The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 151, vol. III, November 20, 1886
    
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 151, vol. III, November 20, 1886

Author: Various

Release date: March 23, 2025 [eBook #75692]

Language: English

Original publication: Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1853

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. 151, VOL. III, NOVEMBER 20, 1886 ***





[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. 151.—VOL. III.      SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1886.        PRICE 1½_d._]




NOTHING NEW.


Antiquaries are always delighted to remind us that there is nothing new
under the sun. When we boast of the great European art of printing,
they bring in the Chinese as evidence against us. Certain it is,
however, that the Romans used movable types to mark their pottery
and bread, and even to indorse their scroll-books. But if this is
to be called printing, then the Accadians, and their successors the
Assyrians, did the like on a grand scale many centuries before. To the
last-named people, moreover, must be ascribed, so far as we at present
know, the invention of a magnifying lens of rock-crystal, a thing
so well made, that Sir David Brewster pronounced it a true optical
instrument. It was found amid the ruins of Nimroud by Layard.

It is curious to see also how great natural laws have been dimly
apprehended centuries before they were rendered demonstrable. The law
of gravitation was undoubtedly discerned by Sir Isaac Newton; but it is
remarkable that in Cary’s translation of Dante’s _Inferno_ an idea very
like it occurs, namely:

    Thou wast on the other side, so long as I
    Descended; when I turned, thou did’st o’erpass
    That point, to which from every part is dragged
    All heavy substance.

Of this passage, Monti remarks that if it had met the eye of Newton,
it might better have awakened his thought to conceive the system of
attraction than the accidental fall of an apple.

For fifty or sixty years before any real light was thrown upon the
nature of gravitation, Pedro Mexia of Seville had a clear and correct
idea of its action. Thus, in his _Silva de Varia Leccion_ (published
in 1542, and which in various translations was in great demand until
the middle of the seventeenth century), the following appears: ‘The
sky is above in all parts of the earth, and the centre of the earth
is below, towards which all heavy things naturally tend from whatever
side of the earth; so that if God had made a hole, which by a true
diameter passing through the whole earth, from the point where we are,
as far as the other opposite and contrary to this, on the other side
of the earth, passed through the centre of it: then if one dropped a
plummet, as masons do, know that it would not pass to the other side of
the earth, but would stop and place itself in the centre of it; and if
from the other side one let fall another, they would meet together in
the very centre, and there they would stop. It is quite true that the
force might well cause the plummet to pass somewhat beyond, because its
movement, so long as it was going towards the centre, would naturally
be accelerated, passing somewhat beyond, but in the end it would return
to its place.’

Of this old Spanish work, an English translation was made by T.
Fortescue, and printed in London in 1576, entitled _The Forest,
or Collection of Historyes, no less profitable than pleasant and
necessary_. Another appeared in 1613 with sundry essays by other
authors, entitled _The Treasurie of Ancient and Modern Times_.
Considering that London publishing was on a small scale two and three
centuries ago, it is difficult to believe that Newton missed seeing
these works, even if he had not heard of the original. At anyrate, he
must in all probability have read what Shakspeare, borrowing probably
from the same source, puts into the mouth of Cressida:

    But the strong base and building of my love
    Is as the very centre of the earth,
    Drawing all things to it.

            _Troilus and Cressida_, act iv. scene 2.

Some anticipations of telegraphy are also very interesting. Galileo, in
his _Dialogues on the Two Systems of the World_, that is, the Ptolemaic
and Copernican, and which he wrote in 1632, makes Sagredo say: ‘You
remind me of one who offered to sell me a secret art, by which, through
the attraction of a certain magnet needle, it would be possible to
converse across a space of two or three thousand miles. I said to him
that I would willingly become the purchaser, provided only that I might
first make a trial of the art, and that it would be sufficient for the
purpose if I were to place myself in one corner of the sofa and he in
the other. He replied that in so short a distance the action would be
scarcely discernible; so I dismissed the fellow, and said that it was
not convenient for me just then to travel into Egypt or Muscovy for
the purpose of trying the experiment; but that if he chose to go there
himself, I would remain in Venice and attend to the rest.’

