of him, and must be severelv felt by the 
inhabitants of Berwick-upon-Tweed and its environs. 

If it be not an Irisnism to say so, we would 
observe that one of the best portions of these JieTrU- 
niacences of Scottish Life is that which is devoted to 
Yorkshire. The venerable dean's own youth was 
passed there, and his account of the manners of that 
time is deeply interesting. Some curious ancient 
customs yet lingered in the parish. *For example, 
the old habit of oowing to the altar was retained by 
the rustics on entering church. A copy of the Scrip- 
tures was in the vestry chained to the desk on which 
it lay, and where it had evidently been since this 
mode of introducing the Bible was practised in time 
of Edward YL The nassing bell was always sounded 
on notice of the deatn of a parishioner, and sounded 
at any hour, night or day, immediately on the event 
happening. One striking custom prevailed at funerals : 
the coffin was borne through the village to the 
churchyard by sii or eight Marers of the same a^ 
and sex as the deceased. Thus, younc maidens m 
white carried the remains of the girl wim whom tiiey 
had 80 lately sported ; boys took then: playfellow 
and school-companion to the churchyard ; the younfi 
married woman was borne by matrons; the men m. 
middle-age did the same office for their contemporary 
cut off in the pride of manhood ; and though the aged 
women did not share in this arrangement, yet the old 
man was carried to the grave by men whose white 
locks and feeble steps shewed that they would soon 
follow their friend and brother. The effect of these 
processions on a fine summer evening was very strik- 
mg, especially when, as was often the case, it was 
preceded by old men, who, bare-headed and with 
tremulous voices, chanted, as they walked towards 
the little church, a portion of the niaetieth psalm.' 

A practice existed at the proclamation of bans of 
matrimony which would have generally shocked the 
rubricians of the present day ; immediately after the 
words, * This is the first, second, or third time of ask- 
ing,' the old clerk shouted out: 'God speed them 
weeL' 

* In nothing was the primitive and simple character 
of the people of this distiict more remarkable than in 
the social position of thjs clei^ amongst them. The 
livings were all small, so that there was no temptation 
for ecclesiastics of birth and high position in society 
to come to the locality. The clergy were in many 
cases clergnr only on Sundays, and for Sunday duty ; 
the rest m the week they were like their people. 
£nraged in agriculture or horse-breeding, they lived 
"witn their servants, and were scarcely raised above 
the position of dinners. To shew the primitive 
manners pf many clergymen, I may mention the case 



of an usher in my school, who was also curate. He 
enjoyed the euphonious name of Caleb Longbottom. 
I recollect his dialect — pure Yorkshire ; his coat, a 
black one only on Sunday, as I suppose he was oa 
week-days wearing out his old blue coat which he had 
before going into orders. Lord Macaulay has beea 
charged that, in describing the humble social con- 
dition of the clergy in the reign of Charles XL, he has 
greatly exaggerated their want of refinement and 
knowledge of the world. But really, from recollec- 
tion of my friend Mr Longbottom and others at the 
time I speak of in the reign of Creoi^ UL, I cannot 
think he has overdrawn the picture. Suppose ikig 
incident at a table in our own time : My uncle lived 
in what is called in Yorkshire the Hall ; and being 
principal proprietor in the parish, he was, in fact, the 
squire or great man. The clergy always dined at the 
hall after evening-service, and I recollect the fint 
day the new curate dined. The awkwardness and 
shyness of the poor man were striking, even to the 
eyes of a thoughtless school-boy. He summoned 
courage to call for beer, and, according to the dd 
custom, deemed it necessary to drink the health of all 
present before he put the glass to his lips. He 
addressed first the old genfleman, then the vicar, 
then myself, and finally, with equal solemnity drank 
to the servants in attendance — ^tne old butler and the 
coachman, who were waiting upon the company.* 

The ignorance of that time was stupendous. ' Then 
was a most unshaken belief in the existence of mteh- 
crajt and the power of witches, and one individnal in 
particular was marked as having -the power of injur- 
mg cattle, and blighting children, and doing many 
mischievous acts. I can now recall the care inth 
which, in passing this miserable old creature, ve 
school-boys used to put our thumb between tbe first 
and second finder, pointing it downwards, as the 
infallible protection against her evil influences. I do 
not think this individual so suspected was very auxiooB 
to repel the impeachment. I recollect an old neigh- 
bour telling me that on coming fnmi market she had 
insinuated the charge against her of having "bad 
books," and that she did not positivelv disown it It 
gave her a sort of importance, and made her an 
object of some fear and awe in the village.' 

The meagre education given to the poor was im- 
parted so cai^lessly that they often learned wordi 
without any meaning, or put on them a siguificaiioii 
which was far from being intended. ' An omwonm 
who lived quite alone, and was very helpless, had 
adopted a little girl from the workhouse, and broi^t 
her up till she was about sixteen, when she had 
become a useful helpmate for her in her houadidd 
concerns, and was to her as a dau^ter. The diiM, 
howev^, was persuaded to leave the old woman, and 
was enticed awa^ to be servant in a fannhooK. 
Some of the neighbours condoling with her, sod 
expressing indignation at the ungrateful conduct of 
the girl, the poor old woman meekly observed that 
such things were only to be expected, as we were 
told in &ripture they wotdd happen. She then 
quoted Scriptoral auUiority to that effeet» adding: 
" You know it is said : * Train up a child, and away 
he do ga' " ' 

The farmers of that period, whose families had been 
sometimes tenants on the same farm &om fiatherto 
son, and without leases, from the reign of HeniT 
VIIL, were by no means examples of the advantages 
of long descent. Their idol was mon^, and iHiea 
they got money, they were purse-proud to an inor- 
dinate degree. We cannot close our notice of this 
most amusing volume better than by a stoir iHitf' 
trative of their extravagant pomposity. 'I knew » 
man who, as a fanner and miJtster, had amassed por 
him) a good fortune, and who could nevertheless 
hardly read or write. When he got into quaffcls 
with his neighbours, he used to slap his pocket, to^ 



warn his opponent : " You 'd better not meddb wf m^; 



s poci 
BodLs 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



3i7 



I be pretty raepectablUh here." Riding homa friMa 
inarkot one day very tipsy, bo fell from £is borae, and 
Isy belydeu in tlis ditch ; there he waa overheard 
nying : " Hora lies ten thoiiiand pound '. " But a» 
if be bad not done bimsrlf joatice, and an. second 
tJunigbta sod fnrthec eonaderatioi], be oddi-d ; " Wby 
not 1^ oleven ■" ' 

RIVAL EASELS. 
Thebb Iiare alwayi been factiona in art ; and wltiJe 
the Khools have battled cari)oiatcly, tbere bare been 
plenty of single combats nmongit individnal artiata. 
Pordenone, painting his frescoea in the cloiatera of S. 
Stefaao at Venice, with his Gword drawn, and buckler 
at hand, prepared [or the violence of Titian, is a 
fnifpU of tbe mosterB wbo found it necessary to 
combine iLo profeuiou of thu Hue arts iritb the 
bomBcai of a bravo. Domcnico VciiiziaQO was 
bmtaQy uaadnatcd by Andrea del Castagno ; Anni- 
bale Caraed, Ceaari, and Goido, ivcre driven from 
Maples, and their livra tirentenpd by Belisarie, Spag- 
noletto, and Caroccialo ; Agoatino Bcltrano, surpassed 
by bis owu wife Aoiella di lima (the niece of a 
pkinter of eminence}, murdered her in his jcalona 
nge 1 Michael Angelo waa envious of the growing 
fame of Sebostiana del Fiombo ; Hudson qoarrelled 
irifli his pupil Reynolds, who, in hia turn, grew 
uoeasy at Uic progress of his riral Ronmey. North- 
cote lays : ' Certain it is that Sir Joabun was not 
muoh employed in portraita after Roranoy grew in 
fasbion I ' Reynolds ipoke of him always aa ' the "inn 
in Cavrndisb Square,' where he lived, in the bouse 
No. 32, afterwards Sir Martin Arcber Shoe's. 
Hoppner, on bia death-bed, writhed noder the pohte 
attentions of Sir Thomas Lawrence. * In hia visits,' 
said tbc poor sick aian, 'there is more joy at my 
aiqjroaching death than true sympathy for my 

Tbe mother of John Hoppner was one of the 
German attendants at the royal palace. He was 
bom in Londan, in the Bummer of 1700. The kin|; 
toolc a peraonal interest in the bringing up and 
cdncatioD of the child ; who, from his aweet musical 
voice and comict ear, waa in time adorned with the 
white atolo of a thoriater of the royal chapeL Of 
conne there were motives attributed in explanation 
of the king's kindnesii and benevolence, and tbe boy 
himadf waa in no bnate to contradict the alanderers 
who credited him with royal descent. Tbe world 
cboae to see confirmation of these rumouia in the 
favour aubaeqaently extended to the yocng man by 
&B Prince of Wales, who supported bim actively 
gainst such rivals aa Lawrence, Owcu. and Opio ; and 
btonght a stream of the aristocracy to his studio. He 
entered, oa a probationer, the school of tbe Royal 
Academy, pssaing throagb gradually the various 
stages of atudeotabip, and emerging at last a candi- 
date for tbe highest prizes of tbc institntdoo. He 
underweat few of the privationa of the beginner— few 
of tbe struggles of the ordinaiy student. As soon as 
be could draw and colour decently, there were patrons 
for Mm ; almost a 'royal road' was open to him. Mrs 
Jordan sat now as tbe Comic Muse, now as Hippo- 
lite; a 'lady of quality' appears! as a Bacchanto. 
lliFn came portraits of the Dnke and Ducbcsa of 
Torit, the Prince of Waleg, and the Duke of Clarence. 
He resided in Charles Street, close to Carlton House, 
And WTOto himaelf 'portrait-painter to tho Prince of 
Wales.' The king and queen were quite willing to 



favour tbeit son's favourite, especially as they thought, 
with many other people of the time, that the Prinoe 
oE Walee, Hko Vista, ' had a taatc' But aooa obebuitea 
seemed to intervene between them and the painter. 
They bad never liked ReynoldH, He bad always been 
calm and unembarrassed in their presence — never 
awed or troubleil — and the near-sighted king, looking 
dose into bis pictures, bad pronounced them 'rough 
and unfinished.' He preferred the smootbneaa of W^ 
and Ramaay. Hoppner, fuU of honest admiration for 
Sir Joshna, did not hesitate to sound bis [iraiaes even 
in the unwilling royal ears. This displeased the 
king very much. Tbe Carlton House court, too, waa 
going on iu a way desperately annoying to good 
' farmer George,' and Hoppner made himself celebrated 
there, for he waa gay and witty, and iiigb-spirited. 
The Prince o£ Wales having joined the Wbiga, Hopp- 
ner became a zealooa politician, and of the party 
opposed to the king. He coidd expect nothing from 
their majesties after tbat. Certainly he waa impru- 
dent. What bad a painter to do with politics ! He 
thus diminished the area of bis prosjiccts. It became 
quite impossible for Tory noblemen to ait to a 
stanch Wliic portr.iit -painter. He might caricature 
th.-m ; and having (uiiiited all the Wbigs, what waa 
he to do ? With a rival iu the field, too, by no means 
to he despised or spoken lightly of. 

Thomas Lawrence, the son of a man who bad been 
by turna a solicitor, a poet, and artist, a BU[>crvisor of 
Kieise, a farmer anil innkeeper, and, of coiuite, a 
bankru[jpt, was bom at Bristol ten yean> later than 
Hoppner, He was the youngost of sixteen cbililren ; 
an infant prodigy, on B chair reciting poetry, when 
four years old ; a little later, and he begins to draw. 
' He tan take your likeness, or repeat yon any 
sjieech in Milton's Paiulemoiiium,' says the father, 
landlord of tho Bear Inn, posting-house, Dei-izes, 
'otthoogh he is only five years old.' And at this ops 
he produced a striking likeness of Mr. afterw.icds 
Lord, Kenyon. At seven, tbe portrait of the prodigy 
was taken and engraved by Mr Sherwin tbe artist. 
At eight, it seems nis education was finished. Per- 
haps he waa wanted at tbe inn, for the readings 
of the child attracted crowds of visitors from Baui. 
He recited at varioua timea before Uarrick, 
Wilkea, Sheridan, Burke, Johnson, and Athera. All 
were charmed with the boy. He waa splendidly 
handaome, with lone redundant dark curia that 
tumbled over and hid hia face when he ato(n>od to 
draw. He longed to go on the atatfe, aa mnch tbat he 



eighteen, he exhibited seven pictures at the Royal 
Academy. He painted hia own ]iortrait. and wrote of 
hia mother ; ' To any but my own family, I 



tion with any painter in London.' It was broadly- 
painted, three-qnortera size, with a Rcmbrandti^ 
effect, as Sir Joshua detected when the canvas was 
shewn to him. ' You have been looking at the old 
mastsia; take my advice, and study nature.' Ho 
dismissed the young artist with marked kindness 
however. In I7S9, Sir Martin Archer Sbee wrote of 
him, na ' a genteel, handsome young toon, efieminate in 
his nutnaer ; ' adding, 'he is wonderfully kboHous. and 
has tbe most nncommon patience and perseverance.' 
About this time he painted tho Princess Amelia, and 
Miss Farren the actress. nfWrwards Countess of 
Derby, ' in a white aatui cloak and muff;' and wbole- 



^hioa. In 1791, altt^ o: 



828 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



associate of the Royal Academy by a suspension of 
the law against the admission of an associate under 
the age of twenty-four. He was opposed by many of 
the academicians, and virulently attacked by Peter 
Pindar. In 1792, he attended the funeral of Sir 
Joshua in St Paul's Cathedral, when Mr Burke 
attempted to thank the members of the academy for 
tiie respect shewn to the remains of their president, 
but overcome by his emotions, was unable to utter a 
word. In 1795, Mr Lawrence was elected a member 
of the academy, having previously succeeded Sir 
Joshua as painter in ordinary to the king — Benjamin 
West being elected to the presidential chair. Add to 
his unque^ionable art-abilities, that he was courtly 
in manner, an accomplished fencer and dancer, with a 
graceful figure and a handsome face ; that he pos- 
sessed an exquisitely modulated voice ; and liu*ge, 
lustrous expressive eyes — the light in which seemed 
to be always kindling and brilliant. 

Byron aid not criticise leniently lus contempo- 
raries, but he records in his diary : — ' The same 
evening I met Lawrence the painter, and heard 
one of Lord Grey's daughters play on the harp 
so modestly and ingenuously, that she looked music. 
I would rather have had mv talk with Lawrence, 
who talked delightfullv, and heard the girl, than 
have had all the T&me oi Moore and me put together. 
The only pleasure of fame is, that it paves the 
way to pleasure, and the more intellectual the 
better for the pleasure and us too.* It wiU be seen 
that the * portrait-painter to the Prince of Wales' 
had no mean opponent in the * portrait -painter in 
ordinary to his majesty.* 

The factions of Kcvnolds and Romney lived agun 
in the rivalry of Hoppner and La>*Tence. The 
painters appeared to be well matched. Hoppner had 
the advantage of a start of ten years, though this was 
nearly balanced by the very early age at which 
Lawrence obtained many of his successes. Hoppner 
was also a handsome man, of refined address and 
polished manner; he, too, possessed great conversa- 
tional powers, while in the matter of wit and humour 
he was probably in advance of his antagonist. He 
was well-read — * one of the best informed painters of 
"his time,' Mr Cimningham informs us — ^frank, out- 
spoken, open-hearted, gay, and whimsical He had 
all the qualifications for a social success, and was not 
without some of those Corinthian characteristics 
which were indispensable in a man of fashion, from 
the Prince of Wales's point of view. With Edridge, 
the associate miniature-painter, and two other artists, 
he was once at a fair in the country where strong-ale 
was abounding, and much fun, and droUcry, and din. 
Hoppner turned to his friends. 'You have always 
seen me,* he said, ' in good comxKiny, and playing the 
courtier, and taken me, I daresay, for a deuced well- 
bred fellow, and genteel withal. All a mistake. I 
love low company, and am a bit of a ready-made 
blackguard.* He pulls up his collar, twitches his 
ncckdoth, sets his hat awry, and with a mad humor- 
ous look in his eyes, is soon in the thickest of the 
crowd of rustic revellers. He jests, gambols, dances, 
soon to quarrel and fight. He roughly handles a 
brawny wagoner, a practised boxer, in a regidar 
scientific set-to ; gives his defeated antagonist half a 
guinea, rearranges his toilet, and retires with his 
mends amidst the cheers of the crowd. It is quite 
a Tom-and-Jerry scene. Gentlemen delighted to fight 
coal-heavers in those days. Somehow we always hear 
of the gentlemen being victorious; perhaps if the 
coal-heavers could tell the story, it would sometimes 
have a diflerent dSnotiement Unfortunately for 
Hoppner, he had to use his fingers, not his fists, 
against Lawrence — to paint him down, not fight him. 

He was a skilful artist, working with an eye to 
Sir Joshua's manne^, and following him dftentimes 
into error as well as into truth and beauty. Ridicul- 
ing the loose touches of Lawrence, he was frequently 



as faulty, without ever reaching the real faseinatinn 
of his rival's style. He had not the Lawxenee wmme 
of expression and charm; he could not give to hm 
heads the vivacity and flutter, the briUiaiioe and 
witchery, of Sir Thomas's portraits. They both took 
up Reynalds*s theory about it being * a YvIflMr error 
to make things too like themselves,' aa thoi^ it 
were possible to paint too truthfully. And paintiiig 
people of fashion, they had to paint — espeoally in 
their earlier days— strange fashions; and an extrava- 
gant, and fantastic, and meretridous air cliiu|i as a 
consequence to many of their piotnies; Sop the 
Prince of Wales haa then a grand head of hair 
(his own hair), which he delighted to pomatum 
and powder and frizzle; and, oi course, the gsnUe' 
men of the day followed the mode; Mid then the 
folds and folds of white muslin that swathed the 
chins and necks of the sitters; and the oostek with 
fanciful collars and lappels; and the waiatooati, 
many-topped and many-nued, winding about in tortu- 
ous lines. It is not to be much marvelled at that 
such items of costume as Cumberland corsets^ Peters- 
ham trousers, Bmmmel cravats, Osbaldeston ties, 
and exquisite's crops, should be only aketchily 
rendered in paint. Of course, Mr Opie, who went 
in for thorough John Bullism in art, "vnio laid on his 
pigments steadily with a trowel, and piodnoed 
portraits of ladies like washerwomen, and genUsmen 
tike Wapping publicans — of course, unaentimental, 
unfashionable Mr Opie denounced the degeneracy of 
his competitor's style. ^Lawrence makes eoncamhe 
of his sitters, and thev make a coxcomb of him.' 
Still 'the quality' flocked to the studios of Mesns 
Hoppner and Lawrence, and the rival eaads were 
alwavs adorned with the most fashionable faces ni 
the day. 

For a time the rivalry was continued in a spirit of 
much moderation. The painters were calm and lor 
bearing, and scrupulously courteous to each oUmc 
Lawrence was too gentle and polite ever to breatbe 
a word a^inst his antagonist, if, indeed, he did not 
respect his talents too highly to dispan^ then. 
Perhaps he was conscious uiat victory wonKL be ha 
in the end, as Hoppner might also have a pxaMsfci- 
ment that he was to be defeated. He waa of a qsiek 
temper; was a husband and a father; eatudiy 
dependent on his own exertions, though he coiiU 
earn five thousand a year easily when ful^ eaxphyed; 
but certainly the innkeeper's son was stealing ainy 
his sitters, even his good friends the Whigt. He 
chafed under this. He began to speak oat He 
denoimced Lawrence's prudent abstinenoe from sH 
political feeling as downright hypocrisy. He thon^ 
it cowardice to side with neither faction, and be lesay 
and willing to paint the faces of both ; and then h^ 
commenced to talk disrespectfully of his rival's sri 
He claimed for his own portraits greater purity of 
look and style. 'The lames of Lawrence, he slid, 
' shew a gaudy dissoluteness of taste, and aometmies 
trespass on moral as well as professional dttstity.' 
This was purposed to be a terrible Uow to Lawranoe. 
Of course there were plenty of repetitbas of the 
remark, and people laughed over it a good deal; butin 
the end it injurea Hoppner rather than Lawrence. The 
world began to wonder how it was that the painter 
to the purest court in Europe should dnnct tfat) 
demure and reputable ladies of St James's with saeh 
glittering e^es and carmine lips — a soupfon of wanton- 
ness in their glances, and a rather ne^ess nndraping 
of their beautiful shoulders ; while the painter to the 
prince was bestowing on the giddy angels <^ Carlton 
House a decency that was within a uttle of dull, a 
simplicity that was almost sombreness, a pnrity that 
was prudery. The beauties of Geoxge lIL's coiut 
were not displeased to be pictorially credited with 
a levity they did not dare to live up or down 
to ; and the ladies of the prince's court, too honest 
to assume a virtue they had not, now iiM»jm*il to 






CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



3S1> 



be TepreBented by an artdst who appeared so admi- 
rablj to oomprehend their allarementa. Poor Mr 
Hoppner vas deserted by the Whig ladies ; he 
had only now the Whig lords to paint, unless 
he took up with landscape art, for which he had 
decided talisnt, as many of the backgrounds to his 
pictoreB demonstrate. He grew peevish and irri- 
table. He took to abusing the old masters, and cried 
oat at tlie neglect of living men. Examining a 
modem work, he would say : * Ay, it 's a noble picture, 
but it his one damning defect — it 's a thin^ of to-day. 
Prove it to be but two hundred years ol<^ and from 
the brush of a famous man, and here 's two thousand 
guineas fer it.' Northcote tells of him : * I once went 
with him to the hustings, to vote for Home Tooke, and 
when th^asked me T^at I was, I said, '^ A painter." 
At this Hoppner was very mad all the way home, 
and said I should have called myself a portrait-painter. 
I replied tiiat the world had no time to trouble their 
heads about such distinctions.* 

Hoppner now produced but few pictures, and 
these met with small success. He looked tibin 
and haggard, talked incoherently, with occasional 
bitter repinings and despondency. Ho resented and 
misinterpreted, as has been shewn, Lawrence's 
inquiries as to his health. Certainly, tiiere is every 
a p poa raaco of feeline in Lawrence's letter, where 
he writes to a friena, 'You wiU be sorry to hear 
it. My most powerful competitor, he whom only 
to mr friends I have acknowledged as my rival, 
ia» I fear, sinking to the grave. I mean, of course, 
Hoppner. He was always afflicted with bilious and 
liver complaints (and to these must be greatly attri- 
buted the irritation of his mind), and now they have 
ended in a confirmed dropsy. But thou^^ I think he 
cannot recover, I do not wish that his last illness should 
be so repoited by me. You will believe that I can 
sincerely feel the loss of a brother-artast from whose 
works I have often gained instruction, and who has 
cone by my side in the race these eighteen 3rears.' 
Hoppner died early in April 1810, in the fifty-first 
year of his age. To quote Lawrence's letters again : 
* The death of Hoppner leaves me, it is true, without 
a rival, and this has been acknowledged to me by the 
ablest of my present competitors ; but I already find 
one small misfortime attending it — namely, that I 
have DO sharer in the watchful jealousy, I will not 
say hatred, that follows the situation. A son of 
Homiiier^s was consul at Venice, and a friend of 
Lord Hjvm^B in 1819. 

For iweaty years Lawrence reigned alone. After 
the final defeat of Napoleon, the artist was comnus- 
sioiMd by the recent to attend the congress of 
sovereigns at Aix-ki-Chapelle, and produce portraits 
of the principal persons engaged in the great war. 
Hiese European portraits — twenty-four in number 
— now decorate the Waterloo Hall at Windsor. 
In 1815, he was knighted by the regent; on the 
death of West, in 1820, he was elected to the 
presidentship of the academy. * Well, well,' said 
Foseli, who growled at everything and everybody, 
bnt was yet a friend to Lawrence, ' since (My 
muit have a face-painter to reign over them, let 
them take Lawrence ; he can at least paint eyes 1 ' In 
1829, he exhibited eight portraits; but his health 
was bemining to decline. He died on the 7th 
Jime 1830. He had been painting, on the previous 
day, another portrait of George IV. in his coronation- 



' Are you not tired of those eternal robes ?' asked 
someone. 

' No/ answered the painter ; ' I always find variety 
in them — the pictures are alike in outline, never in 
detaiL Yon would find the last the best.' 

In tile night he was taken alarmingly Ul ; he was 
bled, and uien seemed better; but the bandage 
supped, he fell off his chair into the arms of his val^ 
JeanDiits. 



' This is fainting,' said the valet, alarmed. 

* No, Jean, my good-fellow,' said Sir Thomas 
Lawrence, politely correcting him, ' it is dying;' and 
he breathed his last. 

His remains were interred in St Paul's Cathedral, 
near the coffins of his predecessors — the presidents 
Beynolds and West. * Smce the days of Nelson,' said 
£tf^, who followed the hearse, * thero has not been 
so marked a funeraL' 

The estate of the dead man was only just equal to 
the demands upon it. His popularity ought to have 
brought him wealth, but, stnmge to say, he was 
always embarrassed. Yet he did not gamble, was 
never dissipated, never viciously extravagant ; but 
he kept no accounts, was prodij^ in kindness to his 
brother-artists, and in responding to the nianv appeals 
to his charity. Perhaps, too, he rather kSectA an 
aristocratic indifference to money. He spent much 
time in gratuitous drawing and painting for presents 
to his mends. It is probable that his death was 
hastened by his incessant work, to meet the demands 
made upon him for money. Washington Irving saw 
him a few days before his death, and relates that ' he 
seemed uneasy and restless, his eyes were wander- 
ing, he was as pale as marble, the stamp of death 
seemed on him. He told me he felt ill, but he wished 
to bear himself up.' In one of his letters the painter 
wrote : * I am chained to the oar, but painting was 
never less inviting to me — ^business never more oppres- 
sive to me than at this moment.' Still he could play 
his courtier part in society, and was always graceful 
and winning. Haydon, who never loved a portrait- 
painter mudi, yet says of Lawrence, that he was 

* amiable, kind, generous, and forgiving.' Further on 
he adds : * He mid smiled so often and so long, that 
at last his smile had the appearance of being set in 
enamel' But then Mr Haydon prided himself on his 
coarseness, defiance, and hatred of conventionality, 
deeming these fitting attributes of the high artist 

It is only as a portrait-painter that Sir Thomas can 
now be esteemed. His attempts in another line of art 
were few and not successf uL His * Homer reciting his 
Poems' was chiefly remarkable for its resemblance to 
Mr Westall's maimer, and for containing a well-drawn 
figure of Jackson the pugilist. Of his * Satan calling 
up the Legions,' Anthony Pasquin cruelly wrote: that 

* it conveyed an idea of a mad German sugar-baker 
dancing naked in a conflagration of his own treade.* 
Over an attempt at a Prospero and Miranda, he sub< 
sequently painted on the same canvas a portrait of 
Kemble as Kolla. 

And was ho a male coquette ? ' No,' answers a 
lady — and it is a question that requires a lady]s 
answer — ' he had no plan of conquest. .... But it 
cannot be too strongly stated, that his manners were 
likely to mislead without his intending it. He could 
not write a common answer to a dinner invitation 
without its assuming the tone of a bilUt-doux, The 
very commonest conversation was held in that soft 
low whisper, and with that tone of deference and 
interest which are so unusual, and so calculated to 
please. I am myself persuaded that he never inten- 
tionally gave pain.' 

Perhaps he was not capable of very deep feeling, 
and liked to test the effects of his fine eyes. He woo^ 
the two daughters of Mrs Siddons, never being quite 
clear in his own mind which he really loved. He tired 
of the one, and was dismissed by the other, ot so 
rumour told the story ; however, his friendly relations 
with the family do not appear to have ceased. One 
of the sisters died. ' From the day of her death to 
that of his own,' writes a biographer, ^ he wore mourn* 
ing, and always used bla<£ sealing-wax. Uncon- 
trollable fits of melancholy came over him, and he 
mentioned not her name but to his most confidential 
friend, and then always with tenderness and respect.' 
It would have been more desirable, perhaps, that he 
should have exhibited a little more feeling during the 



CUAUB2R£'B JOORNAL. 



tbs progranmie <a the coortly rival of EoppDcr, of 
the punter ' that btigim where Bejuolds tcit oS^' as 
the aiuliiDg Sir Jouhim ia reported to have decUred of 



PATRONYMICS. 

Nobody, I sliould think, would go >o far as to deiij 
tlut a anmame, as a mere outtter of convenieni 
a tiling of lome iiuportance. It i> naeful to 
li the end of your note of invitattoa ; it serres t 
jronr indindnaliiy when it is printed in counection 
with your addreiB upon your card ; it exprcases yi 
■umUDal ralstion to the worldly aociety in wliich you 
liTC ; it aaststa testators in their loadable e!ide;ivoui8 
to deaignute you accurately oi the heir to a leiracy ; 
is icrviceable in the newspaper to appriao all whom 
it may concern to know who it is that ia bom, 
uuuried, or defunct ; and it adda an exquisite finish 
to the little plat^ upon your coffin. How peoplt 
QODBeed to get on so long without surnamea, it ii 
difficmt to conceive ; but it is not the less ifue, that 
up to the time of the Norman Conqnest very few 

CDna indeed in Great Britain and Ireland could 
t of a BUmame. Thii Hatta could, aa appears 
from a document in the C'ottonian Monuacripta, the 
date of which is earlier than 1068 ; but the Eatts 
veiv probably an eccentric fnioily. At any rate, theii 
Bunuune is unique in point of antiquity, and ia pro. 
nounced by a competent authority ' to be the oldest 
hereditary sumame we Lave on recuni.' 

The derivation of surname bos bi?ea disputed : Some 
authoritiei would have it spelled sirnamo, as being 
from fire,' others derive it fnmi tumom, or niprr- 
Bomen. In eitiier cxue, it may be termed a patro- 
nymic, either from its being a mere modi£catioa of 
the father's name, aa Johnson, or from its iiving the 
actual name which was bestowed upon the father for 
the soke of distinction, aa Longshonka. Patroaymica 
of the Eonner kind have been common since the time 
of Ilamer, as every acbool'boy knows to his cost, for 
they are somewhat ditiicult of declension ; oeverthe- 
lesa, tbey were of ^at use aa giving a Grecian 
warrior no oppottumty of informing a l^jaD warrior 
* of what father he boasted to bo the son,' and via 
ven&, and of thus prolonging the actual moment of 
■trife until some god or goddeaa should come to the 
reacue ; just aa now-n-daya one ma^ hear two street- 
boys muntaining an animated dialogue upon the 
question, ' Who are you a kickin' of ! ' until tlia arrival 
of a policeman. But the hitter kind of patronymics 
is the more curious and intereating, oScring to the 
speculative mind a vast field of conjectnre as to their 
probable orij^, and aa to acquiescence in, or dissent 
from, their surnames on the part of Iho jiist posses- 
Bon ; for, as Thomas Hood remarked : 
A name — if the parly hod a voice, 
What mortal itould be a Bugs by choice • 
Aa a Hc^, a Qmbb, or a Chabb fejoice I 
Or any sndi nanuous blaion ( 

■Which would mnks a door-plate bloah for sbune, 

If door-plates were not so biuen I 
I^oal suniomes are, of comso, very numerous, but 
rather insipid. It is not particularly diverting to 
know that the forefathen of the no donbt highly 
respectable famfliea of Attree, Atthill, and Attwood 
lived near a tree, a hill, and a wood respectively; but 
one does feel a little curious to learn how Mr Bose 
come by his name. We arc all ownre thnt a young 
mrl ia likened, capecjally by love-jmitten poeta, to 
that elegant flower : ' My love is like a red, red rose,' 
IB fiunihor to all of ua ; but haw, except on ironical 
principlce. that appellation came to be bcatowed upon 
a person of the mnsculioe gciidcr, very likeJy of 
hinute appeankooe, and not improbably of a yeUowisb 



complexion, it ia by no moans easy to pronouiioc. An 
explanation has bceu hazarded, to the elFect that the 
aame waa probably civun when the bearer was a 
child with a bloom on Lis cheek ; but tbif explanation, 
approximating to the sensible and the highly probable, 
is very propeSy considered uuworthy of notice. Ale, 
Beer, Potter, and Stout, too, are four namea which, 
when appearing in company, more than when alone, 
ore eminently suggestive: a raah person would con- 
clude that they were in some not very remote way 
coonected witb molt ajul hops, perpetual tbicat, and 
occasional intemjierance ; but nothing would be 
Further from the tmtb. That persan ia hi^reby 
informed that Ale is a corruption of Eorle, that 
Beer waa so called from a place on the builu of 
tbe river Tamor; that Porter the fint was a keeper 
of a door, and owed hia surname to the Latiii poiia; 
and that Stout waa a very valiant and coiunigeona 
man, whoae mural qualities won him bjs name. 
Brandy, every wiseacre will say, carries its explan- 
ation along with it : the person who was first called 
Brandy was much given to alcoholic drink, had a 
fiery face, and a nose like Bordolph'K. Nothing of the 
sort. Brandy the first might luvo been a dis(^e 
of nephaliam, for all Uie evidence there ia to Uie 
oontray, seeing that the projKr orthography ^ya 
us Brandi, signifying, in Scandinavian, ' one having s 
brand or sword.' Bruin may at firnt sight seem tobe 
the same thing as Bear; but however correctly it 
may be assumed that the original Mr Bear wu a 
person of savage extcriar, and of general barbatity, it 
IS by no means aafe or cliatitable to moke the same 
assumption with respect to Mr Bruin, who most likely 
~^.ty of nothing more barbarous than a dart 
ion, Peraons of tbe name of Bruin, it may ba 
observed in passing, abould be careful of their spelUng 
else they may fall victima to tbe scomer ; for a bser- 
shop keeper, whoso name was Bruin, had the midor- 
tune to write upon a board, announcing the liquor 
with which be waa anxious to supply the puiilk, 
'Tttbel Bear;' whereupon a jeorine neighbour cnalkcd 
imdemeath, 'Ilia own Bruin,' to bis JaaSng discomlori- 
iUr Chew would have some ground for complsiiit, 
Lould it be urged that the protogenitor of bis familjf 
as distinguished for superliumou powers of maiti- 
.tion : the molars of that worthy pemon hod so 
ore to do with his name, in all likelihoad, tlun 
with tint of the family of Grindera [jonmeymea 
millers), for there ia a parish of Chew in Someiwt, 
and a village of Cheus in Nonnandy, after either of 
which he might have been sunuuned. Nor let the 
Coffins conceive that they ore bound to assume s 
lugubrious air, as being desocndauts of a fnnenal 
ancestor ; their name is a corruption, most likely, of 
Colvin. wbo held his lands in Devon under Edward 
the Confessor. The Collarbones might suppose that 
the flist of their name was strongly developed in the 
boae of the neck ; but let them dismiss the idea at 
once from their min^U, and fall b.ick apon Colling, 
bonme, in the county of Wilts. Would tJie Colletta 
baheve tbey were in any way connected with St 
Nicholas T It matters little what they believe ; there 
evidence to shew they ore ; that the name Colette 
oa originally given as a mark of veneration for tbe 
lint, and that it ia equivalent to petit Nichole. The 
Cronstouna deserve mention, not so much on account 
of their name, which ia due to a parish of Edinbunb- 
shire, as for their touchingly nt|iu|li '» )i niotto : ' Thou 
abalt want ere I w^ant ;' only to be surpassed in mag- 
nanimity by the ' Thank God, I 've bad a good dinner, 
and I don't care who hasn't!' ejaculate^ by way of 
grace aftiir meat, by a pious old dune of Sussex. 
Tbe Demons may rescue themselven frontoll auqiieion 
! an infernal origin by these hypotheses, occnding 






CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



331 



be a contraction of DevilkinB, the diminutiye from 
deril ; or more pleasantly, j^haps, from the familiar 
abbreyiation of Kichard, as it oocim in 

Jocky of Norfolk, be not too bold, 

For Dickon thy master is bought and sold. 

The fiist Drake was not, it is said, a feathered biped, 
bat derived his name from the A. S. draca = dragon, 
upon an armorial shield. Drinkwater is a very interest- 
ing name^ hinting, as it seems to do, that teetotalism 
is l>y no means a modem vice or virtue, in England, 
as Soileaa and Bcvclacqua prove for France and 
Italy; but it shews, at the same time, that Rechab- 
ism was regarded as a peculiarity: moreover, it is 
suggested, with some degree of probabili^, that the 
word is a oorruption of Derwentwater. f)yer needs 
no explanation, but is noticeable as having equivalents 
in French axid Italian — Teinturier in the former, 
Tintoretto in the latter. Edwards may hold up his 
bead ; bis name occupies in the list of the registrar- 
general the tweniy-nfth place for frequency, and, 
notwithstanding, he may possibly be descended from 
Roderick the Great, king of aU Wales in 843, 
acoording to Mr Lower. Let Evans learn, to his 
chagrin, that he is only Johnson in Welsh, for 
Evans means son of Evan — that is, John. Of Eve it 
may be observed, that it is no longer a name applied 
to the mother of all living, but that a father of a 
small fuodly rejoices in the appellation; and that, 
not content with thus departing mnn appropriateness, 
his parents, in defiance of compatibility, had him 
epacenely christened Adam. Faber the first was 
probably the victim of a wag acquainted with Latin, 
and his occiq^ation was that of a * wright.' Fairfax 
had fiur/eox or hair. Fairmanners must not pride 
himself upon the irreproachable manners of his 
ancestry, bat be content to know that his name ii 
a translation, misspelt, of the French Beaumanoir$. 
FianntleroY is ingeniously derived from a war-cry, 
D^/muUz U roii the first syllable having been gra- 
dnally dropped. 

Fist has no reference to boxing, or the preparaticm for 
that art, but, on the contrary, comes from feist — ^that 
is, fitt— -a state of body to be avoided in personal 
enooonters with *tho weapons of nature.' Oabb 
is not an uncommon name, if an unpleasant : it maj 
have reference to free exercise of the tongue, but it 
may also be a diminutive of Gabriel, as may ahw) Gaby, 
redactions upon the mental c^)acity of the first bearer 
of the latter name being thus avoided. Gent may 
lang^ to scorn aU imputations upon the dress and 
manners of his protogenitor, on these grounds : first, 
that the person for whom * pants* and Wests' are 
fitbrie s ted, and whose hat is always on one side, is 
aa excrescence of very modem growth ; second, that 
gent in A. N. means neat, pretty, gallant, courteous, 
noble; third, that the name very likely owes its 
<nigia to Ghent in Flanders. Gubbins is an elegant 
appellation: it has two chances of derivation at 
least; one from the old Norman Gobion, the other 
from the French po&m, a hunchback. Gubbins will 
probably adhere to the former. A very singular 
origin is assigned to Guthrie, well known to readers 
of Chambers^ Popular Bhymes of Scotland, wherein 
a poor fisherwoman politely offered to 'gut three' 
fishes for a king of ScoUana, who, in the extremities 
of hunger, had modestly requested her to *gut one to 
him,' and who, charm^ with her ready hospitality, 
Gratefully bestowed upon her family the surname 
Gutthree. 

Higginbottom, whose * fireman's soul was all on 
fire,' mieht have traced his surname to Joken- 
baum — that is, oak-tree; or to a combination of 
hickm — that is, mountain -ash — with bottom — that 
is, valley; or to Hoogenboom — that is, high tree; 
but there is nothing in the poem wherein his hero- 
ism is immortalised to guide one as to which eamla- 
nation was most to his taste. Human the first, 



appears to have been a * ewe-man' (or keeper of 
ewes, as Tupman was a keeper of rams), with high 
aspirations, exhibited diiefiy in his pronunciation. 
Hunkee is a derivative from Humphrey, on the same 
principle as Wilkes from William, and Jenks from 
John. Kinchin is a queer name ; Mr Ferguson 
derives it, however, from A. 8. cyneian — ^tiiat is, 
royal offispring ; but Mr Lower, by way, perhaps, of 
shewing now extremes meet, from a *s]ane' word 
meaning *a voung thief:' but the German 2im2cAe» 
seems a ready derivation. Lavender, it is asserted, 
has nothing whatever to do with sweetness, oorporeal 
or otherwise, but is attributed to the fVench lavendier 
— ^that is, washerman. Lover has a very romantic 
appearance, but unsentimental persons ascribe the 
origin of the name to Louviers, anciently written 
Louver, a town of Normandy. The Moneys need 
not necessarily suppose that their ancestors were 
possessors of fabulous wealth ; there is a place called 
Monnay in Normandy from whidi their surname 
may have come to them. The Moons are not in 
any wajr related to the lunar planet, but are of the 
same origin with the Mohuns, just as the Boons with 
the Bohuns. The Nashes have a very curious origin 
assigned to their name : ' a man dwelling by an ash- 
tree would be called Aten Ash or Atten Ash ;' and 
thus by dropping the first syllable, Nash would be 
obtained. By a similar process would be obtsdned 
Noakes, &c One would strotch a point to find 
a noble origin for Nelson, but the most willing 
spirit can discover nothing better than Nigelson 
or Nicholson — that is, son of Nigel or Nichol, or 
a corruption of Neilson — that is, son of NeiL Ogle 
has notninjo; to do with optics, but is derived from uie 
lordship of Oggil, in the county of Northumberland. 
Oliphant may come either from A. N. ol\faurU — ^that 
is, elephant— or A. S. o{fend — ^that is, camel ; in either 
case, ^e first possessor of the name was evidently a 
person of hu^ dimensions, and was probably provided 
by nature with a proboscis or a hump. Orson should 
be aspirated, to give a correct notion of its etymolosy : 
it is believed to have been bestowed, in the first 
instance, in a spuit moro truthful than kindly, upon a 
foundling. Pftget is said to be a diminutive of x*age, 
which explains itself. Pardew the first had apparently 
contracted a bad habit of profane swearing ; and his 
favourite oath, par Dieu, oecame his surname ; just 
as Bigod or Bigot, that of another gentleman who did 
not wrap up his oaths in a foreign language. Fany is 
Ap-Hany. Paternoster has a singular origin; the 
fint bearer of the name having held lands l^ the 
service of saying the Lord's Prayer, or Pater Noster, 
five times a clay lor the souls of a oertain king's ances* 
tors. Pigot or Pigott is derived by Camden from pieoU 
— ^that is, pitted with small-pox ; howbeit, Picot was 
an ancient personal name. Pippin is nothing less than 
the illustrious French Pepin. Plantagenet has been 
long known to be derived from planta ffeniata (broom- 
plant). Pocock is Pe|M»ck, and Powell is Ap-Howd. 
Price is not significative of value, but corrupted from 
Ap-Bhys. Pmlinger is said to be a corruption of 
Boulai^er (baker). Quaintance is a singnlar name, 
origioafiy, of course, Acquaintance, a name bestowed 
on the same principle as Friend, Neighbour, &c. 

Reach, a Scottish family name, is likely to mislead 
the unwary : it should be pronounced as two syllables 
with ch hm. or gutturaL Reasons have no reason to 
be proud of their protogenitor's mental qualities ; the 
surname is said to be a corruption of Reeves' son. 
Reed is red ; Ritchie is a cormption of Richard, and 
Rixon of Richard's son. Rum does not come from 
Jamaica, but, says Mr Ferguson, frcm O. Norse rufim, 
a giant ; idience the phrase, a ' mm customer.' Samn- 
son the first was not a Jew or a giant, but a simple 
son of Sam. Scudamore is a very romantic Norman 
name from the 0. Fr. escu (Tamour (shield of love). 
Taiboys would suggest creat height at an early age, 
but that idea must be rSdnqouthed in favour ot kaiUe- 



CHAMBBBS'S JOURNAL. 



boll, and wood- cutting, cither ai a feat of atrenaUi, or 
aa occnpatiou. TmakiUB can look for no biglier 
origin ttiiiTi a diminntivo from tha short form of 
TbouioB: OS tbe iiioBtrioua Villikins or Wilkini, from 
the sboit fDrm oE William. Wynyard appears to 
be Vineyard, pronouncL-d by some one haTiog a feud 
with the k>tter b ; oad Ynnag of course originated in 
the same way aa Neander, Lc Jeunc, ftc. 

It in grati^^g to know that the prolific faDiily oE 
Smith rtill holds its own : one person in every 73, in 
fact, i> a Smith, wbiW it ia atroogly suspected that the 
Whi'tes and Blacks ori^ Smiths under false colours. 
The JoneaeH. how(;vGr, come on very cn-ditably, and 
have actually, iii certain years, outnumberfii thu 
Smiths ; one person in 76 is a Jones. Tfaia is the 
proper opportunity for remarking tJiat our friends 
Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson, should, if reference 
is had to the commonness of their names, have their 
order changed, and become Smith, Jones, Brown, and 
Robinson. Not that Brown ia by any means the name 
most common afttr Jones, or Itobinson after Brown, 
according to tbe registrar-general's Report for 1856 : 
for Williams has put on a spirit, and come up next to 
Jones ; after WilUamB comes Taylor ; after Taylor, 
Davies ; then the memorable Brown; then Thomas; 
then Evans, 'thu child of the ford;' then Roberta; 
then Johnson ; and then, eleventh in order, Robinson. 
One person in 148 in England and Wales is by birth a 
Taylor ; and one in 434, at least in name, a King. 



'This is notthine,' Baythey. 'nor this, nor this. There 
is nothing that in reality belongs to thee, except thy 
rhymes and thine audacity.' Madame Dudevant, they 
avi-r, supplied the whole of his LudlU : scenery and 
characters, chapter and vetsc (save that the wrote the 
story in Frencn prose), all were Georges Sand's, until 
Mr Meredith's Fegasns swoojied down u|>oo it. and 
appropriated it for a poem. That this prince of 
plagiarists may have made some written npolopy to 
the lady is like enough (it is whispered ahe ahoota 
with the pistol), but acknowledgment in printer's ink 
made he nont 

Hii SongiiifSemia' have of latebeca Justas cruelly 
dissected, and what ia worse, 'compared' — for the 
comparative anatomy of literature is diatreasin^ to the 
living mbject. Tbe contents at this volume, ' gathered 
on their native soil, amid the solitudes of the Carpa- 
thians, and along the shores of tbe Danube,' it ia 
more than hinted by the tremendous Saturday Sender 
were collected in Paris. M. Doznii— to whose 'able 
and interesting little work ' a passing allusion is made 
in Mr Meredith's preface — happens to have ciiilored 
the said solitudes and shores before that gentfeman, 
and to have published tbe result of his explorations. 
They were both smitten with the laudable desire of 
introducing the Servian muse to the western world, 
but M. Dozon was smitten first. In a word, if Mr 
Owen Meredith had never learned French— or at least 
been no better acquainted with that language than he 
is said to be with Servian — his iioeticalworka would 
perhaps be less voluminous, but certainly more origi. 
nal, Now, we have moat of us taken a purse upon 
(Sadshill, or elsewhere, once or twice during our 
literary existence, but to make larceny, even from 
the French, the raU of one's life as on author, is 
surely reprehensible. In Mr Owen Meredith, too (and 
rightly i« bo called Owen, since be boiTowB ao largely), 
who notoriously writes under a nam de efuiiu, this 
conduct is the less excusable, for, in his rage for 
jilagiariam, be has aiioptcd the title of another writer. 



and this continual calling out of ■ Stop thief,' in c-on- 
ncction with his own name, cannot but make Mr 
Ororgt Meredith feel raHier uncomfortable. 

Rebuke having been thus righteously adminirterpd, 
we gladly proceed to the more j)lcasant office of 
criticism — tliat of eulogy. JJotwithstanding, then, 
our authoi's obligations to the French, and to ]tlr 
Browning^in whose school he is by far tbe most 
promising acholar— ho has plen^ of natural talent 



of limb and nimble fingers inn often tempt 
the Whitechapel into pocket-picking. He is keen to 
catch not only the meaning, however hidden and 
subtle, of a writer — ' throap;h wordy snares to tnok 
Suggestion to her inmost cell' — but his very B[ririt. 
This faculty especially qnalifies Mr Meredith for the 
work of translation ; and bis Songi of Serria are a 
pleasing proof of what he can do, even with somewhat 
barren materials. It must be premised that, what- 
ever help he may have got from M. Dozon, our suUmt 
has really' been, in the neah, to Servia. and heard the 
songs, with hia own ears, in tlie origitmJ. which he 
may have been previously acquainted with in French. 

it is but a very few years ago since the Servian 
peamas were Qtst reduced to writing, and rescned 
from the state of oral tradition in which they have 
existed for ages. ' Like the Greek rbapeodies, they 
are composed and song about the land, from village 

jars. The poets of Servia a 

here ia something touching 
Ion (if the imaginary world as 
an hereditary possession to those from whose sense this 
visible world ia darkened. The traveUer, or &e 
hontaman, reiKising from the chase iu some wild way- 
side m^ionci, or tavern (a mere mud-cibin on ^ 
windy mountain -side, aud generally near a monnlain 
spring), an, followed by bis dogs, be seats himselE upon 
the bench by the ingle, may yet see, amid a gronp 
of eager, weather-heat«3i faces, the blind bard, with 
bis hollow, wooden gouM6, covered with sheepskin, 
and travcmfd by a single string. This iustrumentii 
placed upon the knee, and played like a violoncdlo. I j 
First, a sPTies of long waihng notes commanila tiie \' 
attention of the audience; thenapause, through whiuli i 
you hear thcharsh grating of the £fou«M string; andthsa . 
forth roll the long monotonous veraes of the peims.' || 

Tbese pesinos are either heroic, relating to events ; 
and characters councctt'd with the history of Senia; [j 
or domestic, of an erotic or fantastic chanicter. Mart i; 
of tbe former abound in atrocities wtiicb would Iv || 
sickening to an English reader, and oE which our 1; 
author was able to select only a sinj:lc presentibln n 
specimen, that which relates to tlie battle of EoBBavo, 1 1 
an event which was to the Serbs what the battle of | ' 
Eastings was to tlio Saxons^ The Turkish sulua. 
Amnrath L, destroyed Lazarus, tbe last Sovian 
Tzar, with all his army (16th June 1380), at Eonovu, 
and from that fatal day Servia ceased to bo a nation- 
Ivan KoasttEtchitch, my pobratime,* 

What of the Turk I How deem ye o£ him • 

Is he strong, is be many, is he near! 

Our battle, say I ma; vb ahev him ! 

May we hope to overthrow biin! 

What news nf him bringeit thou here ! 

And Ivan Eonintchitch replied : 

' MiloBch Obtlitch, my brother dear, 

I have looked on the Tnrk in bis prides 

lie is strong, he ia many, ho is near. 

His tents are on every side. 

• Tho Hord fufrrnlnH (mm tral, biDtlitr) dvnolcs a rtUUv 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Were we all of us hewn into monelfl, and aalted. 
Hardly, I think, ahoald we salt him hiB meat 
Two whole days have I joorneyed, nor halted, 
Toward the Tork, near the Turk, round him, and never 
Conld I munher his nnmheis, or measure his end. 
From Biible to Saslia, brother, my feet 
HaTe wandered ; from Saslia round by the riTer, 
Where the mer comes round to the bridge with a bend ; 
And over the bridge to the town of Zv^tchan ; 
From Zv^tchan to Tchfichan, and further, and ever 
Forthei^ and orer the mountains, wherever 
Foot may fall, or eye may soan, 
I saw noQght but the Mussulman. 

'Eastward and westward, and southward and nor^- 

ward. 
Sealing the hillside, and scathing the gorse, 
Honeaan to horseman, and horse against horse ; 
Laaoea like forests when forests are black ; 
Standards like clouds flying backward and forward, 
White tents like snowdrifts piled up at the back. 
The rain may, in torrents, fall down out of heaven. 
But never the earth will it reach : * * 
Nothing but horsemen, nothing but horses, 
Thick as the sands which the wild river courses 
Leave, after tempest, in heaps on the beach. 
Morad, for pasture, hath given 
To his horsemen the plain of Masguite. 
I^Aoea »>ripple all over the land. 
Tost like the bearded and billowy wheat 
By the winds of the mountain driven 
Under the mountain slab. 
Murad looks down in command 
Over Sitnita and Lab.' 

' Answer me^ Ivan, answer ye me. 

Where may the tent of Murad be f 

His milk-white tent, may one see it afar 

Cer the plain, from the mountain, or out of the wood ? 

For I have sworn to the Prince Lasar 

A solemn vow upon Holy Bood, 

To bring him the hoad of the Turkish Tzar, 

And set my feet in his infidel blood.* 

* Ark mad, my pobratime, art mad f 
Where may the tent be, the tent of Murad f 
In the midst of a million eyes and ears : 
In the nudst of a million swords and speara, 
Xn the heart of the camp of the Turk, 
^atal thy vow is, and wild is the work ; 
I'or hadst thou the wings of the falcon, to fly 
teeter than lightning, along the deep sky, 
7he wings of the falcon, though fleet be they, 
^oold never bear thee thy body away.' 

.And Milosch abjured him : ' Ivan, my brother, 

^Though not by the blood, yet more dear than all other), 

See thou say nothing of this to our lord, 

Ijest ye sorrow his heart ; and say never a word, 

XjBBt our friends be afflicted, and fail But thou 

Shalt rather answer to who would know, 

And boldly aver to the Tnir : 

** The Turk is many, bnt more are we, 

And easy and light is the victory : 

For he is not an army of men of war, 

But a rabble rather 

Of rascals that gather 

To the promise of plunder from places afar; 

Priests and pedlers. 

Jugglers and fiddlers^ 



* It U ctrange that Marlowe, in Ta mlm rtaJH e^ ahoold have 
aa hjperbole ahnoat Identieal with this : 

'The ipiing ia hindered by your araothering host ; 
Fbr neither rafn can (kll upon the earth, 
Ifor ran reflex hi« virtttoaa beams tbareon. 
The frouad ia maatlsd with sneh multUvlea.' 



Dancers and dmmmer% 

Varlets and mummers, 

Boys and buffoons — all craven loons 

That never in burly of battle have bled. 

Never have combated sword in hand ; 

They are only come, the beggars, for bread, 

And to feed on the fat of the land. 

And the dreadful dismal dysentery 

Is among their men, and their horses die, 

Of a daily increasing malady." * 

At his dear wife Militza'a prayer, the Tzar consents 
that, when he and all his host go f orUi to battle on the 
morrow, one of her nine brothers shall be left at home 
with her. Accordingly, she takes her stand in tho 
morning at the city gate, and seizes the golden bridle- 
ring of her brother, the standard-bearer, as he goes 
by. 

But ' Foul befall,* the young man said, 
* The man that turns his horse^s head, 
Whoe'er he be, from battle-plain : 
Turn thee, sister, turn again 
To thy white tower I I will not yield 
The Holy Cross 'tis mine to bear. 
Nor turn about from the battle-fidd. 
Not» though the king should give, I swear« 
The whole of Erouchevatch to me. 
Would I turn thitherwards with thee. 
To-day will be the noblest day 
Ton sun in heaven did ever see ; 
Nor shall my own true comrades say 
This day, in sorrow or scorn, of me : 
*' The craven heart that dared not go 
To the great fight at Koesovo ; 
That feared to find a saintly death. 
Nor ponred his blood for Holy Rood, 
Nor fell for the Christian faith." * 
He pricked his horse toward the gate. 
And, through a cloud of hoary mist 
Glittering Uke one great amethyst, 
Swept forth into the morning wan. 
Then up there rides in royal state. 
With his seven sons, old Yong Bogdan. 
She stopped them one by one ; she took 
The bridle rein ; she spoke to them alL 
Not one of them all would turn and look : 
Not one of them all would listen and wait ; 
But the trumpet sounded in the gate, 
And they followed the trumpet ciXL 

The ninth brother is no more to be persuaded than 
the rest, and MOitza watches from her white tower 
alone for tidings of the battle. Two ravens, flyinff 
along a lurid sky, perch on the turret- wall, and croak 
to her thus : 

' They have met, and ill they fare. 
Fallen, fallen, fallen are 
The Turkish and the Christian Tiat 
Of the Turks is nothing left ; 
Of the Serbs a remnant rests, 
Hacked and hewn, carved and cleft. 
Broken shields and bloody breasts.* 
And lo ! while yet the ravens spoke, 
Up came the servant, Miloutine : 
And he held his right hand, deft 
By a ghastly sabre-stroke, 
Bruised and bloody, in his left ; 
Gashed with gashes seventeen 
Yawned his body where he stood. 
And his hozae was dripjnng Uood. 



She wipes the death-drops from his brow, washes and 
stanches his wounds, and giTes him wine; but her 
tears run down into the goldeii cup that holds i^ and 
she still questions of the war. 

Then when the servant, Miloutine, 
Three draughts had drained of roqr ^incy 



$34 



CHAMBERS^ JOURNAL. 



1 



Although his ejcs were waxing dim, 
A little strength come back to him. 
He stood np on his feet^ and, pale 
And ghastly, thus began the tale : 

' They will neyer return again, 

Never return ! ye shall see them no more ; 

Nor ever meet them within the door, 

Nor hold their handa. Their handa are cold, 

Their bodies bleach in bloody mould. 

They are slain ! all of them slain 1 

And the maidens shall mourn, and the mothers deplore, 

Heaps of dead heroes on battle-plain. 

Where they fell, there they remain, 

Corpses stiff in their gore. 

But their glory shall never grow old. 

Fallen, fidlen in mighty war — 

FaUen, fighting about the Tzar — 

Fallen, where fell our lord Laaar ! 

Never more be there voice of cheer ' 

Never more be there song or dance ^ 

Muffled be moon and star I 

For broken now is the lance, 

Shivered both shield and spear, 

And shattered the scimitar. 

And cleft is the golden crown. 

And the sun of Servia la down, 

O'erthrown, overthrown, p'erthrown^ 

The roof and top of our renown. 

Dead is the great Lasur t 

« « * 

One after one, and side by side 

Fighting, thy nine brothers died : 

Each by other, brother brother 

Following, till death took them all. 

But of these nine the last to fall 

Was Bocko. Him, myseli^ I saw. 

Three awful hours — a sight of awe. 

Here, and there, and ereiywhere^ 

And all at once, made manifest^ 

Like a wild meteor in a troubled air. 

Whose motion never may be guessed. 

For over all the lurid rack 

Of smoking battle, blazed and burned. 

And streamed and flashed. 

Like flame before the wind upturned. 

The great imperial ensign splashed 

With blood of Turks : where'er he dashed 

Amongst their bruised battalions^ I 

Saw them before him reel and fly : 

As when a falcon from on high 

Pounce on a settle-down of doves, 

That murmurs make in myrrhy groveis 

Comes flying all across the sky. 

And scatters them with instant fright ; 

So flew the Turks to left and right» 

Broken before him. Milosch fdl. 

Pursued by myriads down the dell, 

Upon Sitnitza*8 rushy brink. 

Whose chilly waves will roll, I think. 

So long as time itself doth roll, 

Bed with remorse that they roU o*er him. 

Christ have mercy on his soul. 

And blessdd be the womb that bore him. 

Not alone he folL Before him 

Twelve thousand Turkish soldiers fell. 

Slaughtered in the savage delL 

His right hand was wet and red 

With the blood that he had shed. 

And in that red right hand he had 

(Shorn from the shoulder sharp) the head 

Of the Turkish Taur, Muzad.* 



kind 



The domestio pesmas are genenUy of the aimpiest 
-ind, and describe a particalar ' situation,' or ' relate, 
in rapid narrative, a particular event, commencing 
-where the action commences^ and tenninating^ without 
reflection or remark, where the actioa tenmnatee.' 



They are often distingaislied by a sort of 'playful 
shyness * — ^that which is a woman's nearest approach 
to humour. The relationahip of Inother and sister is 
— with the exception of the pobratime bond — ^held more 
sacred than any other, and ironical comparison fre- 
quently occurs in Servian poetry between fratenal 
and matrimonial affection, as in tiie following peama 

JL OONJVOAL DI8FUTS. 

All at the mid of the night, there arose 
A quarrel 'twizt husband and wife ; 
For, the young Omer Bey and his spouse, 
Falling into discussion and strife, 
Wild words to each other th^ said. 
Side by side, at the dead 
Of the nighty on their marriage-bed. 

Had it been about anything less. 

The quaziel might have passed by ; 

But it was not a trifle, you guess^ 

That set words running so high. 

Yet the cause in dispute — to be brief — 

Was only a white handkerchief 

Broidered all over with gold. 

And scented with rose and with amber, 

So sweet the whole house could not hold 

That scent from the nuptial-chamber. 

For — the whole truth herewith to disolose — 

This handkerchief bordered with gold. 

And scented with amber and rose. 

Had been given to the Bey — ^to enfold 

Her letters which lay on his breast — 

By the mistress that he loved best. 

But his wife had a sensitive nose 

For the scent of amber and rose ; 

And the fiend himself only knows 

Whether, but for a lie, ere the dose 

Of that quarrel there had not been Uowa. 

' Ton know I've a uster, my treasure. 
The wife of our friend Zekir Bey ; 
I love her, you know, beyond measure. 
And she, dear, on our bridal-day, 
To mo gave this white handkerchief 
Bordered all over wiih. gold. 
And scented wiih amber and rose ; 
Which predous, for her sake, I hold. 
Though the scent of it, much to my grie^ 
Has trouUed our nuptial repose.' 

Smiling^ her husband she heard. 
Feeling no faith in his word, 
For troubled his &ce was, she saw. 
Up she leaped by the light of the taper, 
Barefooted, and seized ink and paper ; 
And wrote to her sister-in-law : 

' Wife of our friend, Zekir Bey, 

Long live thy hnsbsad, naught ail him, ^ 

ICayst thou never have cause to bewail him t 

Sp^ truth, and fear nothing. But My 

(For truly the truth must be told) 

To thy brother, on our bridal-day. 

Didst thou give a white handkerdue^ biis^tly 

Embroidered all over with gold. 

And scented with rose and with amber 

So sweet, that the scent of it nightly 

May be smelt in the Bey's bridal-cfaiamberr 

When this came to the wife of the Bey, 

She burst into tears as she read : 

And * Pity upon me,' she said, 

' For I know not^ alas ! what to ssj. 

If I speak truth, I put strife 

Twizt the brother I love and his wife ; 

If I qieak fttlse, much I dread 

Lest my husband die for it^' she said. 



OHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



335 



Then the letter she laid in her breast^ 
And she pondered with many a sigh : 
'I choose of two evils the leasts 
If my hnshand must die, let him die ! 
Sinoe the choice lies 'twixt one or the other- 
Any hnshand a woman may spare, 
BxA the sister that injures a brother 
Does that which she cannot repair.' 

Thus shrewdly the matter she saw : 
And she wrote to her sister-in-law : 

' Wife of my brother, the Bey f 

My husband is welL May naught ail him ! 

And I trust I shall nerer bewail him. 

To my brother on your jnarriage-day 

(And truly the truth shall be told) 

I gave a white handkerchief brightly 

Bmbroidered all oyer with gold. 

And scented with rose and with amber 

So sweet, that the soent~-as you say. 

And as I cannot doubt of it — nighUy 

May be smelt in the Bey's bridal-chamber.' 



THE MONTH: 

SCIENCE AND ARTS. 

The Comminion appointed, at the beginning of last 
yeur, to inquire into the condition and management 
of the light-houses, beacons, and bnoys of the United 
Kingdom, have just published their rejmrt in two 
blue-books of no inconsiderable bulk. This, however, 
is a case in which aQ the evidence is valuable, seeing 
how much the safety of human life, to say nothing of 
merchandise worth millions sterling, depends on the 
efficiency of li^t-houses. It is valuable, moreover, as 
suggestive of unproved management, of better appli- 
ances, drawn from the latest researches in optical 
science, and as affording meauB of comparison with 
the light-houses of foreign countries, m the latter 
particular, it does not appear that British light-houses 
suffer by comparison, however rigorous; in many 
cases, they are decidedly superior to all others, espe^ 
cially in the praiseworthy particular of cleanliness. 
More than once, during uieir cruise, the Commission 
boarded light-ships quite unexpectedly by the crew, yet 
found the lifting apparatus and the store-place of 
the cleansing materials exhibiting the climax of clean- 
liness where all besides was clean. We remember 
that in the report on American light-houses, pub- 
lished a few years ago by the government of the 
United States, there ax»peared frequent remarks 
concerning dirt and neglect. In the scientific ques- 
tions are embraced the best form of reflectors, whether 
a light should be catoptric or dioptric, whether high 
or low ; and the merits of the electric light. 

The coasts of the United Kingdom comprise a length 
(U 9392 miles, on which there are 197 light-houses, 
tmder the control of three distinct authorities. At 
the close of their thirhr-two days' cruise, during which 
they circumnavigated nearly the whole of Great 
Britain, the Commission report that they 'had seen, 
80 as to be able to form an opinion of their efficiencv, 
ISO Hght establishments, of which 79 were personally 
inspected.' And they recommend that the govern- 
ment and management of all the lights in the United 
Kingdom, and of some few in the colonies, should be 
vested in one Central Board, subject to the annual 
visitation of the Royal Socie^ : that the Admiralty 
branch of the Board of Trade should prepare the 
estimates to be laid before parliament ; and that, ' after 
those estimates have passed the House of Commons, 
the Central Board should have the entire controL' — 
We hear that eight electric lights are to be established 
by the French government idong the coasts of their 
side of the ChanneL 

While the safe navigation of our snores is thus 



being cared for, something has been done towards the 
safely of long sea-voyages in iron ships by Messrs 
Archibald Smith and R J. Evans, in a highly interest- 
ing paper read at a recent meeting of the Royal 
Society. Mr Evans, as Superintendent of the Com- 
pass Be})artment of the Admiralty, has a practical 
knowledge of the subject, which has already proved 
useful to mariners, as we mentioned in the past year. 
The present paper demonstrates the error which has 
grown up of late years — namely, that the larger the 
ship, the lon^r should the compass-needles oe ; a 
mistake frau^t with very dangerous consequences. 
It further demonstrates, that the best and most 
trustworthy compass is that which has two pair of 
needles, from six to seven inches long, attached to the 
card, because it is less liable to distarbance from the 
magnetism and iron of the ship, than compasses of 
the ordinary construction. It is somewhat remai^- 
able that this lorm of compass, which was invented 
twenty years ago, with a view to overcome the objec- 
tionable wobbling motion at that time prevalent in 
all steering-compasses, should now prove to be the 
best reme<fy for a defect involving tne most serious 
consequences. Mr Evans's former paper was pub* 
lished in the Philosophical Transactions, and when 
the present paper appears in the same learned work, 
both will be available by all who take interest in the 
questions therein discussed. 

The wcH-ks for the International Exhibition of 
1862, no longer delayed hj an ill-advised strike, 
are proceeding with activity. Fimctionaries are 
appomted, and arrangements are making for the 
proper filling up of the details; an active corre- 
spondence with foreign countries is established ; com- 
mittees of advice for Finance, for the Building, for 
Fine Arts, for Classification, are also appointed, and 
announcement is made that the Exhibition will open 
on Thursday, May 1st of next year. The Inter- 
national Association for a uniform system of weights 
and measures are plannine to promote their object 
by displaying in the Exhioition a collection of the 
weighte and measures of all countries. They have 
agents abroad employed to collect and forward the 
desired articles, and agents in some of ourprincipal 
towns are to keep an assortment for sale. Tne neces- 
sity for uniformity becomes every month more appar- 
ent with the ever-increasing traffic and intercourse 
between different nations; many mechanicians are 
exposed to much inconvenience by the prevalent 
diversity; and the Horological Institute, wishing to 
facilitate inquiry and the attainment of practical 
results, have appointed a committee to take the 
matter in hand. They look forward to the Exhibition 
as an occasion for personal conference, which should 
be turned to the best account ; and in their preliminary 
report they mention, as an instance of the advantages 
of uniformity, that since gas-apparatus has been made 
of one uniform ^uge, the laving on of gas for illumin- 
ating purposes is easier and cheaper uian ever. Mr 
J. Femie, of Derby, has treated of one portion of the 
question from a practical point of view in a paper 
*0n the Application of the Decimal S3nstem of 
Measurement in Boring and Turning Wheels and 
Axles,' which working engmeers and machinists will 
know how to appreciate, exactitude in this respect 
is essential to good workmanship, and if the decimal 
system will produce exactitude in the mxmufacture 
of railway wneels, the sooner it becomes general the 
better for ndlway travellers. 

Another paper, which, like the foregoing, was read 
before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers at 
Birming^ham, describes the machinery used in the 
Chamwood Forest quarries for breaking up the 
refuse stone into lumps suitable for the repair and 
maintenance of macadamised roads. A trial of two 
years has fully proved the capabili^ of the two 
mills erected, for eadi one dehvers from 60 to 80 
tons of finiahw<^ stoue per day of 10 hours, at a 



336 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



cost of lOd. per ton. The cost of breaking by hand 
IB 2a. 6d. per ton. For each ton of raw stone put 
into the mill the yield is .15 cwt. of finished stone, 
4| cwt. of coarse and fine gravel, ^ cwt. of dust, 
I cwt. waste. 'It is worthy of remark,* says the 
author of the paper, * that the dust answers in most 
cases for all the purposes to which emery is applied 
in engmeers' shops, and if verv fine, is aJmost equal 
to Turkey dust.* Messrs Ellis and Everard of 
Leicester, to whom the mills belong, will doubtless 
get the praise they deserve from those who use 
the roads of Leicestershire. 

Appearances indicate that the cardeus and con> 
structions of the Royal Horticmtural Society at 
Kensington Gore will agreeably surprise the visitors 
on their opening 5th June next The style and 
arrangement of the buildings, taken with their 
environment, will produce an effect of something like 
enchantment on the eye, and the place will be one of 
the most delightful recreative resorts in the neigh- 
bourhood of London, accomplished by an outlay 
of L.70,000. A grand flower and fniit show is to be 
held on the first two days of opening, when prizes 
of from L.2 to L.10 are to be given for fine specimens, 
and 'special prizes for groups of fruits and flowers 
arranged for the decoration of the dinner-table.* — 
From Sir WiUiun Hooker's annual report, we learn 
that the Royal Gardens at Kew are becoming more 
and more attractive, whether to holiday-rolk or 
to students. The number of visitors last year, 
425,314, is the largest yet recorded : a lake of five 
acres will ere long enhance the beauty of the gar- 
dens, and an enormous conservatory six hun£%d 
feet in length, to be used as a winter-garden, is 
advancing towards completion. Among the great 
facts for which the reign of Victoria wiS be remem- 
bered, we may truly say that the providinj^ of rational 
means for popular enjoyment and instruction, will not 
be the least conspicuous. But besides all this, the 
gardens at Kew render most important service to 
botanical science, and to the acclimatisation and 
distribution of ti«es and plants, as is illustrated by 
a recent interesting example. There is in India a 
lATue demand for quinine, and to supply Ben^ alone 
wim this drug costs the Indian government L.40,000 
a year. If the cinchona could be made to grow in 
Inoia, this outlay would be saved : a quantity of 
plants and seeds was brought from South America, 
the native country of the cinchona ; the plants became 
sickly during the voyage, and were nursed in a 
forcing-house at Kew imtil able to bear further 
transport, and they are now growing on the slopes of 
the Keilgherries. Seedlings, moreover, have been 
raised, and there is at present a healthy crop in the 
same house, which in turn will be sent to India ; and 
so on until the cultivators in Bengal are able to propa- 
^te from their naturalised plantations. While on 
the subject of trees, we maymention that the ship Lord 
Haglan is bringing from Western Australia a log of 
so-caUed * Jarr^ timber,* which has been under water 
thirty years at Freemantle, and shews no signs of 
unsoundness or of worm-boring. 

At the beginning of the present year, we noticed a 
discovery — tiie conversion, so to speak, of cast-iron 
into plumbago — ^which Mr F. Crace-Calvert laid 
before the Royal Society; and we again call atten- 
tion to it as an illustration of the sa^ns, that 
'There is nothing so new as that which is old and 
forgotten.' In 1822, Dr J. Macculloch communicated 
to the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, edited by 
Brewster and Jameson, a paper ' On Black Lead from 
Cast-iron,* describing certam experiments which he 
had made in consequence of hia attention having been 
drawn to specimens of iron that had lain for years at 
the bottom of the sea, or had been subject to constant 
Boakage in the porter-backs used at breweries. He 
notices the remarkable fact that certain iron guns, 
fished up in 1740 oS Tobermory, from one of the 



sunken vessels of the Spanish Armada, had become 
BO soft tlu^t they could be easily scraped, and that 
wherever scraped, the surface of the metal grew too 
hot to be touched with the hand. A fdmilar phenom- 
enon was observed in some of the iron fittoigs that 
had been long exposed to the weak acid present in 
porter; the metal, moreover, had all the app^urance of 
plumbago, and was not reduced in bulk, xlie doctor 
tested ms conclusions by experiments in the labor- 
atory, and foimd that he coula produce plumba^ and 
black-lead at pleasure, without any diminution in 
bulk of the pieces of iron experimented on ; and that 
the converted metal always became hot if scraped, 
while any moisture remained, as had been remaned 
of the long submerged cannon. In describing his ex- 
periments on the soaking of pieces of iron, he says, 'to 
procure the black-lead in perlection, the acid should be 
very weak, and the operation is then necessarily 
tedious. Acetous acid appears to be the best, and it 
is by this that it is produced in porter-backs, in the 
waste-pipes of breweries, and in calico-printing houses, 
where sour paste is used. If the experiment is perfect, 
the black-lead becomes hot on exposure to air, smok- 
ing while there is any moisture to be eraporated, 
p^ticularly when the surfaces are scraped off in 
succession, so as to give access to the air. . . . The 
theory of this experiment appears very {^ain, and it 
proves, with tolerable certainty, what has been 
supposed, but what has not yet been pioYed in any 
other way, namely, that plumbago is a metal, and 
black-lead its oxide, if I may be allowed to use that 
term for the present instead of carbon.* 

Lectures on Iron-clad Ships have been delivered at 
the United Service Institution by Captain Halsted 
and Captain Coles ; the latter taking occasion to 
point out the changes which such ships will neoe§* 
sitate in the form and mode of national defencea— A 
door- lock has been invented which rings a bdJ and 
lights a taper on the instant that any dishonest 
person attempts to pick it ; or it may be ao arranged 
as to produce the light only should the master of the 
house let himself in late at night — ^A lamp exhihiied 
at a meeting of the Franklin Institute, Philaddplii>i 
instead of a screw to hold the glass in palace, hu & 
small bolt held by a spiral spring, which yields as the 
glass expands with the heat, and thereby aroids 
breaking. — At the same meeting, an enterroising 
coffin-maker exhibited what he calls Air and Damp- 
tight Burial Caskets; the said caskets being oma* 
mental cofiins lined with cork, deutoxide cl num- 
ganese, and coats of collodion and ahell-lao dissolved 
in benzole. — A factory has been established at Tewkss- 
bury for the darning of stockings ; and we hear that 
a new kind of elastic cloth, ^uite free from shoddy, ia 
among the latest inventions mtroduced at Norwich. 

May is the month of high 'Change with painten 
and sculptors, and by this time tiioy have made 
up their minds as to whether art has or has not 
advanced since May 1860. Mr Bell has read a paper 
to the Society of Arts on the question of Colour on 
Statues, shewing to what extent and purpose colour 
was used by the Greeks, that it did not belong to 
their highest art, and that where colour was most 
used, there idolatry most prevailed. But having 
said thus much, he is careful to add that colour 
may be introduced around statues, on the floor, walls* 
or ceiling, with the happiest effects. 



To Contributors.— It is requested that all Contri- 
butions to CharnhfTifa Journal may be, for the future, 
directed to the Editor, at 47 Paternoster Row, London, 



I 



Printed and Published by W. & R Chaubkrs, 47 Pater- 
noster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinbubob. 
Abo sold by Wiluah Robertson, 23 Upper SaokviUe 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 




S titnct anb ^tts. 



CONDUCTED BT WILLIAM AND BOBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 387. 



SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1861. 



Price Hrf. 



BENTATUS THE TYRANT. 

It is many years ago — daring which empires have been 
created, lOTereigns expelled, republics overthrown, 
and the whole political face of Europe changed and 
changed again — since I was sentenced to the Torture ; 
but I shall never forget it to my dying day. I am 
dumb now ; I complain no more ; the very cause of 
my complain^ has been rooted out, but ah ! at how 
tremendous a sacrifice! O tyrants, who make a 
desert, and call it peace, how pitiless arc those right 
hands of yotus ! 

I allude more especially to the dentists. What I 
ever did, or omitted to do, which first directed against 
me the aieal of that savage race, I do not know. It is 
<Mdy Cknstitutional Monarchs (Physicians, Surgeons, 
General Practitioners, and the like) who condescend 
to inquire into the charges against an offending mem- 
ber ; Despots wrench it out, without inquiry, and 
with one turn of their wrists. I hod been warned, 
it is true, for a considerable period that the thing 
would happen ; but I had also been told that there 
was no escape. It was Predestination under its 
severest and most uncompromising aspect. 'That 
tooth,' observed Dentatus — upon my informing him, 
with an uncomfortable smile, that it felt very curious 
whenever I suddenly bit down upon it — ' that tooth 
must come out,* so said he at least a quarter of a year 
before the catastrophe actually took place. A quarter 
of a year ! Ygb ; three calendar months, and one of ihem 
only a February, to persons in easy circumstances, 
without dread or care for the future ; but to me, who 
was living from hand to mouth (for I was for ever 
fingering tiie thing), and filled with dark forebodings 
for the future, three entire years, and all of them 
leap-yean. 

I took a morbid interest in perusing cases of lock- 
jaw induced by unskilful dentists. I snatched a 
fearful joy from hearing that it didn't hurt so much 
if you were previously frozen. Frozen ! (I laughed 
a demon*s laugh.) Once— only once, or I could not 
have survived it; Nature, I am confident, would have 
given way upon a second application — once a piece of 
ice-pudding touched that tooth. It was at a large 
party given by a serious aunt of mine, and at which 
none but the most serious people were present ; but I 
was quite unable in such a moment of agony to pick 
and dioose my expressions. No, no more ice, I tliank 
you, in any shape for me ! 

Nor had I any great confidence in the electrical 
machine as a painless agent. Setting aside my 
terror on account of my tooth, I never coidd stand 
Jmng electrified. When at school, there was an 
evening-party given to us by the head-master once 



every term, to which we all went in our best clothes, 
with the air of being mere visiting acquaintances, 
and of having come great distances, although wo 
all lived under one roof, and one of the aUractions 
of this jubilee-night was on electric battery. For 
me, it had rather repulsion than attraction. I was 
afraid of it, and it hurt me. I did not like the 
being mode to emit sparks as though I were 
a cathcrine-whecl. It was not becoming to me that 
my hair should stand up like com in autumn ; and it 
was a liberty in any man, no matter how scientific, 
to cause it to do so. Besides, however admirable this 
method of extraction might be, it was essential that 
the victim should keep fast hold of the wire. If he 
did not do this, all the electricity went, goodness 
knows where — into the fire-irons and window-bolts, I 
suppose — and his sufferings were greatly aggravated ; 
for when a double-fanged upper grinder — a two- 
pair back — has to be torn up by the roots, and one 
expects not to be hurt at all, on account of certain 
precautions, if those precautions fail, the difference 
between the expectation and the reality is not to be 
expressed in words. Now, I had no sort of confi- 
dence in my being able to retain possession of the all- 
important wire. 

Then, again, thei-e was chloroform. That, for certain, 
was painless, and as some people aver, even pleasant. 
True. But I hod also heard the same remark made 
in reference to death, and that was not the only con- 
nection between chloroform and that very disagreeable 
subject. I had read of people who could not be per- 
suaded to wake again after that charming narcotic. 
Now, I was prepared to go almost any length to avoid 
the calamity which was impending, but not quite that 
length. 

All the so-called 'painless methods' were thus 
therefore put out of lie question. *Ah,* observed 
my friend Funnidog, upon hearing of my resolve in 
this matter, * I know your valour. I see you have a 
deal of determination ; that is to say (and indeed I 
was blushing a little), determination of blood to the 
head. Being a man of taste, too, you would not be 
justified in emi)loying an anssthetic agent.' These 
heartless observations cost Funnidog my friendship. 
A man who could joke — ^make cold-blooded and 
laboured puns upon a fellow-creature in such a situa- 
tion as mine — would shrink, I felt convinced, from no 

atrocity. 

