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Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 52, Vol. I, December 27, 1884

Author: Various

Release date: November 16, 2021 [eBook #66748]
                Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: William and Robert Chambers

Credits: Susan Skinner, Eric Hutton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 52, VOL. I, DECEMBER 27, 1884 ***

[Illustration:

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 52.—VOL. I.      SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1884.      PRICE 1½_d._]




THE STORY OF ABE.


Those who profess to know all about slavery will tell you that
the negro was a thousand times happier as a slave than he is as a
freeman. This may be true of some of the race; we do not enter into
the question. The field-hand was in general an entirely irresponsible
creature. He belonged to his master as thoroughly as the dogs and
horses did, and he was of infinitely less importance. He had his
daily task and his daily rations; he had also, if owned by a kind
master, his little amusements, chief of which were the dance and the
camp-meeting. Such a life would naturally not inspire one with any very
high ambition. Give the plantation negro his hoe-cake and his bit of
fat pork, his banjo, and the privilege of telling his experience to
an unlimited chorus of ‘Halleluiahs!’ and ‘Bress de Lords!’ and you
gave him perfect bliss. If the white man was his oppressor, he seldom
knew it. ‘De family’ were, except in rare cases, admired and revered.
And these poor creatures who did not own themselves, assumed and felt
an air of proud proprietorship when speaking of the glories of their
master’s state, and specially of each ‘young mas’r’ and ‘lily miss.’
‘Young mas’r’ was at once their tyrant and their darling. I have heard
a wedding ceremony wound up with, ‘Hark, from de tombs a doleful
sound!’ with all its concomitant tears and groans, because ‘Marse
Harry’ had so ordered.

This state of things by no means came to an end with the civil war.
Long after the slaves were freemen, and the broad acres had changed
owners, and ‘old mas’r’ had fallen in battle or died broken-hearted,
all that were left of the proud old name were still ‘de family’ to
those loving hearts. While the writer lived in one of the border towns
of Virginia, the mother of one of her maids appeared one day to ask for
largess. ‘We’se done goin’ to hab a party, Miss Anne,’ said she; ‘an’
some ob de ladies dey gibs me flour; an’ some, eggs; an’ some, sugar;
an’ ole missis she would a’ gib me a whole great big cake, but I up an’
tole her I had one.—It was a lie,’ she explained earnestly, fearing
I would think further gifts unnecessary; ‘but some o’ dem pore white
trash say de missis hain’t got nuff to eat.’ And Chloe fairly sobbed.

I ventured to ask the occasion of the festivity.

‘Well, ye see, Miss Anne,’ said Chloe, brightening, ‘us cullud pussons
is gettin’ married now just like white folks; an’ as my ole mammy ’ll
be eighty the day after to-morrow, Marse George said I had oughter gib
her an’ father a weddin’.’

Better late than never, thought I, as I added something to Chloe’s
basket.

In addition to the plantation negroes and the often petted and spoiled
household servants, there was among the coloured population of the
South a certain proportion of skilled mechanics. These were not only,
from their superior intelligence, more alive than the rest of their
race to the hardship of slavery, but, from their greater value,
more apt to suffer from it. Why, for instance, should Jim, a good
blacksmith, trifle his time away on the plantation, where there was
little or nothing for him to do, when Smith in the adjacent town will
give Jim’s master, always in need of money, handsome payment for the
slave’s services? The master is perhaps a kind man, and Smith known to
be just the reverse, but hiring is not like selling. And so Jim goes,
and toils in the sweat of his brow till Smith’s payment to the master
is wrung out from him a thousandfold.

It is of one of these mechanics I am going to tell you, and, excepting
that the names of the persons connected with the story have been
changed, every word of Abe’s story is true.

In the heart of West Virginia, on the picturesque banks of the
Great Kanawha River, there is a large tract of land once owned by
Washington. Besides the niece who afterwards became Mrs Parke Custis,
Washington had another in whom he was greatly interested, the daughter
of his brother Lawrence. This lady, much against the wishes of her
distinguished uncle, became the wife of Major Parks of Baltimore;
and when this gallant officer, fulfilling Washington’s predictions,
had spent all he could lay his hands upon and a great deal more, the
couple, for his sins, were banished to what was then the wilderness
of Western Virginia. Their daughter in course of time married Mr
Prescott, a rich young planter from the east, whose money, laid out
on the Washington acres, produced a flourishing plantation; while on
one of the most romantic sites on the Kanawha arose a noble mansion
known as Prescott Place. Here Mrs Prescott exercised for years a lavish
hospitality; and here were preserved, until fire consumed them and
the mansion together, sundry relics of Washington, chief of which was
a characteristic letter to his niece, written before her marriage,
warning her that as she made her bed, so she should lie upon it.

When young Laura Prescott married gay Dick Randolph, Abe, the son
of Mr Prescott’s body-servant, was one of numerous presents of like
kind. Abe was an excellent carpenter; and when dark days came to the
Prescotts and Randolphs, it was Abe himself who persuaded ‘Marse Dick’
to sell him to a man from the north named Hartley, who from being a
slave-driver had risen to be a slave-owner, and who had the reputation
of being a very demon. Again and again Hartley offered a tempting
price, and again and again Dick Randolph refused it; nor would he have
yielded at last, hard pressed as he was, had he not felt that Abe,
being about to be hired to a builder in the neighbourhood, would be
really out of Hartley’s power. And when, some months after the sale,
Abe walked over to Prescott Place to tell that his new master was going
to allow him to purchase his freedom by working over-hours, Mr Randolph
felt quite at ease about the faithful fellow. A price being set by
Hartley, Abe set himself cheerfully to earn it—for years commencing his
day’s work with the dawn, and carrying it far into the night.

But the general opinion of Hartley had not, it was soon seen, done him
injustice. Twice, thrice, was the price of Abe’s freedom raised just as
he seemed on the eve of gaining it; and after the third disappointment,
the slave became utterly hopeless, and, abandoning all extra labour,
spent his spare hours in the darkest corner of his wretched cabin,
brooding over his wrongs. This was by no means what Hartley intended;
so, to encourage Abe, he was led to promise, in the presence of Mr
Randolph, that he would abide by the sum last named. In law, of course,
the promise was good for nothing; but the _ci-devant_ slave-driver was
supposed to have some regard for public opinion. In vain Mr Randolph
offered a higher price than was demanded for the slave himself. Abe
should buy himself, Hartley said, or he should not be bought at all.

Three years had passed, when Abe, getting a half-holiday from the
builder who hired him, set off for Hartley’s with the stipulated sum.
On his way there he stopped at Prescott Place to tell the good news.
This was just at the beginning of the war; and Mr Randolph, being about
to join the army, had promised to take Abe with him as his servant.

Next morning, while breakfast was being served at Prescott Place, a
loud scuffle was heard at the dining-room door, and Hartley, using his
whip freely on the servant who tried to stop him, strode into the room
livid with passion, and flourishing his whip in Mr Randolph’s face,
yelled, with an oath: ‘Where is that nigger?’

Dick Randolph’s blood was up in a moment, but he was first of all a
gentleman. ‘Do you see my wife?’ he asked sternly.

A coarse response from Hartley was all the reply, and in a moment the
ruffian had measured his length on the floor; nor did he remember more
till he found himself struggling in a pool of not very clean water
by the highway. The negroes had received orders to take him off the
plantation, and the precise spot where they were to deposit him not
having been mentioned, they had selected one in accordance with his
deserts.

Hartley thought it prudent to disappear for a time. Whether he was
simply a coward, or feared that some ugly facts connected with the case
might leak out, was never known. Abe himself was not seen or heard of;
and his story, except by a few, was soon, in these eventful times,
forgotten.

But the facts of the case were these: on the evening referred to, Abe
had found his master pleasant, and even jocular, wishing he had not
given the promise, offering to buy Abe back again, and so on. At last
he turned to business. The money was produced and counted.

‘Well?’ said Hartley, inquiringly.

Abe did not understand. Hartley seemed waiting for something. At last
he spoke plainly. ‘Where is the rest of the money?’

The scoundrel had made up his mind to deny having received the previous
payments, to deny all knowledge even of sums he had meanly borrowed
from his slave, and to hand him back to helpless, hopeless slavery.

That night Abe appeared at the cabin of his wife, a slave on a distant
plantation. There he briefly told the story of his wrongs, adding: ‘I
am going to-night. It may be long before you see me; but if it is fifty
years, I will come back for you, if you are faithful.’

Phyllis promised to be true; and kept her promise as slaves do; that
is, she married—they called it marrying—the first man who asked her.

       *       *       *       *       *

The five years of the war had come and gone, and ten years more. Major
Randolph, past middle age, and utterly ruined, was trying, in a small
Virginian town, to take up the profession of law, which, in happier
days, he had studied, but had not cared to practise; and the widow of
Hartley, who had meantime died bankrupt, was keeping a boarding-house
in the same place; when, on a certain forenoon, there was shown into
the Randolphs’ parlour a tall, portly, middle-aged man, gentlemanly in
appearance, and thoroughly well dressed, but perfectly black. The Irish
maid-of-all-work had forgiven his colour for the sake of his clothes.

Mr Randolph happened to be at home, and it was to him the stranger
eagerly turned. ‘Marse Dick!’ he cried.

‘Abe!’

And Abe it was. And there were tears in at least three pairs of eyes
as the master and slave of former days shook hands.

Well, Abe might have been a long-lost brother, Major Randolph was so
glad to see him. He made him tell his adventures from the time he left
Hartley until he appeared in the Randolphs’ parlour; he showed him his
sons and his daughters, and rattled on about old days. But never a word
did he say about wounds and losses and disappointments; though it could
hardly have escaped Abe’s affectionate eyes that, while his own outer
man bore such marks of prosperity, his old master’s had grown actually
shabby.