It appears, however, that telegraphy took form as an idea two thousand
years ago, for Addison, in one of his delightful essays in the
_Spectator_ (No. 241), tells us that ‘Strada, in one of his Prolusions,
gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends
by the help of a certain lodestone, which had such virtue in it, that
if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched
began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved
at the same time, and in the same manner. He tells us that the two
friends, being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a
kind of a dial-plate, inscribing it with the four-and-twenty letters,
in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary
dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates
in such a manner that it could move round without impediment, so as to
touch any of the four-and-twenty letters. Upon their separating from
one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves
punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day and to
converse with one another by means of this their invention.’

In Homer’s _Odyssey_, translated by Pope, the following curious
description—originally detected by an ingenious mechanic—of the
Phœacian ships of old, has been well observed by the late Dr Birkbeck
to be no inaccurate description of steam-navigation:

    So shalt thou instant reach the realm assigned
    In wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind.

       *       *       *       *       *

    Though clouds and darkness veil the encumbered sky,
    Fearless, through darkness and through clouds they fly;
    Though tempests rage—though rolls the swelling main,
    The seas may roll, the tempests swell in vain.
    E’en the stern god that o’er the waves presides,
    Safe as they pass, and safe repass the tides,
    With fury burns; whilst careless they convey
    Promiscuous every guest to every bay.

It would almost appear from the above passage, which for ages was
considered merely a bold flight of the imagination, that the ancients
were not unacquainted with some method beyond that of the ordinary
sail, of propelling vessels through water with safety and celerity.

Even that horror of naval warfare, the fish-torpedo, seems to have been
once afloat in the mind of Ben Jonson, although there are good reasons
for thinking he derived the idea itself from Drummond the inventor,
whom he visited at Hawthornden in 1619. In Jonson’s play, _The Staple
of News_ (act iii. scene 1), we read:

    _Thomas._ They write here one Cornelius’ son
    Hath made the Hollanders an invisible eel
    To swim the Haven at Dunkirk, and sink all
    The shipping there.

    _Pennyboy._ But how is’t done?

    _Cymbal._ I’ll show you, sir.
    It’s an automa, runs under water
    With a snug nose, and has a nimble tail
    Made like an auger, with which tail she wriggles
    Betwixt the coats of a ship, and sinks it straight.

    _Pennyboy._ A most brave device
    To murder their flat bottoms!

Some of the most beneficent and useful discoveries in medical science
appear to have been anticipated years ago. For example, certain skulls
of prehistoric man have afforded the clearest evidence that even at
that remote period the art of _trepanning_ must have been practised
upon them. A skull found in the tomb of the Incas, near the city of
Cuzco, exhibited distinct marks of having undergone a like operation.
According to a reputed discovery by M. Stanislaus Julien, it appears
that as far back as the third century of our era, the Chinese were in
possession of an anæsthetic agent which they employed during surgical
operations. A description of this was discovered by M. Julien in a work
preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, called _Kou-kin-i-tong_, or
a General Collection of Ancient and Modern Medicines, which appears
to have been published in the sixteenth century. In a biographical
notice of Hoa-tho, who flourished under the dynasty of Wei, between the
years 220 and 230 of our era, it is stated that he gave the patient a
preparation of _cannabis_ (_Ma-yo_), who in a few moments became as
insensible as one plunged in drunkenness or deprived of life; then,
according to the case, he made incisions, amputations, &c. After a
certain number of days, the patient found himself re-established,
without having experienced the slightest pain during the operation. It
appears from the biography of Han that this _cannabis_ was prepared by
boiling and distillation.

Of the Germ Theory of disease, it must also be said, it is no
novelty. That noted physician, Athanasius Kircher, in his work on the
plague—published at Rome in 1658—attributed the origin of epidemics to
germs, or, as he termed them, animalcules. He argued that each kind of
putrefaction gives rise to a special virus, which produces a definite
species of malady.

Even sticking-plaster is not a modern surgical appliance. One of
the highest living authorities in organic chemistry states that the
ordinary lead-plaster now so commonly used was said to be discovered by
the Roman physician Menecrates in the middle of the first century.