I put off the evil day as long as possible, but at last 
matters came to a crisis. When * I could not eat but 
little me^t,' and that had to be minced; when I 
examined every article of food before committing it 
to my mouth with the suspicion of a custom-house 
officer: when nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleef^ 



338 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



visited me only in snatches, and those embellished with 
dreams in which a red-hot skewer played $lwsyB a 
prominent part — ^then I took courage, and wrote to 
the Tyrant, saying, ' Do thy worst,' and appointing the 
next day for the operation. Immediatelv that the 
letter was posted the pain left me. I dined off a neck 
of mutton — a thing alK)undinff in gristle and nodosities 
— with perfect impunity, and began to think that I 
had been precipitate, and that the tooth was a 
very good tooth after alL A carraway seed in the 
cake at tea, however, was the himible but efficient 
instrument of recalling me to a sense of my situation, 
and I was in the tjrrant's antechamber by 10.15 on 
the ensuing morning. 

Early as it was, there were man^ there before 
me, for Dentatus was popular — that is to say, in the 
same sense as an epiaemic is popular; people who 
could not help it patronising him in amazing numbers. 
These persons were all h^gard and careworn to an 
extraordinary degree, l^eir hollow eyes turned 
anxiously towards the door whenever it opened to 
let in another victim, only to droop down agam 
dejectedly over the pages of Punch. They had, 
some of them, waited so long that suspense had 
become in their eyes worse than the torture itself. 
Why do not dentists keep their words like other 
folks, and take your teetn out at the hour they 
l^ve promised to ao so ? Why do they furnish their 
antechambers with such inappropriate literature? 
Who that is about to undergo a trial to which the Boot 
and the Thumbscrew were but bagatelles, wishes to 
read old volumes of Punch ? Who selects a church- 
yard for the enjoyment of Pickwick or the Caudle 
Lectures f How much better, Dentatus, would it be 
to set before your miserable expectants volumes of an 
edifying and solemn character. Out of the Booh of 
Martyrs a consolation might be extracted — I mean 
derived — from comparison ; but why excite a ghastly 
merriment by jest-books ? It is an insult to any man 
with a tooth m his head to say that it is done to 
make us forget our woe. 

Forget ! Oh, if to dream by night, and think on it by 

day, 
If all the attention which the mind, the heart, the 

hand can pay — 

if that be to forget it, then indeed it is forgot 
Nobody turns over a single leaf of those comic mis- 
cellanies. Where the stolid gaze first falls, there 
doth it rest; only, as I have said, when the door 
opens, and the severe countenance of the menial 
ushers in another son or daughter of misery, does it 
look up for a moment — agonised — from the contem- 
plation of the Dog Toby. Why, too, is it a male 
menial? a wretch concerning whom a fearful whisper 
floats about the room, that he sometimes holds the 
heads of refractory victims. Why not, Dentatus ! 
employ rather a lovely and benignant female for this 
duty? *0 woman,' says the poet, *when pain and 
anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel thou!' 
And surely what is true of the brow, is at least 
equally true of the jaw. Keep, I say, your brutal 
myrmidon out of our sight, and let a beautiful 
maiden answer our palpitating summons — our almost 
inaudible knocks and nngs. Let her lead our falter- 
ing steps through your cheerless corridors; let her 
tai^e our umbrdlas from our trembling hands; let 
her centle accents murmur, as she adds us to the 
foredoomed flock : * It will soon be over, sir.' 

What a varied flock it is ! Ancient rams, who, as 
one can see, have happily not many more such 
tortures to undergo, and all whose dental wants the 
rhinoceros wiU soon supply : venerable sheep, with 
wool on the top of their heads, in the place where the 
wool ought to grow^ but does not : and merest little 
ones — innocent, but far from frolicsome — with whom 
the real trouble of Life has begun, alas, all too early. 
Mutton and lamb are dished up alike before the 



Tyrant, with an equal portion of mint-sauce. Old 
and young, each clutch in one hand a sovereign and 
a shilling (lingering memento of an extinct coin- 
afle) with which to gratify, but not to satiate his maw. 
I%ey will all return to him again and Mub, and he 
knows it, until death releases them from his bondage. 
When animals are herded together in one pea, they 
will — althoogh they have not been previonay intro- 
duced to one another — exchange compassionate Looks, 
and bleats of piteous sympathy; but the 'Human, 
under similar circumstances, is mute and self-involved. 
Each one looks at the other as upon one who may 
precede him to the Tyrant's presence, and suspecti 
him of having purchased that priority of the ill- 
favoured footman ; for once in the antechamber, and 
our courage screwed up to the re<][uired pitch, we had 
all rather that the dreadful thmc should be done 
quickly. AU, that is, save one ; a hunb of aome four- 
teen years or so, who has been brought four hundred 
miles, he teUs us, to be (grated upon by Dentatos, 
but who doesn't tiiink he can go through with it even 
now. His aunt is with him, who reproaches him for 
this backsliding, with, 'Don't be naughty, Frederic; 
now be a man — there 's a dear.' In. the midsi ol one 
of these exhortations the door opens, and the morose 
footman beckons to this wretched boy. 'Master 
Dubbiltirth, will you please to walk this way?' 
Master D. is not pleased — is very frur from being so: 
there is delay, recalcitration, tears, asseverationB thai 
he is * Quite well now, thank you, upon hia honoor,' 
and eventually something like physi(^ violenea He 
is borne off, I say, to our intense honor, into the 
Tyrant's chamber, obviously against his wishes, and 
presently there arises a long howl of agony, which 
makes every cheek grow pale. Do we live m a free 
country, then, and yet can such scenes be enacted 
in a fashionable street? Is it possible, in ease of 
any of us feeling disinclined to proceed with tfat 
matter in hand, that force — numerical sttpenorily-' 
will actually be employed? Shall we, too, be camed 
in — I distinctly saw the menial with one ol the 
victim's legs under his arm — ^be carried into that 
fatal apartment? The howls subside, but there is 
hysterical sobbing, and we hear voices in the passage, 
and the shuffling of many feet 

* They have brokeu his jaw,' simi one old gentie* 
man in a sepulchral whisper, and I see him measne 
with a vacillating eye the depth of the drc^ from the 
window into the area. 

Once acain the door opens, and — I knew it whoi 
the hand^ turned, I knew it before the man's evil 
eye fell on me — it is my oum turn novo. 

What a very small room ! But then the walk, for 
only too obvious reasons, are constructed ol an amax* 
ing thickness. What a flood of light is pouring in! 
* "&.& better to see with, my dear,' as Uie W^ obeerved 
to Ked Riding Hood upon a somewhat similar occa- 
sion. Dentatus is smihng blandly. What a beauti- 
ful set of teeth he wears. I wonder whether he does 
it for an advertisement, and whether he made them 
himself or not. He is wi|nng something sharp with 
a towel. I wonder what that is. I try to wonder, 
rather, for I know perfectly well. He remarks upon 
the present state of the weather, and the prolMUile 
beauty of the afternoon. Afternoon indeed! What 
wretch would converse with a criminal upon the 
scaffold in early May upon the proepects of the 
approaching Derby? What had / to do with the 
afternoon? He hopes I shall find the chair oomfoit- 
able. Yes, the cluiir is comfortable enough, doubtUM» 
but as for the man that was in it, he had more fears 
than Dentatus wot of. Did I feel easy? Easy! Hien 
I opened my mouth, and he put into it a little &ury 
lookins-glaas, and said: *Ah, yes; I see: it will do 
capitaUy, with a little stopping. * Heaven bless yoo,' 
cned I, in a rapture; 'tnen it needn't oome oat, 
Dentatus, eh?' 'Only one need come out,' railed 
he. Only one! Then he 



v^ 



GHAMBBBS'S JOURNAL. 



339 



It was a decent cnstom in the ancient Greek 
dnnnas not to shock the andienoe by the actoal 
exhibition npon the sta^ of murders, mutilations, 
and stran^iiiflB; and while those sad proceedings 
were soppoMd to be taking place behind the scenes, 
the ChoroB always used to drown the clamours of the 
Tiotima, while at the same time acknowledging the 

Jnstice of the sentence by crying, * Ay, ay.' Shall 
'. then, in the nineteenth century, shew myself 
more barbarous? No. They who have experienced 
my sufferings during those succeeding hours-^ere 
seconds by the clock, however — ^will not need to be 
renuaded of them; while those who have not, can 
never be brou^t to comprehend them by descrip- 
tion. Suffice it to say that, when I recovered my 
senses, lUmtatus was waving aloft a sort of miniature 
three-legged stool in ivory, which he professed to 
have extracted from my jaw. * Are you sure that it 
is the right one?' in(|uired I, in faltering accents. 
And I was quite debghted to find that he was 
ofiended bj the mere supposition of such a mistake. 
We parted the best of mends, and indeed I felt in 
love with the entire human family. When at the 
haH-door, I again encountered Master Dubbiltuth 
and his aunt stepping into a carriage, my heart quite 
yesmed towards mm. 

*I eongratulate you,' said I, 'though I fear you 
must have suffered almost as much as I ' — ^f or I was 
sure my own ease was quite unparalleled. 

The young gentleman looked a little sheepish, as 
his aunt re^Ml: *0h, the naughty boy would not 
lei Mr Dentatus touch him. He felt so faint and 
hysterical, he said, poor dear, and so we are going 
back again.' 

And he actually did return those four hundred 
miles with as many teeth as he brought with him. 
What a siUy young fellow he was, say you, to be 
so afraid about such a little matter. Just wait tiQ 
four turn comes, however. I only know that if I 
eould have told beforehand what was jioing to happen 

to me when I went to Dentatus, I 'd But I 

forbear. You will know all about it yourself, 
sooner or later. I dare say you have one or two of 
those little black roecks insiae vour grinders which 
are the heralds of this sort of catMtrophe. Yon 
have none ! Then I sincerely pity vou, for the disease 
must have flown to the roots, and that is the worst 
of aU cases. It produces what is truly called the 
* incurable toothache ' — incurable, that is, without the 
intervention of Dentatus. 



THE MILITARY FRONTIER. 

Wheit a breathless messenger carried- to Prince Met- 
temich the tidings of the revolution of July, the 
veteran diplomatist rapped his jewelled snuff-box with 
all the grace of the old school, and calmly remarked : 
'L'Enn^ ne veut plus de scs ancicns cockers.' And 
yet, the epigram once spoken and duly applauded, its 
wily tkvAot bent his whole energy to bringing back the 
skittish team of nationalities to the sober jogtrot of 
official routine; and not unsuccessfully. Even the 
eartliquake of 1848 feuled to shatter the fabric of that 
Austrian empire which it shook so fearfully. The 
heterog^eous mass of jarring races and jealous creeds 
remains to this day still blended in unwilling unicm, 
and in sptte of bankruptcy and misgovemment, Cesar 
can yet point with pride to his legions and his 
pvovinoes. 

Of an iihe countries beneath the sceptre of his 
majesfy the imperial, royal, and apostolic, the two 
whose blind loyalty to the House of Hapsburg 
was most thoroughly relied upon, were the Tyrol 
and the Military Frontier. Schwarzenbcrg and 
liettsRiich had felt the pulse of each dependency 



of the Kaiser's, and knew but too well the danger* 
ous love of freedom that smouldered in every 
Hungarian heart; how Italy loatiied the stranger, 
and Bohemia cherished visions of independence, 
while even Vienna had a maudlin sentunent in 
favour of liberty. But the paternal despots knew 
also that the Tyroler's riile was ready to oe levelled 
at the breast of any insurgent reformer, while the 
Military Frontier offered a multitude of hardy soldiers 
to repress the national spirit of Hungary. Thus 
matters stood twelve years ago ; but oaa govern- 
ment has alienated even the herce bandogs of the 
Kaiser: the Tyroler has left off telling his beads, 
to read newspapers, and murmur against rulers who 
insist on managing the men and tmngs of the nine- 
teenth century according to the maximB of the dark 
a^; and even the rugged frontiersman is lendine 
his voice to swell the indignant protest of wrongea 
and trampled Hungary, and has begun to talk of 
franchise and suffrage, of parliaments and the ballot- 
box, in a manner wmch strikes dismay into the prim 
bureaucrats of the imperial Chancery. 

Of all the provinces united in what the purists 
of Vienna still love grandiloquently to describe as 
the Holy Roman Empire, the Military Frontier 
is the most anomalous and peculiar. Europe con- 
tains no similar instance of a country without an 
aristocracy, without commerce or manufactures, 
where tiie state of siege is chronic, and martial law 
the normal condition of affiiirs. Tlie Military Fron- 
tier is an enormously long but narrow slip of terri- 
torr, measuring a thousand miles from end to 
end, and stretching along the Turkish frontiers of 
Austria, from Povile, on the Adriatic Sea, to the most 
northerly pass of the Carpathiims. It is divided into 
four portions, of which the extreme westeriy and 
easterly sections are bv far the most important and 
interesting — the first of these being the Croatian; the 
second, the Transylvanian Frontier. The Slavonian 
Frontier and the Himgarian Banat, in the middle of 
the semicircular sweep, are less noteworthy than 
those first named. But these four portions, under 
their respective generals, form one pix)digious camp : 
the whole Military Frontier is a vast and warlike 
Utopia, where every citizen is a soldier, where 
Rittmeisters answer to nobles, and all the litigation 
is carried on before the convenient tribunal of a drum- 
head court-martiaL When the Turks were driven 
back from Hungary in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, they left a desert behind them, studded 
here and there by ruined towns, roofless castles, and 
towers ingeniously constructed of Christian skulls. 
To this ruthless devastation we owe the Military 
Frontier, designed by the emperors of Austria as a 
barrier against the inroads of the Moslem, and the 
entrance of the plague. Quarantine and garrison to 
civilised Europe have those hardy borderers been for 
hundreds of years, and they have done their work 
manfully. An Areus eye has been kept on the bar- 
barian outposts 0? the oriental worid, and not in 
vain. Many a baffled army has been forced to retire 
with loss and disgrace from the limits of Christendom, 
many a fell pestilence has been nipped in the bud 
through the agency of l^s strange institution, which 
for centuries nsa kept watch and ward for our behoof, 
with scanty thanks and for a meagre recompense. 

But now that the work is over, and the need no 
longer exists, the warrior race of colonists are setting 
up their claim to share the usual lot of mankind. The 
danger is jxist and gone ; Turkey no longer has will 
or power to invade anybody. The horse-tails are laid 
by m dust and mildew, the Prophet's scimitar is bhmt 
and edgeless, and the great Blood-drinker, as his cour- 
tiers still call Abdid Medjid, prefers champagne to the 
traditional beverage of hu ancestors: The pla^e has 
faded away, as well as the old Ottoman pugnacity, lor, 
for thirty years, there has not been a case at Constan- 
tinople. Bourn and Anadol, Syria and Eg3rpt, know 



340 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



the Bcouree only by report, and Tripoli alone cherishes 
the enfeehled pest in her brown plains ; and yet the 
old precautions are kept up alon^ Christendom's 
southern fringe, sternly as when the destroying angel 
hovered every few years over the whole of the orient 
world, shaking down poisonous dew from his black 
pinions. Forty days of quarantine await any luckless 
voyager who may cross the border of the sultan's 
territories, and the cordon of villages allotted for the 
performance of the probationary period would make a 
sanitarian shudder. As for passing the line unobserved, 
it would require a ball-proof man to do that. Night 
and day, the triple posts are linked together by an 
ingenious comphcation of patrols, pickets, and sen- 
tries, and it is about as safe to traverse the district 
without an escort as to thrust one's hand into a 
homef s nest. Five-and-forty thousand of the peas- 
ants are imder arms at a time, according to their 
rotation of duty, duly enregimented, and doing 
feudal service for their lands. The soil belongs to 
the crown, and is divided into fiefs of small extent, 
held upon the purely feudal plan by a class of stiurdy 
yeomen, who pay rent only with the musket and 
Dayonet. Seventeen regiments of infantry — an Aus- 
trian regiment is numerically equal to an English 
brigade — a naval force, and a regiment of hussars, are 
maintained by the borderers, and for border duty. 
The soldier — if we except the hussar — gets no pay, 
and even finds himself in powder and pipeclay, just 
as the ancient militia of England did in the Arcaoian 
epoch, when standing armies were unknown. The 
omcers, however, receive such pay as the imperial, 
royal, and apostolic treasury can afford, and are often 
more indebted for subsistence to their rations than 
their nominal salary in paper florins ; indeed, I have 
known a major to place ids chief dependence upon 
hay, receiving, as he did, foraee for seventeen horses. 
The officers have no sinecure, however, for the patrols 
and rounds ore kept up, however needlessly, with as 
jealous a 'ngilance as if the seraskier, with a hundred 
thousand '^rks under the crimson standard, were 
marching towards Vienna. The soldier does his work 
well and cheaply, and providing his own cartridges, he 
learns to be tnnfty of saltpetre and lead, and seldom 
fires till he is sure of hittmg. He knows every inch 
of the country ; he is trained from childhood to face 
storm and snow, the blinding showers of winter, when 
the gale hurls the white flakes like thistledown over 
the Packless steppe ; the dark night, when the long- 
drawn howl tells that the wolves are growing fierce 
with famine. 

The Western Frontier is much harassed by wolves ; 
the Bosnian forests are full of them, and in midwinter 
they cross the border in droves, desperate with hunger. 
Many a wild tale have the dwellers in frontier farms 
to relate of houses beleaguered through the lone hours 
of darkness by the gray prowlers, of folds seued by 
the yelling horde, of truant children whose bones were 
foimd at the edge of the wood, relics of the frightful 
feast. Now and then, a sentinel perishes in this 
miserable manner, and it is frequently necessary to 
keep up great fires in the more exposed situations, 
ana to double the guards against the four-footed 
enemy. A few years a^o, a singular escape took place. 
A lonely sentry, surprised by the wolves, took refuge 
in a tree, and had the forethought to tie himself to a 
bough, lest he should become exhausted before his 
persecutors left the spot. It was a bitter night of 
frost and wind, with a clear starry sky, and for nours 
he remained on his perch, shivenng in the icy gale, 
and looking down at the drove bdow, that howled 
and sniffed hungrily about, or reared themselves 
against the trunk of the tree, pawing and scratehing 
lie dogs. They stayed till morning ; and when the 
sergeant arrived with the reUef, the sentry was found 
a paralysed cripple, from the effects of cold and cramp. 

But it must not be supposed that wolves and hard 
weather are the only foes of the Ixnrder soldier, 



especially in the west. The Croatian border is ii 
what the Scottish border must have been in the as 
of William of Deloraioe. We have amongst us 
many who cherish a theoretical affection for tiie go 
old times, that it must be a kindness to indicatf 
nook of earth, not more than two or three hundr 
miles beyond the soimd of a railway whistle, whc 
the ^poi, old times may be witnei»ed in fnH a 
practical operation. The Croatian frontier is ti 
nook, a spot compared with which the Spanish sien 
are barren of aaventure, and the Abruzzi eovuiM 
place and conventional Austria has barred < 
progress from the Military Frontier, and the peo 
practise the simple virtues of their ancestors. Wl 
the peasant has gone through his turn of mart 
duty, he lays aside his uniform, dons his red or h 
cap, his embroidered jacket, Illyrian s a n d als, a 

2ueer barbaric finery, and comes forth a caitle-lift 
difficult is it, when gazing on the wild groapB *« 
frequent the markets of Agram or Carlstadt, w 
long Turkish pistols stuck ostentationaly in th 
gaudy sashes, and long hair streaming over tii 
white mantles, to realise that one is still in Austr 
Nor are the petronels and daggers for purposes 
absolute ornament; both sides of the boraer s 
peopled by the same half -tamed race, the Tnrki 
Croats bein^ perhaps a shade the wilder of the tribe 
but the habits of the opposite neighbours are idebtk 
Yanos of Austria selects a moonshiny night for 
pleasant little excursion over the border, dadies ii 
Turkey wiUi a party of armed horsemen, and retm 
with a drove of * annexed ' cows, having periiape p 
off some trifling grudge against Yanos of Bosnia, 
burning his house over his head. Yanos of Bosd 
nobly contemptuous of any law but the Ux taim 
gathers a select circle of his Moslem and Chiisti 
mends, gallantly armed and mounted, and batriei \ 
bams and cattle-pens of his namesake on the Kaise 
soil, not improbably cutting a throat or two in t 
course of his retaliation, and perhaps carrying off M 
Yanos to the land of the cypress and myrtle, 
* romance of the harem ' which brings down Neme 
in the shape of an Austrian coloneL Austria baa 
special treaty with the Sublime Porte, by Tirtne 
which she is entitled to inarch trooi)s over the bofd 
into the Bosnian pachaliks, to bum, slay, sink, a 
destroy, as seems good to her, without an^ intorv 
tion of the usual amenities of diplomatic interooiD 
between the two powers. Thus, the good nndeniaii 
ing is kept up ; the envoy of Austria and the vizien 
the sultan smoke the pipe of peace together, a; 
exchange compliments and sugar-plums, and all i 
while perhaps a brigade of the Raiserliks aremaichi 
in long array through the Bosnian maize-fieldB, and 
Turkish village is in flames. 

But it must be owned that the Turco-Croats i 
troublesome neighbours, and need an armed poBoe 
repress and chastise their outrages, although vcarce 
such a force as exists. Besides the botderera, 
certain amount of regulars garrison the frontiers, ai 
the Kaiser's ofiicers sigh when their tun bomes i 
banishment into that savage region, destitute 
theatres and ball-rooms. But to an observant mil 
there is something of deep interest in the cxtraordina 
jumble of races, tongues, costumes, and characb 
displayed in this outpost of Christendom. There f 
Slavonians and Magyars, Illyrians and Serriai 
gipsies and Bosniaks, the wealthy, soft-spoken Am 
nian, who seems to be a commercial Midas, a 
who turns all he touches into gold ; and the hi 
heathen herdsman, who esteems the dexterous th 
of a sheep or a calf above all other accompHshmM 
There is the Jew, pliant and courteous as a tead 
of deportment, and speaking dialecte enough to cnti 
him anywhere to a professorial chair. Thtm x 
Wallachians calling themselves Romans, coif?c 
ing in Latin nearly as good as that of Tbrec 
or Juvenal, and boasting their descent from t 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



341 



conquerors of tbo world. There is the moody, hot- 
tempered Hungarian, the Bayard or Hamlet of what 
platform oratOTs Jove to describe as the /nationali- 
ties ; * and the chivalrous Szekler, a hussar from his 
cradle, and who boasts himself more Hunnish than 
the so-oalled Huns themselves. There is the 81owak, 
with his ear for music, and his turn for agriculture ; 
the Saxon colonist, or possibly the immigrant from 
Bohemia, growing rich by patient industry and 
instinctive thrift; and beside him is the bright-eyed 
Croa^ "who can ride and drive, herd cattle, steal 
cattle, xob and fight, and no more. There ends the 
list of Croatian attributes ; and yet a traveller cannot 
but feel that he is among a qxuck-witted people, far 
swifter to caftch a hint or comprehend a remark than 
the Germans in .general, and of fine physical powers 
and great vivaci^. The Croats have never had fair 
play. Austrian rule has blighted their prospects of 
keeping. step in the grand march of the world. They 
have been luspt to be the Kaiser's Cossacks, terrible to 
his foes from the very savagencss of their habits, 
and frook the evil lessons of their Turkish neighbours. 
Henoe it is that a war in which the Croats figure 
furnishes such ugly paragraphs to the journals, and 
such grisly pictures of massacre and burning to the 
lUutirated London Newn, They are of old Slavonic 
stock, and in byeone days had a kral of their own, 
and a realm for nim to reign over. But the king of 
Croatia, like his brother monarch of Bosnia, was but an 
ephemeral potentate, toppled over, or set once more 
on his unstable throne, exactly as Hungary and the 
Lower Empire, and the power of Csesars and of sultans, 
contracted or expanded. And at last, the Turk 
swallowed alL Such part of Croatia as now belongs 
to Austria, land won back, inch by inch, from the 
shadow of the crescent, and bought with a great price 
in blood,is preserved distinct nom Hungary, imder 
the semi-feiioal rule of a ban, who answers more 
accuratetjr to the position which the Earls of Mercia 
held under Ethelrcd and Edward, than to any more 
modem example. 

The smient policy of Austria has always been to 
weaken Himgary by keeping Croatia and Carinthia, 
Ulyria and Dalmatia, and Transylvania and Buko- 
frina separate from the ancient constitutional king- 
dom of the Magyars. Hungary, which to-day 
demands that these unduly severed branches should 
be pafted again upon the parent stem, claims the 
Hilitarj Frontier also, and is answered by the 
in^eriai Chancenr with a blunt refusal The borderers, 
say the sages of Vienna, are not freemen, but pre- 
destined from the cradle to a career of pipeclay and 
the goose-step: they are soldiers, not citizens, and 
cannot thereiore vote for a deputy or debate on 
politics. They must continue, as before, to be of the 
opinion idiich their commanding officers are craciously 
pleased to entertain. There is something ludicrous, 
were it not painfid, in the notion that the second 
half of tUe nmeteenth century should have dawned 
upon a European race formally denied the exercise of 
discretion on any topic, and whose duty is held by 
themselves and their rulers to consist in childlike 
obedience. Of course, even with us, the Articles of 
War and the Mutiny Act must ride roushshod over 
3iagna Charta. It would be intoleraole that a 
oorporal should argue the point with his colonel, or 
a coxswain confute his commander by the aid of 
wllogisms; but imagine a whole nation of soldiers, 
devoted from infancy to drill and discipline, taught 
u\ the earliest youth to reverence a cocked-hat and 
to adore a sword-knot, xmd nevei' presuming to differ 
in judgment from a regimental superior ! 

The rewards of this anomalous people are almost 
equally peculiar. It has been mentioned that the 
peasants hold their lands of the crown, by martial 
tenure. But with this primitive feudalism is inter- 
woven the patriarchal system, producing the oddest 
effect. The fief is supposed to belong to the oldest 



male member of a family, who is called the goszpodar. 
Around this family chief cluster sons and grandsons, 
brothers and sisters, nephews and cousins, until a 
perfect clan is collected under a single roof. Three 
or four generations dwell in the same nouse, and dine 
at the same table, a little commonwealth that may 
amount to a mere dozen of individuals, but which 
often exceeds eighty. The patriarch, or goszpodar, 
is prince and president; and his spouse, the gosz- 
pooaricza, rules with awful sway over kitchen and 
storeroom, and exercises authority over the feminine 
republic. A double portion of the produce is allotted 
to the august pair, and the rest is equally divid^, 
though land and cattle are the inalienable property of 
the household, and cannot be possessed by any one 
person. The goszpodar is a governor, but a governor 
m council ; the men of the uimily have a vote when 
any grand constitutional question raises a stir in the 
little domestic parliament. Money, or clothes, or 
furniture, are individual belongings, and no drones 
are suffered in the hive. At first sight, a very charm- 
ing tableau of primeval manners and antique simpU- 
city is here presented. An artist — say Richiud Tinto, 
Esq., A.R.A. — could make a delightful picture of the 
family group: the playful chil&n, the kerchiefed 
matrons and maidens, with raven hair elaborately 
plaited with ribbons and silver coins, in Greek 
fashion; the bronzed husbandmen; the blooming 
striplings; and for apex of the human pyramid, the 
white-haired old patriarch, reigning blandly over a 
smiling assemblage of the loyal and the loving. But 
perhaps sometimes the real may fall short of the 
ideal, and disappoint us cruelly. The benevolent 
grandsire may be a close-fisted capitalist, economising 
on the family meals, and swelling his private hoard 
by judicious cheese-parings ; or he may be a choleric, 
violent old fellow, bullying the weak, squabbling with 
the strong, and keeping uie family in perpetual hot 
water. Again, he may be, and often is, a drivelling 
dotard, a mere roi faineant, with his sceptre * in 
commission,* and the mayor of the palace may turn 
out a ve^ King Stork on the hands of the luckless 
tribe. Then, how very possible is it that Mater- 
familias, Madame the Goss^xxlaricza, or she-patriarch, 
should happen to be a shrew, witii a sharp temper 
and a shrill tongue, never quiet, never ceasing to rate 
and scold, among her score of kindred handmaids. 
The very idea of family jars by wholesale, and the 
squabbles of relatives in so extensive a theatre, has 
something distressing to a philanthropist ; and it is 
to be fe2u«d that many a stalled ox, with its tradi- 
tional seasoning, is served up at those Homeric 
banquets in a crowded Croatian farm. 

Then the Frontiersman, poor fellow, is doubly a 
vassal ; he wears the twin yoke of the clan and of the 
Kaiser. 

The adventurous hojf who asks his little share, 
And hies from home with many a gossip's prayer, 

is by no means a popular personage on the Militaiy 
Frontier. If any 'adventurous boy' does *ask his 
little share,' he is by no means certam to get it, unless 
he be a very vexatious scamp indeed, fit to leave the 
Frontier for the Frontier's good. If he takes that 
kind of permission which is proverbially attributed 
to our French neighbours, he is deemed a deserter 
from hearth xmd guardroom, from his grandfather and 
his captain, and is hunted down by the Eumenides of 
the family and the battalion. If he formally solicits, 
from his military and social superiors, leave to cany 
his thews and sinews, his brain and muscle, to some 
other market of the world, he is very likely to be 
snubbed and browbeaten. Suppose he perseveres — 
that the colonel gives a grudgmg consent, and the 
eoszpodar echoes it in a similar spirit — still the poor 
fellow has to run the gantlet of the black looks, 
the reproaches, and the wrath of his swarming 
relatives. He goes, and no old shoe is flung after 



342 



GHAMBERS*8 JOURNAL. 



him for luck, no good advice and kindly predictionB 
of f ature greatneas cheer the young aspirant ; and if 
he is followed hy any * gossip's prayer/ it is probably 
that, wlien he meets his deserts, he may find a gallows 
sufficiently remote not to reflect disgrace upcm his 
affectionate kinsfolk. Even if a youth or maid 
venture to wed a member of some otner family, this 
act of indejpendence is treated as a sort of petty 
treason. The offender has a smaller portion from the 
common stock than if he or she had mated within the 
pale of consanguinity, the goszpodar is sulky, and 
the queen-bee querulous ; while each cousin considers 
himself or herself to have been most shabbily treated, 
and determines to give the intrusive foreigner no 
cordial reception to the hive. The consequenoe of 
this is, that relationships ramify and blend to a degree 
that would offer a tough knot for the ingenuity of 
Doctor^s Commons. Most of the people are Greeks, 
of the old, non-united communion. In every village 
you see the domes of their churches flashing back 
the sunlmht from the garish green and goM, the 
bumishecl copper and ^udy paint, so dear to the 
Christians of the east. There are plenty of Catholics, 
too, and of Protestants. The latter are subdivided 
into Calvinists and Lutherans. All over Hungary 
and its borders, the former are numerous, ana in 
those lands, at least, the followers of Calvin and the 
faithful of Home live in mutual toleration and 
brotherly accord. But directly you find a Lutheran 
colony, you are surprised by the jarring and spar- 
ring, the polemical skirmishes and wordy battles so 
familiar to us nearer home. Curiously enough, the 
Lutherans squabble as fiercely with Calvinists as with 
Romanists. The Greeks predominate, however, on the 
Military Frontier ; and some of their priests have 
studied and fasted at Mount Athos, or otner of those 
huge monasteries which stiU pour forth their hosts of 
fierce-eyed preachers, pale-choeked and shaven as to 
the temples, over the whole Levant. The Frontier 
really is the boundary between the east and the west, 
a truer border than the Bosporus affords. For all 
practical purposes, Asia begins on the Bosnian line, 
three days' journey from Vienna ; indeed, you cannot 
bring a Turk to own that Turkey is in Europe at all ; 
he waves aside your maps, and pooh-poohsyour 
globes and charts with a sublime £atu^. Where 
the muezzin chants, and the minaret rises, where l^e 
sultan reizns, even with vicarious sway, as in Walla- 
chia, the Moslem believes himself b^ond the pale of 
infidel Europe. Even the Military Frontier is semi- 
orientaL I have seen the true eastern salaam per- 
formed there with genuine eastern grace ; and though 
the borderers are enthusiasts for their cr^d, not a few 
of the children may be seen in the dress of Asiatics, 
while the customs of the country bear Httle analogy 
to anything in Western Europe. After crowing 
accustomed to scarlet caps and embroidered jackets, 
to sashes and sandals, and the startling spectacle of 
an armed population, it is impossible but to be struck 
by the renection — * How rich everybody is ! ' North 
Croatia is a land of rags and pover^, of sterile moun- 
tains, wretched hovels, and a Tipperary of beggars. 
But the Frontier, especially the Biuiat and Slavonia, 
contains a peasantry abounding in creature comforts. 
The men, warmly clad in blue and white woollen, 
with shaggy mantles and leathern greaves, wearing 
broad-leaved hats stuck full of flowers and ostrich or 
peacock feathers, look like magnificoes when com- 
pared with the blouaed peasantry of France and 
Belgium ; and the women have ornaments enough to 
Ret up a French village. Then everybody drives his 
own wagon and horses, and ^nerally at a rattling 
gallop, in the wild whip-crackmg Himgarian style ; 
and everybody has cattle and buffaloes, and sheep, 
and poultry, and swine, and all sorts of roots and 
grain, and meadows whereon to graze all the cavalry 
of Scythia. Everybody's house, too, seems snug and 
in good repair, atanfling in its blooming garden, or 



ranged in one of the enormously broad streets o€ the 
vfllagea, with a double row of leaify lindea-irees before 
the door, water murmuring past, bees humming 
among the blooming flowers. 

I never saw on the Frontier the squalid poverty* 
the tatters, the hun^r, the cruahing miseiy, too 
frequent in lands of higher pretensions. Part cf tiiis 
ccnnparative wealth is due to the fertility of tibe 
soil— a soil which repays tillage right bonntifiiUjF — 
and part, no doubt, to that very patriaidisl sj^em 
of which I have complained. The 'house conmuumm' 
dwarfs the intellect to develop the muaoles; ideas 
are cramped by it, and education blighted, but the 
little republic takes care of its own hftlplesa ones^ 
and screws the full meed of work out of those 
capable of exertion. Law and opinion forbad idling; 
even to a genius or a misanthrope. No one may 
shirk his duties, when so many have a vested right in 
his industry. Skulking and * malingering ' ate Jnc^e- 
less tactics in the puuidty of the household, and 
under the scrutiny of so many jealous eyes, the 
most incurable dawdler that ever sent in an agroiat 
at college would be compelled to work in a Frontier 
family. No poor-law is needed ; the gosspodar is a 
substitute for reheving offioexs and boaids of guar- 
dians. There is not a mendicant to be seeo, unkss it 
be a gipsy from Hungary. Everybody looks fat, 
merry, contented, and warmly dad. Bat tins is the 
very thing noted in countries tilled by slave-labour, 
and which induces enthusiastic southerners to ooninit 
the plump nesro of Virginia with the eannt weavor of 
Spitalfielos. Most counjtriee have had ihd choice 
between liberty and well-fed servitude. We in 
Britain made our election long since between a free 
hfe and vegetable torpidity ; and after many a year 
of compulsory work and a full meal, the Shuvoiuan of 
the Frontier is bennning to disoov^ thsit man is 
Bomethinff higher than a machine, and thai it ii 
better to he a needy freeman than a pampered ibve. 
There is some tnae in the country, limited to tiie 
exchange of its raw materials for goods from the 
world oi mills, and looms, and foigea The paper- 
currency of Ihe empire serves as a cimuatiitf 
medium ; and it is marvellous to see the gravity with 
which a buyer will produce his portfolio full of greaiy 
bank-paper, wretched little florm-notes, and segmests 
of the same, and promises of some Austrian Abraham 
Newland to pay twenty kreuzers, or sevenpcnce 
futhing, on demand, and so forth. Silver is legsded 
with a superstitious reverence, so rare is it. and eka 
so beloved. The gift of a silver florin is to a fVoiiiien- 
man what a string of beads is to a savage. How he 
hugs it, and gazes at it, and breathes on it, and rubs 
it bright with the skirt of his blue ooat, and beats off 
the precious thi^ to add to his hoard in some recon- 
dite stocking ! But gold, the yellow metal tfast ia so 
potent an enchanter elaeidiere, is on this froniaer of 
heathennesse utterly misconstrued, viMed, desoiaed. 
Austria has kept gold out of the empire, imttt the 
people have oesisea to believe in it. Eves im Vlama, 
it is sometimes grudringly taken, with dark looks and 
evident aversion. On the frontier, it is not sddom 
flatly refused as a means of payment, «id pmahed 
aside in soom. It is worth a journey to Janenovaes 
to witness a phenomenon so refreshinff and novel as 
that of gold being treated to the oold uioolder. Tet, 
though nobody is poor. Dives does not exist in fais 
pomp Imd luxury ; there are no gentry, no nobles, 
extient in the Bwaat. The Banat ■ rich indeed, inth 
a soil that bears crops the most prodigioos, in rctmn 
for sorry agriculture, and whose pastures fi^ten those 
huge herds of cattle which feed half Austria. Bat 
the Bfinat is wofully tmheidthy ; malaria and manh- 
fever make it nearly as empty, every wet year, as the 
Campagna of Rome itself. But the matchless blaek 
soil, six feet in depth, is too profitable to be deserted ; 
colonists are coaxed to barter health for wealth, and 
estates have been sold to rich Armenian cattle* 



CHAMBBRSN3 JOURNAL. 



343 



dMlen, who hAve been further gratified by patents 
of nobihty and the rank of count. 

There is a good deal of smu^^glinc, of salt and 
tobacco chiefly, along the bordei^line, out the patrols 
exercise scmpulous vigilance. The worst of the 
matter la, that quarantine rules complicate the 
reTenue rnKulations. Thus, wh^i a Wallachian shep* 
held is sniposed in carrying a huge lump of green 
rock-salt across the Austniui line, he is careful to 
fline it down, with a rag or two beside it, and to flee 
forms 1^ H» is safe when once out of gunshot, 
but tile nnhicky guards are saddled with an awful 
re^MDsibiilxty. They must not pick up that piece of 
sah ; they may not abandon it ; they are bound to go 
through ronnalities unnumbered about it. Night and 
day, a sentry watches the salt and the rags, and lets 
no one oome near them. Probably the smuggler 
abandoned his property high up on the bleak Carpa- 
thian Mountains — ^nerer mind that ! Cold or hot, in 
stonn or shine, watch and ward must be kept on that 
fatal importation ; in fact, the salt has to perform 
quarantine. Meanwhile, subalterns report to captains, 
majors to oolonek, stamped papers fly over the countiy 
like hail, the general signs, the doctors countersign ; 
then are memorials and orders issued, all about luJf - 
s-crown's worth of salt. At last, the health-officers 
«o «p the moantom, kindle a fire, fumigate ragB and 
salt, solemnlT grasp the rags with a pair of tongs, as 
St Donstan handled the nose of Apollyon, and oum 
them in the fire. Then, after the salt has been 
sprinkled, smoked, and disinfected, out come pen and 
ink and stamped papers, and a regular prods-verbal is 
drawn up, and then, amid great rejoicings, the salt is 
prcmonnoedto be free from plague, and 'compromised' 
salt no longer, but fit for hunuin solace and refection. 
So it is confiscated for the emolument of the imperial, 
royid« apostolic treasury. And all this when there 
is no plaigne nearer than Tripoli, in Africa ! 

The Transylranian Frontier boasts of the superb 
Swkler huanrs, considered by Austrian critics the 
finest hght horse in Europe. They are a local corps, 
b<»n to wear dolman and kalpac. One Tery remark- 
able bodv of soldiers pervades the entire thousand 
■dies of border ; these are the Serreshana, a troop of 
•Qoiits, armed, dressed, and accoutred in Turkish, or 
rather in Torco-Greek style. They wear the oriental 
nrb, cany ornamented yataghans, and the long 
Turkish pistol, and are distributed in small numbers 
aloqg the line. They act as guides to the ordinary 
troops ; and as they are all emait and daring fellows, 
and pof ectiy aware of everything that is said and 
done in the neighbouring Turkish provinces, they are 
invaluahle as a sort of human sleuth-hounds. The 
courage and adroitness of these men are most remark- 
able: trained from youth to espial upon a foe so 
omel and vindictive as the Turk, their powers of 
observation equal those of a Red Indian; they bear all 
ftitignee and privations cheerfully, face all perils, and 
pass their lives gaily amid thrilling incidents which 
would insnre the success of a railway noveL Unfor- 
ionatdy, these desperadoes have not improved in 
motala from conta!ct with barbarians; they are 
intiless as their foes, and they share in one very 
AQarihle superstition common in the border provinces 
«f Turkey ; thn is, that he who eats the heart of a 
Toong child will be rendered invulnerable, or at least 
ball-proof. There is said to be more than one Ser- 
reshan still alive who has resorted to so shocking a 
talisman as this. Most of the Scrreshans are employed 
on the western or wildest frontier. But there are 
aiany on the Transylvanian border, too, where blood- 
shed and rapine are not uncommon, although the 
Bosnians are tar fiercer than the Wallachian shepherd- 
sobbers. The central parts of the Frontier, protected 
by the Danube and a line of guard-horses, are but 
little molested ; and no doubt half-a-dozen raiments 
of mounted police would replace eflectuaUy the 
whole foroe of the feudal nuhtia. Transylvania^ 



within the Military Frontier, possosses a watering- 
place, with baths and healing waters, where a major 
of hussars presides over the hygeian fountains, and 
ordinances for the government of the Brunnen are 
published by beat of drum. One of these is curious : 
it is requested that any visitor having a oalf , pig, or 
sheep to kill, will not slaughter it on the promenade 
or Grand Parade, a commodious block having been 
provided for the accommodation of tiiose who seek 
pleasure or health at the Carpathian spa. 

THE MARRIED BACHELOR. 

Bright Belunqham — by the by, he was no relation 
to the man who shot Perceval — ^had a capital busi- 
ness when steel engravings were respectably paid for, 
and an annual was thought the most indispensable 
part of the Christmas cheer in genteel houses. His 
plates were the glory of the New Year's Oarland, the 
Christmas Hose, and half a score whose names I have 
forgotten. He was the chosen artist of fashionaUe 
Magazines, Court Albums, and Caskets of Beauty, 
which then abounded. Bright's income was conse- 
qu^itly large, but unfortunately his outlay was 
larger. Mrs Bellingham was no manager; more- 
over, she liked style and fashion; and BrighVs 
wedded happiness had been rather amply crowned 
with nine daughters, to be finished, droned, brought 
out, and got (m, if possible. They lived in Bryanston 
Square, gave splendid parties, went to Ramsgato 
eveiT summer, and to Brighton every winter ; went 
up the Rhine, and down the Mediterranean ; always 
hired a carriage for the season, and kept Bright bare 
and busy. In spite of his returns from the Garlands 
and the Casket^ Bright's Christmas bills were not 
always paid when the next came in ; but the honest 
man did his best to make ends meet. He worked 
hard, and staved off creditors, took in pupils, of 
whom I was one; whereby I got acquaintea with 
the family. 

Bright was a smaU genteel man, quietly vain of 
hims^ and aU that was his, the easiest flattered soul 
I ever knew, and generally good-humoured when 
accounts were not troublesome. Mrs Bright was a 
lai^ showy woman, made for the exhibition of dress 
and millinery. Nobody could set off gowns and bon- 
nets to better advanti^^; and she lived in the persua- 
sion that getting the newest fashions, and bringing 
out her gins, comprehended the whole duty of woman. 
There were five of the Misses Bdlingham out when 
I had the honour of their acquaintance. They were 
all pretty, and regularly varied as to fair and dark, 
the one always coming next to the other. Of course, 
they all played ana sang, dressed and danced, 
thoroughly understood the wheedling of psuptk when 
anytiiing new was wanted; and every one expected to 
captivate a lord. There was some controversy regard- 
ing the charms of the Misses Bellingham in our 
studio: one voted for Florence, another for Char- 
lotte, and a thud for Clara, as the queen of beauty 
among her sisters. My convictions were in favour of 
the jroungest, Miss Juua Jane — a curious combination 
of names, formed, I believe, by her father's anxiety 
to name one daughter— she was hoped to be the last — 
after a kind old aunt who had broi^t him up, and by 
Mrs Bright's determination to have no vulgar names 
in her family. It was said she had taken strong mea- 
sures to have the Jane dropped; but Bright remained 
faithful to his aunt's memory, and the young lady 
latterly preferred her vulgar name, because somebody 
— I chantablv believe it was my cousin Hawkins — ^put 
it in her head that she bore a striking resemblance to 
the portraits of Lady Jane Grey. If so, the luckless lady 
who lost her head by coining too near the crown, must 
have been lovely as well as learned, for Miss Julia Jane, 
when I first saw her, early in her seventeenth year, 
was as pretty a brunette as could be found in London ; 
and though the smallest of the brought-out sisten^ 



d44 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



she was a good deal the liveliest, and the cleverest, 
too, in the opinion of us young men. I believe the 
four seniors snubbed her in a gentle, sisterly way ; 
Miss Jnlia Jane didn't mind that. In the [Mirsuasion 
of her likeness to the ten days' queen, she took to 
studying Greek — I can't say with what success — con- 
temned novels, read only the old poets, nronounced 
dancing frivolous, and, when she could recollect 
her great character, looked uncommonly grave and 
sober. 

. Hawkins always insisted that a figure prefixed to a 
story in the Cadcet called the Queen's Kevcnge, and 
considered one of the highest efforts of Bri^ht's genius, 
had been designed from her. We all thought Hawkins 
had authority in such matters ; he was l^right's most 
promising pupil ; ^nd the little man, when he was in 
good-humour, used to prophesy a future of plates and 
vignettes for him sufficient to stir up our en vv. Hawkins 
had personal advantages also : he was the handsomest 
and most dashing young fellow among us ; it was our 
standing wonder where he got the money to dress so 
well, for Hawkins was an artist's son. Bus father had 
left him nothing but a mother and two sisters to do 
the best he coma for ; a couple of uncles in the city, 
who had never got on in business ; and a rising repu- 
tation, cut down by the scythe of death. Mr Selling- 
ham received, according to advertisement, only a 
limited number of pupils. What the limits were, I 
never knew; but nis terms were high, and Bright 
was so particular about antecedents xmd connections, 
that some people thought he had an eye to chances 
for his girla. Our numoer consisted of Cousin Henry 
Hawkins, the promising artist; myself, who have 
since taken to business, and turned out a respect- 
able city-man ; young Serle, who was engraving mad 
then — he had been studying for the bar before, 
and afterwards became an M.D. ; and lastly, Carl 
Werner, the German, from whom nobody expected 
anything but awkwanlness. 

Werner's family had come from Hamburg, and 
settled in London about the time when the F^nch 
occupation did such ill service to their ci^. They 
were all merchants in the Baltic trade; but Carl, 
like a true German, found out that the counting- 
house did not asree with his inner life, and took to 
engraving out of his moral consciousness. It was 
Mr Bcllingham's decided opinion that Werner never 
would be an artist. He paid the fees, however, went 
out and came in as quietly as the cat, worked 
away in a comer of the studio, from hour to hour, 
without looking up, while we three talked non- 
sense, discussed our acquaintances, or tried the 
boxing-gloves in the absence of our master. Being 
youn^ men of genteel connections, and more or less 
eh'gibdi^, we had the honour of assisting at most 
of Mrs fright's parties. Even Werner was admitted 
to the select circle. She had made it out that his 
father had a paying business, and Carl was the only 
son ; but in our designs on the hearts of the Misses 
Bellingham, none of us stood in dread of Werner. He 
was tSl, loose hung, large featured, gaunt, and stoop- 
ing. For upsetting things, stepping on ladies' dresses, 
breaking glass or china, and putting the wrong word 
in the wrong place, I never knew his equaL Not that 
Werner was intentionally rough or careless; the 
damage he did troubled him more than anybody else ; 
but by nature he was awkward in hand and foot, looks 
and tongue, and, to crown his charms, he had a slow, 
drawling manner of speakins, and a slieht deficiency 
in the oigan of hearmg. Tne girls called him poor 
Werner. Mr Bellingham said he would never get 
beyond wood-cuts; but Mrs Bright, especially aner 
she had made out about his father, maintained 
that Carl Werner was a sensible young man; and 
I think she had designs upon him for the eldest 
daughter. Miss Florence, wtio had been out seven 
years, and had three broken-off engagements. Strange 
to say, notwithstanding his awkwardness, and our 



common belief that Werner was a nobody, Cad 
Werner was sensible. In all matters that required 
more than common judgment, in all difficult esses, 
scrapes, and munmderstandings, whenever jadidons 
advice was wanted, and ways could not be seen 
clear, even the promising Hawkins consulted Qui 
without restraint and without reserve; for, besides 
being the best-natnred fellow in the worid, he btd 
such sound honour and honesty, that no interest ooidd 
prevent him from speaking exactly as he thought, ud 
no bond was requisite to bind him to secrecy. 

I learned to value him for those quilitiea after he 
made up a quarrel, which threatened to be serkmt, 
between Cousin Hawkins and me. If t^ truth most 
be told, it originated in a picnic at Homsey Wood, 
and a flower that fell out of Miss Julia Jane's bonnet 
Well, most men play the fool in like fadnon some 
time in their lives. I had been thinking mysdf tn' 
Ul-used man, and also of avenging my wrongs by 
shooting Henry; but having taken the porecantiofl 
to consult Werner — I don't remember his aignmenti^ 
for it is five-and-twenty years ago — ^he succeeded in 
convincing me that my cousin was not to blame ; that 
girls would chan^ their minds ; that perhans I had 
mistaken my position, and that it was henenk m man 
to quarrel about picnics and falling flo'wen. 1 sup* 
pose it was the service rendered on l^t ooemrioa 
which made Hawkins apply to Werner in bk per* 
plexity some two months after. Lady Jane, as ne 
called her, would not accept a ring or make sn engige- 
ment without papa's consent, and Heniy^s y o s p ect s 
were not of the most brilliant order. Besitei Mr 




with the fifth dau^ter scarcely accorded with thai 
family statute. But Werner was known to have 
influence witii Mrs Bright. There was no ^flkmNy 
in asking his counsel, for he had no rival vaniiies; 
indeed, uie honest fellow had never been knowii to 
mak^ the /nnallest advances to womankind bat onoe^ 
when he was found reciting part of a €krman play to 
Lady Jane in a comer of me back-drawinff-rMlm, tnd 
caught the lively girl laughing at him in uie opposite 
mirror. There was great fun among va oaneermng 
that recitation. Werner joined in n after hib own 
wind-dried fashion, remarking, that from the ^anoe 
he got of himself in the glass, it was no wonder Lady 
Jane lai^hed ; but the passage was fine, if iihe had 
only un(&rstood German. Lady Jane got werentj 
scolded by Miss Florence for the improprie t r , but ft 
was all over and forgotten before Hawldns's ooshiess 
came on. What advice Werner gave him, I eumot 
tell, nor what persuasions he brought to bear on the 
old people ; but my cousin ememd from the back- 
parlour one morning looking as it he had won some 
hard-fought field, it was afterwards obserred that 
Miss Julia Jane wore a ring on the appointed fiiiiger; 
that her four seniors were out of humour for some 
time, and Mrs Bri^^t told everybody how ridiculous 
it was that that child should be engaged. They were 
to wait three years till Hawkins had a position ; but 
before half the time, they j^ tired, as anybody 
would, of being always invited, and set together, 
quizzed, remarked upon, and made iealoos, with the 
other amenities of en^ged Hfe. The BeTlpighams 
were tired, too, and as Hawkins had made his d^but 
in the engraving world by illustrating Lord Pet- 
worth's *Ode to Spring* in the Literary Diamond 
— the plate consisted (S a tree, a mame, and two 
bunches of duckweed, but Bright sua tbere was 
execution in it, and his prospects were bc^gnn — ^the 
young people were allowed to go to church and be 
made fast with the usual formalities. 

I have always remarked, that when a set once sets 
broken by the migration or settlement of any of its 
members, the rest soon scatter away, and bo it proved 
with the Bellinghams and their studia A few years 
brought many changes to that scdect drele. flerie 



/ 



12 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



345 



found out that the medical profesmon was the field 
for hia talents ; I discovered, with the help of a mer- 
cantile oncle, 'tiiat business would pay me better than 
engraving; Werner finished his apprenticeship, and 
commenced his profession with all sorts of good 
wishes from his master, who, however, did not 
expect him, more than ourselves, ever to finish a plate 
respectably. In the meantime, the day of Annuals 
waa waning; Bright*8 plates were not paid for as 
they had been ; and as family expenditure could not 
be ^iTwintfltftH^ the little man*s dimculties increased to 
such a degree^ that relations, friends, and pupfls found 
it neceaiuy to keep at a safe distance from him and his. 
I belieTe there were eventually writs and executions 
issued ; bat he escaped from them and his fair family 
by slipping quietly down the vaUey of the shadow 
where baihfib cannot follow, after an attack of bron- 
chitis, about the time that Amulets, Gems, and Caskets 
were selling for Chnstmas. Their relatives, and 
eveiybodr within their reach, had terrible work 
settbng Mrs Bright and her girls. Thev opened a 
seminary for young ladies, but it wouldn t do ; they 
went ov^ as eovemesses, and never kept a situation 
lon^ than the first quarter. I can't recollect all the 
vanetiea of lady's business in which they did not 
soooeed, but five out of the eight got off by desperate 
exertions. I understand throe of them were con- 
sidered low matches, and not spoken of by the remain- 
ing trio — by the by, Miss Florence was one of them — 
wnm they and their mamma were finally established, 
to the gr^ relief of their friends, in a small boarding- 
house at Broadstairs. 

Before that happy arrangement was concluded, 
Serle had taken tne degree of M.D. at the London 
TTniveni^, married an alderman's niece, and bought 
a pmctioe in Finsbuir ; I had entered into partner- 
shm with Clarke ana Sons, and induced the eldest 
of Clarke's daughters to become Mrs John Robinson ; 
a Mr and Mrs Hawkins were getting deep into 
the caxea of the world, as represented bv an uncertain 
income and an increasing family. Theirs was the 
most decided love«iatch of the tiiree, and I believe 
th^ got on as well as most married people. It 
waa trua^ Mrs Brieht heard and rehearsed some com- 
plaints of Hany^ staying too late at the Social 
Bantams, and Hawkins s mother and sisters thought 
he mi|dit have got a better nuuiager. The days of 
Lady Jane-ship were over with her; the time of 
white J^oves and attitudes were gone by with 
him. 'Hie promising young man of our studio never 
attained to his masters place in the esteem of print- 
pablishers — his plates brousht in little — Julia Jane 
was not the best of housekeepers — ^there were five 
children in as many years — the pair were getting care- 
woni— and we, together with aU their friends, won- 
dered how long uieir heads would be kept above 
water. Sometimes I thought it served Ladjr Jane 
rijght for her behaviour at the picnic ; sometimes I 
pitied the poor little woman for navinff married the 

Sverty-stnick artist instead of his well-doing cousin, 
ra John Robinson knew nothing of that ; but it was 
a migh^ puzzle to her how christening robes, birth- 
day fiocks, and similar contingencies could be got out 
of Hawkins's earnings, till one evening — I befieve it 
was over gin and water — he let out to me that Julia 
Jane had an income. * We don't know exactly how 
it oomes,' said Hawkins. 'Cuttleman and Ca pay 
her twenty-five pounds every quarter-day, and say 
they are bound m honour to t^ nothing about it; 
but old Bright had a brother who disgraced the family 
by floing to sea — ^before the mast, you understand — 
ana never turned up since. That man had a great 
liking for Julia Jane in her infancy, and she believes 
tile money comes from him ; but we think it better not 
to talk of it ; people midbt make misconstructions ; and 
by all accounts, Uncle Bob, as she calls him, would be 
no help to a family's gentility.* I promised strict 
secrecy ; and except whi^ Mrs John did to circulate it 



among her private friends, the story of Cuttleman 
and Ck>.'s transaction was known only to us four who 
had got acquainted in Bright BdUngham's studio, 
and kept up the old friendship in spite of our iar 
diveitting ways. 

I think Carl Werner kept the secret best ; perhaps 
because he was the only bachelor among us. Poor 
Bright's jrrophec^, which had so signally failed con- 
cerning his son-in-law, proved equally wide of the 
mark with regard to him. From the time he com- 
menced business on his own account, Carl worked 
away at the engraving silently and steadily, as he 
used to do, in the comer of the studio, made no 
acquaintances, looked after no young ladies; and if 
he had any amusement except perpetual smoking, 
an occasional trip to the theatre when there was a 
strong tragedy on, and a row up or down the Thames 
with a whenyman whose grandfather had come 
from Germany, no mortal could ^ess what it was. 
He worked, however, and maintained himself with* 
out a farthing from his family. The old ^ntlcman 
in the Baltic trade had not exactly cast him off for 
taking to plates, but he left Carl to work out hia own 
purpose with great philosophy, and sent to Hamburg 
for a nephew to fill the place destined for his son 
in the concern, and probably in his will also. Carl 
worked on, and in process of time it was discovered 
that the pupil whose ne plus ultra was to be wood- 
cuts, could ao line-engraving in first-rate style, could 
give the best paintings to steel and paper, could form 
designs of his own which rejoiced the hearts of all 
who dealt in illustrated books. Carl's reputation 
rose, and so did his returns; but his mode of life 
never varied ; he lived in two second-floor rooms in 
Craven Street, Strand, because the landlady under- 
stood him, and didn't object to smoke ; he wore the 
same looselv-put-on clothes, always rust^) and never 
made in tlie fashion ; he came sometimes to see 
Serle, sometimes to see me, and occasionallv asked us 
to his rooms, where things were wondernilly snug, 
notwithstanding undisturbed dust, and an atmosphere 
compounded of it and tobacco. From Hawkins he 
kept something like distance — we thought for fear of 
the profeesioniu patronage which might be wanted ; 
for Cad was prudent, and understood how to save 
money. We knew he was laying up in some b^k, 
but never could get the sum or purpose of his savings 
out of him : only once, when nc had been worki^ 
some years, Carl gave us to imderstand that the 
amount was considerable, that he had made his will, 
and constituted Serle and myself executors. 

It was not twelve months after that disclosure, at 
which we had both laughed and wondered, when 
Werner was in the midst of a plate which was to 
fix his fame for ever among the print-publishers, 
that he went down to Sheemess with his friend the 
wherryman one rough March day ; and how it hap- 
pened not even the newspapers could tell exactly, 
but the boat was upset in a squall somewhere 
off the Medway. The wherryman and two other 
passengers were picked up by a cutter's boat, but 
Uarl was never seen till some days after, when a 
bargeman found his body floating out to sea. His 
father and family took cnarge of all that concerned 
the funeraL I believe there was some grief among 
them in a quiet GFerman way ; but oerle and U 
being executors, had his will solemnly read by a 
lawyer from Doctors' Commons, and found tnat, 
exclusive of a mouming-rins to each of us, and a 
trifling legacy to hii landlady for understanding 
him and the smoke, the whole of his savings, 
amounting to three thousand pounds, which had been 
gathered out of his plates and des^s through hard- 
working years, and lodged with Cuttleman aad Cou, 
were bequeathed to Mrs Henry Hawkins, formerly 
called Miiss Julia Jane Bellingham, in testimony of 
the friendship and respect entertained for her by her 
father's papiL The testament concluded with a strict 



3V 



346 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



injoncidon to ns to keep his drawings, but destroy all 
we written papers we should find, without allowing 
them to be seen by any eyes but our own. Hie 
drawing, as miffht be expected, were well worth 
preserving, for Carl was a bom artist, and I have 
some of Siem. yet; but the written papers consisted 
entirely of letters in his own hand, and in 
Gcorman; bundle after bundle methodically sealed 
witii his crest; and sH addressed to Madame Carl 
von Werner at half-a-dozen different streets and 
numbers, where we knew my cousin Hawkins had 
encamped; the lat»it being directed to his (ur^sent 
residence, Fihnore Terrace, Kensington. As exe- 
cutors, we had a right to look into that mystery, 
and we did it. Letter after letter was openoid and 
read by us both. There was between Serle and me 
a smattering of Grerman, so we understood enough 
to see that they were all addressed to his beloved 
wife, Julia Jane, who was separated from him by 
what he called the malice of Fate; but they were to 
meet again at some indefinite time and place; and 
more loving, true-hearted letters I never saw. 

' You see he never sent one of them, and she would 
not understand a syllable of them if he had. What a 
strange mode of building his castle in the air,' said 
Sella * I always did thmk that German play wasn't 
recited in the comer for nothing' 

* Was he insane, Serle ? ' said 1. 

' Perhaps he was on that point, but Carl's insanity 
was not of a common kind. We had better bum 
these letters, and say nothing about them.' 

The letters were burned before we left the ro<»n, 
and Mr and Mrs Hawkins never knew anything 
except that she had been left three thousand pounds 
by Carl Werner's wilL Hawkins ever after spoke 
of him as a noble fellow; but his poor little wife, who 
had lived and borne up so well through their days of 
difficulty, sickened and died in the f oltowing autimm ; 
and Henry, after doing the inconsolable for thirteen 
months, nuuried advantageously into the family of a 
successful engrarer, who had thought Carl a rival 
He has since become in a manner successful himself ; 
but the whole Bellingham linesAe daily denounce him 
for not having shared Lady Jane's three thousand 
with them; ai^ Serle and I, when we happen to be 
alone together — ^which family-men cannot often be — 
sometimes talk of those strange letters, and our poor 
friend the married bachelor. 



ANTIQUE GEMS. 

It is a common error to confuse Gema with precious 
stones; whereas gems should signify carved or 
engraved stones omy, such as cameos or intaglios. 
At the coronation of the present Czar at Moscow, the 
Countess of Granville, our ambassadiMr's wife, eclipsed 
the rest of the company — exceedingly rich in jewels 
though the great Russian families are — ^by her magni- 
ficent ornaments, the triumph of art over mere mate- 
rial wealth. Others were in a blaze of diamonds and 
*gliauner of pearls,' but those, however valuable, 
oookL, if lost, be replaced ; while the English lady's 
parure, composed of eighty-eight gems sheeted from 
the best specimens in the Devonshire collection of 
Greek and Roman art, could never be reproduced. 
Mere decoration, however, is the lowest use to which 
these exquisite embodiments of taste and skill can be 
put. The historian and the antiquary are both 
mdebted to them They indestmctiDly {nneserve for 
us, although in miniature, the exact representations of 
the most celebrated works of the ancient sculptors, 
long since destroyed or lost * The Apoxyomenos of 
Calucrates, which was pronounced the ''Canon" or 
model of statuary in bronze, but which, together 
with almost all &e other works in that metu, has 
perished in the times of barbarism, is sdlowed by 
all archseologists to have been the original of the 
famous intSt^o in the Marlborough cabinet, an athlete 



using the strigil, itself also classed amongst the finest 
engraving known. The . ApoUo Belphicoa, too, cozh 
porting his lyre upon the head of a Muse l^ his aide, 
a subject often reproduced without any variation, 
and usually in work of the greatest exceUence, is 
incontestaUy the copy of some very famous and 
highly revered statue m. this deity, then in existence. 
Again, amongst the Mertens-Schaafhausen genm, the 
attention is attracted by a singular design, the aama 
god armed with his bow and arrows in hjs one hand, 
and with the other holding the fore-feet of a stag 
standing «rect ; the whole composition betokanins an 
archaic epoch. There can be small doubt blit that 
this little sard has handed down to us a faithful idea 
of the bronze group by the early statuary Canachns, 
which from its sLo^ularity was accounted the chief 
ornament of the fidymeon at Athens: an Apdllo 
thus holding a sta^ tiie hind-feet of 'vdiich were so 
ingeniously contriv^ by means of springs and hinges 
in the to«, that a thread could be passed between 
them and ihe base on which they recced, a mechani- 
cal tour deforce thought worthy by Pliny of particular 
mention.' 

Gems supply us with pictures of the ussges of 
domestic life amongst the ancients, giving us ai^beii- 
tic details of the forms and construction of innusner- 
able articles used in war, navigation, religious rites, 
the games of the circus and arena, the representations 
of the stage, with the costume, masks, and all other 
accessories of the scenic performance. In a good ool- 
lection of impressions from ancient gems, the student 
will see the various pieces of armour of the ancient 
Greek or Etruscan warrior carefully made out in their 
minutest detuls ; and the obscure subject of the oon- 
struction of the ancient trireme has been princioally 
elucidated by tiie representations thus handed aown 
to our times. The disputed chronology of IJgyptiAn 
histonr has been already to some extent, and will 
doubtiess be yet more fully made out by the aid of 
the numerous scarabei and tablets bearing the nsDoes 
and titles of the kings, whenever a more satisfaotnay 
mode of interpretinjg their hierogl3mhical legends, 
than the present conjectural method, shall have been 
disooverea. 

Surely, then, the study of Antique Gems is not to 
be one despised, or set down in the finical compaay 
of Genealogv, Heraldry, or the Art of Illumination. 
It seems, i^leed, to be peculiarly fitted for one whose 
life is passed in lettered ease, and we are mnch 
indebted to Mr King, of Trinity College, Cambri^ 
for his admirable exposition of the matter.* Si* 
enthusiasm was, of course, ready laid, like a hause* 
maid's fire, for such a pursuit, and has increased with 
application, or he could never have set about, aadfv 
less completed, so large and interesting a volume oat 
of such materials^ A hack writer could not have 
rendered the subject readable, even if he himself so^ 
vived the compilation ; but with our author it is * 
labour of love, and he goes about it as thonigh he 
were composing something in praise of his mistress. 
He does not b&eve it to oe in the power of Time or 
Chance to hurt his favourites. 'Once a capt s in» 
always a captain,' he applies to all gems, no matter 
how ancient. He protests that the breastplates wont 
by the Jewish hi^-priests — ^the earliest instrft»s^ <ml 
record of the art of the gem-engraver — are still 
shining somewhere. 

'It will sound incredible to the ear of the uninitiated, 
but every^ one conversant with the nature of gems 
will admit that these most venerable productioDS of 
the glyptic art must Ml be in existence. No lapse of 
time produces any sensible effect upon these monuments, 
as is testified by the numerous seals even in a so£ter 
material, vitrified clay, bearing the name of Thothmes 
IIL, the contemporary of Moses himself. Their 

* Antiqiu Oemt. By the ReT. C. W. Kinfr, Fellow of Mnltf 
GoUeffe, Cambridge. John Murrajr, Albcmftiie Street. 



CHJLMBER8*S JOURNAL. 



347 



intrinsic Tshie also, as the finest gems that eonld be 
prooured by the seal of a race trafficking all over 
the world, must have rendered them objects of care 
to all the oonqaerors into whose hands they fell, and 
though removed from their <»iginal vestments, and 
reset in various ornaments, they must have always 
ranked amongst the most precious state jewels of the 
captor of the Holy City. This doubtless was the 
cause that the breastplate bdonging to the first 
temple is not mentioned in the li^ Si articles sent 
back by Qyrus to Jerusalem. The breastplate in use 
after toe captivity, and described by Josephus, was 
carried to Rome, toother with the other spoils of the 
temple. Of the subsequent fate of these treasures, 
the more probable account is, that they were trans- 
ferred to Uonstantinople, and deposited by Justinian 
in i^ sacristy of Santa Sophia. Hence, there is a 
chance of the gems emergins from oblivion at no 
distant dajr, when the " Sick Man's " treasuiy shall be 
rummaged ! What a day of rejoicing both to ardue- 
ologists and to the religious world will the identifica- 
tion of one of these sacred monuments occasion ; a 
contingency by no means to be thought chimerical 
in an age which has witnessed the resuscitation of 
Sennacherib's signet [of which a woodcut is given], 
of his drinking-cup, and of his wife's portrait.' 

Qems of considerable antiquity are still extant, with 
legends in the Rabbinical Hebrew character ; as also 
huge gold rings with inscriptions on the shank, used 
at the celebration of the marriage-ceremony. 

Conoeming ^e materials used by the gem-engraver, 
we find the following interesting particulars. The 
camelian, and its superior vtoiety the sard, has tiie 
first plaoe, as the stone most commonly used, and the 
best adapted for the work. The most ancient in- 
taeUos, such as the Etruscan and Egyptian, are cut on 
red camelians. The sard is a finer variety, tougher, 
more easily worked, and susceptible of a nigher and 
more enduring polish. The name is derived from 
Siuxlis, whence they were first imported into Greece. 
Chalcedony is called white cameliim by our lapidaries. 
Next to the sards rank the onyx, sardonyx, nicolo, 
and agate. The sardonyx is a white opaque layer, 
superimposed npon a red transparent stratum of 
true red sard The common onyx has two opaque 
layers of different colours, usually in strong contrast 
to each other, as red and white, green and white. 
1310 agate is of the same substance as the onyx, but 
the layers are wavy, and often concentric The nicolo 
is an abbreviation of the Italian anicolo, a little onyx. 

Jaspers were the aeal-atones, par eminence, amonj^ 
the Romans. Pliny distinguishes several varieties, 
the best with a purple, the more common with an 
emerald tinge. The spotted variety, called blood- 
stone, anciently bore the name of heliotrope, or sun- 
turner, from the notion that if immersed in water, 
it reflected an ima^e of the sun as red as blood. 
€kurnets were favourite stones with the Romans, as 
also ^e Persians ; and from the frequency with which 
portraits of the Sassanian monarclis appear enspraved 
on this gem, it would seem to have been regarded by the 
later Persians as a royal stone. The carbuncle, which 
is a deep red variety, is alwajrs cut in ' cabochon.' 

That the emerald and ruby should yield to the 
engraver's skill may seem to the unlearned in these 
mstterB somewhat surprising; Mr King, however, 
mentions some fine examples of both. Perhaps one of 
the most curious stories ever told about a gem, is one 
related by Herodotus concerning the emerald sienet 
of Polycrates, the work of Theodorus of Samoa. R)ly- 
crates was on tenns of close friendship with Am a ais , 
king of Egypt, but his power increased so greatly, 
anfhe was so uniformly successful in his enterprises, 
that his friend Amasis wrote to warn him not to 
incur the jealousy of the gods, but to avert it by 
casting away voluntarily that thing the loss of which 
would most pain his souL Polycrates, having read 
the letter, ana conceiving that Amasis had given him 



eood advice, began to consider which of his valnablei 
he should most grieve to lose, and this, he decided, was 
his favourite emerald signet He aooordingly manned a 
fifty-oar galley, went on board, and ordered it to be put 
out to sea ; and when at a considerable distance from the 
island, he took off the signet, and cast it into the sea. 
This done, he returned, and grieved over the loss as a 
great misfortune. But some six da,yn after, a fisher- 
man having cau^t an exceedingly fine fish, carries 
it up to the palace, as a present to Polycrates ; when, 
lo ! upon the servants opening the wi, they find in 
its belly the seal of their master. He, deeming the 
event superhuman, wrote an account of it to his 
friend Amasis, who straightway sent a herald to Samos, 
to renounce the ^iendship c^ a man who was thus 
over-fartunatef and alleging as the reason, that if some 
dresdful calamity at last befel Polycrates, he mi^t 
not himself be grieved for him as a friend. Mr Kins 
mentions a sardonyx shewn in Pliny^s time, ana 
pretended to be this famous signet, but he is decided 
m his behef that the signet was an emerald, and as 
precious for the work of the artist as its own intrinsio 
value. Perhaps this stone also will turn up in the 
ransack of the sultan's treasury. 

As another instance of a remarkable emerald intaglio, 
may be mentioned the one said to have been engraved 
with the head of the Saviour, by command of the 
Emperor Tiberius, who desired to see the portrait of 
so ramous a person. Engravings, pretended to be 
copies of this gem, are not uncommon, and they give 
a mild but weiuc expression to the countenance, with 
a shelving forehead.* Smaragdus, the ancient name 
of the emerald, is a Greek corruption of the Sanscrit 
Smarakata. Gem-ensravers were said to relieve their 
si^t, when wearied by over-exertion, by looking at 
an emerald, so effectually does its mild green ItuBrtre 
refresh the eye. The hyacinthus was identical with 
our sapphire. The diamond has never been engraved ; 
in fact, the art of cutting and polishing this gem was 
only diiscovered in the hfteentn centiuy by Louis de 
Berghem, and the first ever cut by him was a large 
one, weighing fifty-five carats, beloncing to Charles 
the Bol^ BiSi now known as the Sancy Diamond. 
The following is told of a famous sard signet in the 
Paris collection. ' In the last century, as the Abb6 
Barthelemy was exhibiting the rarities of the Bib* 
lioth^que to a distinguished antiquary of the day, 
he suddenly missed this ring, whereupon, without 
expressing his suspicions, he privately despatched 
a servant for an emetic, which, when brought, he 
insisted on the antiquary's swallowing then and 
there. In a few minutes, he had the satisfaction of 
hearing the signet tinkle in the basin held before the 
unhicky victim to the love of antiquities.' Poljrcrates 
himself could not have been more disconceited by 
the return of his gem from the deep, into which, for 
a very different purpose, he had cast it. 

It would appear that nature herself sometimei 
anticipates and outdoes the skill of the engraver. 
The asate of King Pyrrhus was said to have been 
marked naturally so as to represent Apollo holding 
the lyre, and surrounded by the nine Muses, each 
with her appropriate attribute. Agates occur at 
the present day marked with figures which it seems 
almost impossible to ascribe Ut a mere freak of 
nature. Amongst tJiose in the British Museum is 
one representing the head of Chaucer covered with 
the hood, as in his well-known portrait, the resem- 
blance of which is most extraorainary ; and yet the 
pebble is evidently in its original state, not even 
polished, but merely broken in two. But in most 
of these ' nature-pamtings,' the natural veins and 
shadinsB of the stone have been probably much 
assisted by the imagination of the beholder. 

K nature, however, imitates art, art has not been 

y ■ ■ ■ I M I ■ ■ M-^ 

• Intaglios representing purely Christian subjects are of tho 
rarest possible ocearrenoe in wM'ks of real antiqoitj. 



L 



348 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



slow in repaying the polite attention. It is almost 
impossible for any one not * a scholar and a gentle- 
man,' as well as a lapidary and a man of taste, to tell 
whether the thing offered to him as an antique gem 
is genuine or not. The devices used to entrap, not 
the unwaiy, but the most sa^;aciou8, are well-nigh 
numberless. Beside the execution of tiie gems, which 
is at least as difficult a thing to estimate as that of 
a painting, the precious stones themselves have from 
very early times been imitated. Crystal, heated and 
plunged into a tincture of cochineal, becomes a ruby, 
and mto a mixture of tiurnesole and saffron, a sap- 
phire; while the carbimcle of ancient times, as of 
to-day, was made out of the same comparatively 
cheap substance. The crystal being cut to the proper 
form, its back is painted the required colour, and 
then it is set in a piece of jewellery. To baffle this, 
in the case of the chrysolithus, Pliny expressly 
mentions that the stone was set open. * Although the 
Roman jewellers made false jaspers of three colours 
by cementing as many slices of different stones 
together, and hence its name TerebinU^zusa, they do 
not seem to have been acquainted with doublets, the 
favourite device of the modem trade, by which a 
thin slice of real stone is backed by a facetted cm- 
tal, and then so set as to conceal the junction. The 
ancient frauds in coloured stones were entirely con- 
fined to the substitution of pastes for the true, to 
detect which Pliny lays down many rules — some 
fanciful enough, but containing one that is infallible, 
that by means of a splinter ol obsidian, a paste mav 
be scratched, but not a real stone.' After sud^ 
ingenious frauds as these, the Cingalese, who cut 
such very fine emeralds out of the thick bottoms of 
our wine-bottles, to sell to the 'steamboat gentle- 
mans,' may be considered to be quite unsophisti- 
cated; as also the Brighton lapidaries, who calst old 
r fragments into the sea, which the attrition of 
shingle soon converts into the form of real 
pebbles. 'These tradesmen,' as Mr King wittily 
observes, *do literally cast their bread into the 
water, and find it again after many days.' We 
rather suspect that the eye is not greatly refrrahed by 
the contemplation of the Brighton emendds, and that 
even * if engraved with the figure of a beetle,' tiiey 
would not be very * advantageous to persons having 
suits to monarchs, as Pliny says the magicians of his 
time declared emeralds to be. The amethyst, as its 
name implies, was supposed to prevent intoxication, 
and was therefore iuA^uable set in a ring, and worn 
at supper-parties. The ruby, being powdered, and 
taken m water, was a certain though expensive cure 
' for liver compUunts, as well as a most trustworthy 
lightning-conductor. The chrysolite, bored tlm>ugh, 
and strung on an ass's hair, was capital for expellmg 
devils. But the amber had the most excellent though 
dangerous qualities, for if laid upon your wife when 
she was asleep, she woidd confess to certain pecca- 
dillos, which it was not likely you would have 
otherwise got out of her. 

Mr King tells vta that the Egyptian scarabei, or 
' beetle-stones,' are the earliest monuments of the 
slyptic art in existence. The beetles are cut out of 
Basalt, camelian, agate, lapis-lazuli, and other hard 
stones, but are as fraijuently made of a soft limestone, 
or of a vitrified clay, the harder stones appearing to 
have been JUed into shape by means of a piece of 
emeiy. The softer substances were probably fiudiioned 
into the beetles, and then engraved!^ with a splinter of 
fiint ; for Herodotus speaks of the Ethiopian arrows 
being headed with the stone by means of which they 
engrave their signets. The earliest method of 
wearing them was that of simply stringing them inter- 
mixed with other beads, as a neckla^ Sie engraved 
base of the scarab serving at ^e same time the 
purpose of a signet. The Assyrian and Persian 
cylinders were smiilarly pierced with a large hole 
passing through their length, for a sfaing, and in this 



manner worn round the wrist as a bracelet The 
discovery of the process of cutting intaglios on tiie 
harder gems is due to the Assyrians. 

Concerning the signets mentioned in the Old Testa- 
ment, Mr Kmg observes that ' it is always as being 
borne on the hand, and never on the finger. Thus, 
Tamar demands the seal and twisted cord (chotam 
and pethil), usually rendered "ring," "signet," or 
"bracelet:" again, Pharaoh takes the signet off his 
own hand, and puts it upon that of Joseph: thus, 
also, the expression, " the sisnet upon my right hand : " 
thus, too, the young Amalekite brings to David, as 
the ensigns of royalty, the diadem and the bracelet 
taken from the corpse of Saul, apparently because the 
latter contained the royal signet. Pliny also expressly 
asserts that the use of finger-rings was of no very 
great antiquity. A curious kind of natural dgaet 
was used by the Athenians of the time of Aristophimes, 
the invention of which he jocosely ascribes to the 
subtle genius of the misogynist Euripides. As it was 
found tiiat the wives were able to get themselves a 
fac-simile of their husbands' signet for half a drachma, 
and thus to ox)en, without fear of detection, all the 
stores sealed up by their lords, Euripides had taught 
the latter to seal the wax or day securing the doors 
with bits of worm-eaten tcood. The curious windings 
and intricate curves traced on the surface of the womI 
by the "fairies' coach-maker," were quite beyond 
imitation, and supplied a signet that could not be 
counterfeited.' 

With that hint to husbands, we must leave this 
volume of Mr King's, who has skilfully contrived to 
popularise, without degrading, a subject not only 
* caviare to the multitude ' (which is but little to say 
when caviare can be got in Piccadilly for a shilling per 
pot), but one especiafiy dull and unattractive to their 
eyes. 



POND-FISHING. 