By ways and means generally forthcoming to border negroes who had
the courage and prudence to avail themselves of them, Abe had gone
northward first, returning to Virginia, however, the moment the
emancipation proclamation was issued. Hearing of Major Randolph’s
absence and his own wife’s unfaithfulness, he had wandered farther
and farther from his old home, and had settled at last in a far
south-western state. There he had worked steadily; at first on shares,
then for himself; till at the time of his visit to Virginia, he was the
manager and largest shareholder of the celebrated Hot Springs of A——.

Need I say how earnestly ‘Marse Dick’ was besought to try the springs
for his rheumatism, to bring ‘Miss Laura’ and the family, to enjoy
horses and carriages, to fish and hunt, and generally to enter into
possession?

Old Mrs Prescott, who still lived, shared with her son and daughter the
pleasure of Abe’s return, and the young Randolphs listened with delight
to such an interesting romance. And yet—truth compels me to confess
that the eldest daughter gave more than one uneasy glance into the
street, and was literally sitting on thorns. What if a morning caller
should find a negro in the Randolph parlour? Even kind Mrs Randolph
had a feeling of uneasiness as the early dinner-hour approached. But
the master guessed at no such embarrassments. The hour came; the bell
rang, and as easily and cordially Major Randolph said: ‘You will come
to dinner with us, Abe.’

‘After you and the family, Marse Dick.’

‘_With_ me and the family,’ replied Major Randolph.

And though Abe earnestly begged to be allowed to wait, into the
dining-room he went. And I may add, that had the most curious or
mischievous eyes been on the watch for solecisms of any kind, they
would have been disappointed.

‘What would you have had me do?’ said Major Randolph afterwards. ‘There
was Abe, dying to lavish on his old master all he possessed. Was I to
be outdone in hospitality by my own old slave?’

‘And Abe had just as much delicacy as papa,’ owned Miss Randolph, who
felt she could afford to praise when the critical period was safely
over—a merciful providence having kept away visitors. ‘He spoke just as
good English as we do. But did you notice that, though he spoke of Mr
Hartley and Mr everybody else, he always called papa “Marse Dick?”’

Before Abe left town, he had put a little bit of business in Mr
Randolph’s hands—no other than the settlement of a mortgage that
threatened to ruin Mrs Hartley and her children. ‘O Marse Dick!’ he
said, ‘I have been keeping away till I was rich enough to buy that
man up; and then I meant to meet him face to face and ask him what he
thought of himself. I doubt if I could have kept my hands off him; and
now he is gone. I hope the good Lord will forgive me!’

Were I writing a romance, I might tell how Abe made his old master’s
fortune. But I have given you a poor idea of Major Randolph if I
have led you to imagine he would allow himself to profit by his old
servant’s prosperity in the smallest degree. If Abe told him of a good
investment, he had no money. If a loan was modestly and hesitatingly
offered, on the plea that Abe wished to place money at interest, and
that there were so few whom he could trust, it was kindly but decidedly
refused. And so Abe grows richer, and Major Randolph poorer than ever.
The old-time slaves, with many misty ideas on the subject of religion,
had one article of belief which they understood clearly, and for which
they would have suffered martyrdom—namely, that in the next world it
would be their turn to sit at table and eat the good things, while
the proud white folks should ‘grease de griddle and turn de cakes.’
The doctrine is founded on the principle of compensation, but the
compensation in some cases begins here.




ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.


CHAPTER XVI.

‘I have something of serious import to say to you,’ were Mora’s first
words as he went forward a few steps and then halted. ‘Hector Laroche,
do you know that you are in imminent danger of your life?’

He gave a little start and looked at her fixedly for a moment or two.
‘No; I am not aware of anything of the kind,’ he answered with a sneer.
‘Madame, you are oracular!’

‘Oh, hush! This is no time for levity. Will you not believe me when
I tell you that your life is in danger? The assassins have tracked
you—they have followed you here—they have sworn to take your life!’

‘The assassins! What assassins?’ he shrieked as he bounded to his feet.

‘Can you not guess? Think, Laroche, think! Oh, how like you it was to
turn traitor to the cause to which you had bound yourself by oath, and
to betray your comrades! But your treachery has been discovered. The
penalty you cannot be ignorant of.’

He had turned livid with terror while Mora was speaking. A glassy film
had overspread his eyes, which looked dilated to twice their ordinary
size. His gaze wandered from corner to corner of the room with a sort
of stealthy fright, as if dreading that an assassin might spring upon
him at any moment. A cold perspiration bathed him from head to foot;
he trembled in every limb, and would have fallen had he not supported
himself with his back and hands against the bureau.

‘How am I to know that what you have just told me has any truth in
it?’ he asked at length, with a strange hoarseness in his voice.
‘What should you, Mora De Vigne, know of secret societies, plots, and
conspiracies? Who should speak to you of these things, the secrets of
which are known to the initiated alone? No; it is a lie—a lie! Some
wretched fool has imposed upon you, or else you have concocted this
story yourself in order to frighten me away.’

Looking straight at him, Mora said slowly: ‘_The right hand of the Czar
is frozen._’

A low cry burst from the wretched man’s lips; he buried his face in his
hands and fell on his knees; he knew that his doom was sealed.

A pang of compassion shot through Mora’s heart. She made a step or two
forward and then drew back with a shudder. All her womanly instincts
revolted against the man. Not even at that supreme moment could she
bring herself to go near him. ‘You must go away at once—to-night,’ she
said. ‘To-morrow may be too late.’ She found herself repeating the very
words of Jules.

‘Go away—where?’ he asked with a groan, turning his haggard face full
upon her. ‘All places are alike. There is no escape—none!’ He rose to
his feet and staggered across the room to the ottoman, on which he
sank, and buried his face in the cushions.

‘Will you allow me to send for Colonel Woodruffe? He will be able to
counsel you far better than I as to what had best be done for your
safety.’

As Laroche neither assented nor dissented, Nanette was at once
despatched in quest of the colonel, who was still with Sir William. He
followed close on Nanette’s heels. A few words aside from Mora put him
in possession of the facts of the case.

‘Laroche, this is a bad business—a very bad business,’ he said as he
crossed to the ottoman and laid a hand on the Frenchman’s shoulder.
‘But sit up, and let us look the situation in the face. Whining is of
no use—never is. We have to act. While there’s life there’s hope, and
I for one don’t despair of dragging you out of this dilemma, however
awkward it may look just now.’

‘No, monsieur; there is no hope—none,’ cried Laroche. ‘They have
tracked me here—they will track me everywhere, till one day their
opportunity will arrive. I know—I know!’ His nervous agitation was
still so extreme that the words seemed as if they could scarcely form
themselves on his lips.

‘Here—drink this,’ said the colonel, handing him a glass containing
brandy, which Mora had brought at his request.

Laroche swallowed the spirit greedily. It helped to steady his nerves
for the time being, if it did him no other good.

‘What Madame De Vigne says is quite true,’ resumed the colonel. ‘You
must get away from this place without an hour’s delay. I have thought
of a plan which will at least insure your safety for a little while
to come; after that, you will have to shift for yourself. I knew this
part of the country well when a boy. There is a farmhouse kept by an
old acquaintance of mine in a lonely valley about two miles from the
opposite shore of the lake. I will take you there to-night, and you can
stay there till you have decided what your future plans shall be.’

‘O monsieur, you are too good! I have not deserved this,’ cried the
abject wretch.

‘You speak the truth, Laroche; you have not deserved it,’ answered the
other gravely. ‘How soon can you be ready to start?’

‘In ten minutes, monsieur.’

‘Good.’

‘But I shall need money, monsieur.’

‘It shall be found you. Have you any idea as to what your plans will be
after you leave the farmhouse?’

‘I shall endeavour to make my way to London—it is the best hiding-place
in the world for those who know it. There I shall lie quiet for a
little while. After that’—— He ended with an expressive lifting of his
shoulders.

‘If you will get ready, then,’ said the colonel. ‘I too have a few
arrangements to make.’

Laroche nodded; then he went to the door, opened it, and gazed
furtively up and down the corridor. Not a creature was in sight. He
darted away and sped up the thickly carpeted staircase as noiselessly
as a shadow.

The colonel sent Nanette in search of Archie Ridsdale. He came at once,
and as soon as the situation of affairs had been partially explained
to him, he was despatched with a message to the boathouse. Then the
colonel in his turn left the room. He was only absent three or four
minutes, and when he came back he was carrying a small roll of notes in
his hand.

Mora had subsided into an easy-chair from the moment Colonel Woodruffe
had taken charge of the situation, and there she was still sitting. Who
could have analysed her thoughts during the last painful quarter of an
hour, or have adequately described the varied phases of emotion which
ebbed and flowed through her heart!

Immediately following on the return of the colonel, came Archie
Ridsdale. Each of them was muffled in his ulster, for although the
storm had not yet broken over the valley, it might do so at any moment.

A minute later the door opened and Laroche stole in. For a moment
or two none of them recognised him. His black beard and moustache
had vanished; a grizzled wig with long lanky tufts of hair, which
fell on his coat-collar behind, covered his head; his eyebrows had
been manipulated to match the wig; while a pair of heavy horn-rimmed
spectacles served to disguise him still further. There was no longer
the slightest trace of a Parisian dandy in his appearance; his clothes
were homely, and of the fashion of some years previously. He looked
like a small provincial shopkeeper who might have come over to England
for a holiday. But no disguise could hide the pallor of his face, the
nervous twitching of his thin lips, or the abject terror that lurked in
his eyes.

Archie and the colonel stood up. The moment of departure had come.
Laroche turned to his wife, who had also risen. Placing both his hands
over his heart and bending low in front of her, he said in a husky
whisper: ‘Mora, pardon, pardon! We shall never meet again.’

For a moment or two she hesitated; all the woman within her was
profoundly moved; then she went up to him. ‘Hector, with my whole heart
I forgive you!’ she said.

That was their farewell. A moment later Mora heard the door close
behind the three men.