Some readers of this _Journal_ will remember that while the British
Association was in progress at Montreal (1884), a telegram was received
from Mr Caldwell in Australia, notifying that he had found _monotremes
oviparous with mesoblastic ovum_—that is, that the ornithorhynchus,
the duck-bill or water mole, laid eggs. This piece of news greatly
interested naturalists, since it was justly regarded as furnishing one
more link in the chain of evidence tending to support the evolution
hypothesis. However, in a work entitled _The Literary Pancratium_,
by Robert and Thomas Swinburn Carr, published in London in 1832, a
quotation in the form of a footnote appears on page 8, as follows: ‘But
this is New Holland, where it is summer with us when it is winter in
Europe, and _vice versâ_; where the barometer rises before bad weather,
and falls before good; where the north is the hot wind, and the south
the cold; where the humblest house is fitted up with cedar; where
the fields are fenced with mahogany, and myrtle-trees are burnt for
firewood; where the _swans are black_ and the eagles white; where the
kangaroo, an animal between the squirrel and the deer, has five claws
on its forepaws and three talons on its hind-legs, like a bird, and
yet hops on its tail; where the mole lays eggs, and has a duck’s bill;
where there is a bird with a broom in its mouth instead of a tongue;
where there is a fish, one half belonging to the genus _Raja_, and the
other to that of _Squalus_; where the pears are made of wood, with the
stalk at the broader end; and where the cherry grows with the stone on
the outside.’—(Field’s _New South Wales_, page 461.)

In striking contrast to all the above-named instances of rediscovery,
is that fact furnished by some Assyrian bas-reliefs—that is, that the
lion, or at least the Asiatic species, has a _claw_ in the tuft of
his tail. This fact, which, strangely enough, was disputed in classic
times, although forty years before the birth of Christ, Didymus
of Alexandria discovered it, had been quite overlooked by modern
naturalists. Soon after the finding of the sculpture, Mr Bennett, an
English zoologist, verified the observation.

Homer’s famous story of the battle between the frogs and the mice is
doubtless a political satire. That the story was originally suggested
by actual observation is not an unreasonable fancy. Homer may even have
seen the mimic campaign for himself, for it is but a tradition that he
was blind. In a recent number of _Nature_, a correspondent states that
he saw a short time since several mice pursuing some frogs in a shed.
The alacrity of the reptiles rendered the attacks of the mice futile
for some time. ‘Again and again the frogs escaped from the clutches of
their foes, but only to be recaptured, severely shaken, and bitten.’
They were at length ‘overpowered by the mice, which devoured a part of
them.’

The first scientific expedition on record is one in which Aristotle
was sent by Alexander the Great (more than 300 B.C.) for the purpose
of collecting subjects for a History of Animals. In this enterprise he
met with both the paper and the pearly nautilus; for in the _Historia
Animalium_, he says, after describing different forms of Cephalopods,
which no doubt abounded in Asiatic seas: ‘There are also two other
kinds of polypes which are in shells, the one [that is, the paper
nautilus] has a shell which is not naturally adherent to it; it feeds
very frequently near the land, and being cast by the waves on the sand,
the shell slips, and it dies; but the other [the pearly nautilus]
is in a shell in which it exists after the manner of a snail, and
outwardly extends its arms.’—(_Scaliger’s translation._) Nothing was
added to this account during the dark ages that succeeded, nor even
till some time after the revival of literature. No further information
respecting the nautilus was obtained until the discovery of a living
specimen early in the eighteenth century by Rumphius, a Dutch merchant
and naturalist, resident at Amboyna. His drawing of the soft parts
separated from the shell was greatly valued for more than a century
before another specimen was found, although the shells were cast ashore
in comparative abundance. This specimen was sent to Professor Owen, and
formed the subject of an elaborate memoir by him in 1832. It may be
said to have been the first to confirm the history of this remarkable
organism given more than two thousand years before.

Here, then, we have another instance of modern research simply
verifying that which was an ancient discovery.

It is even said that the stereoscope, which is Professor Wheatstone’s
invention, was known to Euclid, and minutely described by Galen,
the physician, sixteen centuries ago; moreover, it was still more
completely defined in the works of Baptista Porta in the year 1599.
As for photography, its discovery is by common consent referred to
Daguerre, who announced it to the Academy of Sciences in 1839. This
beautiful art has, however, been found clearly described by M. Jobard
in his _Nouvelles Inventions aux Expositions Universelles_, 1857, taken
from a translation from the German three hundred years ago.

An ancient gold coin _recast_ is, after all, the same precious metal;
even so, truths long lost are, when found, restamped by human thought
and made current again for the world’s good. How few are privileged, or
have the genius, to enrich mankind with an original discovery!




BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.


CHAPTER XIV.

Le Gautier followed the footman into the drawing-room, where Enid
was engaged with some visitors—three tall showy-looking girls, with
an extremely vivacious mother. Le Gautier stood looking out of one
of the windows, and noticed with satisfaction their intention of a
speedy exit. For some moments the visitors remained chattering, and
then, after a profusion of compliments, accompanied by much laughter,
their voluminous skirts were heard switching down the broad staircase.
It has often been a matter of speculation as to whether a man can be
in love with two women at the same time; but without going into this
delicate question, it is possible to imagine a man with a penchant for
two women, though the experiment probably would be attended with great
hazard and danger. Le Gautier forgot the dark-eyed Marie, as he gazed
upon Enid’s fairer charms.

‘You have heard nothing of Maxwell?’ he asked after a pause in the
desultory conversation. ‘A strange thing he does not write. Many men
would imagine that such a thing is not altogether an accident; there
are occasions when a little absence from the gaze of man is desirable,
Miss Charteris.’

‘Many men, as usual, would be wrong,’ Enid answered coldly. ‘You should
not shield your want of charity by these generalities, Monsieur le
Gautier, though perhaps you have derived benefit from these absences
yourself, you seem to understand the subject so thoroughly.’

Enid was angry at his cool insolence, and replied to his want of taste
by a little plain language herself; and her random shaft went home.

‘You are severe; but really, while sorry for Maxwell, there is
something in it which is comforting to me. Can you not guess what I
mean?’

Enid Charteris, though guileless and pure as woman can be, had not
mixed with the great world for nothing. She had had suitors enough to
know what a proposal was, and above all things she dreaded one from
this man. Some instinct told her he would be a dangerous enemy. ‘You
speak in riddles,’ she said calmly. ‘I have not been educated to the
language of diplomacy. Pray, explain yourself.’

‘Then I must be more explicit. Maxwell’s absence rids me of a dangerous
rival. Now he is away, the path is all the smoother for me. Need I tell
you, Miss Charteris—Enid—that I love you? Surely you must have known
that for a long time past. While another was in the way, I sealed my
lips; but I can restrain myself no longer now.’

‘It would be affectation not to understand you,’ Enid replied with a
calmness that boded ill for Le Gautier’s success. ‘I am sorry to hear
it. If you are wise, you will not put me to the pain of a refusal.’

‘I will take no refusal,’ Le Gautier burst out passionately; ‘for I
swear that if you are not mine, you shall wed no other man. Enid, you
must, you shall be mine! You may look upon me coldly now, but the time
will come when you shall love me well enough.’

‘The time will come when I shall—love—you?’ The bitter scorn in
these words stung Le Gautier to madness, stirring up a desperate
passion in his veins, now that the prize seemed like slipping from
his grasp. He fell at her feet on his knees. ‘Hear me!’ he exclaimed
passionately—‘only listen to me, Enid. I have vowed that you are the
only woman I have chosen—the only girl I could really love. Such love
as mine must win a return some day; only try; only give me a little
chance of hope.’

‘If you are a man, you will rise from that absurd position. Who am I,
that you should kneel to me? You must take my word for it; and if you
have any consideration for my feelings, you will change the subject.’

‘And this is your absolute and final decision?’

‘Yes, it is my absolute and final decision.’

Le Gautier rose to his feet, pale but smiling, and there was a darkly
evil look upon his white set face. When he spoke again his words were
cold and incisive. ‘Consider, before you wilfully make an enemy of
me.’ He uttered the words with a low sibilation. ‘I have made you an
offer—the highest compliment I could pay, and you have scornfully
rejected it. The next favour you ask from me you may seek for on your
knees.’

‘And to what purpose, sir, shall _I_ ask a favour from _you_?’

‘For your father,’ Le Gautier answered quietly, though his tones were
deep and earnest. ‘You have guessed that Maxwell has gone away on a
dangerous mission. Why should not Sir Geoffrey be chosen in his turn?
And if so, who can save him? I, Hector le Gautier, and no other man.’