Your grand salmon-killers turn up their noses at us, 
but we don't care. Look at those little boys coming 
home in full chatter after a half-holiday's oatdung \ 
sticklebacks. Most of their game, it is true, died, 
from having been handed about too long for inspec- 
tion — ^they have got one alive in a physic bottle, 
poor little beast! as much perplexed as a meimaid 
would be in a water-butt — but its captors are happy 
as Scropc when he shot his biggest stag. Don't those 
boys recall your days of triumph when you caug^ 
sticklebacks ? — when you took a worm, tied him romid 
the waist with a thread, and let him down into the 
middle of a shoal? Didn't they bite, one at each 
end ? It was not so much a bite, though, as a shaBSfr- 
less gobble. Often the worm, excusably eoougfa, 
threw them off when they had got half an inch of 
him stowed away inside; but your stickleback is a 
bold feeder, and soon gets over a check. One at 
each end, the rest fussing about, and trying to help, 
the two lucky fellows persevere, and swallow on tOl 
their noses meet in the midst ; then you gently lift 
them out, and draw them off their dinners, the wonn 
doing the same service over and over again, till he 
grows limp and white. 

From these early essays, to the finished diplomacy 
employed with shy, heavy carp, Pond-fishing has held 
its own as the favourite pursuit of thonsandB. Look 
at the floats in the tackle-shops, where a Tarmshed 
pike swims in mid air, like Mohammed's ooiBn 
between heaven and earth. Look at the floats I 
say — fat, tapering, transparent. Do not they recall 
pleasant visions of the days you spent by the weedly 
moat, where the water-hen crept under the hoQow 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



349 



bank, and the diagon-fly sat upon the bidrush ; of the 
dark hole beneath the inllow, where the conscious cork 
made circles in the still water, and then sailed side- 
ways off, or sank with unet^uivocal decision ? Talk of 
the small skill needed in this humble sport. I should 
like to see a deer-stalker catch moles. No, no ! We 
ffrant yon all the respect you ask, ye fly-fishers ; but 
do not suppose every tench caught with a float is a 
fool, or that it is easy to fix a hook in his leather 
jaws, because you hide it with a worm instead of a 
hackle. Id the first place, worms are not all alike ; 
and if you will listen for a minute, I will tell you how 
best to provide this first essential in pond-fishing. 
Take a spade, you supjxise. No such thin^. Wait for 
a clear dewy night, and then, provided with a candle 
and a pot of moss, step quietly on to the lawn ; there, 
as you hold the flame low down, you will see the 
subterraneous population of the soil taking the air. 
Witii the tip of his tail left inside his door, Mr Worm 
stretches himself out at full length in the cool wet 
grass. Some, you see, are large, coarse, and dark ; let 
them lie ; they might be of use, if you wanted to catch 
eels, but to other fish thc^ offer small temptation. 
Look again : there is a superior animal, made altogether 
of finer clay, and quickened with purer blood. Notice 
his form— head elongated, tail flat, colour pinky, with 
a da^ line running down his back. Pick him up ; he 
is tiie right sort. Y es, I thought so. You laid hold of 
his head, and he slipped through your fingers quick as 
thought, back into his hole. No — press his tail first 
just where it dips into the ground ; then gently taking 
mm by the body, he will lose his presence of mind 
and gripe of his threshold at the same time, and come 
up easily enough. There ; put him in the moss, 
and go on. Thus himdreds may be taken. But 
mind you don^t stump about like Rumple Stilkskin, 
or you will jar the ground, and frighten the 
worms back into their holes before they can be 
touched. 

To-morrow we will try for some tench. 

Which way is the wind ? East. Then you might as 
well fiidi ^'ith a bare boot-hook, for not a flh wm you 
touch. No, not east — south-west Ah, well! then 
we win try ; but I fear the sky is too bright, even 
though the wind is in the right quarter. What I like 
to see is a soft gray und^flight of clouds sUpping 
slowly along; or a warm rain; or a mass piling up 
ammunition for a thunder-storm, while the horses 
stand head to tail beneath the chestnuts, with mutual 
civility, whisking off the flics, and pounding the dusty 
gr&aa. No ; the Saj will be too bright — the sun reigns ; 
the hot shimmer rises from the heated soil, making 
the hedges tremble, as though quivering with wind ; 
the mown hayfield is slippery beneath the soles of 
^our shoes, and the grasshoppers raise their strident 
duxus as you brush them up "^^-ith your feet. No 
liahing to-day — we will look over the tackle, and try 
in the evening. 

. What line have you got ? Ah ! it is as well we didn*t 
start at present. Just add three or four more lengths 
of gut; and, please observe, don't try to tie Ihem 
together when they are dry, or they wUl crack. Put 
them into your mouth, if you have no water handy. 
See how I manage it. Now that the gut is soft and 
limp, I tie the end of one piece simply on to the other, 
in a common knot ; then I tie the end of the second 
piece on to the first in the same manner ; then I pull 
the two free ends till the knots slip along and catch 
against each other. Fastened in this way, gut will 
neither fray nor part. 

Now for the rod! Yes, that will do — lon^, light, 
stiff in the hand, supple at the point, with rmgs not 
hannng loose, but fixed, and laige enough to let, if 
neea be, a kink in the line pass through. In the 
evening, we will try our luck. 

What shall we do meanwhile, do you say ? Ground- 
bait ? O no ; not for tench ; nor often, indeed, for 
any fish. I remember a friend of mine who was 



promised a day's sport in a piece of ornamental water. 
He threw in store of br^td and clay, mingled in 
orthodox proportion ; and coming the next morning to 
the si>ot with rod, gaff, and creel, found a dozen 
ducks with their ends up, full of glee and his ground- 
bait. If you like, you may take my casting-net down 
to the mill, and try for a few of those dace : we want 
some bait for Jack. 

Now it is past tax o'clock, and we must be off See, 
the horses have left the shade, and the cows are 
licking up the cool grass in the middle of the meadow. 
It is feeding-time, and the tench will be sharp set 

Here is the pond, an old clay-pit, with crumbling 
sides, and clear spots among the weeds, shewing 
where the water is the deepest — ^just the place for 
tench. Now, then ; put your rod together, and leave a 
good length of gut beneath the float Bait with one 
of those clear-complexioned worms you found upon 
the grass-plot Yes, put a big one on — parvum parva 
decent — and with shortened line, lower him gently by 
that patch of weeds. There let the float rest, and do 
not be in a hurry to strike when you see it move. 

Bustling men, who cannot work and wait, may 
sneer if they will at the silent patience of the angler ; 
what know they of the still charm which creeps over 
the senses, helping them to take in with half-uncon- 
scious appetite the blessed influence of evening, when 
the coolness of the earth meets the sinking fire of 
the sunbeam, and sends an equal pulse of life through 
eveiy blade and leaf. Then the watcher who stands 
beside the ])ool receives into his being that calm 
which marks the brethren of his craft He is angling, 
it is true ; he speculates on the indecision of the fish, 
which — maybe even now deep in the cool water — are 
circling witn suspicious hunger round his bait, loath 
to sw^ow, still more loath to leave, the luscious 
worm. Yet, meanwhile, he gathers in, through open 
senses, store of nature's truth; he sees and marks, 
with tenacious observation, countless traits of life — 
the persevering industry of the insect, the sociable 
intelligence ot the bird, the short history of the 
summer plant, the steady progress of the growing 
tree, the shifting architecture of the clouds, the 
ceaseless machinery of all around that dies to live 
and lives to die in perpetual succession. But, look ! 
there is a bite. See, the float is uneasy — makes 
little rin^ in the water. Now it moves slowly off — 
now it dips a <]^uarter of an inch — now it rises up, and 
lies upon its side : that is sure symptom of a tench. 
Draw in your slack line, lest you nit your rod against 
that overhanging branch. Now, stnke! Yes, you 
have him ; he is a fine fellow too. See how he rolls 
the water up with his tail, like the blade of a revolv- 
ing screw; down again, head first! Give him play, 
but by all means keep him in the midst of that dear 
spot Ah ! he is yielding to the, to him, mysterious 
power from above. Another last dive, and then he 
can barely keep his head below the surface. Be 
quick, but gentle, with the landing-net ; tow him 
within its open mouth. There ; he is safe — at least 
in our view of his position. No, poor fellow, that 
muscular curving of your strong back is of no use to 
you in the new element to which you are trans- 
ferred ; your slimy life among the weeds is over now; 
you have swallowed your last mouthful, and must 
play an altogether passive part throughout your next 
appearance at a feast Tench are best plain boiled ; 
carp are only vehicles for sauce. I remember once, 
when the evenings were warm, catching a number of 
tench long after suns6t Every fish in the pond was 
awake ; you could hear them * kissing,* for the tench 
makes a small smacking noise with his coy little mouth, 

i'ust like that of a neat kiss— you could hear them 
dssing in the weeds by the dozen together. It was 
too d^k to distinguish the float, so I shortened my 
line, let the bait hang about a foot beneath the 
surface, and landed a g^>d basketfid. 
Though tench generally .need careful fishing, they 



iuo 



OHAHBBRS^ JOURNAL. 



win mnetimM bite in scenes of coDsiderable pablicrty. 
When a lad, I used to go every year aJong wrtJi a large 
party, all boyii, old and young, to a trig pond about 
tweivo milGB off, which wan crowded wi^ Bmall perch. 
We JUhed from a boa.t. that beld about a score 
of UB. O ailent bLdJo of Izaok Walton I the craft, 
when equiii^icd. vaa a perfect Bcare-fish, combining 
cFcry ftjipeanince luid moviunctit most likely to terrify 
tho giime. What with the rocking of tbe boat— the 
Bcramblicg over the Reati — the sboutinft and Bi^oallin^ 
to tlioee on shore — tho luccssuit splashing of fat 
fliiata, red, yellow, blue— and oecasionai recovery of 
the npper half of a rod iliine bodily into the water— 
the paddling vrith our huidii over the aide, and the 
throwing in of Bcrapa of aaadwiob- paper and empty 
bottles, the thing kept up as mnch diBCorlMuice as an 
eioht-oar in a tit. 

But still, if the weather proved very soft and pro- 
pitioua, we used to catch a number of eager little 
perch ; and now and tJien, strait^ tfl say, a biggiah 
tench. On those memorable occasions, all the reet 
ti'ok in their rods, and let the fiHtnuata prize- 
holder play his flah; bnt. directly he was landed, or 
boated, in went the nineteen doata over the lucky 
spot at which he had beea hooked. I need not say 
wc never caught two running. 

Tbe carp ia the shyest of all poud-fish. and requires 
both fine tackle and careful approach. Strange as it 
may seem, even in places where they arc acciiatomed 
to human society— aa in a moat aivund a farmhooae 
—they distinguiah and snapeet the angler. He mnrt 
not only lish for them very early in tho morning, 
but conceal himself while he does bo. Creep up 
behind a bush ; then with > short line and anobtnmve 
float, run your rod quietly out over the bank, and 
lower your bait without lUsturbanee. lliere ; your 
hook IS neatly covered with a lump of tough, well- 
kneaded paate, and you have stuck a freah gentle on 
its point. The float stands motionless ap, reflected 
double, without any stack line hanging in the water. 

It is a Jime morning, and very early, for the 
distant church-clock has just struck three. Man Is 
asleep, breathing the loaded air of close chamben, 
his grimy chin and tumbled hiur sunk deep in the 
Bnfibcating pillow. Meanwhile, nature ia awake; while 
you CToach behind your ombiish on the moat's bank, 
or stand like a riHeman behind that [loiiard willow, 
yon hear the lark singing ae be mounts to meet thii 
sun. See, there is a thrush with a snail in his bill ; 
he is looking for a stone on which to crack his break- 
fast. Ah, that will salt ', How he whacks tbe shell 
upon it I pausing every now and then to catch a 
tighter grip of its writhing inmate. Miserable snail ! 
— your armour mil soon be all chipped off, and yon 
will have to elide, naked, down your captor's throat. 
Any one can (ind many of these sacrilicial spots at 
the edge of a coppice where thnisIieB abound, shining 
as if smeared with gum, bnt with numerous fragments 
of Buail.slicU littered about, and bearing wituoss to 
tho nature of the vanuah with which the stone ia 
covered. Look, too. at the ants — hunying about with 
lots of bajgpige. like railway.portara hve minutes 
before the eipre^ starts : how those pupie manage to 
survive such apparently rough and incessant shifting, 
slwajiB anipriaa me. Look, too, at the Bwallona and 
martms, breakfaatiDg off the meadow, shaving the 
grass tops, and whipping up a monthfol at a time, 
thirty mdes on hour. The rooks, aov — I aln-ays feel 
an especial respect for them, they have so much of 
the good old.foahioned country-gentleman air abont 
them — sec what a pleasant conversational meat l}ury 
we. making meanwhiio in that soft, ucwly ploughed 
field. But we must be looking after our carp. Ah ! 
I thought we had proviiltd the right victual even for 
those dainty aristocratic palates, and they have not 
found OS out, not yet at lenat. Keep low behind the 
Lii<di— watch yr>ur float^seo how steadily it sweeps 
it divel. Yes, a fine flah 1 declare. 



Liiflh— watch ynar 
cff— how steady it 



sleepers, who by this time have shaved, and ci 
down smug and brisk, 'perhaps you won't' breaktast 
yotu^elf, as yoimg Bailey says in Martin Chii::dtttii, 
' perhaps not ; O no." 



TWO DAYS AT CANTON. 

Last Thnraday, May 30, Captain K and I set o3 

precisely at S A. H. from Hongkong port for Canton 
The steamer by which we were conveyed was t' 
stoties bigb, and very comfortably fitted np. We hul 
a long passage for so good a boat, not reaching Caatoa 
titt 8 F.U., thongh the distance Erom Hong-kongialmt 
too miles ; but we had a tide of serven knots an famr 
Bgaiust UB all the way. 1 can say nothing of scenery, 
as we bad rain and fog alt day. 

As we came to anchor, the rush of boats slongsiiJs 
was dreadful; they smashed and crashed each other 
horribly, and being managed by ivomen, the shontiag 
and talking were not a titttr., in a language stiange aad 
immusicaL Every boat had its lantern waving about 
on the end of a long pole. They are the best nver- 
boats I have ever seen, beautifully kqit, each 
hnving its little joss-honse or temple, eitting-rooiii, 
and kitchen. The Chinese are veiy fond of pictana 
—-every boat is full of them. In Uie boat I wu in, 
I was struck by seeing one of the battle of Waterim, 
and next to it another of ttte ei^e of Ksngcwa. 
Tbe boat-women dress very neatly, and get np their 
long black hair in a wonderful and elaborate QUnaer. 
In these boats, there is a small place in front for 
two rowers, and a place behind for a person to stall 
and steer with a long oar ; even the largest juaki we 
these, which are worked by a number of men. The 
t>oat- population of Canton — of jietaans who lint eilinl|l 
on tlie river — is estimated at 100,000 ; the populatioBof 
the fnwn itself at 2,000,000. 

We soon reached our destination — the house nf s 
Mr Scott, a merchant, a very kind and bosptable 
gentleman. Hei'e we were so fortunate as to i 
the Kcv. Mr Gray, who has resided ten year 
China, and devoted ail his energies to the study of i 
the language of the Chinese, their manners, lawa, lad 
religion. This gentleman— a most dcli^^tful onn- 
paninn— very kindly offered to be our guide throng 
Canton. He first called onr attention to the lodpnj!- 
house boats on the river, in which Chinese travdlen 
stop, for the bo3t-po]m1ation is quite distinct from tint 
of the land, and has very little to do with iL We 
walked through the niJiia of what bad onoe beea 
English factories, but destroyed by the Chinese in 
IS.'iC ; they wem in the outer town, a place of vMt 
extent, but not cafled ' the city,' being ontside the 
walls of Canton, inside whereof, a few years ago, no 
European was admitted ; but which ia now palloted 
by the presence of every sort of western liarbarian, or 
the Red-handed race, as the Clmusc call them. We 
visited the temple called Paj.ti-mnainan ; the ddttei 
there axv a snake and six turtles. We had only the 
honour of seeing the god's skin, which he had just 
cost. This serpent is supposed by the people to be 
the evil spirit ; as such, they pmy to it, and make 
it offerings of eggs and birds. In the gardens was a 
tree, in which were placed two figures, a nan and 
woman, said to represent tbe litst created liumso 
beiDgs. The six turtles were placed in a t«nk, and 



OHAHBBRS'8 JOURNAL. 



■In wonhipped na evil apirita We mjoytcl the 
intencting nght nf aceing tbcm fed. A tablet in tbii 
temple coot&ined nn inemptioii, wMch the Rer. Mr 
Gmy tmulated for us n^l; aa follows : ' Two cous- 
ioi had a dispute about » large property, wliiuK was 
settled in favour of hira whose cUim wsa onjust by 
the muulariD of the diitrict, bribery and corraptian 
haviog been tued. The imattcceraEol coumn. kcowiiig 
this, went to Petin to petition the emperor ; ho 
Sonndad the petitiooer'a truiapet, which nlwiys Imaga 
at the gnte of the palace, and was admitted, liat-iog 
iint received a certain ruik, without which no one 
con ester the emperor's presence. He looked on him 
with a favourable eye, reatored to him his property, 
ciittiDg off the heads of l>oth cousin and wanilarin. 
The ^Aitioner, on retuminj; to his native i-ity of 
Canton, erecttd tbia tablet to eomnicmorate the 
jofltioo and virtue of the emperor.' 

The Btrects of Canton are all very narrow ; and 
when you stand at one end, and look down, yeu 
see nothing bnt a vista of Chmeie Bignboards, which 
they hang end-ways down each side of the sliop. 
We went through the dog-and-eat market, where 
they are first fattened, like fowl with us, and then 
dressed in various ways. Mr Gray pointed to a very 
nice-looking skinned animal which was for sale in u 
shop, and eaid to mc : ' What i^ that?' I replied at 
once : ' A young pig,' He pointed to the feet ) then 
I law it was a (log ! In tlie sune shop, they were 
ponnding up a miii^uro of cat and dog into a sort of 
pudding. As for fro^ and rats, they were as common 
an poeaiiilo -, but the shops and articles of food were so 
clean and nice-looking, I think I could have eaten 
anything I taw. 

AiUni following Mr Gray at a giiiek trot through 
the naiinw streets, the Chinese taking very litflu 
notice oS us, eicept to salute with a frequent ' Chin, 
Chin,' wo turned into a gnmbling-honee, which was 
full of Chinese playinc in a moat eager manner foe- 
great piles of Cffit*. which, cnrioos to say, is the only 
coin known in Cliina, being a square piece of brass 
with > hole in the centre, by which tbey are slniug. 
The Chinese ore dreadful gomblere. particularly the 
lodiea. They manage by sending their Barvant to " 
' '■ -house for a paper, on which is marked 



a certain number of Uiesc Sgures. The owner of the 
gambling- house haa followed the same plan with 
a predsely simiinr tard. The next day, the lady 
BeDda in ber cord ; if the figures marked off corrc- 
apond, the tady loses ; and for every figure which does 
not. she receives a certain amount 

The Chinese bring tlieir religion into everything 
they do, never undertaking anything without lirst 
invoking the direction of some god 

We visited the private house of one of the grcati^st 
men in Canton, Howijua by name — with whose fnmoiia 
' Mixture ' every English rcmler is acquainted. We 
(lid not see the great man. but were introduced i« 
his BOD, and had the pleosim? of taking tea with 
him in very small china cups. The room in which 
wo were was not nnliko an English -room, with 
tables and chairs, and Chinese piutnrts on the 
traUa. We wore shewn round an extremely pretty 
garden ; a bridge thrown over some water JookM 
the original of tiiat on the old wilJow-pattem plate. 
The lionsc wns very large, and built, like oil Chinese 
house*, with that peculiar roof yon know so wclL A 
Kentjemon'a house in China is always of great size, 
for when a son marrioB, he is expcctei] to live with 
his father for at least five years afterwords. 

We were introduced to the tutor and painter of the 
family, far Bowqua kept bim chiefly to paint for the 
amnwment of tho ladiea. When we saw bim he 
vaa painting oiquisitely bmntiful flowers. On taking 



It is a 



we said 'Chin, Chin,' and our bos 
which was tho whole extent of onr Ch 
his Fjiglinb 

We then visited what wns indeed a 



destitute and sick, where 
they receive oveiy morning medical attendance. It is 
the only attempt at a hospital in Canton, 

We ealled at a government public scbool, but it was 
not sehool-hoiu-, so we only saw a few young fellows, 
who looked at us with astonishment. The principal 
large hall, with rough tables and oenchcs, 
and tbc pnifesaor's choir at the top. In the adjoining 
college we were introduced to the most learned man 
in Canton. Mr Oray had some converaation with 
bim ; but as for nH, we could only look on and say the 
nsnal 'Chin. Chin.' Leaving this teamed gentleman, 
we looked in at the Tea GuilderB' Hall, said to be 
the prettiest building in China. It is a favmirite 

Jace for theatricals, of which the Chinese are very 

□nd, and call them ' Brng-song.' 

Wo next paid our rea])ccta to a great Chinese 
doctor, the • Sir Philip Cnunpton ' ot Canton. The 
entire front of bia hoiise was covered wiHi testimonials 
which he h.td received for great cores he had effected ; 
go also were the walls of the room in which he 
received na. I forget his name; bat he was a fat, 
plesaant-looking old fellow ; with a remarkably fine 

' ' 3. and very long naiis. When he heard I 
jed to his profcamon, he paid me great respect, 
and took my band, holding it in a most affectionate 
manner. Our visit. 1 am sorry to say, was a very 
hurried one, sa we had DO time ti> spare ; biitlbelicve 
we saw more in that one day— thanks to Mr Gray— 
than many have seen in weeks. 

Next day, we renewed our inspection of Canton, and 

C'd our respecta to a lady-abbess; for lie Chinese 
re institutions very lite convenla, in which young 
ladies devote themselves to religion and a single life. 
Near this, we entered a house where they were 
mourning for the dead. Everything was covered with 
black — pictnres, furniture. £c ; and nnmerous lights 
were burning round the body, so as to remind me of 
au Irish wake. Tlie relatives change tbeir dresses d 
silk for garments of a very coarse material, which is 
a token of mourning. They have a cnriooa practice 
of dressing up the dying person in his most gorge 
apparel, so that few Chmcsc die in peace, for as Si 
as they imagine he is near his end. they moke a rush 
to get on his finest clothes before he dies ; in fact, the 
poor patient often dies in the act. In this way, many 
a man's hfo is Hbortened, who, if left to himself 
mieht have ovon recovered. 

We entered an eating-house, which seemed c 
ducted very much liko one of those in the Strand, 
and quite as clean, the only difference being the use 
of chop-sticks, of which I botij^t a pair. Close bedde 
it was a tea-house, and the scene which met my eyes 
was deeply interesting. Wc entered a very long 
room, bMntifully got up in ereen and gold carved 
work. Down each side of this room wtw a row of 
small tables, at which were seated a couple of hundred 
Chine**, jiartaking of tea and cake. The first thing 
that strnck me was that they were allponr men ; and 
next, the little noiae and good oriler of everything — 
tho wjutera. indeed, were running about receiving 
payment, and there was a buzz of many voices, but 
no loud tones or angry words ; and as I stood and 
looked at this strange scene, I tbonght. what a con- 
trast it afforded to the gin-palace of our large cities 1 
For ten cnah, which is about three -halfpence, tbe 
Chinese get as much as they can eat and drink, 

Wc visited some cooking eatablishments, and a 
thing cleaner or nicer I never saw. 

We then went to the Temple of Disconsolnte 
Women, which is devoted to all femalee nnhappv 
from any cause ; and, as yon may suppose, it is much 
frequented, for the Chinese, like tbe iWks, may have 



353 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



as many wives as they pleave. If a woman wishes to 
curse another, she comes here with a figure cut in 
paper to represent her enemy, and attaches it to the 
altar with the head turned down, and one of these I 
took the liberty of bringing away with me, by which, 
I suppose, I broke the curse. 

Leaving this temple, we passed through a live cat- 
and-dog market, where they were fattening before send- 
ing them to the butchers. This brought us to the 
temple of the Two Hundred Worthies, It is a mis- 
take to call them gods ; they are only statues of men 
who have distinguished themselves in the empire. 
After death, they have been made saints, as it were, 
and as such, are prayed to by the people. This is a 
most interesting place ; but it would have taken 
more time than we could ^ve to examine each 
statue ; so, passing through the jaid stone-market, 
from which is made all sorts of beautiful and veiy 
valuable ornaments (it is a lovely green colour), 
and through a coffin-makers' street, we came to the 
Temple of Longevity, or Noah's Temple, as Mr Gray 
called it. To us, this is one of the most inte- 
resting temples in China, proving that the Chinese 
recognised there ha^4ng once been a flood which 
oov^ed the entire earth ; and their account is almost 
the same as ours. In this temple is the represen- 
tation of the man, of his three sons, and their three 
wives, who were saved from the flood. The statue of 
Noah is a huge thing. Placed behind, are three 
figures, said to represent the Great God of Heaven. 
One of the sons of Noah is represented with ired 
hair and beard, and is said by the Chinese to be the 
father of the red-handed Westerns. In part of the 
same temple are three huge figures, which represent 
Time Past, Present, and Future ; the attitudes are 
ver^ good. We also saw the Temple of Etemid 
Fehdtv, which was not very striking, except for its 
beautiful marble pagoda. 

AU this was outside the regular ciiy of Canton. 
We now entered the cit^ by the western gate, which, 
before 1856, no barbarian had ever passed through, 
or if he did enter the city, never came out alive. 

We soon came to the great pagoda of Canton, nine 
stories high, and each story twenty feet — a wonder- 
ful structure, said to be seventeen hundred yean old. 
It was predicted at the time of its building, that 
whenever the top fell in, some great misfortune would 
befall the city. In August 1856, the top fell in, and 
in September, the English were in possession of 
Canton. We next passed through the Tartar general's 
yeman or palace, which is now a French bairack; 
this brought us to the Bottle Pagoda, which reminded 
me of one of the round towers of Ireland. Near this 
was the great temple of Confucius, Which contains 
the onlv image of this great man in China. This 
temple bears marks of the bombardment of Canton, 
and one cannon-ball is lodged right at the feet of 
Confucius. 

The temples are all very similar, being built of wood 
and stone, in some cases, handsomely carved. There 
is one called the Temple of the Five Genii, of which 
Mr Grav told us the following tradition : Some five 
hundred years ago, five genii, in the form of five rams, 
entered the city of Canton, and said : * Peace and 
plenty be to tms ciW.' No sooner had they said 
this, than they tumea into five stones, for which this 
temple was built, and which five stones I saw. They 
are held in great veneration by the Chinese. Here 
also in a rock is shewn the impression of Confucius's 
foot, and a very stout gentleman he must have been 
to have left such a mark. 

We finished our day by visiting an old Chinese 
general, the court-house, and prison. In the court- 
house, we saw two mandarins aoout to have sentence 
executed on some unfortunate beings. When they saw 
us, they chin-chinned, and sent away the prisoners 
and the instruments of torture. 

We walked through the prison — a most wretched 



place. Some prisoners were chained to large stones ; 
others had huge boards round their necks, which 
hindered them Irozn resting in any position, and this 
some of them had worn for months. Many had their 
legs and arms broken and distorted with the appli- 
cation of torture. Here we saw the mother of the 
great rebel Tie-ping-wanns. 

The next day, we rose at 5 A.M., and walked ill 
round the top of the wall of Canton, which is seven 
miles long. After breakfast, we went with Mr Gray 
into the suburbs to see the country-house of a Chinese 
gentleman, and near it, one of tne finest temples in 
China. The same evening, we took leave of our hos- 
pitable friend, and steamed down the river to Hong- 
kong. The evening was beautiful, and I noTcr 
enjoyed anything more than that excursion. 



SPRING. 

She comes, she comes, o^er hill and meadow-land, 
Green leares and blossoms garlanding her wajr-^ 

She comes, she comes ; bl^ngs on every hud. 
Life where her footsteps stray. 

We have not known her coming, but the Earth 
Through all her pulses feels a quick'ning thrill, 

And hears afar the rustling ydnga of birds. 
Beyond her sea-girt hilL 

And up and np, o'er all the awak'ning land. 
Rise the pale blossoms — handmaids of the 8priiig» 

In their fair morning beauty, 'neath the calm, 
Wide shelter of her wing. 

And hashed the wail that o'er the startled land, 
From her vexed shores, the storms of Winter bore : 

Peace to the troubled hearts whose loved and lost 
With Spring return no more. 

For He who sends her bids the world zejoioe ; 

The multitude of islands shout athi ; 
Gives to the day the covenant of the skies ; 

To night, its evening-star. 

* Let all the earth rejoice ! * The freshened air 
Thrills with the burden of each new deli^^t, 

Grows day by day each budding scene more fair, 
Each day the sky more bright. 

Soon shall the Earth, beneath her glowing smile, 
Flush into fairest beauty, and the days, 

With all the promise of their mom fulfilled. 
Be one long noon of praise — 

Praise on the hills, from whence the gUmmering 
streams 
Wind to the woodlands, where the violets blow— 
Praise in the valleys, where the breezes gay 
Soft o'er our gardens blow. 

X. 



To Contributors.— It is requested that all Contri^ 
butious to Chambers's Journal may be, for tiie future^ 
directed to the Editor, at 47 Paternoster Bow, London^ 



Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Pater- 
noster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinbuioil 
Also sold by William Robkrtson, 23 Upper Saokville 
Street, Dublin, and all Booksellers. 




S titntt anb ^rts. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AKD BOBEBT CHAMBERS. 



No. 388. 



SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1861. 



Price l^ 



AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 

If the Horatian maxim concerning a written work — 
Nonumque prematur in annum — were strictly acted up 
to by everybody concerned, how severe a blow would 
be dealt to the publishing interests of the country ! 
Of course old gentlemen love to quote this counsel 
of the Latin poet purely on account of its soundness 
and wisdom, and not at all because it involves a nice, 
cheerful, simbbing sort of treatment of the young 
author ! 

But fancy men really suppressing their literary 
creations for nearly a decennary ! Think of the 
changes that years bring about — even nine years. 
Contemplate your own portrait taken some while 
back — Uie dashing water-colour drawing by your 
old friend Verditcr — he declared that he had caught 
you in a very happy moment, and he has depicted 
you a romantic-looking creature, with flowing hair, 
in a fioweiy dressing-gown ; your fine eyes gazing 
well op and out of the picture. Is that like you 
now? Are you not, in truth, a little ashamed of 
your old i)oetic, Book-of- Beauty expression? Study 
also, if yoa can, your letters >vritten nine years back, 
and your diary of that date, if you kept an ample and 
an honest one, and you will find your mind has changed 
just as much as your body. Are we any of us the 
same persons we were a short time back? Is that 
individual who calls himself my friend Robinson — a 
man of feeble frame, short stature, and not robust 
unnd — is he the same as the boy Robinson, my school- 
fellow, a creatiu'c of gigantic form and enormous 
strength, who used to bully me fearfully some while 
ago ? He himself declares that he is so. I confess I 
scarcely believe it. I cannot find in this frail man a 
single feature or trace of the monster boy. And for 
myself, I cannot conceive that a person of my inches, 
both as to height and girth, and of my burden — I 
know I nearly exhaust the ordinary stock of weights 
when I get into the scales— can be the same being 
who was maltreated as a boy by Robinson. I should 
like to see the person calling himself Robinson attempt 
it now. 

Some men— Clivc, for instance — surveying their past 
actions, have marvelled at their own moderation. 
When I contemplate certain behaviour of mine, I am 
amazed at my own extravagance. A few skirmishers, 
we are told, during the Crimean war, had at one time 
advanced so far into Sebastopol, that, had they been 
supported, they might have captured that stronghold 
long before the date of its actual fall. So, by an almost 
unconscious audacity on my part, when a very young 
man, I do believe that I was nearer the possession of 
a young, and rich, and beautiful wife, than I have ever 



been since, or am ever likely to be again. I certainly 
was a very young man when I knocked at the door oi 
old Mr Wigley*s house in Harley Street, with the 
object of formally applying for the hand of Miss 
Fanny Wigley ; and I am very much astonished now 
when I consider that old audacity. 

He was an early man, I had ascertained. He took 
his breakfast at half -past eight every morning in the 
back parlour, which he chose to call his study, chiefly, 
so far as I could discover his reason, because he there 
kept his stock of boots. These were all of the 
Wellington pattern, and were ranged in front of the 
fireplace semicircularly, very much as Caspar dis- 
poses the skulls in the incantation scene in Der 
FreiscJiutz, 1 remember that similitude occurring to 
me on the morning of my visit — the opera being then 
in the heyday of its popularity. Mrs Wigley and 
the young ladies breakfasted at a much later hour in 
the front parlour. But as my object then was to see 
Mr Wigley, and have with him a certain private 
discussion, of course it was advisable for me to call 
upon him at his house in Harley Street before he 
started upon his daily pilgrimage into the city. 
Having made up my mind to this course on the 
previous evening, neeid I say that I was kept awake 
by the thoughts of it nearly all night, and arose at an 
absurdly early hour to carry my plan into execution. 

Concerning myself, I must disclose that I was at 
that time an articled clerk in the house of Messrs 
Blotherstone and Blackland, the eminent solicitors in 
New Square, Lincoln's Inn Fields— that I had occupied 
a stool in their office for about two years — that I was 
entirely dependent for my support on the remittances 
I received from my relatives in Cheshire — and that I 
occupied second-floor lodgings in the house of a boot* 
maker in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury — pleasant 
apartments enough, but for the all-pervading smell of 
leather that distinguished them. I know that one 
seemed to eat, drink, and breathe leather there, and 
the fits of sneezing with which visitors were seized on 
their entrance, were really remarkable. I was a 
young man, as I have said. I shaved a good deal ; it 
was not at all necessary, but I did it : I had lively 
hopes concerning a sickly-looking tuft on my chin. I 
was prone to pomatum, and partial to side-curisp 
brought round with elaborate care well over my eais 
and on to my temples. I was fond of musk and 
bergamot, and trousers very tightly strapped under 
my boots — tightly strapped trousers were then quite 
de rigueur, I humoured fashion to the top of her 
bent ; my straps were so tight that walking was 
difficult, and sitting down perilous, if not impossibleu 
Fortunately, wo were then in the old broadcloth and 
buckskin days; we had not fallen into the present 



354 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



epoch of flimsy tweed and general shoddyness. 
People dare not tnist themsejves with tight straps 
now. The bobtail, skimping, and indecorous coats 
in which modem young gentlemen appear, were not 
worn then. You put on the first thing in the morning 
what would now be regarded as an evening coat — a 
grand, sound, ex^nsive, uncomfortable garment, high 
and hard in the collar, tight and long in the sleeves, 
with several buttons about the wrists, cufl& (that could 
be turned over if you so listed, and thereby exhibit a 
lining of velvet), long and streaming swallow-tails, 
reaching to the calves, and with the mysterious 
horizontal semicolon of buttons high up in the small of 
the back. Such was a coat in the times of which I 
am narrating. Tailors do well to designate modem 
attire evasively as Wrappers, Talmas, Paletots, &c., for 
indeed such things are not coats by the side of the 
ooat in which I went to call on old Wigley. There 
were other shaped coats even then. You could wear, 
if you pleased, a superb pdUf^e^ with rich silk lining; 
or a magnificent aurUnit, in which you were at liberty 
to go any lengths in the way of fur collar and cuffs, or 
thick silk braiding up the front, as worn by the 
gracious monarch then sitting, rather heavily, npon 
the throne of Great Britain. 

Mr Blotherstone was an old friend of my father's. 
Almost as a matter of favour, and in consi(ieration of 
that friendship, I was received into the office of the 
firm in Lincoln's Inn Fields, at the ridiculously low 
premium of three himdred guineas. For this amount, 
1 was at full liberty to work as an unrcmunerated 
copying-clerk for five years. I remember that Mr 
Blotherstone had promised my mother most faithfully 
to watch my progress and look after me in London, as 
though I were his own child. He fidiilled tliis under- 
taking by shaking hands with me once, asking me to 
one £nner-party, and to two evening-parties at his 
house, aud by losing sight of me altogether after- 
wards. But the fact was, there were four articled 
pupils in the ofiice, and I don*t tiiink he ever knew 
precisely which was which. It was at the evening- 
parties that I first had the pleasure, the happiness, 
the intense and inexpressible delight of meeting 
Fanny Wigley. My presence at Mr Blotherstone's 
seemed to be a sort of jiassport to other evening- 
parties, at which I also met Fanny Wigley, and 
oanced quadrilles with her. I wore jiimips and ribbed 
silk stockings, after the fashion of the period. No 
gentleman would then have dared to enter a draw- 
ing-room with his boots on. I danced quadrilles 
with Fanny Wigley, and the dear delicious old triple- 
timed waltz. How the swallow-tails used to fly out 
in that beautifid dance! I had met her six times, 
when I determined to ask her hand in marriage ; 
ci course, I had been passionately in love with her 
from the first moment of my seeing her. 

She was a beautiful creatiu^, with delicate features, 
and gazelle-like eyes. Her flaxen hair was twined 
round her high carved tortoise-shell comb, and inter- 
woven with blue ribbon and sprigs of forget-me-nots. 
She was small in stature, and (lerhaps, at that time, 
a little too thin for abstract beauty, though it seemed 
to me that her ethereal and sylph-like figure was 
absolutely perfect. I could not forget how slender she 
once was, when I saw her, the other day, panting and 
rather overcome wil^ the heat and ^ith her walk, a 
very stout lady, standing with her tall daughters near 
the house of the elephant in the Zoological Gardens, 
and inspecting the grave deportment of that noble 
animal? But I am anticipatmg. It seemed to me 
the height of earthly bhss to waltz with Fanny 
Wigley, and minister to her wants at supiier-time. 
These were simple and beautifid. She ate only of 
blanc-mange and macaroons, though she did not 
object to ner plate being filled and refilled with 
those luxurious condiments. I deemed them quite 
an appropriate food for her, and that they supplied 



all the nourishment that birds and angels could 
possibly require. 

I made no secret of my passion : youth \b ever 
confiding. I blushed, and stammered, and tore my 
glove ; still, I avowed my love. She turned up the 
lovely gazelle eves, and said : ' Thank you,' and 
then asked gently for a little sherry and water. I 
pressed my suit upon her. She said I had better 
speak to ner jiapa, and added, that she ahoidd like 
*ju8t one more macaroon.' Could a lover's prayer 
be acceded to in a more touching and exquisite 
manner? I spoke boldly of my love everywhere; 
I was fond, perhaps, of giving my affection an airing. 
I was proud of )>osses8ing a passion ; it seemed a 
grand and manly sort of &ng — very nearly as good 
as whiskers. I talked of it at the office, rather 
looking down on the other articled pipils, in whose 
limitea experiences there were no afiairs of the heart. 
I took counsel on the subject even with old Higgins, 
the common-law clerk, who had a general reputation 
for kno\i'ing everything. He was not, strictly speak- 
ing, a very gentlemanly percon, but he was very wiss 
and wary. * Take my aavice,' he said solemnly, after 
a huge pinch of snuff: 'mi^e love as much as yoa 
like, but don't you trust yourself near a i»en and mk. 
Don't write no letters — none of that ; then, yon see^ 
you can't hardly commit yourself, and they can'l get 
hold of you with a breach of promise, or anything of 
that kind. Do you see all these papers? WeU» 
they're aU the letters in a breach -of-promiae case. 
We're for the plaintiff, and shall make a good thing 
of it. By the by, there's a copy wanted, on brief paper, 
for coimseL You may as weU make it; you don't 
seem to be doing much.' I thought at the time that 
he took rather low views of human nature, but thea» 
you see, he was a common-law derk. 

I took for granted that every one I enootantared 
on that eventful morning knew all about nae and 
my mission. It seemed to me that my character 
was stamped all over me in large letters, just as a 
bad note is marked with the word * Forgery ' at the 
Bank of England. * Lover' was written on my ^omy 
hat, on my shining curls, on my tightly strapped 
trousers, on my velvet- lined coat-cufts. The eariy 
milk-women were conscious of my proceedings, and 
the postmen, and the bakers with hot rolls in gTMB 
baize, and the sweeps, and the beggars who proffered 
me lavender, pressing it VL\yon me as though it were a 
necessary of ufe, and <bergamot and musk were by no 
means perfume enough for one man. AU knew that 
I was joumejring to Harley Street to ask of her 
parent the hand of Fanny Wigley — even to the cook, 
who was cleaning the door-steiis of Mr Wigley's 
house — a massive woman, with wnom it was difficult 
to arrive at an imderstanding as to whether she 
purposed that I shmdd pass on the right or the left 
of her, until it was almost necessary, at last, to gain. 
an entry to the house by cleanng her as in a 
hurdle-race. Sfte knew why I came to Harley Street^ 
as did also the tall footman, who appeared to be 
full-dress as to his legs, encaised in white stockings 
and sidphur-coloured plush, and in dishabille as to 
body and arms — for he wore a soiled gray jean jacket 
— and who ushered me rather unceremoniously, I 
thought, into the back )>arlour, where Mr Wigley 
was sitting at breakfast. The street-door being onen, 
there had oeen no occasion for my using the knocker. 
Does he conceive that I came with a ring? I asked 
myself; for Mr Wigley did not ap)>ear to heed my 
entrance, and the footman had not announced, nor, 
indeed, asked of me my name. Mr Wi^ey was bent 
u^Mu tapping his second egg, breaking the shell veiy 
nea£ly all over the top of it. I was disappointed at 
my reception, I confess. I had flattered myself, and 
my glass had flattered me, that my apyyearance was 
irreproachable, if not |ioeitively commanding. I 
knew that I was red in the face— very red, Iwmj 
say — and that my cravat felt at thai mament a littiA 



J 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



355 






too tight for me, somehow ; but, with those excep- 
tions, I was conscious of nothing disentitling me to a 
gracious welcome at the hands of Wigley. 

I made use of the opportunity afforded me for 
contemphiting my presumptive father-in-law. I 
detected at once a singular likeness between the 
shape of hiB shining bald head and the egg he was 
so btsily tapping. A picture, for a moment, appeared 
before me of a giant form, with a monster spoon, 
standing orer old Wigley, tapping his cranium into 
a nummr of neat compound fractures, just as he was 
tapping the egg. He was portly, but pale, with a 
' sandy fringe othair at the back of his head, and two 
sandy tufts of whiskers, triangular in plan, on his 
dieeK-bones. He had sandy projecting eyebrows 
OTer his pale, blank-looking blue eves, and a white 
frill, fastened by a sandy-colourea SScotch pebble 
brooch, guttering out over his large protruding sandy 
waistcoat. I could not find a trace of resemblance to 
my angelic Fanny. Still he was her father, and to be 
Tenerated by me accordingly, and loved and tended 
affectionately. 1 may as well say that I think, upon 
the whole, Mr Wigley was rather a dull man. He 
was the head of the eminent tirm of Wigley, Bigley, 
k Co., bullion brokers. Ingot Court, Great Winchester 
Street, City. I did not know then, and I do not know 
now, anything about bullion brokers and their pro- 
ceedings. I associate the occupation with the idea of 
immense wealth, though I cannot imagine any talent 
poBsessed by old Wigley in any way resulting in 
money. But then there are certain businesses that 
are popularly supposed to work themselves, merely 
requiring the presence of an elderly gentleman to sit 
in a snug office and read the newspaper the while. 
Perfaa|is the business of a bullion broker is of this 
kind : for such an occupation, Mr Wigley was clearly 
formed by nature. 

I had met Mr Wigley on two or three occasions : 
be was generally to be seen at the evening-parties 
adorned by the presence of Miss Wigley, either losing 
half-crowns at the whist-table, or in a tornid state in 
the comers of rooms waiting for supper or his carriage 
to take him home. I think we had once shaken hands 
feebly and flabbily, from not knowing exactly what 
else to do with ourselves, on the occasion of an intro- 
duction to each other by Mr Blotherstone. But he 
evidently had forgotten all about me now. I took a 
chair. He started at this, and looked hard at me. I 
bowed with a winning politeness. 

•I've come, Mr Wigley* I said. 

•Oh! ah! yea ; but, perhaps, you'd better see Mrs 
Wigley,* he mtemipteo, nervously tattooing on the 
tab& with his fat white flng^ers. 'Mrs Wigley always 
attends to these sort of tmngs. I never interfere — 
never.* 

•But I thought it desirable* 

• Yes, of course, but it isn't,* he said. — * You don't 
■eem to me to look very strong,' he continued abruptly, 
•taring at me. 

I thanked him, informing him that, on the contrary, 
I was very strong indeed, much stronger than I looked 
|ierhaps, and availed myself of the occasion to make 
mquiries concerning his own health. These, however, 
lie quite disregarded. He fixed his eyes steadily on 
the bright silver tea-pot. 

• How long have you been in your present situation?' 
he asked, rather of the tea-pot than of me. 

• Two years,' I answered. * I have three more to serve.' 
•Oh, three more to serve!* he repeated wildly, 

evidently not in the least understanding me. 

• I sfajul then have done with Mr Blotherstone,* I 
continued. 

•Oh, you come from Mr Blotherstone?* he cried, 
with an amazed expression on his face. 

•Yes,* I said. *I'm his articled pupfl, and I*ve 
come here, Mr Wigley* — and I*m sure 1 spoke with 
much feeling — * to ask your consent to my union with 
font dau^ter Fanny. Mr Wigley, I love her.' 



* My daughter Fanny ! * and he started up. * Bless 
my soul ! lo think of this ! ' and he fell to rubbing his 
bald head to a brilliant polish with his handkercniel 
'Mr Blotherstone's articled piipil! My daughter 
Fannv ! Mai'riage ! Dear me ! Have you any means ?' 
he asked. 

* None whatever,* I replied. * But I love her, Mr 
Wijgley, to that extent' 

Tnere came the flutter and rustle of a muslin morn- 
ing-gown, and a ladTof large mould entered the room. 
She was a brilliant-looking woman even then, though 
she was Fannys mother, with a tendency to dark red 
in her brunette complexion. 

* O Charlotte,' cried Mr Wigley to this superb lady, 
and an air of intense relief came to him at a moment 
when, in his embarrassment, I felt sure he was about 
to say : * Take lier, then, you dog. Bless vou, Fanny, 
my darling ; bless you both : may you be happy.' 

* Won't do at all,' Mrs Wigley said firmly, after a 

fiance at me — * won't do at all : will never match 
oseph.* 

* My dear,* cried old Wigley in an agony, *it's not 

the new f * (my impression is that he aaid footnum, 

but, as he lowered his voice, I cannot be quite sure). 
* It 's Mr Blotherstone's articled pupil come to propose 
for Fanny ! ' 

Mrs Wigley looked at me inquiringly. I felt my 
cheeks burning, and wondered they did not set tire to 
my shirt-collars, they were so hot. She gave a hearty 
laugh. 

* Stuff and nonsense ! ' she said. ' Pooh, pooh ! What 
a foolish boy you must be. I remember you now. We 
met you at Mr Blotherstone's and somewhere else. 
Fanny goes back to school next Monday. Yon 
mustn't think of such things. Haveyou breakfasted? 
Let me give you a cup of tea. There's cold fowl 
there. Or will you have some broiled ham ?' 

She blew away my offer of marriage with one 
breath. 

I don't know how I got away from Harley Street ; 
I only know that, on leaving, tlie footman in the 
sulphur plush whispered, grinning: 'You must be a 
joUy flat to think you could come after me ! ' 

To this day, I have had a difficulty in understand- 
ing that singular observation. 

I have hinted that I have seen Fanny Wigley since. 
Perhaps I kq)t my offer for nine years, or longer, and 
then did not publish it. Don't imagine that my 
passion was too suddenly suppressed. A single frosty 
night will sometimes destroy a whole season's fruit : 
and, if you take it in time, a fire that else would bum 
down your whole house, may be put out with a pail of 
water. Mrs Wigley was my frosty night, my pail of 
water. 



WEAPONS OF WAR. 

Arms offensive are naturally divided into two distinct 
classes: the first, and largest, includes missiles and 
instruments of projection, adapted for slaying at a 
distance; the second class embraces the weapons 
for close fighting. It is with reference to missiles 
that invention has been most active, and to their 
perfection have been directed those recent improve- 
ments which threaten to revolutionise the art of 
war, and to necessitate entirely novel tactics. The 
very name of artillery, which we now attach ex- 
clusively to cannon, is derived, according to some 
of the greatest of French grammarians, &om arcuSf 
a bow ; in our English traiualation of the Old Testa- 
ment, the same derivation occurs; and when Jona- 
than the son of Saul gave his bow and arrows into 
the keeping of his page, the word * artillery 'is 
expresslv used. Artillery, then, on the authority 
of Vossius and others, implied merely an engine for 
shooting arroMTs and other projectiles, and the earliest 
and most general engine of the kind is unquestion- 
ably the bow. The DOW is the oldest of historical 



1^1 




weapons of this class ; in one form or another, it has 

Eervaded the world ; and even in America, where so 
ttle similarity to the customs of the old continent 
existed, the Spanish discoverers found this universal 
weapon in the hands of the rudest tribes. 

One remarkable exception, and only one, occurs to 
this general use of the bow; the natives of the 
Austral continent, and those of the various Poly- 
nesian archipelagoes, have no knowledge of the bow 
in any shape : their only missile weapons are the 
spear — thrown not only by hand, but by a perforated 
throwing-stick — ^and that very curious device, the 
boomerang. The la;ttcr, which we onl^ see in £urox)e 
in the form of a toy for children, consists of -a curved 
piece of flat wood, bent nearly at right angles, and 
witli sharp edges, and possesses the singular property 
of retummg to very nearly the spot from whence 
it has been cast; indeed, it has been asserted that 
some Australian blacks can fling the boomerang 
so as to bring back with it the stricken bird to the 
hand of the himter, and although this may be fabu- 
lous, at anyrate an instrument so ingenious as to 
Suzzle philosophers has been invented by those most 
egraded of all aborigines. The Maories of New 
Zealand, a much higher race, whose shrewdness and 
robust valour have hitherto preserved them from the 
usual doom of savages, were eqiuilly i^orant of the 
bow, nor had they ooomerangs ; but it is a curious 
testimony to the value of the former weapons, thai 
when, fifty-eight years ago, some intelligent New 
Zealand chiefs were brought to England to receive 
instruction, and to do homage to their Great Father, 
King George, they were as much delighted with 
the old English bows, shewn to them in the Tower 
armoury, as with the musket itself, and were dis- 
posed to value the one as highly as the other, both 
being equally new to them. The earliest bows on 
record were those used by the Hebrews and their 
enemies, and during the heroic period of Greece. But 
these bows were slight and weak; they were only 
drawn to the breast., and not, in the fashion of our 
own English yeomen, to the ear^ and the shafts were 
feebly propelled, and ill aimed; whUe toxotes^ or 
archer, was an absolute word of insult and scorn, in 
such contempt were the light-armed marksmen held 
by the heavy-armed warriors who fought in chariots. 
Among the Jews, the arrow seems to have been 
more formidable in battle, but still the sw^ord and 
spear were the main reliance of an army; and it was 
not imtil after the multitudes of Xerxes were poured 
upon Europe, that we find missiles rise to hii»h con- 
sideration. The strength of the (xreat King^s army 
seems to have mainly consisted of archers. There 
were the Persian and Parthian horsemen, who used 
short, but strong lx)W8, and whose chief manoDuvre 
was to wheel abruptly, and discharge clouds of arn>ws 
as they fled before the foe; there were the tall 
Ethiopians, with six-foot bows, and short shafts 
tipped with porph3rry; the Bactrians, Arabians, 
Scythians, and a hundred other races, with those 
twanging bows and barbed reeds which their descend- 
ants used against the Crusaders. But the easy and 
signal discomfiture of this great armament probably 
confirmed the Grecian victors in their scorn of missiles, 
as the resource of timid Asiatics, unfit to sustain the 
shock of their heavy-armed hoplites ; and though the 
flanks of the Roman legion were always protected by 
archers and slingers, these light troops were little 
esteemed until after the troops of Crassus had been 
overwhelmed by the Parthian arrows. The bow, the 
favourite weapon of Orientals, continued to be used 
on horseback, and was therefore short, and the arrows 
were always very light, of the arundo, or reed. The 
string was but drawn to the breast ; the range was 
short, therefore, and the accuracy of no aim could be 
relied on, though, on foot, certain talented marksmen 
shewed a skill worthy of better arms. Domitian, who 
was able to plant successive shafts between the 



extended fingers of a slave ; and Commodus, who, 
with cresoent-headed arrows, decapitated suocessive 
ostriches in the Roman circus, were notable ingfiati^^i^ 
of this. But it was not until the Scythian tribes* 
known as Huns and Turks, began to preas with 
the weight of resistless numbers on the empire, that 
Rome thoroughly adopted the bow. The Scythian 
bow differed much from the Bactrian, or ordinary 
horseman's bow, of Asia : it was long, and of powerful 
make, being of wood or horn ; the reed-arrows, iioa- 
tipped and barbed, were of unusual length, and car&> 
fully weighted ; and the string was drawn to the eat; 
not to the breast, thus lengthening the nu^ge, and 
adding preciBion to the aim. 

It was the Emperor GratLin who first publicly 
assumed the barbiuic dress, the rattling quiver, and 
the ringing bow of a Scythian warrior; but for cen- 
turies onrin^ the decline of the Elastem Empire, the 
Roman soldiers fought on horseback and in armour, 
using this formidaSe bow which they had borrowed 
from the Tartars. In the early middle ages, the 
archer had degenerated, and the bow was of little 
account until the Norman Conquest. William of Nor* 
mandy, a scholar and a general of originality, revived 
the long Scythian bow, and the Scythian mode of 
drawing the arrow to the ear, and the jSTbrmaa arrows 
went far to win Hastings, besides giving a cruel death- 
wound to Harold the Umortunate. The art of archeiy, 
thus renewed, was readily adopted by the Anglo- 
Saxons. Then came the days of Sherwood Forest and 
its company of jovial outlaws ; and the fame of Robin 
Hood, of Clym of the Cleugh, and William of Cloudes- 
ley, exalts them over all living and dead bretiiren of 
the bow; albeit little deemed stout Robin« when 
striking the king's deer, and not sparing the sheriff of 
Nottingham, that it was to the Scythians that he 
owed the art of drawing the silken string to his ear 
in laimching his unerring shafts. Indeed, no other 
nation but the English retained the practice of thus 
handling the bow; the French, Italians, Flemingi, 
drew only to the breast, and their arrows were 
weakly and vaguely aimed; while Cressy, Poitiera^ 
and Agincourt were mainly won by the 

Fatal hail-shower, 
The storm of England's wrath. 

Nor could even the hardy Scots, natives of the same 
island, ever learn the use of the English bow, or the 
art of drawing the string to the ear. Archery seemed 
a science peculiar to South Britain. A few of the 
wondrous cloth-yard arrows are still in existence; 
they are of the above extraordinary len^ili, but vezy 
slender compared to those of modem make, being no 
thicker than a tobacco-pipe, with long steel heads and 
large wings mostly of peacocks' feathers, though somo 
are fledg(3 with the ' g^y goose plume.' The six-fboft 
yew-bows which survive are of great strength and 
stiffness, and could not be strung except by a akillecL 
artist of stout muscles. They were usually kept iia 
cases of woollen, the spare strings being in a little bo3C 
at the archer's baldric or belt, where his twelve arrows 
were borne. Flodden was the last important battle 
in which the bow played a chief part It was lasl^ 
used in England in the Great Civil War, in. irreguJai^ 
skirmishing. 

The slii^, a weapon almost coeval with the bow.^^ 
never became as popular. Apart from David' 
victory over Goliath, the sling is scarcely spoken of i 
Scripture. Some of the wild tribes in tne host 
Xerxes carried slings, and there was always a corps o! 
sliujE^rs attached to a Roman army, who sometix 
projected pebbles, and sometimes bulleta of iron 
lead. But no nation ever evinced the same skill 
the natives of the Balearic Isles, who, according 
Pliny, coidd strike a mark at great distances "with thc:^ 
sling, and refused food to their children until th^^^ 
could hit the desired object, set up as a target on ^ 
ixxst The air-gun, for propelling darts, was known t^ 




CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



367 



the Greeks, but only as a toy, capable of killing small 
birds at a few paces. The blow-pipe for snooting 
arrows by the breath, seems to have oeen peculiar to 
J9outh America. It is among the tan^lea forests of 
Demerara and Qtiiana that the red Indian carries to 
the chase his long cane- tube, five feet in length, and 
with his poisoned arrows brings down the binis from 
the top of the gigantic trees, or pierces the acousta, 
sloth, or sqtiirrel, at a hundred feet ofL The pellet- 
bow of the €kmds of Hindostan is another ingenious 
device, but cannot properly be called a weapon of 
war. The crossbow was of Norman invention, it is 
believed, though its origin is claimed for Italy. It 
never was a favourite English weapon, but those 
nations who wero sorry shots with the longbow made 
great use of the arbalist, which, with its bender of 
steel or tough yew, its boll or butt, like that of a gtm, 
and its groove, in which the steel-headed bolt lay 
secured until the trigger loosed the string, could send 
its dart above a hunSrdd yards, with much force and 
precision. But the longbow had a superior range, for 
every English yeoman was expected to make good 
practice at twenty score, or four hundred yards. Now- 
a-days, the most accomplished toxophilite limits his 
efforts to a quarter of the distance. The spear thrown 
by hand is a very old weapon. The Orientals still 
make use of the djerid, a short javeliu flung by a horse- 
man, and it differs but little ht)m the dui» of their 
ancestors, which are nearly identical with the Roman 
pilum. The stout, short javelin was grasped with the 
whole hand, and thrown with great force ; in a strong 
and practised hand, it did much execution, and the 
Anglo-Saxons, beforo Hastings, preferred the dart to 
the bow. All ancient nations used it during the 
classic epoch, and most savages have been found to 
use a light sharpened reed,^ thrown with the fingers 
rather than graaped in the hand. The Persians are 
still expert with the javelin, but it is a poor weapon, 
when opposed even to matchlocks. 

The only other weapons, or more correctly engines, 
which the ancients possessed for throwing missiles, 
were the ballista, that hurled stones, and the 
catapult, that propelled darts, by mechanical foroe 
and human labour. The scorpion was a variety 
of catapult; the onager, or wild ass, a kind of 
ballista. The ballista was most useful in battering 
a fortress that could not be scaled or reached by 
the ram; IHtus used a powerful train of them, 
throwing enormous stones, at the siege of Jerusalem ; 
and Josephus records their effect upon the walls of 
Joppa. The catapult was generally mounted on the 
ramparts of a beleaguered city, to hurl darts among 
assailants, but was sometimes used by the besiegers 
to set on firo the hostile town, by means of flaming 
arrows. The ballista was used in the middle ages, 
and even when gunpowder was known. Edward I. 
employed these engines in battering the strong castle 
of ^rling, and it is said that they threw stones of 
three hundred pounds. The mangonel, or fixed cross- 
bow, was another Norman device. It was moimted on 
the walls of a town or castle, and the strong steel 
spring, wound up by a windlass, projected a heavy 
steel-shod bolt with considerable force, piercing any 
armour of ordinary manufacturo. The shng was still 
used, but was held in sUght esteem. 

With respect to the Greek fire, that mysterious 
eompound, and its effects, it is hard to separate the 
peal from the fabulous. We may well believe, how- 
ever, that it was long the bulwark of the Lower 
Umpire, and the terror of the Mohammedans, and 
that its appearance was on the whole more dreadful 
than the actual effects produced. StiU, it long 
repulsed the Saracens from the Greek capital, until a 
slave conveyed the secret to the califs ; and the 
Arabians, in turn, directed its terrors against the 
original inventors. Princess Anna Conmena describes 
it — the Greek fire— in glowing terms ; and we 
gather that it was a bituminous fluid, ignited, and 



spouted forth from copper tubes, which projected from 
the bows of the Byzantine galleys, and were generally 
formed into the heads of dragons and other fantastic 
monsters, breathing flame from their gaping jaws. 
These floods of hquid fire sometimes proved unman- 
ageable, as in the naval action between the fleet of 
the Emx)eror Alexius, in the Bosphorus, and that of 
the Crusaders under Baldwin, when the Greek 
admiraPs awkwardness or misfortune produced the 
conflagration of his own vessels. But this was 
only one form of this famous fire. Joinville, the 
knightly chronicler of the Crusade, describing the fea 
Oregfoia as appUed to the attack of fortified places, 
speaks of a fiery dragon, * about the thickness of a 
hogshead, which flies with a noise like thunder, 
and shakes the citadeL' Here, probably, we may 
trace an earlier kind of war-rocket; and, indeed, 
long before Sir William Congreve's invention, the 
rocket was used in war, both in China and India, 
and occasionally in Persia and Transoxiania, accord- 
ing to D'Herbelot. The Indian rocket, especially, was 
a very formidable affair, furnished with iron barbs to 
insure its adherence to any wooden building it might 
hit, and setting fire to all combustibles ^iSiin reach 
of its jets of flame. The Greek fire was last employed 
in European strife at the siege of Ypres in 1383. 
Such, without enumerating devices of dubious authen« 
ticity — as the burning-glasses with which Archi- 
medes fired the besieging gallejrs at Rhodes — were the 
means of offence of a missile nature possessed by the 
ancients. The discovery and application of gimpowder 
brought a new and tremendous agent into xh& neld. 

The earliest cannon, called bombards, were clumsy 
constructions, composed of iron bars laid lengthwise, 
and hooped together with iron. In some cases, wooden 
planks were substituted for iron bars ; and in Ger- 
many some bombards were constructed of the trunks 
of trees, hollowed out, and encircled with iron 
hoops. The early cannon were very large and heavy, 
difficult to move, and slow to load. Their shape 
was unduly, shallow, and wide-mouthed, and more 
resembling the old-fashioned mortar than what we 
call a cannon. They threw bullets of monstrous size, 
however, chiefly of stone, and made havoc with castle 
walls, or in a pitched field, though to charge them 
required above half an hour, and they burst fre- 
quently. Edward III. seems to have been the first 
monarch who employed cannon, in 1327, against the 
Scots, and afterwards at Cressy against the French 
In the capture of Berwick from the Scots, the new 
cannon proved of signal utiHty, from the dismay and 
confusion produced among the besieged by so novel and 
resistless a danger. The enormous ^ne-bullet-throw- 
ing gims gradually became extinct, or, like Mens Meg 
at Edinburgh Castle, survived merely as curious rehcs; 
but at the "^king of Constantinople, in 1453, Moham- 
med II. employed against the devoted city a thousand 
pieces of ordnance, the most powerful battering-train 
the world had ever beheld ; and these guns threw 
stone-globes of ^at weight. The only effective 
monsters of the kmd that still remain are the Titanic 
cannon which guard the passage of the Dardanelles, 
and which throw round bullets of white stone, cut by 
hand in the Magnesian quarries, and weighing a thou- 
sand pounds avoirdupois. It was one of these colossal 
missiles which snappcnl hke a pipe -stem the mizzen-mast 
of Admiral Duckworth's flag-ship, when the British 
squadron forced the passage of the Straits ; and on 
this occasion, only four shots were fired, one of which 
parted into two pieces as it flew heavily hurtling 
across the narrow sea. One of these guns lies at the 
Castle of Europe, another on Asia Point, at the oppo- 
site castle, along with a pile of stone-balls, of 'wnich 
but thirty are made annually, at great expense. The 
Pacha of the Dardanelles, in 1854, presented two of 
these great bullets to the adndrat commanding in 
chief. Sir James Dundas, by whom they were brought 
toEn^and. 



368 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Very slow was the progress of improvement, even 
after guns began to oe cast and bored, instead of 
being Duilt of hoops and bars. Brass cannon, though 
too costly for national use, were made of gi'eat beauty 
and excellence for particular occasions, and were 
employed by the Spaniards and Portuguese in their 
maritime conquests, by the Barbary corsairs, and 
by most privateers. But brass guns have two great 
defects, besides that of expense — they soon grow 
dangerously hot, and must cool before they can be 
reloaded; and what is worse, they droop at the 
muzzle, become worn in the bore, and bum away 
at the touch-hole — all owing to the softness of the 
metal Excellent bronze gims have been made, but 
their price is high ; and &e recent practice against 
the Tangstow Forts, in China, has proved that bronze 
is not equal to steel, the French canons rayies of the 
former metal having turned out less powerful by far 
than Sir W. Armstrong's gim. For centuries, the 
iron ordnance continued to be little esteemed, and 
gun-metal, a variety of bronze, harder than the fine 
bronze used by statuaries, was the substance of which 
all the best cannon were made. It is needless to dis- 
tinguish between culverins and sakers, falcons and 
falconets, and all the light wall-pieces and tield-pieces 
that were gradually substituted for the old bombard. 
Queen Elizabeth's pocket-pistol, preserved at Dover 
Castle, and cast in Holland, as the Dutch inscription 
testifies, is a beautiful piece of artillery of its kind, 
and was long vaguely considered competent to throw 
*a ball to Calais green,' an idea suggested by its 
remarkable length. Cast-iron ordnance was not made 
till the reign of Edward VI., nor mortars till that of 
Henry Vlll., who employed them against Boulogne. 

So our ancestors went on, first inventing the cannon 
that threw solid shot, then the mortar for projecting 
hollow spheres stuffed with i)owder and bullets, then 
the howitzer that improveci upon the mortar, the 
petard to shiver gates, and the red-hot ball to fire 
shipping and buil£ngs ; until the medium mm and the 
long gun succeeded to the wide-mouthed carronade 
of the naval service, and field-pieces were made of 
lightness and portability sufficient for rapid evolu- 
tions in the presence of an enemy. 

The pedigree of the present nfled-musket must be 
traced from the clumsy hand-cannon, a mere diminu- 
tive of a bombard, placed on a bo^xl, and fired with 
a match, through various stages, to the present form. 
After the hand-cannon gave place to the hand-gun, the 
arqucbuse, caliver, and musket, aU of which were 
matchlocks, or more correctly pieces, that required to 
be fired by a match, it was long before the soldier 
could dispense with a rest, and j&e simply from the 
shoulder. One of Queen Elizabeth's musketeers, for 
instance, would have been encumbered with gun and 
matchbox, bandoliers and primer, a rest on umich to 
fix his gun, and a spear or sweyne's feather to stick in 
the ground in front of him, for his defence, and, lastly, 
with a sword and dagger, where now the soldier 
moves lightly, with his Enfield rifle and bayonet, 
against the foe. Prince Rupert, a most admirable 
marksman, and a better inventor than a general, was 
the great introducer of new weapons, in his day. He 
devised a revolver, or repeating firelock, a century 
and a hxdf before Colonel Colt saw the light. To 
Rupert we owe the first wheel-lock or snaphaunce, 
the parent of all flintlocks, as a means of dis- 
charging ^ns and pistols, and an improvement 
on the primitive match equal to that of i)ercus- 
aion upon the flint itself. Rifling and other excellent 
amendments are ascribed to Rupert, who did more 
for the perfectioning of firearms than any one for a 
century after. The rifle was first naturalised in Ame- 
rica, where, in daily struggles with wild beasts and 
wilder men, the hardy colonists learned to appreciate 
that weapon which afterwards did such signal service 
against the royal trooi^s, and from thence it was 
brought into use in Europe. But though the Tyroleae, 



and other mountaineers, fond of the chaae, adopted 
the rifle by the middle of the last oeatmy, ov 
armies, and those of our neighbours, nerer enqiloyed it 
By this time, the grenadiers had given up carrying 
the bag of hand-grenades to which they owed their 
name ; Brown Bess had been taken into that hi^ and 
intimate favour from which she was bat the other 
day discarded, and the pike had been fairly voted 
obsolete. Battles were won by bayonei-charget, for 
the most part ; and as a thousana cartridges were 
expended tor every fatal shot^ we need scarodj 
wonder at the immense amount of powder oielenlj 
burned, or that many daring oommanders shoald 
have obtained the repute of being bullet-propi 
Indeed, the old smooth-bored musket^ with iti 
spherical ounce-ball, was much more useful at a pike- 
staff for the bayonet, than for absolute shocking. 
Unless by chance, or against great masses of men, no 
certain residt could be looked for; no tnitioa wis 
afforded to the troops ; a marksman was supposed to 
be heaven-bom, like a poet ; and if a soldier could k»d 
and fire with rapidity and machine-like regularity, be 
was not to distnsss himself as to the destination of hit 
ounce of lead. By most careful trials, with rests and 
without, under official scrutiny, it has been ascer- 
tained that at 100 yards not one ball could be induced 
to go straight to the mark. At about 30 yards, a 
good shot can fire with tolerable certainty, but the 
aeflection of the bullet increases in geometrical rstio^ 
and the leaden sphere flies off into space, a wandering 
comet. 

Still there were reasons against arming ilie troope 
of any nation with the old, many-grooved rifle of 
the American hunter or the Jiiger of TyroL Riflei 
of this kind are not fitted for the cartridge; they 
need the very nicest care in loading ; their powder msst 
be measured out to a grain, patches and balls adinsted 
with sportsman-like precision, the shot rammed wdl , 
home, the mallet being often necessarily employed, 
while a rifle of this sort needs constant wipmg, oiiine, 
and internal polish. It was justly thought imposribu 
to put into the hands of careless and ignoraiit men a 
weapon so delicate, so slowly chai^ged, and so «at to 
fouL Then, too, the range of a Yankee rifle ii 
inferior to that of a smoow-bored gun. The rotaiy 
motion of the bullet absorbs much of the force that 
should act in propelling; and the rifle of America, 
thouffh effective at 100 yards, at 300 yards * throws 
wild/ and delivers the ball with little power. The 
heavier Grerman rifle is not of much nal use over 
200 yards ; and even the huge two-ounce tiger-rifles 
and four-ounce elephant- rifles used in India are 
sighted only up to 300 yards, and seldom shoot 
truly at that range. Now, a smooth bore, with all it* 
waste and windage, still throws the lead further thafs 
an old rifle, if only you can verify the fact by finding 
the ball, which you rarely can. I have myself fboncL 
a bullet deeply imbedded in a tree, 240 yards troTCM- 
where I was firing at a mark, with round balls and m^ 
smooth bore. The long Moorish guns bring dowia- 
wild-fowl with laige shot at above 100 yaraa, an^ 
with ball at 180 yards, according to the authority o^ 
Mr Drummond Hay. There is at Woolwidi a gim.^ 
once belonging to the king of Siam, of wonderfuji' 
range ; indeed the matchlocks and gingals of the F!mi#^ 
always outmatch our muskets, and during the reoenC^ 
operations in China, some of the Tartar gmgal bullet^^ 
fell among our people from a distance of 1400 yards— -^' 
an extraordinary distance, almost equalling the Whit *^^ 
worth range. Smooth bores throw elongated shot 
much further and truer than spherical balls ; and &oi 
partial experiments at Vincennes, it would ahnost 
as if there was more merit in the long bullet than ii 
the two-grooved tube that projects it, and as if 
bores deserved another trial with conical shoL 

The invention of the two-grooved rifle, of 
Lancaster polygonal rifle, ana the successive inL-" /. 
provements that bear the name of the lgnli»>|fff , WbjB^ I I 



^ I 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



35d 



Whifeworth, Jacob, Prince, Henry, and others, rtnick 
the knell of the old fatalist system of random (footing. 
Scarcely a day elapses without the journals recording 
the praise or blame of some new breech-loading 
or muzzle-loading rifle, from the Prussian needle-gun 
to those wondenul devices that can be discharged 
twenty times in a minute, and which fire 1800 shots 
without fouling. The very worst of these is far 
better than the old musket or the old rifle. The 
mnzile-loading pieces con all of them be charged 
easily, a wooden rod and a light push being capable 
of ramming home the charge, where once, for rifle- 
loading the mallet was neec&l, and great force used. 
Some muzzle-loaders emulate breech-loaders in celerity 
of charging, and merely require the cartridge to be 
dropped down the barrel, without a touch of the 
raourod ; while the breech-loading pieces, the best, in 
many respects, are beginning to he free from the old 
objection of wearing away at the joint, from the 
effect of the red-hot gases generated during explosion. 
The double rifle of General Jacob is a remarkably 
good, though costly arm, shooting a mile with six feet 
of elevation, and with a lower trajectory than most 
pieces, except the Whitworth. The rifle-shells and 
liquid fire-shells, invented by Captain Norton, General 
Jacob, and others, add tenfold to the efficiency and 
powers of the rifle, and at 900 yards, the practice at 
Hjrtiie is always excellent, while the superior shots 
attain accuracy at ranges up to 1800 yards. For 
cavalry, the breech-loader is invaluable, although the 
doiible rifles long used by that very efficient body of 
sharp-shooters, the Cape Mounted Kifles, are highlv 
esteemed by idl practical men. The revolver, though 
valuable in its way, requires great improvements 
before it can be put into the hiwds of the army at 
large. It is deUcate, dangerous, and not trustworthy, 
from bein^ so liable to get out of order ; this remark 
applies chiefly to self -ad:ing patents ; but even Colt*s 
pistol, which requires the use of both hands in cocking, 
IS apt to be found disarranged in the hour of need. 
Many officers of great professional merit prefer a 
double pistol, loading at tne breech, to any revolver. 

Of the Armstrong gun, it is impossible to speak too 
highly: its power tn rending masonry, and transpierc- 
ing targets ; its terrific sheS, dividing into fifty-eight 
fragments, with a separate death in each ; its accuracy, 
range, and lightness, have been tested at home and m 
China. The Whitworth gun, and other cannon of 
its class, with their four, five, and six mile ranges, and 
great power, are wonderful improvements on ancient 
gnnnery; but rockets remain nearly as Sir William 
Congreve left them. Capricious, though destructive 
engines, they have failed to realise their inventor's 
predictions, and supersede artillery. Yet rockets 
Aave the one great merit of requiring no gun to 
propel them ; a light rocket-tube alone is wanted ; 
and where transport is scarce, there is much to be 
said in &vour of this modem emendation of the Greek 
fire, iron sheathed and stickless. 

Weapons for hand-to-hand fighting are generically 
dividea into clubs, axes, swords, spears, and daggers. 
The club is the oldest of all, but it only survives 
in the waddy of the Mayal, and the cu^el of the 
Persian moimtaineer; even the metal mace, which 
was copied from it, and tho maul, used by knights 
in Western £uroi>e, are now extinct. The snort 
horseman's battle-axe used by the retentive Orien- 
tals, and the Indian tomahawk, are the only repre- 
sentatives of the war-hatchet. This, too, is an 
ancient weapon. The painted Britons had their little 
flint-axes, which we call celts ; the Romans bore a 
bipennifty or double-bladed axe; the Anglo-Saxons 
and Danes, and after them the early En^ish, with 
Richard the Lion-hearted at the head of them, used 
this kind of huge broad-bladed axe as a national 
weapon. The brpwn bill was as familiar to the hand 
of the Englishman as the yew-bow. But the bills 
went out with the defensive annonr, and that weapon 



was last seen in war when some of the Highlanders 
joined Charles Edward in the Forty-five, armed witl^ 
the Lochaber axe, which had a hook at the end, for 
scaling walls. The spear is, of course, very ancient. 
Even now, the only weapon of the Pampas Indians ia 
a long reed-spear, hardened by fire, and measuring 
from sixteen to twentv feet. The spear and pike 
were universal arms ; all savages possess them : pike- 
men were once the staple of all armies, and km^ts 
knew no sport so joyous as the breaking of lances. 
But the use of the lance did not survive that of 
armour; and after the Spamsh infantry, with shorf 
swords, had utterly routed the Teutonic Lauzknechti 
at Ravenna, those formidable stands of pikes, which 
had once seemed impr^nable, fell into contempt. 
The lancers of Eurox)ean armies are seldom thou^t 
as efficient as other dragoons; and though some of 
our Indian irregidars can perform prodigies of skill 
with the spear, the weapon is gradiudly giving place 
to the carbine. The dagger and dirk once phiyed a 
great part in warfare, andstill, in the East, the creese 
of the Malay is his best weapon ; and the Ghoorka 
allies, with their kookies, or heavy curved knives, 
proved more than able to rout the sepoys in personal 
encounter. But the best use of the dagger was to 
suggest the bayonet Tradition assigns this inven- 
tion to a corps of Basques, or natives of the countiy 
near Bayonne. in the service of Liouis Quatorze, who 
suddenly stuck their lorn; knives into the muzzles of 
their muskets, and with tms improvised weapon routed 
the foe ; hence * bayonet' from Bayonne. This arm was 
first called a * fixing dagger.* It was not in general 
use until Marlborough's wars, and since then has 
been constantly employed, being the soldier's best 
friend ; and, indeed, the chief use of Brown Bess was 
to carry it. The sword-bayonet is a decided improve- 
ment on the old triangular blade ; but tha bayonet, 
in its present form, agrees ill with the modem arms 
of precision. The pressure of the bayonet-ring, in 
battle, causes an unequal expansion of the metal of 
the rifle-barrel, that is fatal to good shooting, and 
spoils the bore terribly. Moreover, no shot ia likely 
to go straight that is fired from a piece with fixed 
bayonet, and the very shock given to the thin tube of 
the Enfield by a thrust witn the bayonet, is most 
hurtful to the weapon's shooting qualities. If the 
musket, now meant for hitting as well as shooting, is 
still to be a pikestaff, it should have an extra rib 
attached to it, to which the bayonet might be 
adjusted with a catch, so as to save the inevitable 
injury done to the barrel 

The sword is an old and favourite weapon. It is 
older than history, and as old as legend itself. There 
have been, and there are, swords of every variety. 
The first swords were glaives and falchions of brass, 
and to these succeeded the broad curved scimitar 
of Asia, and the straight, short, double-edged sword 
with which the Romans conquered the world The 
latter, called a Spamsh blade, and forged at Toledo, 
was long the national weapon of Castile. Our riflemen 
(privates) bear a weapon nearly similar. While the 
East adhered to crooked blades, to those wonderful 
Damascus sabres that were said to cut metal like 
cloth, to the tulwars of India and the scimitars of the 
Saracens, the West ran into the opposite extreme, and 
for centuries the long, straight, two-handed sword 
was in fashion. Some of these tremendous blades, 
which were used on horseback and foot, were five 
feet long, not reckoning the handle. They could not 
be unsheathed without pulling the sword over the 
shoulder, and weighed above twenty pounds. The 
Tyrolese mountaineers used them against the French 
and Bavarians in Hofer's patriotic stru^le against 
Napoleon; and some of the Highlanders, m 1715, still 
retained the true claymore— glaive, or gkidhis-mhor, 
the great sword, in Gaelic — which always required 
two hands. Then came the age of short weapons, of 
walking rainers, of small swords, court swonis. 



860 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



other mere toys ; wliilc, about tita eiid of the lust 
century, the oavaJry of the British :inny were armed 
frith nn absurd iciniitar, curved tike a. hoop, luid 
incapnbla of Riving point Dodcr any tarouniBOuioei 
The French invented Win Bword-bayonat, ajid the 
eiceUcat broodawijrd wliich their eavBlrj' have now 
used tor sUty yeara. We toUowed Biut, and our 
Bword* are naw well GDOush ahsped, uid of fnir steel ; 
but they »rP generally blunt, nnd vrill remftin bo 
nntil we are blessed with military authorities modem- 
iied enough to give our dragoons a woixlcn or leathern 
aheath, and conBiea the old rattling iron Bsabbard to 
the limbo where Bro»-n Bess now happily reimaia. 



WELSH Y A It N S. 

I AM going to babble (or a few liages about a Stoepy 
Hollow villajie in South Wales, in which, when quite 
• youngster, I spent a year or two. I faney— although, 
indeed, 1 hardly know why 1 should fancy— that my 
memorieB of the places and persons in it and about it 
may not be devoid of interest. I shall record my 
reniinlFicanceii at nuuloni as they rise. 