She turned down the lamp and drew back one of the curtains. It was
pitch-dark outside; not a star was visible. She opened the window a
little way, in order that she might watch as well as listen. Presently
she heard a faint noise of footsteps on the gravel below. The three men
had left the hotel by way of the French-window in the sitting-room on
the ground floor.

Mora stood with straining eyes and ears. Suddenly the darkness was
shivered by a quivering flash of lightning, and in that instant she saw
the figures of the three men crossing the slope of the hill on their
way to the lake. At the same time, she imagined she saw the stealthy
form of Santelle disappear behind a clump of laurel, as if he were
watching the retreating figures.—Will he have known Laroche in spite of
his disguise?

The thought sent a cold tremor through her heart—half of horror, half
of regret. But darkness had come again in the twinkling of an eye, and
she saw nothing more. With a heavy sigh, she let the curtain drop into
its place just as the door opened and Clarice entered the room.


CHAPTER XVII.—CONCLUSION.

Three weeks had passed since the flight of Hector Laroche, when
one wet forenoon Colonel Woodruffe, in company with a constable in
plain clothes, found himself at the door of a low lodging-house in
a frowsy-looking street in close proximity to one of the docks.
The landlord of the house admitted the visitors, and ushering them
up-stairs, unlocked the door of a small bedroom. There, on a ragged
straw mattress, lay the dead body of Hector Laroche. A paragraph in the
morning’s paper had aroused the suspicions of Colonel Woodruffe, who
happened to be in London at the time, and he at once ordered a cab and
set his face eastward.

The statement of the landlord of the lodging-house was to the effect
that Laroche had lodged with him for little more than a week at the
time of his death; that he was exceedingly quiet and well behaved; that
he lay in bed nearly the whole day, reading the newspapers and French
novels, and having a bottle of brandy at his elbow; and that he rarely
went out of doors till after nightfall, and then only for a short time.
On the Tuesday, contrary to his custom, he had gone out about noon,
and on returning a little before dusk, had remarked to the landlord
that he should only require his bed for one night more, as he had just
secured a berth on board a steamer which was to sail the following day.
At that time, he appeared to be somewhat the worse for drink. He went
up-stairs soon afterwards, and nothing more was seen or heard of him.
As he was in the habit of not rising till late, no comment was made on
his non-appearance next morning; and it was not till two o’clock in the
afternoon that the landlord knocked at his door. There being no reply
to his summons, he opened the door and went in. There he found Laroche,
lying on his bed as if asleep, and dressed, except for his coat and
waistcoat. But over his face was spread a fine cambric handkerchief,
which medical evidence afterwards proved to have been saturated with
chloroform. On the table by his side were a novel, a half-emptied
bottle of cognac, a phial, uncorked, containing chloroform, and the
dead man’s watch and chain. In one of his pockets was found a purse
containing a considerable sum in notes and gold.

At the inquest, the tendency of the evidence pointed strongly to the
probability of the deceased having committed suicide while under the
temporary influence of strong drink. There was only one piece of
evidence forthcoming which served in some measure to invalidate that
assumption. The landlord of the house deposed to the fact of the lock
of the bedroom door having been secretly tampered with, so that while
the door was to all appearance fastened on the inside, it could be
opened without difficulty from without. As, however, there was no
evidence forthcoming to implicate any one in particular with the act in
question, and as the property of the dead man had apparently not been
touched, the jury had no option but to bring in an open verdict. The
evidence tendered by Colonel Woodruffe was confined entirely to the
question of identity.

Two days later he attended Laroche’s funeral—the solitary ‘mourner’
there. This he did out of respect for Mora.

Whether Laroche’s death was the result of his own rash act, or whether
it was due to certain other agencies of which mention has previously
been made, is one of those mysteries respecting which the world will
probably never be any wiser than it is now.

       *       *       *       *       *

Lady Renshaw was as good as her word when she stated that she had
discarded her niece for ever. But it is possible that she might not
have proved quite so obdurate had she not at the same time found
herself so thoroughly checkmated in other directions. Her surprise at
finding Mr Etheridge transformed into Sir William Ridsdale, and the
knowledge that all her scheming to secure the rich baronet’s son for
Miss Wynter had not only proved futile, but had evidently been seen
through from the first by the keen-eyed Sir William, combined with
her chagrin that Madame De Vigne, instead of being regarded in the
light of an adventuress, was looked upon as a person whose friendship
any one might feel proud to claim, following so close upon Bella’s
‘heartless duplicity,’ proved more than she had the courage to face.
And when, in addition, a horrid suspicion began to shape itself in her
mind that Dr M‘Murdo—no doubt instigated thereto by that odious Miss
Gaisford—instead of having fallen in love with her, as she so fondly
dreamed, had been merely trying to make her look ridiculous, and amuse
himself at the same time—it was no wonder she made up her mind that the
sooner she left the _Palatine_ and its inmates behind her the better.

Thus it fell out next morning that when Bella, intent on forgiveness
and reconciliation, knocked at her aunt’s door, there came no response;
after which a very brief inquiry sufficed to establish the fact that
Lady Renshaw had risen at some abnormally early hour, and, accompanied
by her maid, had started southward by the first train. She had left
behind her no word or message of any kind for the dismayed girl, who
found herself thus cruelly deserted in the huge hotel.

But Miss Pen came to the rescue almost before Bella in her bewilderment
had time fully to realise the fact of her aunt’s desertion. The little
circle of which Miss Pen formed a component part welcomed her as
one of themselves, now that the incubus of Lady Renshaw’s presence
was removed; and Bella quickly found that what she had lost in one
direction was far more than made up to her in others. When, two days
later, the party at the _Palatine_ broke up, Miss Wynter accompanied
the Rev. Septimus and his sister to their home in the Midlands, there
to remain till Mr Dulcimer was prepared to claim her as his wife. And
there, some three months later, a quiet wedding took place, our good
vicar tying the knot, Sir William himself giving away the bride, who
had not failed to become a great favourite with him, Archie acting as
best-man, and Miss Loraine as bridesmaid-in-chief. Miss Pen played a
voluntary on the organ, and there was a mist of tears in her eyes as
she did so. Some vague dream of the past, never to be realised in this
world, may perchance have been busy in her mind at the time.

       *       *       *       *       *

When spring came round again, the worthy vicar was called upon to tie
two more nuptial knots. Mora and her sister were married on the same
day. Archie and his wife went abroad for a year’s travel; and now that
they are back, Clarice, who has far greater faith in her husband’s
abilities than he has himself, has made up her mind that Archie must go
into parliament. She firmly believes that if he will only do so, there
is a brilliant future before him. Time will prove.

Sir William has ventured to spend the last two winters in England, and,
somewhat to his surprise, has found himself none the worse in health
for doing so. He divides his time pretty equally between his son’s
house and that of Colonel Woodruffe. He did not forget our friend Mr
Dulcimer when an opportunity presented itself. Through his influence,
Dick was appointed to the secretaryship of a large public Company, the
salary of which just doubled his previous income. Meanwhile, his wife
had not found existence even in a small suburban villa by any means so
unendurable as she at one time professed to fear it would be. In truth,
her high spirits and good temper are enough to brighten any home. She
has all the appearance of being one of the happiest women in England.

Lastly, what is there left to record of her who has been the central
figure of our little history? Happily, not much. Are not the happiest
lives those of which there is nothing to relate? With Mora the days
of storm and stress are over; the past with all its wretchedness and
misery seems little more than a hideous dream. She is happy in the
present, and, so far as human fallibility can judge, there seems every
prospect of her continuing so in time to come. Dr Mac came all the way
from Aberdeen to attend her marriage. As he shook hands with her after
the ceremony, he said: ‘What a pity, my dear madame, what a great pity
it is that Providence did not bless you with a twin-sister!’

‘Why so, doctor?’

‘Because, in that case, there is just a possibility that another poor
mortal in addition to my friend the colonel might have been made a
happy man to-day.’

    _Note._—All dramatic rights in the foregoing story are reserved
    by the author.




STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE.

HONESTY.


It is to be hoped that the animal scale of morality is not so low that
when a brute acts honestly it does so only because honesty is the best
policy. There are many instances known of animals acting honestly, when
the slightest promptings of instinct would have shown that it was more
politic to act otherwise. Self-denial and self-sacrifice have been
frequently needed of animals, and in the hour of temptation they have
not succumbed. Neither fear, nor pain, nor the cravings of hunger have
sufficed to deter many noble members of the brute world from their
sense of duty. Quite recently the Canadian papers reported an anecdote
of canine fidelity which, had it been told of a Roman soldier or a
Hindu nurse, would have been bruited throughout the civilised world as
an instance of humanity’s supremest devotion to duty. The story as told
to us is, that when nearing Montreal, the engine-driver of a train saw
a great dog standing on the track and barking furiously. The driver
blew his whistle; yet the hound did not budge, but crouching low, was
struck by the locomotive and killed. Some pieces of white muslin on
the engine attracted the driver’s notice; he stopped the train and
went back. Beside the dead dog was a dead child which, it is supposed,
had wandered on to the track and had gone to sleep. The poor watchful
guardian had given its signal for the train to stop; but unheeded, had
died at its post, a victim to duty.

This is no solitary specimen of canine integrity. The author of _Salad
for the Social_ tells of a dog whose master deposited a bag in one
of the narrow streets of Southampton, and left his dog to guard it,
with strict injunctions not to leave it. The faithful creature was so
staunch in the fulfilment of duty, that rather than forsake its trust,
it actually allowed a heavy cart to drive over it and crush it to death.

It is not merely momentary impulse, nor ignorance of the effects of
this steadfastness—as some may imagine—that prompts animals to act thus
faithfully; there are numerous cases on record to prove that they will
sustain hunger, endure pain and fatigue, and withstand temptation, at
the dictates of duty, as gallantly as any human being. Youatt is the
authority for the following remarkable instance of canine integrity.
An officer returning from a day’s shooting deposited his spoil in a
certain room, in the custody of his dogs. Mechanically he locked the
door, put the key in his pocket, and departed. Soon afterwards, he was
called away upon urgent business, and during his absence of several
days, forgot all about his game and the dogs. When he returned home,
he hastened to the room, and there found both dogs dead of hunger. Not
only had they refrained from touching the game, but they had also kept
quiet, having neither barked nor cried, evidently fearing to betray the
trust they deemed their master had confided to them.