‘And by whose evil counsel has my poor father been dragged into your
infamous Brotherhood?—By yours alone! He would be a happy man now, if
he had never known you’——

‘On the contrary,’ Le Gautier interrupted, ‘I tried to save him. He has
joined on his own wish. You do not credit my words. Go and ask him now
if my words are not true, and that, if it is not his dearest wish that
you should become my wife.’

‘He might think so,’ Enid answered haughtily; ‘but he does not wish it
in his heart. Monsieur le Gautier, if you are a gentleman, you will
cease this discussion. The subject is painful to me.’ She stood there,
looking at him coldly and scornfully.

But her very iciness only served to increase the warmth of his passion.
‘I cannot!’ he exclaimed. ‘I will not cease! For five years, ever since
I first met you at Rome, I have never ceased to love you. Bid me do
anything in reason; ask me any favour; but to forget you is impossible!’

‘I am sorry for you,’ Enid said gently, touched a little by the ring of
genuine passion in his voice—‘I am sorry; but it cannot be. I do not
break my pledges so lightly, even if I wished to do so.’

‘Which you do not,’ Le Gautier bitterly remarked. ‘I do not care.
I am desperate now. You despise and scorn me; but I will not be
rejected thus. If you will not be my wife for my sake, you must for
your father’s and the honour of your house.’ He stopped abruptly, for
standing in the room was Sir Geoffrey, his face pale, and his whole
aspect downcast and degraded to a pitiable degree.

Enid turned to her father eagerly. ‘Did you hear these words?’ she
asked. ‘Can it be possible that you—that I—that the honour of our house
is in any man’s hands? Can it be your wish, father, that I—I—should
form an alliance with Monsieur le Gautier? Speak, and show him how
mistaken he can be!’

But Sir Geoffrey never spoke. His head sank lower upon his breast.
For the first time, he realised the sacrifice he had imposed upon his
daughter, and so he stood there, an English gentleman no longer, but a
poor enfeebled, shamefaced old man.

A wild feeling of alarm took possession of Enid as she saw this thing.
‘Why do you not speak?’ she demanded. ‘What cause have you to hesitate
in indorsing my words?’

Still the baronet never spoke, never raised his head.

Enid ran swiftly to his side and threw one arm round his shoulder.
She could feel the spasm that struck him as he encountered her touch.
‘Father,’ she asked in a dull even voice, ‘does your silence mean that
he is right?’

‘Yes, my dear child; he is right. There is no alternative.’

There is a providence which helps us in such times as these, a numbness
of the senses that for a time deadens pain. Enid’s voice was very
calm as she turned to Le Gautier, standing there trying to disguise
his triumph. ‘I do not know what all this means,’ she said. ‘I do not
understand whence you derive your power. I cannot think now. For his
sake,’ she continued, pointing to her father, ‘I consent.’

Le Gautier sprang forward; but she repelled him with a glance.

‘Listen to my conditions,’ she continued. ‘I have said I consent; but
I warn you that if there is any loophole for escape from you, I shall
take it. You are going away, you say. Nothing must be done till your
return, and then the contract shall be fulfilled. Now, go.’

When Lucrece entered the room a few moments later, she found her
mistress lying unconscious upon the floor. Looking out of the window,
she saw the slim figure of Le Gautier disappearing in the distance, and
smiled. He was smiling, too, as he walked away. Nothing remained now
but only the final interview with Marie, and to regain possession of
the lost moidore. A few weeks at Warsaw, and then——


CHAPTER XV.

Maxwell had been gone a week now, and no tidings of him had reached
England, save one letter to say he was in Rome. As Le Gautier turned
away from Grosvenor Square, his heart one glow of triumph, he
determined that, come what may, the artist should never see England
again. When he returned from Warsaw, he calculated that, through Marie
St Jean’s assistance, all information concerning the League would be
in the hands of the police, freeing him from any further bondage, and
throwing all the odium and danger on her. Full of these schemes, he
arrived at his lodgings. A telegram was lying on the table. He took it
up mechanically, and tore it open. The contents were terse: ‘Visci died
this morning from heart disease.’ Le Gautier was wild with rage. Here
was a pretty combination, he thought. Nothing now to detain Maxwell
in Rome. The victim had fallen by a higher Hand than that of man, and
Maxwell was free.