Here is the ulil, whitewaaheil, thatthed farmhouse I 
visit almoflt daily, the pet of its honest, hearty inmates, 
who generally manifest their affection in huge hunks 
of apple-pasty. The front'door stands open all day 
long, andevtu at night is merelylatched, for burglaries 
are unheard of ia this Ai-cadian district. The room 
I enter is low. and dark, and close. From the ceiling 
depends a wooden framework, which looks like an 
invei-ted table tliat has sent itH legs through the joists 
up into the room above. On its boards lie sides 
of bacon, 'baekstonc cakca' (thin grind^{tolle 
nDlcavenc<I Hour, water, and salt, baked on. a round 
iron plate), the apple- p.istitfl which are treats to 
but the onlinaty fare of the farm-scrvantH (Titaniu 
tarts, a yard long, almost a foot wide, and four inehes 
thick), an old boot, a straw horse-coUar, and a fowl- 
ing-pieoe covcreil with cobwebs, from the barrel of 
which dangles a pair of rusty spun, with broken 
rowels, and cracked and shrivelled straps. Like 
block swan upon its nest, sits on the hearth a mighty 
kettle, anugly siirronndud with gray, feathery wuthI- 
uh and smouldering wood-ember of a sullen rcL The 
kettle in South Wales is scarcely ever cold, ' a diah of 
tea ' Iicing the Welsh hoitcsa's ' glass of wr ue ' — th< 
bererage she offers to her very numerous gOBsiiH. Oi 
each side of the yawning tire[ilace — as big as a small 
loom— runs a wooden settle, nn whicli, in tho long 
winter evenings, master and mistresB, man and i 
mt sociably together, smoking, knitting, harncss-n 
ing, and coquetting. Facing tho fire, there is a dnnble 
tier of bed-closeta of oak—dully gleaming with greaai 
and friction— just like ' bunks' on board ship. One -if 
the rooms above has two such ticrB, affording, witli 
its camji-bedstcad in tho middle, slecjiing ' accoi 
dation ' for nine persons ; here, as below, of different 
■exes. The other nwm, known ua 'the prophet's 
chamber'— being sot a]iart for the eiulusive use of 
the Methodist ' travelling- preacher' frnni tha "cirenit- 
tovn,' on his fortnightly visits — contains a rickety 
four-poster, with curtains of white dimity, a chiutz- 
cosliioned arm-chair, a toilet-table mode out of towel- 
covered tea-cheata, nnd bearing a emeked looking- 
glass (which, in addition to its cnick, ]>oBseeses the 
imperfection of making every one who looks into 



it appear to have tlie mnmps), piled volumes ot 
Wesley's Note* ami Sermoia, in bcef-graTT-ooloured 
binding, and his Hymn-book, in rongh, red sheep; 
whilst round the walla are hung sundry black-fnimod 
portraits, cnt out ot the Artmnian Magaanc, of 
Messrs This, That, and Tother, ' preachei« of the 
goa[>el,' who seem to have considered it esactitial to 
their evangelical character to brash their hair sbw^lt 
down over their foreheads, as if in Todineai bx the 
operation ot the small twiCh-oomb. 

From tho combined kitchen nnd ' fceepiiig-roonj,' 
already described, opens on the left the 'pariour," 
a small angular chamber, with a planked £oor 
(whereas that of the other room is partly flagged, 
and jiartly mode of 'concrete,' worn here and there 
inU deeji hollows). One of the comenluJds a tii- 
angidar cupboard, full of gaily-colonred CRidcery— 
'decanters' is the local phrase— constantly erposn) 
to view, since one of the valves of the doohle-dooi 
has been wrcnchul from its lunges, and, according 
to carelias Cambrian custnai, never repUoed; and 
the other, from the want of a bolt, rests aesiiut the 
black oak ]ianelliiig of the woU. On the aide-t^te, 
propping and flanking a tea-tray, emblazoned with i 
bird of nondeecriiit genus but most briUisnt ^omage, 
lie a county history, Foi'a Martyrt, and Adam Clorke'i 
CoiiimF«tai-y, in poudcnnia folios and quartos. Above 
it are two hanging bookshelveB, holding iiUer idia 
some book on physic, Bloclutone'a CoTiwaatUiM 
(full of jMirtraits of fat-faced judges, whose floviog 
wigs I contrast with the scanty locks of the ministoi 
above stairs, arriving at ■ dim conolnsion that Lav 
commands, whilst Gospel forbids the am of besr^ 
grease), Sterne's Sent'imenCal Joiiriuy (which I have 
to read upon the sly, and therefore enjoy so hr, 
but of which I caTi make neither head ncc bul), 
and Bi-arg, Earl of MurtUind. The last I have full 
liberty to peruse, it having been republished by 'the 
great and good Mr Wesley,' as the one noviJ m the 
world lit for Christians to read. Over tho nuDtoJ-piece, 
circled with silhouettes of less famous m«ib^ of 
tho family, aud even placed above the portraita of the 
Rev. Jolm and Charles Wesley and hit Pletoher of 
Madeley, hangs a miniature of a bright-haired, blue- 
eyed young mail in naval uniform. On tJie mantel- 
piece, buttressed witli spiny-backed, smooth and pink 
lipped tropical shells, stand a quadrant and a diric. 
The block leather ot the sheath, and the black wood 
of the mysterious iiutrument, arc mildewed, and tha 
brass of both is streaked and dotted with a blniah 
green ; for long liefore I was bom, they were Mat 



not in fair ficbt with the French, but by 
the (lulf of Meiico, to his proud, sorrowM htber in 
the far-off Welsh hamlet I have lieaid tba storr 
from the old man. who has outlived his six stalwart 
sons, and now hves with his son-in>law. to whom he 
has given up bis farm. 

Dressed in brown cont of Quaker cut, fcnec-bree^hea, 
stocking of uudyed yam, and buckled shoes, and 
with his long iron-gray hair combed back over his 
collar, the patriarch — whose only duty now is to pleach 
on Sundays in tho little chapel he bnilt lone aS". on 
the other sido of tha front-yard— crosae* his hands 
upon his hom-hcoded staff, and tflls me many stories. 
How. when a youth, he aJid another youth rcscuHi 
Johu Wesley from a nioh, to whom he hod caimc to 
preach on the hillside ; how tliey set him on his feet 
again, and stood by him whilst ho prcachtd -, how, 
suddenly as the sun went down, a universal temr 
seiwd the mocking crowd, and wild Bcreama rent the 
stilluess of the twilight — those who had been liensst 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



361 



n 



Mcming most afraid — some of them in tbeir agonv of 
horror wallowing and foaming on the ground. How, 
happening to torn his head one day as he was plough- 
ixig, he saw the French fleet stancung in for the hay, 
when, leaving the plough in Uie furrow, and the oxen 
to look after themselves, he darted home, put on 
his Fencible uniform, and snatched up his musket; 
how the drum beat for the Fencibles to muster on 
the green, whilst the lightest boy that could be found 
was sent off on the fleetest horse at full gallop to the 
nearest military station with the news; how the 
women and children were hurried inland, but after 
all, when almost inside the bay, the French ships 
tacked, and proceeded northwards. How, when he 
was quite a boy, there was a dreadful famine and 
fever in the village ; how the j)oor died in their 
cottages like rotten sheep, with none to tend them, 
none "to bury them, or roamed about like spectres, 
praying the farmers to give them food; how, when 
nis f awer refused them com, his mother used to get 
up at midnight, steal into the bam furthest from the 
house, and pour wheat and barley into the aprons of 
the wretched women clustered outside ; and how 
neither she nor the miller who groimd the com for 
them gratis, took the fever themselves or lost one of 
their households, whilst almost all the fanners had 
sickness and death in their families. How, in the days 
when tea was very dear, the farmers' wives used to 
club together for a pound, and assemble at my farm- 
house to ^rink it wnen their husbands had gone to 
market, afterwards hiding the tea-pot in the wood- 
stack in the rickyard. How the lone ruined cottage 
on yonder mountain side was haunted by the spirit of 
a man who had committed the sin against the Holy 
Ghost — a apirit with such awfiU eyes that any one 
who lookea upon them was instantly struck blind; 
and how, through the broken windows of the unten- 
anted farmhouse in the valley, devils might be seen 
dancing on the anniversary night of the death of the 
last tenant, who, forty years ago, administered a sham- 
sacnunent to his drunKen boon-companions, and fell 
down in their midst a corpse. How there had long 
been a feud between the family at the Castle (which 
Oliver Cromwell battered, afterwards stabline his 
horses in the bam between my farmhouse ana the 

chapel) and the B s of R , one of these, four 

generations back, having married and murdered one 
of those ; how her brother, a ship-master, then in the 
Isle of Mao, saw the murder conmiitted in a dream, 
and when he came back, had his sister s coffin taken 

S) to prove it ; how a nail was found driven into 
e skull behind the ear ; how the murderer was 
hanged ; and how, ever since, the two kindred families 
had abstained from idl friendly intercourse, and often 
fon^t when they met at market 

Sitting in the shade of the lilac tree that checkers 
the sunlit front-yard, and by its luscious clusters — 
ever blooming in my memory — counteracts the un- 
savoury odours of the adjacent mvxka (a yard entered 
by two whitewashed gateways without gates, and 
devoted to cow-houses and a monstrous oblong dung- 
hill) ; or on the green mouldering bench of the sum- 
mer-house, in a fpurden a medley of leeks, nettles, cab- 
bages, roses, docks, slovenly iJox-borders, and milk- 
w£te blossomed privet, and with ivy ^wing over 
its gray, lichen-mottled walls ; or lolling m the warm 
gnMW starred with buttercups, or snowed with apple- 
Dlos8om-M>f the little orchard on the other side of 
the lane, in company with the farm-dog, Pincher, who 
cocks hM clippea ears and blinks his absurd eyes ever 
and anon, as if he wotdd make-believe that he fully 
imderstood everything that was being said — I listen 
to the old man s tales, very proud that he should 
think mo worth talking to ; for though he does believe 
in ghosts and dreams, and may, perhaps, as a super- 
annuated man, be treated at times with scant respect 
fay those of his own household, I know that he is 
* the OvAole of Law, Divinity, and Physic' to all that 



country-side, having made more wills than any attor- 
ney, preached more sermons than any parson, and 
cured more people than any doctor in it. The curate, 
the Methodist minister, and the pedler (a greater man 
than either of the former, in my estimation, because 
he can tell us so much of the outside world, when he 
pays us his rsre visits), all like to chat with the old 
man, and listen attentively to his replies. Besides, 
has he not written poetry, and dialogues, and things 
which have been prmted in the Swansea newspaper, 
which we get once a week ; and to a child like me, is 
not the man who has appeared in print something 
more than human. 

The orchard stile adjoins the upper village-shop, 
the principal wares in which seem to be peppermint 
drops and candles. A little further on, on tnc other 
side, is a hollow, into which the ewes belonging to the 
farm are driven night and morning to be mOk^ ; and 
very delicious sheep's milk it is, and splendid xurds 
and whey it makes, as I, a frequent visitor of the 
farm-dairy, and a favourite even with the grim 
* Aunt Betty' — all women oast forty are aunts, all 
men past fifty uncles, in tiiis part of the world — 
who presides over it in a faaed plaid * bedgown* 
and crushed black hat, can testify from ample expe- 
rience. Further on, still, is the village-green, where 
geese and donkeys most do congregate ; a solid, 
whitewashed, low-pitched, thatched farmhouse, dating 
from long before the Commonwealth, and confer- 
ring the third village patent of gentility on its 
tenant — ^thc first appertaining to the parsonage, the 
second to the Castle farm, and the fourth to that 
with which the reader is already familiar — and a few 
whitewashed, thatched cottages, with tumble-down 
lean-to stables, in which, when not turned out to 
graze upon the Marsh (almost every cottager in Our 
Village owns a hoi'se, the horses being fed upon 
chopped furze and potatoes), circle the green. In front 
of each cottage-door, on one night oi the year — St 
John's Eve, I think — a furze-fire flames and crackles. 
On some hoUdigr — K\ng's Birthday, Coronation Day, 
or such like — I am jolting over the green in one 
of the country cars, a sprindess vehicle with a 
high-railed back, like an old-fashioned chair for a 
giant set on wheels. The horse that draws it has a 
blinkerless headstall, and a cart-saddle over which a 
thick chain passes, and the reins are made of rope. 
A simple halter is often the car-horse's only bridle. 
Wc are going to spend our holiday in a picnic at a 
headland in the neighbourhood, renowned for wrecks. 
As wc leave the vill^e behind us, the country becomes 
more open. Breezy downs, with undulations as bright 
and smooth and graceful as the folds of a green velvet 
robe, sweep down to beaches which no foot seems 
to tread; or, previously cropping out in limestone 
boulders, are abruptly tmninated by limestone crags. 
Presently, we pass through more than one village 
inhabited by people of an unknown tongue, who, when 
they speak, seem to be in a furious passion because 
they cannot spit out something sticking in their 
throats. The English we have left behmd is not 
remarkable for orthoepy or syntax — *brag* being its 
equivalent for * brig,' and * come he,' * come she/ its 
forms of what tihomd be the sfcond person singular 
of the imperative — but, at all events, it is more 
intelligible and euphonious than this awfid Welsh, 
which it appears impossible to pronounce -without 
hemorrhage. 

Arrived on the north side of our Uttle Morea — a 
turf -capped lofty wall of ruthless cliffs, gradually sink- 
ing on the right into a broad flat beach, behind which 
a lonely Uttle white jiarsouage looks out upon the 
bright blue waves — we see the Inner and the Outer 
Head : the former, a raised, grassy tableland, separated 
at high-tide from the shore ; the latter, a tail stem 
^ray crag, with one patch of turf upon its landward 
side, joined to the inner Head by a low, curved, 
narrow isthmus of rodi, that affords no footing in 



362 



OHAMBERS^S JOURNAL. 



the calmest weather, and over which in storm the 
water hurries and hLsses in seething snow. Whity- 
brown sheep are grazing on the Inner Head ; and on 
the Outer stands a black-faced ram, gazing in stupid 
fear down on the wide chasm he has been unac- 
countably impelled to leap. With plenty of rich 
grass upon the Inner Heaa, the scanty bit of her- 
oage surely cannot have been his inducement. Back 
he must jump again, or stay there till he dies; 
for the Outer H^ul, rising in proud, gloomy per- 
pendicularity, like a truncated, splintered piUar, is 
inaccessible to man. Many and many a time, when 
the white spray has l>een driven by the howling 
wind in a zigzagging, interlacing shower high over 
its tall head, have fingers clutched franticly and 
fruitlessly at the wave-worn column, to which even 
sea-weed cannot cling; and then the wrathfid sea, 
which smiles so sweetly now, has dragged back its 
victims, and choked Uiem in its returning rush. 
Here and there, a crowbar is firmly fixed along the 
edge of the cliff; to the bar is fastened a rope, 
ana to the rope a quarryman, plyins his trade as 
he 8wa3rs hither ana thither in mid-air, or plants 
himself on a projecting narrow platform, in a 
plumb-line course, or bounding from ledjB;e to ledge, 
the great boulders of limestone seek with a sidlcn 
8pla£ tlie sand beneath the brine, and are carted 
away at low-tide. Half-wav between the cliff- top and 
the beach, there is a hollow known as the Devil's 
Cave. How far it runs inland, is not known. The 
quarrvmen, who take their meals here, and leave their 
tools nere, have never ventured to go further in than 
some two hundred yards. Here, at sundown, the story 
goes, whenever that night, or the next day, a brave 
ship will be dashed to pieces on the pitil^ Outer 
Head, the Evil One kindles a fire, whose lurid flames 
burnish the dusky billows with a bloody, troubled 
brilliance. When that long line of ill-omened light 
is seen trembling on the sea, the fishing-boats fly back 
to port ; and * Heaven and hell will oe fuller before 
to-morrow night,' say the cottagers on the hillsides. 

Besides hunks of apple-pasty. Aunt Betty's curds 
and whey, the old man's stories, stumpy-tailed 
Pincher's com^iany, and Henry^ Eati of Mordand^ I 
have other inducements to draw me up to the old 
hum — up the Castle Hill, and through the Castle farm- 
yard (a route I do not much affedb, ha\'ing a dread 
of K, the half-mad tenant of the Castle, a dried-up 
little man in rusty black, who stops his pony when he 
sees me coming, keeps calling out * Boy ! * until I have 
got up to him, then lifts his whip, stares at me for a 
moment, and trots on without saying another word ; 
and also of a huge boar, with tusks hke little sickles, 
which always will plant itself against the farm-yard 
gate when I want to open it) ; or mounting with 
difficulty the smooth stone slab with zi^sag stone 
steps on both sides, which is the South Welsh stile, 
through the garden at the back of the Bull Inn 
(wherein I more than once espy the pretty young 
landlady being very heartily kissed, and am there- 
upon kissed by her, presented with halfpence, and 
earnestly adjured not to tell my *mar' or anybody 
else what I have seen, under penalty of a visitation 
from Bogie that very night), through K's close, 
and through the elm-shaded green park, and the 
rock-dotted *Yetlands' (in one or other of which 
last two, although I escape E. and E.'s boar, I am 
almost 8iu% to see E's fiery-eyed bull shambling from 
the furthest comer of the meadow to cut me off before, 
with my heart in my mouth, I can gain the asylimi 
of the gate or stile) ; or past the front of the public- 
house, where the small crews of the few coasters 
that now and then visit the bay are looked upon 
with great reverence by the other revellers as expe- 
rienced mariners who have seen the world, and know 
yonder English hills — resting on the sea in the horizon, 
a filmy cluud of wood-smoke blue — as well as thev 
know Cefn B— ; through the lower village, with 



its green, stagnant duckponds, its whitewashed hovels, 
so clean without, so foul within (* What's the use 
of scrubbing a floor?' says many a Welsh cottsfier; 
* it 'U get dirty again ') ; its shop, more ambitious uian 
that in the u[>per village, dispiaving sundry lolls of 
gaudy ribbon, with a bladder of lard on one side and 
a box of raisins on the other ; its beer-shop, frequented 
bv the * fast young men ' of the neighbouiiiood — 'Tom 
of the Parsonage' (a saucy English groom), and one 
or two labourers on whom the squire's gamekeeper 
has his eye ; its weaver's, where I stand for half an 
hour watclung throng the window the shuttle dart 
fish-like through the tight upright threads ; its tiny 
Baptist chapel, whither on Sunday afternoons grown- 
up people, even gray-haired men and women, as well 
as childnm, * go to Sunday-school ;' and up the steep, 
narrow, rocky HoUoway — a lane like the dry bed 
of a torrent, which leads between hi^ hedges, whose 
dog-rose sprays marrv blushfullv overhead, and on 
whose banks the fox^ove in profusion nods its bells, 
to the foot of the waU of the old farm's garden. 

When I reach the quaint old place, there is the 
young bull-calf, with budding horns, like marbles 
driven into his forehead, to ride and tease — to 
make a scape-calf of for the iniquities of his papa in 
the Yetlanos ; or the Uuie is blocked up with penned- 
in sheep, and the front-yard Uttered with wool, and 
filled with squatting men, and struggling or pensively 
resigned wctliers and ewes yielding their neeces to 
the shears, whilst those already shorn trot ofi^ 
shivering and peq)lexed, but still pleased to find 
themselves on their legs a^n, to tne home close; 
or a bullock is to be killed in the bam, and, when 
killed, divided between the house and one or two 
neighbouring farms, which subsequently will return 
the compliment (a system of mutual acconmiodatioii 
rendered necessary by the circumstance that there 
is no butcher s shop in the village, and which the 
cottagers imitate when they kill tneir pigs) ; or hay 
or com is being carted in the primitive vehicles, 
which probably preserve the fashion which prevailed, 
centuries ago--«haft8, with connecting baUens at tho 
bottom, and a high bock, set on a pair of low wheels ^ 
or they are burning lime in the briar-embosomeil. 
kiln in the * off-farm,' and want a horse to be senfe 
them ; when, if bay, black-maned Diamond or chest^ 
nut-coloured Phillia be at home — the black mato 
Violet is too young and skittish for my guidance— I^ 
am hoisted on to the back of the big beast, feeling a0 
if I were a mahout on an elephant, and dcspatcnecl- 
at an amble, jolting from side to side with k^^ 
stretched out like a pair of open compasses, along thi^ 
freshly scented lanes ; or, if the day be rainy, I *plaV" 
at parsons' with golden-haired uttle Tiljy in thi^ 
chapel, banging away on the desk of the green-baiz^^ 
movable pidpit in orthodox style, nntil I am almostf^ 
smotherea with the dust ; and then, knocking dowi^ 
my rostrum, I chase my * congregation' over th^^ 
forms which serve for pews, until I obtain my stipencS- 
in the shajxs of sundry kisses, boxes on the ear, anX-' 
scratches. 



THE CHINESE AT HOME. 

Among the many plans resorted to for introdudi^ 
Christianity in civuised pagan communities, that o^^,.^ 
combining the duties of the missionary and medicali^^^^^ 
professions appears to have succeeded besl Thi 
ex{)eriment has been going on for many years ii 
China ; and a work lately placed before the publii 
by one of the labourers, Mr William Lockliart, prove 
to be one of decided interest. 

During the many years in which he was placed ii 
daily, almost hourlv, contact with the inmates of tl 
hospitals, Mr Lockhart obtained a dose insight 'm\ 
their chiu^acter ; and this knowledge is placed I ' 
the reader in such a plain unpretending way, 
although you are told to consioer it on^ a sketch 







CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



363 



the people and their diapocdtions, yoa hiy down the 
hook with the conviction that you have at List 
learned what a Chinaman really is. Strange, indeed, 
is the character we see— presenting such a hetero- 
geneous mass of good and bad, selfishness and piety, of 
amiable feeling and barbarous cruelty, as we could 
scarcely beforehand have specidated upon as a thing 
of this world. 

* Filial obedience,* says Mr Lockhart, ' is recognised 
as the foundation of their institutions, populiu' and 

Sovemmental; and the principle is universally 
eveloped in a manner which has no parallel in any 
other nation.' The son ^dll give his life for the 
father— the father for the son. An instance of this 
came before the notice of a relation of the writer 
while quartered in China. A Chinese boatman had 
murdered an English sailor, but escaped. Some time 
afterwards, a decrepit old man came and asked to 
see the captain of the vessel lie announced himself 
to be the father of the miu^erer, and said he had 
come to die" for his son, as he was old, and had not 
many months to live, while his son's life was young. 

Filial obedience being the foundation of their <^e 
of religion, they appear to have reaped the pro- 
mise of the commandment, being the oldest empire in 
the world. Next to this virtue comes the desire 
after knowledge and wisdom. We have all heard of 
the learning of the Chinese, yet few of us are aware 
to what an extent this desire is carried, or how highly 
the result is prized. Every village possesses its school, 
and boys of all ranks are sent thither at an earlv age. 
Young as they are, they seem aware of the value of 
education, and are quiet, industrious pupils. When 
the village preparatory school has been gone through, a 
boy is plac^ under the charge of a more accomnlished 
master, and by him led through the Chinese classics, 
and crammed for the local examinations, which are 
three in number, and are conducted under the super- 
intendence of the magistrate. Those who pass, obtain 
their degree, and then go in for a second examination, 
which qualifies them for a third, the Sew-tsae. This 
is an affair productive of intense and general excite- 
ment. Lists of the candidates are placed upon the 
cit^ walls, and crowds wait outside the exammation- 
hall to hear the result. As soon as the list of the 
successful candidates appears, hundreds of copies are 
struck off and sold to nawkers, who run about the 
town selling their good or bad news, carrying a small 
yellow flag as an advertisement — a decided miprove- 
ment npon the noisy vociferations of our English 
hawkers. 

As the students are all anxious to despatch mes- 
sages to their liomes, and they have no electric tele- 
graph, they are provided with carrier-pigeons, which 
carry the sentence of success or di8a})pointment, 
written uf>on a slip of stiff thin paper, rolled up and 
tied to the leg of the bird in the usual manner. 

The possession of this first degree is a great advan- 
tage. Among other things, the holder is excm])ted 
from coqwral punishment, and is in reality rendered 
henceforth indei>endent, almost every civil post and 
distinction being open to hinL This, however, is only 
the first step on the ladder. The next is the Ken-jin ; 
the thinl, the Tsin-sye— the latter meaning much the 
same as our LL.D. A fourth examination takes place 
every third year, and gives the highest rank attainable 
— namely, that of literary chancellor. The Ren-jin 
examination is very difficult, and so severe, that many 
of the examiners, as well as students, sink under the 
immense tension of mind and body. Two instances 
came under the immediate treatment of Mr Lockhart 
in his capacity of doctor. Two gentlemen of the 
rank of literary chancellors applied to the hospital, 
both being afflicted with paralysis, which had been 
brought on by the severe and long mental exertion 
requirwl at the examination for Ken-jin, at which 
they had been superintendents. 
Another of the Chinese virtues is charity. They 



spend both time and money for the relief of their leas 
fortunate brethren ; and in every town they provide 
hospitals and asylums for the succour of the wretched. 
The native practitioners give their services gratui- 
tously, while the chemists take it in turn to supply 
the necessary medicines, for all of which nothing is 
demanded ; and the only thing required is thaC if 
possible, the friends of uie patient must supply him 
with food. They have cemeteries where the poor 
are buried, ' though,' sajrs the report of one of the 
Shang-hae dispensaries for 1845, * it is far more praise- 
worthy and meritorious to attend to persons while 
they are alive than to afford coffins for them when 
they are dead.* The foundling hospitals are well 
supported, the children being taught either to follow 
some trade, or to be domestic servants, whUc many of 
thejn are adopted by childless couples. Next in order 
comes the Humane Society, for the recovery of tiie 
drowned ; though, if the methods of restoring anima- 
tion mentioned by the author are always put in 
force, we should prefer to be drowned effectually in 
any portion of the globe to being revived in the 
Celestial Empire. 

While so sedulous to heal the sick, the Chinese are 
even further behind than most Euro])ean nations in 
the art of preventing disease ; they make the open 
drains in the middle of each street the receptacles 
of every description of filth and refuse. These 
communicate ^dth the numerous canals that intersect 
almost every Chinese city, and in time the canal 
becomes literally blocked up. When it reaches this 
pitch, something must be done for the sake of naviga- 
tion ; and what is done is simply this : the deposit 
is shovelled up and laid in gigantic heaps upon the 
banks, in the streets, or elsewnere, in any convenient 
place. The consequent efiiuvia are dreadful, and 
however callous a Chinaman's olfactory nerves may 
become, his health must suffer. Strange to say, in 
what appears to our ideas such a * veiy hot-bed of 
cholera,^ that fearfid disease has be^n no more 
prevalent than in countries where more attention is 
paid to sanitary ndes. Though cholera keefn aloof, 
other fevers are frequently met with ; but on the 
whole, the scale of disease is wonderfully low, the 
reasons apparently being these, that the people si^end 
most of tneir time in the ojien air ; that the construc- 
tion of their houses allows free ventilation ; and, 
lastly, that they wear warm clothing during the cold 
months, and are thus enabled to retain a comfort- 
able and healthy degree of warmth, without having 
resource to hot air, close rooms, and imperfect ventil- 
ation, which are now generally acknowledged to be 
the prolific source of consumption and diseases of the 
re8|)iratory organs. 

Much as we arc addicted to *a cup of tea,' the 
Chinese love it still more. With them, the kettle is 
always boiling, the t«a-cup always at your service. 
Shops ap]>Topriated to tea-drinking are regularly 
authorised, and placed under the surveillance of the 
police. Here friends meet to chat, smoke, and drink 
tea, often listening to the eloquence of some scholar, 
who is invited by the proprietor to amuse and attract 
his customers. 

Hatching eggs by artificial heat had, it would seem, 
its origin in China, and is extensively carried on. 
* In the vicinity of most of the cities are large estab- 
lishments for the hatching of ducka These houses 
comprise a suite of long low rooms, with several offices 
attached. The coun^ i>eople, in the spring and 
summer months, bring large quantities of eggs, which 
are purchased at a cheap rate. These are put in flat 
baskets into a sort of fireplace made of brick and 
plaster, open at the top and closed below, much like 
the recess for a l>oiler. Below the open space is a very 
small charcoal fire, to warm the mass of brick. When 
the ])lace is warm enough, the liasket of eggs is lodged 
within, and covered over by a thick plaited straw-pad, 
to retain the boat ; and after a day or two the basket 



Jf 



364 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



1' 



is removed to another similar recess, which is sligphtly 
warmer. The cges are turned over once each day, and 
carefully excluded from cold air or wind. After the 
required number of days, close upon the time of pro- 
duction, they are taken out of uie baskets, and laid 
side by side upon a large table ; the table is about 
thirty feet long by tifteen wide, and covered with 
cotton wadding. When the esgs, to the number of a 
thousand or more, are arranged/they are covered with 
a thin cloth, and over this one or more thick cotton 
auilts are placed ; the removal of these, as soon as the 
ducklings are found ready to break their shells, reveals 
an extraordinary scene. In all directions, the little 
creatures are working themselves free, causing a 
curious crackling from the fracture of the shells. An 
attendant watches the table day and night, to remove 
them as they emerge all folded up, and apparently 
very weak, but soon scrambling over the other eggs. 
They are removed to a basket in a warmer room, and 
fed by and by with ilour and water. In a day or two, 
their down has grown sufficiently to cover them, when 
they are sold to persons who come from the neigh- 
bourhood periodically to buy them. The process is 
carried on only durmg spring and summer, and the 
house is used for a lodging-house for the rest of the 
year.' 

Every one who reads Mr Lockhart's book will feel 
he has really obtained an insight into the character of 
a people he until now only knew as a nation, and 
must feel interested deeply in the success of the 
working out of the system of medical missionaries. 



THE ROUNDABOUT RAILWAY. 
I CANNOT conceal from myself that one of the most 
prominent facts of my everyday life is the Round- 
about Railway. Every seven minutes and a half of 
my waking existence, that wonderful institution 
asserts itself so clamorously, that I am in no danger 
of forgetting it ; and though I have long ceased to 
consider it a nuisance, as I once did — for habit recon- 
ciles us to everything — I have not yet arrived at the 
happy condition of the Yankee waiters at the Niagara 
Hotel, who, deaf, through custom, to the roaring of 
the waters, can hear a pm drop on the floor, in spite 
of their everlasting thimder ; so I hear eadi recurring 
train as it rushes through its deep ditch of a cutting 
at some fifty paces from my fireside, and can time my 
movements by them, if I like, without looking at my 
watch. I quarrelled savagely with the Roundabout 
Railway at its first intrusion some years ago, and 
crumbled at it and its projectors like a Briton, as I 
had a right to do ; then I began to tolerate it — then 
to make a convenience of it— and at last to like it. 
In the course of the last seven years or so, I have taken 
all manner of advantages of the Roundabout Railway, 
and now I mean to turn it to account once more by 
getting an article out of it. 

The Roundabout Railway is the pet of the Lon- 
doners, being patronised by them to a much greater 
extent than any of our iron roads; and it owes its 
popularity to its excellent character for punctuality 
and safety, as well as for some other special qualities 
and conveniences which will make themselves evi- 
dent as we proceed. It abounds in stations and 
termini, in London and out of London, and at all 
points of the compass. People walk on to it from a 
level ; they climb up to it by endless flij^hts of stairs ; 
they get down to it iJirough long galleries and shafts 
and staircases combined; and they burrow under- 
ground to get at it, and emerge upon its platforms 
through trap-doors, like the ghost of Hamlet at 
SadlePs Wells. Then, while it is the most cosmo- 
politan of all roads, doixig hourly business with all 
imaginable grades of society, and travelling to and 
from all pomts of the^ compass at once, it is at the 
same time the most intrusive and impertinently 



familiar of all the railways reckoned up in Bradshaw. 
It is positively shocking to see the libertaes it takea^ 
and tne rude manner in which it mixes itself up with 
the private and domestic concerns of us modem Baby- 
lonians. Starting from the very centre of the old 
city, upon a levd with the tiles and chimn^-pots, 
it cuts and carves its way among the dwellings in 
the most remorseless manner. Here it knacks off a 
roof, a stack of chimneys, and an outhouse <^ two; 
there it shaves away a gable-end ; and anon it cuts Mr 
Perkins's dormitory into halves, leaving only a moiety 
for that gentleman's truckle-bed and waixlrob^ The 
efiect of its coming to such closOsquarterB among the 
lieges is a very various kind of revelation to the men 
of observation who travel by it — a sort of obligatory 
introspection into tlie sancta sanctorum of numberless 
domestic temples, whose mysteries, but for its wajpest- 
tinence, had been sealed for ever from the gaze of the 
curious. 

As one is whirled along the line, little interesting 
spectacles are presented to us seriatim in a species 
of endless living diorama. We see now the family 
washing getting up in the garret, where Mrs Saddles 
and the two eldest Miss Suddles are rubbine away 
elbow aeep in three several tubs, while a third damsel, 
in a state of picturesque dishabille, is expediting the 
preparations for drying on the roof. Then it is police- 
man Z 25, snoring under the blankets, witih the 
window thrown up just to let in the steam from the 
engines, by way of a' refresher, this close muggy 
morning, while his glazed hat is airing on the window- 
sill. Next it is a cobbler seated at his kit in his 
* parlour next to tlie sky,' and hammering away at 
tne sole of a Blucher boot, while five UttM cobblers 
iH futuro pause from pottering among the bristles 
and wax-ends to gape oi)en-mouthed upon the flying 
train. Then there is the fat beadle of Waddlebrook 
Within, in that six feet state-berth of his, fussing 
al>out amidst his gold bands, his purple plash inex- 
pressibles, his magnificent robe of otiice, all glit- 
tering with the precious metal, and his huge nuMmtain 
of a cocked-hat. He has about as much space in 
his garret as a terrier caught in a rat-trap, or a silk- 
worm in its cocoon, and has to wriggle perspirihg^y 
to get himself into his finery. But for the rush oT 
the train, you would hear the marriage morning 
bells pealing from Waddlebrook steeple. Mr Beadle 
hears their loud banging all too phunly, and it is 
that he may bo in time to meet the wedding faces 
at the church door, that he works so hard at shuffling 
on his mortal coiL Another moment, and there is 
Mrs Maggs, the fish-porter's wife, dishing up a 
smoking mess of sometning substantial for Maggs's 
breakfast, who, having been walking up and a^m 
ladders in Billingsgate Market, with a couple of 
himdredweight or so on his head, ever since three 
o'clock this morning, wants to fall-to without a 
moment's delay. You sec his cavernous jaws dilste 
at the instmation of the savoury fiunes, but you see 
no more, for you whiz past — and lo ! there lies 
poor Bolter, who is down in the ague, all solitaiy 
and forlorn, and tucked in among the physic bottles, 
to shiver himself well again as fast as he can, having 
nobody to console him the while, because Mrs Bolter 
is obliged to be off scouring the streets with the hand- 
cart of whelks, periwinkles, and stewed eels, in order 
to keep the pot boiling for the benefit of tiie little 
Bolters and her sick husbimd. Then comes the 
seamstress at work upon a fourpenny shirt, with her- 
worn wan face close to the window ; or perh^w it is 
the sackmaker, earning a better wage at ooaner work^ 
and stitching away with her packthread to make up 
her bundle tor the wharf ; or, better still, it may be 
the shoebinder, working cheerily in expectation of the 
fair reward that sweetens toiL And lo! there, an 
empty chamber with a bill up announcing a lodging 
to let— Lodgings— wijh a look-out against the bES 
brickwork of the railway viaduct, exactly twenty* 



1' 

\1 






I I 



I I 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



366 



seven and a half inches from your nose : who wouldn't 
be tempted with such a prospect ? You note, as you 
sweep alonj^, that in a sood proportion of the windows, 
spite of the smoke and the steam of the engines, the 
omnipresent soot and blacks and chimney-olessings, 
there are flowers that elsewhere would be aU a-growing 
and a>blowing, but here are withering and fading 
away, and that numerous dingy pots, emj^ or tenanted 
only by a dry twig, attest the ]|>ersevenng attempts of 
the denizens of this dusty region to convert it into a 
garden. 

All these things, however, are but a vision of a few 
minutes, and then the scene rapidly changes. First 
there is a wider prospect ; the city with its domes, and 
spires, and towers spreads itself out to view, while in 
the other direction a forest of masts and yards mingles 
with the stacks of chimneys, and an unmistakable 
odour of pitch and tar and mouldy cordage is borne 
upon the oreeze. Then the train stops, and if you are 
bound to the river-side, you get out, and ^nsfer 
yourself to another, in company with numbers of jolly 
young watermen, or ancient mariners, and whatso- 
ever things are of the brine, briny, all the way from 
Wapping to Woolwich. 

But not being bound to the river-side, you bid adieu 
to affiurs marine, and skurry on in a direction inclining 
to the northward, and ere long you have exchanged 
the urban and commercial for uic suburban and ruraL 
You rush over other railways, and under other rail- 
ways, and across other railways ; London begins to 
retire on the left, and the broad level country open on 
the right ; and there glinting fitfully imder yon white 
cloud, if you are sharp enougn to catch a f^^impse of it, 
you may see the river Lea— old Izaak Walton *s river 
Lee — ^meandering its way through the meadows and 
marshes into the Thames; ami perhaps you may 
remember that it was there that the pious old bio- 
^ra^iher of Geor^ Herbert and John Donne, while he 
impialed his livmg, writhing baits upon the barbed 
hook, 'handled them tenderly,' dear good man, as a 
Christian shoidd do, * because they are God's creatures.' 
In a few moments more you are at Bow, where was 
the *scole' at which Chaucer's prioress learned her 
indifferent French, and which was famous for its cakes 
and cream in the days of bluff Harry the many- wived. 
From this point you begin to range along the limits 
of the recreative region affected by Fasten London. 
Victoria Park stretches almost down to the railway 
embankment, and country alehouses, taverns, and tea- 
gardens a{iproach still nearer, taking, in fact, a posi- 
tion as close to the line as they are allowed to come. 
Thither resort the lieges from Shorcditch, Spitalfields, 
Bethnal Green, and Whitechapel ; and there you see 
them lounging at ease on summer evenings under 
clouds of tobacco-smoke, or flying their pigeons, or 
labouring at skittles, or gymnarticising among the 
poles, swings, and cross-bars. And see, down in yon 
paddock there is a tent pitched, with the union flag 
fiying from the central pole, and long tiers of benches 
ranged on the left, for the convenience of the sport- 
ing gentlemeu who are inclined to venture a little 
spare cash on that tall fellow in the azure vest and 
white pants, bound above the knees with a tricolour 
ribbon, who is stepping out so vigorouslv along the 
beaten path fringing the boundaries of the paddock. 
That is the celeorated pedestrian, Slapper, who has 
pledged himself to do sixty-five measured miles a day 
for twelve consecutive days of twelve hours each — 
and is at this moment doing it. Slapper is a g^nd 
favourite with the connoisseurs of pedestrianism ; it 
was be who licked the famous teetotal champion down 
at Scranford Beggs, and widked him off ms 1^ in 
nine davs — an exploit which the teetotal chromclers 
said nothing about. He is doing the present unrivalled 
feat for a purse of a hundred guineas, as the placards 
have it — and we heartily wish ne may get it -^though 
who is to pay the money does not appear. It is rather 
monuto&ous and weary work for the stalking professor : 



it has rained cats and dogs for six days out of the nine 
that he has already trudged it, and he cannot shirk a 
single yard of the allotted measure in the face of the 
time-keepers who are there to register his daily doings. 
His patrons and backers drop in from time to time to 
see how he is getting on ; and as the decisive hour 
approaches, there will be a rush from all quarters to 
the scene of action, to witness his triumph or hit 
defeat, and a grand explosion of pigeons from pockets 
and bags, to carry the news to the sporting editors. 

As a rival attraction to the walking {menomenon, 
another rural hostel announces a bout at single-stick 
on a fair stage every evening open to all England, 
and calls upon all the lovers of a broken head to come 
and enjoy tnat supreme luxury free, gratis, for nothing ; 
the only stipulation being, that you shall subscribe a 
sovereign in case of your winning the silver cup, which 
is honcstlv worth five-and-twenty shilling, but which, 
as the challenger is a notorious adept in his elegant art, 
and has broken three hundred heads within the last 
three months, is not a very probable event. A third 
speculator gets up a wrestling-match, also open to all 
England, under conditions somewhat similar; and a 
fourth, soaring a little higher, and with a view, no 
doubt, to family patronage, sports a balloon, which 
vou may see from the nulway lifting its huge bald 
nead amon^ the trees, and swaying this way and that 
in the driving rain. 

The train again pulls np at Hackne^r station, and 
you look down upon the old church with its time-worn 
tower, and the quondam village, with its orchards and 
gardens, and teeming population, now a vast suburb, 
and almost itself a city. Here hved Pope's miser, 
John Ward; here were the mansions of the old 
nobles, Vere, Rich, and Brooke ; here Matthew 
Henry preached and commented; and here Strype, 
the historian, lectured for more than thirty years, 
and here died — a nonagenarian. 

Although we started from the city with our faces 
eastward, we are journeying due west shortly after 
leaving Hackney, and are running in a straight line for 
Merry Islington. And here we can but remark how 
wonderfully the landholders' opinions of the Round- 
abcut Railway have changed between the dates of its 
projection and completion. We remember well when 
it was surveyed what monstrous prices they got for 
their slips of land, on the plea that the adjacent acres 
would thenceforth be gooa for little or nothing ; and 
now they exact still more monstrous rents for said 
acres on building leases, on the ^nound of the railway's 
proximity and convenience! Everywhere, the tall 
rows of houses come down to the railway cutting; 
princely villas have their gardens abutting on it — 
and it would seem that no ground-rent, however exor- 
bitant, will induce the builders to keep their distance. 
We see little of the merriment of Islington, for we 
make a mole-like passage through it underground, or 
in gloomy cuttings, and only emerge into fair dayhght 
on approaching the Caledonian Road, where we 
gradually pass from deep fosse to lofty viaduct, and 
thence look down from a giddy height upon the Great 
Northern line where it tunnels unaer the new Cattle 
Market, and starts on its career to York and beyond. 
At ^is point, especially if it be market-day, we are 
invaded by butchers, drovers, carcass-men, and cattle 
dealers and agents; and we pass whole droves of oxen 
and sheep stuck up in simngs, and bound for the 
market pens. On again, over house-tops and ware- 
houses, manufacturing yards, waste buuding-ground, 
and pasture-meadows, through Camden Town— stop- 
ping there for a minute — and then onward still to 
that interminable network of rails, the iron Champ 
de Mars, which is the manoeuvring ground of the 
North-western. Here we finish our roundabout, 
having encompassed the major portion of the modern 
Babylon. 

The Londoner's pet railway would hardly be so 
popular as it is if it did no more ihan is detailed 



366 



GHAMBERS*S JOURNAL. 



above. Bnt it does far more — does evei^ thing, in fact, 
for the locomotive citizen that a nulway can do. It 
is not only the ever>ready highway to and from all 
the roundaboat stations, but it is the high road to 
Hampstead Heath, to Kew, to Richmond, to Hampton 
Court, to Windsor — to Stratford, to Tilbury and 
Oravesend, to Southend at the mouth of the Thames 
• — to Epping Forest; and to numberless other inter- 
vening or outlying places of pox)iilar resort, whose 
names would tUl a long column. In consequence, it 
is notoriously the pleasure line for those classes 
whose holidays are brief and ephemeral, and who 
must perforce return to harness on the morrow. It 
it, of course, during the summer and on sunny days 
that the holiday traffic is at the greatest. It is then 
that the stations are crowded with noisy multitudes, 
and the carriages thronged to running over, while 
thousands after thousands are whirled off in all 
directions to the paradise they have severally selected. 
It haT>|>ens occasionally that successive parties who 
have sown off to some favourite place of resort in 
batches during the day, seduced by the charms of 
the weather, by an extra good brewst of ale, or by 
their own fun and frolic, will all elect to return 
together and by the last train. In this case, it is 
not fortunate to be one of the number, the packing 
being something territic : all classes are unavoidably 
bunoled in together wherever they can be stowed — 
forty are said to be squeezed into the room for ten ; 
and we have heard the transit described by a sufferer 
as a species of black-hole experience, endurable only 
from its brevity and the certainty of speedy release. 

After all, the holiday affairs, laree as they are, arc 
bnt an exceptional feature in the Roundabout Rail- 
way. Its serious business is mainly commercial, with 
a mixture of the convenient. It is more a capa- 
cious omnibus, open to any number of passengers, 
than anything else. It travels to and from all the 
city stations at omnibus fares, and its principal 
patrons are those who conduct, control, or transact 
the business of London in some way or other. Every 
morning, it runs express trains from its severaJ 
termini ; and at the hours when business commence 
at the Bank, at Mark Lane, at Mincing Lane, at 
the Exchange, and other marts, it jwurs in whole 
battalions of business men to do the world's work. 
Again, in the afternoon, it runs expresses to carry 
them home to dinner; and though it works with 
unerring re^ilarity all day lon^ up to eleven at night, 
carr3ring all London wherever it bkes to ^, it is only 
for tiie accommodation of the men of busmess that it 
cares to deviate from its jog-trot pace. As a rule, its 
trains do not travel fast — toey cannot do so, owing to 
the shortness of the several stages, which does not 
allow of time for getting up steam to full speed. It is 
mainly owing to una f^ that it maintains so excel- 
lent a character for safety ; we can hardly remember 
an accident of any conseqOence having occurred upon 
it, and none that could be fairly laid to the charge of 
its own servants. 

In the department of luggage, the Roundabout 
Railway is almost as formidable as in that of pas- 
sengers. The amoimt of goods hauled from the Docks 
to that vast receiving-ground on the North-western 
18 something almost fabulous. Sometimes, in our 
evening walks, we hear from far the thunder of a 
goods-train as it comes at express rate along the 
Hackney cutting. Think of threescore lug^ge-vans, 
chained on to a couple of mighty engines, and 
stretching over a quarter of a mile in len^h. As it 
roars, ana pants, and bounds along, shaking the solid 
ground, we can compare it only to a travelling 
earthquake, and feel relieved when it is fairly out 
of sight and hearing. In busy times, this luggage- 
hauling goes on through the night, and we are startled 
and literally rocked in our beds by the lumbering 
masses as they shriek, and crash, and clatter past 

Of course the Roimdabout Railway is a well paying 



concern; it is rumoured, indeed, that the dividends 
are first-rate; but not being a shareholder, I can 
say nothing decisive on that head. 

THE SWAN. 

The snowy-plumed bird of ApoUo, althoo^ he lost 
his sacred character with the fall of paganism, did not 
with its divinity sink into utter nouiingness. fie 
shared with the peacock and the pheasant the place 
of honour at chivalric banquets, as the silent witness 
of stem oaths and knightly vows. When the news 
reached London of Comyn's death by ^e hand of the 
Bruce, and the latter's assumption of the royalty ol 
Scotland, it was before the swans tiiat tl^ ag^ 
enfeebled, but still martial Edward swore to avenge 
his follower, and punish the rebellions Soots, m 
The King and Jmn Tfiomson's Man, old Dunbar 
alludes to this curious mode of taking an oath — a 
custom that survived the denunciations of two 
councils of the church : 

I would give all that ever I have 
To that condition, so God me save ! 
That you had vow^ to the swan. 
One year to be John Thomson^s man. 

In England, the swan holds the pride of place as a 
royal bird, and in old times, the nuBmter of the king's 
swans was as important a personage as the grand 
falconer, or the master of the buckhounds of moden 
days. The possession of a brood of swans was a 
privilege allowed only to the happy possessors of free- 
holds m the annual value of three marks (L.3, 6s. 8d.), 
and many were the pains and penalties enforced for 
the due protection of the rights of the crown. 
From Lammas-time to Easter, the placing of nets 
or drags in any common river or stream, the setting of 
* snares, limes, nets, or engines' for the capture d 
swans, and the hunting of water-fowl with dc^s near 
any haunt of the royal bird, was strictly forbidden. 
The owner of any dog that chanced to kill a swan, 
either of malice prepense or by misadventore, was 
liable to a fine of forty shillings. Any one catching 
a swan upon the wing, was required to deliver it up 
to the maister of the swans within foor da^* time, in 
which case he was paid eightx>ence for his trouble ; 
if he failed to obey tne law in this particular, he was 
mulcted of forty shillings. To drive away breeding 
birds from their nest, was an offence punuhed by a 
year's imprisonment, in addition to a fine. No swan- 
owner was permitted to till the situation of swan-herd 
either to himself or any one else ; and it was ordained 
that no swan -herd, fisher or fowler, should vex any 
otiier swan-herd, ^sher or fowler, by way of action, 
except before his majesty's justices of the session of 
swans, to whom all disputes, in which those birds 
were in any way concerned, were referred for 
adjudication. 

Swan eggs were valued at the rate of thirteen and 
fourpence each, and any thief detected porloiniug 
them from the nest, was compelled to make comY>en- 
sation at that rate. If he ventured to steal a living 
bird, the stolen swan, or another in default, was hung 
up by the beak in a bam, and the thief obliged to 
grve the swan-owner not only his property, but also 
as much com as would cover the swan, the grain 
being poured on the head of the bird xmial the oeak 
was hidden by the heap. 

Royal swanneries existed at Clarendon, in Wilt- 
shire, and at the Isle of Purbeck. The abbot ol 
Abbotsbury, in Dorsetshire, was privileged to hold 
' a game of swans' in the estuary formed by the Isle 
of rortland and ^e Chesil Bank, and to seize as his 
own any unmarked swan found within a certain dis- 
tance. This swannery, the lai^est in the kingdom, 
passed from the church at the dissolution of the 
monasteries, and is now the property of the Earl of 
Uchester. The muversities of Cambridge and Oxford 



poMMBad the like privilege ; the twannery of the 
Lukter was ranted in the nzteenth century on the 
condition, that the holder delirofed foor fat twana 
▼early, and left aix old ones behind him at the end of 
his term. Eton Oolle^ also had a right to keep a 
game of swans on the Thames, but the city companies 
of the Vintners and the Dyers have long been, and are 
yet, the greatest subject swan-owners on the river. 
They still go up the Thames every year, to mark 
the young birds, and take the number of the beauti- 
ful creatures. The swan-marks — annulets, chevrons, 
crosses, crescents, and such-like designs— are cut 
upon the bill vfith a sharp knife. The royal swan- 
mark of Queen Victoria consists of five 6pen pointed 
ovals, two cut lengthways, and three cut transversely. 
Two nicks is the mark of the Vintner's Company ; and 
although doubts have been raised respecting the cir- 
cumstance of that ornithological curiosity uie Swan 
with Two Necks originating in a corruption of * the 
swan with two nicks,' the fact that the tirst landlord 
of the famous inn was a member of the cor][x>ration 
goes far to sustain the truth of the surmise. 

Swan-upping, or hopping, has long been shorn of its 
stately ceremonies. Tne marking of swans used to 
commence on the first Monday lUter St Peter's Day, 
in the presence of the master of the king's game or his 
deputy, a fine of fortv shD lings bciujg im]X)sed on every 
cvgnet or swan marked without his knowledge ; and 
the raring, altering, or counterfeiting of any swan- 
mark, was punished with a year's iminisonment and a 
penalty of three marks. The marks were duly regis- 
tered, and a veariy fee of fourpence per mark exacted 
for the benefit of the royal swan-master, who was idso 
paid twopence for each cy^et, and a penny for each 
old bird marked at an uppmg, besides oeing supplied 
with a dinner and supper befitting his position. Any 
old birds found nnmanced were cbumed for the crown, 
and if any were by mistake marked doubly, they were 
kept in a pit, where * the king's subjects might have 
riglit of them,' so that the rigK^ul owner might 
recognise and receive his property, which in default 
was seized for the use of his majesty. 

The royal bird was once a stzuiding dish at all 
great banquets ; no less than four himdred graced ^e 
tables at uie installation dinner of Nevill, Archbishop 
of York. In the reign of Henry VIII., the market- 
price of swans was two shillings, being fourpence less 
than that of a prime fat wether. One might now 
search the metropolitan poulterers' shoiM a long time 
before seeing a swan exposed for sale ; but at Norwich, 
so famous for its geese, swans are still eaten. Tlie 
swan-owners of the county send a certain number of 
cvguets— some fifty or so altogether — which are 
Placed in a small pond, and supplied with as much 
Wley as they choose to eat. By the beginning of 
November, they are fit for the table, when they are 
sent back to their exi)ectant owners with the follow* 
ing rhymed instructions for cooking them : 

TO ROAST A SWAN. 

Take three pounds of beef, beat fine in a mortar, 
Pat it into the swan — that is, when you've caught her; 
Some pepper, salt, mace, some nutmeg, an onion, 
Will heighten the flavour in gourmand's opinion. 
Then tie it up tight with a small piece of tape, 
That the gravy and other things may not escape. 
A meal-paste, rather stiff, should be bid on the breast, 
And some whitcd brown paper should cover the rest. 
Fifteen minutes at least ere the swan you take down. 
Pull the paste off the bird, that the breast may get 
brown. 

TBI ORAVT. 

To a gravy of beef, good and strong, I opine. 

You 11 be right if you add half a pint of port wine: 

Pour this through the swan — yes, quite through the 

helly, 
Then serve the whole up with soms hot currant- jelly. 
N. B. — The swan must not be skinned. 



The bird familiar to Britiah eyes is the Mute 
Swan, found wild in Rmna, Siberia, Poland^ 
Lithuania, and East Prussia, and introduced from 
Cyprus into this country by Richard Ccenr-de-Lion, 
where it soon became half domesticated. The mute 
swan builds its nest of reeds, rushes, and coarse 
herbage near the edge of the water, and usually 
]>refers an ialand home. The female lays six or seven 
eggs, which are guanie<l jealously by her mate, who 
is able and willing to give battle to any intruders, for 
each family of swans retains a watery district to itself, 
and resents to the death anv invasion of its territory. 
Of this pu^acity, * Old Jack ' was a notable example. 
Hatched in the eanlen of old Buckin^am House in 
1770, and pcttod oy Queen Charlotte, he became, after 
his translation to the park, the king of the waters of 
St James's, drowning intrusive puppies, and even 
making insulting and mischievous urchins expiate 
their misdoings bv a good ducking. For nearly 
seventy years. Old Jack held his own against au 
comers. In 1840, unfortunately for the aged monarch, 
a flock of Polish geese made their appearance. Jack, 
who had a thorough old-fashioned British hatred for 
foreigners, at once declared war against them. The 
new-comers, nothing loath, accepted the challenge, 
and the lately peaceful waters became the scene of 
I)erpetual conflicts, till one fatal day the whole of the 
alien force bore down upon Old Jack, who received a 
death- wound while contending gallantly against his 
foes at the imet^ual odds of twenty to one. His 
bravery earned bun an obituary notice in the morning 
papers of the next day. 

During ^e first year of their existence, the royal 
birds are known as cygnets; in the second, thev- 
become gra^ birds; and the third, receive the fuU 
title of white swans. In some ordinances resjiect- 
ing swans of the sixteenth centiury, the male and 
female are distinguished as sire and dam. Above 
London Bridge, they are familiarly called Tom and 
Jenny by the floating population of the river; but 
we believe the most orthodox names for the two 
sexes are * cob ' for the male, and *' pen ' for the 
female. 

The black swan, well known to every schoolboy as 
the rara avis in terriA, was long after Juvenal's time 
supposed to be a non-existent bird. Sir Thomas 
Browne classes it with flying horses, centaurs, hydras, 
harpies, and 8at3rrs, as * monstrosities, rarities, or 
poetical fancies, whose shadowed mondities reonite 
their substantial falsities.' It is a native of New 
South Wales. Mr Bass was astonished at Port 
Dalrymple by the sight of at least 300 black swans 
swimming about in an extent of water of about a 
quarter of a mile square. A pair were brought over 
to England in 1801, and presented to the Earl of 
St Vincent, who gave them to Queen Charlotte. The 
female unfortunately died in moulting, and her mate 
taking wing, was shot by a keeper while crossing 
the 'fnames. Succeeding importations proved less 
imlucky, and the black swan is no very uncommon 
sight now-a-da^ In size and strength, they are 
imerior to their white brethren, and generally get 
worsted in any encounter they may have with th«n. 
But no rule is without an exception. At Lord 
Shannon's seat at Castle Martyr, in Ireland, a black 
swan attacked a white one, killed him, and took 
possession of his widow. 

We are taught that out of nothing all things wera 
created; certainly, the musical remitation of the 
swan was createa out of nothing. The tradition of 
Apollo's bird singing his own requiem is as old as 
Homer's epics, and is alluded to by Apollonios 
Khodius, Philostratos, Anacreon, Aristophanes, and 
other ancient poets; but the fading awa^ of the 
swan's life in music exists only in the imagination of 
the rhyming rape, and has no better foundation than 
the ancient oelief that swans could only hatch their 
^gs in *a crack of thunder.' When Prince Henry 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



I sm the cygnet to UiIh pale faJQt B»nn, 
Who chiinlB ■ doleful bymn to faU own den 
And from the oi^iD-pipe of &iiiltj «iogs 
His soul and bud; to > luting rest. 



rk]' Uic ann, 

Watertoii watched tbu labt momenta of a favourite 
bird in tbe vain bono of catuiung tt least some pLuD- 
tive dcatb-iiotp. But though naturalhts have long 
shewn the fallacy of the popular belief, [loets are ae 
nnwillinR as playera to give up a stock ' property.' 
however oppoaeil its use may be to truth and nature. 
Even the master-bard of onr own time yields to tLe 
temptation, and aiugB how 

esth'faymn took llic sodI 



Of tl 



Hidden 






h joy 

it fir^ to tbe ei 



But, nnon. her svfnl jubilant Toii», 
With a luuaic strange and manifaid, 
Plowed forth in a carol fice and bold. 

The only member of thu iwan family that has any 
claim to muaical honoun ia the Hooper, Klk, or 
Wliistling Swan, ivliich emits a [leculiar nuto resem- 
bling the rcputition of the word 'boop' aeveral 
times in niiiok succenaion. The Icelanders think the 
amind melodiouB, and com|)are it to the hif^her tones 
of ft violin, bat their judgment may lie wanied by the 
fact of the laid notes heralding to I(«huidic ears the 
coming of warm days and abort nights; for less 
favourable critics have likened tbe cry of the hooper 
to the iirnting of a rusty sijjn swinging in tho wind. 
Whether bannnuioua or inbannonioua, the soun^ 
ore produced by meaos of n curious piei;e of animal 
mechaiiiam. ' The cylindrical tracheal tube jNiaMS 
down the neck, and then descends between the forks 
of the merrythought to tho level of the keel of the 
breast-bone, which ia double ; and this windpipe, after 



tbe two platei, is doubled back as it were iqion itself, 

nod [laBsmg forwards, upwards, and backwfu^ "Riua, 
ends in a vertical divaricating bone, whence two lon^ 
bronchial tubes diverge, each into their respective lobe 
of the lungs.' A well-grawn hooper will measure live 
feet from his bill, and his wings extended measure 
from tip to tip about eight feet. He is courageous, 
but easily reconciled to captivity. In summer, be 
abides in the northern regions, m Scandinavia, and 
within the arctic circle; in winter, he visits Holland, 
France, Italy, and ouc own ishuid, and sometimes 
reaches atill further Bouth—to Egypt and Barbary. 

In external appearanoe, bearing a close resemblance 
to the ho[i]ier, Bewick'a Swan is quite distinct in 
its specific characters Beaidos bemg smallor, an<t 
having a reddiah rather than a yellow tinge on the head 
and naiie, the disposition of the trachea is dilferent. 
Bewick s swan has little of the grace and majesty 
of the mute swan, it very gentle in its diapoBttion, 
and spcuds most of its time out of the water. 

Mr Varrett, the acute naturalist, added the Polish 
Swan (Cynaiu immulabilit) to the list of species. 
Unlike the reat of the family, the Polish swan ikw- 
Bcssea a white plumage from its cygnetship. It hail 
firat coma under the notice of Mr Yarrell as an article 
of commerce among the Lomlon dealers; but during 
the sown! winter of 1838, several herds or aock^i of 
I'oliah sivons wi-ie seen flying along tbo north-csat 



coaata fatan gwiHiiiil tnwarda Hie month of the Thamw, 



particalars Bewick's swan, 
equalling the European hooper in 
the other is larger still than that 
bird, beiag neorty sevun fuet in length. Tina is 
the Hitnter's or 'rrumpcter 8wan. It Itreciis as far 
south ns latitude 16 d^Tets. but ptincipaLy within 
the arctic mrcle, sweeping across the valli'y of 
the Uisaianppi aa winter draws near at o i-^tu of a 
hundred milea an honr. Heame, who is our authority 
for tiiia extoaordinaiy speed of flight, says the cj'gnets 
are Tsry delicate eating, and the oldm birds when 
routed equal to heifer beef. The trum|ieter supplies 
most of the swan-down which reaches England throu^ 
the agency of the Hudson's Bay Company. "lie 
' keetchee wapecshews,' as the Cree Indiamt call them, 
are as nniay as their European conf^nera, al&ouah 
Heame had au little music in his soul aa not to M 
able to perceive any melody thereio, and so 
charity in his heart ns to be ' sorry that it did not 
forebode their ileath.' 



Wan I What is life bnt mrk ! and « 



impting thM impels 



: of the ) 



Of rain that swell 
And aid ILa stren^h, until the ponderous banks, 
And lai^ e'erlisuping trees, yield to the flood ; 
So do otstructiTe supeistitions fall 
Before tbe oneness of tbe modern mind. 
Whose cnirent, swollen by recorded thought. 
Doth undermine false-fninlfld prejudice. 
The godlike ptfH of us cna hardly ceasi? 
From nork, for in our senseless houn of sleep. 
What laboured dreams will Fancy build 
Upon the hard fonodaUon of our couch '. 
OS work, whose frait is t-cauty, and |iaiDlCGO joy, 
Witness tbe toiling «!irubs whose leaves ptepaR 
The scented btoSDnia of unr meads and faiUii; 
Or wilb rare vork, distil the uibttle jniee 
That fills the bloomy bkiiis at porpla grap«a. 
What else is life but work i A life of deals. 
Or greater still, the labonred mastcr-tlioiighln 
Th^ fast imprea tbe age in which they spring: 
With tbelr eteronl seals and lines sabllmc. 
Whether on marble, or on yielding clay. 
Or an the bard enduring metal's face. 
To speak to ages of n task complete. 

CoixLEiKDa 



Oa Btiianiay, 6//i July, loilt btpuUMed fa A» 
A TALE. 



MYSELF AND MY BELATIVES, 

To be coatinjird (pen/ iittl: jintU eom/iltted. 

To CotrrsiBDTOBH.— It is requested that oil Contri- 
hutions to Chamberyi Jotmal may be, fcr the (ulvrt^ 
directed to tho Editor, at 47 Patemwtvr liow, Londai, 




S titnzt anb ^ris. 



CONDUCTED BT WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 389. 



SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1861, 



Price Uc?. 



GOING ABROAD. 

What is the good of it? says old Giimsire, whose 
hat, when off duty, is always on a peg, either in the 
office or at home. £8X)ecially, what is the good of 
going abroad? To racket about anywhere is bad 
enough, but to do it in a crowd of jabbering foreigners 
is humiliating as well as tiresome. Others, again, 
assert that the great good of it is felt in the relish 
with which one enjoys home afterwards. There is 
something in that ; but the pleasure does not spring 
from mere contrast, or home might be made sweeter 
by a month at the workhouse, or a tour on the tread- 
xnilL Trayelling, however, is intrinsically pleasant 
to some, or they woidd stay at home. Those who 
have tried it once almost invariably repeat the 
experiment, until it becomes a habit. The desire 
comes to almost all — ^the fruition to an increasing 
number. Do not the promoters of the Exhibition of 
1862 tell us that the railways can bring into London 
six times as many per day as they could in 1851 ? 
This is a striking proof of the growing midtitude of 
tourists, as well as of the increase in goods -traffic. 
The objection to travelling, based upon our grand- 
fathers' indifference to it, might be urged with equal 
force against the iiae of the x)enny-po8tage or the 
pocket-handkerchief. We could live without either 
— and many do. But it is a great reUef to get clear 
away from our work, though it be only for a week or 
less. There is a kind of himger for recreation, 
which nothing but a change of scene can satisfy. 
You cannot sufficiently detach yourself from the 
instruments and apparatus of business without 
leaving them. The miller's man could not enjoy 
a whole holiday in a mill, though others carried 
the sacks and furled the sails. The sailor would 
not be refreshed by a cruise. We always see country- 
folks run up to town for relaxation, and townspeople 
escape to tie country for the same purpose. Who 
fill the exhibitions, great and small? Who wander 
through the British Museum in June? Who dive 
into the Thames Tunnel, and whisper in the gallery 
of St Paulas? Who spend weeks in seeing London 
sights? Cockneys? Not they. Burfurd's Panor- 
amas, and Wyld's Great Globe itself, have no charms 
for them. Let the barrister loose from court and 
chambers, give the clerk a month's respite from the 
office — where will you find them in a week ? On the 
top of Monte Rosa, or among the Cumberland lakes. I 
piut up last summer at an out-of-the-way ch&lct six 
thousand feet up in one of the Alpine chains, and found 
a dissenting minister from Glasgow, an inspector of 
schools, and a London poUce magistrate, in wide- 
awakes, to say nothing of an archdeacon in highlows 



and a flannel shirt, discussing the shortest climb to 
a neighbouring peak. The charm of travelling is its 
total change from our daily drudgery and stale scenes. 
The very houses of London are breaking out on all 
sides, away from the rattle of omnibuses and cabs. 
From whatever side you approach the metropolis, you 
meet a number of prim villas coming out to take the 
air in double lines, like school-girls on a walk — like 
them, too, dressed in the last fashion, and disengaged. 

Of all travelling, that on the continent is the most 
refreshing. It has its supposed drawbacks, no doubt. 
The steam-packet is the iirst. This is like the bitter 
taste of the medicine from which we promise ourselves 
relief. Why is a steam-boat worse than a sailing- 
vessel ? It is not only the sudden change of motion, 
which a steady side-^ind on the sails would prevent, 
but the smell of the machinery in addition. The 
other day, I was crossing the Channel in a breeze. 
Now, I am generally what is called a good sailor, 
and on this occasion ate my dinner on board with 
relish, and smoked a cigar afterwards on deck. 
While I was doing this, a stoker came up from the 
engine-room, carrying in his hand an oily swab, or 
bunch of rags, "with which he rubbed down the 
machinery. He came up, I say, with the swab, 
and stood to windward of me, airing himself. I 
was just thinking the smell of the oil rather unplea- 
sant, and suggesting to myself whether the suspicions 
I felt would justify mo in moving to windward of 
him without absolutely admitting I was more appre- 
hensive than annoyed, when he turned round to 
descend to his den, and at the same time used the 
swab as a pocket-handkerchief. A rhinoceros would 
have yielded to this. 

Another supposed drawback to a tour on the 
continent, is often the tourist's ignorance of any 
language beside his own. I believe, however, that 
almost anywhere, if you talk English, somebody will 
come. But suppose he does not, I really think that 
the sensation of not being imderstood is rather 
entertaining than otherwise ; it makes the change you 
are seeking more complete. You have always a good 
reason for helping yourself to what you want, and oan 
persist in small excursions, intrusions, and general 
indulgences, on the ground of prohibitions being 
unintelligible. 

Moreover, when you travel, say by carriage, and 
fail to satisfy a succession of hostlers and discontented 
garfonsy you have the greatest advantage in not 
understanding them. Their satire, both direct and 
indirect, may be withering, but you don*t know it. 
They can't insult you except by gestures and grimaces, 
which are often worth money to see, instead of being 
the reward and consequence of a just economy. Yoa 



370 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



your bill with ^ood coin, and add what you 
ieve to be a sufficient doaoeor. What if yoa are 
entertained with, a pantomime at your departure? 
Then, again, when you are angry yourself, what a 
relief to abuse the offender in the sfarongest language 
you can command I He is none ^e worse for it, 
while you are all the better. He does not under- 
stand a word, and you would have been sorry, half 
an hour afterwards, if he could. Since it must take 
two to make a quarrel, and the rejoinder is more 
irritating than the original insult, all dangerous pro- 
vocation is neutralised, and yet the excess of steam is 
blown off by both. It is a great thing for a reply to 
be unintelligible. 

Most of vie ills of travelling are made by tourists 
themselves. In the first place, they frequently settle 
beforehand where they will go, and mark out their 
roate. Now, I would by no means dissuade them 
from this. Let them study books and maps before they 
start ; let them ask experienced friends ; for thus they 
realise the coming pleasure. Yet the most elaborate 
plans are better cuscarded ; it is better not to follow 
the proposed route. It is delicious to defy the 
arrangements of a campaign, and revel in the con- 
sciousness of errant independence. Many people, I 
am afraid, not onlv draw out their route beforenand, 
but follow it, and so create a fund of reproachful 
conscientiousness and apprehensive responsibility. 

These are the wretched people, too, who conceive 
themselves expected to see the lions of eveiy place 
th^ visit. 

The visitation of churches, specially, is a great 
feature in their movementn. Half of them don't 
know the difference between Etruscan and Chinese 
architecture, and yet you may hear them after break- 
fast asking waiters out of a phrase-book the nearest 
way to St Pierre's, and at dinner, telling one another 
of the curious monuments they have seen, and the old 
women at prayers they have interrupted. Nothing, it 
has often oeen remarked, makes a sensitive Engush- 
man more ashamed of himself indirectly, than the 
irreverent behaviour of his fellow-countrymen in 
foreign countries, and their ill-concealed, too often 
openly displayed, contempt of the devotions they 
witness. 1 heard, two years ago, when I was in 
Switzerland, of soimd Frotcstant principles being 
carried out to a remarkable effect. A tourist 
found himself one cold evening at the monastery 
of St Bernard. The monks, it is well known, give 
food and shelter freely to all c(»ners with noble 
catholicity. There is a box in the chapel, with a 
little slit in it, where you may drop a donation; 
but your attention is not drawn to it. No one asks 
or knows whether any particular traveller eives any- 
thing or not. Well, our friend warmed himself at 
the fire, ate his fill, drank his fill, tuck^ himself 
into bed, slept his fill, got up the next morning, 
said his prayers, had his lireakfast, picked his teeth, 
and then proclaimed that he should give nothing to 
the monks, lest he should countenance popery ! 

If you visit churches, remember what they are. 

Picture-galleries are often a snare. How deeply 
have I pitied the haggard groups who ^pe listl^sly 
along the galleries oftiie Pitti Palace and the Louvre ! 
Why will a man who knows nothins about them, 
not have the courage to refuse to look at pictures? 
There he is, working wearily through the catalogue, 
often misapplying its directions, and shading his 
eyes at a daub, when he thinks he is admiring 
a Rubens. Collections of prints sometimes cause 
sudden discomfiture to pseudo-connoisseurs. I knew 
a man who went to the famous collection of engrav- 
ings in the Corsini Palace at Rome. He drove to the 
door, and was shewn up into the room where they 
were kept, when a polite custodian asked him what 
he would like to see. They were idl in portfolios ; and, 
for the life of him, he could not hit all at once upon 
the name of an artist to cover his confusion, and be 



quite msan he didn't mistake » painter for an engraver. 
He didn't dars ask that okrical-looking librarian, in a 
cassock Mid black velvet skull-cap, for Cmikshank — 
first, because it looked unlikeljr; and, secondly, because 
he didn't know how to put it in Italian. 

What» then, should a man look at, if he has no real 
interest in churohes, palaces, or mnwenms ? Then is 
an endless fund of ratification, if he will draw upon 
it, in merely prowling about, with his ey^ open. 
Let him only feel in his conscience that he is not 
playing the hypocrite, and he will find everything 
mterertii^ 

There is another piece of advice I would give to 
every traveller : smue at the bills. Take one with 
anomer, and the expense will l»tfely exceed yoor 
estimate at the worst. But never suffer little extor- 
tions to annoy you. You are, we will suppose, chaiged 
double the intrinsic value of your meal ; well, if vtn 
will keep on calculating the price of mutton, you had 
better have stayed at nome, and stuck to the ihop. 
At anyrate, Boniface must live; and what better 
opportunity for him to realise this reeolutioi, whm 
he hears a hungry moneyed Englishman aak : ' Edcw 
voo zavey kelker shose poor deenay ?' Half the yeir 
he is without customers, unless you count those who 
order coffee, call for a toothpick, smoke their own 
cigars, and spit on the floor. He can't live on (hem. 
Somebody must help to jiay the rent and feed tiie 
little ones. 

If you want to travel with comfort and eoononyt 
go to the second-rate inns, and live on the besk The 
tariff is lower, and you squint proudly among ths 
blind. You are welcomed and dismissed with atten- 
tion. Now, in your big hotels, the same orders sad 
money would probably produce either indifference or 
contempt. You are handed over to the Boote, while 
the maitre (Thdtel hurries forward to worship some 
nob who drove up while yon were setting off the omni- 
bus, or trying to explain yourself to an eztortioBate 
cabman. 

Never travel first-class abroad, or yon will find 
yourself in the company of English invalids.^ To 
me, the travelling m the society of fordgnerB 
provides continuous matter for odd obeervation. 
Their hats, their queer articles of Inmee^ their 
patient respect for the arrangements S toe road, 
and the ofncials, are always surprising. See them 
flattening their noses against the window of the 
waiting-room, as the train pulls up ; notice the sah* 
missive way in which they shew their tickets to the 
porter, and the politeness with which they touch 
their hats to society when they enter the carriage. 
We might take a leaf out of their book here. 

Then, when the journey is done, how patiently they 
wait for the Incga^, which the porters will not let 
them touch tin uie van is emptied, and all 9 
arranged under the initial letters of the paeiengeff* 
names, or the different pomts of their depsrtiira 
That great moustached fellow will watch the process 
without a murmur, though he has only a tight Uttle 
hair-trunk, with slips of wood nailed on it, and sees 
it deposited, close by, among the first He must 
wait, perhaps, for twenty minutes, while the poitere 
jabber over illegible directions, and airange a whole 
wagon-load of packages with providing conacientioai- 
ness. He must wait ; he has no Timm to write t»— 
he nnist wait, though his dinner be doing the veiy 
same thing in the next street. 

One often, however, forgets the obedience due to 
regulations. I recollect that once last year — I foiget 
at what station — ^bclievin^ myself rather late, I tap^ 
at the window of the ticket-office. Up nuhed la 
elderly ofiicial, and checked me with horrified gestiBsa 
Had I offered to sneeze while kissing the emperor^ 
hand, he could not have shewn a greater sense d 
the impropriety ; so I blushed, and waited half i> 
hour. 

In dining at tcMe-d^h^tea, always take something 






GHAMBBRffS JOURNAL. 



871 I 



of what B offiared, bowwer dugniaed. Otherwise, 
when yoQ have mimed wveral oppoiriamftiew, yoa may 
iJl at once find yoan^ polled np with coaqnUy and 
left with nothinff between yon and itarratioQ bat a 
toreen of stewed phims. Those table>d*hdte dinners 
have a trick of sodden finality ; the meal comes to 
a lamentable and mtimely end; and there is not 
eren bread and dwese wh^ewith to fin ^e vacoom 
which yoa abhor. Chickens and salad are generally 
the last coone ; when they eome, it is then or never. 
Do not be coy, however tempted to let the chance slip 
by, while yoo are wondering why French fowls have 
always fosr legs, to say nothing ol doplicate dram- 
sticks, as if they had been lame, and nsed crotches, 
which were cooked at the patient's decease. 

CSioose yoor wine before dinner begins, and the 
w ait er s are committed to the handing about of plates 
and dishes, er yon will have to go withoat yoor glass 
after the soap. 

Walking toon have great advantages, especially if 
yoa ride a good deal ; then yoo avoid botn higi^ige 
and fatigoe. Moreover, when on foot, you have to 
look down snd pick yoor way so oonstantly in the 
best, that is, wildest parts of yoor roote, that yoa 
see litUe or nothing of the scenery. It is better to 
miss the sight of a rock or mountain, than braise yoor 
toe against a stone. 

The secret of all travelling is to be unfettered — to 
cast off those conventional irritating restraints which 
are necessary at home, and to move about ndien, how, 
and where we Uke, in our own foolish, easy way. 
Tins allows both body and mind to uncoil themselves; 
thus we get that without which labour and rest are 
insufficient^ however carefully balanced — namely, 
rocreatKRi. 

THE HEARTH. 

Wmof Ednmnd Burke, on the French army being 
daily expected in our island, implored a large 
audienee of fanners and esquires to fi^t like men, 
pro aria H foeisy he nsed the very strongest argu- 
ment that can be addressed to a Bnton. It was very 
well for Sheridan to raise a laugh a^;ainst the orator, 
by irreverently translating the Latm passage into a 
request to fig^t ' for the hares and foxes,' but the 
gentiment was a good and true one. We all love our 
homes, and the most sacred of aU wars is that waged 
in defence of the hearth and the altar. It must be 
owned, however, that the fireside, with all its ^nial 
and tender associations, is an institution peculiar to 
Europe, and that the records of Scriptore history do 
not assign it to the elder races of mankind. The tent- 
pole/<v central prop of the canvas dwelling, fills, in 
the estimation of an Arab, the important place which 
we Westerns have assigned to the hearth. And as it 
is with the Arab, so was it with the Hebrew of the 
patriarchal period ; and so is it with all those nomads 
of Aramaic, Mongol, or Persian stock, who wander 
over the boundless plains of Asia. The dweUers in 
tents uniformly kindle their fire in the open air ; they 
make little use of it save for cooking ; tney are gene- 
rally oat to straits to provide a sufficiency of such 
wietcned fuel as the deserts can supply ; and the fire 
is r^arded rather as a nuisance than as a domestic 
shrine. But when, following the obscure stream of 
history, we get to the Greek of classic days, we find 
the fire in hi^ esteem. A myth consecrated its origin : 
Prometheus stole the spark from the jealous heaven 
of the Pdytheist, and something of a celestial cha- 
racter clung to the bright visitor. In Hellas, the fire- 
side was sacred. The suppliant who knelt upon the 
hearth, though he were the bitterest of private or 
poUio foes, was safe in that sanctuary, and insured 
not merely life, but kindly hospitality. The most 
dreadful sentence that could be passed against a bad 
citixen was the denial of fire and water, which 
dsbttcved the faanted wretch from pleading the old 



privilege. Not that the Grecian fires were of a cha* 
racter adapted to please an Englishman's fancy. 
Fuel was never too abundant in stony Greece ; and 
although the Athenians were not obliged, like the 
Assyrians of Babylon and Kineveh, to bum dried 
grass, nor to make argol fires, like the Tibetans, they 
were exceedingly ill provided with the wherewithal 
for a cheerful and steady blaze. Thorns, roots, and 
stumps of dead olive-trees, the half-rotten tendrils of 
useless vines, wreckwood, and charcoal brought at 
considerable expense from Thracian forests, were the 
resources of Attica. Timber was too precious to a 
nation of ship-builders to be wasted in mere com- 
bustion, and the 'coals' mentioned in sacred and 
profane chronicles were merely lamps of charcoal, 
which were used by artisans, as weU as for domestic 
purposes. 

The Romans were better off in this respect, for 
Italy, fertile in all respects, abounded in wood ready 
for the axe. In the early days of the republic, in 
especial, there was no lack of fuel; the logs were 
roughly piled upon the broad hearthstone, mingled 
wim an armful of brushwood, and ignited, while the 
family gathered literally around the ruddy ^ow. It 
may be justly doubted whether Cincinnatus could 
boast the possession of a chimney — a refinement origi- 
nating in the houses of the wealthier patricians, and 
which gradually diffused itself among the farms and 
cottages of the rustic outdwdlers of Rome. It is 
curious to observe how the sacred character of the 
hearth, derived, it is probable, from the traditions of 
the Hdlenic colonists in Magna Grsacia, died away as 
luxury progressed. As long as the primitive log-pile 
bhused and crackled, the homely virtues and chuities 
abode beside that somewhat smoky altar of household 
happiness. The suppliant could crouch upon the 
hearth, sure of pity and protection ; the traveller was 
f^ and warmed; family ties were cherished with 
fidehty and affection. Then came a long era of 
triumph, and the plunder of all nations, and the 
demoralisation of the robbers, as they quarrelled over 
tiie distribution of the spoils, and the touching; old 
picture of the farmhouse hearth, and its merry kmdlv 
group, has vanished like a dissolving view. Instead, 
we find the huge palaces and villas of the patricians 
deriving ^eir warmth from hyxK>causts, and hot-air 
flues and pipes, and subterranean stoves, and all the 
elaborate apparatus which the spade has revealed 
aHko in Shropshire and in Salerno. We find the fire 
banished from polite drcles, and hidden out of sight, 
like a useful but ungainly slave. 