It is related by Professor Bell that when a friend of his was
travelling abroad, he one morning took out his purse to see if it
contained sufficient change for a day’s jaunt he proposed making. He
departed from his lodgings, leaving a trusted dog behind. When he
dined, he took out his purse to pay, and found that he had lost a gold
coin from it. On returning home in the evening, his servant informed
him that the dog seemed to be very ill, as they could not induce it to
eat anything. He went at once to look at his favourite; and as soon as
he entered the room, the faithful creature ran to him, deposited the
missing gold coin at his feet, and then devoured the food placed for
it with great eagerness. The truth was that this gentleman had dropped
the coin in the morning; the dog had picked it up, and kept it in its
mouth, fearing even to eat, lest it should lose its master’s property
before an opportunity offered to restore it.

Professor Bell also tells of a Newfoundland dog kept at an inn in
Dorset, which was accustomed, every morning as the clock struck eight,
to take in its mouth a basket placed for the purpose and containing
some pence, and go with it to the baker’s. The man took out the money,
replacing it by a certain number of rolls, which Neptune returned home
with. He never touched the eatables; but on one occasion when another
dog attempted to despoil the basket, master Nep put down his burden
and gave the intruder a thrashing; that accomplished, he regained his
charge, and carried it home in triumph.

In his interesting African Travels, Le Vaillant details how he missed
his favourite setter. After a fruitless search, and the repeated firing
of his gun to guide the animal, he sent an attendant back by the way
they had travelled to try and discover the lost favourite. About two
leagues back on the route the dog was found keeping guard over a chair
and basket which had been dropped unperceived from the wagon. But for
this fortunate discovery of the honest dog, it must speedily have
perished by hunger or from the beasts of prey.

In Taylor’s _General Character of the Dog_ is given an account of
one of these faithful animals which daily carried to a labourer in
Portsmouth dockyard his dinner. Trusty, as the dog was rightly named,
had to take the basket containing his master’s mid-day meal upwards of
a mile, so that he had frequently to rest on the journey. He was very
careful as to where he deposited his load, and would not allow any one
to come near it. When he reached the dock-gates, he often had to wait
until they were opened for the admission or egress of any one; but the
instant he could effect an entrance, he ran in with his charge and
carried it to his master, who, after he had partaken of his dinner,
re-delivered the empty basket to his faithful servitor to carry home
again.

In his _Essay on Instinct_, Hancock tells of a dog belonging to a
Glasgow taproom keeper that was accustomed to carry its master’s
breakfast to him in a tin can between its teeth. When the family
removed, the dog changed his route, and never went wrong. It could
not be induced to accept a favour when on its master’s errands, and
carefully avoided any of its own species. This incorruptible servant,
which by the way understood Gaelic as well as English, often carried
home meat to the weight of half a stone, but never attempted to touch
it. Dogs, indeed, rarely attempt to touch food belonging to their
owners. One very remarkable instance is recorded by Jesse of a dog that
accompanied its mistress when returning from market with a basket of
provisions. They were overwhelmed by a snowstorm, and not discovered
for three days; the woman was found to be dead; but the dog, which was
lying by her side, was alive. The honest creature, however, had not
touched the eatables in his mistress’s basket, but, as neighbouring
villagers remembered when too late, had been endeavouring, on the
evening of the storm, by whinings and sighs they could not comprehend,
to induce them to follow it to where its mistress was.

In his _Anecdotes of Dogs_, Captain Brown speaks of a mastiff that was
locked up by mistake an entire day in a pantry where milk, butter,
and meat were within reach. The hungry dog did not touch any of these
things, although it ate voraciously as soon as food was given to it.

Colonel Hamilton Smith is our authority for the anecdote of a dog that
followed its owner, who was on horseback, and who contrived to drop
some cakes from his basket as he cantered home. On his arrival, he
found that his trusty follower had gathered up some of the lost cakes
and carried them home and had gone for the remainder, which it duly
returned with untasted.

‘Dogs,’ says Colonel Smith, ‘have an instinctive comprehension of the
nature of property;’ and it is really most remarkable, considering that
they have not human speech, how frequently, and how well, they make
us understand their views on this point. The colonel alludes to the
case of a lady at Bath who was somewhat alarmed by the behaviour of a
strange mastiff that seemed anxious to prevent her going on. Finding
she had lost her veil, she turned back, the dog going before her until
she came to the missing article and picked it up. As soon as the dog
saw she had regained her property, it scampered off to its master.

Anecdotes of this character are innumerable, as are also those of
dogs reclaiming property belonging, or which has belonged, to their
owners. Sir Patrick Walker furnishes a most valuable instance of this
propensity in our canine cousins. A farmer having sold a flock of
sheep to a dealer, lent him his dog to drive them home, a distance of
thirty miles, desiring him to give the dog a meal at the journey’s end
and tell it to go home. The drover found the dog so useful, that he
resolved to steal it, and instead of sending it back, locked it up. The
collie grew sulky, and at last effected its escape. Evidently deeming
the drover had no more right to detain the sheep than he had to detain
itself, the honest creature went into the field, collected all the
sheep that had belonged to its master, and, to that person’s intense
astonishment, drove the whole flock home again!

Dogs are not only honest in themselves, but will not permit others to
be dishonest. The late Grantley Berkeley was wont to tell of his two
deerhounds ‘Smoker’ and Smoker’s son ‘Shark,’ a curiously suggestive
instance of parental discipline. The two dogs were left alone in a room
where luncheon was laid out. Smoker’s integrity was invincible; but his
son had not yet learned to resist temptation. Through the window, Mr
Berkeley noticed Shark, anxiously watched by its father, steal a cold
tongue and drag it to the floor. ‘No sooner had he done so,’ says his
master, ‘than the offended sire rushed upon him, rolled over him, beat
him, and took away the tongue;’ after which Smoker retired gravely to
the fireside.

Mr Blaine, among many similar records, tells of a spaniel he had which
protected the dinner-table, during its master’s absence, from the
attempts of a cat which sought to make too intimate an acquaintance
with the leg of mutton. Both the animals belonged to Mr Blaine, and
were on friendly terms with each other; but one was honest, and the
other was not.

Hitherto, specimens of canine integrity have alone been cited; but
it must not be supposed that dogs are the only animals which exhibit
honest traits. Captain Gordon Stables, in his book on _Cats_, proves
by several tales of real life that pussy is often as trustworthy as
any dog. His own cat ‘Muffie’ is allowed her place on the table at
meals, and never attempts to touch the viands, even when left alone,
nor, what is more suggestive, never allows any one else to touch them.
The present writer’s family had a white cat which for nearly twenty
years was trusted with anything, until one luckless day, in its old
age, its appetite overcame its reason; it broke the eighth commandment,
and stole a piece of steak. The distress and shamefacedness of the
poor animal after the crime were quite pathetic; she hid herself in
dark corners; turned her back on observers, and for several days was
so ashamed of herself, that she could not look any one in the face,
although, poor old favourite, not a person reproached her for her first
known offence against the laws of property.




BOOK GOSSIP.


More than two years ago we had the pleasure of noticing, with
favourable comment, a new book, _Bits from Blinkbonny_, by ‘John
Strathesk.’ It was a clever and entertaining book, presenting
successive pictures of Scottish village life drawn with so much truth
and character as at once to stamp them genuine portraitures.

The author, encouraged no doubt by the well-merited success of the
above volume, has issued a second, entitled _More Bits from Blinkbonny_
(Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier). ‘Continuations’ are
proverbially risky, and we fear we cannot congratulate the author on
having escaped the risk unscathed. The title will perhaps help the
book temporarily—from a publisher’s point of view; but it would have
fared better in the long-run had it been issued as an independent
work on village life in Scotland, leaving the former volume to stand
by itself. As it is, however, it is only when compared with its
predecessor that this volume may be said to indicate any falling-off
on the part of the author. It is full of bright and truthful sketches
of the habits of life and modes of thought prevalent in the Scottish
Lowlands, and can scarcely fail to be read with interest by those to
whom such sketches appeal. Here is a story told by a barber regarding
one of his customers. The customer referred to was a man who got his
hair cut only twice a year, and when he came for this purpose it was
always completely matted. The barber recommended him to ‘redd’ (that
is, comb) his hair every day. ‘No very likely,’ was the reply; ‘it’s
only redd every six months, and then it’s like to rive a’ the hair out
o’ my head; if I was reddin’t every day, I wadna hae a hair left at the
month’s end.’

The volume, we may add, is tastefully printed and bound, while the
pictorial illustrations give force to its local characterisations.

⁂

In _Photography for Amateurs_ (London: Cassell & Co.), Mr T. C.
Hepworth, lecturer to the late Polytechnic Institution, gives excellent
hints and instructions for beginners in this art. For those who
have taken up photography as a pleasant occupation of their leisure
hours, this book can be especially recommended. Most travellers in
Central Africa, or in any little known part of our world, now find
the photographic camera a necessary adjunct of their equipment, as,
by its aid, rapid and correct pictures can be made of striking and
picturesque scenes. This is equally true of a pedestrian at home, and
Mr Hepworth looks back with delight to a walking tour in the Highlands,
when he found so many lovely little nooks in the Trosachs and elsewhere
admirably suited to his art. The effective delineation of objects by
photography demands both care and experience; but there are now many
amateurs of both sexes who can turn out very satisfactory pictures.
Landscape photography is one thing, and portraiture is another and
more difficult undertaking, for the inexperienced; but with the help
of such a manual as this, which describes the necessary apparatus,
negative-printing, fixing and washing the prints, &c., the way must be
greatly smoothed for beginners in the art. The Introduction presents a
concise history of the art up to the time when the use of gelatine dry
plates made the practice of photography more convenient and possible
for amateurs.