As a Head Centre of the Order, Le Gautier wielded much power, and even
now he did not despair, with the command of nearly all the desperadoes
in Rome at his command. He had only to get Maxwell arrested in Rome
on some false charge and carried to the mountains; and there—after a
little delay and a packed meeting of the League—shot. Desperate men
such as Le Gautier, especially with such a prize in their grasp, do
not long hesitate over such a trifling matter as a human life, and he
trusted to his own good luck and native audacity to pull him through.

It was getting dark the same night as he despatched a telegram to Rome,
and then turned in the direction of Fitzroy Square. He was as eager now
to see Isodore as he had been to encounter Enid in the afternoon, and
looked forward not only to a pleasant evening but a remunerative one.

She did not keep him long waiting in the drawing-room ere she sailed in
all smiles and welcome. She was looking radiantly beautiful to-night;
there was a deeper flush on her face, and a glitter in her glorious
eyes not usually seen there—signs of a loving welcome, Le Gautier
imagined in his egotistical way. There was, besides, a warmth in her
manner and a gladness in the pressure of her hand which inspired him,
and sent an electric thrill coursing through his veins.

‘You are looking more transcendently lovely than usual, Marie!’ he
exclaimed with a fervour unusual even to him. ‘Every time I see you,
there is some additional charm in you to note.’

‘It depends upon whether the observing eye is a prejudiced one,’ she
replied with a caressing smile, which brought him at once to her side.
‘You say that now, Hector. How long will you continue to think so?’

‘As long as I have power to think at all—as long as memory serves me. I
shall remember you to the last day of my life.’

‘I believe you will,’ Isodore smiled bewilderingly. ‘And yet, strange
as it may seem, the time will perhaps come when you will wish you had
never seen my face.’

‘You are more than usually enigmatical to-night, Marie. You are a
puzzle to me. I do not even know who you are. Tell me something about
yourself, and why you are living in this solitude here.’

‘No; not to-night; but, as I have often promised you, I will tell you
some time. I will tell you who I am before you go away; and then, when
your curiosity is satisfied, you will leave me.’

‘Never!’ Le Gautier exclaimed passionately. ‘Leave you!—the only woman
I ever saw that I could really love. Leave you, Marie! How can you
entertain the bare idea!’

He would have approached her nearer, but she waved him gently but
firmly aside. The distance she kept him fanned his passion all the
more. ‘Tell me something about yourself,’ she said. ‘That is a topic
which never fails to interest me. How about the League, this Maxwell’s
journey? Has he accomplished his mission yet?’

‘He is not likely to, now. Visci is dead!—Gracious powers, Marie! what
ails you? Are you ill?’

Isodore uttered a sharp exclamation, and then reeled forward in her
chair. Her face was white and drawn, her lips trembled. Gradually her
bosom ceased to heave so painfully, and she turned to Le Gautier with
a white wan smile, though he could see the fan still trembling in her
hands. ‘It is nothing,’ she said with an effort. ‘I am subject to these
attacks of the heart, and any news of sudden death always affects me
so.—Do not look distressed; it is past now.’

‘There is nothing in the name to cause you any distress?’ Le Gautier
asked suspiciously.

‘I have heard the name before, if that is what you mean. Tell me all
you know of this Carlo Visci.’

‘I did not say his name was Carlo,’ Le Gautier observed, somewhat
sharply. ‘I can tell you nothing more. When I reached home this
afternoon, I had a telegram to say he was dead.’

‘And this Maxwell, what of him? I suppose he will return home now?’

‘He has been somewhat dilatory in obeying orders. No; he will not
return. He will be detained at Rome for the present.’

‘Tell me why you hate this Englishman so.’

Le Gautier started. ‘How do you know I hate him?’ he asked. ‘I have
never said so.’

‘Not in so many words; but in gesture and look, when you speak of him,
your actions are eloquent, my friend. He has crossed your path. Ah,
well, I like a good hater. Maxwell will suffer yet.’

‘Yes,’ Le Gautier exclaimed involuntarily, ‘he will.’

Isodore rose and walked to the piano, where she sat for a moment
striking the chords idly. ‘When do you go to Warsaw?’ she asked.

‘I have six days remaining to me.—Marie, the time has come when we must
no longer delay. The pear is ripe now; all my plans are matured. I have
only to hold up my hand and the League will vanish.’

All this time, Isodore played on softly, musingly, the music serving
like the accompaniment of a song to force the speaker’s voice. As he
stood there, and she answered him, she never ceased to play the soft
chords.