Meanwhile, the artisan or the farmer has but a poor 
chafing-dish full of incandescent charcoal to replace 
the noble pile of roaring fuel that warmed his grand- 
sires when Rome was young. The mountains are 
nearly bare of timber now; the oaks have fallen 
beneath the hatchet of dead-and-gonc generations ; 
and no plain man can afford the cheery fires of old. 
Indeed, since the Empire ccmunenced, the ancient 
yeomanry have been decaying and disappearing within 
many a league of the Eternal City. Great gangs of 
slaves, toilmg under the orders of some senator's 
steward, have replaced the free agricuHurists of 
former days ; and already the question is mooted, 
whether it woidd not be as well to trust for com to 
Egypt and North Africa, and give up ^e tilling of the 
Campagna as a troublesome speculation. Witnin the 
city, ^e jdebeian has but the mockery of a hearth, 
and his attachment to it is but the shadow of a senti- 
ment. He has his little altar still, his household 
gods, his Lares and Penates, and he gratifies those 
Sttle twopenny images at uncertain intervals with a 
whiff of burning charcoal, a pinch of incense, or a 
sprinkling of sweet herbs ana sour wine; but the 
old charm is gone. The poor Roman, when he wishes 
to be warm, fudges to the public baths, which empe- 
rors and consuls have built for him, and where he 
&ids hot air and hot water, shcfirB aiod pantoooimes^ 



37S 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



mumc, soap, towels, shampooing, shade and so£aa, 
gratis, or nearly sa Yet a little while, and he will 
look for board as well as washing to the bounty of 
government, will open his mouth to be fed by CiBsar's 
Band, will receive his daily dole of Mauritanian wheat, 
and clamoiu* for panem et circenses as the only aspir- 
ations of mankind. Of course, the old sanctity of 
the hearth, the pristine hospitality, conjugal faith, 
family affection, are aU over for the motley papula- 
tion of the Mistress of the World. Nor, indeed, is the 
domestic fireside a favourite topic with such per- 
fumed dandies as Horace and Ovid, or with Swift's 
ErotoWpe, keen-witted, venom-lipped Juvenal, though 
luff Virgil had a Georgic taste for the rough plenty 
and Arcadian ethics of a farmer's life. 

The nations that had bowed to the Roman yoke, in 
Western Europe at least — Gaul, Briton, Spaniard, and 
Belgian — were not slow to adopt the Roman method of 
warming their dwelling-places. In the better class of 
houses, at anyrate, the hypocaust was imported, along 
with the bath, and the amum, and the cubicula, and 
the mounting-block, and the Mosaic flooring, and pave- 
ment of herring-boned bricks. At Shrewsbury, at 
Seville, at Aries, there they lie beneath the crust of 
the earth, ready for the mattock to unveil them, those 
crafty contrivances of Roman architects for diffusing 
heat throughout the apartments from the vaulto 
beneath. In our own time, we have rediscovered a 
jirocess which is thus proved to be two thousand 
years old. But, however comfortable in a climate 
which was probably more severe than at the present 
day, these hidden hypocausts were fatal to sociability, 
to family gatherings around a pleasant blaze, and to 
all the homely genii that delight to haunt a hearth, 
from the cricket to the fairy. No one can wax senti- 
mental, or jovial, or tender on account of an equable 
current of warm air ascending through holes in the 
floor. A great element was wanting in the house- 
hold life of the early centuries, A. d., among the pro- 
vinces and colonies of Rome. The resistless tide of 
human life, force, shrewdness, and valour, that set in 
from the north to submerge the old empire, was the 
proximate cause of the revival of the nreside in its 
best aspect. Those Goths and Vandals — our martial 
ancestry — at whose onslaught upon the enervated 
Queen of Nations we are taught to shudder in our 
school -dajni, did not come empty-handed from their 
Hercjrnian woods and Danish swamps. They took 
much, but they also gave much ; they braced up the 
crazy constitution of the worn-out world with a 
healthy but unpleasant shock like that of a shower- 
bath in chilly weather. Amongother benefits, they 
conferred that of the hearth. The hearth, with the 
Teutonic and Scandinavian races, meant a great deal : 
it implied not merely comfort, but hospitahty, charity, 
justice; a knightly respect for women, which the 
Roman never (&eamed of ; protection for the weak ; 
good-fellowship — the bright^t and best germs of that 
chivalry which was hereafter to blossom, bear fruit, 
and run fantastically to seed. It must be admitted 
that this same hearth, with its mountain of logs and 
boughs, heaped on a flat stone, and disseminating 
volumes of the most pungent smoke aroimd the low- 
roofed hovel, was by no means adapted to civilised 
requirements ; but the people of Northern and Central 
Europe had a noble inoifferencc to this trifling fdraw- 
back. Even so late as the reigns of our Plantagenet 
kings, the great bulk of English cottages hi^ no 
chimney, although a hole in the thatched roof provided 
a means of exit whereof the smoke could avail itself 
at pleasure. Nor, when about the period of Eliza- 
beth's accession, brick chimneys became all but 
imiversal additions to the lath and plaster, or cob- 
walled, or half-timbered tenements of the rural popu- 
lation, were grumblers lacking. Old persons wagged 
their heads against the effeminacy of modem comforts, 
and predicted that the French woidd conquer the 
degenerate wretches who objected to be smoke-dried. 



as the gaffers of an earlier date had been. Grave 
men recorded in solemn printed books their scorn ci 
the innovation, and their high opinion of the virtues 
of smoke in all its branches. 

In the good old dajrs, said these recalcitrants, colds, 
coughs, and catarrhs were unknown among the 
peasantry; rheumatism was kept aloof by ine hot 
vapour ; and if the eyes of aged folks became bleared 
rather earlier tlum need be, in oonaequenoe ol the 
smothering fumes they lived in, why, their forefatfafln 
had parta&en of the same trifling infirmity centuries 
ago. Still, the chimnejrs trinmjMied. For hundreds 
of years the population of England burned wood, until 
lack of thrift had exterminated the virgin foratta 
But when Sherwood, and Needwood, and Ohamwood, 
and many a famous woodland besides, had been thinned 
by the axe — when the Weald of Kent had been stripped 
bare, and the Weald of Sussex had yielded op its 
myriads of oaks and ash-trees and holly stems to 
supply the iron furnaces of the south, long since oold 
ana desolate — ^a great dearth of fuel was felt ihiong^ioiit 
the land. In vain did parliament, ever meddling in 
those old dajTS, and always to no purpose, decree that 
firewood should be sold for viij pence the oord, no 
more and no less ; the immutable laws of profit and 
loss, of supply and demand, were too powezrul for all 
the edicts of Westminster. Then came in sea-bonie 
coal from the pits of Durham and Northumber- 
land, called sea-coal by all the dwellers in OockaigM 
and the southern counties, in virtue of its transport 
on shipboard. A great struggle took plaoe about tUi 
coal, which was prohibited by act of parliament again 
and again, which was first used by smiths and metal- 
workers, then adopted for domestic purposes, and 
which gradually asserted the mastery over the mom 
expensive timber. And so it fell out that cheapness 
and convenience proved an overmatch for the acts 
passed in the reigns of Richard IL and Henry lY., 
and that London swore a lasting alkttiaDoe to the 
sable dynasty of Wallsend. But, altEoattfa in the 
Lowlands of Scotland, and in England north of Trent, 
much coal was burned, the city of London ahme, in all 
probability, consumed as many black diamonds as all 
the rest of the archiepiscopal province of Ganteibary 
put together. Where coal could not be wafted by 
water, it could not be consumed at alL The enormooi 
cost of land-carriage in those da3rB of robbers, and 
floods and quagmires, and caravans of packhoises, 
acted as a prohibition more effectual than any legal 
one ; and as neither decent roads nor canals were 
in existence, it is evident that only in seaports, or 
where a navigable river gave admission to uie New- 
castle coasters, could the inhabitants of Soothen 
England replenish their fires with pit-oo«L Irdand, 
the greater part of Wales, Devonshire, ibe fenny Etrt 
Anglian counties, and the Highlands and boraerB of 
Scotland, dejiended on peat for their share of warmth 
and comfort So late as the year 1690, one caigo of 
coal, shipped in a Leith bng, and called by the 
consumers ' black stones,' fumiuied the annoal sumdy 
of fuel for the town of Inverness ; nor did any other 
burgh in the ultra-Grampian regions import the mesoi 
of artificial heat. To this &y, the peasantry of 
Dartmoor and other heathy districts of the west an 
accustomed to gather round a crimson riow of bmning 
peat; and to this day, Huntin|;donshire retails the 
produce of her swampy fens m every uart td the 
Home Circuit. But in the England of the TndoiB and 
Stuarts, the turf which the moors and bogs then 
yielded in sufi&cient plenty, was the resonroe of the 
poorest class alone ; the gentry adhered to log-fires, 
the yeomen and traders to pLtes of roots and small 
wood, eked out by peats, unless, indeed, thjB proximity 
of a friendly river allowed some convenient barge 
to bring its freight of sea-coal to their doors. 

We are apt to attribute to our ancestors a certain 
profuseness of exjienditure, a great-souled libenlity, 
which the records of past ages do not really wamaL 






CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



373 



Thus wo read of their Homeric feasts, of their heca- 
tombs of slau^t^:^ cattle, their motmtaiiis of tish, 
game, and poultry, their pasties, their hogsheads of 
wine and tuns of ale, their very fountains spouting 
good liquor for the delectation of a thirsty public, 
and wc marvel as we read. Then we gradually begin 
to make out, through the haze of antiquity, that these 
were but exoeptioiud fits of prodigality ; that the veiy 
importance attached to a feast, proves how plain and 
sparing was the diet of those who exulted so heartily 
over one overfull meaL We remember the corned beef 
of the squire, the salted eels of the churl, the rye- 
bread and its scrap of salt-butter, the long winter 
without fresh provisions, the paucity of vegetables, 
the absence of groceries, and our admiration cools for 
the two or three tremendous festivals, when gluttony 
and guzzling were the order of the day. So with fuel 
We sneer at our degenerate fires even as we plunge the 
poker between the narrow bars, and talk grandly of .the 
mighty blaze that roared of old up the wide-mouthed 
chimney, of the great pile of burning wood, of the 
deeply glowing embers that formed caverns of ruby 
light breath it, of the giant Yule-log that lay 
smouldering through the long and merry Christmas- 
nijEdit. Alas ! for we elder days of earth ! But truth 
wul out ; and true it is that our ancestors were wof ully 
stingy in this same article of firing, to our notions at 
least- Certainly, they had a monstrous fire in the 
ball, bellowing and flaring half-way up the chimney, 
and another m the kitchen so potent that the poor 
half-naked scullions who turned the spit were often- 
times roasted r beyond all human endurance. But my 
lady the chfttelaihe, if she had a parlour, oratory, 
withdrawing-room, or other apartment for her separate 
use, had no fire in it; and in the bitterest cold of 
winter, her bedchamber was firelcss too. No fire in 
the nnzsery, no fire in the oak-parlour, where Sir 
Thomas was wont to sit among his six books, his 
cross-bows and fishing-tackle, h£ account-books and 
tally-sticks, and which his great-grandson afterwards 
dubbed the * study.* The delicate maiden with a 
hectic cheek and a frail constitution, had no fire in 
her chiUy bower with the diamond-paned lattice : 
young Kenehn or Gualtier, her brother, read his 
law-books in -.the Temple, wrapped in an old furred 
gpwn,.to save. fire. To save fire, the villagers muffled 
tnemselves up in such mountains of greasy, frouzy 
old ragSi, with such heavy woollen hoods on their heads, 
and such antediluvian padding on their unwashed 
shoulders, that doctors attributed the falling-sickness 
to this unhealthy habit. £ven princesses fared little 
better. We may read even now how bluff Harry the 
Ei^th save orders imdcr his royal hand that no fires 
should, be permitted in any bedchamber throughout 
the pal^use, save only for the. king, the queen, and 
that Lady. Mary who afterwards figured so unfavour- 
ably, in the annals of Fox. The Lady Elizabeth went 
firdess to bed in mid-winter, and made her toilet 
without fire even in the great frosts. Prejudices 
have deep roots, and we may read in those com- 
pendiums of Domestic Medicine which have been the 
iamily oracles of Britain for forty years past, strong 
protests against the pernicious luxury of a bedroom 
ore. 

• But hitherto we have been occupying ourselves 
solely ; with the rude old fire of logs, with its 
cavernous chimney, its dogs or andirons of metal, 
and its wonderful waste of caloric. Sea-coal, however, 
necessitated a grate ; but the old grates were mere 
cages to imprison the fuel, and ventilation was not 
in the least understood. A more thrifty race than 
ourselves, the careful Hollanders, devised an econom- 
ical substitute for the open ^te, and the Dutch 
stove was readily adapted ny ship-builders as superior 
to the original brick fire^ilace of the cook*s galley 
or caboose. Lideed, this invention was a great 
stride in social science ; it implied a good rudimen- 
tazy acquaintance with the principles of physics; it 



proved an immense saving in cost and trouble. The 
Germans adopted the Dutch stove, improved upon 
it, and beautified it, and the Russians pushed the 
improvements yet further. Stoves were made of 
iron, steel, and bronze, of tiles, of white or coloured 
porcelain, of brass, ^dcd, lacquered, and adorned till 
they formed the chief ornament of the room which 
they warmed. By degrees, the whole of the Scandi- 
navian and Sarmatian races, as well as High Dutch 
and Low Dutch, had firmly engrafted the stove as an 
institution in their homes. But these saving con- 
structions never found much favour in Britain ; our 
ancestors adhered to their open grates; while the 
French, whose only fuel was wood, then, as now, 
veiy.dear and sparingly used, kept to their andirons 
and bellows. There was one radical defect in the 
Dutch stove, which could not be removed even by 
loading the fabric with all the ornament possible to 
the most floridly Teutonic fancy: the dose stove 
* burned up* the air — that is to say, it produced an 
unnatural dzyness and lack of elasticity; the slow 
combustion aid not provide for the rapid flow of 
oxygen which an open fire affords ; and the exterior 
of tke stove, extravagantly heated, decomposed the 
aqueous vapour always floating in the atoiosphere, 
absorbed osnrgen, and liberated hydrogen to be 
breathed in by the lun^ Hence follow headachy 
a swimming of the bram, giddiness, sickness, and a 
quasi-suffo(»tion. Many of us have known what it 
is to gasp in a German or Dutoh room, to feel dizzy 
and sick, and to marvel at the natives, who can 
endure the dry close atmosphere without incon- 
venience ; for doubtless the constitution can be 
seasoned into an ability to bear this artificial sultri- 
ness, since we see miUions of tolerably healthy folks 
contented to eat, drink, live, and love, within the 
circle of the stove's influence. 

. Remedies were proposed by learned men of all 
lands. There was the Amott stove, for instance, 
deemed invaluable for conservatories, but which has 
never been commonly engrafted on domestic archi- 
tecture. There were Vestas, and stoves with Greek 
titles that tasked the memory and the tongue, and 
others too complicated to be intrusted to the care 
of the most neat-handed Phyllis. Probably, Count 
Rumford, Ruhmkopf, Rumkorf, or whatever the 
accurate version of the word may be, a scientific 
gentleman whose name has been more often and 
more cruelly mangled than those of perhaps any 
of his contemporaries, did better service than the rest 
when he set to work to improve the open grate of our 
forefathers. Thanks to him, and to the promising 
school of philo-ventilators which he founded, our 
fireplaces are much sui>erior to those at which the 
Belmdas and Lavinias of the last century wanned 
themselves. To them we owe the increase of draughts 
to; feed the fire, the naiTowing of chimneys, the 
re^ster stoves and flues, the improvements in fenders, 
chimney-cowls, and all that relates to getting more 
caloric and leas smoke out of a given quantity of coaL 
StiU, much remains to be done ; and as long as there 
are stupid builders^ careless or prejudiced ironmongers, 
and a public ignorant of first principles, so long iuiall 
we find a large percentage of our fcllow-citizens 
suffering imder the scourge of smoke, soot, chill, and 
discomfort. A happy compromise was the open stove, 
first invented in ^gland, but known in Germany as 
the * Prussian ' stove, and believed in Belgium to be 
the product of a Batavian projector. This devioe 
gives out more heat than the English fire, and at less 
cost, while it never smokes, and is but little liable to 
the rei)roach of * burning up * the air of the room. A 
vessel of water placed on even the largest and hottest 
stove of this kind, is enough to preserve a due amount 
of watery vapour in the atmosphere. The great 
merit of stoves is in their blowers, and a blower is an 
immense aid and improvement to any fire, whether of 
wood or coaL In England, the few blowers in use are 



taken off when the fire has burned up, bat in Italy 
said Switzerland they are worked up with a amau 
windlass into a concealed recess. 

On the 'wliole, as matters stand, we Britons and the 
peo|^e of Belgium areperhaps the best off in point of 
artificial warmth. The Germans and Russians are 
rendered chilly and cold-blooded by the heat of their 
airless apartments; the French, except the most opu- 
lent of them, are pinched with cold to an extent we 
can scarcely appreciate, and many a decent bourgeois 
sits and shivers over tluree sticks of smouldering wood. 
The Spaniards are still worse off Madrid is often cold, 
and ihe chafing-dish of x>oison-breathing charcoal, 
around which a family will cather, ia a sorry substitute 
for a hearth. In Italy, sudden cold makes as much 
havoc among the poor as cholera itself. The people 
on. the shores of the Caspian can only obtain warmth 
by kindling the naphtha that babbles up around them ; 
and in In(ua cold is dreaded by old and youns. The 
Chinaman has no true hearth, thou^ in his fanmy altar, 
with its statues of ancestors, we may trace a strange 
resemblance to the Penates and Lares of the Romans 
of old. But when the gilt p&per and incense have been 
burned, the descendant of tne race retires with bows 
and genuflexions, and no pleasant savour of home and 
the fiving world intrudes upon the reverence due to 
the departed. In all the world, the hearth occupies 
no sucin sacred place in the national sympathies as 
with ourselves in Britain. Our continental neighbours 
live too much in public to appreciate the feeling with 
which the island people clmg to that shrine of the 
affections. With many educated and well-to-do per- 
sonages abroad, home is but a place wherein to sleep, 
or perchance to lie by in dunng illness, all pleasure 
and interest being without doors. Our American 
kindred might have been expected to have retained, 
along with many another legacy from Britain, the 
British love for the domestic hearth. Not sa Mr 
Hawthorne may exhaust himself in regrets for the 
abolished fire, in execrations on the usuiping stove — 
the close stove in its most direful form, shrivelling up 
youth, and bloom, and beauty, and making fair hccB 
old before their time. But America has adopted, 
with exaggeration, the coram pMico life of conti- 
nental Europe. We, in Britain, are the only true 
fire- worshippers, the only real votaries of the bright 
blaze, ^c social circle, and the group of kindly faces, 
from age to infancy, that make the sunshine of the 
Hearth. And long may it be so I 

WELSH YARNS. 

IN TWO HANKS. 
IL 

I AM wandering over the buirows with the curate^s 
liver-coloured pointer, Jerry. When first I made his 
acquaintance, 1 mistrusted him somewhat, tracing a 
resemblance between his hanging jowls and general 
contour and those of the blood-nound in my Peter 
Parley's Tales of Animals; but since I discovered 
that he would devour bread and butter with innocent 
enjoyment, I have ceased to fear his moist black 
muzzle, and we are now fast friends. Whenever he 
has no professional duties to perform, Jerry leaps the 
white gate of the parsonage stable-yard, and trots off 
in search of me. As soon as he finds me, he circles 
round me barkins, then suddenly makes a butt at me, 
and knocks me oown. With his pink tongue hanging 
out, and his hot breath puffing on my face, he stands 
panting over me for a minute or two with an air of 
triumph, but presently, with an apologetic expression 
in his merry brown eyes, he suffers me to rise. 
When I am on my legs again, he crawls round me 
on his belly, as if— the old humbug ! — he thought I 
was going to beat him ; but in a minute or two shakes 
off his humility and the sand that is sticking to him, 
and darts hither and thither at a wild gallop. Jerry 



is the ohIt dog, except tiie gaaMkesoflK's loog-bodwd, 
short and banlj legj^ gingerbraa-eolfliized Uam, 
that can bound over the Durrowt and live. Bk 
reverend proprietorship and edncational advant^si 
protect him aom. the rutfaless gun whidi Cox lefvsb 
at all other caaine trespassers on the wanran— a ]ib- 
turesque jumble of sand-hills. Some are oowrad witik 
a web of grass, and tiiyme, and Toriegated iboh, 
softer to the foot than a velvet-piled cami ; otiMn 
are merely dotted with eedge, aiokly pole and ef« 
sighing, and fans of fern, sdossy green in numei, ia 
autumn richly red. Hera, we sand lies dry; end loosi^ 
and silvery ; there, moist, and firm, and tawny, wilh 
every rabbit's footprint sharply out; and yoadar, 
again, ribbed by the west wmd Uowiqg ran the 
bay in front, or ^e east wind blowing from the 
marsh behind, where the villagers* h o me hove free 
pasturage. There must be myiiads of mfabibi in 
these burrpwB. Almost e v e r yw h ere yon tee tbor 
intersecting tracks. They alt before tUr hola^ 
making faces at you, or flipping their mouaftoolua 
Th^lic out a £ue way, mLVb^^ 
at prisoners* ban ; and then, if you pmsiie, tha brown* 
ooifted, gray-vested little sauoe-bcuEea mctamp&c bode 
in their short eallop, impertinently flinmg up the 
sand, and their heels, and their funny little lit white 
'fuds,* in vour faoe, as they dive into their subter- 
ranean galleries. Jerrvmay be an unexe^tionalife 
dog when he is out with his master, but 1m oertaadj 
does not content himself with pointing when be is o^ 
with me. A suspicion of this circomatence May per 
haps accotmt for Tom's frowning on mar friendamis 
ana the sco^ C9ox gives us when he meets na. No 
sooner does a rabbit look ' Chevy,' than Jeny is after 
him. The only captive, however, that he ever made 
was a poor little baby-bunny. Very pnmd was Jeov 
on that occasion, and the remembrance of his trinofa 
seems to mitigate his mortification, as time after tiBB 
he comes back to me rabbitless and out of breath. 

Through the burrows, from the mardi to tlie beaeh, 
winds a natural road. At the end of it, just behind the 
belt of blue shingle whidi separates the b en e wi from 
the beach, stands the squire's mother's balliing-niaehiDe 
— a ponderous stmctura, painted stone-coloor, and used 
about three times a year, when four hciees are isqeired 
to pull it down and up the wave-worn rattlingateaie 
In this I play at Noah's Ark. With my Bund's sje I 
see trampmg before me, two and two, tiie beasts, hirdi^ 
and insects in orderly succession (rather annmd, I 
must confess, because the only actual beast I bin 
won't walk in line, but keeps darting about like a 
cracker). I mount the steps, lure Jerry w^ sobs 
difficulty up them, and shut the door. The veal 
splash and moan of the waves a few yiida off md my 
fancy. If Jerry would but be qniet, and not keep 
scratdiing at the door, quite sceptical as to ih» Ilooa 
which is supposed to surround us, I oonld ses nnrs 
of cages, like those in Wombwell's menagerie^ watebed 
over by short-waisted, long-coated litUe men and 
women, like Blue-coat boys, and float for milas ever 
the weary waste of waters; but such is fais impotieDoe 
to get out, that our dduce seldom lasts more tnan five 
minutes : we are scarody inside the ark, before we 
are high and dry upon Mount Ararat. Once I find a 
young sea-^ull in the bathing-machine. With a mece 
of string tied to its 1^, it is ejected from tiie uttfe 
window to play raven, and then lugged bade to take 
the part of dove. 

Jerry is not always with me when I ramUe on the 
burrows. When he is not^ I am sure to see and to he 
pursued by Silly Sally, the village idiot, who wanden 
about handcuffed. Making hideous &K}es and xmooath 
noises, she chases me over the sand-hills, her manacied 
hands moving from side to side lust as if she wo* 
sculling a boat. In vain I double, drop down io 
hollows, and hide under fern. Soon I hear her heavT 
panting approaching me, and with a vacant Is^^ 
she roBa me out of my covert with lier fboti 1»* 



CHAMBKRS^ JOURNAL. 



376 




ikB it MAbfiadL Ska smfles blandly, m 
if dba faad bMn ■ b aw iii g me mkia polite •ttention« and 
tMxIa in the direolMB of omr cotiigp, to intimate that 
•he ia going to aee ' Madam,* aa b£b calla my mother, 
who apeaka kindlr to the poor creature when ahe 
loiocka at the hackfdoor, givea her aomethii^ nice to 
«at, and dre m ei her galled wxiata. 

I haTo another t«»r connected with theae burrowa 
when I am alone ; but this I do not flee from, bat by 
•osM vnaeeoontable iaaoination, am compelled to aeek. 
I joat lemember old Herbert, a labourer on the old 
farm, and tiie peenliar ery he uaed to give when he 
wanted to attract any ODe*a attention ; I remember, 
too, that he went awajr to the workhouse. Mv next 
leo^leetion about him ia, that I wonderingly followed 
» crowd of TiUagera, headed by old Herbert's former 
maater, oyer the burrows early in the morning ; they 
were ^^^'^"g for aomething with frightened eyes, i^ 
length, in a deep hollow, they espied a dark spot on 
tlM white Band. They drew near, and founa the 
corpaa of aa oM man, in coane brown pauper 
ooatome. It waa old Herbert Then I heard 
how, in the middle of the night, every member of 
the farm-houaehold had awaked, exclaiming : * Why, 
tiiat*a old Herbert*a Toioel' how with one impulse 
thay had ran to the front-door, and found no one 



bat looking out, had aeen a livid blue light 
^"'"g in the mradle of the burrows; how it had 
moved slowly on to the diurchyard, dancing up and 
down at what mnat hare been the lych-gate ; and 
Imw then they knew that it was a corpse-candle, and 
kad resolved to search in the morning for the old 
man, who, having got a holiday, had set out to spend 
it at the fson on which he had laboured from his 
boyhood, but had dropped down and died on his 
todaome wwr oyer the neavy sand. The wind haa 
long ainoe obliterated his footmarics on the oppoaite 
alepB, and smoothed over the deep dent he made in 
the bottom of tte basin when he fell, but no foot 
aaye the rabbif s now leaves its print on the circling 
aweep of silvery sand. The pale sedge sighs sadly 
xosma it^ and I peer down awe-stricken on the silent 
a "Tp Kithe a tro which death has solenmised. 

&yond the burrows lies the shell-bed; at low- 
water, a plain of sand, asterisked ¥rith star-fish, 
mMogled with jelly-fish, strewn with brown and 
clanS-coloored podded aea-weed, white fragments of 
eattle-fiah, thmny aea-urchins, and the glittering 
cyHnder-homea of caddis- wonna ; dotted wiu earth- 
wacka like incipiftnt mole-hills, from the shafts in 
whieh bound the transparent ' hoppers * like acrobatic 
flhcimps, and exhibiting, where the sun haa baked the 
aand mto a pie-crust^e orispness, a conohologica] 
moaaie^ in which ahells of every hne and a&uc- 
tore minde, from the frail bivalve, aa delicately 
wiute ana pink aa a maiden'a-blush rose, to the 
TCOgh, bronae-colomred razor-shell, with its pearly 
Hninff, and the homely whitv-brown, corrugated 
cockm. Throufih the shell-bed flows, to meet the 
aea, the Pill ; a raream in which shoals of mullet frolic 
in the moonlight, and which, so long aa it flows sea- 
ward, aeourea to tbuD dwellers in the distriot free 
oommonage upon the nek;hbouring mountain, and ^e 
lee-simple of as much of it as in one night any two 
d them can enclose and cover with four stone walls 
aad a thatched root At all events, snch is the 
pimular belief. 

Gefn B is too far off to be often visited. Four 

or five times only, I make that pilgrimase; Grossing 
tiie little stone-bridffe that spans the Pul, I toil up a 
ZDcky road, under uie ahadow of the chestnut-trees 
that stretch their branches, laden with hroad fans of 
vetdure and pagodas of hloesom, over the rough park- 
walL The bees buas round the flowers with drowsy 
industry, and the pink and white petals fall in a 
ah>w, soft shower of summer snow. A runnel of 
cfyatal watw, guigUog roond mosa-eovered stonea, 
Itoira laiTily dayn and aoroas thehilL Theblaek-^kd 



flutee in^ the hazel-copse which surrounds Cox's 
cotta^^e — ^its cable covered with mouldering, crucified 
venmn. Hw-hidden by a tuft of downy primrose- 
leaves, lurks in the rif^t-hand ston^r, mossy bank a 
CQ^ robin's nest. Or I turn off at right angles from 
the bridge^ and follow the marsh causeway — between 
reeds and rushes, amidst which dragon-flies, with 
gauzy winfls, and slim bodies of steely sheen, 
and tiny blue butterflies bedropt with olood ^ 
restlessly in the summer sunshine — ^up to the white 
park-gate. Through the young plantations of gloomy, 
angular larch and fir ; beneath the gracefully spreading 
ancestral elms ; between the swefiinff banks of eme- 
rald turf; past the hydrocephalous-lookinff * House' 
of heavy-roofed dull-red brick, with white stone 
mullions and copings — ^its terrace-gsurdens in a rush 
of geraniums, and its fish-ponds illuminated with 
yellow water-lilies, and creamed over with eot^fervcBf 
now and then agitated by a vain, petulant carp, 
weary of remaining motionless and unnoticed in mid- 
water — past the old ruined Castle (castles are almost 
as plentiful as black-berries in South Wales), wall- 
flower-bannered, ivy-draped, and jackdaw-haunted 
(the only arrow-slit uncrumbled bemg that through 
which, centuries ago, hissed tiie shaft which, directed 
for her unlawful lover, slew the lady of the manor^a 
lord), I trudge along the winding, gravelled park-road. 
Either course brings me to the Towers, a casteUatcMl 
lodge, in one of whose candle-boxes lives old Molly ; 
enjoying almost a sinecure as a gate-keeper, since 
the squire only visits the place about twice a year, 
and ais mother keeps horses but for the licht cart, 
the driver of which, of course, has to open the gatea 
for himself. 

The Towers are the post-office for our village, 
and some half-dozen others bevond. Here we 
driver of the mail-cart, olive picked out with red 
— whom we regard as semi-military, on account of 
his bushy wluskers and swagger — £t>ps once a week 
a tiny bundle of letters, asne passes on to more 
important localities — ^letters which, on an average, 
are heard of and fetched by thoee to whom they are 
directed in about a month; and hence he canies, 
on his return-trip, the sparse replies of our district. 
Besides her wages and postal perquisites, old MoUy 
makea a little by her literal Welsh yams, which 
she is always spinning, and which she sells to the 
yam-buver, who visitB us twice a year in a green 
van, laoen with Welsh flannel and gay plaid-cfoths, 
which Cambrian Celts affect quite as much as their 
Gaelic congeners. A little way bevond the Towers, 
Cefn B— — begins to swell out of the hi^ table-land 
which forms its pedestal At old Mollis, therefore, 
I stop for rest and refreshment on my mountain 
excursions. However hot the day may be, her little 
room is always full of a scent of burning wood, which 
smoulders on the whitewashed hearth. With a low- 
crowned rusty black hat above her mobcap, and a 
yellowish- white kerchief crossed upon her breast, she 
sits in her short red-blue-and-green-checkered bed- 
gown, turning her humming spinning-wheel, and 
mumbling to herself with tootnless jaws. She knows 
what I want, and points to a cupboard, from which 
I bring out an apple-pasty, a bit of backatone cake, 
or a yellow disn half -full of 'flathen' (a coarse 
cuatara) ; or if it be her dinner-hour, I am regaled 
with * white-pot' (a toothsome combmation of milk 
and flour), fried bacon, and *laver-bread' (a^ dark 
green sea-weed done up into oval cakes, sprinkled 
with oatmeal, and cooked in. grease). Sometimes, 
when the old lady is in a very good humour, she 
unlocks a chest, carefully takea out a botUe, and 
lets me taste the nutheglin which the Caatle house- 
keeper haa sent her. 

At the very foot of the mountain lives the Castle 
stewand, whoae saucy little daughter divides my heart 
with flolden-haired Tilly. Her prettiness haa aome- 
thing aa do with my devotion, bat her pnairesion of a 



376 



0HAMBER6*S JOURNAL. 



1 



pony more. This we catch and saddle — ^the Welsh 
aide-saddle being a pack covered with blue doth — 
and ^en * ride and tie ' up the rough hill-side, sha^y 
with rank grass. From the top, we can see far o^- 
b^ond the moorland purple with heather, and roamed 
over by wild-cattle, beyond the green meadows, the 
yellow cornfields, and the duslnr woods — a long blue 
bay, dotted with snowy sails, and at its head the smoke 
and steeples of a town. That glimpse of the busy 
world from our lofty mountain solitude, where the 
wide-spreading silence is only broken by the summer 
wind laintly rustlins the lon^ grass, the panting of 
the pony, now and then a chirrup from a bird, or a 
chirp from a grasshopper, and the low ubiquitous 
buzz of bumiuied flies, has a strange influence. 
We pity the poor creatures condemned to live in 
yonder grimy place, and yet long to hef among them 
— ^to see something more of life than that which 
ahnoet stagnates on our side of the mountain. Along 
its imdulatmg ridge we run and canter until we come 
to Arthur's Stone — a huge mass of granite, supported 
on two or three slender granite props. King Arthur, 
walking in Devonshire, felt a pebble in his shoe ; he 
took it out, and chucked it across the sea; a few 
splinters were chipped off, and became its supports as 
it lighted in the hollow in which we behold it. That 
is the le^nd attached to the Druidical remain. It is 
begirt with a circle of stones, and every one who visits 
it must add a pebble to the heap. Beneath it is a 
clear, shallow, noly well, whither in Catholic times 
sick people came in crowds to drink and be healed. 
Prot^tantism kills many of these graceful super- 
stitions. The well's border is no longer trodden bare ; 
grass springs freshly round it now, and the blue-bell 
grows on its very edge, mirrored in a glassy sheet, 
only troubled by a funny little black-fac^ mountain- 
lamb and a dandified wagtail, whisking about the 
glossy tail of his dainty dress-coat, and rowing to his 
viS'd-viSf as if the lamb had politely requested the 
pleasure of taking water with him. 

Out with old * Uncle Richards ' and his grandson 
lobstering in the bay. The boy pulls slomy iJong 
whilst Uncle Richaids lets down the 'plumpers* — 
shallow nets fastened to iron rin^, and baited with 
bits of dried fish on strings which stretch across. 
At length, all are dropped, and the brown bungs of 
the long float-line bob up and down on the green 
waves. Then we pull off a little way and wait. The 
bay is unwontedly lively this morning. There are 
otner boats out fishing, and smacks dred^ng for 
stone. An IHracombe brig is loading with limestone 
at the Quarries — the long red scar on the sloping wood 
upon tne left, above which towers our shattered 
castle, and at the foot of which nestles our gray old 
church. The squire's schooner-yacht is in, dim and 
trim, contrasting oddly with the clumsy, slovenly 
collier, beached and unloading on ^e sands, where her 
cai^ is divided after a very primitive fashion. No 
weights or measures are used, but the coal is piled 
in as many heaps — equalised by eye only — as were 
are consignees. The names of -Uiese, written on 
slips of paper, are then shaken up in a hat, and a 
man coes round and flings one, taken at random, 
on eacn heap. The farmers who have clubbed to buy 
the coal, perfectly satisfied with this guess-work 
partition, tnen cart their shares away. I have plenty 
of time to look about me before we pull back to haul 
up the nets. Some distance outside the bay, there is 
alight-coloured patch upon the purple sea — green as 
sprmg-com at the edges, but toning off into a siddy 
yellow. This is the Silver Shoal, where, years and 
years ago, the Spanish treasure-ship went down, and 
where, when Uncle Richards was a boy, the village 
fishermen often went out to dredge for doUars ; but very 
few were picked up ; and it is now an indubitable artide 
of village faith, that the spirits of the drowned crew 
guard the coin ; and that the man who would obtain it, 
must go out when there is a new moon at midnight. 



after having sold himself to the deviL Ojmonte tlw 
green whispering wood upon ^e left — ^where tiba eiu^oo 
calls, and primroses and cowslips light op the shadieet 
recesses with a golden glory, and the violet adds ifm 
fragrance to the sweet soft scent of last year's mould- 
ering leaves, and the pale wild-anemone trembles 
beside the mossy tree-roots — there stretches on the 
right a range of stem, storm-stained, and wrinkled 
crags, capP^ with gorse ablaze with bright-yellow 
blossom. There is one break in the frowning waO, 
a sweep of sand, over which two indiridnaHaed 
rocks, with pinnacle-tops — ^the Great and ihe littla 
Tor — stand sentry. When the tide is low, wme three 
miles of the road to the market-town con be 8»ved by 
fording the Pill, and travening this winding gap ; but 
when the tide has turned, it fills with mdi rapidity 
that many a life has been lost throng rcoklesaly 
racing a horse against the sea. One, I remember, was 
lost mst fair-day. A party of holiday-mAkers were 
returning from the town by moonlight ; amongst them 
were two young farmers and the coquettieii cause of 
their rival^. The one she really meant to many 
chanced to be in di^race that rngbt ; nothing that 
he did or said could please her : die gave all itat 
smiles and attention to the lover for whom, in fact, 
she did not care a straw. Exasperated by her capri- 
cious crudty, when the cavalcade reached the tunung 
whence the bridle-path dopes from the main road te 
the sands, the slighted swain intimated hm intentioD 
of parting company, and riding home tliat way. I%e 
soberest of the party, remembering the state of the 
tides, expostulated with him, and hsSi almost prevafled 
upon him to relinquish his mad project, when the 
fickle fair one remarked : ' Oh, let ^im go if he tikei ; 
I daresay he won't be missed ! * Tno poor fool 
instantly clapped spurs to his horse, and galloped 
headlong down the slippery path. Next <Siy, the 
horse was found drowned upon the beaoh, but the 
rider was never seen again. The ^li, after gmng half- 
mad about him for a month, married the otherlover, 

and now, it is said, he beats her. On Ce6i B 

to-day, though elsewhere the sky is clear, test dood- 
wreatibis, festooning down its sides like the dewed-np 
mainsail of the comer. 

But it is time to look after our plmomMss. Owes 
puUs back to ^e fioat-line, and swiftly dong it, 
whilst Uncle Richards hauk up net after net v 
quickly as his mahogany-coloured hands can move, 
some bushels of crabs we get— all of which, with 
the exception of one or two 'whoppers,' we throw 
overboard again — and four or five of the objects of 
our quest, sooty black, mottled with nniddy orange, 
which we tranner to the ' well * of our boat. Mo0t 
of both crabs and lobsters are minos a limb or 
two. There was a thunder-storm the night befoiv 
last, and this, Undo Richards says, aooonnts for the 
deprivation — crabs and lobsters, when frightened, 
bemg in the habit of getting rid of the means 
of running away from what uightemi them. A 
talk about storms in general ensues, and the dd 
man tells me of the awful tempest dnzing which, 
hundreds and hundreds of years ago, the old churdi 
and the old parsonage — ^the present chmrdi and par- 
sonage are by no means architectural chickens — wefe 
engiufed. When the plumpers have been \mUd 
and dropped again, Undo Richards bids CKren pull 
into ^e shadow of the wood, that I may have a peep 
at the church beneath the sea. 

Quite plainly we can nmke out tiie double row 
of columns and the broken arches, two or thieo 
fathom beneath the rocking boat AJs the greea, 
clear sea swells over them, they shatter and shimmer, 
and then for a moment are motionless again. Oystoi 
and limpets cluster on the corbels. The font, and ^ 
octagonal stone pulpit, and the columns, and tiie 
broken arches, are gay with streamers of many- 
coloured tangle. Up the aide no human foot has 
trodden for centuries, a shoal of fishes ^ides wilh 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



377 



glancing scales. There is no trace left of the old 
pai8ona|y;e» save that heap of masonry beside the 
blighted gnarled old tree that overhangs the water. 
The little plot of ffnws beyond, dotted here and there 
with a tun of dimodils, which have a pensive look, 
maugre the goMtn. splendour of their swaying crests, 
is still calkd the old parsonage-garden. As the 
tired quarrymen, BwinjB;ins their powder-horns, and 
the quanywomen, taking nome tneir roush wooden 
sled^ (made of onbarked shafts, the encu of. which 
bump alonff the ground), pass the place on foot and 
on hors^Mi^ in the evening twilight, they sometimes 
see, they say, an old stoopmg grayhaired man in a 
black cioak« with his back towards them, watering 
the flowers, and hold their breath as they go bjr ; for 
should the spectral * old parson ' be distorbed in his 
gardening by a hunan voice, he turns and scowls, 
and the man or woman on whom he scowls will sleep 
in the churchyard before the year is out 

Above the rocks— draped with sea-weed — ^vividly 
green, silky and ribbony; olive-coloured, gloomy- 
L)oking uid bladdered; pink, scarlet, and purple, 
delicate as silken fringe ; knobbed with limpet-shdls ; 
bebuttoned with red and green, and blue and orange- 
coloured, and milky- white, velvety sea-anemones; 
and full of crystal pools with floors of golden sand, in 
which tiny niahes swim, and through which clumsy 
little motued green crabkins sprawt— a narrow path, 
hedged with periwinkle, leads from the parsonage to 
the churohywd* Almost every grave is a coffin- 
shaped flower-bed, fenced in with a low border of 
whitewashed stones, and planted with primroses and 
wall-flowers, sweet-williams, lilies of the valley, and 
London pride. On one side is the shady whispering 
wood, on the other the bright murmuring sea. A 
f.^, calmer cemeteiy-slMpn^-place-^ summer 
time could scarcely be conceivea There are very 
few tombstones. The flowers tended, the border- 
stones whitewashed with pious care, tell of survivors' 
love far more truthfully and touchingly than words 
cut out for wages, and ihen left to ba obliterated by 
slugs and slime. The churchyard holds but one ' grand ' 
tomb — a palisaded stone-chest beneath the chancel- 
window, * Sacred to the Memory* of a mysterious 
lady, who came to reside in the village nobody knew 
whence — ^but there somehow ^t afloat a rumour that 
she had been too familiar with the Prince Regent, 
— ^who lived alone there, who died alone there, and 
now lies boned there, the clerk hints, under a feigned 
name. There is another stone-tomb in the graveyard, 
beneath which lie four boys who were drowned 
whilst bathing on the Sunday, and which furnishes 
an unfailing text for admonition to the school- 
mistress, as Sunday after Sunday she leads her flock, 
or rather drives her mob of wild, sha^Ky.maned little 
oolts and fillies along the path wh^i passes it to 
church. 

• Church and Methodist meeting are here on very 
amicable terms. When there is service at the one, 
there is none at the other. One Sunday there is 
service at the church in the mozning, and at the 
Methodist chapel in the afternoon ; the next Sunday, 
the order is reversed. The curate, though he m a 
wild young fellow, and has broken his collar-bone 
whilst galloping after the hounds, goes now and then 
to the Methodist preaching; and the saintliest 
Methodist would not think of taking the sacrament 
from any hands but those of his rollicking young 
jMurish priest. Something of the old Gathohc rever- 
ence for the priestly office lingers in the village. The 
men, in their creased Sunday coats of pepper-and-salt 
f riese, pull their forelocks — the women, resplendent in 
many-coloured plaids, scarlet whittles, fuU-bordered, 
gay-ribboned cape, and glossy, tall, black beaver-hats, 
make a courtesy when they pass the pulpit— even when 
the parson is not in it. A queer old place is the 
draroh inside. The effigy of the knifdit in the chancel, 
Uie Greedy and Commandments, ana the one or two 



mural tablets, are green with slime ; the pulpit, the 
reading-desk, and the pews are rotten ; the earthen- 
floor is greasy with damp, and so uneven, that people 
bob up and down like piano-hammers as they walk 
along the aisle, or cross from one seat to another. 
Hither, however, very contentedly, come the viUage 
biide and bridegroom, preceded by a fiddler, and 
followed by those who have been honoured with 
* biddings ' to the wedding, and who are expected to 
subscribe enough, during the subsequent carousal at 
the Bull, to start the young couple in life ; and hither, 
dotting the green hill-slopes wil^ moving specks of 
black and rod, and almost exhausting the Bull's 
'accommodation for man and beast,' the country 
people, male and female, from miles around, converge 
on foot and in the saddle, when any one they respect 
Lb to be buried. 

My recollections are not exhausted, but I am afraid 
my readers' patience must be, and therefore I here 
cease my prate. 

TOMKINS MARRIED. 

The mushroom villas which form a sort of fairy ring 
round London, increasing in circumference month by- 
month, are not perhaps entitled to that rusticity whida 
their names afifect. Bobadil Bowers and Clementina 
Cottages are to bond-Jide Devonshire residences what 
Damon and Clarissa are to actual shepherds and 
shepherdesses; still, there are make-believes — mock- 
turtle soup, for instance — ^which are much better than 
the realities they represent, and I do wish that some 
literaiy genius would pluck up courage to beard 
Carlyle, and write a defence of Shams. A shepherd 
in the flesh eats onions, which his biscuit-china repre- 
sentative does not; and though a rural retreat in 
Wales or Westmoreland is very pleasant in its way, 
how far it is from the club I 

No. 1 Morley Park Villa, my present home, is cer- 
tainly not an ideal house : in style of architecture, it 
bears a strong resemblance to those mansions which 
the young are accustomed to draw on their slates 
when they are supposed to be encaged in arithmetical 
calculation ; and the walls, whicn are but one brick 
in thickness, are plastered over with some composition 
like the iceing of a Twelfth-cake, which toill peel off 
every winter, to the great disarrangement of the 
woras Morley Park ViuaSf which are stuck up on the 
forehead of my house, and which wriggle sideways 
and topsy-turvy as the cement loosens, until they 
resemble Hebrew rather than Christian characters, 
so that our abode has occasi|onally been taken for a 
synaco^e. Nor am I quite conuortable about the 
foundations, for we were rocked in an alarming manner 
by the gales last November; nor did the k>gical 
suggertion of Mrs Share, of No. 3, ' that if the 'Villas 
ha3r intended to fall, they would have done so long 
ago,' entirely reassure me. But what are these trifling 
drawbacks when balanced against our advantMres? 
Our Villas are within twelve miles of Hyde Park 
Comer, ten minutes' walk of the railway station, and 
a quarter of a mile of the Thames. They are eight in 
number, each surrounded by about half an acre of 
sarden ; and these gardens are none of your newly 
hud out plots, with a few baby laurels and embryo 
rose-trees dotted about them, but are gay with mature 
flowers, fringed with thick shrubberies, and adorned by 
lime, chestnut, and cedar trees of fifty or sixty years' 
standing, which throw a j^teful shade over mossy 
lawns, where thrushes and black-birds hold their diets 
of worms. Behind our Villas lies a nobleman's park ; 
while the road in front, by which they are approached, 
divides them from a farm in a high state of cultivation. 
Report speaks of fabulous sums offered by Buildinsr 
Societies for this park and farm, which have all 
been hitherto refused ; and so, despite our proximity 
to London, we are slightly pastoral, and suiromidea 
by a faint halo of poetry sod pi^k 



378 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNiJU 



It WM in June, and slioitly sobsequeot to my 
xauriage, that I fint took up my roudenoe in Morley 
Park Yillas. The aun was whining, the birda were 
■■"ging, the rosea were — and the north-easterly galea 
were not — blowing ; and altogether the weaker points 
of tiie place were not perceptible, while the atraog 
onee came out in bold relief, ao that I began to 
iiiink that I had stumbled upon Paradise, and to 
prove myaelf equal to the aifeaation, took np garden- 
mg, I have no curiosity in my composition, and ao 
I cannot tell how I came to be watering in the 
•hrubbeiy which divided our garden from that of 
No. 2 one evening. There were no plants there which 
particularly required that attention, and there were 
otiiers elsewhere which did; perhaps I waa in an 
absent fit; perhaps I was &ted to know who our 



next-door neighbours were; anyhowj there I found 

sprinldi 
over the nedge. 



myself sprinkling the haidiest of lauiek and glancing 



I saw a young man, with a red face and a wide- 
a¥rake, lounging on a ^irden-seat in his shirt-sleeves, 
with a long pipe in his mouth, BdTa Lift in his hand, 
and some Mimdy and water on a table before him, 
and was turning away in disappointment, when a 
peculiar movement of his head nuMle me atop, stare, 
set down the watering-pot, and sidle off to the left, 
to get a better view of his face, while a feeling of 
tsrts, cricket, and switchinff-blocks stole over my 
senses as I recoenised an old achool-fellow ; a man, 
too, whom I had often wished to hear somfithin^ of, 
for he had been a character, rather a bad one, it is 
true, but still original and eccentric, and I have a 
peculiar weakness for the society of people who are 
unlike the mass of their fellow-creatures. So I oallsd 
out, *TomkinsI* 

' Hulloa ! Come round, and have something. Who 
are you!' was the indiscriminately hospitable 
reply. 

So I went round, and presently he recognised me, 
lor it so happened that I had once done him a good 
tnm, and one of his extraordinary peculiaritieB was a 
memory for that sort of thing. 

* Well,' said hey when old reminisoences had made 
him communicative, ' do you know I have got a wife 
in there?' and he pointed to the house. 

' Indeed I Have you been married lo^g?' 

* Fketty well about two montha.' 

' I am sure I congratolate you. I am in much the 
same position m)^BBll Our wives must beocmie 
acquainted.' 

*• For goodness' sake don't bring a lady near me! ' 
ke cried; ' I hajire esci^ed from aiU that aort of thing 
at last Why, what do you suppose I got nilioed 
lor?' 

*Love?' 

< Gammon! Do I look, now, like a fellow who 
would do anything so rc»nantio as that? 

I must confess his appearan c e was not that of a 
fish likely to rise to any * fancy flies ; ' so I suggested 
tiie matrimonial ground-bait : ' Money ? ' 

* Not a farthing. I had to set her up in dothes and 
hair-bruahes for the wedding. No, I manied for 
peace and quietness.' 

* Never heard of so paradoxical a proceeding in all 
my life before. Suppose you tell me all about it' 

*• W^lt I wilL You remember me at school ? I was 
not very happy there. The masters were for ever 
wanting me to learn Latin and Greek, and my tastes 
did not lie in that direction ; the bovs, too, were rather 
partioular fellows about dress and manners; and as 
idid not come up to their standard in those matters, 
they used to treat me in a supercilious sort of way, 
which always made me feel uncomfortable. Even 
when they wanted to borrow my money, or get me to 
treat them, they called me "Good Tomkixial" or 
" Honest old buffer 1 " or some half-patronising zuune or 
another, whiph bothered me exceedingly, for I never 
couldbesure when they wecie laHighi^gaiin& I would 



have given anything sometimes for a good downrmkt 
quarrel with one 3L mj polite tormentors; but ths 
fellows loiew better than to Dush me too ftit^ Sor 1 
was strong and wiry, and could spar, not to iwmtinii 
that my guardian (my parents were dead) let me 
have plenty of money, and neither boys nor men are 
apt to quMTel with those they can ^ anythbg out 
o^ if they can help it Perhf^ bemg a ahy sort of 
fellow, I imagined a fiood many sli^^ts which were 
never intended. Anyhow, I did not live oomfortsUjf 
with either masters or boys ; I always felt alone as it 
were^ and made no friends ; and so I used to skulk 
off in play-hoius to Tom Badger*s yard, where we 
kept our dogs and hawks, you remember; and these 
I would spend hours with the Bilbury ChidLen, and 
Joe Noggins the pigeon-fancier. They would sit and 
drink with me, and be grateful for what I gkft them. 
They looked upon me as a gentleman, listoied to what 
I had to say, and gave in to my opinion^ and I felt 
at my eaae with uiem, which X never did witb you 
fdlows. At last, old Switcher cot an inkling of mj 
habits, and I had to leave. My guardian was in a 
vident rage when I flot to his Acnise, and went on 
about proper pride and station, and so fbrUi, till I got 
angry in my turn, and repaid him with some inso- 
lence ; upon which he said I was a reprobate, and he 
would have nothing more to do with me ; whenat I 
g»ve him a cheer. 

'He did not ke^ his word, however, for ke eent 
me to a private tutor, whose groom was a capital 
fellow; and soon after I had a commission m a 
light cavalry regiment That was worse than schooL 
I never could understand my brother-offioen; for, 
though they would swear and drink like ooal-heavexs; 
there was always a something aboot them whidi I 
could not pick up^ and which I cannot exjdain or 
define; and when thrown off m^ guard oy the 
general freedom from restraint which was appareot 
after mess sometimes, I was oontinuallv saying or 
doing something which brou^t them aU up as stiff 
and grave as parsons. I overheard one of tnem say 
one day : ** Poor Tomkins, what a Mackgnard he is I 
but one must make allowances for flock a good- 
natured fellow ;" and I know that was just the ledisg 
they all had about me. I should have been mfldi 
happier as a private trooper — if I could have k^t 
moderatdy sober, that is— than as an officer. How I 
used to lon^ to go and jdn my men when I passed 
them drinking at the beer-shops! However, tkst 
was quite out of tiie question, so I made sens 
aoquamtanoes amongst tlue farmers round about oor 
quartera, and had a quiet boose now and then with 
tnem. If there had been a war, and some figh^ag to 
do, I think I might have won some renect in iks 
R|;iment, and t&n perhaps I dioold nave dose 
b^ter; but as there was no prospect of active aervioe, 
I sold out when I came of age, for I had five thousssd 
a year, and where was the use of stoppii^ in the 
aimv till I should be turned out of it ? 

* After this, I gave gentility a fair trial, for the wodt 
who had been my guardian got hold of m% andper- 
Buaded me to ^ down to an estate I had in Kormlk, 
where he and his familv came and kagi house lor ise; 
and all the counly-folk gave dinners and baUa, to 
which I was dragged, and at which the pec^e mods 
a fuss about me, imd tried to many me to ttoff 
daughters, tiU at last I could stand it no kmger; to 
one night I lowered myself and a oarpet-bag from ^ 
bedroom window, and went to London, where I ff^ 
into what you fdlows call ** low company." I do sflt 
think I spoke to a gentleman — certainly not to a ladif 
— for a year and a nail What soti cl people did 1 
associate with ? Why, all sorts. I went up the lifV 
with bargemen; I pai&onised sparrinff-oribs^ and esvor 
missed a fight ; I todL the chair at diffSerent dnhi d 
amall sporting-tradesmen ; I did not care, so lei^ si^ 
was with a set of feUows who were my infeoasii* 
education and f ortone^ and who leoksd upon «e « * 



OHAMBSB£rS JOU&V AL. 



379 



liift of a BweQ. That wm the soii of life fior me ; and 
I dwesay joa wonder how I ever came to ciye it up. 
Well, as I was never quite what you may cul sober at 
that time, I have no very clear notion of what the row 
was aboirt ; bat there vfos a row. Yon see, I ran 
through a srood deal of money — how it went, I caonot 
tell : some nghting-men who played at cards may have 
had some, and I used to drop a little at pigoon-shoot- 
ing and skittles ; and then some foolish fellows got a 
cheque for five pounds from me, and turned it some- 
how into one for five hundred, but did it so clumsily, 
liiat it was detected; and there was a shindy, idiich 
got into the papers, so that my unde and a set of 
other relations, who had before attempted to make a 
gentleman of me, came to hear about it, and they got 
a pack of lawyers and doctors together, who took a 
mean advantsge of a little toudi of ddirium tremens. 
It was made out that I was not fit to be trusted with 
the management of my own affairs, and for three 
mouths I was treated just as if I had been cracked I 
Even when I was dedsred all right sgain, my relations 
would not let me alone : they made me take a house 
at Brighton, where they used to come and stav with 
me, and bore me to death, particularly an old aunt^ 
who made me read tracts, and who said I was a brand, 
and it was her mission to pluck me. As far as I can 
make out, that has been the mission of a cood many 
people! You may wonder why I put up wiui aQ this; 
Dot there were several reasons for. it. You see, my 
uncle really had done me a service, in rescuinff a good 
slice of my property from the maws of a set ofmoney- 
lenden, who were lap^g it up pretty &st, and so I 
did not like to flv in ms race ; then I am an easy sort 
of Mlow, apt to oe led by the nose, and Brixton was 
not such a rnd place after all ; for I made fnends with 
the fishermen, uid used to go out with them in their 
smacks. Capital fellows some of those sailors were, 
who oould tdl stories and sing songs "by the hour 
together. They were the best compamons I ever 
met for one thin^ that they were just as jolly without 
drink — and Huj never got drunk at sea — as witii it, 
whidi was never the case with the set I got mixed 
up with in I/mdon. 

' Hie man I liked best of them was an old salt of 
the name of Jdbn Budd, who had a small craft of 
Us own, in which I have spent many a rou^ m^tst, 
far happier in my pea-jacket and sou' -wester tlum I 
dwuld nave been oressed up in a white choker and a 
■tiff black coat, in one of those solemn drawing-rooms 
ialo iriiich my relations were for ever trying to drac 
me^ laSL from which, to their intense dimst, I used 
often to escape to a quiet pipe and glass of grog at dd 
Jdm's cottage, when he was on shore. 

'Sometimes, too, when he was at sea, for he had a 
wife and dau^ter who always gave me a hearty wd- 
oome^ and who were mudi pleasanter people to talk 
to tiian any of the fine ladies I met out in sodety, in 
whose presence I fdt shy and awkward, and sfraid 
of sayiiiff something I ought not. Mary Budd was 
aiwaysbright and cheerful, and seemed glad to see 
me ; and it is nice somehow to see a pret^ girl look 
pleased when you come into the room. NcSt that I 
got at an spooney, you know, not a bit of it ; I never 
even talked any nonsense to her, for I alwm thou^t. 
In a vague way, i^t if I married at all, I must, as a 
matter d! course, choose a lady ; but I did not mean 
to many; and as for anything dse, I would have 
lacked myself if I had dreamed of such a thing. 
However, it seems that m;^ relations took their own 
view of tiie object of my visits to the Budds, for one 
mondng my uncle and former guardian came into my 
room with an extra mve face. 

** Glad to see you," said I ; and that is one of the 
nuisances of polite sodety, one has to lie so I '* What 
will you have?" 

" Thank you," said he, with the sort of bow the 
Duke of York's Column would make if introduced to 
the ^^etoria Tower. ** I have not oome hen lor the 



purpose of partaking of your hospitality* but to speak 
to you on a subject of serious importance." 

** Hulloa," thought I!, ** what is in the wind now ?** 
for I knew from experience what all those fine words 
betokened. 

** Those nearest related to you in name and blood," 
he went on, ^ and most interested in upholding the 
honour ol the family, have latdy met t(^gether for the 
consideration of certain matters affeoting yoorselL** 

^ Yenr kind of them, I am sure." 

** And they have requested me to oonvey to you 
their esnest remonstrance and unanimous resolution. 
We are all nieved to see tiiat you retain your unfdr- 
tunate preculeetion for low company. Now, Boberl^ 
how is this? Have you not fhe Uood of an old 
family in your veins ?" 

** Perhaps it is beginning to run thick, like a barrd 
of beer near the bottom," I suggested. 

" Did you not reodve a polite education T ^ 

** O yes ; I was kicked by the boys who were bigger 
than mysci^ and was just as polite to those who wiare 
smaUer." 

" Did I not get you a commission in a crack regi- 
ment 7 and, in short, have we not all done what w« 
could to make a gentleman of you T" 

" Certainly you have, and very much obliged I am ; 
but 3rou aee I am nnfortunatdy but a sow's ear, 
an article utterly unsnited for the manufacture of a 
silk purse." 

" 1 fear you are ri^t ; but do not make the tssk 
nttolv hopeless by contracting tins low marriage." 

" What maixiage ?" cried I in great astonishment. 

** The report has readied us tukt you are about to 
take for your wi& a famale of the lower orders — a 
creatureca the name of Budd, a fisherman's daughter; 
and I am deputed to inform you, that if vou mfliot 
this last disgrace upon your family, we shall fed it to 
be our duty to repudiate you altogether." 

^'Waitabit," ssid I; ''let me clearly understand 
you. Do you mean to say that if I marry Budd's 
dau^ter, none of you will come near me again ? " 

**That is the decision we have arrived at;" ho 
replied. 

** Win not my cousins come and stay with me as 
they have donet" 

"Certainly not" 

** WiU no one ask me out to dinner-parties T" 

-No." 

** Nor ballB, nor oomoerts?" 

'* As far as we are ooncenied, yon will he debtned 
from an societv." 

" You would not cut me in the street?" 

" I fear it would be our painful duty to do even 
that" 

llien," cried I, slapping my hand on the table, 



«I»m" 



«Hush!" 

■if I don't do it!" 



'^ Do what f Are you, then, so infatuated as to give 
up aU your family for tiie sake of this giri ?" 

** Infatuatedl not a bit at it: the idea never entered 
my head until you put it there. Many thanks for 
the hint, old eentleman; I'U go and make her an 
offer at once I "^ 

' And so I did, and married her within the month, 
and I have not seen or heard of one of my relations 
since. It is ddi^ditfnl ; I have no one to oother me, 
and I do just asl like Eh, what is it, Jane ?' 

* If yon dease, sir, missis wants to speak to yon.' 

* Eh T Ah I say I am comins. — You see,' he added, 
turning to me, * my^ wife is a bit jealous of this,* and 
he tam>ed the spirit-case whieh stood on the table ; 
'and though, of course, I am not ruled by her in any 
way, yet suU I think it better during the fint months 
of our marriage to let her down easy ; but I see it is 
no use tryine to humbug yon, you are in the same 
boat poor f mjow I ' 

' Please, sir, mimis says* 



380 



CHAMBBRffS JOURNAL. 



* I *in coming immediately — 6ood-by, old fellow ; 
glad to have a chat with you in this way; but, I 
Bay, don't (xz^/' 

MODERN MEXICANS. 

Mexico is cut in twain by the tropic of Cancer, yet 
its temperature varies from that of the torrid to that 
of the frigid zona Its interior consists of volcanic 
rock, thrown up into mountains, whose peaks are 
clotlied in peirpetual snow, graduating downwards to 
the shore-line of the Atlantic and the Pacific, where the 
heat is tropicaL In the course of a day's inravel from 
the coast to the mountains, changes of temperature 
are experienced equivalent to those of a long voyage 
over many degrees of latitude. The slope from the sea 
to the heights of the Cordilleras is broken by broad steps 
of table-land, vast plateaus formed in filled-up hollows 
between mountain and hill, floored with horizontal 
strata of tertiary deposits, which are acain covered 
with constantly accumulating layers of iSluvium. A 

Siod idea of these immense plateaus is given by 
umboldt when he says of them, that although with- 
out roads, a wheeled-carriage might pass over their 
gently undulating prairie-land for one thousand miles, 
and meet no oostruction. Upon these plateaus, 
at heights of 3000 to 8000 feet from the sea, in a 
climate corresponding somewhat to that of Northern 
Italy, and well fitted for Europeans, the great 
mass of the Mexican people in ancient and mmlem 
times have dwelt. Mexico contains about 1,200,000 
square miles, in which there are many barren tnicts, 
and tracts only fertile under irrigation; but on the 
whole it is a well-favoured, fertile, and beautiful land, 
and might be the home of a populous, prosperous, 
and wealthy nation. In its varied climes, the fruits 
and cereals of every region on earth may be grown, 
and every animal reared Its mineral wealth is ereat; 
and every one knows that its rocks, baited with gold 
and silver, tempted Cortes and the Spaniards to its 
conquest. 

' Scarcely less varied than the climates of Mexico are 
the races which inhabit it. In their variety they 
sprine from. three roots — the aboriginal Mexicans 
(called Indians), the Spaniards, and the negroes. These 
have freely intermarried, and produced distinct 
varieties, which some number at twenty-five. Then, 
too, it is said there are about one hundred and fifty 
tribes among the Indians who speak from fifty to one 
hundred languages; these are exclusive of the red 
Indians, who ranse on the northern frontier, who hunt 
and dig not, and whom Mexico shares with- Canada 
and the United States. The negroes do not form 
a large part of the population of Mexico; most 
of them were introduced as slaves in the . days of 
the rule of old Spain, but aU are now free. The 
hot parts of Mexico are the paradise of runaway 
slaves from Texas and Louisiana. In Mexico, there 
is no prejudice against colour; negroes are freely 
sought m marriage, and even Europeans settled in the 
country take wives of negro blood. The entire popu- 
lation of Mexico is reckoned to be under 8,000,000, 
of which about 1,500,000 are of Spanish descent, 
3,500,000 Indians or aborigines, 2,000,000 Mestizos or 
mixed Spaniard and Indian, and 600,000 or 700,000 
neffroes, mulattoes, and zamboes, the ofiispring of the 
Indian and negro. Over all, the Spanish element is 
suinreme in language, religion, manners, and law. 

There is no one who reads his newspaper who is 
not aware, that in lawlessness and disorganisation- no 
country in the world exceeds the repubhc of Mexico. 
For years wo have read of nothing but insurrection 
following; insurrection, and revolution revolution; 
president this succeeding president that ; until, in their 
confusion and obscurity, all reckoning in Mexican 
politics has been lost. Mr Tylor, with his friend 
Mr Christy, spent the months of March, April, May, 
and June 1856, in a visit to the city of Mexico and | 



suiTounding districts, collecting antiquities, and seeing 
and hearing all they could <» the country and its 
inhabitants ; and the result is before us m a vezy 
pleasant volume.* 

Mr Tylor landed at Vera Cruz, the port of Mexico, 
on the Uulf ; a well-built Spanish town, but a melan- 
choly place. It stands in a desert of sand, which 
reflects the sun^s rays with intolerable ardour. From 
June to October, no north wind clears the air; the 
rain falls in torrents, and forms great stagnant 
lagoons, emitting pestilential vapours; and in the 
town the yellow fever rages ; so that Vera Croz has 
earned the name of Hhe city of the doad.' Bound 
for Mexico, 250 miles inland, Mr Tylor was advised 
to defer their journey until the following day, as 
the robbers who infested the way, knowing the 
steamer had arrived, would be on the look-out for the 
diligence. This counsel was wisely adopted, for their 
steam-boat comrades, who started that day, were 
stopped and plundered of all they carried. The dili- 
gences had then just commenced running, after having 
been discontinued for several months, owing to the 
disturbed state of the country. Next day, they took 
their places in a strong American-built diligence, and 
commenced the journey along a railway, which had 
been started some time before with great energy, and 
advanced fifteen miles on the way to Mexico, and 
there was abandoned. With some detoors, owins to 
Puebla being in a state of sies^e, they were salely 
dnu^ed and jolted over no roaos and bad roads up 
to Mexica 

The city of Mexico is situated in a plain as large as 
Lancashire, 7500 feet above the sea, and surroanded 
by hills, amongst which are two snowy mquntaiii 
peaks. In this plain are five lakes, without natunl 
outlet, into which the country is drained. Had the 
valley been at the level of the sea, it would have 
become a great lake ; but at its altitude, tibe atmo- 
sphere is rarefied, and evaporation goes on with snck 
rapidity as to keep the accumulati(m of water in 
cheek. On the margin of the largest of these lakaB^ 
Tezcuco, a. sheet of shallow water saltpr than the 
Baltic, stands Mexico. On its swampy islands, the 
Aztecs founded the ancient city, having ta^en refo^ 
in marshes, as did.the Venetians, to be safe from their 
enemies ; so Mexico has been ciJled the Venice of the 
New World. Cortes, with great regret was com- 
pelled, by the necessities of war, to denroy the Azfeec 
city, confessing it the most beautiful thing in tiie 
world. Bad as was its site, he rebuilt uikon it, fiUiiig 
up the smaller canals, and widening the xLorou^^ifares 
for carriages — things unknown to the Mexicans, who 
had no beasts of burden. Cortes maintained the old 
lines of the streets, running towards the four points of 
the compass ; and thus the street-views aU terminate 
withflne e£fect in the country against the hills. It was 
soon found that the city, in the event of heavy rains, 
was subject to terrible mundations from the lake, and 
the Spanish home-authorities sent out orders to move 
the capital elsewhere. They were . too late ; and 
instead, a magnificent piece of engineering was under- 
taken, whereby a passa^ vras cut, draming off the 
excess of water from the nighest lake, Zompanflo, and 
the Bio de Guatitlan. By this means, and by the 
wholesale destruction of the forests, maj^wg the new 
country bear some resemblance to the arid plains of 
Castile, and turning the earth into a kind of natural 
evaporating apparatus, the area of the lakes has been 
greatly reduceo, and the waters of Lake Tezcuco in 
uie dry season now lie four nules off Mexico. The 
causeways which once connected the city with the dry 
land still exist, and have even been enlarged. They 
look like railway embankments crossing the low 
ground, and serve as dikes when there is a flood, a 
casualty which still often happens. 



* Anahmte : or Mexico and the Mtxiemu^ 
Bj Edward B. Tjlor. Londoa : Longmaaa ft Go. IMl. 



CHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



381 



Mexico, at the present day, contains about 185,000 
inliabitants, and is a grand and picturesque city. Its 
numerous churches and convents are built in that 
renaissance style which began to flourish in Southern 
Europe in the sixteenth century, and has held its 
ground there ever since. High facades abound, with 
pilasters crowned by elaborate (Jorinthian capitals, 
forming a curious contrast with the mean, little 
houses crouched behind the tall front. Columns 
with shafts elaborately sculptured, and twisted marble 
pillars of the bedpoNBt-pattem, are to be seen by 
hundreds, very expensive in material and workmanship, 
but very ugly ; whilst the numbers of pufify cheruba, 
inside and out, remind one of the monuments of St 
Paul's. The cathedral ia a very grand building, but 
dwarfed by the immense sauare, the Plaza Mayor, in 
which it stands. The truui is, that the architecture 
of Mexico would be voted vile and barbaric by artists, 
whether of the Classic or Gothic schooL As to the 
interior decoration of the churches, the taste displayed 
is stUl worse ; the richer ones are crowded with 
incongruous ornaments — gold, silver, costly marbles, 
jewels, stucco, paint, tinsel, and frippeiy mingled 
tocether in the wildest manner. The houses of the 
inhabitants make little attempt at display ; and those 
of the lower orders, or Indians, are simple huts of 
adobeSi or mud-bricks dried in the sun. 

The church and the army are the two leading and 
supreme estates of Mexico, to them all else being 
sutwrdinate ; and when this is said, the wretchedness 
and unquiet of the country are well-nigh explained. 
Priests and soldiers have extraordinary pnvileges, 
and are not amenable to the civil tribunals for debt or 
for any offiences. They must be judced by courts 
whose members belong to their ownlxxlv; and in 
these special tribunals, one mav imagine what sort of 
justice is meted out to complainants and creditors. 
The law-code of the clergv consists of * the Sacred 
Volumes, the decisions of general and provinciM 
councils, the x>ontiiical decretals, and doctrines of 
the holy fathers!' 

The best measure of the influence of the church is 
the fact, that when Mexico adopted a republican 
constitution, in imitation of that of the United 
States, it was settled that no church but that of Rome 
should be tolerated ; and this law still remains one of 
the fundamental principles of the state, in which 
universal. liberty and equality, freedom of the press, 
and absolute religious intolerance form a strange 
jumble. The only change the revolution brought to 
the church, was making uie payment of tithes clonal 
instead of obligatory, which has caused considerable 
loss of revenue, although the duty of paying them is 
constantly enforced, and a clause to that efiect 
inserted in the catechism, between the ten command- 
ments and the seven sacraments. The possessions of 
the church are very great ; it is said to own half of 
the city of Mexico, and the whole of Puebla, a city 
of 70,000 souls. Its revenue is estimated, at the 
least, at L.2,000,000, or two-thirds of that of the 
state. Curiously enough, however, the number of 
ecclesiastics is not laige, and is decreasing. In 1826, 
the clergy, secular and regular, were 60(X) ; in 1844, 
5200 ; and in 1856, 4600. One would have supposed 
that a profession with so little to do and with 
such ricn prizes would be crowded. The chapter 
of Guadalupe have been known to lend a million 
or two of dollars at a time, though most of their 
property consists of land. The pope's power in 
Mexico is more nominal than real, as he found when, 
some years ago, he attempted to interfere about 
church-benefices. The character of the Mexican 
priesthood is very low, and a grief to all good 
Catholics; fathers of famihes do not care that a 
priest should enter their houses. Of course, there are 
many exceptions. Some of the country curas lead 
most exemplary lives, and do much good ; so do the 
priests ci tiie order of St Vincent de Paul, and the 



Sisters of Charity ; but then most of these are not 
Mexicans, but Europeans. The sale of indulgences is 
open and unblushing. At the door of the ^uroh of 
San Francisco in Mexico, relates Mr T^lor, stood a 
tall monk selling relics, and shouting in a stentorian 
voice : ' He who gives alms to holy church, shall 
receive plenary indulgence, and deliver one soul from 
purgatory.' Mr Tylor bought some, but there did not 
seem to be many other purchasers ; and he after- 
wards found that a few pence would buy all sorts of 
church indulgences, from the x>ermission to eat meat 
on fast-days up to plenary absolution in the hour of 
death ; but the trade once flourishing, seems now 
used up. The great influence of the pnests is among 
the women of aiu classes, the Indians, and the poorer 
and less educated half-castes. The men of the nigher 
classes, especially the younger ones, seem to have 
little or no respect for the priests or for religion, 
and are generally sceptical, after the manner of the 
French school of freethinkers. The young dandies of 
Mexico flock to the doors of the fashionable churches 
on Sundays, and stare at the ladies as they pass in to 
mass, who seem flattered with that attention. 

The Indians make the best Catholics, and heartily 
enter into and enjoy the rites of the church. The 
decoration of the churches, the processions, the music, 
and the dances, are quite to their liking. 

The Mexican army consists of twelve thousand men 
and two thousand officers, not counting those on half- 
pay — which is an officer to every six men, and among 
them sixty-nine generals ! Only a fraction of these 
know anything of the art of war. The political 
agitators, whose ceaseless intrigues ^ve Mexico no rest, 
are chiefly found among these soldierless officers. The 
evil of their endless insurrections consists less in the 
bloodshed, for never out of Mexico were 'decisive 
victories,' 'sanguinary engagements,' 'brilliant attacks,' 
and the like, got over wiw less loss of life, than in 
the utter want of security to person and property 
thev induce. Thousands of deserters, from an army 
without rule or discipline, prowl about the country, 
robbing and murdering all who resist theuL Some 
presidents have striven hard to reduce these intolerable 
abuses, but their lease of power has been too short to 
allow of much being eflected. Santa Ana was especi- 
ally severe; he caught the robbers, and garrotted 
them in pairs, until the country felt safe. Lynch-law 
has been sanctioned, and you may punish your robber 
yourself if you are able. Comonf ort also tried to do his 
duty in reducing the army to a reality, and in brin^g 
both priests and soldiers under the conmion law; out 
the cler^ and part of the army set up a rival presi- 
dent, axid reform had to be abandoned. As mient be 
expected, the republic is deeply in debt, and year 
by year it sinks deeper and deeper; and 'Mexican 
bonds' are little better than waste paper on the 
Stock Exchange. 

All go armed in Mexico ; even the Indians, who are 
quiet and gentle, carry their knife. In the quarrels 
amongst the hot-blooded Spaniards and haH-hreeds, 
daggers are freely drawn and used; and seldom an 
evening passes in the city of Mexico, in which there 
are not one or two murders committed under the 
effects of passion and strong drink. On Sundays and 
holidays, matters are still worse; and on the Palm 
Sunday which Mr Tylor spent in Mexico, fourteen 
slaughtered men were brought to the police-office in 
ones and twos from various parts of the city. 

In a coimtry so devastated and unsettled, a^cul- 
ture, mining, manufactures, and commerce are m the 
most backward state. There is scarcely a ^ood road 
to be found in Mexico, and all things are carried about 
on men's and mules' backs. The iMid is fertile, but 
wretchedly cultivated; and so few and difficult are 
the conmiunications between district and district, 
that sometimes famine prevails in one neighbourhood, 
and plenty in another. The chief export is silver, 
of wnich five millions sterling are sent to Europe 



CBLAXBSBffB JOURNAL. 



waaxQMBy; thsfc ia, sbmil twelve nfiiTHngB t^mecefat all 
the populatkm. Gold, eochine&l, and vaanla are also 
exported, bat they are triflmg in amocmt oompared 
to the nlyer. The imp or ta are dhiefly Manchester 
ffoods, woollens and nardware, all of -which the 
Mexicans themsel'ves attempt to prodnce nnder heavy 
nrotectiye duties, with the nsoal serious national loss, 
inconvenience, and want of success. 

Foreign merchants resident in Mexico have little 
qniet and many difScnlties. It may be that a period 
m rest has ocenrred; bttyers are many, and prices 
good, and hnndreds (k nrales are engaged in canving 
tilieir wares i^ from the coast ; bat all at once titere 
is an insurrection, or a prmiuneiamiaUOt as it is 
called. Hhe street-walls are covered with proclama- 
tions; half the army takes one side, and half the 
otlier, and crowds of volunteers and self-made officers 
join their ranks, in hope of pillage and future sain ; 
iMUTicades are thrown up, cannon roar, and musketry 
datters from the flat nouse-tope, killing peaceful 
citizens now and then, but d(Hng Uttle execution on 
the enemy. The poor merchante have, of course, to 
shut up, and keep close within doors ; trade is at an 
end, and their merchandise is very likdy seized or 
lost on the wa^. At last the revolution is over ; a 
new president is inaugurated with pompons speeches, 
and the newspapers announce that the glorious reign 
of justice. Older, and prosperity has at last begun. 
The merchants come out, and are compdled to illum- 
inate their houses on account of what has been to 
them loss or utter ndn. Since Mr Tylor was in 
Mexico, merchants have fared still worse ; the revo- 
lutionary leaders have put some in prison, and forced 
money out of them in the name of loans, much as 
King John did out of his Jews. Outrages like these 
do not bear repetition; it is the story of the man 
with the goose and the golden e^ over again. 

Silver-mines are Mexico's spefniu^. When we men- 
tion Mexico, we think at once of silver. The yield of 
the mines since the days of Spanish role has declined — 
not because they are exhausted, but because less energy 
is expended on them. It is said the richest mines are 
in the northern states, on the borders of Texas, a 
territory given up to the red Indians, who do not work. 
When we repubuc was first constituted, some English 
companies entered into mining speculations, and lost 
flreat sums through inexperience: one of them, the 
Keal del Monte Company, sunk nearly a million 
sterling, got no divideno, and sold their mine and plant 
to two or three Mexicans for, about Ll27,000: tiie 
Mexicans laid out L.80,0(K> more, and now dbraw, it is 
said, L.200,000 a year from the concern. At this day, 
there are a good many Englishmen and Cornish miners 
encaged in uie silver-mines ; but the mere hard labcHor 
is done b^ the Indians, who work for little, but whose 
thieving is a perpetual plague. Every night they are 
search^ as they leave the mines ; and although admost 
naked, the^ contrive to hide and carry off the precious 
ore in their mouths, ears, and hair. The In<uans lie 
and steal without scruple : te steal successfully, is a 
triumph ; and to be found out, a misfortune, but no 
disgrace. The church has done little or notlunff to 
improve Indian morals. Owners of mines and juan- 
tations are compelled by law to provide a chapel and 
a priest for their labourers, for ihe celebration of mass 
on Sundays and feast-days; and as many of their 
managers are Sootehmen, little love is lost between 
them and the priests, whom they roundly accuse of 
sharing in the thefts c^ the Indians. 

The Indians are a poor, helpless, servile race ; idle 
to begin with, their l(mg subjection to the Spaniards 
has not improved them. They are content to live 
from huid to mouth, and spend any unusual gain in 
drink and riot ; a little laoour gives them au they 
require; their women grind, cook, spin, and tend 
their crowds of babies ; and the men, when in the 
hmnour, dig in their gardens, or fish a little, or lie 
about, dreimdng away their days. In some parts, 



story OK a 



where ther far outnnmber the Spsmavda, tlMj bave 
risen and driven them away, and there is aoneiiiBai 
a talk of Mexico for the Idfexicans ; but it is a aolioa 
put into their heads by political agitaton, and any 
serious attempt to realise it would soon be diovBed 
in blood. 