⁂

Lately we noticed in these pages the publication of a volume of
music entitled _The Athole Collection of Dance Music of Scotland_,
edited by Mr James Stewart Robertson (Edradynate). To this we have
now to add by the same publishers, _The Killin Collection of Gaelic
Songs_, with music and translations, by Mr Charles Stewart (Edinburgh,
Maclachlan and Stewart). In selecting and arranging the melodies in
this collection, the editor has borne in mind (1) Those that have
already established themselves as favourites; (2) Those that have not
been published until now, but which, in his opinion, are deserving of
publication; (3) Some ancient chants to which the Fingalic poetry was
sung; and (4) A few hymn tunes—one of them old, and the others on the
lines of old Gaelic melody, in the hope of showing how admirably that
melody is fitted for sacred song. Mr Stewart has been assisted by Mr
Merryleas in arranging the harmonies and accompaniments; and in the
supplying of English words for the Gaelic originals he has had the
efficient help of such well-known pens as those of Principal Shairp,
Professor Blackie, Dr Norman Macleod, and others. This collection of
Gaelic music ought to have a hearty reception, not only from those who
are familiar with Celtic surroundings, but also from students of music
generally, as an important contribution to the history and archæology
of the art.

⁂

The International Forestry Exhibition of 1884 gave a new impetus to
the study of forestry. The importance of that science is now coming
to be generally recognised, and private individuals, as well as those
mysterious beings ‘the authorities,’ are bestowing some attention upon
the practical application of its principles. Dr J. C. Brown has, more
than any other living writer, identified himself with this important
subject, and it is worthy of notice that all the works which have been
produced by his prolific pen during the last few years are remarkable
for their wide learning, profound and practical acquaintance with the
science as practised all over the world, and happy style of expression.
His _Introduction to the Study of Modern Forest Economy_ (Edinburgh:
Oliver & Boyd) is no exception to this rule. Within very moderate
limits, he has contrived to convey much information relative to the
present state of forest-science.

The facts relating to the time when the greater part of Europe was
covered with forests are of great interest, and also the account
here given of the consequences of their disappearance. And it may be
observed that in addition to such generally admitted evils as the
scarcity of timber and droughts—as to the latter of which Dr Brown
gives us many graphic illustrations, collected during his residence
at the Cape of Good Hope—it is alleged that many of those devastating
inundations which occur with such alarming frequency in some countries
are due to this cause. It is certainly worthy of notice that floods
seldom originate in densely wooded lands, and have been largely
prevented in France by artificial _reboisement_; while in Northern
Germany, the same process has been very successfully followed in fixing
down and utilising drift-sand.

⁂

To judge by the examples of stuffed pets which are to be seen in
many private houses, there certainly seems to be room for a handbook
on the art of stuffing fish, flesh, and fowl. This has at anyrate
been supplied in _Practical Taxidermy_, by Montague Brown, F.Z.S.
(London: L. Upcott Gill). As a ‘manual of instruction to the amateur in
collecting, preserving, and setting up natural history specimens of all
kinds,’ the volume leaves little to be desired. Not only has Mr Brown
betrayed many of the secrets with which professional taxidermists have
sought to surround their art, but he has particularised with minuteness
and patience the whole _technique_ of skinning and preserving birds,
mammals, fishes, and reptiles. Moreover, his book justifies its title,
for it is above all things practical. Besides being a guide to the
taxidermist’s art, the book gives a chapter on ‘dressing and softening
skins and furs as leather.’

⁂

The study of the diseases of plants offers a very wide field to the
inquirer, and it is only of recent years that investigations in this
direction have come to be regarded as of economic importance. In spite
of the strong prejudices of agriculturists of the old school, it is
believed that vegetable pathology will prove to be of the greatest
practical value, and that the time is approaching when the best means
of preventing the attacks of disease will be a recognised branch of
practical agriculture. This eventuality is certainly indicated by the
appearance of _Diseases of Field and Garden Crops, chiefly such as are
caused by Fungi_, by Worthington G. Smith (London: Macmillan & Co.).
Originally delivered as addresses at the request of the officers of the
Institute of Agriculture at the British Museum, South Kensington, these
notes are very full and elaborate, while the admirable illustrations
with which they are accompanied give them an additional value. Although
necessarily technical, the definition of all the phenomena of the
diseases has been given in familiar words, and all botanical terms
have been explained. To illustrate the thoroughness with which the
work has been done, having regard to the limits of the volume, we find
under ‘Potatoes’ the new disease (_Peziza postuma_) which has made its
appearance within the last few years, the dreaded disease produced by
the parasitic fungus of the murrain, the smut, scab, and the old potato
disease in its active and passive state. Then mildew and blight are
treated of as affecting respectively onions, straw, turnips, cabbages,
grass, corn, borage, barberries, parsnips, peas, and lettuces. There
are also valuable notes upon the new diseases which are making such
havoc with grass, wheat, barley, ryegrass, and onions; and their
fungoid character is conclusively established. The book, like those on
cognate subjects by Miss Ormerod, which have been already noticed in
these pages, will amply repay careful study.




THE MONTH:

SCIENCE AND ARTS.


The Society of Arts, London, has just commenced the one hundred and
thirty-first session of its useful career. Professor Abel, the chairman
of its Council, presided at the opening meeting, and his speech was a
resumé of the progress of scientific research in various directions,
in which a large number of persons are just now much interested. Being
an electrician, he naturally devoted some time to the progress of
electrical illumination, and pointed to the wonderful display at the
recent International Health Exhibition as an illustration of the grand
results now possible. He also expressed himself satisfied with the
recent advances made in the direction of electric railways and other
means of locomotion to which the comparatively new power has been
experimentally applied, not omitting a very favourable reference to the
telpherage system of Professor Fleeming Jenkin.

The present position of the science of aërial navigation does not
commend itself to Professor Abel as holding out much hope of future
success. The recent experiments in France, during which an electrically
propelled balloon was made to take more than one short excursion in
a predetermined direction, merely prove that electricity can, under
exceptionally favourable circumstances, be employed in this new
service. But much has been done in making balloons serviceable for
purposes of reconnaissance in warfare, the various details, such as
making and transporting hydrogen gas in a compressed state to the field
of action, having been successfully provided for.

Attention was also called in Professor Abel’s address to compressed
carbonic acid gas as a convenient source of power. Messrs Krupp, the
great cannon-founders, at their extensive works at Essen are using
this power for maintaining steel castings under pressure during the
solidification of the metal. The earthen mould is closed directly it
is filled with metal, after which the compressed gas is admitted to it
from a reservoir of liquid carbonic acid, and in this way the space
above the molten metal is filled with gas under very high pressure.
A tendency to the formation of flaws and cavities, which nearly all
metals are subject to—meaning, in the case of railway plant, broken
bridges and fractured crank axles—is in this way completely avoided. It
is believed that the employment of this gas under pressure—compressed,
that is, to the liquid state and stored in iron bottles—has a very wide
future before it in many other useful applications.

Lastly, the important question of a pure water-supply engaged the
professor’s attention, and his opinion on this point will be best given
in his own words. ‘I venture,’ he says, ‘to think that our hope for
a radical improvement in the water-supply of this great metropolis
lies rather in the application of a simple, expeditious, cheap, and
effective mode of chemical treatment to supplies from sources now in
use, previous to their filtration, than in a complete change of our
source of supply.’ It now, therefore, remains for future experimenters
to devise some means by which water can be freed from those germs
which, under various names, are now said to be responsible for the ills
of mankind, and at the same time be left uncontaminated by any foreign
matter. The problem seems to be a hard one to solve, but not harder
than many which have been successfully conquered by modern science.

Whilst our never-ending difficulties in the Soudan and South Africa
are giving us costly information regarding those parts of the huge
continent, Mr Joseph Thomson comes back from his hazardous journey in
Eastern Africa to tell us about a tract of country with regard to which
hardly anything before was known. If we refer to a map of Africa, we
shall be readily able to note the position of Lake Victoria Nyanza,
with which Mr H. M. Stanley’s name is identified. Between this lake
and the coast lies the theatre of Mr Thomson’s wanderings. With an
inadequate number of followers, the great majority of whom he describes
as the very offscourings of Zanzibar villainy, this intrepid explorer
prosecuted his work in the face of almost inconceivable perils. His
contributions to geographical knowledge are of great importance, and
his sole reward is the hearty reception accorded to him the other
evening, when he gave a graphic account of his adventures to the Royal
Geographical Society.

At the recent Exhibition at Philadelphia, attention was directed in
a rather comical but effective manner to the Edison electric lamp.
A powerful lamp of this description was fastened to the head of a
black man, concealed wires being carried down his body from it and
connected with copper discs on the heels of his boots. This coloured
gentleman—the term ‘darkie’ is here obviously inadmissible—could become
luminous at will by simply placing his heels upon certain copper
conductors laid along the floor, which were in circuit with the general
system for lighting the building.

A still more startling novelty in electric illumination was organised
in New York a few weeks ago, an illustration of which is given in
the _Scientific American_, published in that city. This consisted of
an electric torchlight procession, which traversed several of the
streets; and its object was, we presume, to advertise the Edison system
of electric illumination. The procession may be best described as a
hollow square formed by about three hundred men, each wearing a helmet,
surmounted by a powerful electric lamp, and each holding the protected
rope which carried the current from one to the other. In the centre of
the square travelled a steam-engine and dynamo-machine—on trucks drawn
by horses—followed by coal and water carts to supply the engine with
its necessary food. Both horses and trucks were decorated with lamps,
and the leader of the brilliant throng carried a staff tipped with
radiance of two hundred candle-power.