Mexico, unlike the United States, is one ol those 
countries in which the contrast between great lidMS 
and great poverty is most striking. The mass ol tbs 
people are very poor ; while there are some capitallsti 
whose incomes can scarcely be matched in ykiglaiwi or 
Russia. Fortunes like these have been duefly mads 
in mining. Wealth seldom keeps long in famflif ; 
the children s<|uander what the fathenr loEve won ; 
and in the third or fourth generatum, t^ hnnij 
resumes its original poverty. With few onUeta for 
honourable activity, tne anny is the resort of many ol 
the best young men, while others take to du 
'loafing' habits. Mr Tylor teUs this wA 
rencontre with a youth of this sadly nmnenms 

'Nothing particular happened on oar iaaiagj, 
except that a well-dressed Mexican tamed up at 
the landing-place, wanting a -panaLge, and as we had 
taken a canoe for ourselves, we offered to let him 
come with us. He was a weU-bved yoong waan^ 
speaking one or two languages besides hu own ; and 
he presently informed us that he was going on a visit 
to a rich old lady at Tezcuco, whose name was Dofia 
Maria Lopez, or something of the kind. Wbea we 
drove away from the other end of the lake, towards 
Texcuco, we took him as far as the road leading to 
the old lad3r's house, when he rather askmiahea us 
by hinting that he should like to go on with ss to 
the Casa Grande, and could walk back. At the 
same time, it struck us that the youth, tiioa^ sd 
well-dressed, had no luggage; and we besaa to 
understand the queer expression of the coauuBan'i 
face when he saw him get into the carriage with us; 
so we stopped at the comer of the roM, sad Ihe 
young gentleinan had to get out At tiie Qsia Orande^ 
our mends laughed at us immensely when we ii^ 
them of the incident ; and offered ns i w entj r to one 
that he would come to ask for money within twenW- 
foar hpurs. He came the same evening, and brao^ 
a wonderfol story about his passport not being ea 
r^le, and that unless we coula lend him ten douais 
to bribe the police, he should be in a dreadfol scrape. 
We referred him to the master of the house, who wiid 
something to him which caused him to dqiart pre- 
cipitately, and we never saw him again; bat we hood 
anerwards that he had been to ^er faragners it 
the neighbourhood with various histories. We wade 
more inquiries about him in the town, and it appealed 
that his expedition to Tezcuco was imp ro v i sed when 
he saw us going down to the boat^ ana of oomse the 
visit to the rioi lady was purely imaginary. Now, 
this youth was not more than eighteen, and looked 
and spoke like a gentleman. They say that tiie ehss 
he bdonged to is to be counted rather by thousands 
than by nundreds in Mexico. They are of Spanidi 
descent ; they get a superficial education, and the art of 
dressing, and with this slender cuntol go oot into the 
world to live by their wits, until they set a govern- 
ment appointment, or set up as pdUticaladvoitaren^ 
and so have a chance of helping themselves oat of the 
public purse, which is natunlly easier and more 
profitoble than mere sponging upon individuals. One 
gets to imderstand the course of Mexican affidn 
much better by knowing what sort d raw material 
the politicians are recruited from.' 

It is scarcely necessary to say, that in Mexico lite- 
ratore has no native existence. Tl« newspapers are 
filled with mere squabbling, as far from politics in 
their hi^er sense as statesmansliip is from g os sip snd 
intrigue. Almanacs, catechisms, and the Hves d 
saints, cover the few book-stalls, with trsaslatioQS d 
Finendi novels, in which 'the agony is piled h^h.' 
I7«cfe rom^sCoKn, Mr lyior found in wide • ' ^* - 









CHAMBBRSrS JOUBir Alik 



and in a ncnuMfefy, Trench noTeb dooo into 
Spaniidi lying about; and the snhprior buy reading 
ifotft-Dtme de Pasria. Popular eancation is at the 
lowest ebb. The discipline of the schools is inefifectiTey 
little is taogjht, and the attendance is iir^olar. The 
entire control of the schools is in the hands of the 
priests, and their own coltore is bo restricted and 
imperfect, that they are scarcely to be blamed for the 
meagre fare they jmmde for the people. Their own 
coarse of instmction was stereotyped centuries ago, 
when aU learning was included in divinity, casuistry, 
logic, and meta^ysics ; and beyond these, few even 
at tiie present day venture. Mr l^lor had some 
conversation witii a yocmg man who had just left the 
Semioario of Mexico, where he had x>as8ed through a 
long course of theology and philosophy. He was 
astonished to hear that oull-fights were not universal 
in Europe, and he had not tiiie faintest idea where 
Englana and France were, nor how far they were 
from one another. 

Insensible to higher intellectual enioyments, the 
Mexican citizen passes his leisure in bull-fi^ts, cock- 
fights, and in gambling. The bull-fights are greatly 
lacking in spirit ; the bulls are cautious imd cowardly, 
and ^e matadors poor at their brutal business. 
Another flune they have with the buU, is fri^teninff 
him round the rinff, and then tripping him up with 
the lasso from horseback. The people are immensely 
fond of this sport In cock-fighting, Mexicans excd, 
and it is the favourite and tmivenal amusement of 
the people. Santa Ana, now that he has retired from 
politics, spends his time at Carthagcna in that sport. 
It affordi abundant opportunity for betting, and the 
Mexican seems a bom gambler. He bears his losses 
with the greatest composure, and if ruined, does not 
commit smcide, but sete to work to cam enough for a 
new stake. The government, to its credit, has done 
something to restrain the passion for play, but with 
slight effect. Where there is no education, and no 
secure outlets for industrial activity, what can men 
do but gamble and sport ? 

In view of these tacts, Mexico is not a country to 
think of with satisfaction ; nor do we observe any 
Bigns to encourage hope for the future It has been 
the desire of some that, by degrees, the United States 
should annex its provinces, having made a commence- 
ment with Texas ; but the States have now their full 
share of troubles without the addition of those of 
Mexico. The Indian population, also, will ever prove 
a serious obstacle to aosorption in the Union, as thoy 
could scarce be admitted as citizens, and their presence 
as aliens would prove more troublesome than even 
negro slavery. As Spain, too, is beginning to revive, 
it may be that she will find opportunity to resume 
her ancient sway in her finest possession, and hold it 
with wisdom won from the severe experience of the 
past. Conjectures like these are idle, and are seldom 
Tustified by events ; but beholding a land so rich as 
Mexico lost in idleness and abuse, one instinctively 
seeks comfort in picturing means to a happier fate. 

GIVING OUT MONEY. 

Ik the amusing autobiography of Robert Corey, Earl 
of Monmouth, edited by Sir Widter Scott, Carey tells 
us that, when a youn^ man at the court of Queen 
Elizabeth, though he had little assistance from his 
friends, yet he managed to keep company with the 
best ' In all triumphs,' he says, * I was one, either at 
tilt, tourney, or barriers, in masoue or balls ; I kept 
men and horses far above my rank, and so continued 
a lon^ time.* He, however, lets us know how, on one 
occasion at least, he replenished his exchequer. ' In 
1569,' he continues, ' having given out some money, 
to so on foot, in twelve days, to Berwick, I performed 
it uat summer, which was worth to me two thousand 
pounds, which bettered me to live at court a long 
while alter.' 



C^vin^ out mone^, as the reader wiS now toipeel^ 
was a kmd of betting, managed in this manner. A, 
for instance, gave out certain sums of money to B, O, 
D, £^ &0., on condition that if he. A, duly performed 
some proposed feat, the money should be paid bads to 
him in oouble, treble, or other proportions, as mi^t 
be agreed upon. A somewhat similar mode of bettmg 
is sometimes practised among sporting-men at the 
present day, the parties reconUng the drcumstanoe 
by merely entering the oonditions of tiie wa^ ia 
their betting-books. But, in the olden time, it was 
cooflidered a much more serious matter; and, oonae* 
quently, the articles of agreement were drawn up in 
regular legal f onn by an experienced lawyer. One of 
the original agreements or indentures for this vezr 
giving out of money, by Carey, is amonff the Burlei^ 
papers, in the Lanisdowne collection oF Manuscripts^ 
m tiie British Museum. We may imagine how 
delisted Sir Walter Scott would have been, when 
editmg Carey's memoirs, if he had known of the 
existence of this curious document. The agreement 
is entered into with Sir Robert Sidney, wno after- 
wards, on the death of his unde, Robert Dudley, tiie 
unworthy favourite of Queen Ehsabeth, succeeded \o 
the earldom of Leicester. He was son of the brave 
and politio Sir Henry Sidney, who had so long bMO 
Lord President of the Welsh Marches, and Lord- 
deputy of Ireland ; and was a younger brotiier of the 
Engliui Bayard, Sir Philip Sidney. 

Carey was the son of Henry, Baron Hunsdon, the 
consin-german of Queen EUzsheth, and chamberlain 
of her court; thoi^ the stem queen never hoself 
alhided, nor sufiferra. her chamberlain to allude, to 
the blood-relationship existing between them. The 
a^^reement, which we give entire, as a curious illustra- 
tion of the Elizabethan era, is written in what is 
termed chancery hand. The legal year then com- 
mencing in Mardi, the date, January 1588, signifies 
1589 in the historical (our present) mode of reckonins. 
And it appears that Carey 'gave out' twenty pouncEs 
to Sidney, on condition of receiving one hundred if he 
accomplished his undertaking. 'Ae deed is endorsed 
thus: 

SialU Snanrr 100. 
20. 1588 

to Ms Rob. Casbt 

when he goes frovi London 

to Berwick a foot in 13 daji. 

Be it known imto all men, by this present, that I, Sir 
Robert Sidney of Penshuist, in the county of Kent, 
knight, do hereby covenant and grant for myself, my 
heirs, executors, and administrators, and with Robert 
Carey, Esquire, son of the Right Honourable Hemy 
Carey, Baron of Hunsdon, lus executors and admim- 
strators, that if the said Robert Carey, at any time 
hereafter, shall, in person, co and perform a journey, 
on foot, from the city of London to tiio town of 
Berwick-upon-Tweed, within the space of twelve days 
entire, ana they successively following one anotiier, 
next after anie of the said Robert Carey his attempts, 
and setting forth of the city of Lonaon to perform 
the said journey, without fraud or guile ; and after 
the said journey so gone and performed, shall thereof 
give public notice at the usual place appointed for 
the payment and receipt of money, in the Royal 
Exchange in London, that then, the said Sir Robert 
Sidney nis heirs, executors, administrators, or assigns, 
or some or one of them, shall and will, within the 
space of one month then^ next following, well and 
trulypay or cause to be paid to the said Robert Carey 
his executors, administrators, and assigns, or to some 
one of them, the full sum of one hundred pounds of 
good and lavrf ul money of England, at the font stone 
m the Temple Churcn near Fleet Street, London, 
without fraud, covin, or further delay. To which 
covenant, well and truly to be performed, I, the said 
Sir Robert Sidney, do, by this present, bind me, my 
heirs, and administrators, in the sum of one hundred 
and twenty pounds, in the current money of Rngland. 



OHAHBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



Id nitueiB whtrmf, I the said Sit Robert Sidney have 
set my hand and seal the 25 of Jauaajy 16S8, in the 
XKxi year of the roign of our Soverdgn Ladio 
Elizabeth, by the grace of God, Queen of BngUud. 
Fnnce, aad Ireland, Dafcndor of tbo Faith. 

Sigiieil, sealed, and delivered 

in the preseoce of li. Sidhbv. 

B. Sbxhodk. Gboiuiie CASsy. 

Ben Jonaoa, in TVie Comical Satyre of ewrj) Man out 
of his HvmouT, published in 1601), ridicules this modf 
of betting, and the formal Btjrle in which the i^ree 
ments for it were worded, by introdncing the foSow- 
ing Kiene, wherein one Funtarvoto instructB a notary 
to draw up an indenture of this description — Puntar- 
Tolo giving out money, to bo paid bock fivefold, on 
his return from visiting the court of the Grand Turk 
■t Constaiitino|>lc. in company with bia dog and cat 
Jonson waa tbe homble fnend and pan^yrist of Sii 
Robert Sidney, bo, it is quite protrable, that in thi 
character of I^mtan'olo, he aatiruud Sir K Carey — bi 
bad been knighted then — the winner of eighty pounds 
from his revered patron. Indeod, Jonsou, ii ' ' 
description of Pnntarvolo, veiy hamiily hits aoi 
the moat Balient points in Careys chamcter 

vainglorious knight, over- Englishing bis travels, 

whoUy consecrated to singularity, the very Jacob's 
staff of compliment. A Sir that hath lived to see the 
revolntion of time in most of his apparel Of presence 
good enough, but ao pal^iably affected to his own 
pnise. Uiat for want of flatterers he commends him- 
self to the floutage of his own family. He deals upon 
return, and strange performancca, reaolvlng, in despite 
of public dflrision, to stick to his own jiarticidar 
fashion, phrase, and gesture.' 

iiiln- PuaUirnlo, Nflary, ani SartanU, mli (* 

If Uioa pIcuB to drsw Ihi lndi-nliirH tbs nhlts. t 
tiij iDilrtietiani. 
ifoS. Wim lU Diy tK, 



mitt 



1 11 fall in boDd ultli lb 
K andFntiwiI. 






I (pptUali 



^ler or ray di>| 

Ihc Inttndtd bousd li Urn Ttuk'i Cm 
! tlms llmllEd Tor oar retiun, a 7»r. 
mijDBnr, Che whole •cntuni li Iwt. TtMe 



CnuUntinnpIg ; ll 

■n msml, msnii 
JVE(. Aj-.sir. 
i'lMf. Hi>» (or Eurticulin ; ibat I mij nike hit inTcU bt 






Pimt. Tbal Dlur the i 



blng to lbs prtjodldo of me, my dog, or ray ui. 
lui lbs help 1^ iny anob soncrit^ or ODcbfenr- 
mt to ipnke our tk^u Impenelnble, or Id ti-iTtl 

boat my doK*" treck, accrcUj conTeyed lata bla 



SBd my cat Iha tnln or UU gt« TbraciM riU. 
JVef. IWrilaV '111 done, ilr. 



JlTof. W.ll 






^aTofu 



Pml. PraiiJed, Ibit If beron dot deparlnre or seUli 
tlOuT myKlf or tbew be Tialtnl by ticknesi, oi any olh> 
EveoL ae thai Iba whole count at Iha adicnlura bg 
Ibirsby, Ihat tben he ts Is relorn, and I ani Id receive 
- — ^Bslnl [iropartloB, upon fair and equal tenns. 



Pynl. 



»l».la.pu.jibl=,.li 



A detailed acoount of Carey's walk to Berwick 
would be very interesting, but ho does not further 
aJlude to it- He gives some partioidais, however, of 
a rapid journey he made a few yesra sfterwanli from 
London to EiCnhurch, on a very imporbtnt occsaion. 
Defcirained to be lie first to tell Jamea VI. of Scot- 
land that ho was also king of England, Carey, imme- 
diately after Queen EUiiahcth's death, stole ont of 
lUchmond Palace at three o'clock of Ore momiiiE (A 
Thursday, the 24th of March 1S03, and rode to London. 
Leaving Ijondon between aiDt> and ten o'clock of tbi} 
morning, he rode to Donoaator that night. The 
■ht, he reached his own house at Withfringtcn ; 
'in took horse, 
village on tbe 



nert night, he reached his own house at WithiTi 
and early on Saturday morning, he acain took 
and reached Norham, tho last English village ■ 



_ .. _ — .__,, _, e, with 

if his heels, gave me a great blow on the head, 
that made me shed much blood. It made me si 
weak, that I was forced to ride a soft pace after, si 
that the king was newly gone to bed by the time Uiat 
I knocked at tho gate [of Holyrood Palace]. I wu 
quickly let in, and curried np to the king's chainbor. 
I kneeled by him, and saluted him by hi* title of 
King of England, Scotland, Fiance, aiid Iielanri.' 
After some further conversaUcn. on leaving the king 
for the night, James said to him ; ' I know yon hare 
lost a near kinswoman, and a loving aiistresa ; but taks 
here my hand, I vrill be as good a master to you, and 
I will requite this service with honour and reKard.' 
Carey's honours, however, did not come so epeodilj 
as he expected. It was not till 1631 that he via 
made Biuvn Leppington : nor till the death of James 
and coronation of Charles in 1 GSG, that he waa oreital 
Eku-1 of Monmouth. 



THB BLACK-BIRD. 

Ths Rioraj Merle, who nildl; sings to ne 

Of (gnarled oak, and of deep aylvsn shade. 

Hath note so Dielloir, that he seems to be 

The choicest longster of the forest glade. 

There is stent his voice a luscious sound. 

As full of ricbaesi a; the bloomy peach 

While jet Hpon the tree, so ripe and round; 

Or, OS (lie soft grand foliage oF tlio beech. 

The quaint meet sounds pour from bis amber bill, 

Ai if of scarlet berries they «en bom ; 

His loTc-notes are so tny. they Ksm to GU 

Witli joy the snnihine of the early mom. 

They do remind me of the coppice side, 

Of mouy stumps, the urecka of sneiait trees ; 

And of his chosen ppols in ditches wide. 

Within whose banks dwell the great humble-bees ; 

But more than the^. the farm down in the dell 

Filled with the viaiona nf my early years ; 

And of two aged forms, I loved so well. 

Who fell asleep, amid nij' infant tean. C 1 



On Saliirday, 6'A Jul;/, will bt publislied i^ IhU Journal, 
A TALE, 



MYSELF AND MY BEIATIVES, 

To be foalmwd rvcru tmek until cmnpkiei. 

To CoNTEIBUTOHS.— It is requested that sU Contii- 
bations to Chaniifr/! Jountal may be, for tbe fuBus, 
directed to the Editor, at i7 Pslcmoster Bow, liit ' 



Printed and Fnblisiieil by W. (c R Chamdxbs. 47 Pa»s^ 
noBter Kow, Ixindon, and Sill High Street, KDUisras* 
•' ^Id by WjLi.iAM itOBKBTSOM. 23 Upper SscltilW 



Street, Ddslik, and all Booksellcii. 



S titntt TLixh ^rts. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 390. 



SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1861. 



I'rice Hd. 



A BACHELOR'S PROTEST. 

To the women of England, the humble protest of me, 
Jones. Whereas I have borne it uncomplainingly for 
fifteen years (having been a sufferer at a very early 
age) ; whereas it has increased rather than abated ; 
and whereas it has lately reached its climax in the 
matter of sones, I think it would be criminal in me 
to keep any longer silence. In-doors and out-of- 
doors, at home and on visits, at the opera and at 
church, at the concert and the Sunday-school, in the 
morning and in the evening (to say nothing of the 
afternoon), on foot and on horseback, in carriages and 
in cabs, in flies and in omnibuses, at hotels, at taverns, 
at pastry-cooks', at hairdressers', at chemists' and 
druggists*, at magasins de modes, of course, and par- 
ticularly at railway stations, it confronts me in a 
manner which amounts to aggravation. I can bear it 
no longer in silence ; and when that dreadful moment 
comes at which I shall make it necessary for a 
coroner and twelve respectable gentlemen to devote a 
little of their leisure to the consideration of my state 
of mind at the time when 1 conmiitted that rash act, 
it win be some consolation to reflect that I have left 
upon record my humble protest ; and 1 hereby take 
the opportunity of assisting the jury to come to a 
satisfactory conclusion, and to give a reasonable 
verdict. It wiU not have to he /do de se, nor will it 
have to be temporary insanityy but a state of mind 
naturally indtuxd by the recent introduction of zones. 

I say zonesy because I am not aware of the technical 
name for the articles to which I allude ; but it will 
be readily guessed, that I mean those bands which 
it has lately seemed good to our countrywomen to 
wear round their waists, to the great torture and 
mental anguish of impoverished bachelors. The bands 
are of various kinds ; but the favourite material, I 
should say from observation, is a sort of gold thread 
— at least it looks like gold thread at the distance at 
which I am obliged to remain, and I haven't yet 
acquired sufficient resolution to ask for information. 
They suggest — ^now, don't they ? — the necessity imder 
which young women lie of having something or other 
— a girdle, for lack of anything better — round their 
waists ; and, being fastened in front by a clasp, 
which is made, it seems to me, a great deal more 
conspicuous than is at all necessary, they throw out, as 
it were, voiceless hints about linking and uniting. At 
least I find it so. If they would wear the clasps 
behind, I shouldn't mind it half so much ; but as long 
as they are in front, they catch the eye immediately, 
and then you find that all your ideas get into pairs, 
and you are haunted by a general notion of union, and 
you wonder whether anybody knows of any just cause 



or impediment why all mankind shouldn't be joined 
together in matrimony. 

Now, it 's my firm impression that the originator 
or originatrix of these zones or girdles was actuated 
by a very deep purpose ; which purpose was, that 
the mind of the beholder, who saw by ocular contem- 
plation the symmetrical appearance presented, might 
be concentrated upon a consideration of the advan- 
tages of union as a state or condition ; and if it be so, I 
think it is exceedingly unfair, for it will be remem- 
bered that another Jones (no relation of mine, I am 
happy to say) took the trouble to prove, by exhibiting 
to the world, in the columns of the Leading Journal, 
the impediments which existed against a matrimonial 
connection on his part with his cousin Fanny, that it 
was impossible for any one with no more than L.300 
a year to become a living example of the blessedness 
of marriage. I put it, therefore, to a discerning 
public to decide, whether or no the satisfactory 
demonstration of the anti -nuptial Jones has had its 
proper effect in * fair ' quxirters ; whether, on the 
contrary, it has not been received with the utmost 
scorn and contempt upon the part of those whom 
people, regardless of terminations, denominate the 
* sect' And I do not confine my remarks to those fair 
virgins only, the influence of whose fascinations would, 
in all probability, extend over a circle embracing for 
the most part men of the L.dOO a year stamp ; but I 
consider ^em applicable to the whole gender. For 
if the anti-nuptial Jones's argument is good for any- 
thing, it amoimts to this, that no man can afford to 
marry on his own income, unless it be so large that 
he will not be called upon to make any sacrifice or 
any appreciable reduction in his personal expenses 
and enjoyments by marriage ; and as we know how 
few there are in that enviable position, wc may 
exclude them and their possible brides from our 
consideration. It is sufficient for us to know that, 
according to Jones, the labourer cannot afford to 
marry until he becomes a foreman; the foreman, 
imtil he becomes a master ; the master, until he 
becomes a capitalist, and so on; the curate cannot 
afford to marry until he becomes a rector; the rector, 
imtil he becomes a dean, and so forth; the ensign 
must be a captain, and the captain a major, and the 
major a lieutenant-colonel, before connubiiJ bliss is 
attainable ; in fact, everybody must get a step higher 
than he is to-day, and then when he has got that 
step, the same law applies ad infinitum: so that I say 
once more, from the housemaid to the titled lady, 
none can expect to marry in their own circle. Clearly, 
therefore, women are in the wrong if they endeavour 
to incite their immediate acquaintances to wedlock : 
it would be only a kind attention on their part if 



■ k« 



386 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



they would make themselTes as hideooa and repulsive 
as possible ; if they would sit in sackcloth and ashes, 
and pour dust upon their heads. But do they ? Do 
they condescend to anytiiing of the kind ? They may 
pour dust upon their heads, but it's gold dust, and 
only dazzles instead of disenchants the victim; and 
the only approximation to sackcloth habiliments that 
I have seen are cloth doaks, sack-shape, with a 
most excmciatins little hood, which is not at all 
necessary, and omy causes an additional pang to the 
sufferer. 

I vow that, since the publication of Joneses masterly 
production, they seem to me to have sought after 
enchantments more than before. It was hard enough 
to gaze in impecunious despair when the daughters 
of the land were in the habit of wearing, for the 
avowed purpose of cruelly improving their figures, 
what rhymes to * rustle ; ' and now they have advanced 
a step further, and adopted crinoline. Not that 
IVe the least objection to crinoline and the beauty 
of curves in the abstract. My objection arises simply 
from the fact, that it is another gnevance. A dreadful 
Nemesis sometimes punishes uiem; for, alas, how 
many of them have been sacrificed to Vulcan ! This 
punishment is harsher than any I would inflict upon 
them. Still, I feel personally obliged to any young 
lady of my acquaintance who, either from eccentricity 
or from philosophy, appears in this a^ of balloon- 
resembling skirts as straight as a ghost m a winding- 
sheet. In fact, the first part of my protest is directed 
against crinoline as part of an organised scheme for 
overthrowing the designs of Jones the anti-nuptiaL 
I have tried to overcome my feelings by a plan truly 
English : I have discovered that crinohne m uncom- 
monly cheap, and have endeavoured to despise it 
accordingly; I have found out, by diligent inquiry, 
that you may obtain crinoline net petticoats (the 
word is printed in the vrindows) for the very reason- 
able sum of one shilling and sevenpence half-penny 
each ; steel French muSin jupons, lor four shillings 
and sixpence ; steel crinoline skeleton petticoats, 
for four shillings and threepence ; crinolme horse- 
hair petticoats, for five shillings and sixpence ; black 
moreen, for three shillings and fourpence ; and 
lustres, at four shillings and ninepence, with ' every 
noveltv in reps ' (I don't know what they are) ' and 
quilted eider-down,' at corresponding prices; besides 
which, if there be any objection to hoops, I find there 
is an Australian sta^h which will answer the same 
purpose very economically. But it 's of no use in the 
world ; I only see the effect, and not the cause, and 
of coarse I can't ask what is the nature of the parti- 
cular cause, and how much it cost, so that i am 
equaUv a victim, whether I behold the result of an 
expenditure of one shilling and sevenpence half-penny, 
or of a tremendous outlay on Austrauan starch.* 

Next, I protest against the boots. Any yoimg 
lady of humane feehngs would wear thick shoes, a 
little too large for her, to walk in, and broad-toed 
sandals to da^ce in; yet what do we see? What, 
I should say, is it impossible for us, if we use 
our eyes, not to see? Kid boots, fitting like a 
^ove, with a heel that taps upon the pavement 
and your feelings simultaneously, and white satin 
shoes with an ornamental rosette. And why the 
rosette ? Vanity of vanities, it is of no earthly use ; it 
has no more to do with keeping on the shoe, than the 
ticket inside your hat with keeping that on ; it is only 
another feature of the gigantic scheme. I firmly 
believe it is symbolical, but fortunately I don't know 
what a rose may signify in the language of flowers ; 
still I protest against itl Moreover, I protest against 

• A regard to consistency nukes it necessary for us to protest, 
la tarn, against our contributor's corapliments to the preralent 
means of expanding the female figure, "^e ourselves hold 
them to be essentially antagonistic to grace, and unmistakably 
an ineonrenienee to aocie^, not to speak of the wastefulness 
in? okTCd.— Sn. . 



stockings, both white and coloured, except black ; and 
I protest against the custom of lifting the dress for 
the sole purpose of displaying the foot and a few 
inches of stocking; it can't do the poisenor of the 
foot any good, and it's hard upon a sosoeptible 
observer. If the dress is t^oo Icmg, have it short^ied, 
but don't trifle with a man's feelings. I know that in 
lifting a dress, the hand is exhibited to considerable 
advantage, and that the glove in that position is 
stretched so as to conceal the creases ; but that is 
just what I wish to protest against ; the more ele- 
gance, the more I protest ; and if I had my way, all 
marriageable-maidens should be forced to go without 
gloves, and to bite their nails; for there is a great 
deal in nails nicely kept, and I protest against them. 
Furthermore, I protest against nair-nets, both plain 
and bedizened ; blue, red, green, mauve, and magenta^ 
spangled with beads, and hung with fourpenny-pieces 
or runees : nets are frightfully symbolical, and tnouj^ 
they look so frail, are strong enough to catch men. 

After nets, I protest against oonneti : I protest 
against retreating bonnets, and I protest against pro- 
jecting bonnets; they are equally dangerous, and 
equally provoking. The former seemed* to offer as 
invitation ; the latter ai^)ear to throw out a defiance. 
The former said : * Do, if you like; ' the latter say ; 
' Bo, if you dare.' The latter have, in my hmnbls 
opinion, been adopted in consequence of men failiii^ 
to take advantage of the former ; they axe expreosiTs 
of pique ; they say : * You wouldn't when you had 
an opportunity, and now you shan^t, if you would.' 
Observe the sort of peak — or poke, I beueve, is the 
technical term — which stands out threatening^, and 
warns you off. The osculatory character of the former 
caused a nickname to be attibched to them, which it 
is unnecessaiv to allude to ; and the latter aie ssid 
to be called the * keep-your-distance ' bonnets. How- 
ever, I protest solemnly against botiiL 

Then there are the veils : I lift up my voice againit 
them. Aj9 long as they were plain, I had no objec- 
tion : plain veils, of a brownish-green hue, I conaider 
admissible — nay, worthy of commendation ; they di§* 
figure the countenance, and lend a lugahrioasaess (o 
the features highly conducive to sC contented acquiei- 
cence in everlasting bachelorhood. But the veila ^mUh 
spots on them be anathema ma.fimj^t.1^^ • ^q^ as for 
the strip of ribbon with which they ajre finished o^ 
it is a wicked device for shewing off the dimple of ths 
chin ; for do not the veils of we day terminate jnrt 
below the mouth, and leave the chin to jut out ins 
maimer partaking of sauciness and pertness? And 
the spots answer a twofold purpose: they oonoeal 
defects of complexion, and enhance the br^ghtaesi o£ 
the eyes ; whereas a well-dispoeed young wonaa 
would take care to exhibit the fonner — ^just as tihe 
honest boy in the story-book turned the damaffod ads 
of his peach towards the public — unflinchinSy, sod 
conceal the latter, to the best of her abih^^oenesth 
green or blue spectacles, which may be purchased at 
a very reasonable rate, and would conscMe tbe many, 
now comfortless Joneses for the impracticability of 
marriage on three hundred a year. 

Furtnermore, I protest against hats^ feathered sad 
featherleas, witii and without rosettea, turban-ahape 
or otherwise, having or not having ' a falL' I protMt 
against any kind ol covering for the female head in 
the open air but that good, old-fiishioned, ugly bonnet 
of which the crown fits on to front at an an^ of 
45 degrees, the crown having a kind of senu-panudrats 
(inverted) attached to it ; imd the froi^t, in the fom 
of a railway arch, extending four inches beyond the 
forehead. With respect to those two little curls wUdt 
some young ladies, in defiance of all laws, human and 
divine, treacherously arrange just below either t<»w^pl»i, 
I have only to say that their behaviour is extreme^ 
unnatural and meaningless, unless the curia be sya* 
bolical, and testify tiiat they are of cpinion they eaa 
twist everything and everybody roana their fin^jsn aa 



CHAMBBRS'S JOURNAL. 



387 



they please; in which case, aa we live in a civilised and 
Chnsfciaa coontjy, I shall content myself with a solemn 
appeal to their mammas, and confidently leave the 
matter tc be dealt with by Materfamilios and the pariBh 
clergyman ; and when I have been driven, as I shall be, 
to that deed of desperation hereinbefore alluded to, I 
only hope that the motherly counsels and the clerical 
precepts will be enforced by the history of my sad 
fate. Mother and priest have my full permission to 
make the most of my misfortune in poin^g a useful 
moraL 

Another method of doing the hair, from which we 
Joneses suffer, is, I believe, named d la Orecque ; but 
at that I now snap my fingers, for I discovered from 
a talkative barber that the drclct of plaited hair 
whidi I had taken for nature's coronet, and which 
had filled my soul with anffuish, is nine times out 
of ten bought — yea, sir, bought! — and mysteriously 
fastened on behind the ears; and now, whenever I 
see one, I laugh within me. Ha, ha 1 I say, it isn*t 
yonn ; you bought it at the barber's ; it very likely 
isn't woman's hur at all ; a child's, perhaps, or even 
a man's — ^for men have sometimes, the baroer said, as 
silky hair as women. 

i^other impontion is gold hair-pins. Hie first 
time I saw them, I was very much overcome, and my 
sleep went from me ; but att length, one day, I saw a 
baimaid wearing them, whereupon I set myself to a 
close observation of shops, and, out of revenge, I shall 
disclose what I discovered. I found you could get a 
pair for sixpence — only that was near St Giles's ; but* 
anywhere they may be had for half-a-crown. These 
are not real gold, I daresay, though it is astonishing 
how dieaply you can buy real gold, unless advertise- 
ments are false, and advertisers — mistaken. Stfll, 
they look like it when they are new, and that is all 
one requires. They give rise to symptoms of emotion 
cm the beholder's part, and that is the object of the 
wearer : the^ dazzle the eyes of admirinc swains, and 
that is the ami of the fair possessor, be she lady or be 
she barmaid. They are typical also : with silent 
voices they speak of fastening, joining, uniting ; and 
besides all this, they have points which may wound 
like the love-shafts nying about. 

As yet, I hove said but little about gloves ; but it 
must not, therefore, be supposed that I don't protest 
against them. I do solemnly ; particularly those called 
oauntlets.. It was only in riding that they were 
formerly worn, but lately they were to be met with 
anywhere. It is another symptom of the organised 
system — a general throwing down of tiie gauntlet to 
all bachelors of all ages and all ranks, and a special 
challenge to Joneses with three hundred a year to 
take their choice between marrying and being miser- 
able, or not marrying and beinsr equally miserable. 
Nor is it cmly amongst the hi^ier and the middle 
I that this organised conspiracy against the 
of sin^e men crops out : one finds it amongst 
lestic servants, perhaps more than amongst their 
superiors, if they have any, and it Lb well known that 
not long since there was an inquiry into the extra- 
ordinary appearance presented by the female paupers 
in a certam workhouse; they exhibited a fulness of 
skirt which could be accounted for by neither the 
diet nor the habiliments supplied by the Boaid. The 
mecUcal gentleman was accordingly called upon to 
investicate this strange phenomenon, and he reported 
to the Board, that as wey neglected to sunply the 
female paupers with their daily crinoline, tney had 
son^t to make up for the deficiency by using hoops 
off beer-casks, and even by twisting branches of trees 
into approximately circular shapes. So universally 
spiread is this organised system, that even our mole 
panpers are not safe from its operations. The 
lavonrite form which it assumes in the case of domes- 
tie servants is — exclusive, of course, of crinoline, 
which may now be deemed a necessazy — caps: at 
lewt^ I mean thoae fluttering pieces of millinery, 



peace 
domefl 



enticingly shaped, which hang — how, I do not know 
— upon the backs of the heads of housemaids, nurse- 
maids, chambtT-maids, and sometimes cooks. They 
are clesaut to look upon, but are not in favour 
with elderly housewives. The butcher's boy and the 
baker's boy dotu upon tlicm ; the grocer's young man 
can't kee]) his eyes off tlicm ; and they have a molli- 
fying cilcct upon the policcoian. They are seen to the 
greatest advantage during carpet-shaking, when they 
tremble in the breeze in a neart-rcndmg manner, 
whilst the two strings, as they are called — ^thoug^ 
why I don't know, for they are really ornamental 
ribbons which are never tied — go bobbing, and 
streaming, and flashing about in a very airy and 
graceful fashion. So powerful id the effect of this 
chaim upon susceptible shopmen, that maids have 
been known to reiuse a good place rather than give 
it up ; and frightful have l^ecn the quarrels between 

* maids ' and * missuses ' with reference to tins single 
point. An elderly lady of my acquaintance declares 
that she has been obliged to succumb ; so long as I 
could remember, she had always insisted upon her 
housemaid wearing a sort of night-cap tied by a broad 
piece of tape under her chin, giving her the appear- 
ance of havmg the mumps ; but one day when I called, 
great was my astonishment to find that the organised 
system had penetrated even to Mrs Cross's. I ven- 
tured to remark, that she had a very smart-looking 
housemaid. Mrs Cross replied with a sigh, that 

* there was no getting a servant now-a-days who 
would wear a proper cap ; she had tried dozens, and 
she foimd it came simply to this, that she must do 
the work of the house herself, or put up with those 
fantastic French rags — she -ioouldrCt call them caps — 
which were of no use whatever, and were worn solely 
with a view to entrap young men.' I immediately 
gave her my views upon the organised system, which 
she admitted so far as it embraced barmaids, 
domestic servants, and others of that description. 
She thought, also, that there was a great deal of it in 
the higher ranks; but she expressly excepted the 
middle class; but that is exactly tiie class which 
the Joneses fear ; and I can only explain Mrs Cross's 
exception on the ground that she has three daughters. 
At anyrate, I protest. 



THE ARISTOCRACY OP RUSSIA. 

Extremes meet. It is a singular fact that Russia, 
the land of serfdom, the stronghold of despotism, 
the very incarnation of autocracy, possesses the 
most open aristocracy in Europe; an aristocracy so 
UbenUly organised, tnat thcro is scarcely a man in 
the cmpiro who may not aspiro to enrol himself in 
the ranks of its nobility. Since 1722, all persons 
serving the state, occupying a certain rank in the 
hierarchy, or bearing commissions in the army or 
navy, acquire hereditary nobility by virtue of such 
ser\'icc, and enjoy equal privileges with the nobles of 
earlier creation ; let the latter look down with great 
contempt as the}' please on their parvenu compeers, 
as provincials and foreigners, and pride themselves 
upon the purity and nationality of their own 
lineage. 

In justice to the ancient nobility, it must be allowed 
that to them Russia is indebted for what it can boast 
of in the shape of a national literature. Not content 
with encouraging native authorship with their patron- 
age and purses, they have entered the arena themr 
selves ; neither persecution, imprisonment, nor exile 
deterred the Flohols and CtcnaldieflBj from noUy 
doing tiieir part towards luring Freedom to the 
banks of the Neva. Unlike the vieille noblesse of 
France, the old nobility of Russia has ever opposed 
itself to the court, and its blood has flowed freely in 
attempting to curb the tyranny of the czars. Am a 
natural consequence, the Slavonic aristocracy has 
been studiously excluded from public honours and 



public employments ; the majori^ of the com- 
manders, ai|>lomati8t8, and admimstratora of the 
northern empire belong either to foreign or provincial 
families, and it is only in rare instances that a pure 
Russian has the chance of obtaining distinction in 
the service of his country — a country lie cannot leave 
without permission from the sovereign, and incurring 
the risk of confiscation. of his propei^, should he fau 
to return at the expiration of nis furlough. 

The princely houses of which the Slavonic aristo- 
cracy is composed are all of regal descent, the more 
ancient families springing from the direct male line of 
Kurik the Norman, the first Kussian sovereign, who 
reigned from 862 to 879; the younger houses claim 
kin with Guedimine, grand duke of Lithuania, who in 
the fourteenth ccntuiy founded the dynasty known 
in history as the Jagucllon dynasty, from his grand- 
son Jaguello, who wedded Queen Hedwige, and 
thereby united the crowns of Poland and Liuiuania. 
The great-grandson of Kurik, Waldimir the Great, or, 
as he was called after his conversion to Christianity, 
Waldimir the Saint, dying in 1015, committed the 
great fault of dismembering his dominiouB, in order 
to provide eleven sons and a nephew with inde- 

Eendent principalities. His example was followed 
y his descendants for the two succeeding centuries — 
two centuries of internecine feuds, leading eventually 
to the irruption of the Mongols in 1237, an invasion 
which, while it deprived Kussia of its independence, 
assuredly prevented its otherwise inevitable absorp- 
tion in Poland. The grand dukes of Rurik's house 
were quickly brought under the Tartar yoke, and 
with more policy tmm patriotism, transformed them- 
selves into Tartars, with as much facility as in these 
later days Gallic liberals have been transmuted 
into stanch imperialists. They adopted Mongolian 
customs, acquired Mongolian habits, and followed 
Mongolian fashions, punishing without mercy any 
of their old subjects who declined to imitate their 
example. By such means did the Moscow branch 
of the line of Rurik obtain favour in the eyes of the 
conquerors, and increase its power and influence until 
it was able to cope with them for the sceptre. In 
1462, John IIL, then grand duke of Moscow, and in 
the seventeenth year of his ago, declared Russia 
independent. Soon afterwards, the great Mongol 
empire fell to pieces, the four separate states of 
Casan, Astrakan, Siberia, and the Crimea risings from 
its ruin. The first named was conquered by John's 
grandson, who in 1547 assumed the title of *Czar of 
all the Russias,' in which *■ all ' Siberia and Astrakan 
before long were included. 

In proportion as the Moscow branch prospered, the 
other branches of the Rurik family dechn^ One 
after another, the princes were compelled by their 
more powerful coufiins to exchange their appanages 
for private estates; the onl^ alternative bemg 
confiscation without compensation, and life without 
liberty. Still further to reduce the magnates of his 
own race, and pliace them on a level with the 
Romanoffs, Scheremeteffs, and other great Muscovite 
families, John III. issued a decree, that the nobles 
were henceforth to rank according to the positions 
held by their predecessors in the court or army. This 
law, by which the dignity of the boyMxl was made 
aknost hereditary, was abrogated m 1682, when 
political equality became the aristocratic order of 
the day. All the minutes of the various disputes 
respecting precedency were burned on the occasion. 
The geneiuogical registers of the existing noble 
families were then copied into a book, call^ from 
its red velvet binding, the Velvet Book ; and 
some of the great Ix^yards exhausted influence, 
argument, and cajolery to obtain the insertion of 
their patronymics in its pages, but without avaiL 
This Golden Book of the Russian aristocracy is still 
preserved at St Petersburg, in the Heraldic Office of 
thd Senate. In 17^ Peter revolutionised the upper 



ranks of society by making the law confening here- 
ditary nobility upon servants of the state, to which 
we have alrexuly alluded. 

Although all enjoy the same privileges, the nobility 
of Russia may be divided into five classes — ^princes of 
the empire, counts of the emuire, barons of the empire, 
untitled gentry whose nobuitation ^Uiies before the 
reign of Peter the Great, and untitled gentry ennoUed 
by that prince or his successors. The inferior titles 
were altogether unknown till the founder of St 
Petersburg created them in 1707, and that of 
'prince' had been confined to those who boasted a 
royal descent. Of the fifty-nine existii^ princely 
houses, four claim descent from Guedimme, while 
no less than thirty-one are the direct male lineage 
of Rurik of the ninth century. The premier prince 
of Russia is the Prince Odoievsky, toe deBcendant 
of Saint Michael, Prince of Tchemi^fl^ oanomaed for 
suffering death at the handi of the Moofiols in 1247, 
rather than bow down before their idou. But the 
most notable names in the roll of ancient princes 
are those of Dolgorouky, Gagarin, and Galitzin, all 
of which have played conspicuous parts in the annals 
of their country. In the seventeenth century, a 
prince of the first-named family defended the monas- 
tery of tlic Trinity of St Seige, near Moscow, for 
a year and a half against a force of 30^000 Poles and 
Cossacks. Michael Romanoff, the first cysar of the 
reigning dynasty, married the Princess Maiy Dolgo- 
roiULy, out she only enjoyed her CHunnaahip some 
four months. Upon the death of Peter IL, Prince 
John Dolgorouky, acting in concert with the liberal 
section of the Russian aristocracy, offered the crown 
to Ann of Courland, on condition that she signed a 
constitution, which she did without any i^parent 
scruple. No sooner, however, was she fairly installed 
on tno throne, than the non-constitutional party a>fe 
the upper- hand, reinstated absolutism, and ezi^ 
Prince Jolm and his family to Siberia. He remained 
in exile nine years, when he was brought back to 
Novgorod, not, as might have been expected, to be set 
at liberty, but to be beheaded and quartered. The 
army of Catharine which added the Crimea to her 
dominions was commanded by a Dolgorouky, whoae 
patronymic was consequentiy lengthened by 'Uiie addi- 
tion of the name of the conquered proivince. The 
most interesting celebrity of the Gagarin family was 
the Prince Matliias, who was govemor-genend of 
Siberia under Peter the Great. Taking aoRrantage of 
the czar being fully employed in settling accounts with 
Charles of Sweden, the govemor-generS conceived the 
idea of converting his vice-royalty into an independent 
kingdom. Peter's suspicions being awakened, he 
contrived to decoy his ambitious subject to St Petos- 
burg, where he was kept in durance, and after aa 
inquiry which lasted three years, adjudged guilty. 
The day before that fixed for his execution, the czar 
offered him liis life and fortime, if he would simply 
confess the verdict a true one. Gagarin proudly 
declined the offer, and was hung next morning opposite 
the senate-house. The Galit^ns, the most prolific 
of princely houses, have served their country. with 
distmction in every field open to Russian nobles, but 
its greatest men have been uniformly unfortunate. In 
the sixteenth century, the family was rspreaented by 
two brothers, Dmetiy and Michael, both of whom 
were taken prisoners by the Poles. Dmetiy died after 
thirty-eight years' incarceration, and Mi<^ael was then 
set at liberty, * out of regard for his loyalty and stoiosJ 
finnness.* fiis grandson was one of the four candi- 
dates for the Russian throne when the choice fell 
upon Ladislas of Poland, and he was commissioned to 
carnr the intelligence of his election to his successful 
rival He was rewarded for his magnanimi^ by being 
thrown into prison immediately after he reached 
Cracow, and in prison he died. One of his desoendanti^ 
distinguished as * Galitzin the Great,* was at once the 
chief adviser and lover of Sophia^ sister to Peter the 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



889 



Great. The lorer conspired to place his mistress on 
the throne, viee Peter exiled or omerwise disposed of ; 
and paid the penalty of failure by seeing his princess 
shut up in a convent, and beine himself exiled to the 
shores of the Frozen Sea, where he was soon afterwards 
poisoned. His brother, Dmetry, joined the constitu- 
tionalists in their attempt to limit the autocratic 
power of the Empress Ann, and was imprisoned unto 
death. The present representative of this unfor- 
timate family is described by Prince Dolgorouky as 
* the last m<xlel of that race of great lords which is 
perishing by degrees, and in a short time will remain 
only in the tmditions- of Russia.' Another ancient 
house is that of Gortshakoff, a corruption of Gortchak, 
well represented by its trio of princes ; one of whom 
is an ambassador, one €U>vemor-general of Siberia, 
and the third. Prince Michael, viceroy of Poland, head 
of the military stafl^ and better known to fame as the 
defender of Sebastopol against the armies of England, 
France, and Sardinia. 

Peter the Great's first addition to the princely 
ranks was originally a pastry-cook's boy at Moscow ; 
he became butler to the czar, and enlisted in the 
Russian Guards. He rose with extraordinary rapidity 
to be general-in-chief . Scarcely able to read or write, 
such was the natural eenius of Alexander Menshikoff 
that he became the first commander, administrator, 
and statesman in the empire, although his splendid 
abilities were sadly marred by rapacity and cruelty of 
disposition. He won his field-marshal s baton on the 
hard-fou^t field of Pultova. On the death of 
Catharine, Menshikoff swayed the sceptre in the name 
of the young czar, Peter IL, whom he betrothed to 
his own daugnter. His ambitious schemes were frus- 
trated by i& Dolgoroukies, through whose influence 
the alliance was broken off, and Menshikoff, almost 
immediately after he had been declared generalissimo, 
was sent to the Crimea, from which few Russian cele- 
brities return. He died in Siberia, at the age of sixty. 
It was his grandson who precipitated the conflict m 
the East, and who saw from his carriage the legions of 
France and England climb to victory up the neights 
of the Alma. A stUl more famous name is that of 
Souvarofl^ the little, odd, old man, * who loved blood 
as an alderman does marrow,' who used to instruct 
recruits in the bayonet-exercise himself, and preferred 
to fight in his shirt-sleeves. A terror to the Turks, 
he exercised an almost supernatural influence over the 
Russian soldiery. He was the ' Little Corporal ' of the 
northern empire ; winning a double countship at 
Rymnik in 1789, a marshal's staff in Poland in 1794, 
and his title of Prince of Italy in 1799. The only 
other names familiar to English ears are those of 
Lieven and Paskievitch. The lady, so long known in 
diplomatic society, was originally a Miss de Posse, and 
governess to the daughters of the Emperor Paul, who 
created her Countess Lieven; the higher dignity 
she received from Nicholas in 1826. Paskievitch of 
Erivan, the conqueror of Poland in a campaign, the 
direction of which, it is said, he entreated on his knees 
might be given to some one else, won his title of 
Count of Imvan in Persia, his F. M. in Turkey, and 
was created Prince of Warsaw in 1831, when viceroy 
of Poland. His last appearance as a military com- 
mander did not add to ms reputation, which paled 
before Omar Pacha and the defenders of Sihstria. 

The families of Tatischeff, Yerapkine, Rjevsky, Tol- 
boorine, and Idapounoff are all pnncely ones descend- 
ing from Rurik ; but when the branches of that royal 
family were reduced to an equality with the Muscovite 
bpvaras, the representatives of the above resigned the 
title of 'prince,' as incongruous with their unappanaged 
condition. 

We have spoken of the non-exclusive principle on 
which the Russian aristocracy is organised. This is 
most strikingly exemplified when we refer to the 
origin of the several countships. The majority, like 
those of Sdiouvaloff, Bourtaline, Yier, Jagousinsky, 



Potemkin, and Orloff, originated in services of the 
most questionable nature. The founders of too many 
of these noble houses were either too complaisant 
husbands, or handsome men who fed the inconstant 
X)assions of an Elizabeth, or a Catharine. Some 
soem to have brought their honours from a lower 
depth still ; for the princely Burke of the Rus- 
sian aristocracy says, his sdi-respect obliges him 
to decline mentioning the means by which the.^ 
were gained. Pre-eminent among this di 
nobility rise the names of Potenudn and Oflofil 
Gregory Potemkin came of an impoverished but 
noble Polish family, and had the fortune to find 
favour in the eyes of Catharine the Great, who was 
fascinated by his beauty, of which he himself was 
so vain that it is said he put out one of his eyes in 
attempting to remove a blemish, although another 
story says his eye was lost in a strug^e with his 
rivals the Orloffs. He was an extraordmaiy man, in 
whose character every contradiction crowded. Lavish 
to his favourites, he left his servants and creditors 
unpaid; he allowed no obstacles to baffle him, but 
once an object was gained, it lost all value to him. 
He commenced builcun^ a splendid palace, on which 
he spent his treasure without stint, but before it was 
completed, he was bartering it away. Such was his 
influence over Catharine, that when sue dismissed him 
as her lover, she retained him as her minister, 
accepted no new favourite tiU he had approved her 
choice, and permitted him alone to wear her portrait 
on his breast. He served her well ; to him she was 
indebted for the organisation of the armies that 
won fame and provinces for her ; nor was he left 
unrewarded. He was at once G«neral-in-chief, Great- 
admiral, Grovemor of Aroff and the Crimean depend- 
encies, and Great Hetman of all the Cossacks. ^ He 
died in the prime of life, not without some suspicion 
of foul play. 

When the Strelitzes were being executed in the 
presence of Peter the Great, it came at last to the turn 
of the youngest of the condemned, by name John, to 
lay his head on the block. The head of one of his com- 
panions lay in his way. Kicking it contemptuously 
aside, he exclaimed : * Qet out of the way ; I must 
have room here ! ' This exhibition of ferocious cool- 
ness hit the taste of the czar, who stayed the execu- 
tioner's arm, pardoned the young ruffian, and placed 
him as a private in a moment of the line. Oppor- 
tunities for displaying lus mtrepidity were not wanting, 
and he became an officer and gentleman, and died 
a general His grandson, Gregory, was one of the 
lovers of Catharine IL, and had nearly persuaded her 
to marry him. His brother Alexis, also a lover of 
the empress, was created a count at the same time as 
Gregoiy. He was the chief mover in the murder of 
Pet^ III., and left a colossal fortune to lus only child 
Anne, who passes her life in retirement, having 
bestowed the greater portion of her wealth upon a 
monastery, in nopes that the prayers of its brethren 
may save the soul of her father. Popular opinion 
inclines to bdicve Peter was not the only czar who 
met his fate from the same quarter; and the name 
of Orloff is regarded as that of a sort of hereditary 
czar-maker. 

The Counts Zotoff owe their rank to a drunken fit 
of the great Peter; upon the death of the first count> 
who had been ' preceptor and buffoon ' to his mastei*, 
the assumption of the title was forbidden. However, 
after the lapse of years, love brought back what 
licjuor had bestowed. In 1802, the Princess Koura- 
kine fell in love with and resolved to many Mr 
Nicholas Zotoff; and through the influence of her 
relatives, the authority of Alexander was obtained for 
the bridegroom to use the style and title of count. The 
first Count Koutaissoff was a Circassian shive, butler to 
Paul, and created by him first baron, and then count. 
When Souvaroff returned from his Italian campaign 
in 1799, Koutaissoff was chosen to convey tne 



890 



CHAMBBBffS JOURNAL. 



emperor^s cougratulations. The old warrior was not 
overpleased, and addresacd the royal favourite thus : 

' &cciuie, mv dear count, an old man whose memory 
is the worse ior wear ; but I cannot call to mind the 
origin of your illustrious house — or i)erhap3 you got 
your title for some fireat victory ? * 

' I never was a soldier, prince,* replied the ex- valet. 

' Then no doubt you have been an ambassador ? * 
No.' 

' A minister ?* 

* Neither.' 

' Then what important post did you fill V 

* I had the honour of serving his majesty as butler.' 
'A very honourable capacity, my dear oount.' 
Souvaroff rang the bell ; his own butler appeared. 

' Look you, Trochsa ! ' said he : * I keep telung you 
again and a^in that you must give up drinking and 
stealing, and you won't listen to mc. Now look at 
that gentleman ; he has been a butler like yourself, 
but being neither a drunkard nor a thiol, you see him 
now a Grand Equerry to his Majesty, a knight of all 
the orders in Russia, and Count of the Empire. Fdlow 
his example ! ' 

While the titles of prince and count are eagerly 
acoejited by the highest functionaries in the empire, 
the title of baron is of no social value whatever. Of 
the tweniiy baronies created by Peter, only eight 
exist as such, and four have been merged in count- 
ships. The dignity has fallen into contempt in 
Rinaia, from the same reason as knight or baronet is 
in disrepute here. It has been made too common by 
being conferred on bankers, monev-lenders, and 
doctors. Among the latter was Dr ^emsdale, who, 
besides his title, received L. 12,000 down, and an 
annuity of L.500 for vaccinating Catharine IL and the 
•Grand Duke PauL Another notable baron was 
General Arakcheiefi^ whose name is synonjrmous witib 
cruelty and wickedness. For daring to joke respect- 
ing this man, the secretary of the St PetersDurs 
Academy was exiled. The diairman having proposed 
the election of Arakoheieff, on the ground that he 
was the nearest nobleman to Alexander, M. Labzin 
rose and said, that 'such being considered a competent 
qualification, he begged to propose Tim fiarkoff^ the 
in^>erial coachman, not only as being the nearest to 
the en^)eror, but havinc a seat before his majesty.' 

Whatever mav be uie merits or demerits of the 
present nobles of Russia, it would be difficult to find 
any aristocracv of which such a large proportion of 
its members have reason to be a^amcd of their 
origin. 

LOCKED IN! 

It was on a leaden-looking evening in October 1858, 
that the fast-sailing packet ConcUtaUon steamed out 
of the harbour at Holyhead. Dark clouds were gather- 
ing overhead, the short chopping waves slapped the 
sides of the vessel impatiently, and the thick black 
smoke shot straight from the fimnel to the receding 
shore, as if anxious to escape from the restless turbu- 
lence of the water, and form a sooty canopy over dry 
land. 

There were but few passengers on board, and a 
drizzling rain sent them below. One gentleman alone 
stood his ground upon the quarter-deck, and, comfort- 
abhr encased in a suit of oil-skin, puffed his cigar in 
denance of the weather. He was a tall, fair-haired 
man, with a bright eye, thin, high-bridged nose, and 
light wavy moustaches, through which was seen a good- 
humoured but sarcastic mouth. He aocommodated 
himself to the motion of the vessel like an experienced 
traveller, and, with well-eloved hands deep in his 
capacious pockets, looked on the steersman, the 
funnel, the lights upon the distant pier, and the vibra- 
tion beneath him and about him, with an easy and 
comfortable nonchalance of mauuer that seemed 
peculiar to him. 



Upon an obseqmous and curly-hesdod stewaid — 
who kfia)t coming on deok, and then diving down into 
the cabin upon those pnrposeleBB snands which 
would appear to be the oantinoal em][do7ineot otf 
those functionaries when on duty — x^srnng near the 
traveller, he said : * Have you come to tell me that 1 
mustn't smoke ?' 

* No, sir,' said the steward, with the usual dopisca- 
ting smile; 'you can smoke if you choose, sir : tnsre'i 
noM)dy on deck but you.' 

*Very few passengers to-night,' xooazked the 
gentleman. 

* Yes, sir, very few, sir,' replied the sfeewaid ; ' yon 're 
the only cabin-passenger aboard.' 

*Am I?' said the gentleman. 'Then I a^pase I 
shall have my choice of berths ?' 

* Whichever you please, sir, when yaa came below. 
We ' ve only one other passenger, and she 's a lady.' 

' Ah ! ' said the ^^entlsman, lookiag down the sky- 
light, as if to see if his fellow-tmv^er were in the 
cabin. ' I 'm afraid we shall have a rooj^ paaswe.' 

'Yes, sir,' answered the acquiescent stewara; 'it 
does lode very dirty to wiod'ard, sir;' and be dived 
down again. 

The traveller lighted a fresh cigar, tossed s^iray his 
old one, looked at the white foam in the 'v^sel'i 
wake, and resumed his march. £[e was nataraUys 
grej^arious, companionable sort of ^ fellow, land of 
society, amiment, the shock of <qMnkms, and collisioa 
of ideas, lie had hoped to meet some other weD- 
travelled man, with whom he could have smoked snd 
chatted. He felt that he should bore bimsdf slone, 
and began to tiiink about the lady who was his sole 
conmanion in the boat. 

' I wish I knew her,' thought he; ' we could convene 
some hours away. Twenty years ago, I should hsT8 
considered this quite an adventure. What look men 
are in their sahul-days ! I should have thoa^^ tint 
it was fate had thrown us together, because we were 
destined for each other. Pernaps she is aunied, or 
old, or disagreeable. I shall be hoiriUj bored till we 
reach Kingstown.' 

After mdf an hour's more walkingp he looked 
down the sky-li^t once again, and saw a lady sested 
in the cabin taking tea. 

' She doesn't s&er, at all events,* he tlun]^ to 
himself; ' I may as well have a look st her ;' uid he 
finished his cigar, and descended the bcaas-boani 
stm leading to the ' cuddy.' 

The lady alxHit whom he felt so interested, ms 
over thirty years of sge, and despite a pallid com* 
plexion, languid, mournful eyes, possessed gieii 
beauty. Her manners were elegant toad refined ; aad 
a tinge of exhaustion in her face and voice he^g^iteaBd 
the sense of subdued sentiment that hung around her. 
Overwrought sensibility and sensitive nervous onan- 
isation were written in the constant play of her wori 
thin upper lip; and the perfect tarte ci her dresB, 
completed the charm of a very fascinating invalid. 

When the gentleman entered the oahin, she was 
seated at the "^ble, waited on by a bustling and active 
stewardess. He took off his cap---a8 it were — <U her, 
and disembarrassed himself of nis oil-skin covering. 
He coughed in token of his presence, but she took no 
notice, but continued playing with her tea-spoon, all 
unconscious of his entrance. 

With a glance at the mirror, that betrayed a know- 
ledge of toe possession of a good appearance, and a 
smoothing of a well-tied cravat, the gentleman 
advanced towards the table, and coughed again. The 
vessel gave a slight lurch, and the tea-servioe clattered 
at the same time. The lady looked up, saw the new- 
comer, {ind bowed slightly. 

' I fear we are going to have a rough passage,' began 
the nude traveller, when tiie lady sluiekcMi, and would 
have fallen, had not the stewardess ran forward to 
support her. The gentleman turned pale and zed, sad 
pale again, and trembled in every limb. 









* Brine some w»ter/ he said, after a moment's pause. 
* Don't be alanned ; it *s the — ^the surprise — the sudden 



Let me^ 



He wetted his handkerchief, and 



laid it on her forehead, while the stewardess ran for 
her smelling-bottle. By the aid of their united exer- 
tions, in alwat five minutes the lady recovered, and 
looked about her as if just aroused from an 
unpleasant dreauL 

' Better leave us ! ' said the centleman. 

'Do — do you know the lady, sir?' asked the 
stewardess, hardly knowing what to do. 

* Know her? Yes.' 

' You ' ve only got to call, mum ; I shall be dose to,' 
said the stewardess. 'Can I do anything more, mum?' 

' No — no, thank you,' said the lady ; ' I 'm quite well 
now. You — ^you need not trouble yourself further.' 

The stewardess quitted the cabin, leaving the two 
passengers staring at each other in mute wonder. 

* Good God, Maria, is it you?' said the gentleman. 

' It seems almost imxMJSsible it can be you,' answered 
the lady in low faltering tones. 

'Aie you — ^better now?' inquired the gentleman. 

* CSan I get anvthing for you ? ' 

* Notmng, tnank you— if it be really you.' 

' It seems like a oream,' continued the centleman — 

* to think that, after ten years, we shomd meet on 
board this boat ! It is the most unexpected accident.' 

' Aoddent ? ' repeated the lady, with an inquiring look. 

' Accident? x es ; really accident ! ' 

' Are vou sure you did not know that I was coming 
dnboarathis' 

' How could I ?' interrupted the gentleman* * I only 
landed at Southampton last we^ Not a soul I 
knew was in London ; so I took a run over to Dublin 
to visit Vincev Maguire. It's the most impossible 
adrenture, to think of man and wife, ten years apart, 
meeting in the cabin of Are you going, Mana ? ' 

The lady had risen from her seat. 'I see no reason 
tat my remaining,' she said quietly. 

'H you cannot bear to breathe the same atmos- 
phere with me, / will retire,' said the husband. ' I will 
not turn you out of the cabin ; I '11 go on deck ! ' 

The lady looked up to the sky-li^t above her, on 
which tii9 rain was pattering f urionuy. 

' Impossible to stay on cfeck in a night like tiiis,' 
said she, with a faint return of the inteiist of a wife. 

' I!hank you for that, Maria.' 

' I did not mean that,' she explained hastily ; ' I ' 

' You are unkind not to let me think you did,' said 
the husband. ' At all events, since we have met in 
this strange way, do not let us meet as enemies.' 

* Enemies ? No 1 ' smiled the lady. 

' Yield to a suggestion of mine for once,' continued 
the husband. * Yon were taking tea — don't let me 

Srive yon of that; it will refresh you ; or' — his face 
ted up as with a bright idea — ' suppose we take 
tea together?' 

* Together ! ' echoed the lady. 

* Oh ! don't be alarmed,' said the gentleman ; ' you 
•hall pay for your own, and I for mine, and we 'U havd 
it €Q different trays, in the most platonic manner 
possible.' 

Despite the rapid beating of her heart, the ladv 
could not repress a smile, of which her husband took 
immediate advantage by ordering tea for himselt 
The tea was brought, and he pla^d himself at the 
table opposite his wife. 

Mr and Mrs Thirlby had been married in the year 
1846. Miss Harbrowe was a noted beauty, and Fnuicis 
Thirlby a somewhat erratic bachelor. After a honey- 
moon, and three or four moons more of unmixed 
sweetness, spent abroad amidst grand old ruins, 
cmmblmg columns, and colossal statues, like ghosts 
of greatness passed away, under dreamy skies and 
over pent volcanoes, they returned to cool and cloudv 
l&igland — its tempestuous summers, mild though 
murky winters, and carefully concealed domestic 
hurricanes. 



A year passed, and among old friends, old haunts, 
and old associations, easy-going Mr Thirlby became 
the usual careless husband, engaged ohiefly with his 
Greenwich dinner and his obm than home, unless 
he gave a party, when he woidd shine with his 
customary brilliance. When alone with his wifa, he 
appeared absorbed in meditation. She resented his 
want of assiduity, and he Tesented her rssent- 
ment. She had been an only ohild; so had he. 
Neither would be first to vield ! Each was lai^osl^ 
endowed with the fatal gift of sarcasm, and uaed it 
mercilessly. They stabbed their mutual happiness 
with epigrams, and battered down their home with 
tiie artulenr of bitter words. Months passed in fierce 
storms and lowering threatening calms. The last 
provocation was given. Mrs l&rlby was jealous. 
She left the house, and shorty after a sepaiwtion 
was mutually acreed on. 

Mr Thirlby, finding his fireside cold, and his home 
merely furnished apartments, resolved on adopting a 
career. He had interest at the India House, and 
obtained an appointment in the Civil Service. Years 
had passed. He had returned ; and as he looked at the 
wife he had once so loved, and had -so strangely met, 
he felt that he could havts be^gun his courtuiip once 
again : the last fourteen yean were annihilatea ; she 
was before him; the old charm floated around her, 
and he felt his heart liquefy as he traced the well- 
remembered features and their play beneath the 
swinginj? light in the dose, tremblino, rooking cabin. 

Mra ^nurlby sat with her eyes fixea on the tnmblinff 
sea — externally calm, violet-ejed, in^MMsive, and 
grand. Her husband, leaning his elbow on the table, 
and his head upon his han{ said : ' Upon my word, 
Maria, you are looking handsomer than ever I 

A flush ctf i^easure sur;^ up to Mrs Thirlby's 
fa.ce ; she beat it back agam bravely, but could not 
resist a slight smile, for she felt, with the self-con- 
sciousness of a handsome woman, that her husband 
had spoken truly, and as he thou^it. 

* This is a reiniurkable meeting, is it not ?' continQed 
he, hardly knowine what to say, yet disliking silence 
more than hazarcnng something oommonplaoe. *Bv 
the vray, you have a servant with yoo, h«?en t 
you?' 

* No,' replied the lady. 
*No! How is that?' 

' Harriet had never seen the sea in her life, and 
refused to embark. She said we were sure to be 
drowned ; so I came away without her.' 

' How odd 1 ' said the husband : * there's not a sin^ 
passenger — ^I mean in this cabin — ^but ourselves.' 

'We are single!' said the wife, relaxing to a 
smile. 

* Of course we are — at present ! ' said the husband. 
'And mean to keep so,' continued Mis Thiriby, 

observing that her husband's eyes were fixed on hers 
with an expression of deep interest. Finding that his 
earnest gaze was noticed, that gentleman swallowed 
nearly a whole cup of tea at a d»ught. 

' I haven't enjoyed my tea so much for jrears,' said 
he, putting down the empty cup — ^'I may say ten 
years.' 

It was always Mr Francis Thirlby's practice to jest 
when he was in earnest, until he felt his way, and his 
antagonist's power of resistance. 

' ShaU I be indiscreet in asking what motive you 
have in visiting Ireland?' he asked, finding that no 
reply, verbal or facial, was made to his last observa- 
tion. 

Mrs Thirlby poured herself out a second oup of tea, 
and said: 'i am going to pass a few months 
with Oh!' 

She shrieked with pain. Thirlby rose with an 
anxious and perturbed countenance. 

' What 's the matter ?' he adted. 

'I have scalded my lumd,' replied his ex-wife, 
applying her fipa to the paii affooted. 



392 



CHAMBEBfi'S JOURNAL. 



' * Allow me,' said he, about to take hold of the 
injured member. 

' Thank you, no/ said the lady, hastily withdrawing 
it. *I permit no interference with what is entirely 
my own property.* 

The face of tne husband turned red, and the wife 
felt the cruel pleasure of victory. 

' Better put a little dry soap on it ; best thing in 
the world for a scald,' said he : * I have some in my 



^< 



''ou are very kind,' answered the wife, touched 
with the attention. 

' Not at all, Maria,' said Thirlby, following up his 
success with the Christian name. *I am something 
of a traveller now, and am always provided with 
these little comforts — I should say necessaries.' 

He opened a black leather bag, scraped some soap 
on to a clean white handkerchief, and applied it to 
his wife's hand tenderly and carefully. He saw 
the wedding-ring shine over the white skin, and 
gave ever so small a sigh as he tied a knot just 
above it. 

* Poor little hand I ' said he caressingly, as he bent 
his head down towards it. 

* Thank you ; that will do very well ! ' remarked his 
wife, puttins it under the table. 

* Nothing like soft soap ! ' said he smiling. 

' No,' answered the lady with placid di^ty. 

* How the boat pitches ! As you are wounded, shall 
I do the honours ? said he. 

* You are very gallant,' she replied. 

* Wasn't I always?' he asked, as he reseated him- 
sell 

* Always,' replied the wife ; * but not to me.' 

* My dear Maria ' 

* Pardon me ; you are forgetting yourself ! ' 

* Not at all,' returned the husband stoutly. * I 
repeat it. Why were you and I so unhappy 
together?' 

The vessel strained and pitched as he spoke, and 
Ofders were given upon deck, and the wind howled, 
and the rain beat down on the sky-light above them. 

•There's ft Btorm coming on,' he remarked rather 
unnecessarily. 

* I am afraid there is,' replied the wife. 

* But answer my question.' 

* What question ? 

'Oh, you know,' said he irritably. 'I asked you 
why we were always so unhappy together ? ' 

* I might aa well ask you why you were always so 
unkind ? ' said Mrs Thirlby. 

'I recognise you there,' said the husband; *you 
answer one question by askiug another. I remember 
you always md. It used to irritate me ' 

* Everything / did used to irritate you,' interrupted 
the wife, calm and provoking. 

* When it was imtattn^,' amended Mr Thirlby. 

* You found it so,' said the lady with feminine 
emphasis. 

* Of course it was me,' returned the husband ; * I 
was the villain — ^husbandjB always are ! ' 

*No; / was the termagant--wives always are!' 
repeated the lady. 

*My love, you were always good, and right, and 
pious, and virtuous,' said Thirlby, his love of sarcasm 
overcoming his better sense. * You were alvrxyn pro- 
vokingly proper — all broken-hearted submission, meek- 
ness, mildness, and downcast eyes, as if advertising to 
the world : Look here I my monster is breaking my 
heart ; not that I complain ; oh, dear no : I am too 
good for that. He is killing me, and I am rather 
glad he is, I am so angelic and resigned ! ' 

Mrs Thirlby knit her brows; tor a moment, she 
hesitated between quitting the cabin and replying. 
Temper triumphed, and she spoke. 

* Ii so, you pursued the opposite tactics,' said she. 
'You were all smiles, frankness, jollity, and good- 
humour — to the world; a sort of proclmooation of: See 



what a fine, generons, open-hearted fellow I am, and 
yet my wife— my wicked wife — iB ndseraUe with me! 
— Oh, thank Heaven, I am not your wife now ! ' 

The ship lurched again, and Mis Xhirlby't tea-cop 
fell to the floor, but without breaking 

* You needn't get into a passion,' said her hnaband, 
' nor upset the tea-things ; you 're not at home now, 
you know.' 

* I did not upset it!' said the lady angrily. 

* Yes, you did ! * 
*No,l didn't!' 

* Yes, you did ! ' 

* I did NOT, sir ! ' repeated the lady, tapping the 
table authoritatively with her undaxnaged lian|£ and 
so knocking off the other cup, which nroke into a 
dozen pieces. 

'There,' said her husband, picking up the frag- 
ments carefully, and arranging them before her, 
' perhaps you didn't break that either? ' 

It would be impossible to describe the extent to 
which handsome Mrs Thirlby was put out by this 
accident. Her face darkened, and without losing its 
beauty, looked a thunder-storm — ^the ox-eyed Juno 
wrathful with Jupiter. 

Thirlby tried to walk the cabin. 'Time has not 
subdued that awful temper, then ?' said he. 

* Nor the recollection of your ill-usa^'.flhe relied. 
'Neither ten years nor ten nundred can do that! 

' Ten hundred! ' he remarked; ' yoa'll be a fine old 
lady by then.' 

* And so will you,' retorted the wife : ' yoa 're more 
than forty now ! ' 

'Well, if I am,' answered the hnsbaxid angrily, 
* you're five-and-thirty — no chicken either! ' 

One of the chief reasons that matrimonial differ- 
ences are so bitter is, that each paity is so wdl 
informed of the enemy's weak side. 

* Why, positively you're bald ! ' said Mn Thiilby, 
who had not before perceived the shining act^ in tbe 
centre of her husband's cranium; *yefl^ quite bald 
at the top ! ' 

Mr Thirlby turned white with paflmk—he was a 
very vain man — and walked up to har.aa if about 
to make some overwhelming reply. U:iiorfcttDateIy,be 
saw that her hair was as olack, as luitrotta, and as 
rich as ever. 

His wife guessed his intention, and said aggraTat* 
~ ' : * Poor old man, was he bald, then I' 
ou know you were always a beauty,' loieered tbe 
husband. 

Mrs Thirlby rose from her seat and bowed, as if 
she said : ' I know it ; ' which irritated her husbaDd 
more than ever. 

' As lovely as afliicted,' continued he. 

* At all events,' replied the lady, 'that Mrs' 

'Silence, madam!' thundered the husband. 'Tw 

have too often repeated that lady's name, and I 
forbid' 

' You forbid, indeed ! ' cried his wife. ' And pray, 
who are you that command me ? Why should i not 
mention that woman's — I beg pardon — lady's name? 
Who is to prevent me? Not her lover, air,' she 
continued, lashing herself into a rage, ' when he has 
ceased to be my husband.' 

' By Jove ! ' said Thirlby, ' this is as it naed to be ; 
but, as you say, we are separated ; ' and he bent his 
head over the table, and droned : * For this and other 
mercies. Heaven make us truly thankful ! ' 

Mrs Thirlby tore the handkerchief from the scalded 
hand, and threw it across the table — the fragmoits of 
soap fell into the sugar-basin. 

'What a noble vengeance!' continued he in a 
pompous tone. 'What greatness 1 what magnanimity 
of soul ! and what a brilliant repartee ! 'Pan my word, 
this i« refreshing ! What a meeting after ten yean' 
absence ! The breeze without, the row within. Any 
one could swear to us for man and wife ! ' 

' Not your wife now, sir ! ' 



^^, 



OHAMBBRS'S JOURNAK 



393 



* No, not my wife now. As I said a minute ago : for 
this and other mercies ' 

The hidy rose to her feet. * Do not insult me, sir/ 
she said. * I have been at peace for ten years. Do not 
raise feelings that — ^that — ^that ' 

* That what ?' asked the husband. 

Poor Mrs Thirlby began to feel the effect of the 
motion of the vesseL * I — I — I don't fed well,* she 
gasped. 

* Ah ! excitement,* said the husband unconcernedly. 

* No, sir, the sea — I mean the tea. I shall go to my 
berth. When we get to Kingstown, you can see 
Franky and* 

* Franky ! Who 's Franky ?* asked the husband. 
Mrs Thirlby looked him full in the face as she 

answered : * l our son, sir ! * 

Another lurch of the vessel threw Mr Thirlby into 
a seat as he repeated, * My son ! * He hardly under- 
stood the meaning of the words. 

' Your son and mine,' said the lady ; *my dear, dear 
boy Frank!* 

Something rose to the husband's throat and eyes as 
he looked mtst up and then down at his long-lost wife, 
as the position of the cabin-floor hoisted or lowered 
her. 

* He was bom three months after your departure,' 
continued Mrs Thirlby. 

* Why did I not know of it ?' 

'I kept it out of the papers purposely,' said the 
wife. 

'And you called him Francis,' said the now 
thoroughly humbled husband. 

* Yes — after his Either.* 

' Thank you, Maria ; that was kind.* 

* My du^ — nothing more,* said the lady. 

* How old is he ?' 

* Ten in Augjust— on the fifth.' 

*God bless him ! ' said the father. *Is ho handsome ?* 

* Oh! very — ^very handsome,' said the mother. 
' A — at all like me ? ' inquired the father. 

* Like what you were — very.* 
' And in his manner ?' 

' He is passionate in the extreme ; like what you 
were— very. Hero is a letter I had from him last 
Thursday. He is on a visit to my cousin, who was 
married to Colonel O'Grady three years a^* 

The father took the letter, and held it under the 
shaking lamp. The gale had blown itself into a 
perfect storm, and he could hardly keep upon his feet 
as he read the large school-boy hand : 

* Mt deak, deab Mamma — I am so ghid that you 
are so soon coming. I have no news. I am quite welL 
Freddv's pony hiui; one of his knees yesterday. We 
go to Sandy Mount every day. Aunt sends her love 
— so does Freddy. God bless you. — ^Your affectionate 

F&AyKES.' 
'Merryon Square, Dui/tn, Ireland,* 

The letter was read and re-read till the lines 
became blurred and indistinct, and a deep sob 
heaved up from the father's heart as he stretched 
forth his hand to his wife, and said : * Maria, forgive 
me!' 

But Mrs Thirlby renuuned silent and impassive. 

'For the sake of our boy,* he urged, 'the child 
of whose existence I was unaware — ^tiU — till — foigive 
me!* 

'Do you wish to keep the letter?* inquired the 
wife. 

* With your permission. Do you ever speak to him 
of me?' 

'Often!* 

' Maria, let us be friends !* 

Mrs Thirlby answered slowly and deliberately, with 
a pause between every third or fourth word : ' After 
an absence— of more than ten years — meeting so 
unexpectedly — you could not control — your violent 
and sarcastic nature — I will not be — ^its victim. I 



pardon what is past — but — when I leave this boat — 
we never meet again ! ' 

' Maria ' — he tried to take her hand, but she with- 
drew it — * canH you forgive me ?' 

' The past — yes : the future I will not trust in your 
hands. As I said, when we leave this boafT* 

The stewardess entered the cabin suddenly by the 
stairs leadins to the deck. . The door was heard to 
lock behind her, and there was a noise overhead as 
of shutting and fastening. She stageered forward, 
and said m a low, calm, rcsigned,^ut trembling 
voice: 'If you would wish to pray, do so at once; 
we are expected to go down every minute ! ' 

Thirlby looked at her for an instant, then taking 
his wife up in his arms, rushed to the cabin-door. 

* We are fastened down ! * said the stewardess with 
terrible calmness. ' The crew is in the rigging. I shall 
go to my cabin, and meet it there. Oh, pray for your 
soul's si^e, for we have not long to live ! * She went to 
her own little cabin at the side, and shut the door. 

Husband and wife were locked in each other's 
arms. How poor and paltry seemed their enmities 
and jealousies, their poisoned arrows of speech and 
verbal victories ! Etemily was near th^n, and about 
them, lashing at the shaking vessel's sides, howling 
for them in the wind, roaring for them in the sea! 
The ship palpitated like a timid hare, as though 
eager to oner human victims to appease the hungry 
elements, and save itself. Neither spoke; but a 
long, endearing kiss proclaimed mutual forgiveness — 
then heart beating af^rainst heart, hand in hand, their 
fingers intertwined within each other, they knelt and 
prayed. In his height of health and pride of sarcasm, 
Thirlby sometimes scoffed at religion, and ridiculed 
his wife's strict observances with considerable humour 
— now, he felt sure that she was right, and cheek to 
cheek and lip to lip uttered fervent prayers for 
heavenly pardon and ner safety. 

Only once during the night the world came back to 
him, when he sobbed out : ' I shall never see my boy ! * 

And minute after minute, each longer than uie last, 
passed away ; every succeeding shock and lurch of 
the frail boat, they expected to feel the floor sink 
under them, and the water x>our down into their 
cushioned sea-tomb. 

A violent crash shook the ship from stem to stem ; 
the cabin-lamp fell shivered into atoms, and all was 
darkness. They clutched tightly hold of each other, 
and thought their time had come. 

The mght passed. A ribbon of gray light in the 
horizon separated sea from sky ; the gray grew whiter 
and more oright — ^it was moming. Husband and wife 
looked into each other's hag&ttrd faces ; they had 
thought they should never seetnem more. 

The daylight was an inexpressible relief; they 
should not perish in the dark. Light was the breath 
of Heaven. They were not forgotten I 

* Think you there is any hope ?' whispered the wife, 
almost afraid to trust the sound of her own voice. 

As she spoke, there was a noise upon the deck, and 
the sounds of sea and wind, and straining boards 
and creaking cordase grew more audible. The cabin- 
door flew open, and the steward, wet as from a bath, 
and his face bleeding, looked in. 'All right!' he 
easped ; ' we 're saved ! — saved ! Where's my missus ? 
Jane, dear, open the door — ^we're saved, I tdl you 1 ' 

The stewardess opened the door, and both couples 
repaired to the deck. 

' We shall weather it, praised be God ! ' said the 
white-haired captain. * Who would have thought 
this six hours ago ? ' 

'Maria!' 

'Hush! we have received a severe and proper 
punishment for our presumption and our crime.* 

A steam-tug came out to their rescue, and carried 
them safely into Kingstown harboiur. There was a 
smiling lady, a moustached gentleman, and a hand- 
some yellow*haired boy awaiting them. • 



394 



0HAJ(6ERS*S JOURNAL. 



'Mamma! — ^my dear, dear mamma!' cried the 
yoiing gentleman with undiBgaiBed ecsta^r- 

* Prankv, m^ own. Here's piqMk !^ 

' Papa ! ' said the boy, nmnding his eyes. ' Piq>a 
from £idia?' 
i Yes. dear.' 
'MrThirlhj!' said Mn O'Gndy. 

* Had 3roa forgotten me, £3inor V said that gentle- 
man. 

* Mamma, why hasnt papa been with yon before, 
when' 

* Hush, dear I ' said the mother. 



Mr Thirlby did not return to India ; and both his 
and his wife's name are always set down for a hand- 
some som in all subscriptions for life-boats, or 
FreservationB from Shipwreck. 

CANNIBALS AND GORILLAS. 

A VKRiTABLE travdler has come at last from Eq[na- 
torial Africa to tell us of the Anthropophagi, who 
has lived among them, made friendships with them, 
been offered matrimonial alliances by them, and, in 
short, done eveiything but dine with them. * That,* 
says Mr Paul I>u Chaillu* (whom they playfully 
called Chally), 'I could not do.' The enterprising 
explorer haa got over his distaste for monkey by 
the time he arrived among the cannibal Pans, but 
he had not yet aoquired the taste for man. He was 
excessively particmar about his kettle. 'You cook 
for yonrsdf , and 1 11 cook for myself, and at my own 
kitchen-range,' was his firm reply to all the hospitable 
invitations of the king. The Mad was a royalty., tb^ 
assured him, and always to be found at their monarch^ 
table, but he was never prevailed upon to stop and 
dine. ' Be glad, O white man, O spirit,' cried they, 
on his first arrival, 'and eat of the things we give 
theel' Whereupon, to his confusion, a slave was 
handed over to him bound, and they added: 'Kill 
him for your evening meal, since he is tender and 
fat!' 

Nothing, indeed, conld exceed the kindness with 
which the Fans treated Mr Du Chaillu. He was at 
first somewhat afraid of going to sle^, but that soon 
wore oS, as he grew more accustomed to their little 
ways. They would never have killed him for the 
sake of supplying the larder ; though, if he had fallen 
sick and died among them, it would have been different 
Contra^ to our European custom, the Fans ratiber 
prefer, for culinary purposes, what has died a natural 
death. They do not eat their own dead, but buy of 
the nei^bouring villages. Whenever a gentleman 
departs this life, off run his friends to the next 
settlement, and biieak the sad intelligence in tiiis 
manner. 'Poor old Kembidji (or whoever it may be) 
is gone at last,' say they ; ' and now, what wiu you 

Ca poiwndV The questum, ' How did he cut up ?' 
a different and more literal meaning with them 
than it has in the city. For a whole b^iy, they will 
give an elephant's tusk. Mr Du Chaillu saw women 
who had been 'marketing' carry pieces of human 
flesh on the street, exactly as chops uid stei^ are 
oarried in London, only without the piece of newspaper 
that wraps them up. To speak of such matters thus 
lightly, is lees terrible than to discuss them seriously ; 
but the facts as above stated are perfectly true. 
However, even the Fans do not eat everybody: 
tiie persons of their kings are sacred, ana their 
buriaJ-placee not locomotive. The compliment, there- 
fore, which was paid to Mr Du Chaillu, when they 
ofiered to make nim a king, is to be the more highly 
estimated. Nevertheleas, tnere are some disagreeables 
connected with the assumption of sovereignty in 
Equatorial Africa, which may have had their weight 



• Erphrationt 4md Adventures in MquatoHal Afrien, By Pml 
B. DuCluOUa. liarray. 



in inducing our author to ^A*^lw»ft this honour. He 
had once been witness to the ceremonies preoedinff 
the elevation of his friend Njcooni to the throoe ol 
the Mpongwe. 'The choice fell on him in jnurt 
because he came of a mod. family, but chie^ betmoso 
he was a favourite of the people, and coold gst the 
meet votes. I do not know that Njogoni had tbe 
slightest suspicion of his elevaiion; at anyrate, if 
he had, he shammed ignorance very welL As ks 
was walking on the shore, on. the mamins of the 
seventh day, he was suddenly set upon by tae entire 
populace, who proceeded to a ceremoi^ whidi is 
preliminary to tne crowning, and which must deter 
any but the most ambitious men from aspiring to 
the cro^iL They surrounded him in a demie crowd, 
and then becan to heap upon him every manner of 
abuse tibat the worst of mobs could imagincL Some 
spat in his face; some beat him with their fisti; 
some kicked him; others threw disgusting objecti 
at him ; while those unlu^Ey ones who stood on the 
outside, and could reach the poor fellow only wiiJi 
their vcnccs, assiduously cursed him, his father, his 
mother, his sisters and farothecs, and all his ancestois 
to the remotest generation. A stranger would Jiot 
have given a cent for the life of nim who was 
presently to be crowned. Amid all the noise and 
struggle, I caught the words which exjplained all this 
to me ; for every few minutes some lellow, adminis- 
tering an especially severe blow or kick, would dieat 
out : "You are not our king yet; for a litUe while we 
will do what we please with you. By and by, we 
shall have to do your will ! " ' 

Although Mr Du .Chaillu withstood the temptation 
of a crown, he appreciated the many evidenosB of 
good- will paid to him by his would-oe brethren of 
regid rank; and he would hav« been ungntlefal 
indeed had it been otherwise. The king of Ngolaf 
'a man of a kind heart, and ffivea. to bursti of 
liberality,' placed idl tiie ladies of his capital at the 
disposal of the embarrassed traveller, frain whom to 
pick and choose his wives. This happened scone of 
times. Our author protests with earrtastneas that be 
never took advantage of these arrmn^gsments, escept 
upon one occasion when among the Apingl Be 
had 'a little adventure,' he admits, with one of t^on 
ladies. 'The king, on my arrival, ^^nified to me, 
with the usual liberality of African kuigs, that any 
of hii wives, or any of anybody else's wives that 

f leased my eyes, I was requested to consider my own. 
, of course, replied that in our countzy we cud not 
marry in this off-hand way, which he could not at 
all understand. As, however, the women are the 
housekeepers, when I was settled a little, I chose 
one of the oldest and ugliest that I saw, and installed 
her as wj housekeeper, cook, and maid-ol-all-woik. 
For two or three days, all went weQ. But one 
morning I was waited upon by a deputation of men 
and women, who hailed me with much joy as their 
relative, thanked me for the honour I bad done 
them in taking their relative to wife, and gravely 
asked me for presents, to make their hearts glad on 
such a joyful occasion. I confess that for once I 
lost my temper. I took a stick, and drove my new 
relatives out of the village, packed off my slanaering 
housekeeper after them, ana heaped all the abuse 
u^n them I was master of in ApingL They fled 
with the utmost consternation.' 

Even among these miserable savaces, Society asserts 
her rights, and makes her class-oistinctions. The 
natives and their slaves have even different deities, 
to which each respectively pay the greatest honours. 
King Damacondai could by no means be persuaded 
to b31 his idol, though Mr Du Chaillu bade very high 
(almost up to his revolver) for her ; but his majesty 
insinuated that, for a proper price, he might have the 
goddess of the slaves. These poor follows were 
absent on the plantations, so after council with his 
chief men, the King determined to give out that lis 



OHAMBTOfPS JOURHAL. 



had seen her walk off into the woods. So our antiior 
racked her up, and brought her away with him. 
£ach tribe among whom he was so good as to 
take up his quarters, appropriated him as * their 
white man/ and were very jealous for his dignity 
and comfort His clock, his musical-box, and his 
revolver the^ deemed to bo so many powerful 
* fetiches,' which added to his gloiy ; while his straight 
hair was the universal admiration. In that, ind^d, 
lay his danger as well as his strength. His friend, 
£inc Rempano, ingenuously admitted that his people 
would like to get possession of Mr Du Chaillu s hair 
lor a fetich of their own. They had very many 
fetiches already, and were anxious to make their 
collection complete. The scene, therefore, on the 
occasion when Mr Du Chaillu put bimiiftlf under the 
hands of the perroquier, may be easily imagined. 
' The weather had been very hot lately, and, as my 
hair was too long for comfort, I told Makondai one 
day to cut it for me, £[iving him a pair of acnnors I 
had in my kit. He cud not do it very artisticallv, 
but in the interior of Africa one comes to care little 
for looks or fashions. When he had done, he gsiiiered 
up the cut hair, and threw it out into the street I 
was not attending to what was going on, and was 
suiprised presently at a noise of scuffline and fighting 
in finont of my house. I looked out, and beheld a mort 
lan^^ble scene. The men were busily picking up the 
scattered hairs, and those who could not eet at them 
were disputing possession with their luckier ndsh- 
bouzB. fevcn the old king, Olenda, was in the mioit, 
eager for a share. As eadi got what he could, he 
would tic them up carefully in the comer of his 
ndengui, and walk off very contentedly. I called 
Olenda, and asked what was the use of this hair. He 
replied: "O spirit! these hairs are very precious; 
we shall make mondas (fetiches) of them, and they 
win brii^ other white men to us, and bring us great 
good-luck and riches. Since you have come to tis, O 
■pint I we have wished to have some of your hair, but 
did not dare to ask for it, not knowing that it could 
be cut" I was hap|)y tibiat it had not occurred to 
them to appropriate violently my whole head, hair and 
alL* This desire for a look of one's hair is, after all, 
not unknown among Europeans, and may certainly 
be considered as a compliment One African monarcm 
was so complaisant and courteous, as to adopt our 
author's notions in respect to refinement and beha- 
viour. Qnenguoza, king of Qoumbi, even endeavoured 
to make proselytes to these new ideas — ^to teach his 
neighbours to become as polished as himself. *In 
common with many of his subjects, the old fellow 
was much troubled with fleas ; and when, as he stood 
f^lUng with me, a flea became too troublesome, he 
used to adroitly catch him, and gravely crack him on 
his thumb-naiL This disgusted mo so, that I remon- 
strated, and at lost succeeded in reforming this one 
of his abuscsT But no sooner had he given up the 
disgusting practice himself, than he at once forbade 
it to all his own subjects, and became a most zealous 
advocate to decency among our Bakalai friends. 
** Why do you crack your fleas before my white man, 
eh ? Dirty fellow ! Uo away I You make my white 
man sick !" he used to cry out And to-day, when 
we had our interview with the up-river chief, Quen- 
gueza was equaUy zealous — though more polite — with 
him. But the old man replied : " Thus have I done 
all my life — it is now too late ; " and gravely continued 
his massacre.' 

Nothing can exceed the humour and interest of our 
author's experience among these 8a\1^{cs — hospitable, 
and yet thievish ; good-tempered, and yet of a oevilish 
cruelty; crafty, and yet slaves to the meanest and 
most traii8i)arent superstitious — ^but still this is the 
least striking portion of our author's narrative. He 
has good news to give us of the certain decrease 
of the slave-trade— mainly in consequence of the 
discouragement now displayed towards it by the 



Brazilian government, who are jdarmed at the incraase 
of their bhuik population. He has carious anecdotes 
illustrative of this shrewdness of the negroes of the 
west coast as traders. We are used to hear them 
called stupid, whereas the truth is, that any merdiant 
who is unaccustomed to them is quite sure to be 
taken in and overreached. 'Say that to-day the 
sood ship Jenny has arrived in the river; imme- 
diately every black fellow is full of trade. The sh^ 
is boarded by a crowd of feUows, each jabbering 
away, apparently at random, but all telline the same 
story, if ever was there such dearth of ivory, or 
whatever the captain may want! Never were the 
interior tribes so obstinate in demanding a hig^ price I 
Never was the whole coast so bare! Never were 
difficulties BO great ! There have been fights, captain I 
And fever, captain ! And floods, captain ! And no 
trade at all, captain! Not a tooth! This point 
settled, they produce their " good books," which are 
certificates of character, in which some captain or 
other white trader who is known on the coast vouches 
for the honesty — the great honesty and entire trust- 
worthiness — of the beuer. It is not worth while for 
a* fellow to present himself without a certificate, and 
the papers are all ffood, because when "the bearer" 
has cheated, he does not apply for a "character." 
Now these certificates help mm to cheat When he 
finds the need of a new set of papers, he cenducts 
himself witii scrupulous honesty towards two or 
three captains ; these, of course, " certify " him, and 
then he goes into the wildest and most reckless specu- 
lations, upheld by the " good books," which he snows 
to every captain that comes.' 

But it was not Man whom Mr Du Chaillu went 
out into the woods and swamps of Central Africa 
to study, but insect, and bird, and beast It is as a 
scientific thou^ adventurous explorer, as a great natu- 
ralist, who is also a mighty hunter, that our author 
has established his reputation. He tells us of the 
bashikouay ant, so temUe to man and beast, before 
whom every creature flees. *It is their habit to 
march through the woods in a long regular line of 
about two inches broad, but often several miles in 
length. All along this line are larger ants, who act 
as officers, stand outside the ranks, and ke^ this 
singular army in order. If they come to aplace where 
there are no trees to shelter them from the sun, whose 
heat they cannot'bear, they immediately build under- 
f{round tunnels, through which the whole army passM 
m cohunns to the forest beyond. These tunnols are 
four or five feet undermonnd, and are used only in 
the heat of the day, or during a storm. When they 
crow hungry, the long file spreads itself through the 
forest in a front line, and attacks and devours all it 
overtakes with a fury which is quite irresistible. 
The elephant and gorilJa flee before this attack. The 
black men run for their lives. Every animal that 
hves in their lino of inarch is chased. They seem to 
understand and act upon the tactics of Napoleon, and 
concentrate with great speed their heaviest forces 
upon the point of attack. In an incredibly short 
space of time, the mouse, or dog, or leopard, or 
deer is overwhelmed, killed, eaten, and tne bare 
skeleton only remains. They seem to travel night 
and day. ^Lany a time have I been awakened out of 
a sleep, and obbged to rush from the hut and into the 
water to save my life, and after all, suffered intoler- 
able agony from the bites of the advance-guard, who 
had got into my clothes. When they enter a house, 
they clear it of all living things. Cockroaches are 
devoured in an instant ; rats and mice spring round 
the room ,in vain. An overwhelming force of ants 
kills a strong rat in less than a minute, in spite of the 
most frantic struggles, and in less than another 
minute, its bones are stripped.' 

Our author finds a serpent eighteen feet in length 
under his own bed; and while crawling painfully 
along from loot to root above a doadfy nuungiove 



896 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



■wainp, he is pursued by another. He finds birds 
that no man has seen l>efore; he finds apes that 
bi^Qd for themselves nests in trees; and above all, 
he finds, what is the main object of his perilous 
expedition — ^the Gorilla, whose native home is a 
comparatively narrow belt extending on either side 
of tne eouator. There he lords it, the undisputed 
master of the forest, before whose terrible roar the 
very leopard flees. In the Periplus, or Voyage of 
Hanno "Uie Carthaginian, in the sixth century Mfore 
Christ, mention is made of a creature something 
similar, but which was probably the Chimpanzee. A 
gorilla it could not have been, for it left its females to 
their fate, and fled from the hunter. The genuine 
male gorilla has no fear. The natives relate weird 
and hideous stories concerning him : that he carries 
off their women ; that he lies in wait on the lower 
branches of trees watching for men, and when one 
passes by, clutches him with his powerful feet, and 
draws him up and chokes hiuL Mr Du Chaillu is the 
first white man who has systematicaUy hunted this 
creature or penetrated his haunts ; and we can well 
believe that the most exciting moment of his life was 
that wherein he first stood face to face with this 
tremendous ape. ' Suddenly, Miengai uttered a httle 
duck with his tongue, which is the native's way of 
shewing that something is stirring, and that a sharp 
look-out is necessai^ ; and presently I noticed, ahead al 
us seemingly, a noise as oi some one breaking down 
branches or twigs of trees. This was the gorilla, I 
knew at once, by the eager and satisfied looks of the 
men. They looked once more carefully at their guns, 
to see if by any chance the powder had fallen out of 
the pans ; 1 also examined mme, to make sure that all 
was right ; and then we marched on cautiously. The 
singular noise of the breaking of tree-branches con- 
tinued. We walked with the greatest care, making 
no noise at aU. The^oountenanoes of the men shewed 
that they thought themselves engaged in a very serious 
undertaking; out we pushed on, until finally we 
thought we saw through the thick woods the moving 
of the branches and small trees which the great beast 
was tearing down, probably to get from them the 
berries and fruits he lives on. Suddenly, as we were 
yet creeping along, in a silence which made a heavy 
txreath seem loud and distinct, the woods were at 
once filled with the tremendous barking roar of the 
gorilla. Then the underbrush swayed rapidly just 
ah«id, and presently before us stood an immense male 
eorilla. He had gone through the jungle on his all- 
Umn ; but when he saw our party, he erected himself, 
and looked us boldly in the face. He stood about a 
dozen yards from us, and was a sieht I think I shall 
never foiget. Nearly six feet high (he proved four 
inches shorter), with immense body, huge chest, and 
great muscular arms, with fiercely glaring large deep 
gray eyes, and a hellish expression at face, which 
seemed to me like some nightmare vision : thus stood 
before us this king of the African forest. He was not 
afraid of us. He stood there, and beat his breast 
with his huge fists till it resounded like an immense 
bass-drum, which is their mode of offering defiance ; 
meantime ^ving vent to roar after roar. The roar of 
the gorilla is the most singular and awful noise heard 
in these African woods. It begins with a sharp bark, 
like an angrv dog, then glides into a deep bass roU, 
which literally and closely resembles the roU of distant 
thunder along the sky, for which I have sometimes 
been tempted to take it where I did not see the 
animaL So deep is it that it seems to proceed less 
from the mouth and throat than from the deep chest 
and vast paunch. His eyes began to flash fiercer as 
we stood motionless on the defensive, and the crest of 
short hair which stands on his forehead began to 
twitch rapidly up and down, while his powerfm fangs 
were shewn as he again sent forth a thunderous roar. 
And now truly he reminded me of nothing but some 
hellish dream-creature — a being of that hideous order, 



half-man half -beast, which we find ^ctnred by old 
artists in some representations of the infernal regions. 
He advanced a few steps — ^then Bito/pped to utter that 
hideous roar again— advanced agpun, and finally 
stopped when at a distance of about six yards from 
us; and here, just as he began another of his 
roars, beating his breast in rage, we tired, and killed 
him.* 

The gorilla's roar can be heard at a distance of tiires 
miles, and the very beating of his breast for at least 
a mile. He sometimes even sits down to roar; so 
tremendous an exertion does it cost him, while his yells 
as he approaches are hke the inarticulate ravings of a 
maniac The height of one shot by our author was 
five feet nine inches. Its arms had a spread of nine 
feet. Its hairy chest was sixty-two inches in circum- 
ference. The hands, those terrible weapons, with one 
blow of which it tears open the bowels of a man, or 
breaks his arms, were of immense moBcular power, 
and bent like veritable claws. Its big toe was no less 
than six inches in circumference. As he draws nigh 
his enemy, Man, to whom he bears so awful a 
resemblance, the deep-set eyes sparkle with gloomy 
malignity; the features are contorted in hideoos 
wrinkles ; and the dight sharply-cut lips, drawn up, 
reveal the long fangs and the powerful jaws, in which 
a human limb would be crushed as a biaonitb Then, 
indeed, it behoves the hunter to look with care to his 
priming, and to keep his fire to the very last. No 
unarmed man — ^not the most powerful prize-fighter on 
earth — would have a chance of life against the gorilla. ' 
He has never need to strike but a single stioke, as Mr 
Du Chaillu had unhappily reason to know. 'Oor 
little party separated, as is the custom, to stalk the 
wood in various directions. Gambo and I kept 
together. One brave fellow went off alone in a 
direction where he thought he could find a gorilla; 
the other three took another course. We had been 
about an hour separated, when Gambo and I heard a 
gun fired but a little way from us, and presently 
another. We were already on our way to the spot, 
where we hoped to see a gorilla slain, when the forest 
began to resoimd with the most terrific roan. Grambo 
seized my arms in great agitation, and we hurried on, 
both filled with a (ueadf uf and sickening alarm. We 
had not gone far when our worst lean were realised. 
The poor brave fellow who had ^^one off alone was 
lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, and I 
thoujg^ht, at Siet, quite dead. His bowels were pro- 
trudmg through the lacerated abdomen. Beside W 
lay his gun. The stock was broken, and t^e barrel 
was bent and flattened. It bore plainly tiie marks of 
the gorilla's teeth. We picked him np, and I dressed 
his wounds as well as I could with rags torn from my 
clothes. When I had given him a utUe brandy to 
drink, he came to himiKlf, and was able, but with 
great difficulty, to speak. He said tha| he had met 
the gorilla suddenly and face to face, and that it had 
not attempted to escape. It was, he said, a hnge 
male, and seemed very savage. It was in a very 
gloomy part of the wood, and the darkness, I sumx)6e, 
made him miss. He said he took good aim, and fired 
when the beast was only about ei^t yards off!, The 
ball merely wounded it in the side. It at once began 
beating its breast, and with the greatest rage advanced 
upon him. To run away was impossible ; he would 
have been caught in the jungle before he had gone a 
dozen steps. He stood his ground, and as quickly as 
he could, reloaded his gun. Just as he raised it to fire, 
the gorilla dashed it out of his hands, the gun going 
off in the fall ; and then in an instuit, and with a 
terrible roar, the animal gave him a tremendoua blow 
with its immense open paw, frightfully lacerating the 
abdomen, and with this single blow laying bare part 
of the intestines. As he sank, bleeding, to the ground, 
the monster seized the gun, and ^e poor hunter 
thought he would have his brains dashed out witii it 
But the gorilla seemed to have looked upon this also 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



307 



as an enemy, and in his rage almost flattened the 
barrel between his strong jaws.' 

We have no more space to ^ve to the consideration 
of Mr Du Chaillu's admirable volume, the whole of 
which is, however, deeply interesting. His own brief 
summary of the results of his four years* travel must 
conclude our notice. 

*I travelled — always on foot, and imaccompanied 
by other white men — about eight thousand miles. I 
shot, stuffed, and brought home over two thousand 
birds, of which more than sixty are new species ; and I 
killed upwards of one thousand quadrupeds, of which 
two hundred were stuffed and Drought home, with 
more than eighty skeletons. Not less than twenty of 
these quadrupoos are species hitherto unknown to 
science. I sniffered fifty attacks of the African fever, 
taking, to cure myself, more than fourteen ounces of 
quinine. Of famine, long-continued exposures to the 
heavy tropical rains, and attacks of ferocious ants and 
venomous flics, it is not worth while to 8X)eak.' 



LIGHT-HOUSES AND BEACONS. 

Beneath the waters that wash the coasts of the 
islands which form the heart of the \'ast empire of 
Queen Victoria, lie cruel rocks and treacherous sand- 
banks, threatening destruction to the ships bearing 
ihe world's merchandise into its ports, and death to 
the mariners who navigate them. Of all the duties 
imposed upon a great maritime and commercial 
country, none is more obvious and paramount than 
that of employing every means science can suggest, 
towards lessening the risks inciurred by those whose 
daring constitutes its glory, as their labour is the 
foun£ition of its wealth and prosperity. Let us sec 
what Great Britain has accomplished towards fulfil- 
ling her duty in this matter. 

The means employed for the protection of our 
navigation are four — light-houses, floating-lights, 
buoys, and beacons. 

Of these, light-houses rank first in importance. 
How far the ancients made use of them, is a matter 
of speculation. In all probability, the Colossus of 
Rhodes, erected 300 b. c, answered the purpose of our 
more modest structures ; but the Pharos of Alexan- 
dria, built l^ Ptolemv Philadelphus about the same 
period, wax undoubtealy a light-house. Strabo makes 
mention of a stone light-house at Capio or Apio ; and 
tie ruins of Ciesar's Altar at Dover, the Tour d'Ordre 
at Boidogne, and similar remains at Flamborough 
Head| have been conjectured to have served a Hke 
end. Gongh speaks of a light-house being built in 
1272 on the Norfolk coast; but the noble Tour de 
Corduan, at the mouth of the Garoime, is the earliest 
example of light-house architecture extant, and this 
was not completed before the year 1610. 

The English system of light-houses dates from the 
erection of that on the Eddystone rock in 1698 — a 
wooden stnicture swept away with the engineer and 
his men in 1703, and succeeded by Smeaton's success- 
ful work six years later. This vras justly thought a 
great engineering triumph ; but it has been since sur- 
passed by the bght-houses at Bell-rock, Skenyvore, 
and Bishop-rock. The first named, erected at the 
Inch-cape, where the abbots of Aberbrothwick placed 
a floating-bell to warn seamen of the neighbourhood 
of the fatal Bell-rock, stands 117 feet high, and cost 
L.61,331. The Bishop-rock light-house is 145 feet in 
height, but the expense fell far below that of the 
BeU-rock, being only L.d6,559. The most magnificent 
work of the three, that at Skerryvore, involved the 
creation of a quarry and harbour, and cost upwards 
of L.83,000. llie ordinary En^h light-houses rarely 
exceed L7500, and often fall below 116000 ; in Soot- 
land, the average expense ia L.8000, and in Ireland, 
L. 10,000, but l£e last estimate includes Hhe illumin- 
ating apparatus. A siinilar disproportion is found in 
the ooet of maintenance in the three kingdoms, the 



Irish authorities expending L.485, and the Scotch L.385, 
where ike Trinity House spend L.340; but here at 
least the extra expenditure on the part of Scotland 
is more than justined, the difference arising from the 
amount of oil consumed, which is in exact TOoportion 
to the superior efficiency of the lights. The total 
number of light-houses in the Umted Kingdom is 
357, divided as follows — England, 171 ; Scotland, 113 ; 
Ireland, 73. 

Ocean-lights are constructed upon one of two prin- 
ciples — the catoptric, and the dioptric. In the former 
system, the means employed consist of silvered para- 
bolic reflectors; the latter, invented by M. Fresnel 
above forty years aj^o, depends upon the use of lenses 
of peculiar construction. The dioptric system prevails 
in France, Spain, and America ; out in this country 
both plans are in vogue, England giving the preference 
to the older principle of reflection, and Scotland 
favouring the newer mode of refraction. The dioptric 
svstem IS generally allowed to be the best, althoujgh 
the English catoptric lights compare favourably with 
the few constructed upon the opposite plan ; but then, 
owing to the want of proper adjustment, in not 
taking properly into account the dip of the sea below 
the geometrical horizon, the neglect of nicety in fitting 
the various parts of the apparatus, and a false econ- 
omy of oil, the dioptric lignts have scarcely had a fair 
ch^ce in this country. In both descriptions, a huve 
proportion of the light produced is wasted on the 
sky or the shore. 

The coal-light of St Bees, the last of its kind, was 
extinguished in 1822, although oil was introduced aa 
a source of light nearly a century before. Sperm oil 
is still used by the Admiralty, although abanaoned by 
the general authorities years ago ; at Liverpool, olive 
oil is employed, but as a rule, colza oil is preferred. 
In the catoptric lij^hts, the lamp used is constructed 
on Argand's principle, the burners varying in number 
from one to thirty. In the dioptric system, a lar^ 
central mechanical lamp of three or four concentno 
wicks is the agent. Gas is burned in some harbour 
lights, and with such satisfactory results, that it is a 
matter of wonder it has not been more widely adopted. 
Mr Holmes has been experimenting at the South 
Foreland with an electric light with some success, 
and Mr Way proposes another produced by galvanic 
action in a stream of mercury. The lime-light is also 
a candidate for ocean-honours ; and probably before 
long, oil may be superseded by one or other of its 
more brilliant rivals. 

It is a matter of great importance, that seamen 
should be enabled to distinguish one light from 
another in its vicinity. To attain this object, various 
means are resorted to. Some are made to revolve ; in 
others, the aid of colour is called in. Thus, we have 
211 white lights, 59 red, 5 green, 2 blue, 51 red and 
white, 3 red and green, and 3 red, white, and green. 
With the exception of 3 red, and 14 red and white, 
all the above are fixed lights. Unfortunately, the 
employment of colour necessitates an increased con- 
sumption of oil, in consequence of the absorption of a 
large portion of the rays from the lamp ; and green 
and blue li^ts have the great disadvantage of their 
light being readily absorbed by the atmosphere in 
misty weather. Other methods of distinction are 
also adopted. Some lights, called ' fixed and flashing,' 

give a constant light besides the waxing and waning 
ght, with intervals of darkness ; while others alter- 
nate between brilliancy and total darkness, and 
ti^ese again differ in the intervals between the 
maximums of brilliancy, such intervals var3ang in 
duration from ^ve seconds to four minutes. 

In erecting light-houses, the desirability of m a ki n g 
the structure as visible as possible in the daytime, 
has too often been overlooks, so that in many cases, 
especially on the Scotch coasts, the stone towers are 
hardlv to be distinguished at a distance. To obviate 
this difficulty, tiie general adoption of the American 



aas 



CHAMBERS^ JOURNAL. 



plan of pomting the liciit-hoiises in rtiipes or baoda 
u strongly reconnnended by her Majesty's commis- 
■ioners. ^^jiothcr excellent suggestion, is that of noti- 
fying the approach of gtorms, by means of Admiral 
Fitzroy's signals, from such lizht-hooses as are adapted 
by their prominenco for uiat porpow. Another 
desideratum, is the cmplo^'ment of some efficient means 
of indicating; the locality of a light-honse when the 
fog prevents its light fmm being seen. 

Although the number of light-houses has steadily 
increased as pressure has been brought to bear upon 
the authorities, there is yet room for more ; for vessels 
may be within a very short distance <^ the coast in 
dear weather, and yet beyond the range of any li^t. 
Our neighbours, wiser in this matter, have so arranged 
their ocean-lijj^ta that they cross eadi other^s lire. 
The shortcommgiB of our sjrstem are eq)ecially appar- 
ent on the western coasts of Ireland and Scotland, 
and the Channel Islands, where the rapd tides afford 
additional argument for more efficient protection. 
But whatever the deficiencies in the lifting up of our 
coasts, and however susceptible of improvement the 
system may be, it is satisfactory to find, on the testi- 
mony of those who should, by their vocation, be the 
best pdgee, that Kndand is not behind, other coun- 
tries m a matter in "w^ich her reputation and interest 
are 80 nearfy concerned. Only 33 marinen out of 
311 prefer foreign to British hghts, while not one 
fcneigner declares in favour of the lighting of other 
countries. In making direct comparisons between 
British and foreign li^ts, as to the distance at which 
they are discernible, 112 witnesses decide for the supe- 
riority of the former a^^ainst 72 partisans of the latter. 

The li^t- vessels of the United fiLingdom number 
forty-seven (besides a reserve force of eia^t), of which 
no less than forty-one belong to Engumd. Oil is 
invariably used for these floating-li^ts, and the catop- 
tric system adopted in all but three. They nuiy be 
divided into fixed and revolving, white and coloured, 
and again into one, two, or three light vessels. That 
they mav be distinguishable in ^ da^ht, they 
carry balls at the mast-head ; those of the Trinit v 
House are painted red ; the Irish vessels are black 
with a white streak. To be of real service, it is neces- 
sary that a floating-light should never be absoit from 
its station ; and in this respect there seems to be no 
ground for complaint. N(yt a single instance is on 
record of a voluntary desertion of a post ; and where a 
vessel has been driven from its moorings — an event 
of rare occurrence — it has been quickly replaced ; and 
not one has ever been wrecked. As for as safety is 
concerned, the most exposed stations are apparently 
the least dangerous, the long sea and the length of 
chain requirea to moor the vessels in deep water, 
render it easier riding than where the sea is shorter, 
the water shallower, and the current stronger. 

These light-vessels are costiy affairs — the Eng- 
lish ones avora^g L.3622 each; and the Iridi, which 
are of a superior kind, and of greater size, L.6224 
The expense of maintenance is much heavier than in 
the case of light-houses, amounting to L.1103 per 
annum in the lowest instance, which is some L.250 
less than that incurred by the American government. 

From the neglect of many local authorities, the 
information respecting the buoys of Great Britain is 
.venr defective. The returns give 1109 in position, 
and 573 in reserve — a number much below the mark, 
for in this resiioct our coasts are better guarded 
than those of any other country. It is to be r^retted, 
however, that some uniform system of buoying nas not 
been put into practice. The northern commissioners, 
it is true, have lately ado|>tcd the plan of placing red 
buoys on the starboard, and black buoys on the port- 
hand in entering harbours ; the English and Irish 
authorities have also in some measure sjrstemised 
their buoyage, but as if on purpose to render the 
confusion worse confounded, the last-named reverse the 
Scotch formula; and the Trinity Board place red or 



black booys to stsxboard, and checkered ones to part; 
the local authorities following this landaHe enunple, 
do their worst to complicate matters by usin^ an 
independent system of their own ; idiiletlie Admiralty 
itself dispenses with any attempt at uniformity 
within its own jurisdiction. The origiiial cost of & 
buoy varies according to its size and constmction. 
Some of the old-fashioned Nun and Can buoys do not 
cost more than sixteen guineas ; but there are bnoya 
afloat which have cost as much as L.197. The omy 
regular expense attending them, when tlie^ are onoe 
fixed in position, is that of painting, wfaick n done by 
the crews of the floating-fi^ts in FiUgtand, but in 
Scotland costs 7s. 6d. per annum for eacu buoy, while 
the Dublin Board actually pay from L.2, IOsl to 
L.5, 58. for the some operation — a chnge requiring 
some explanation. 

The want of system observable in oar light-houses 
prevails in an equal degree in oar beaconage, in 
diversities of form, ooloar, and construction, so 
that a certain amount of local knowledge is abso- 
lutely necessary before the Tn^rinor can avail him- 
self of the warning given by the beacons: The 
materials of which they are consfarneted are of varion 
kinds — wooden beams, iron, and solid maaonry. 
On the Goodwin Saudis, hollow-pile beaoona have 
been erected, with encouraging resulti. The beacon 
near Stomoway reflects 1^^ which it derives from 
a light-house on shore, but, in general, lu^ts are 
omitted as unnecessary. The navigation of the Oyde 
is rendered easy b^ a number of solid sUuctui e s at 
short distances, distinguished by colour and oMyet 
means, marking the course of tlM chamiel in a way 
worthy of imitation elsewhere. Whefe snch a variefy 
of materials is employed, of course the expenditure 
fluctuates exceedin^y. A white pde, sozinoanted by 
a Ixutkct, answers the purpose at I^mington-credc ; 
the Pabba beacon, in the Sound of Skye, made of 
malleaUe iron, cost more than L.500 ; and the beacon 
on the Wolf Rock, Land's End, ntitaiknl the enor- 
mous expenditure of L.11,298. Tbe cost of mainte- 
nance of these useful structures is oAen notiiiing at 
all, except in situations which render them liable to 
dama^ from the action and force of ti» waTes. 

In France, the ocean-lij^ts are under the direction 
of the Commission de Fhares — a body of naval officeri» 
marine-engineers, hydrographen, and scientific men, 
possessiiur special means for testing all the apparatus 
employeoL America and Spain have placed theur coasts 
imoer similar controL Austria, Si?reden, and Turkey 
intrust this charge to their respective Admiralties. 
In Holland, Norway, and Denmark, the Ministry of 
Marine is tiie responsible department In Belgium, 
the Minister of Public Works sees to the construction 
of light-houses, which are then sivrendered to the 
core of the general direction of the navy. In Russia, 
the duty is i)erformed by the Hjdrographkal Bepart- 
mcnl In oar own country, the carrying out of 
any systematic arran^^emoit of the H^it-hooae system 
is imx>eded by the distinct and often (^iposing action 
of three separate governing bodies, to sa^ nothing of 
some hundred and seventy local aathcnftiea, wiel£ng 
jurisdiction in their several cpheresE. In Eb^i^Uaid, the 
general authority is in the hands of the Trinity fiouae 
— a self -elected corporation of nantical men, without 
any special Mititude for the light-house service ; the 
Ballast Board of Dublin, paramount in LrelaQd, is not 
even composed of those familiar with the sea ; and the 
Scotch connniasioners are two legal crown officials, 
the sheriffs of certain maritime counties, and the 
provosts of certain royal burghs — gentlemen b^ no 
means necessarily conversant mth light-house acienoe 
and management. 

To obviate the ovils consequent upon this divided 
and misplaced authori^, the royal commission, pie- 
sided over by Admiral Hamilton, propose the creraon 
of a central authority, to be called the IVinity Gooi- 
missianera of Lights : tiiis body to be composed of 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



399 



four members elected by the Trinity Home, one 
Scotch repreeentative, to reside at Edinburgh, and one 
Irish, to awell at Dublin, who shall devote all their 
energies to the light-house service alone. To these 
they would add a scientitic member, appointed by 
the government, the astronomer-royal, the hydro- 
jprapher of the Admiralty, the comptroller-general of 
the coast-gQsrd, and a professional member of the 
Board of Irade. They also consider it advisable that 
the new department should be subject to an annual 
visitation from the Royal Society, to whom it shall 
submit a report of its proceeding during the year, to 
be afterwards laid before parliament. They would 
make the coast-guard officers inspectors of tne lights 
in their districts, and render the whole service charge- 
able upon the public revenu& 

To these recommendations, little objection can be 
made ; and if parliament will but carry them out, the 
royal commissioners will have done good service to sea- 
faring men, and through them, to the country at large. 

THE UNDERCLIFF. 

Among the various resorts in search of health, few 
within a moderate distance are so agreeable and 
every way satisfactory as what is known as the 
TJnderclifif in the Isle of Wight. We do not say this 
on the authority of books — thou^ to these we mi^t 
refer — but horn personal experience on different occa- 
sions ; and a grateful recollection of this beautiful and 
accessible spc^ imjiels us to take pen in hand on the 
subject. 

Change of air and scene is now, we believe, acknow- 
ledged to be hijghly conducive to health, and accord- 
in^y, at certain seasons, all who can afford it are 
seen fleeing off to the sea-side, the Highlands, 
or the continent. Middle-aged people, somewhat 
done up with overtasking of brain, are said to 
experience wonderful re-invigoration, and also not 
a little amusement — a great thing that, by tiie 
way — at such * water-cures ' as Ilkley and Ben 
Rydding; while those who are enfeebled by chest and 
bronchial complaints more usually seek a milder and 
more southern climate, and more delicate treatment. 
For this latter class of persons, there is, of course, 
nothing to excel Madeira or Malaga, but of these and 
other distant resorts not one in a hundred invalids 
con afford to take advantage ; and from one cause or 
other, the bulk of people must rest satisfied with 
muirters much nearer home. Possibly, Penzance in 
Cornwall, and Torquay in Devonshire, are in some 
way peculiarly adapted for certain complaints; but 
we entertain a pretty strong conviction, that for mild- 
ness, united with general dryness and equability of 
temperature, nothing within the compass of England 
can surpass Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight. If better 
bo wonted, we incline to think it must be sought for 
abroad. 

What an inmiense number of charming places are 
rendered disagreeable for residence by rain, fogs, 
and humidity! Damp, dam]) — a heavy, soft, relax- 
ing sort of atmosphere — is the everlasting nuisance 
along the whole western coasts. And it is easily 
accounted for. To our country, the Atlantic is the 
grand fountain of mists, which floating eastwards, 
are condensed, and fall as showers of rain, on 
coming in contact with the mountoin^tops of Corn- 
wall, Wales, and the Highlands. The Isle of 
Wight, lying snugly under the lee of the Cornish and 
other mountains on the west, and projected as far 
southward as the latitude of Boulogne (Ventnor is 
50* 35'), escapes these fatal Atlantic mists, and 
those which come from the eastward are arrested 
by the intervening hills of Surrey and Sussex. But 
really the mists from either quarter have little 
to condense them in the island; for its low hills 
or downs are composed chiefly of chalk and sand- 
stone, so dry and so roanded on their sommitB as 



to present no powers of attraction. So much maj be 
saia regarding the climate of the Isle of WigfalL 
generally ; but of the part of the island to which we 
have specially to refer, a much higher character can 
be assigned. As is well known, the pleasantness and 
salubrity of a place depend greatly on two things — 
exposure and shelter. The side of a valley facing the 
south wiU have the hue of summer even in the depth 
of winter, while the northern side lies bound in frost 
and snow. The sun — ah, what a glorious thing it is I 
In some countries, they have too much of it, but w» 
cannot quite say that in England. Let us by all 
means have plenty of sun. l^ere is medicine in its 
blessed rays, and let them shine on us all the day 
long. It will not do. However, to live under a f^are 
of hot sunshine, while you are exposed to cold winds 
from an opposite direction. They quite understand 
this in Northern Italy, where, witn sunshine and 
warmth, there are oftoa cold winds from the moun- 
tains. On one occasion when at Nice, in the month 
of May, we found an intensely hot sun with & 
freezing wind from the north, forming an odd mixture 
of summer and winter. Visitors could venture out of 
doors only by keeping under the shelter of a row of 
buildings. That cuiid us of any very exalted, notion 
of Nice as a resort for health-seekers. With a remem- 
brance of such facts, it is not easy to overrate the 
Undercliff. 

To have a correct idea of this curious bit of country, 
it would be necessary to go into a variety of geologi- 
cal details; but these we shall not inflict on ms 
reader. It may be enough to say, that what with the 
chalky composition of the island, and also certain 
strata of underljring soft mouldering clay, the surface 
at all exposed parts has a tendency to slip down to 
a lower leveL Along the southern shores, the white 
cliffs are in the course of being gradually undermined 
and washed away. When masses fali, they brinff 
down huge lumps of sandstone, which get coverea 
with sea-weed, or are broken up, and rolled about, 
and cast ashore as boulders. Ever since the Romans 
held the island — Vcctis, as they called it — the land 
has been thus washing away, a matter which it seems 
nobody's business to look siter. Here and there, the 
fall has been on so grand a scale as to materially 
alter the configuration of a district. Such is the case 
at Underdiffl The waves of the sea, or it may be 
land-springs, operating on the lower friable strata, 
have brought aown a stretch of some ten miles, and 
produced a strange state of things. A hill or down 
of from 400 to 500 feet high, and stretching from east 
to west, may be said to have been split in two longi- 
tudinally. The side towards the south has sunk 
down, leaving a bared precipice, or range of sandstone 
clifih. The breadth of Uie tumbled down mass varies 
from a few hundred yards to a (quarter of a mile, and 
its surface is irrecufarly diversified with miniature 
hills and valle3rs, aiSy terraces, and sloping cultured 
banks. That this queer jumble will he x)ermanent, 
is tolerably certain. In two or three places, the outer 
side has suffered fresh slips, but in the main, the 
Undercli£^ as this long stretch is designated, has 
seemingly settled for all time. There are found on it 
two or uiree churches, with other buildings of con- 
siderable antiquity, and an infinite variety of fanciful 
villas. Commencine at Bonchurch, and extending 
to Blackgang, we nave a region of almost im- 
cxampled beauty. Overhead, the hill and its severed 
cliffs facing the south, besides forming a natural 
shelter from the north, reflect the sun's heat down 
on a tangled maze of sylvan profusion — trees, shrubby 
knolls, grass of the richest and greenest, hed^ 
rows, flowers, gardens, and banks of blossommg 
furze * unprofitably gay.' Underneath a lofty part 
of the down, and where the broken ground is 
at the broadest, stands Ventnor, a town of modem 
date, comprising every variety of dwelling for the 
accommodatioQ of visitors. V iewed from the sea, 



400 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



Ventnor remindB one of a scene in a theatre. On 
terrace above terrace, on knoll above knoll, as well 
as on the slopes between, the boildings, mostly deco- 
rated with green-painted verandas, are placed in 
odd picturesque masses ; nor would it be any great 
stretch of imagination to expect to see them some day 
following the geological fashion of the district, and 
disappearing in the waters of the ChanneL Ventnor, 
however, has not the same chance of destruction as 
some other parts of the Underclifif. The ground 
undulates down to a smooth level beach, on which 
the tides hannlessly exhaust themselves. 

We know of no sea-shore that can be at all 
comjuired, in purity and beauty, to the beach at 
Ventnor. It is not of sand, nor is it of gravel, but 
something between, that bears no bad resemblance 
to pease of a rich reddish-yellow colour. Setting 
aside ridin|^ and walking, the only visible recreation 
for idlers is that of searching in this shingle for 
those tiny gems, * Isle of Wight diamonds.* As the 
polishing and setting of these sparkling crystals 
IS one of the businesses of the town, visitors, at a 
reasonably small cost, may come home with a wonder- 
fully replenished jewel-case. 

In saying that Ventnor is too difficult to get at, no 
more is meant than that the place is as yet unpro- 
vided with a railway, and to all appearance, although 
an act has been got to construct a line, it will not 
have one soon. Landing at Ryde from Portsmouth, the 
tourist iinds himself, aner a voyage of five-and-twenty 
minutes, completely cut off from railway locomotion. 
He has before him a drive of two hours through 
Brading, Sandown, and.Shanklin. The journey, about 
twelve miles, might be done a little (quicker, but the 
ground is far from level, and what is the need for 
all this abominable hurry that mankind are getting 
into? Let us have time to look about us; ani^ 
perhaps, being somewhat sentimental, we will alight 
at Brading to visit the grave of 'little Jane,' *the 
Dairyman^ Daughter,' for which there is no lack 
of ciceroni As for the general scenenr on the route, 
there is nothing very striking, but much that is pleas- 
ing in the unsophisticated English rural style. What 
though the agriculture might stand some improve- 
ment, and also that the flail keeps its ground against 
steam, these things are the farmers' business, not 
ours. It is more to the purpose to say, that the eye 
is charmed with the sight of thatohed cottages nest- 
ling among roses and noneysuckles, and ivy-dothed 
waysides ]^entifully dotted with blue-bells and prim- 
roses. Nor is the ear unsolaced ; for besides a cnorus 
of birds, here still — and long may it be so — the 

Drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. 

When the carriage rounds the shoulder of St Boni- 
face Down, and begins to descend the southern zig- 
zaggy slopes, amidst the prettily situatod villas of 
Bonchurch, the climate sensibly improves, reminding 
the traveller of the change experienced in descending 
from the eminences of Switzerland into an Italian 
valley. Now, we are in the Undercliff, within half 
a mile of Ventnor, where such are the numbers of 
houses and * apartments ' to let, that we have only to 
pick and choose. High grounds, terraces at mid- 
neight, or the Esplanade cbwn on tiie sea-shore, all 
ready to be selected, according to taste and other 
circumstances ; while it must be owned that, even in 
the best situations, the charges for accommodation 
are remarkably moderate. It would be a pity, after 
coming such a long way, to find yourself incommoded 
with tne sights, sounds, and smelhi not unusual among 
a fishing and seafaring population. Anticipate none 
of these disagreeables. The pUce seems to be singu- 
larly exempted from anything offensive. Drunken- 
ness, crime, rags, and wretchedness are, however, 
little known anywhere in the Isle of Wight — a 
phenomenon of which we are unable to offer any 
explanation, further, perhaps, than tliat its separation 



from the mainland frees it in some measure from the 
intrusion of the various orders of tramps and scamps 
that haunt more dense communities. 

Selecting the Esplanade at Ventnor, on account of 
its proximity to that ever-charming nuuine view and 
beach, and living there from Maroh till the end of 
May, we may be allowed to speak of what recom- 
mends the place not alone to the invalid, but all who, 
like ourselves, long for the exhilaration of fresh mild 
air and sunshine. It is matter of local note, that 
Ventnor has two seasons, with two distinct classes 
of visitors. From about November till March or 
April is the great winter season, when it becomes 
the resort of persons afflicted or threatened with pul- 
monary, rheumatic, and some other affections. On 
being deserted by these classes of health-seekers, 
Ventoor experiences a lull or interregnum, and is 
frequented only by casual visitors until the autumnal 
months, at which time it is a resort for sea-bathers 
and tourists. What are its peculiar qualifications, 
may be guessed from what we have said as to 
the dryness of the air and equability of its usually 
mild temperature. Snow seldom falls, and still more 
rarely lies in "winter.* Spring-frosts, the torment of 
gardeners, are scarcelv known. When fruit-blossoms 
in northern and midland districts are blighted, here 
the most delicate vegetation is secure. Of course, 
there are cold days, and also rainy days scnnetimes, 
but, on the whole, rain is more common a4 night than 
during the day; and what is ec^ually important to 
invalids, the most rainy season is in autumn, when 
they have quitted the island. To one accustomed to 
the v-icissitudes at a comparatively northern clime, 
the general equabilitv of temperature appeared some- 
thing remarkable — tiie shelter of the Down, and the 
influences of the sea in winter and spring modifying 
the cold, and the sea-breeze in summer modifying the 
heat. Night and morning for weeks in the colder 
season, the exposed thermometer out ol doors ranged 
from about 42 degrees to 48 degrees^ and at the 
warmer season from 5G degrees to 62 degrees What a i 
tine thing to find, as you rise at half -past seven o'clock i 
every morning in May, that the thermometer outside 
your window indicates a mean tempentore of 58 
degrees or thereabouts ! We believe it was Sir James 
Clark who, among other valued scrndea, first called 
attention to the fine climate of the Underdiff, and 
in his book, as also in the local work ol Dr Mjurtin, 
various kinds of special information must be sought. 
Leaving ever}' one to exercise his own judgment, our 
object has consisted iu merely drawing a more general 
attention to this happilv situated spot. Perhaps we 
should repeat more cmphaticidly that Ventnor is dull 
— very dull — at least in the absence of society it 
appeared so to us ; but with the solace of carnages 
and books, with the post bringing letters and news- 
papers twice a day, and \nih walks on downs and 
cliffs to any imaginable extent, we are bound to say 
that there are much less lively places of resort than 
this English variety of Sleepy Hollow. W. C. 

* According to a Ute xneteorologioal report, the lowest tem. 
perature last winter at Ventnor was 84 degrees. 

On Saturday J 6th Juhj^ mii hepuUUhed in this Journal^ 

A TALE, ENTITLED 

MYSELF AND MY RELATIVES. 

To be continued every week ufM eom^pUiied. 

To CoNTRiBUTOBS. — It is requested that all Contri- 
butions to Ghawherii Journal may be, for the future, 
directed to the Editor, at 47 Paternoster Bow, London, R C 

Printed and Published by W. & B. Ghaicbkbs, 47 Plater^ 
noster Bow, London, and 339 High Street, Eoimbuboh. 
Also sold by William Bobibtson, 23 Upper SaokriQe 
Street, DuBLor, and all Booksellers. 




S tit net anb ^ris. 



CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 



No. 391, 



SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1861. 



Price 1^. 



ON THE ROCK WITH GARIBALDI. 

FiLLiBUSTERiNG — I spcak of tho better sort, whose 
ol>ject is fame or freedom— is very pleasant and 
exciting while it lasts, but is subject, like other grand 
delights, to very painfid seasons of reaction. Your 
tillibuster who has done his wild work, no matter at 
what loss of ease, and time, and blood, and handed 
over to legitimate authority the prize for which he 
has been contending, is a lost, forgotten thing. A 
cracked bottle, a blunted razor, an empty sack, an 
exploded firework, arc emblems of sul>stantiality, 
brilliancy, and power, compared with him. It is not 
that the disbanded creature is not brave, honest, 
a good comrade, not content, nay, joyful, to have 
served Liberty for twopence a day, irregularly dis- 
bursed, or even to have waived altogether this last 
claim ; it is simply that the man has * no position,' 
or, if he have, it is that of an amateur thief -catcher, 
whose services, hailed with enthusiasm in the 
moment of need, become embarrassing so soon as 
the work is over. The regular iwhce-force repu- 
diate him with something like scorn ; the public, 
individually,. disown his disreputable acquaintance. 
He is a wild, rough creature, of violent habits and 
belligerent tastes. Thank him, somebody — and pitch 
him over ! 

Seeing how unpopiUar a garment the red shirt has 
suddenly become, a feeble-minded iillibuster might 
casily.be betrayed into asking himself, whether there 
were not, in reidity, something shameful and unworthy 
in making people free, and end by feeling rather 
grateful, upon the whole, that the liberated parties 
— more generous than the convicts in Don Quixote — 
permitted their chain-breakers to escape without an 
actual pelting. 

It was in some such mood as this that, wandering 
one February morning through the crowded ways of 
Genoa, it came into my mind to visit the island-home 
of my dear old general ; and the purpose, once formed, 
becoming irresistible, I at once accomplished it. 

There is a fortnightly communication between 
Genoa and La Madalena (one of the little communes 
of islands which includes Caprcra) by means of the 
Dantty a small steamer of about two hundred tons, 
whose accommodations, though arranged principally 
with reference to the exportation of pigs, were good 
enough for a disbanded fillibuster. I was a little 
startled at the terms proposed for so short a voyage 
— forty-eight franca— but, sending a messenger later 
in the day, and finding that the price had sunk to 
thirty-seven, I came to the condusion that the dif- 
ference, eleven francs, was a fine in the nature of the 
ancient Jews' tribute, here levied upon red shirts. 



and, in high spirits at having evaded it, prepared 
eagerly for my trip. 

I was fortunate in my companions. The cabin of 
the little Dante was occupied by a party consisting of 
Minotti Garibaldi, the hero's eldest son (the gallant 
youth, now about two-and-twenty, was severely 
wotmded in the wrist and hand at Calatafimi) ; Bauo» 
the general's secretary ; Genesi, of the commissariat; 
a captain of Tiirr's Guides ; and another gentlemaa <^ 
distinction named ' Fuoco' (* fire,' in the battle senso)* 
whose four legs had been seen, in many a skirmisli, 
trotting busily about in the very hottest of the de- 
ment from which he derived his name. There were, 
besides, a few ex-volunteers for Madalena, and 
likewise a lady of Italian eye but German tongue, 
whose reasons for visiting Caprera were an object 
of some speculation. Her manners, certainly, had not 
that repose which distinguished the noble house of 
Vere de Vere, it being even necessary to call in autho- 
rity to quell a wordy contest in which the fair pilgrim 
had rashly engaged with an intoxicated mariner. 

Scarcely had we been three hours at sea, when certain 
little stops — let us call them commas — ^began to indi- 
cate some lurking disarrangement in our engine-room; 
presently occurred what might be termed a semicolon, 
of at least three-quarters of an hour ; and, finally, a 
I)eriod or full stop, after which we put about, and 
returned to Genoa. 

Repairs completed, in a few hours we sailed again. 
The next day was fair and bright, and we ran 
down the coast of Corsica with a fine breeze, so fine, 
that the discreet skii)per popped into Porto Vecchio 
for the night, being now but thirty miles from our 
destination. 

* Inglese ! Inglese ! ' said the voice of Minotti Gari- 
baldi next morning (I felt an admonitory tug at my 
leg), * Caprera !* 

I was on deck in an instant. We were running 
into the harbour of the adjacent island, La Madalena, 
all whose maritime population seemed to be on the 
watch for us. 

Madalena, whose four thousand inhabitants furnish 
many a stout sailor to that treacherous sea, boasts 
of a race entirely distinct from the Sards proper, 
their neighbours, and having, as it appeared to me, 
few characteristics in common with them. The aspect 
of the island, varied as it is by a line of broken pic- 
turesque heights, is not unattractive. An old fortras 
overlooks the harbour. In the latter, we found lying 
Alexandre Dumas's schooner-yacht, the Emma^ and 
a small steamer, the Schneusa, placed at GaribiddTs 
orders, as a dispatch-boat There were, besides^ 
some ten or twelve stout fishing-vessels, of twenty 
or twenty-five tons each. 



402 



CflAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



I 



There being no port at Caprera large mtd deep 
enough to admit such a colossal craft as the Dante, 
we, who were destined for that island, disembarked 
here; and our cabin-party, entering a little yawl 
belonging to Minotti, manned by a native fisherman 
and a sailor from the Emma, swept up the narrow 
strait that separates San Stcfano from La Madalena, 
passing, as we did so, the residence of Captain Roberts. 
This gentleman, a veteran of Trafalgar, has been long 
resident on the island — so long, indeed, as to be able 
to relate some interesting personal anecdotes of Bjrron 
and Shelley. 

The breeze being fair, in about three-quarters of an 
hour we were nearing the little cove at Caprera which 
does duty for a port, and from which an ascent of a 
few hundred yards leads to tlic humble dwelling of 
the Great Soldier of Italy. Two or three figures, 
attended by a number of dogs, began, as we 
approached, to descend the mountain-path, as if to 
meet us ; a cart of remarkable construction following, 
to bring up Minotti's luggage. 

*Ah, see! There is my — ^my' began Minotti 

eagerly ; but his English gave way. 

* Fader ! ' suggested Basso. 

' No — ^papa — papa ! ' exclaimed Minotti laughing. 

The party on shore were laughing too, and that 
very heartily; and, moreover, it shortly became 
impossible to doubt that they were laughing at us. 
The general, for he it unquestionably was, appeared 
to be as much amused as anybody. What could it 
be ? Wo looked at each other inquiringly, when the 
truth suddenly broke upon Bassa 

'C2q>ella longa! capella longa!* (tall hat), he ex- 
claimed, pointing to Minotti's, which was of the 
English mode, the first time such a covering had 
adorned a head in Caprera. 

The boat touched the shore, and Garibaldi, accom- 
panied by Stagnetti, his aide-de-camp, Colonel 
Specchi, a friend who resides with him, and Colonel 
Dideri^ came forward and gave us a cordial greeting. 
He was in his usual working-dress, and suffering from 
earache, had a handkerchief round his head. He 
wore a shooting-jacket, and a pair of gray trousers, 
which, in spite of a blue patch in the knee, I recog- 
nised as having seen before. Let me not be thought 
disrespectful in describing thus minutely the imper- 
fections of my dear chiefs attire. May this hand 
never grasp either pen or rific more, if those old gray 
trousers, with the patched knee, did not inspire me 
with more true reverence than could the combined 
lustre of every kingly robe, from Solomon's down- 
ward ! What signifies how the royal soul be clad ? 
It is Garibaldi ! 

It was now ten o'clock, and, as the household dined 
at the primitive hour of noon, a cup of coffee was all 
the refreshment needed, after which the general intro- 
duced me to his fair young daughter, the Signora 
Teresina, a damsel of seventeen, who inherits her 
father's fascinating snule. Work, however, being 
tiie order of the hour, but little time was given to 
conversation, when the general retired to his study, 
the signora to her music, and others, myself included, 
to the operation of constructing a stone-fence round 
tile garden, a spot in which the chief, hoe in hand 
(there are no spades in the island), passes much of 
his time, but, having little book-horticulture, with a 
noble disregard of seasons. 

The island, as by this time most people are aware, 



is divided among three proprietors, the hu^r portion 
belonging to an English mdy, Mrs Collins. This lady's 
residence is about two miles distant from that of her 
illustrious neighbour, with whom she is on terms of 
cordial intercourae. Only once had this amity been 
endangered, during her husband's life, and at a period 
when uie pressure of political circumstances rendered 
the general's residence in the island little short of 
compulsory. It happened that Garibaldi had a flock of 
sheep, whose pleasure it was to make periodical forays 
into the Collins territory, and that sometimes in such 
alarming force, that Mr Collins, at the suggestion 
of his mtendant, forwarded to the general a veiy 
spirited protest in reference to this violation dL 
frontier laws. In spite of some terrible examples 
made by the chief among his insubordinate muttons, 
the inroads continued until they aroused — it would 
appear — the sensibilities of a band of patriotic pigm 
who in their turn executed a raid of much seventy 
upon Garibaldi's then unprotected garden and 
shrubbery. The general remonstrated. The pigs 
repeated their foray. The general shot the pig^ — 
shot, and also ate them ! The enraged owner ordered 
his boat, and skimmed over the glassy strait, to con- 
sult his compatriot, Captain Roberts. 

' What am I to do with such a man as this ?' asked 
poor Mr Collins. 'My pigs certainly were in tiie 
wrong, and if he had only shot theuL .... But to 
eai one's pigs ! ' 

Captain Roberts suggested that the general mi^t 
really have imagined that the razzia was directed oy 
some motmtain-pig, who was at all times fair game ; 
and gave, altogether, such soothing counsel, that the 
little dispute ended in a renewal of that friendship 
which was not again disturbed. 

At noon we re-assembled for dinner, the g^ieral, 
his son and daughter. Colonel and Madame Dideri, 
Basso, Stagnetti, Specchi, and 'Agostino' (that is» 
Austin, mvself). We had excellent soup and fish, 
no meat, but plenty of most delicately flavoured 
Neapolitan sweetmeats. None of the party drank 
anything but water, though there wap at hand a 
cask of British beer, a present to the chief, who 
pressed me, but in vain, to partake of it. Garibaldi 
talked little at table, a habit that seems to be 
respected by those around him ; but when he did 
speak, the hero laughed and jested as merrily aa 
when, at Milazzo, I saw him steal half the morsel 
of cheese from Stagnetti's plate, as the lattcr's 
attention was for a moment diverted. 

Dinner over, we went into the sitting-room, when 
the s^ora played some charming pieces, and then 
laughingly invitod me to take her pLtcc. Who likes 
to refuse? An Irishman and a fillibuster, / didn't 
Only as I sat down did I recollect that I knew but 
three tunes in the world, and while debating whether 
the Power of Love, or the Prima Donna Waltz, or 
the Oirl I left behind me, offered fewest difficulties, 
my embarrassment was not decreased by some one 
demanding a genuine Irish melody. A sort of 
reproachfm chorus arose : ' Simor Agoatino an 
Irishman ! Un soldato del Papa ! 

The general came to mv rescue. *No, no! AU 
Irishmen arc not soldiers of the pope ! A brave Irish 
general [he withheld the name] offered me a battalion 
of Irish, if I needed them.' 

Shortly after, Garibaldi again withdrew to his 
study, and I saw him but once more that day — when 
he walked round the garden, and congratulated his 
wall-makers on their progress. At dusk, I took boat, 
and returned to Madalena to sleep — the general's 
house affording no accommodation for chance-comers. 
The general and Dideri occupy one sleeping-apart* 
ment ; the rest of the staff, five in number, anotner ; 
and the ladies, the third. Two faithful domestic 
servants, long resident with Garibaldi, complete the 
establishment of the man who, with but a thousand 
soldiers and his own great name, added Sxcilj 



'\, 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



403 



and all the sister-kingdom, save a few tqnare miles, 
to the floeptre of Ituy. As for money, so scarce 
is it in the chiefs household, that when, one day, 
a wounded soldier happened to come, and Garibaldi 
wished to bestow an alius, an appeal had to be made 
to Madame Dideri, the capitalist of the circle, who 
with some little difficulty ]»roduced the fifteen francs 
required. 

Round Garibaldi*s soldier-couch hang the portraits 
of many an old companion in arms — fallen in the long 
fisht d freedom : among others, the patriot-martyrs, 
Xjgo Baasi and Cicero Acchio ; the brave Tukery, slain 
at Palermo; and the young and chivalrous Baron 
Cozzo, mortal! V hurt before Capua, on the 19th of 
September, while bringing in a wounded Sicilian 
volunteer. I had been well acquainted with Cozzo, 
havins sat almost daily by his bedside during 
the three weeks of sufferins he was called on to 
endure, and can still recall his gentle, 'Ch' e cosa, 
Agostino?' (What*s the matter, Austin?) when I some- 
times failed to disguise the pain with which his 
hopeless condition inspired me. A rifle-bullet struck 
him in the thish, frightfully shattering the bone. The 
hmb was swollen almost to the size of the body, and 
twisted round. In spite, however, of the anguish he 
must have suflered, and aware that the injury must 
prove fatal, the noble young soldier preserved his 
fortitude and tranquillity to the last. 

Some buildings are in progress which will render the 
chiefs castle somewhat more commodious, the walls 
beine already completed. Garibaldi pays his masons 
and Labourers exactly as he was accustomed to pay his 
generals, two francs a day, considering, no doubt, that 
a good da^s work of any description confers a right 
to equal wage ! 

Though compelled to sleep at Madalena, I passed 
almost every morning of my three woeks' visit at 
Caprera— sometimes working, sometimes shooting with 
the rest. As for work, we built a wind-mill and a 
wall, besides lesser strokes of labour. As for shooting, 
we killed a considerable number of very nice little 
birds, which differed only in name from the British 
thrush, but not much other game. Minotti, I observed, 
passed a good deal of his time in the study of Sir 
Walter Scott, being at that moment in the heart of 
Waverley, and, in consequence, almost non-effective 
for ' works of labour or of skHL' As for our chief 
himself, he was invisible for b^ far the greater 
part of the day, and well he might be. Fright- 
fid was the mountain of correspondence that found 
its way to that apparently undisturbed retirement ! 
In spite of this, however, I enjoyed, during my 
stay, many a pleasant snatch of conversation witn 
my dear general — many a remimscenco of Sicily and 
Naples — some prevision of possibly not dissimilar 
days to come ; but on very, very little of such inter- 
course have I, his private guest, a right to dwelL I may, 
however, mention that Garibaldi spoke frequently, 
and in the highest terms, of the assistance ne had 
received at English hands — instancing especially 
Dunne and Dowung — the former of whom, landing in 
Sicily a perfect stian^ to the countiy and language, 
by ms own personal exertions raised and organised 
that gallant battalion whose subsequent services abler 
pens than mine have depicted. 

Touching the British legion, Garibaldi, from his 
.ittachment to their intrepid colonel, spoke with 
<-:iution. There could be no question that his opinion 
V as, that had that really fine body of men been 
despatched a few weeks earlier, fairly officered, and 
]jlaced under judicious and experienced command, 
they would have rendered services hard to overrate. 

Nor did the general fail to acknowledge other 
;i;allant strangers — French and Americans — who 
S<x:ked, not unneeded, to the relief and encourage- 
ment of his young Sicilian levies, and rude Calabrese, 
whose fitful courage was not always equal to the 
strain. Who that was in Naplei, wiU forget how the 



faces that crowded the railway-carriages formed a 
sufficient criterion whether or not any serious work 
was forthcoming ; or how, when the said work was 
declared, a thin line of Ehiglish, French, and Ameri- 
cans — rifle or rammer in hand — made itself every- 
where visible along the threatened front ? Language 
was of no great moment. I passed two hours on6 
morning "with a Calabrese battalion, whose gallant 
colonel— an American — talked himself absolutely 
hoarse, and yet uttered but one word, ' Avanti ! ' 
(Forward). 

* I am not fond of war,* said Garibaldi, leaning on 
his hoc, at the close of one of those conversations I have 
mentioned (the chief had been planting water-melons 
— a month and a half too early) ; * I have witnessed 
too many of war's miseries for that Endeavours are 
being made for a peaceable solution. They may pos- 
sibly succeed, and none will more sincerely rejoice at 
such a result than I and my friends.* 

Besides innumerable letters, heaps of newspapers, 
in every language, find their way to Garibalai — ^the 
Txmea having been (hitherto) forwarded under the seal 
of office of an ex-recorder. Another paper, the Farmtn'9 
Journal, arrived one day, addressed to * General Joseph 
Garibaldi, care of Victor Emmanuel, Naples.' 

A day or two after my arrival, the singular-looking 
woman who had been our fellow-passenger in the 
Dante made her appearance, and requested an 
audience of the general, who, happening to be at 
leisure, instantly acquiesced, and conducted her into 
his study, a ground-floor room, the window of which 
^)ened mto the garden where we were at work, 
(^uibaldi had not appeared to recognise his visitor. 
Nevertheless, the comerence lasted so long, that, a 
little imeasy on account of the woman's strange 
apx)carance, and awake to the possibility of some 
fanatical attempt upon the general's life, we arraiu^ed 
that one or other of the party should pass the window 
at frequent intervals, ana see that all was right. Hiey 
were standing in the middle of the room, apparently 
in deep discourse. At last the woman came out, 
exhibiting, with seeming triumph, an autograph of the 
chiefs, and walked away. Tne object of ner visit, 
if it had any other than curiosity, never transpired. 

A little later, I took an oppoitunity of telling the 
general of our anxiety, and asking him if he thought 
it prudent to admit srrangers so n^eely to his presence. 
He laughed, and answered that he always became 
conscious in time of the approach of danger. 

If — as Lb happily little likdy — any attempt hostile 
to the hero's safety should necessitate escape, it is 
satisfactoiy to know that the heights above his resi- 
dence affonl numerous places of refuge unknown or 
inaccessible to all but the mountaineers. 

*With a few hundred rifles,' said Stagnetti one day, 
as we were shooting, * I could hold these heights 
against the whole Austrian army.' 

Profound was the regret wiUi which I at length 
bade farewell to the rocky isle. I wore attached to 
my watch-chain a locket with the general's photo- 
graph ; and wishing to add to it a lock of his hair, 
preferred my petition accordingly. 

He laughed. 

•No, no, captain,' said he. *If I cut off a lock of 
hair for each of my soldiers, I should soon be as bald 
as the rocks on which I live. Besides, at my time 
of hfe, hair becomes of greater value to the owner.' 
Saying which, the alarmed general beat a hasty 
retreat. 

But under his tuition I lia<l leamcil to be more 
persevering in attack. Unable to follow the chief 
mto his fastness, I had recourse to two generous allies. 
Minotti and the Signora Teresina embraced my cause, 
and boldly entered the enemy's woik. I am ashamed 
to add (and may the Signora Teresina never bo aware 
of my imworthy mistrust!) that I watched through 
the half-open door to be certain that the hair wa» 
QjcoYm on the proper head. 



J 



404 



CHAHBBBS'S JOURNAL 



Therp vaa a momcntuy iLrgumcut, a fiunt struggle, 
a brief cuniulbitEoii. "tae victor uf Milazza-iuxl 
bow many other fiolds !— hod cajiitiilated. Kud a look, 
n trifle iLirker than the reat, vna cut from a spot 
when! it would Bcaroely be miaKil, l)ehuid the rt)tht 

The party accornpaniwi mo to tlie Iwiit, and 
followed me nitli cbecn and waviiif; hitnds, tlic last 
diatin^isbable worda oomiug Bcrau tlie water, in the 
accenta, I think, ol Stagnetti, biin^ring dowD hia 
« be epoku, to the poaitiou uf ' chai^ : ' 



fowling-pieci 



MR BUCKLE OX SPAEN" -VSD SCOTLAKD.' 
Is bi> Hcand vulum?, Mr BucUe treata of Spain auit 
Scotland, acenrdlng to that pecnlisr pbiloaapby which 
the public hoa teamed to aasocinto with hia name. 
The Peninaula ia a goml caiao for him, bccauae it is 
already pretty well admitted that the country haa 
auflered from its religious ■yitcm. The aixtceath 
century, which saw the Catholic CLureh almost every- 
where checked, gave it freah j>owcr and entire prc<lo- 

~ uincc in Spain ; and as, according to Mr Buckle, 
'the prosperity of nationa dcpenda on principlea to 
which the clergy, a» a body, are invariably oppoaed,' 
the decline of the country commenced from that date. 
Thd faithful, having j^ the Reformation wholly put 
duwD, Bud the Moom, to the nuiulwr of a million, 
hunted nith incredible cruelty out uf tjpain, remaineil 
triumphant in the deaert wluch they hod made. It 
waa expected that, all disaont being extiiigiiinhcd, the 
country would DOW hccomc one of the most proaper- 
oua and happy on tbc f,ice of the earth. But the 
result woa exactly the contrary. The arta were 
neglected, agriculture receded, iiidiuitry wui succeeded 
by amuggling ami robliery. ' Every other country 
n making some addition tu knowledge, creating 
Bome art, or enlarging some M.ieiiee. Spain, ciitrajioed 
by the aupenttilion wliich preyed on her strength, 
presented tu Europe a solitary inatancc of conatant 
decay. Before the clone of the scvcntconth century, 
the only queatioii waa, by whose hands tho l)tow 
ahould be atniuk which ahuuld diamembcr that once 
mi);hty emiiiro.' And such a question might well be 
aaked where a rtate was without revenue, anil the 
great bulk of the papulation starring. 

The introductiou of the Bourbon dynaaty at the 
beginning of the eighteenth century waa, according 
to Mr Buckle, a bcneRt to ^inin, but one which did 
not iJike a prominent form for several reigua. In the 
midilJo of that century, the Newtonian philosophy 
waa atill excluded from the univeiaitiea, and a pro- 
posal for cleaning Madrid wil<i diacnmmendcd by the 
medical profesuon. For some of the simplest arta, 
it waa then nocesaary to introduce workmen from 
other countries. At length, iu I7J)9| began the reign 
of Charles IIL, durinj> whieh the govemuient was 
conducted by foreigners, iiujircgnated with the ideas 
uf the French Encyclopediata—that ia, men animated 
by secular, as diatingoiahed from theological ideas. 
The JcBuita were then expelleil ; the Inquiaitjon so 
checked that it only burned four heretics in thirty 
years : and the clergy generally put under great dis- 
couragement. Spain began to exhibit imluatry ajid 
comparative wealth. Irapruiements of aU kinds ware 
introduoeiL There waa even some progress made in 
treedom «f trade. The oxjiorts rif the country were 



ffo/C.ni 



",£«»/»... 



lirHpntTT^omwUttdd* 



in a f.w years uiidtiphed fivefold. Public i 
were imitertaken, auch as roads, caiuila, and harbours. 
Many good laws were mode. The general result waa 
that, at the end of Charles's reign, in 178S, .Sjiain had 
regained its place aa a first-rate jHiwcr, a 
condition of internal proapcrity and comfort which 
had been unknown for ages. 

Mr Buckle acknowledges that therewaa an uuauund- 
ness in these benefits, in aa far as they were created, 
not by forces within the community, but by forces 
without. Under the subsequent reign of Chaiies IV., 
' a king of the true Spanish breed, devout, orthodox, 
and ignorant,' everything retrograded, because the 
people had never been enlighteued as to what waK 

rd for them. ' Once more was Sp;un covered w ilh 
kness.' Impoveriahed by its own guvemmcnt, il 
fell a ready prey to the French invader, and incurred 
a deeolatioQ from which it has scarcely yet recovered. 
Superstition, according to our author, has done it alL 
* It ia to a knowledge of the laws and relations of 
things that Euro[>ean civilisation is owing; but it is 
prcciaely tbia in which Spain haa al way » been deticient. 
And until that deficiency ia remedied, until science, 
with ber bold and iiiquiatiTe spirit, liaa established 
her right to investigate all subjects, after her own 
fashion, and according to her own methoii, we may be 
assured that in Spain neither litcratiir 
ties, nor legislators, nor reformers of any kiud, tvill 
ever be able to rescue the people from that helpless ai 
benighted condition into which the course of atfails 
has plunged them.' 'There she lies at the further 
extremity of the continent, a huge and tor|dd mass, 
the sole representative now remaining of the fccllDgs 
and knowledge of the middle agos ; and, what is 
worst of nil, she ia satialied with her own condition. 
Though she ia the most backwanl country in Europe, 
abe believca heraelf to be the foremost. She is prond 



ortboiloxy ; proud of her immeasurable and childiah 
credidity ; pnmd of her unwillingDess to amend eitbra' 
ber creeil or her customs; proud of her hatred of 
beretiea; and proud of the undying vi^auce with 
whioh she hits baOled their eObrts to obtain a full and 



Buckle 

goes with great uiiuuteneaa and care into an expoaition 
of the religious biatory of tbc uortheru kingdom, and 
yet baa, in oiu- ojiinion, missed some of the most esseu 
tial piiinta, and failed to make out the case he aims a 
establiabing. He quotes with apmobation an opioioi 
of Spurzheim, that Scotland is ' the most pricat-ridden 
country iu Europe,' even Sjiaiu not excepted; and 
B|ieBka of the religious prejudices of the people as 
making tliem ' the laugniuK-atock of Europe,' and 
turning the very name iK the Scotch Kirk into ' a by- 
word and a reproach amone educated men ;' facts, if 
the^ were true, which must laud us in a great paradox. 
seemg that the appropriate results of a decayed 
state and wretched people are not to be seen in Scot- 
land. If Mr Buckle had ever lived in Scotland, he 
woldd have become aware that the people have a 
representation and a voice iu all their ecclesiastical 
affiiira ; and, so far from being priest-ridden, are the 
active and indiapenaablo patronn of the clergy. In 
the catablishcd church itaclf, the congregation has a 
veto on tbc apimintment of their paator; ia the two 
great bodies of Presbyterian diaaeuters, tjie congrega- 
tion ehoosea the pastor. Everywhere the minister 
tinila himself under the strongest obligation and 
necessity to cultivate the ajiprobation of tbc iieopte 
— |Kirb.ipB even too much so. Why, there i: 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



405 



old woman in Scotland who does not assume a right 
to criticise her minister, hia consistory, and even the 
(Jeneral Assembly itself ; and we have only to observe 
the daily walk of the clergy, in order to become 
aware how hemmed in they arc in all their domestic 
as well as professional doings by the watchful eyes 
of the flock. It is tme, at the same time, that an 
nnusual proportion of the middle classes in Scotland, 
and in the conntry an iiniisnal proportion of the 
labouring and servile classes, are earnestly religious 
people. But, if they are voluntarily so, and not the 
slaves of some overbearing ecclesiastical influence 
standing apart from them, with pretensions al)Ovc 
challenge, as is the case with the Romish Church, 
it is not easy to see that they are liable to the 
description fixed on them by Dr Spurzheim. It may 
also be said that, if enthralled, as tney visibly are, by 
affectionate traditions regarding the early troubles of 
their ecclesiastical system, their case is very different 
from one of i)ure bigotry. In full conformity with 
this view, is the actual condition of Scotland — a 
coiuitry fuU of active, intelligent, industrious people. 
It becomes perfectly clear, we think, that there must 
be something essentially different in the religious 
sy3t(ims of Spain and Scotland, and that the latter 
nnist contain much less of the power of chilling or 
repressing the secular energies of the people than the 
other. 

The truth is, the Presbyterian system of Scotland, 
notwithstanding its more or less fully avowed preten- 
sion of an entire independence of the state — wnich is 
its papistical element — has always been a popular 
system : it has always, in its features of panty and 
humbleness, as well as in its element of lay- eldership, 
taken the i)eople along with' it, and in all its diflicm- 
ties appealed to and rested on the jieople. It is fair 
to dislike its forms and lack of liturgy ; but its greatest 
enemies must admit that it could never have fought 
through the Stuart reigns, and finally planted itself as 
we now see it in the land, without this jwpular basis 
in its constitution. 