Our readers will learn with interest that Mr Clement Wragge, the
pioneer of the meteorological station on the summit of Ben Nevis, is
initiating a work of similar character in Australia. He has placed
self-registering instruments on the top of Mount Lofty in connection
with the Observatory at Sydney, and has appealed to the public to help
in promoting scientific research by leaving them untouched.

An explosion last July at a gunpowder factory in Lancashire, by which
four men lost their lives, was caused by lightning. This disaster
once more calls attention to the grave necessity which exists for
buildings, and such buildings especially, to be protected by efficient
lightning-conductors. From Colonel Ford’s Report upon the matter, which
as Inspector of Explosives he has just presented to the Secretary of
State, it appears that a conductor was fitted to the doomed building,
but that it was a defective one. He states that there is no authentic
case on record where a properly constructed lightning-conductor
failed to do its duty; and recommends that these safeguards should be
periodically examined and tested.

From time to time, we have given in these pages the results of
different experiments with the new method of preserving fodder, known
as ensilage, and have expressed the hope that our farmers may find
in it some compensation for recent bad times. We now learn from the
agricultural returns for 1884 how widespread have been the experiments
in this direction. These returns state that no fewer than six hundred
and ten silos have been built in this country, of which five hundred
and fourteen are to be found in England, sixty in Scotland, and
thirty-six in Wales. Of the English counties, Norfolk heads the list
with fifty-nine silos. In Scotland, Argyll has twelve, and is followed
by Lanark and Renfrew, which counties have each half that number. The
largest silo noted in the returns is in the county of Argyll. We may
gather from these figures that the principle of ensilage as adapted to
British farming has now entirely passed the experimental stage. (This
important subject is further noticed in one of our Occasional Notes.
See p. 829.)

The novel proposal has lately been made by Mr W. O. Chambers, the
Secretary of the National Fish-culture Association, that fishponds
should be established on lands which are unavailable for ordinary
crops, and that unprofitable agri-culture should give place to
profitable aqua-culture. The fish which it is said can be made to
accomplish this desirable result is the carp, and the German carp in
particular. According to Mr Chambers, this fish attains in three years
a weight of four pounds, and its fecundity is so great that it will
yield an average of half a million eggs. He states that one acre of
water will produce, with little or no expense for food or maintenance,
five thousand fish per annum. In a word, we are recommended to do as
did the monks of old when monastic buildings were dotted over the
land. The remains of fish stews or ponds left to us by the monks can
be pointed to in plenty, and the question arises, if fresh-water
fish-culture is really so profitable, why were these ponds suffered to
fall into disuse? Another consideration arises as to whether, supposing
the scheme to be possible, modern taste, not compelled to eat fish on
certain days, would find the fresh-water variety palatable?

The British Rainfall Association is one of those unobtrusive societies
which is doing quietly a work of great good. Begun some years back
by Mr Symons, who set up a rain-gauge in his garden in London, and
put himself in communication with a few friends in other parts of the
country who did the same, the Association now numbers two thousand
observers, spread over the United Kingdom. Mr Symons has lately
published a curious diagram showing approximately the amount of rain
which has fallen each year in Britain for two centuries. Of course
such a record cannot pretend to be infallible, especially in the case
of the earlier period which it covers, but it opens out more than one
extremely interesting subject for inquiry.

The year 1884, with its genial spring, its splendid summer, and its
gorgeous autumn, has been one in which the rainfall has been somewhat
below the average; and in some districts there have been positive
symptoms of a water-famine. But if we look back to the last century,
we find a period of drought between the years 1738 and 1750, which,
if it recurred in the present day would, in Mr Symons’s opinion, dry
up the water-supply of nearly every town in the kingdom. Another
curious observation is this: an unusually wet year seems to occur at
intervals of ten years, the years ending with the figure four being the
favoured ones. Thus, 1854, ’64, ’74, and so on, were wet years. But at
the same time another twelve-year cycle of dry years also occurs—the
years 1824, ’36, ’48, and so on, having been particularly limited in
their rainfall. In this year of grace 1884, the two cycles terminate
together, as they must do every now and then. So we have a year of
doubt, and know not until its close which influence has proved the
stronger.

Notwithstanding the rapid advance that has been made during the past
few years in the beautiful art of photography, and the various new
applications of it in different arts and sciences, in one particular
it has stood still. A negative picture upon glass can, as every one
knows, be produced in a fraction of a second. But the after-process
of producing so-called positive prints on paper from that negative is
a tedious business, depending in great measure upon the brilliancy
of the weather. Messrs Marion of London have endeavoured to obviate
these inconveniences by the manufacture of a special kind of paper,
the nature of which they at present keep secret, and which they now
offer to the photographic world. By this paper a negative can be made
to yield a positive image in a few seconds, quite independently of
daylight, for a gas jet or paraffin lamp is sufficient to affect its
extreme sensitiveness. This invention will enable a photographer to
send his patron a dozen or more copies of a portrait that has been
taken the same day.

The Bread Reform League is a useful society which has been formed to
counteract the modern tendency to make what is properly called ‘the
staff of life’ in such a way that many of its most useful ingredients
are discarded. This society has, under the organisation of its
energetic honorary secretary, Miss Yates, opened an Exhibition in
London, where different samples of bread stuffs, treated in various
ways, are shown. The profits of this Exhibition are to go to a ‘Penny
Dinner and Breakfast Fund’ for the benefit of needy children attending
the Board Schools. Hitherto, only food for the mind has been provided
at these establishments, and the fact has recently leaked out that
forty per cent. of the children arrive at some of them without any
breakfast, and that at other schools twenty-eight per cent. often are
dinnerless. It is a terribly sad story, and one very difficult to
reconcile with the oft repeated boast that London is the richest city
in the world.

The _Graphic_ makes a very sensible suggestion with reference to
those gloomy places called railway waiting-rooms. In similar places in
France, the walls are often adorned with well-executed maps in relief,
showing the country through which the line passes. Why should not this
system be adopted in Britain? Constant travellers know to their cost
that there are many railway stations in the kingdom where waiting-rooms
are only too necessary. The cry of ‘All change here!’ often means that
all will be compelled to wait here for an indefinite period. Now,
if waiting-rooms were furnished with maps and framed notices giving
some account of the history of the surrounding neighbourhood, its
antiquities, natural beauties, &c., the dreary time might in many cases
be turned into a pleasant visit, and would most infallibly do good as
an advertisement to the railway itself.

At a recent sale of art treasures at Cologne, there were put up to
auction two curiosities which had been bought by their late possessor
at some obscure town in Switzerland twenty-four years ago for the sum
of twenty-three francs. One was a fifteenth-century cup of Venetian
glass, and the other was a bundle of tapestry. At the last sale,
these articles formed two distinct lots, and they realised more than
thirty-six thousand francs—that is, fifteen hundred pounds sterling.

The question of ‘musical pitch’ has for many years troubled musicians,
each country adopting a note giving a different number of vibrations
per second as its standard. In Britain, we have the Philharmonic
pitch, and when any one talks of having his piano tuned up to concert
pitch, the Philharmonic standard is the one indicated. For some
reason, the modern pitch is made higher than that recognised in past
days, and consequently the compositions of some of the best composers
are now heard in a key higher than that intended by their authors.
We understand that a conference upon the subject is shortly to be
organised. In the meantime, the Italian War Minister has sought the
opinions of living composers with reference to the best pitch for
military bands. We need only refer to the reply of one of these, Verdi,
whose name is as familiar in Britain as in the country of his birth.
He writes in reference to the modern high pitch: ‘The lowering of
the diapason will by no means impair the sonorousness and brilliancy
of execution; it will, on the contrary, give something noble, full,
majestic to the tone, which the strident effects of the higher pitch do
not possess.’ He goes on to say that one pitch should be common to all
nations. ‘The musical language is universal; why, therefore, should the
note which is called A in Paris or Milan become B♭ in Rome?’

A German paper gives some interesting statistics relative to ear
disease, which have been collected from different aural surgeons.
From these, we gather that males are more subject to ear disease than
females. Out of every three middle-aged persons, there is found one who
does not hear so well with one ear as with the other. The liability
to disease increases from birth to the age of forty, after which it
decreases as old age is reached. Of six thousand children examined,
twenty-three per cent. show symptoms of ear disease, and thirty-two
per cent. a deficiency of hearing power. With regard to the results
of surgical treatment, we learn that of the total number of cases of
all kinds, fifty-three per cent. are cured, and thirty per cent. are
benefited. We fancy that these figures are rather more favourable than
surgeons in this country can show, it being well known that aural cases
are among the most uncertain and unsatisfactory to deal with.

The steamship _Ionic_, which lately left this country for New Zealand,
took out with her a large number of passengers of a description not
usually met with on shipboard. They consisted of one hundred and
fifty-eight stoats and weasels, whose mission in New Zealand will be to
prey upon the rabbits which are fast overrunning that country. This is
the third consignment which has left our shores. The little animals are
accommodated in zinc-lined boxes, and during the forty days’ journey
are calculated to require for their food more than two thousand live
pigeons, which accompany them. The poor pigeons also require food, and
therefore sixteen quarters of Indian corn were taken out for their
consumption. Altogether, the expense to the colonial government must be
something considerable, but will not be grudged if the required result
is achieved.




STOCK EXCHANGE MORALITY.


Perhaps there are few institutions possessing attributes more
diametrically opposed to one another than the Stock Exchange.
Undoubtedly useful in its way, it nevertheless abounds in gross abuse.
It is a necessity to the _bonâ fide_ investor, as indicating the
locality where he can on the instant purchase or find a market for
almost any stock in the world; yet it becomes a very hotbed of vice
in the hands of the professional speculator. We apply this term to
the man who fraudulently buys without the intention of paying, and
worse still, sells what he does not possess. The method of so doing
was fully explained in an article on ‘Corners’ in No. 19 of this
_Journal_. Take a quite recent illustration of the two evils. Only a
short time ago, a letter purporting to come from Mr Gladstone’s private
secretary, addressed to the Secretary of the Exchange, was received
by him, and posted up in the House. It stated that certain unexpected
interests would be paid to the Peruvian bondholders. The price went
up over thirty per cent. in a few moments, so that any one having
bought ten thousand pounds-worth the day before, could have then sold
them for nearly fourteen thousand pounds. It is more than probable
that the writer of the forged letter had previously purchased without
any intention of paying or ‘taking them off,’ and on the imposition
taking effect, at once sold out not only those he possessed, but also
more that he did not possess. Within half an hour, the forgery was
discovered, when the price immediately fell the thirty per cent. it
had just risen. Thus this impudent adventurer would not only secure an
enormous profit by the rise, but by buying back on the fall the extra
quantity he had sold on the rise, reap an additional profit.

Now, it is this class of gambling, particularly the selling of what
one does not possess, for the purpose of depressing the value of a
certain stock to the prejudice of real holders, that constitutes the
most unwholesome element of our Stock Exchange. Every conceivable
artifice, the most consummate cunning, the most unblushing lies, are
employed to depreciate a security which has either risen to a high
figure on its merits, or else been puffed up artificially beforehand.
Syndicates, as they are called—combinations of unprincipled men
usually—are formed for the purpose, and there are indeed very few
stocks existing at the present day that are not honoured by their
especial syndicate. On any unfavourable rumour, more often concocted
than otherwise, these eagle-eyed monsters swoop down upon their
unsuspecting and inoffensive prey, attacking with the ferociousness of
a bear, until, in sheer desperation, one victim after another succumbs,
and sells out to the ‘bear’ at an enormous sacrifice, in order to save
the remnant of his dwindled inheritance. If, as they were uttered in
it, the falsehoods of a single day could but glue themselves to and
stick on the walls of that building, it would be a feat impossible of
achievement for a fly to crawl unscathed between them! Monte Carlo is
bad; but an institution where more fortunes are dishonestly lost and
won in a day than at that notorious gambling-place in a week, must be
at least no better, if not infinitely worse.

That there are men of integrity on ’Change, men of known principle,
gentlemen in every sense of the word, admits of no doubt; and it is
they who would first appreciate any effort, legislative or otherwise,
for the suppression of the practices alluded to here. An act called
‘Leeman’s Act’ was passed some years ago for the special protection
of shareholders in banking establishments, which made it illegal to
sell shares of any bank without first proving yourself to be a _bonâ
fide_ holder of its shares, giving their respective numbers, &c. The
same protection should be afforded to every shareholder, no matter of
what stock; and the time has now arrived for the legislature to take
the matter seriously in hand. The blessings conferred thereby would be
inestimable.




OCCASIONAL NOTES.


MECHANICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LIGHTNING STROKES.

At the first monthly meeting for the session of the Royal
Meteorological Society, a paper was read by Colonel the Honourable
Arthur Parnell on ‘The Mechanical Characteristics of Lightning
Strokes.’ The main objects of this paper were—first, to attempt to
show that lightning is not a sort of electric fluid that descends
from the clouds, injures buildings and persons in its course, and
dissipates itself in the earth; but that it is a luminous manifestation
of the explosion, caused by two equal forces springing towards each
other simultaneously from the earth and the under surface of the
inducing cloud, and coalescing or flying out nearly midway between the
two plates of the electrical condenser formed by the earth and the
cloud; secondly, to demonstrate that of these two forces, it is the
earth-spring or upward force alone that injures buildings, persons, or
other objects on the earth’s surface, and that constitutes tangibly
what is rightly known as a lightning stroke. The author gave the
details of two hundred and seventy-eight instances, the records of
which were intended to demonstrate with more or less precision the
existence of an upward direction in the force of the stroke. The theory
of the descent of the electric fluid was suggested a few years ago by
M. Colladon, a French Professor, and a notice of it will be found in
_Chambers’s Journal_ for October 16, 1880.


PERSONS KILLED BY WILD ANIMALS IN INDIA.

A return published in the governmental _Gazette_ shows that the number
of persons killed by wild animals and snakes in 1883 was 22,905, as
against 22,125 in the previous year. Of these, 20,067 deaths were due
to snake-bites, 985 to tigers, and 504 to other carnivora. The loss
of cattle from the same cause amounted to 47,478 animals, being an
increase of 771 on the figures for the previous year. It is somewhat
remarkable that while the great majority of human deaths is set down
to snakes, only 1644 cattle are said to have perished from that
cause. Nearly three-fourths of the deaths occurred in Bengal and the
North-west Provinces. The number of dangerous animals killed during
the year was 19,890, and more than fifteen thousand pounds was paid in
rewards. In regard to the fearful mortality from snake-bites, it might
be suggested that the government should increase the rewards paid for
bringing in the dead bodies of these reptiles, or otherwise take more
active measures for their destruction.


ENSILAGE.

Mr Edward S. Blunt, Blaby Hill, Leicester, writing to the newspapers on
the subject of Ensilage, says that he has recently opened two of his
silos, and both have proved very satisfactory. He adds:

‘Two years since I tried pits sunk in the ground without any building;
last year I tried bricks cemented on the inside; this year I have tried
wood, and am so pleased with the result that I certainly shall stick
to it for the future. Notwithstanding its perishable nature, I believe
it will compare most favourably as regards expense with anything else.
I have used one-inch red deal boards, grooved and tongued, and these I
find quite sufficient to resist what little lateral pressure there is.
I have built my silos, four in number, partly in the ground and partly
out. This may be considered merely as a matter of convenience, as I
find the ensilage just as good in one part as in the other. I construct
them in such a manner that they are easily put up and taken down again;
thus at a very trifling cost they can be removed from one place to
another. My first silo, a round one, only six feet in diameter, was
filled in May with rough grass cut from the hedge-sides and from under
some trees; neither cattle nor horses would eat this before it went
into the silo, but both will eat it readily enough now that it is made
into ensilage. My second silo, only eight feet in diameter, was first
filled with pea-straw after the main crop had been gathered for market,
and then refilled with the second cutting of clover; this is all very
good quite up to the boards at the sides.

‘I am weighting my silos this year with a press I have invented and
patented. I obtain my weight by means of levers: two levers, each
twenty feet long, with four hundredweight at the end, will give eight
tons weight upon the silo, and being thoroughly continuous in its
action, I am able to dispense with the labour and cost of moving so
large a quantity of dead-weight.’ There is to be a model of the silo
and press exhibited at the Smithfield Show, Islington.

Mr Blunt further explains his method of filling the silo. He says:
‘In nearly every instance I placed the grass or clover in the silo the
day after it was cut, and as it was put in, it was well trampled. In
three or four days the silage sank from twelve feet to eight, and as it
sank I put in more. In about ten days from the time when the silo was
first filled I put on the weight. The silage at this time had attained
a temperature of from one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty
degrees. After the weight was applied, the temperature never rose any
higher; but, at the end of a fortnight, had fallen to one hundred and
thirty degrees, and then continued to fall. When the silage had sunk
sufficiently low in the silo, I took off the weights and boards and
filled up to the top again; this I repeated three or four times.’


A HANDY GAS COOKING-STOVE.

To his already extensive list of gas cooking apparatus, Mr Fletcher,
Warrington, has just added what he calls his ‘Large Cottage Cooker,’
which is simply a Gas cooking-stove in the cheapest and simplest
form to be effective. For two pounds may be had a good roasting, and
a fairly good pastry and bread oven, with a reversible boiler and
grillers on the top. The body of the stove is made of galvanised iron,
and the shelves are wrought iron. The height of the whole is thirty
inches; space inside the oven twelve by twelve by sixteen inches.

When we consider their convenience to housekeepers and the time which
they save, we do not wonder that the use of such stoves is rapidly
extending. The equable nature of the heat insures good cookery; a
pot or kettle may be boiled on the burner in a few minutes, and the
housewife may be kept quite easy as to the state of her kitchen fire
for cooking purposes. In fact, in summer the kitchen fire may be
dispensed with altogether. There is no smoke or ashes; pans and kettles
are easier kept clean, and all this is done at but a trifling expense
for gas—say one penny per hour for a medium stove. A potato steamer
will be found a useful adjunct to the stove. By its aid, the potatoes,
after being boiled, are finished off with steam in the upper part of
the same vessel; and will be found drier and mealier than if cooked in
an ordinary pot in the old way.


RAILWAY PASSENGERS.

A curious return has just been issued, showing the number of railway
passengers who have travelled on all the railways in the United Kingdom
during the half-year ending 30th June last, by which it will be seen
that railway shareholders continue to be mainly indebted for their
dividends to third-class traffic. During the above period the number
of passengers who travelled were as follows, omitting fractions: First
class, sixteen million one hundred thousand; second class, twenty-five
million eight hundred thousand; third class, two hundred and forty-one
million seven hundred thousand—the number of third-class passengers
being more than five hundred per cent. in excess of first and second
class combined; and the relative amount of receipts is in equal
proportion. This remarkable difference applies to all the lines in
common, the third-class passengers being in excess all throughout the
kingdom. But the North London line is especially striking in regard
to receipts, inasmuch as the receipts from the third-class passengers
amounted to about eight hundred per cent. more than from the first
and second combined! Within the same period, the Metropolitan and
District Railways, and the North London Railway, carried over fifty
million passengers; to which enormous return must be added, as showing
the prodigious traffic within the area of the metropolis, that of
the Great Eastern; London, Chatham, and Dover; London and Brighton;
South-western; and South-eastern—a large portion of whose traffic is
purely metropolitan.


THE NEW ALBO-CARBON LIGHT.