Mr Buckle is, we think, equally amiss in regard to 
details. In the matter of the struggle between the 
MelvilUan church and James VI.,^e might fairly 
allow some reason for the attempt to introduce the 
prelatic element, in the necessity that might well be 
assumed for checking that pretension to entire inde- 
I)endence of state control which even now we see 
proilucing serious trouble in one of the Scottish 
communions. The frightful inquisitorial and perse- 
cuting spirit involved in the Covenanting movements, 
the witcn-bumings, and the constant trampling down 
of natural jo3rfulness and innocent amusement, wo 
concede to Mr Buckle as sad truths; but when he 
says that the clergy of those days * niled * the people, 
and * abused their power,' he is certainly wrong, for 
the people were just as rigid in their theological ideas, 
and in their intolerance of ciU contradiction, as the 
clergy. So we think he is in a great measure, when 
he tells us that the clergy, tyrannical as they were, 
trained the i>eople to |>oUtical liberty. The clergy 
never had such an idea in their minds, and, if their 
stniggles against prelacy led to the result, it was 
involimtarj^ and a matter of no merit on their jMirt 
As to the present religious aspects of Scotland, they 
can be traced to readily intelligible causes. Given in 
the first place a basis of traditionary feeling regarding 
the fonner trials of Presbyterianism, we have added 
to it a constant straining of rivalry between a plurality 
of nearly similar communions, formerly two in number, 
and now three, all struggling for self-preservation, all 
eager for credit and renown, each fearful of falling 
in the least behind the others in apparent enthusiasm. 
It makes a great deal of soimd— intrudes disagree- 
ably now and then in secular affairs ; yet it after 
all does not prevent a good deal of latitude being left 
to individual convictions. On all of these points 
our author would have received much valuable 



light from a jiersonal knowledge of the country; 
and perhaps nothing else could give it. He makes 
another mistake, though one of but little conse- 
quence, when he assures us that the Highland com- 
monalty had no interest in the Stuarts, and only 
went out under compulsion of their landlords. Some 
cases of compulsion in Athole, as revealed in the 
Marquis of TiUlibardine's coircspondence, have been 
assumed as an indication of the universal case ; 
whereas it was partial ; and the present writer could 
shew, per contra, that clansmen led out by their chiefs 
for the government deserted and refused to fi^t when 
told that they were not to join Prince Charles Edward. 
The most serious of our author's mistakes lies, as 
we humbly think, in the long chapter in which he 
endeavours to shew that the lil>cral views of the 
Scotch philosophers of the eighteenth century failed 
to enlighten the people, because they pursued the 
deductive instead of the inductive method. Assuredly 
the books of the Humes, the Kajneses, and the Smiths 
failed to affect the people, for no other than the 
obvious reason, that such books are not for popular 
reading. There was, however, all through the 
eighteenth century, a reaction against the rigours of 
the seventeenth, involving both people and clercy, 
insomuch that a change in the standanls was actusmy 
contemplated, and the movement was only checked 
by the paroxysm of conservatism brought on by the 
French Revolution. On this subject, we have hardly 
a word from Mr Buckle. It is strange how minutely 
he has studied some parts of Scottmh history, espe- 
cially the domestic history, and how slightly he has 
gone into others. 

* With all its defects, Mr Buckle's book is one of a 
kind rarely produced, and entitled to most respectful 
attention. The industry shewn in the consultation 
of authorities is wonderful ; and in the battle he 
leads in favour of inductive science, as opposed to 
superstition and ignorance, all enlightened persons 
must sympathise with him. We are sorry to hear 
that, though still a youug man, he has injured him- 
self by overwork. There is something affecting in 
all great efforts of this kind ; they infer so much 
self-denial and self-sacrifice. He tells us, with manly 
feeling, of the sad exi)eriences which wait on the 
student who devotes himself to such great tasks as 
his. * Not for him are those rewards which, in other 

pursuits, the same ener^ woidd have earned 

His recompense lies within himself, and he must learn 
to care little for the sympathy of his fellow-creatures, 
or for such honours as they ai-e able to bestow. .... 
While ignorance, and worse than ignorance, is imputed 
to him, while his motives are misrepresented, and his 
integrity impeached, he must be capable of pur- 
suing the even tenor of his way without swerving, 
without i)ausing. .... To solve the great problem 
of affairs ; to detect those hidden circunutanccs which 
determine the march and destiny of nations ; and to 
find, in the events of the past, a key to the proceedings 
of the future, is nothing less than to unite into a 
single science all the laws of the moral and physical 
world. .... Such a work recjuires not only several 
minds, but also the successive experience of several 
generations. Once, I own, I thought otherwise. 
Once, when I first caught sight of the whole field of 
knowledge, and seemed, however dindy, to discern 
its various parts, and the relation they bore to each 
other, I was so entranced with its sur])assing beauiy, 
that the judgment was beguiled, and I deemed myself 
able not only to cover the surface, but also to master 
the details. .... Of all I had hoped to do, I now 
find but too surely how small a part I shall accom- 

l)li8h Those early aspirations .... even now 

that they are defeated and brought to nought, I 

cannot repent having indulged in them for 

such hopes belong to that joyous and sanguine period 
of life when alone wo arc really happy; when the 
emotions are 'more active than the juagment; when 



406 



CHAMBERS'S JOUENAL. 



cxperienco hsa not yet liardcned our nature; when 
the affections are not yet blighted and nipped to the 
ooTB. .... Something I hope to achieve, which will 
interest the thinkcra of this age; it will, however, 
be only a fragment of my originu design.' 

THE BRITISH CARNIVAL. 

Like most other national festivals, the British Car- 
nival has some connection, although not a very direct 
one, with matters ecclesiastioaL It takes place on 
the Wednesday that immediately follows Trinity 
Sonday, and is therefore dependent upon that mys- 
terious numeral, the Golden Nimiber — a very * dark 
horse,* indeed, to the devotees of the carnival, the 
migority of whom, it is likely, never even heard of 
it Because they are ignorant, however, they are by 
no means less zealous. No shrine in Christendom, 
at the most superstitious period, ever obtained per 
annum the number of pilgrims that i^P&hr within 
twenty-four hours to Epeom Downs. The British 
Carnival docs but last a day ; but while it docs last, 
what devotion is exhibited ! what iLbncgation of all 
other pursuits ! what harping upon a single string 
— the Derby * string* of horses — from dusty mom to 
even dustier eve \ 

All the English world, and his wife and family, 
arise early on that sacred morning, either to pay 
their vows in person, or to sec others set forth to 
pay them. For seventeen miles, all roads from the 
metropohs of the Universe to a certain insignifi- 
cant village in Surrey are choked by outcoers irom 
eight o'clock to two ; there is an interval of one hour 
or so, during which the ceremony is actually solem- 
nised, and then, until the heavens are set with stars, 
the roads are choked again. 

If any philosophic foreigner, cast bv the waves of 
revolution upon some peaceful Surrey hillside, should, 
i^orant of St Derby^s Day, adventure to drive to 
London before three o'clock on that afternoon, he 
would conceive himself to be the object of hatred to 
the entire nation. He would imagine that they had 
come out to meet him '^'ith their chariots, their horse- 
men, their footmen, and even their maid-servants, 
in order to bar his way. That misguided alien could 
no more accomplish his futile design of reaching 
London, than could a salmon leap up Niagara. No 
human eye ever yet saw a vehicle * going the other 
way' upon a Derby Day. Practically, indc^ there 
is no * other way.* Nay, more; police — not rural 
police, but men who will stop the leaders of a four- 
in-hand, and cry * Stand ! ' to a peer's landau with the 
same coolness with which they would * )>ack' a coster- 
monger's donkey — line all tlie roads, and marshal the 
mighty throng ; here, ^)ennitting the feeders to join 
the main stream, which, but for them, the main 
stream would never do ; there, forcing the triple line 
to become but two, and when the way grows narrow, 
even one, and, generally, educing Order out of Chaos 
— and chay-horses. 

To him who stands upon 'the hill' at Epsom on 
thfit wonderful forenoon, there is presented a literally 
' endless chain * of carriages, debouching from all sides 
upon the heath, but of necessity proceeding almost 
always at the pace of a funeral procession. There is 
by no means the sound of lamentation, but, otherwise, 
at that distance, the spectacle might well be taken for 
*the mourning of a mighty nation' coming to bury 
their greatest hero on £|>som Downs ; and the simi- 
larity is increased by the fact, that every man who 
does not wish to become a mere animated dust-bin, 
wears, twined around his hat, a veil, like a funeral- 
scarf, only of liveUer colours. Sahara, compared to 
the Surrey roads upon that day, is a convenient high- 
way pleasantly irrigated by water-carts. 

in the early morning of the carnival, the streets of 
Loudon present a spectacle deeply interesting to the 
antiquary — we had almost said the geologist — in the 



resuscitation of an extinct race called ' Boys* — old 
wrinkled croatores, bowed <k)wn by years and with the 
weight of saddle and harness, wmcL. they are bearii^ 
to the various livery-stables. What tiades they ordi- 
narily follow we cannot tell, but for this one day they 
are postilions — post-boys. Their ajppearance remindls 
one of the return to we world of Rip Van Winkle. 
Who are thaae so withered and so wild in their attire, 
that look not like the inhabitants of the earth, and 
yet are on't ? They are men who, centuries aao^ filled 
the king's highway vnHh. the crack of whips, oat who 
are now no more, except that on this one day they 
are again permitted to revisit the scones of dust and 
turmoil to which they were once accustomed, and to 
rise up and down in a saddle like human pistons, war- 
ranted never to i^ear away. Sneer not, reader, at yon 
aged form-^thou^ his ti^t breeches are patched in 
such a peculiar manner behind — for he has seen suns 
that never shone npon your comparatively youthful 
head, and- was, perhaps, the veiy postilion tnat con- 
veyed your grandfather and your grandmother to 
Gietna Green. 

The omnibuses to the city iipon the Derby morn- 
ing are very few, for they are most of them chartered 
to go to the great festival, and those that are left are 
filled with but 'women and children. livea there a 
man with soul so dead, who, being a Briton, can yet 
' transact business ' ii])on a day like this ? Look closely 
to such a one, if there be. Weigh well his wares ; 
hold up his bank-notes to the sun, that you may make 
sure of the water-line ; and ring with carefulness his 
proffered sovereigns. 

You may go to the Derby anyhow, for the saint is 
far from particular. You may go with four horses and 
a private drag, or upon a skeleton frame, with a barrel 
of small-beer upon it, to sell by retail on the course, 
and drawn by a skeleton donkey. Or you may ^ in 
a furniture- van, if the * Glass with care,' which is so 
prominently painted upon it, affords you creater assur- 
ance of safety. Or you may go in an advertisement- 
van, of whicm there are hundreds, whose inmates 
perhaps carry the combination of hniinww and 
pleasure to the highest attainable degrte. Or jtm may 
go in a pleasure- van, pure and simple, with evergreens 
and babies and a brass-band. Or you may go in a 
Hansom cab, bearing you^ luncheon-hamper on the 
top of it as a maiden bears her pitcher, with the less 
desirable liquor in it, from the welL Nay, yon may 
even go in a life-boat, for we saw one wending its 
inland way npon wheels to the saint's abode, as thoujB^ 
it had been the shrine of Neptune; nor were we 
nautical inmates so much out of their element as 
might have been expected, for we noticed that most 
of them were already half-seas-over. For what we 
know to the contrary, a good many people may go in 
balloons — but we set down here nothing but things 
certain, and which have occurred under our own eye. 

About a quarter of a million of the more asealoiis 
devotees, who do not mind the risk of being squeezed 
to death, and the certainty of having th^ pockets 
picked, patronise the Rail ; but we confine ourselves 
to descnbing the Road — ^which, after all, is the Derby. 
If, as in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments^ folks 
could be taken to Epsom on enchanted carpets, and 
set down there in a twinkling, not the best and 
brightest ][neoe of Brussels that was ever made should 
transport me thither. The race itself only lasts two 
minutes and a half, and is but as the flash of a rainbow. 
To go and return is what, I know, most makes men 
happy, and most keeps them so ; and I think I may 
say tiie same of the women and children. At cveiy 
wayside dwelling, whether consequential villa, ' stand- 
ing in its own grounds,* and looking quite aware of 
the fact ; or fannhouse, whose pastoral air increases 
the Pandemoniacal character of the passing scene by 
contrast, there 'are mothers at the windows holding up 
their babes, girls with their younger sisters, and beau- 
tiful servant-maidens demonstratively happj in the 



OHAJfBKBffB JOURNAL. 



407 



attics. The huskier portion of the fair sex, who 
actaally form put of the prooeonon, arc also in the 
highest spirits, bat it must be confessed that tiio 
majority of them are not young. What is the correct 
expUmation of this misfortune, we do not know ; but 
the popuhir bolicE, as expressed without hesitation or 
reserve, is that these are the ladies who will not let 
their husbands stir anywhere without them. * Coiddu^t 
she trust you, old gentleman ? * was an interrogation 
put to more than one respectable Paterfamilias in our 
hearing, whose voluminous better-half had banished 
him to the edge of the driving-seat of his pony 
oarriage ; and those cruel satirists, and the occasional 
grazing of the wheel, no doubt did somewhat dull the 
fflories of the day for him. The lady, on the other 
hand, always seemed to take the remark in excellent 
part, as a pleasing tribute to her matrimoiiial sui>re- 
macy ; ancl, at all events, it never spoiled her appetite. 
The extent to which these middle-aged females ate 
and drank was the subject of our incessant wonder 
and apprehension. After consimiins the rations they 
had l^ught with them in their vehicles, it was tliey 
who, under pretence of * giving the horse something,' 
retarded the mighty pi&rimagc at every place of 
refreshment, and divided the delay with the accidents. 
Dotted alongside the route at frequent intervals, there 
lay dismounted Omnibuses, shaftlesa Hansoms, and 
FHea — too venturous flics, which had endeavoured to 
struggle across the carriage cobweb — torn almost limb 
froznlimb. Like the fainting stragglers of the Grand 
Army in the retreat from Moscow, or the dying camels 
in the caravans of the Desert, they lay, hopeless, help- 
less, never to rise again — at least in time for the Derby. 
These unhappy persons glared upon us as we swept 
by, with peashooter ami trumpet, with banner and 
with branch — for it was * Oakapple-day,' and wo were 
like Bimam Wood in the matter of foliage. We had 
a great stock of almost everything excex>t pity. 
* Broke a trace, hir ? Sorry for that ! Sorry 1 left my 
needle and thread at home. Join 'em together, and 
spit upon 'em. Bless me, what delicate tracery!* 
This was the sort of comfort which was dispensed to 
these unhappy persons. Never a word they spoke, but 
sat on their shattered vehicles, eating the hmcheons 
which they had intended to have devoured on the 
Downs. 

And what a sight they missed through not arriving 
theie ! Looking from ' the hill,' the dense multitude 
seemed to cover the heath as ants an ant-hilL One 
broad green sweep alone was visible when the course 
was cleared. Directly you descended from your post 
of vantage, yon were engulfed, and became a mere 
unit among half a million. The real sublimity of the 
jspcotaclo was lost, and the sad consideration was 
forced upon you, that nine out of ten of all the fellow- 
•creatures you met were unmitigated and irreclaimable 
scoimdrels. So many bad faces are never anywhere 
collected as upon Epsom Downs. But then $hty come 
by train. Chtr friends remain, for the most part, in 
their dra^ their barouches, their omnibuses, their 
vans, their market-carts, their skeleton-frames, with 
the barrel of small- beer, which is being disposed of at 
a penny per glass. Small-beer is, at all events, refresh- 
ing; but why offer Tortoises for sale u])on Epsom 
liowns ? ' Buy a tortoise, buy a live tortoise 1 ' is the 
cry, and certainly the man has half-a-dozen of them, 
covered with dust, and looking inex]>ressibly mouru- 
f uL * Strawberries and cherries, flowers and heaths, 
ladies and gentlemen ! ' Good ! We can understand 
that such things iind customers ; but why expose for 
sale the model of an ecclesiastical editico, which would 
require a van to itself if you carried it home ? Is the 
enthusiastic vendor a missionary of the Church Exten- 
sion Society, or a lunatic architect, or a man who has 
undertaken this strange transaction for a bet ? And 
again, why dolls for sale ? Every other man has a 
newly-purchased doll in his hat, and every third man 
has a doll to sell, stuck round about Aw hat, like 



patron saints round the cap of Louis XL — doUs, too, 
which have very little to Anhanftft their charms in the 
way of dress. *Aunt Sally' is cl course on every 
hand, surrounded by her admiring relatives ; but -why 
goldfish in a glass jar ? 

Pondering much upon these things, we are suddenly 
made conscious of on awful pause and silence. The 
mighty pulse of all this throbbing life has stopped its 
boating. Every voice is hushecL The change from 
deafening clamour to perfect stillness has something 
terrible m itb It is as though a nation of men haa 
come together to hear some one word spoken to them, 
and that the moment of speech had arrived. If the 

glass-bowl yonder, witli the goldfish in it, was to be 
roken now, you would hear the crash from one end 
of the heath to the other. It is no wonder that some 
are hushed, for in two minutes more some thousands 
will be made rich men (fur a little), or will be irre- 
trievably ruined; but not onlv these, but all are 
silent. The peer in the stand is breathless as he 
clutches his race-glass with a sliaking hand ; the thief 
under your carriage is quiet as death, as he draws 
down your railway-rug from the seat behind you. 
They ore starting the horses for the Derby. Those 
beautiful creatures that we have just seen cantering 
uj) the coui-sc are now about to engage in the most 
tremendous struggle that hors&s know. Yonder they 
arc, a gleam of scarlet, and white, and yellow, under 
the hilL Then a mighty shout breaks forth : * They 
are off, they arc off ! and all the race-stands change 
from dark to light in a second like some mighty 
Venetian Uind, as the great area of faces upon uiem 
turns with a flash towards Tottenham Comer. Look 
well at that brilliant horse-meteor for the moment you 
are permitted to do so, and at the vast dark mass of 
men that closes in lieliind, exactly as water behind the 
hand, the instant it has flown by ; and listen to that 
roar of hoofs aa the race sweeps by — ^for it is a sight 
and a sound that are to be met ^ith nowhere cue. 
The Derby is won, with its L6500 worth of mere 
stalx. And the man is not to be envied, if such exists, 
who can sec it run without his heart throbbing the 
faster. ' 

The great event concluded, the pigeons, which, 
notwithstanding the estabhshment of the telc^;raph to 
town, are still much used as messengers, bcgm to 
circle overhead; the universal clamour breaks forth 
with redoubled vigour; and above all cries is the 
cry for lunch, ^fiien the fusilado of champagne 
corks and the clash of steel continues unintcrrupt' 
edly for a couple of hours, during which races are 
run with nobody to look at them ; but all the tortoises 
are bought up, and even the impracticable Church falls 
to the lot oE an enthusiastic and grateful green-grocer, 
who has taken twelve to one in * ponies against the 
winner. As for ourselves, we buy twelve dolls for 
sixixmce, and give them away to importunate beggars, 
to whom dolls liave apjiarently become articK of 
necessity. We are convinced that in so doing we 
have been performing acts of charit\', and feel a 
greater benevolence towanls tlic whole human family 
than ever. Or, for what other reason can it be that 
we take glasses of Moselle inith everybody within 
nodding mstanco? O beneficent influences of St 
Derby and his time-honourcil race ! 

But now it is high time that our horses should be 
* put to ' again, an operation which is by no means to 
l»e accom]^ished by talking about it. The inmates of 
some forty tiiousand vehicles also * within the ropes ' 
—for which privilege they pay two guineas a-pieoe — 
are quite as anxious to get away as we are. Our 
postilions, however— and observe the modesty with 
which we insutuate the fact that we had four horses 
— ^pcrform prodigies of valour, and we at length escape 
from the vortex of wheel and pole, v.ith a broken panel 
indfHjd, but with whole bones. Tlien begin again the 
glories of the Boad, and this time with a redoubled 
sploudour, for the world on whoels is now four times 



■^ 



408 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



as numeroua (since it all starts at about the same 
hour from the course) ; and those who are not elevated 
by success have accomplished that object by means of 
spirituous liquors. Still, there is no absolute drunken- 
ness, and there prevails a universal good-humour. 

Once only, a party of moody aristocrats — a class 
"which the wars and volunteering have happily 
rendered almost extinct — heavily moustached, gmnly 
staring, imperturbable, proud, fall foul of an inde- 
pendent young costermonger. Their charioteer takes 
the comer on the course a little too narrowly, and 
catching up one of the skeleton-frames aforesaid, 
shatters it to fragments. His noble lordship would 
fain drive on, as though nothing particular had 
happened, but the disthroned costermonger seizes 
the heads of his leaders, and turns them into a 
ditch. A joyful movement towards the scene of 
action is at once perceptible upon all sides, smd the 
inmates of carts stand by th/jir order, and the inmates 
of carriages by theirs. An elegant brougham, with 
two elegant young gentlemen inside it, drives rapidly 
up. These sons of Fashion would be fit models for 
a prc-Raphaelite painter, or objects to be placed 
imder the microscope. Their attire is perfectly spot- 
less ; they have lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a 
lily of the valley at their button-holes. They are 
even more fashionable than the fashionables upon 
the drag; but they are also more enthusiastic. His 
noble lordship and his friends content themselves 
with casting what missiles lie ready to their hands — 
such as dol£ and oranges— and with besprinkling the 
surging cloud with flowers of rhetoric ; out the new 
amvals leap out from their chariot, turn back their 
coat-cuffs, so that the snowy linen coupled with golden 
studs is made conspicuous, and cast themselves into 
the tumult. The affair becomes truly Homeric, and 
not likely to be concluded without the intervention 
of the gods — the police. But his noble lordship is 
wiser tlum his personal appearance would lead you to 
imagine. Takmg advantage of the charge of his 
chivalrous allies, he rushes his four horses at the 
crowd, which parts to right and left, and the vast 
machine sweep by at the full gallop, swa^g[, indeed, 
in a most ship-like manner, but still with its right 
side uppermost. 

Never was more base and unknightly deed per- 
fonned since the days when women and children 
were placed in the front of an enemy's battle. 
shame upon that dozen of morose and moody men 
to thus desert their two defenders ! These will surely 
now fall victims to the democratic ardour, and their 
dripping heads be suspended in front of a pleasure- 
van I Sot sa A cheer breaks forth for the two 
plucky * swells.* They are delivered, as if by magic, 
out of the turmoil. They are put back into their 
highly polished vehicle with something approaching 
to reverence, albeit their eyes are £urkened, and 
their noses bleeding, and the lemon-coloured gloves 
are soiled, and l^e lilies are broken at their button- 
holea Nor are they on their part insensible of the 
universal courtesy. They beckon the disconsolate 
costermonger — the involuntary Helen of the war — 
and enter into conversation with him. It is his 
own still gory hand which has done that violence 
to at least one of their noses, but all is now forgotten 
and for^ven. * Will he get inside with thejny since his 
own vehicle has met with so untoward lui accident V 

* He would travel outside,* returns he, * and thank 
their honours, but then,' he adds pathetically, * there 
is the moke ' — by which he means his donkey, which 
is rolling in the dust by the wayside, delighted 
to have got rid of his burden by any means. They 
will be delighted, they reply, to take * the moke ' up 
also, if that can be effected. The costermonger gives 
a rapid comparative glance at the dimensions of the 
animal and of the front seat, and shakes his head. 
That will not do, he fears ; but * would their honours 
take the beer- barrel, and send it on to Whitechapel in 



the course of the next day ? He must have it jNZain 
for retail business for the Oaks on Friday.' l%eir 
honours accede with pleasure to this proposaL The 
beer- barrel is hoisted on to the roof amid vivats, and 
the half mile of carria^ behind, which has hitherto 
been at a stand-still m consequence of this little 
episode, is permitted to move on. 

We have observed that the procession to the Derby 
is, in respect to pace and hat-bands, not unlike a 
fimenU ; the resemblance, as we come back again, is 
still stronger — ^that is to a return-funeral, when every- 
thing unpleasant has been got rid <^, and the mock 
mourners and hired mutes have resumed their habitual 
jollity, and are singing choruses among the plumes. 
As we approach the suburbs of the metropolis, we 
scarcely advance at alL We should have thought 
that everybody in town had possessed a vehicle, and 
gone to the Derby in it, but we now perceive that 
some people have still been left in Lond<Ni. The 
streets are lined by thousands who have been unable 
to attend the shrine in person, and who seek to catch 
a reflected sanctity from the devotees who have. 

Not until almost midnight does the last of that 
great procession roll into London, nor, we fear, until a 
very much later hour does the British Carnival 
conclude. 

OLD ENGLISH PRIVATEERS. 

Until very lately, for more than two centuries, the 
Admiralty of every maritime nation has ^psnted * letters 
of marque,' or commissions to private mdividuals for 
arming and equipping vessels to assist in carrying on a 
war by distressing the enemy's commerce. All prizes 
so taken, accordmg to the usual regulation, became 
the property of the privateer-owners, to be divided 
between them and the ship's oonq>any. Unless 

{)rotected by such commissions, the crews of foreign 
etters of marque, in the event of capture, were liawe 
to be treated as pirates, instead of experiencing, as is 
the rule, the ordinary fate of prisoners of war. Our 
own countrymen were subject to the same rule by our 
own cruisers, when not furnished with the requisite 
pai)ers from the English Admiralty. Privateers like- 
wise gave security tnat they woum not attempt any- 
thing against the law of nations ; as, for example, to 
assault an enemy lying in any port or haven under 
the protection of a prince or republic, whether friend, 
ally, or neutral, for the peace of such places must be 
inviolable. If England was at war with confederate 
powers, a separate commission was required for each ; 
otherwise, if a captain carrying one only against the 
Danes, should in his course meet with and capture 
a Frenchman, his prize would not be good, and would 
be taken from him by the first man-of-war of his own 
nation that met with him. Formerly, the proceeds 
of privateering were divided into five parts : four 
going to the merchant fitting out the rover, and a 
hfth to the crown ; hence the origin of a phrase 
now littic understood, namely, *The King's Fifths.' 
Where a vessel had struck, and was secured, the 
hatches were immediately spiked up, and the lading 
and furniture guarded from embezzlement. Great 
care was taken to secure all her papers, especially 
her commission, if she also proved to be a privateer, 
with a number of captures in possession. If do 
legal commission was discovered aboard, all the 
prisoners were to be landed in Ekigland, and examined 
oefore a magistrate, in order to their condemnation 
as corsairs. When merchant- vessels, captured by an 
enemy's privateers, wore retaken by those of their 
own nation, the owners paid one-sixth of "the value 
to the officers and men of the rescuing vesseL When 
an English privateer captured one of the enemy, 
the Adiniralty paid five pound to every man on 
board previous to the commencement of the action. 
So a slaver in the present day being adjudged « 
pirate, a similar sum per head is paid to the crew ol 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



409 



her Majesty's ship takmg her ; but the slaver herself, 
having Skil her sails hoisted, is sometimes allowed to 
drift and dash ashore upon the cliffs of the harbour 
where she has been adjudged a prize. 

Men of Liver]x>ol, and Bristol citizens, how must 
your octogenarian merchant-princes gloat over the 
memory of these fleshpots of Egypt, privateering and 
slave-dealing, once your staple occupation ! The 
latter, by the by, they distingtiished as *a roaring 
African tnuie,* and rather plmned themselves upon i^ 
although Burke had anathematised them, declaring 
• that the very bricks of their houses were cemented 
"with human blood!' Nor was this passionate out- 
break a merely splendid rhetorical exaggeration. As 
far back as 1732, more than eighty years before the 
abolition, Liverpool in one year prociu^ 22,720 
slaves, the net profit on whom amounted to L.214,617. 

But to return to our sea-rovers. We are bound in 
fairness to admit that privateering is but a legalised 
piracy ; yet, offering splendid visions of wealth and 
luxurj', to he won by the sword and good right arm of 
the bold and enterprising, it can scarcely, in the event 
of a general war, remain in abeyance ; other nations 
would revive the practice, and we must follow in self- 
defence. The people of Liverpool, during the late war, 
did a large amoimt of business in this way also. Their 
commerce was imperilled by a swarm of French letters 
of marque constantly cruismg outside the port Her 
merchants signed a * round robin,' addrosse<i to the 
editor of the ' leading journal,' calling on him to dis- 
continue the publication of a list of vessels loading for 
foreign neutnd ports. Rates of insurance on vessels 
bound to Jamaica rose to twelve per cent. ; from 
Jamaica to Cowes, twenty guineas ; from Liverpool to 
Gibraltar, twenty guineas ; from Newfoundland to the 
Mediterranean, t^-enty-five guineas per cent. These 
charges were almost, if not altogether ruinous to 
commerce, so the merchants took to privateering. 
They armed and equipped nearly 200 vessels, the 
burden of which amounted to 12,800 tons, carrying 
1300 guns, and 10,000 seamen. This formidlable 
armament not only sweprfc the seas of our foes, but by 
the capture of rich prizes east and west, enabled 
Liverpool to uphold its credit and extend its trade. 

The Anson prirateer, of 150 tons and 100 men, was 
the first that left Liverpool; the Brave BlaJceney 
followed. These two gave a veiy satisfactory account 
of their French foes at the very beginning of their 
first cruise, the Anson returning in a fortnight ¥rith 
twoWest-Indiamen worth LI 5,000. They afterwards 
brought in a large French East-Indiaman, named the 
CarnatiCy on boanl of which was discovered a box of 
diamonds. 

The chance of acquiring such immense wealth 
animated the sailors with a valour and daring, the 
mere reputation of which sometimes made their foes 
an unresisting prize. In the beginning of 1779, the 
Dragon^ Liverpool privateer, brought to action La 
Modcsttj a vessel of the same profession. The latter, 
after one broadside, hauled down her colours. As she 
struck, the sea ran so high that boarding was impos- 
sible. As soon as the weather abated, they made an 
attempt to man their prize, in which all the boats 
iK'longing to either ship were stove. The impatience of 
the English being now uncontrollable, re^pudless of 
danger, five men stripped, leaped into the raging 
waves, swam to the French ship, and took possession. 
Five naked men on guard over an armed crew of more 
than two hundred ! * Parbleu ! ' shouted the French 
skipper; *none but Englishmen would have conceived, 
much less carried into execution, such a mad-brained 
feat.' 

Besides Liverpool, the great commercial seaport of 
Bristol had its full shiure of gainful privateering. 
Two famous private-armed ships, the Duke and 
DuchesB, commanded by the renowned Captain 
Woodes Rogers, sailed thence to the Pacific, and after 
causing immense destruction to the Spanish trade and 



settlements, returned to Bristol with many prizes, his 
own shi{^ having on board ingots of gold and silver, 
plate, coin, jewds, silks, and other rich spoils of 
that tropical land. The owners of the Duke and 
Duchess, although * peace-at-any-price-Quakers,' gave 
a practical recognition of the then political axiom, 
* There's no peace beyond the Line;' for without 
allowing the crews a chance of * spending like asses 
what they had worked for like horses,' they at once 
despatched them in search of a fresh booty. Amongst 
this was a Spanish brig, the Marquess, in which, 
stowed away with much valuable cargo, the English- 
men found 500 bales of popish indulgences, * sixteen 
reams in a bale,' consigned to the i^uth American 
priests, who retailed them at prices varying from 
fifty pieces of eight down to three reals each, accord- 
ing to the purchaser's means and rank. * We threw 
most of them overboard, to make room for better 
goods,' laconically remarks the captain, ' except what 
we kept to bum the pitch off the shi2)6' bottoms, when 
wanting to careen them.' 

About this time, likewise, the Duke and Prince 
Frederick, usually called the * family privateers,' 
brought into Kingroad, at the mouth of Bristorriver, 
two prizes, laden with 1093 chests of silver, worth 
upwards of three-quarters of a miUion sterling 
besides five chests of wrought plate, many tons of 
cocoa, the model of a church in pure gold, and other 
costly items. The captors, desirous of conveying this 
rich spoil to London, but afraid to venture round on 
account of the many French cruisers in the English 
Channel, sent the treasure to London in forty-five 
wagons, guarded by the crew. After its arrival, the 
owners contrived to get all the seamen kidnapped, 
and sent off as slaves to the Indian plantations — a not 
uncommon practice of the time. Few of these poor 
fellows returned, and the whole prize-money was 
retained by their villainous employers. After a lapse 
of some years, a suit in Chancery began on behalf of 
those few who got home again, which in the memory 
of persons living was still undecided. At that time, 
ci^t or ten individualB, grand-children of the crews 
of the * family privateers,' and entitled to a very lai^e 
sum of money, were living in St Pancras Poor-house, 
or supported themselves by retailing fruit about 
London streets. 



THE CO-OPS IN LANCASHIRE. 

Some sixty years since, a poor half-witted fellow was 
taken before the magistrates at Leeds for having been 
found hawking braces, laces, and other sundries of a 
pedler's basket without a licence for hawking. When 
told that he would be sent to his parish as a vagrant, 
he replied that he had no parish, because he came 
from Coupe-leuch and Newhadl Hey, where there was 
neither church, chapel, poor-house, ale-house, doctor, 
parson, nor turnpike- road, and that it was in the 
forest of Rosend^de. 

The district thus referred to is in one of the most 
beautiful valleys in Lancashire, and previous to its 
being disforested (during and shortly after the reign 
of Henry VII.), was thickly stodded with large 
forest- trees, interspersed with numerous rose-bushes ; 
hence its name of Roeendale. It is recorded that * the 
forest-trees grew so near to each other, that a squirrel 
might easily leap from one tree to another without 
alighting on the ground, from Newhall Hey to Shamey 
Ford, a distance of four miles.' 

The river Irwell waters this lovely valley, on its 
banks being erected some of the finest cotton-mills in 
the county. The character of the surrounding scenery 
is pleasantly undulating, the hillsides affording many 
views of country of great extent and of picturesque 



beauty. One of the most remarkable of these hill- 
sides is crowned with 'Grants* Tower/ erected in 
memory of two of the most extraordinary men of the 
district — WiUiam and Daniel Grant, immortalised by 
Dickens as the Cheeryble Brothers. It has been said 
that when they reached the spot marked by the 
tower, when looking for a suitable site for future 
operations as calico-printers, they were in doubt as to 
what course was best. The hill on which they stood, 
OTcrlooking the surrounding country, gave them 
^opportunity for making a judicious choice. The Tallcy 
lay below them, with the Irwell nmking its circuitous 
way through it. Their well-practised eyes saw the 
advantages which the spot offered in the way of 
extensive grass bleaching-grounda, and a ncvcr-fidling 
supply of watcf ; yet other localities had their recom- 
mendations. What must be done ? A stick was put 
upright, and wheae that fell, in that direction would 
they betake themselves for a home. In commemora- 
tion of this event, and as a public thauk-offcnng for 
their great and well-deserved prosperity, they desired 
the tower to be erected on its present beautiful site, 
and, in accordance with their wish, there it stands, 
not only perpetuating their memory, but ever teaching 
the lesson to all working-men, that what man has done 
man may do, by adopting the same plan practised by 
the Grants — self-denial, temperance, industry, and 
untiring energy, combined with prudence. Notwith- 
standing the fact that the Grants, from being opera- 
tives, realised a fortune of over a million sterling, yet 
their benevolence was unbounded, their hearts and 
purses being ever open to every case of distress or 
suffering that was reported to them ; and yet the 
more they gave, the more they seemed to have ; for 
in blessing others, they themselves were still more 
richly blessed. One anecdote, related by Dr Beard of 
William Grant, and we pass on. Being in company 
with a gentleman who had written and lectured on the 
advantages of early religious, moral, and intellectual 
training, Mr Grant asked : * Well, how do you go on 
in establishing schools for infants?' The reply was, 
* Very encouragingly indeed. Wherever I have gone, 
I have succeeded either in inducing good people to 
estabUsh them, or in procuring better sup|)ort to those 
that are already established. But I must cease my 
labours ; for, what with printing bills, coach-fare, and 
other expenses, every lecture I give in any neighbotir- 
ing town costs me a sovereign, and I cannot afford to 
ride my hobby at such a rate.' He said : * You must 
not cease your labours. God has blessed them with 
success. He has blessed you with talents, and me 
with wealth. If you give your time, I ought to give 
my money. You must oblige me by taking this 
twenty-pound note, and spending it in promoting the 
education of the poor.' The note was taken, and so 
spent, and probably thousands of children are now 
enjoying the benefit of the noble impulse thus given. 
Commending this anecdote to the wealthy readers 
of this Journal, we pass — on our way up the valley — 
at Kawtonstall the mills and works of three otner 
remarkable brothers, the Whiteheads, whose three 
houses, standing together on a hillside looking towards 
the works, may bo looked upon as indicative of the way 
these excellent men have stood together through a 
lifetime of activity and usefulness. Their example 
as good employers, religious and temperance men, has 
had a marked influence on the village, which is mainly 
composed of their workers. A more sober or intelli- 
gent body of workers can rarely be found Diverging 
now a little to the richt, after leaving the railway 
station, we find ourselves going along the road to 



Coupe-leuch, and in a throng of peisons all wending 
their way in the same direction. All are drened in 
holiday garb, and from the pleased expressions on all 
the countenances, it is clear some great treat is anti- 
cipated. While numbers of the men are carrying * 
baskets filled with spoons, cups, saucers, and plates, 
the women and children are bearing large trays, or 
teapots of various curious shapes and different mate- 
rial, from the aristocratic silver to the plebeian earthen- 
ware. Their bearers, however, seem to be all of one 
stamp — all workers, and all re8peotable,aiid apparently 
very nappy and pleased with each otl^. 

It is tmie, however, to say what was the special 
object of this holiday-making. It was to inaugurate 
a gigantic ootton-mill concern, got up on that co- 
operative principle which has been lately exem- 
plified in various parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, 
and which has in various ways been pretty well 
described in connection with Bochdale and some 
other places. In plain terms, we were going to see 
what could be done by a body of working-men, who 
instead of squandering at least part of their eaming;s 
foolishly, had let odds and ends of savings accumulate 
so far that they could unitedly venture on lading out 
i^>wards of L.50,000 on a cotton-mill, in which they 
themselves should be the workers. Well, here we 
were about to witness the joyousness of this party 
of Co-ops — ^for that is the name they go by, on the 

Erindple, we suppose, that Co-operators is much too 
mg a word for popular use. it was really to be a 
great festivity, this soiree of Co-ops, for tea was to 
be provided for three thousand persons ; and to save 
exi)enditure, all the friends of oo-operation for miles 
around had kindly lent their private stock of tea- 
am>aratus for the occasion. 

Onward amidst the crowds we push on this Hoe 
May-day to Coupe-leuch, and at length approach the 
new factory, a noble monument of industry united 
with frugality and prudence. Yea, we rraeat, a noble 
monument truly it is of what may be cUme by the 
masses for their own social improvement^ and so far 
affords a remarkable contrast with the conduct of the 
factory- workers of Colne, who, in the strike of fifty 
weeks just terminated, have sacrificed quite as mucn 
money as would have built and fitted on a cotton-mill 
equal to anything of the kind in Lancaamre — and who 
have not only incurred so great a looa, but left &f^ 
hundred weavers out of work. But we have no time 
to moralise on this sad affair. Let us aay a word of 
the Victoria MiUs at Coupe-leuch, the property of the 
Co-ops. 

The main factory-buildizig mcasmres 216 feet long 
by 72 feet wide, and is five stories high, with a 
weaving shed adjoining capable of holding 700. All 
the buildings are of stone, and of the most substantial 
character. When filled with machinery, the outlay 
will have been fully L.50,000. In addition, the 
company has another smaller mill at Kewchurch, a 
mile distant, where a capital of L. 10,000 has been so 
well managed, that it was increased to L. 100,000 for 
the purpose of more extensive operations. In reply 
to some inquiries, the secretary of the concern, whom 
we overtooK on the journey, gave us a brief account 
worth quoting. He said: *In the year 1S59, a few 
of the working-men of our neighbourhood, on the 
suggestion of our founder, Mr Sanderson, met to 
consider the propriety of establishing a joint-stock 
company in or near Newchurch. The mill we are 
running at Waterfoot being at a stand still, it was 
thought if it could be got at a reasonable rent, a ^ood 
opening would be made for commencing operations 
at once. Arrangements were soon made with the 
owner of the miJl, and, in October, shares were issued 
for a capital of 1^10,000. The shares were taken 
np very cautiously at first, but gradually confidence 
increased, and the whole sum was raised. On taking 
the mill, the owner agreed that no rental should be 
ohargod before the first of January. The directon* 






CHAMBBRS^ JOUBIT AL. 



411 



' 



therefore, set about matters earnestly to get in new 
macliinery, and to have the mill in full -WDrk before 
rental should commence ; and so successful were the^, 
that a piece of cotton cloth woven at the mill was m 
Manchester market before the end of December. 
So satisfactory was the progress of the company, 
that a great number of applications for shares was 
made ; so the directors resolved to ^ve every one a 
chance, and increased the nominal capital to L. 100,000, 
issuing shares for L.40,000, all of which was paid up 
in weekly instalments some ten months since. The 
new mill being now completed, the present soiree is 
1)eing heJd as a joyful celebration of a great step 
being gained in progress.* 

While receiving the above account, a huge proces- 
sion of men and women — shareholders — headed by 
the Kifle band, playing There^s a Oood Time coming, 
Boysj came in sight, having marched from the Water- 
foot Mill to attimd the soiree, for which arrangements 
had been made for weeks past. Throe thousand 
tickets were rapidly sold ; ana such was the demand 
for them, that a thousxmd more would have been 
taken, could the committee have accommodated that 
numbci'. Some persons, with a keen eye to profit, 

})urchased batches of tickets, and resold them at a 
arge premium. The provision made to supply this 
immense host was of the most ample character, there 
being 1200 jKmnds of plain bread, 1000 currant cakes, 
1000 plain cakes, 360 pounds of ham, 380 pounds of 
beef, 8 pounds of mustard, 344 pounds of plum- loaf, 
300 pounds of sugar, 10 pounds of tea, 90 quarts of 
cream, 220 pounds of Imtter, and sundries. To distri- 
bute these ^ood things to the happy peox>le, seated at 
tables runmng the lengthway of a room in the mill, 
160 male and female waiters were kept hard at work 
for above two hoars, and then the audience adjourned 
to an upper room, which had been tastefully deco- 
rated, the walls being covered with crimson cloth 
lent by brother co-operatives, the large platform being 
carpeted with like matcriaL 

As soon as the audience was comfortably seated, 
the cliairman, in a brief but eloquent address, declared 
the mill fairly opened, and gave some excellent advice 
to his hearers, and told them some good home-truths. 
A mighty hunter, the Nimrod of the district, spoke 
next, in a most happy and humorous style. After 
referring to the origm of co-operation in Kosendale, 
and its great successes, he said that it had done more 
than make -money: it had givoi a practical interest 
to thousands of operatives in the question of becoming 
capitalists and reahsinff profits; and to do so, they 
had learned habits of sobriety, frugality, and prudence. 
Their meeting often together in their reading-rooms 
and elsewhere for conference had developed business 
habits and ingenuity in imnrovemcnts of machinery 
to a very large extent. The moral as well as the 
social improvement of the people had been, and would 
1>c, developed by these societies. Next came an emi- 
nent machinist, who, in telling of the triumphs of the 
Co-ops, said that his firm were engaged to fill with 
steam-power and machinery fifteen cotton-mills, at a 
cost of about a quarter of a million sterling, and tliosc 
fifteen mills were all on the joint-stock principle. 

The last chief s}>eaker referred with pleasure to 
the good state of feeling which prevailed between 
rniployers and workers iu districts where co-operation 
ixists, and pointed to the remarkable fact, that no 
single instance of a strike had occurred in such dis- 
tricts for a long time past To let the workers have 
an interest as shareholders in the business, was the 
sui'cst way to prevent strikes ; and he was glad to find 
all parties were now beginning to feel the truth of 
that principle, and many were acting Myton it. 

Votes of thanks to the ladies, the »)eaker8, and 
others concluded the oratorical portion of the proceed- 
ings, the speeches being sandwiched by music from 
the band, and singing t>y certain vocal celebrities. 
Dancing finished the evening's festivities; and all 



went merry as a marriage-bell until ten o'clock, when 
Ood Save the Queai, sung with heart and voice by 
that vast host, gave the final signal for ending our 
festivities with the Co-ops. 



CAN'T AND CAN, OR DARE AND DO. 

ONLY MEANT FOR LADIES. 

'Decline can\^ Verb defective, of the chameleon 
order, first person wanting ! So thought we, as we 
two turned from a fair lan£cape of Highland scenery ; 
and said : * We two most go there also.' 

* You can't ! ' exclaimed wise mothers ; * two girls 
can't go alone. What sense, or experience, or calcula- 
tion have vou?' 

* One thing is certain,' exclaimed our prudent 
brothers, * vou can't walk so far as you say you intend 
to do ; and if you are mad enough to go, you can't 
go witiiout a good round stock of cash : it's p^ect 
nonsense to fancy that you can do it dheaply, or even 
moderately ; you can't.' 

* How will you ever be at the train by six o'clock'?' 
exclaimed our maids-of-all-work : 'have breakfast* 
and eveiything ready, and up at the train by that 
time ? You can't.' 

So thought they ; so said they. To us, the verb 
being defective, it didn't apply ; and they were obliged 
to believe that we could do something, when they 
awoke next morning and found us fairly away. 
Timid mothers were anxious, incredulous brothers 
looked wise, till they received our first letter. We 
had a very pleasant compartment of a second-class 
raUwav-camage, containing, beside ourselves, onlv an 
En^ish gentleman and his two sisters, wonderfully 
amiable at an unamiable age, who were going up to 
do the Trosachs in three days. * It is very expensive,* 
said one, ' I believe, to travel in the Highlands just 
now. The hotels are all so dear, and the coaches so 
connected with them that you can't escape, but must 
go the ordinary routine, and pay the extraordinary 
prices. Even though we were to see some exquisitely 
oeautiful spot, I supi>08e that we couldn't get down 
and walk about it ; nor even get leave to rest for a 
minute and look at it' So said they, luunx>ered with 
'can'ts.' 

Many a place were the^ asking about, on their 
route to Stirling, though it is but a tame tract of 
country the line lies through. I pointed out Bannock- 
bum as well as I oould, to shew them what some 
people can do. On to Stirling — on to Callander — t^en 
out on a delightful and inquinng strolL We must go 
on, and norUiward lay our route; so we asked if 
lodgings for a few days could be had in that direction. 
'T^ Ardhullary, hui wav up Loch Lubnaig; you 
may get some place there, said our advisers. ' And 
if not, we'll go on to Locheamhead ! ' 'Nonsense! 
that's fifteen miles! and after what you've done 
already, you can't do it' But off we set Ardhullary 
was too crami>ed for ojxr flights, and northwards, ever 
northwards, lay our steps* Remember, it is only as 
a secret, not to be repeated, that I mention how 
much we re^tted that we had, by our delay in 
Callander, missed the coach; we regretted it, I say, 
when we had gone a round dozen of miles, but it was 
too late, and we did not die on the road after alL 

Of course, we did all wo wanted — went north, and 
west, and east, and to places incredible. 

One day, some time afterwards, we found ourselves 
homcvrara-bound, by Lochearnside, and looking up 
at Ben Voirlich. Qlie fairy hues of evening ^ded 
it so gloriously, even to our well-accustomed evef^ 
that we exclaimed: ' We must go to the top.' ' You 
can't,' exclaimed our companion. ' Can't, to us ? and 
we walking so far. This is quite Lowland to where 
we've been.' *At least, vou can't 00 up without 
ponies.' 'That fatigues far more tiian climbing 
ourselves ; so we'll let them alone.' ' And you 



418 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL 



can^t go up without a guide; it's perfectly impos- 
sible. The hill's steep, and there's a bad bog up 
in one part of the way.' * The hill isn't higher than 
.our wills, nor the bogs deeper than our determina- 
tion,' said I laughingly. *Vou don't mean to sa^ 
you really intend to try the hill ? You can't.* * We 
don't mean to try — we mean to do it. Whatever 
has been done, we can da' * Then there never were 
two ladies that went up before without guides.' 

* Then we'll begin the fashiou.' * The mist '11 maybe 
come on, and you'll lose your way, or fall over a 
precipice. You Lowlanders have no idea of Highland 
mists. I would not like to be on the top of Ben 
Voirlioh myself when one came on. You mustn't go ; 
you can't' 

With many amiable expressions, we disengaged 
ourselves from our timid friend, and next broached 
the subject to a more enterprising one. * Have you 
ever been up Ben Voirlich ?' * No — ^not myself.' * Is 
it im|)08siblc ?' * No ; I should think not. There's a 
good tough puU, but there's never a hill- view worth 
seeing without that.' * Could we go ?' * You could. 
They generally go on ponies, but ye 're good marchers, 
and might manage without them, for ye would enjoy 
it far better. But ye would need a guide ; ye can't 
go without one.' * But we are going to have no guide ; 
we want to enjoy ourselves. We are going to-morrow 
morning, and you must tell us how. Do you think 
us mad ?' * It is a little venturesome. But when I 
think of it, and of what ye 've done already, I think 
ye mi^ht mayln? manage it. There's been no rain for 
a while, and the ground's dry. The weather's splen- 
didly clear just now, and I don't tliink there'll l)e 
any mist to-morrow. Don't go, if there's the least 
chance of that.' * That's right now — you're some- 
thing comforting ; but we intended to have gone what- 
ever you said. What will we need to take with 
us V * As little as possible to hamper you ; but plenty 
to eat. You go up by the left side of the bum till 
you come to the herdsman's house, and they '11 put you 
upon the pony-track. It will help you u\i the valley ; 
and just trust to your eyes and your good sense 
after that. But I wish you had some one with you ; 
you might take Brownie.' (Said Brownie was a visitor, 
considered general property by the village.) *We 
would rather not.' * Brownie was up the other day, or 
said he was, and came back past his knees in mud.' 

* That shews he could be no good guide for us,' said 
Ally: * we've no intention of taking any path that 
will sink deeper than our boot-tops.' 

And siutj enough we went ; up by the loft side of 
the bum — jtast the henlsman's house— up by the 
pony-track — sbpping in bogs and bums — over the 
ahingly crags — over the foggy moss, up to the top. 
*The beating of our own hearts was all the sound 

we heard,' but we saw Only climb you, whoever 

you are, to the top of the like, and you 'II know what 
we saw, for I could never tell you. We could not 
speak, of course, for a long time, but lay breatldessly 
cuinking in our rewanl of oeauty for our toiL When 
we did speak, I exclaimed : * Well, this has waked 
some poetry in my soul ! I think now, even I could 
write a poem on tnis subject, and in this air ! ' * You 




fear ymi should say I didn't also. She said she was 
going to sketch the west view — I declared she 
couldn't ; but she did, though, and that right wolL 
Then such a coming down, such bobbing and jumping, 
such timid B\»\)a and slips ; such bold races, and falls 
of pride ; such bogs, which we avoided with exclam- 
ations such as: * There's one of Broi^Tiie's bogs — 
that's the very mark of him ! ' or, * I *m sure this was 
Brownie's very path ! ' How did the fresh breeze and 
the fair scene lignten us, tOl we could almost fancy our- 
selves some of the wild denizens of the spot ; and as a 
distant gun rung on our ears, I gave an unconscious 



little shriek and flounder, and Ally exclaimed : * Are 
you afraid we'll be shot for termajganU, Cany?' I 
got my revenge, though, for that very minute she 
tripped into another of Brownie's bogs, and bore off 
some of his colours. 

I never knew the meaning of wild Higldand 
music till then. Oh ! the perfect feeling of bliss 
and freedom, amid all this solitude, and silence, and 
beauty. We caught, as it seemed, almost a foretaste 
of the existence of disembodied spirits. 

What a delightful tea we had that night — what a 
grand gossip by the fire — what day-dreams, and then 
night-dreams of daring and doing ! 

On the last day of our freedom, we made up our 
minds to do something else; and on consulting our 
map, we made Glennnlas oiu* route. It looked 
feasible, was romantically connected, and promised 
good scenery. So we proceeded to inquire about 
it, fortunately first of our timid friend; for in ths 
case of advice, the last is never least. Ally intro- 
duced the subject. * We want to go down (rlenflnlas; 
can you tell us the way?' *You can't go!' 'You 
said we couldn't go up Ben Voirlich.' * Well, but 
that was nothing to this. Even with guides, I don't 
think you coidd go down Glenfinlas : you daren't go 
alone ; you will be lost.' * We would be found next 
morning, though, wouldn't we ? You would come and 
seek us?' said Ally brightly. 'Yes, but you'd be 
dead.' ' No, no ; it takes a deal to kill us — far more 
than a Highlaud glen.' 'Well, tiiV'o young English- 
men, only two or three years ago, triea it, and a mist 
came on, and they were lost, and found dead the next 
day.' ' Perhai)s ; but then they had never been up 
Ben Voirlich, to apprentice them to the profession of 
travellers.' ' I 'm not thinking either of you could 
stand a night on the hills — no Lowlander can. How 
would you like to wander about upon the hills, or 

fall into i)eat-bog8, or get swamped, or' 'Get 

to Callander in tune for the four-o'clock train, as we 
intend to do.' 'You can't do it; and not even 
with a guide could you do it in that time. Even I, 
accustomed as I am to such places, was lost there 
once. There isn't a semblance of a footpath. Please, 
don't go. I should feel almost responsible for your 
lives, if I didn't dissuade you from it It's about 
twenty-five miles long, and Highland miles remember! 
It's one difficulty to get into the glen, and another 
diflicidty to get through it. Even supposing yoa 
went right, night woiUd come on before you got to 
Callander. Perfect madness; you can't go ! ' 

To our other adviser we went. 'It isn't impos* 
sible ? ' ' Not to those who have set their minds upon 
it. Of course, I would not advise you to go ; but as 
you 're determined already, go, and God si>ecid. The 
Glenfinlas itself, I think, is about ten miles long ; but 
before that, you have five miles to Balquhidder, and 
two or three miles up Glen Buckie ; then over the 
hills I do not know how far.' I shook my head. 
' I 'm afraid it won't do, Ally, and we must give it 
up ! ' ' Nonsense ! ' said she. ' It 's our last day, and 
we must do something worth remembering.' * Ay, to 
be sure ; and we wul be at home to-morrow, and 
won't need to care to be fit for anything else.' So 
we wound up our affairs, and retired early, to be fireih 
for the next day and its adventures. 

With full directions as far as the farmhouse at 
the end of (rlen Buckie, where wo were to step 
and ask the next ])art of our way — with a pocket* 
map, a wateh, a tolerable stock of provisions, and 
stout hearts, we set out about eight o'clock from tht 
village of Locheamhead. The first five, nay, six, 
seven, eight miles were very easy, on a regular rosd, 
and at the end of the eight miles we arrived at the 
farmhouse specified. It seemed probal)le we had 
been the first >nsitors for some time, from the alarm 
and admiration we caused; yet it was with soma 
difficulty that we foimd the ' mistress,' anil gave her 
the message our friend had sent to her, couj^ed with 






I 



'I 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



413 



I 



insfamctions to direct us the easiest way over into 
Glenfinlas. * Ye '11 be the leddies I saw in Balauhidder 
chorch last Sunday ? ' * Very probably. At least we 
were there.* * Yes, I saw ye ; and some folk were 

saying* *But which way will we ever get into 

the gfen ? * * Well, I *ve never been myself, but I know 
it 'U be a pretty walk for the like o you. You had 
better come in and rest a while, and take a drink of 
milk.' We declined the * rest,* on the plea of time ; 
but she made ns drink some milk, or rather the 
richest of Highland cream. * Do you see yon little 
cairn up yonder ? You must make straight for that.* 
* Right over the hill ? * asked I, with a blank expres- 
sion, looking for^-ard at an elevation which seemed 
little less than the * Bens * round about us. * Is there 
not a way in that direction?* said I, }>ointing to a 
doping track I saw. * Yes ; there is another, and it 
is a liUle lower and easier ; but there is no path except 
for half a mile, and even the most experienced find it 
difficult to know the right opening : ymi would be 
sore to get into the wrong glen ! ' * Well, if it must 
be, it must be,* said Ally. *And after we get to the 
cairn, where do we go next ? * * Right forward in the 
same direction — a kind of south-west, till you come 
to the glen, and then you can scarcely lose your- 
selves.* * And tell me,* said I tremulously, * when we 
get the length of that said " cairn,'* is there much 
more to climb?* *I can hardly tell you, as I*ve 
never been ; but I believe there 's some ups and 
downs. At least, I know you don't see the Glen- 
finlas for a good while.* *And is there no path?* 
"They say there *s one, but I would not advise you to 
trust to it : you don't know enough, and might be 
led astray by a sheep-track.* 80 ^e i)ut us on the 
way to the cairn ; and bidding us good-bye, returned 
to her cozy and sohtary dwelling. It was now after 
eleven o'clock, and the day, though far from being 
sultry, did not promise mist. Yet we could not 
suppress a doubt, as Loch Lubnaig came in view, 
whether we would not be wise even yet to return by 
the path we had come, and go to Callander by the 
high-road. * No ! * exclaimeci we ; * it is our last 
chance — notiiing dare, nothing <lo.' So on we went. 

Oh ! but the cairn was far and high, and sure and it 
was boggy, ! and we cot to it with one sigh, only to 
heave anotiier aa we looked forward, and saw as much 
height before us as depth behind us ; yet on we went. 
Surely there were * nps and downs * enough — Highland 
ups and downs, if you know what they mean. Just 
as we lost all sight of hollows or valleys, either 
behind or before, we became entangled in a perfect 
mesh of peat-bogs. Precipices and yarning gulfs of 
the black soft traitor formed a scene which must have 
been after Brownie*s own heart. But not even a trace 
of him was there to cheer us with a token of any 
human life — nothing but the wild-bird's startled cry, 
and a sheep-mark here and there, showed us that any 
breath had ever been drawn there before ours. But 
steadfastly struggling onwards towards the south- 
west, since it was too late to turn, no murmur 
crossed our Ups but cheerful laughs, as one foot or 
another disappeared in the yielmng carpet, or as 
one leap after another landed our figures inele- 
gantly in unpleasant positions. It had lasted a good 
while ; and Ally expressed a hidden fear that we had 
lost our way, when, more effectual than any comfort 
I could give, was the appearance of the glen itself, as 
we conquered our last *up,* and prepared for the 
'down.* Onr feelings at that moment could not be 
unlike those of Piiarro and his companions when 
they sat them down in their first view of the Pacific 
Ocean. Then, with a last fond lingering look at the 
serried * Braes o' Balquhidder,* we * dived into the 
deep defile.* It was not what we had dreamed of; 
not the picturesque tree-crowned craggy ravine we 
had pictured, but a smooth basin of green unbroken 
lines stretching down to the Finlas bum, where a 
few trees sheltered the water affectionately. Methinks 



they need not have been so exclusive, for the amount 
of untended water sadly retarded our steps. Down, 
down through the variations of peaty ooe, sedgy 
slush, and simple uncompoundcd mud. What m 
treasure was a good-sized stone to us then ! When 
we came across one, we actually would stand on it, 
and stamp up and down in the mere pleasure at the 
touch of terra firma. With what joy we sat down 
amid some large white slabs and rocks, that formed 
the water-course of one more daring, but better prin- 
cipled streamlet. What a pleasant feeling of security ! 
What a delightful lunch, and cool, clear, refreshing 
draught from the slender cascades ! What a dreamy 
sad ^aze around on the scenes that filled up our last 
day m the Highlands ! But the common life hastened 
us hurriedly away — to catch the train. We saw 
that the bum wandered, in most provoking links, to 
hurried and weary wayfarers, so we tried to keep 
away from it, but were obliged at last, perforce, to 
yield to its tantrums, and wander * here awa, there 
awa,* as it did. It became more leafy as we went ; 
birches, and alders, and rowans growing thickly by 
the bum, and sometimes stretching up the slopes of 
the valley. I could not help pit3ruig the poor mes- 
senger if he bore the fiery-cross along here, if he were 
tall, for the trees were not ; and if ne coidd run, he 
must have been clever, for a sort of cow-path, within 
a foot of a broken-down wall, and another sort of 
cow-path, without the wall, though decidedly the best 
for travelling, caused, even in that dry weather, a most 
extraordinary staccato movement. 

One by one, our vestiges of civilisation were being 
obliterated, when we were cheered by an evident 
opening out of the glen. . False hope ! It was just 
the umon of another into tliis one, which seemed 
still stretching forward in no very decisive direction. 
Ally*s heart said : * We have lost our way, and are in 
the wrong glen.' Mine answered : * We 're all right ; 
but I begin to believe in the twenty -five miles now.* 
Hills that we hoped would hide the * Brig o' Turk * 
were passed, and others still arose; the solitude 
pressed on us like a burden, when on a sudden I 
espied — town-bred reader, you cannot know with 
what delight! — a rough cart-track some few dozen 
steps beneath us. Making straight for it, however, 
ratner rashly, I was coolly caught in a trap by 
bobbing into some hollow above two feet deep — quite 
hidden by the grass — at the foot of which I felt, 
without seeing, that there was a cold spring. Next 
sight, joy of joys! were the first human beings 
we had seen through all these weary miles, working 
in a field — a real, sqiuure, flat field. Then rose a 



village to our eyes, a real village, but, alas ! not the 
* Brig o' Turk ;* and quite unlme any we had heard 
or thought of. I, too, began to fear about our way ; 
for well-sized and pretty village as it was, we might 
have been at the world's end for aught we'knew about 
it. We were afraid to ask the labourers the name, for 
they stared so at us, and we felt too much ashamed at 
present of our bravery to care to let them know about 
us. But at the end of the village, Ally insisted on 
asking an old woman how far it was to the Brig o* 
Turk, and the nearest road to it I only stipulated 
that on no account should she say whbre we came 
from, in case she should think us maid ; and that even 
if she asked, she should never insinuate that we had 
walked any further than from Glen Buckie, for that 
was quite enough for ordinary mortals. But, wonder 
of wonders, she did not ask us, and simply told us 
the direct road, which ever after this was dry, and 
beautiful, and romantic But * when the Brig o Turk 
was won,* full past the zenith hung the sun. My 
watoh said three, but I felt it had gone fast in the 
general excitement. On inquiring the hour, we were 
told half-past twa * Is there not a coach going soon, 
for we must be in Callander by half- past four?* 
' There *s not a coach for an hour yet! But to 
walk to Callander in that time — you can*t.* We 



414 



CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL. 



did not tell her where we came from, though 
she looked the question, bat set off in the nervous 
strength of despair, beginning to feel a possibility of 
forming a new * person to the above-named * verb.' 

Exactly at twenty minutes past four by the town- 
clock did we enter Callander. Hurrah! for our 
leisurely walk to the station, for our comfortable 
rest in our railway-seats, \nth the delightful satis- 
faction of having done all we could, and all we 
wished ; and that * Heaven helps those that help 
themselves.' 

* Such frights ! we can't speak to them,' we over- 
heard ; aud we for once acknowledged the force of 
the observation, as we reviewed ourselves, and cast a 
sidelong glance at the whisperers, who were our old 
ac(^uaintimces the C s. A little animated conver- 
sation, then a drowsy hour. I started up and said : 
*Ally, I'll let girls know what they can do. I'll 
write a sketch of some of our walks, to open their 
eyes.' * Hush I you can't ! ' said she sleepily, falling 
into another doze. 

Slap, dash, rattle, through sunset, and gloaming, 
and dark ; and amid flashing lights, and bui^ voices, 
and jostling crowds, we came out at the Edinburgh 
station. 

Another whirl over the stony causeway, and we 
were amid the old wa3rs, old life, and old faces, that 
looked with incredulous expression, as, amidst the 
pauses of an inspiriting tea, we gave them snatches of 
what we had done. 

' I am glad we did not know that before — ^it would 
have poade us miserable ! such madness ! ' exclaimed 
the wise ones. * And you 've walked all day with wet 
feet, and sat four hours in a train with mevL You 
can't but be ill to-morrow.' 

* Not in the least. I am not tired now; but I'll 
retire ; for I 'U need to be up early to-morrow, I 've so 
much to do, putting things right again.' 

* To-morrow ? early ? You can't ! ' 

But we were up, and as brisk as bees ; and though 
Ally said a second time, to my proposal of a sketch 
of our time in the Highlands, * lou can't,' I have done 
it Now, don't say I naven't, even if it isn't a master- 
piece ; or exclaim * I can't get through it,' for I think 
you could, if you made up your minus, as we did. 



THE MONTH: 

SCIENCE AND ARTS. 

NoTWiTUSTANDiiro aQ the excitement and distraction 
offered by races, picture-galleries, exhibitions, and 
cxcursiomi, many a quiet worker has done something 
towards advancement of science within the past five 
weeks, so that our learned and scientific societies are 
bringing their sessions to a close, and thinking about 
holidays. The Geographicala — who, by the way, are 
not quiet workers — have given one of their gold 
medals to Captain Speke, and the other to Mr Stuart, 
both well known as enterprising explorers, the one of 
Africa, the other of Australia. The excitement occa- 
sioned by the gorilla has grown into a controversy, 
which will have to be settled by anatomists working 
patiently and thoughtfully in their study. The 
brain is the special point at issue. Mr Lockhart 
Clarke is examining it, with a view to elucidate meta- 
physical theory, and has lately succeeded in preparing 
a section for microscopic observation and comparison 
of the spinal cord of the human fcetus at the age of 
three months. 

On the question of iron verdus wooden ships, a word 
of waminj^ has been published by a Fellow of the 
Hoyal Society, with especial heed to the peculiarity 
that iron may, after aU, prove to be the weakest mate- 
rial that could bo used tor ship-building. Instances of 
very rapid deterioration are wcU known to those who 



have paid attention to tho subject^ the most remark- 
able being that of an iron ship, which, alter a year of 
service, returned to port with her skies so soft, through 
the action of sea- water, that the carpenter could stick 
his knife into the iron in sundry places, as into cheese ! 
The conclasion drawn from tins and other similar 
facts, is one which commends itsdf to the common 
sense of the millions who have to pay for the ships ; 
to wit, that we * have a right to call for evexy imagin- 
able precaution that science can afford, in order zDxt 
the vast outlay may not result in a gigantic failure.* 

The Manchester Architectural Association have 
discussed a paper on Chemiakry in BdaJtion to BuUd- 
ing: a question to which architects and builders 
generally pay too littie or no attention. It is desirable 
to know m what way different kinds of mortar and 
cement are affected by the atmosphere ; what reac- 
tions take place therein ; whether they require protec- 
tion ; and if so, whether an outside coat of paint is or 
is not the best protection ; and further, more re^ud 
should be paid than at present to the quality and 
arrangement of building-materials, and the way in 
which they are placed in a building, since it is 
known that damp scarcely penetrates stone when 
placed quarry- wise ; that is, as it stood in the parent 
rock, but penetrate easily when the stone is placed 
in other positions. — As regards the decoration of 
architecture, photography is now made to contribute 
thereto, by what a Parisian artist calls photosculpture. 
Only get a proper model, and by an ingenious con- 
trivance, the sculptor may so reflect it on his block 
of marble, as to bo able to insure a perfect fac-simile 
of the original 

The first discovery of a planet by our astronomers 
in India has just been made at the Madras observa- 
tory; the discoverers are of course proud of their 
achievement, and desire to name the new star Agio. 
The number of little planets is, however, now so 
fflreat (nearly seventy) by reason of rapid discovery, 
that astronomers auction the desirability of discover- 
ing also a mythological name for each of the little 
strangers as it presents itself for recognition ; and 
are agreeing to name them as the islands in th^ 
Mississippi are name<l — Na G5, Na 66, and so on : a 
convenient arrangement, as it indicates at once their 
chronological order. — One of our astronomers, after 
careful compari»:)u of the oldest with the most modem 
maps of tho moon, concludes, from the change in 
appearance, that volcanic acticn is still going on in 
our satellite, and believes he can identify the altera- 
tions that have taken place within the past twenty 
years. — Mr Hodc, of the observatoiy at Utrecht, has 
published a thin quarto, containing the first part of 
nis Agronomical BesecarcheSf in which he leads off 
with an important subject — ^namely. Hie Influence of 
the Earth's movements on the fundamental phenomena 
of the optical science employed in astronomy. — Pro- 
fessor Durrand, of Porrentruy (Switzerland), is led to 
conclude, from a course .of observations, that the tauil 
of a comet is an appearance only, Jtimilar to that pro- 
duced by the light of a lamp passing through a glass 
globe containing water into a darkened room, whtft« 
tJio radiance represents the tail On calculation, 
he finds that a nucleus with a refractive power ten 
times superior to that of air, would produce the same 
appearance as Donati's comet On the other hand, 
and taking into consideration the effect of magnetism 
on light and smoke, the tail may be regarded as an 
effect of magnetism on a vaporous substance. — A 
learned professor at Salamanca states, in a letter to a 
scientific periodical, that the so-(»lled stone-axes are 
plentiful m the country round about that city, and 
that they are not formed by art, but by lightning- 
strokes falling on flints. The flints are shivered into 
numerous pieces, among which many arc found of the 
shape now familiar to geologists and antiquaries as 
ancient weapons. The professor states f orther, that 
the reason why these weapons arc found in old tombs. 



CHAMBBRS^ JOURNAK 



416 



i8 because the GotliB believed that to bury a number 
of the * so-called axe-heads ' with a corjise, was the 
way to protect the tomb from liehtning. — Colonel 
(traham, one of the ablest scicntinc officers in the 
Tuiteil States service, annoimces, that after a scries 
of nearly ten thousand observations, he discovers that 
there is a lunar tidal wave on Jjake Michigan : another 
couiirmation of the theory of the moon's influence on 
the waters of the earth.— The Meteorological Society 
of Paris have imblished a suggestion to editors of 
newspapers in t ranee, which editors in other countries 
mi^ht advantageously comply with: it is, that in 
giving onnouuceiuonts of meteorological phenomena, 
or extraordinaiy high tides, instead of using the 
customaiy expression 'yesterday,* or *on Tuesday 
last,' or * last week,' and so forth, tiicy shoidd«give tUc 
precise date on which the phenomenon in question 
occurred, as, by means of the dates, students of mete- 
orology will be able to corrdato or co-ordinate tlie 
weather-facts of widely distant places. 

A little pleasurable surprise has been excited by 
the distribution, among learned societies in Enro}x;, of 
a respectable quarto volume, the first of a new series, 
from the observatoiy at Athens. It is an cncoura^g 
Hi;rn of life from tho long-slumbering land of ancient 
classic fame ; and the more so, as the contents of the 
book are well-written papers on tho physical geo- 
grai)hy of Greece. Any student who wishes to know 
something of the climate of Athens, and the pheno- 
mena of vegetation in Attica, has only to consult the 
work in question. — The last volume of Memorie 
published by the Institute of Venice, contains a i)a^r 
oTi the Natural History of Langna^s as illustrative 
of the History of Peoples : a subject nighly interesting 
to ethnologists. It reminds us that ancient stone- 
weapons, similar to those recently discovered near 
Abbeville, as mentioned at the time in tho Journal, 
liave lK>en met with at Reculver, on the coast of 
Kent-. A considerable collection hoA now been made 
of these relics of primeval times, but one of the best 
attempts which we have yet seen towaids discovering 
a real and suggestive significance in tho specimens, 
i^; that made oy Mr Christy, as shewn at the last 
soiree of the President of the Boyal Society. In 
tliis instance, the stone axes and airow-heads were 
correlated, or placed side by side, so as to shew 
how people and tribes the most "widely separated 
have been led to produce the same j^neral form, and 
that iJie ancient British and Scandinavian axes are 
identical in shape with thoso actually in use among 
the natives of New Caledonia and the Society Islands. 
There is another advantage in this juxtaposition, 
seeing that tho modem specimens brought from the 
last-named countries exhibit the higmy ingenious 
method by which the stone weapon was fastened to 
its handle. 

Gk>od news is offered to old Izaak's <lisciplcs in the 
fact, that an attempt is making to propagate j^ayling 
in the Thames at Hampton ; and in tlic promise that 
a law shall be passed to secure fair-play to tho fish 
which resort to British rivers to breed. This law, 
wliich is to be brought forward during the present 
scission of parliament, is one of the results of the 
recent Commission of inquiry into our river-fisheries. 
Another result is that, except in the case of tho fish 
which pay periodical visits to certain streams, our 
rivers — so tno commissioners say — are tenanted by 
a-< many fish as can find su1)sistenco therein; from 
which the conclusion is obvious, that comprehensive 
breeding-schemes, much talked about of late, are likely 
to fail through deficiency of food. 

The authorities in India are taking measures for 
tlio cultivation of tea, as well as of cinchona, on tho 
k1oi)Cs of the Neilgherries, considering fJbat, with 
})roper care, the plantations in that locality are likely 
to DC as successful as thoso in Amuh and on the 
uplands of tho Himalayas. Whatever adds to the 
industrial resources of our great eastern empire moal 



be deserving of encouragement ; and when we consider 
the large increase in tho supply of jute, lac, and oil- 
seeds from thence since the Exhibition of 1851, we sec 
no reason to doubt that, in due time, we shall get as 
much of cotton, tea, and other productioiis as ir« 
are likely to want. The reward will not be small to 
those wlio midertake the work, for the present yearns 
cotton crop of the * Confederated States' sold tear 
L.40,000,000. The palm-oil trade, moreover, affords a 
marked instance of mcrease, the supply from Western 
Africa now being worth L. 1,500,000 annually, to 
which amount it has advanced from a very szoaD 
beginning within about twenty years. By the end of 
1862, India will have nearly 9000 miles of railwav 
completed, including the great trunk line from Cal- 
cutta to Delhi : one half of this amount will be open 
before the end of the present year. We are glaa io 
notice a growing disposition to employ natives in the 
service ol the Tine, Dccause, as Mr Money shews in 
his interesting book on Jara, conciliation and encoor^ 
agement of those bom on the soil arc essential to 
prosperity. Of nearly 19,000 functionaries on the 
Indian railways already open, comprising station- 
masters, clerks^ porters, and so forth, not more than 
1137 are Europeans. 

A rumour has reached as from Northern Africa, 
that Dr Vogel, the German traveller, has not only not 
been murdered, but is living as a sort of grand viaer 
or conndUor in tho service of the sultan of Wara, a 
town in the Wadai territory. Though well treated 
by the monarch, he is so closely watched as to prevent 
all chance of escape. We hope there is truth in the 
rumour : at anyrate, we may expect to hear that Dr 
Henglin, a fellow-countryman of the long-missing 
Vogel, who is following on his track, will emleavour 
to dear up the mystery. 

From South Anica we have further confirmation of 
the remarkable fact : the gradual drying up of a large 
cx])anse of coun^, which has been noticed bv recent 
travellers. Mr Chapman, who started from the Ci^m3 
to travel direct to the Zambesi, could get no further 
than Ngami, and had to return chiefly from want of 
water. His report to Sir George Grey, the governor, 
is instructive on this particular. ' The want of water,' 
he says, ' has not been confined to one district, but in 
the whole country up to the Lake the fountains have 
failed ; and if tne desiccation continues a few ycara 
longer at tho rate it has done daring the last four 
years, I fear wo shall only be able to reach Ngami 
during the rainy season. In going up, we had to dig 
at Koolie, Ghansi, and Gumgga; and other large 
springs where, a few years ago, nundreds of elephants, 
rhinoceri, ^jiraffes, and large herds of smaller game, 
drank during tho whole dnr season, have now dried 
up so much that scarcely a kettle of water can be ^ 
for Caffipes. At Pietfontein, fonnerly a large runmng 
stream, we had to dig for water for our cattle on our 
return, even after the first rains had fallen. Tunobis 
in Damaraland, which was a fine running stream 
when I first knew it, has been drying up so last, tiLat 
now we have to wait in wells twenty feet deep until 
the water percolates to fill our vatjies.' 

Dr Joseph Milligan's paper on Tasmania, reail before 
the Society of Arts, contains interesting information 
on the climate and mineral and vegetable resources of 
that distant colony. English farmers, whose anxiety 
concerning weather is sometimes painfid, will be able 
to appreciate the fact, that in Van Diemen's Land the 
grain-crops arc reaped and stacked always in fine 
weather, whilo as rcgards the hay, all tliat the Tas- 
manian farmer has to do, is to watch that it does not 
become too dry. Formerly, the settler s clip of wool 
was left to rot on tho groimd ; now the colony exports 
wool of good quality to the value of ntfarly L.600,000 
a year. The wheat exported in 1859 was wortli 
L.92,861 : iftid the annual return from the colonial 
whale-fisheiy is LbGOi,000. Of tho aborigines, there 
were only about a dozen remaining at the end of 1859. 



416 



OHAliBERS*S JOURNAL. 



OCCASIONAL NOTES. 

SIGNING RECOaiMENDATION& 

The unconscieBtious recklessness with which men in 
general give their names in recommendation of pre- 
tensions of which they have no knowledge, has been 
strongly brought out 1iy the noted case of the })oet 
Qose. Without any wish to press hard upon this 
poor man, we must assume it as universally acknow- 
ledged that he was entirely destitute of the literaiy 
merit which would entitle any one to the receipt of a 
state pension. His effusions are not literature at all, but 
the merest doggrel — stuff for which only mendicancy 
procures a man^t. Yet it appears that three hundred 
persons signed the recommendation which induced 
Lord Palmerston to grant the pension of L.50 a year, 
which has since been withdra^iiL Since it is impossible 
to suppose that these gentlemen were acquainted with 
Close s compositions, we must conclude that they 
granted the use of their names without any effort to 
ascertain the character of what they were recom- 
mending — probably yielding to the solicitations of 
some one or two persons who had other interests than 
those of literature in view. It is a great rei>roach to 
them to have acted thus, and there would Ix; some 
justice, if also a little severity, in getting their names 
and addrcHses published It would in a particular 
degree be just to Lord Palmerston, to shew who they 
were that led him to misapply the public bounty so 
abominably. We take leave to urge that this publica- 
tion should take phice, not as a punishment of the 
signers, but as a meaiiH of deterring others from 
signing in the like cose. 

STREET RAILWAYS}. 

This Journal has already given a description of the 
street railwavs of the American cities, and warmly 
recommended them for imitation in this country. 
They have been exemplified at Birkenhead, and in a 
somewhat feeble and partial manner in London. If it 
were possible to convey to one nation the impressions 
and convictions of another, we should expect to see 
these conveniences imiversally and at onoe adopted. 
Their usefulness in New York, Philadelphia, and 
Boston, is beyond all doubt in those cities. The 
rails create no inconvenience worth speaking of to 
other carriages, but rather form a help m giving them 
the choice of a smooth way. The rail-carria^ per- 
fectly harmonise with others of all kinds in their move- 
ments through the streets. In roominess, tidiness, 
facihty of getting in and out, and speed, they place 
the omnibuses of London at a great distance in the 
rear. We should like to see them adopted alone all 
the secondary thoroughfares of London, and such of 
the principal ones as could admit of them, and on 
the roads to all the chief neighbourine villages 
which lie on practicable levels. They would give an 
unspeakable relief to the overcrowded state of the 
metropolitan streets. 

As speculations, they have generally l)eeu very 
successful in America. 



COMING HOME. 

BBOTHEBS and sisters, growing old, 

Do yQu all remember yet 
That home, in the shade of the rustling trees. 

Where once oar household met ? 

Do you know how we used to come from sciiool, 
Throagh the sammer^s pleasant hcnt ; 

With the yellow fenncFs golden duat 
On our tired little feet ? 

■ 

And how sometimes in an idle mood 

We loitered by the way ; 
And stopped in the woods to gather flowers. 

And in the fields to pby ; 

Till warned by the deep*ning shadow's fall. 

That told of the coming night. 
We climbed to the top of the lost, long hitl. 

And saw our home in sight ! 

And, brothers and sisters, older now 

Than she whoso life is o'er, 
Do you think of the mother's loving fact', 

That looked from the open door .' 

Alas, for the changing things of time ; 

That home in the dost is low ; 
And that lovinp; smile was hid from us, 

In the darkness, long ago ! 

And we have come to life'K last hill. 

From which our weaiy eyes 
Can almost look on that home that shines 

Eternal in the skies. 

So, brothers and sibters, an wc go, 

Still let us move as one, 
Always together keeping step, 

Till the march of life is done : 

For that motlier, who waited for na here. 

Wearing a smile so sweet, 
Now waits on the hills of paradise 

For her children's coming feet ! 

Fhckbe Cart. 



On Saturday, QUi July, tmll hepuUUhul in this Jon run fy 

A TALE, ENTITLED 

MYSELF AND Ml BELATIVES. 

To be coniinwid every teeek until completed. 



To OoNTBIBDTORH.— It is requested that jdl Contri- 
butions to CAamben's Journal may be, for the future, 
directed to the Editor, at 47 Paternoster Bow, London, K C. 



The pretent number of the JoumAT completes the Fifteenth 
Vohnne; a title-page and index prepared for it mny be had of 
the publiihers and their agents. 



END OF FIFTEKMTII VOLUME. 



PrintsdTand Pabliahed by W. and R. Chambers, 

t7 Paternoster Row, London, and 389 High Street, Edlnbnrgh. 

a