An experiment has been tried on a grand scale with this new and
beautiful light, which as an illuminating medium will most certainly
take a front place, whether the question is gas or electricity. The
immense church belonging to the Oratory of St Philip Neri at Brompton
has lately been illuminated by the employment of eight twelve-light,
two six-light, and two four-light clusters constructed on this
principle; and these have been found so effective, that the interior
of this vast and very lofty building is filled with a brilliant, yet
soft and subdued, light, which covers the area of the great church.
The authorities of the Oratory have expressed their satisfaction at
the favourable results of the experiment; and the capability of the
Albo-carbon Light has been demonstrated as to bringing out clearly
the architectural features of our churches, which, as a general rule,
are not celebrated for the excellence of their various systems of
gas-lighting. Therefore, any clear and brilliant light which will
do this, and at the same time not add too much to the heat of the
interior, should be hailed as an inestimable boon, and be one of the
chief recommendations of this new and beautiful system.


THE LAST OF OLD SION COLLEGE.

One by one the old City landmarks are disappearing before the ruthless
hand of the modern speculative builder. Many of the City churches
have already been taken down and their sites covered with shops or
warehouses; Charter House and St Paul’s School are both going; and
Sion College is gone—to be opened in a new building on the Thames
Embankment, into which the ancient stone front is to be transferred
from London Wall. The College, of which all the City vicars and rectors
are Fellows, was originally incorporated in 1630, but burnt down in the
great fire of London, to be rebuilt shortly afterwards. The site is let
for building, but the ancient wooden fittings of the Hall and Library
have been sold. The fine library of books will be removed to the new
building when complete.


IRISH FEMALE EMIGRATION.

Mr Vere Foster, of Belfast, has issued another appeal on behalf of
his Irish Female Emigration Fund, which has already been the means of
granting assisted passages to twenty thousand two hundred and fifty
girls from the west of Ireland to the United States and colonies, at
an expenditure of about thirty thousand pounds. This scheme has the
support—as it should have—of the clergy of all denominations, and there
is little doubt that if carefully gone about, it will prove a benefit
both to Ireland and the colonies. Mr Foster, who has exhausted what he
can spare of his own means and the funds placed at his disposal, has
also given assistance by loan to four hundred girls, who have promised
to repay him. We trust they may do so, as the good fortune of four
hundred more hangs on this contingency.

The purpose of the fund is the relief of present poverty in the densely
peopled districts of the west of Ireland, by assisting the emigration
of young women of good character of the farm and domestic-servant
class. To such it gives a chance of well-doing impossible at home,
where, if they marry and rear families, there is but a prospect of
poverty for themselves and all concerned. The scheme is a resumption of
that adopted with gratifying results immediately after the great famine
of 1846-7.

The plan which Mr Foster has had in operation for helping these young
women for the past five years is a very simple one. Blank forms of
application are issued to inquirers, when, if returned and approved of,
vouchers to a certain value are issued in their favour. These vouchers
are available within three months of issue for embarkation from
Liverpool or from any port in Ireland where the necessary arrangements
have been made. The promoter of this scheme does not approve of
shipping young girls in large companies, but leaves them the utmost
freedom in their choice of ship and port and time of embarkation. This
enables them to take a passage when perhaps they can have the company
of friends and neighbours. The young women thus assisted were between
eighteen and thirty years of age; and it is satisfactory to know that
most of them are going on well, and that many of them have sent home
money to their friends more than once.

One of the most satisfactory forms of good doing is to help people to
help themselves. This is the object of the Irish Female Emigration Fund.


EXPLORATION IN THE CHILIAN ARGENTINE ANDES.

It would appear, from the proceedings of the Berlin Academy of
Sciences, that Dr Güssfeldt’s explorations in the central Chilian
Argentine Andes extended from November 1882 to March 1883, in the wild
and lofty mountain region containing Aconcagua, the most elevated
known point of the American continent, which lies between thirty-two
and thirty-five degrees south latitude, and is bounded on the east by
the Argentine Pampas, and on the west by the Pacific. Much of this
journey being through new country, Dr Güssfeldt daily observed the
great orographical and landscape features, the glacial conditions
above the snow, the character of the vegetation, and the phenomena
of rock-weathering. He also undertook the special duty of fixing
positions astronomically and taking altitudes; for which purpose he
was provided with nineteen instruments. The central Chilian Argentine
Andes are sketched by the traveller as two parallel chains, having on
the Pacific an outlying coast-range. The western chain is the true
water-parting of the Atlantic and Pacific; and the eastern is in many
places broken through by the waters rising in the great trough between
the two chains, which has no well-defined valley formation, indications
of a longitudinal depression being only found at intervals, constantly
interrupted by cross ridges. This trough or basin, one hundred and
eighty-five miles in length, is very difficult of exploration, and only
three months of the year are available for the purpose. The doctor
crossed the divide at four points, and obtained altitudes from nine
thousand four hundred and ninety-four feet to twenty-two thousand
eight hundred and sixty-seven feet, which was reached near the great
volcano Aconcagua, not far from the commencement of Valle Hermoso.
A most interesting question of the effect of rarefied air at great
elevations upon the human frame is dwelt upon by the doctor. He states
that he and his assistant attained twenty-one thousand and thirty feet
on Aconcagua, and were able to work their scientific instruments at
that height, though not in good condition, through anxiety and want of
sleep. Their lungs were physically exhausted by the effort of speaking;
but there was no flow of blood from nose or ears. He says that the
so-called _puna_ can be resisted by mental effort and confidence,
the only effect upon a properly trained individual being increased
lung-action, and that any one who could work as he did at twenty-one
thousand and thirty feet, could reach the top of Aconcagua, where the
proportion of oxygen is only 6.2-3 per cent. less than at the former
elevation.


NATIVE TREATMENT OF DISEASES IN INDIA.

A correspondent thus writes: Regarding the native treatment of
diseases, one of the most curious things I ever witnessed was a
half-clad native shouting through the streets of a country town:
‘Does any one want back his sight?—one rupee only!’ as if he were
hawking fruits or sweetmeats; and, to my astonishment, a patient soon
presented himself to be operated on for cataract. There and then
standing in the bazaar, the itinerant oculist took out his penknife
and performed the operation in a few minutes, bound up the man’s
eyes, and telling him to keep in the dark for a fortnight, received
his fee of one rupee, and shouted his war-cry for more patients. The
operation was almost unvaryingly successful; one instance among my
servants being a woman of eighty, who had charge of my fowl-house, and
had for many a day been sightless, except to distinguish light from
darkness, and who in this way was successfully operated upon. Besides
this operator are bone-setters, and medical rubbers male and female,
especially represented by the hereditary low-caste _accoucheuse_ of
each village, whose skill in shampooing is such an aid in her lowly
calling—as the natives regard it—as to supplant much of the useless
medicine and enforced rest of more civilised countries, and save
endless mischief and suffering to her sex. What skill they have is of
course almost purely traditional. None of the science of the world
or British usage has yet altered in the slightest degree either the
customs of the native or his horror at the idea of male physicians for
women—especially in certain ailments—and their wonder at our obtuseness
and disregard of propriety on so delicate a point. To supply a vacancy
so long unfilled, lady-doctors have now appeared on the scene, who, it
is hoped by reaching the zenanas, may reach the real source through
which a higher enlightenment in India is possible. An immense field
is open to them along with every encouragement; and were but some of
the many young ladies at home who are straining health for a future
pittance in one or other of the spheres of teaching, to turn their
attention in this direction, they would find an opening of wider
and greater utility before them, and a prospect of large and rapid
emolument.




LONG AGO.


    We wandered in a garden fair,
      When summer sun was shining,
    And laden was the balmy air
    With scent of roses rich and rare
      Around us intertwining.
    There trilled the thrush his glorious song;
    There thrilled the echoes all night long
      The warbling nightingale.
    You taught me all each songster said,
    And in each floweret’s heart you read
      Some hidden tale;
    You said their message I should know:
    ’Twas simple as an easy rhyme—
    But that was once upon a time
                Long ago!

    We parted in a woodland glade
      When autumn winds were sighing,
    In gold and russet bright arrayed
    A glowing canopy displayed
      The summer leaves a-dying;
    And but the wind, no other sound
    Than a leaf that fluttered to the ground,
      And a far-off robin singing,
    We heard. You guessed my thoughts, and said:
    ‘In spring, the swallows who have fled
      Will back be winging;
    The trees a brighter emerald show,
    The rose a richer crimson glow,
    Than any gleamed in this year’s prime’—
    All this was once upon a time
                Long ago!

    ‘What though a while we part,’ you cried;
      ‘What though the wind is sighing;
    The spring will autumn’s frost deride,
    The summer laugh at winter-tide,
      Long power to grief denying.
    We part, but never say farewell;
    Nor let the dead leaves to us tell
      A tale of changeless sorrow;
    Fair Spring comes sparkling down the dell,
      And in that morrow,
    If still upon this world below,
    We’ll meet ’neath yonder spreading lime’—
    You said so once upon a time
                Long ago!

    Perchance you have forgot all this;
      ’Twas long ago;
    Perchance you sneer at words like bliss
      And lovers’ woe.
    Or else you are amused—as I—
    To think we once swore we should die,
      If fate us parted;
    To think we vowed so soon to meet,
    And said in spring-time we would greet,
      Or else be broken-hearted.
    Strange—is it not?—to have fancied so.
    You smile, no doubt, such things to know;
    Or do you count it as a crime
    To think of once upon a time
                Long ago?

            LINDA GARDINER.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Volume I. of the Fifth Series of CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL is now completed,
price Nine Shillings._

       *       *       *       *       *

_A Title-page and Index, price One Penny, have been prepared, and may
be ordered through any bookseller._

       *       *       *       *       *

_An elegant cloth case for binding the whole of the numbers for 1884 is
also ready._

       *       *       *       *       *

_Back numbers to complete sets may at all times be had._

       *       *       *       *       *

In our next Part will be given the opening chapters of an original
Novel, entitled:

A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF.

BY MRS OLIPHANT.

       *       *       *       *       *

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.


Printed and Published by W. and R. Chambers,
47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.

       *       *       *       *       *

_All Rights Reserved._



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 52, VOL. I, DECEMBER 27, 1884 ***


    

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