‘Then you have everything prepared?’

‘Yes, everything is ready.’ He drew a low seat to her side, and seated
himself there. ‘All the names are made out, the whole plot prepared.’

‘And you propose to hand them over to me. It is a great compliment; and
I suppose I must take them. I would run greater risks than this for
your sake and—my own.’

She took one hand from the ivory keys and held it out to him. Drawing a
packet from his pocket, he gave it to her. She thrust it in her bosom,
and ran her fingers over the keys again.

‘All is there, I suppose,’ she asked, ‘down to the minutest detail,
everything necessary to betray the League and pull it up root and
branch? You have taken good care to shield yourself, I presume?’

‘Of course.—And now, to talk of more pleasant things. You know I am
going away in a few days; and when I return, I shall expect to find
myself perfectly free.’

‘You may depend upon me. I will do all I can for you.’

Le Gautier looked up sharply—the words were coldly, sternly uttered,
but the quiet placid smile never left her face.

‘How strangely you speak! But oh, Marie—my Marie, the only woman I ever
loved, you will stand by me now, and help me, for both our sakes! Look
at me, and say you will do what I ask!’

Isodore looked down, smiling brightly. ‘Yes, I will do what you ask,’
she said. ‘And so you really love me?’

‘Passionately and sincerely, such as I never expected to love woman
yet.’

‘I am glad to hear you say that,’ Isodore replied with a thrill of
exultation in her voice. ‘I have waited and hoped for the time to come;
but never in my wildest dreams did I look for this.’

‘With your nobleness and beauty, how could it be otherwise? I should be
more than a man—or less—if I looked upon you unmoved.’

‘Then, for the first time for years, I am happy.’

Le Gautier started to his feet rapturously. He did not understand her
yet; he thought the soft earnest words all for him. He would have
caught her there and then in his eager arms, but again she repulsed
him. ‘No, no!’ she cried; ‘I have not proved you yet. Let things remain
as they are till you return again to England.’

How strange, Le Gautier thought vaguely, that she should use words
so similar to those of Enid to a precisely similar plea. Despite his
passion, he had not thrown all prudence to the winds.

‘You had better leave me now,’ Isodore continued—‘leave me to think and
dwell over this thing.’

‘But what about my badge of membership? I dare not leave England
without that.’

‘I had almost forgotten it in this interesting conversation. It is not
in my possession; it is in Paris. You have a meeting of the League
before you go for final instructions. Come to me after that, and you
shall have it. I am going to Paris to-morrow, and will bring it with
me.’

‘You are a witch!’ Le Gautier exclaimed with admiration. ‘You seem to
know as much as the mysterious Isodore, that princess who never shows
herself unless danger besets the League. If she is the wonder men who
have seen her say she is, they stand in dire need of her now.’

‘Beware how you talk so lightly of her—she has the gift of fernseed. At
this very moment she may know of your perfidy.’

‘Perfidy is a hard word, my queen, and sounds not prettily.—And now,
good-night. And you will not fail me?’

‘I will _not_ fail you,’ Isodore replied with the stern inflection Le
Gautier had noticed before, and marvelled over. ‘I never fail.’

‘A woman, and never fail!’

‘Not in my promises. If I make a vow or pledge my word, I can wait five
years or ten to fulfil it.—Good-night. And when we meet again, you will
not say I have belied my contract.’

When Valerie entered some minutes later, she found Isodore with
firm-set face and gleaming eyes. ‘My brother is dead,’ she said
quietly. ‘Poor Carlo! And he loved me so at one time. Now, he can never
know.’

‘Dead!’ Valerie exclaimed. ‘You do not mean to say’——

‘That Maxwell killed him?—No. His heart has been failing for years,
long before I left Rome; his life was not worth an hour’s purchase. But
I have no time to mourn over him now.—Let me see if I can do a little
good with my useless occupation. I start for Rome to-morrow.’

Valerie looked at her friend in stupid astonishment.

‘I cannot explain to you now. Maxwell is free to return home. As you
know, it means destruction to Le Gautier’s plans, if he does. I dared
not press him too closely to-night; but Maxwell will be detained in
Rome, in all probability by Paulo Lucci, till some charge can be
trumped up for his destruction. But Lucci and his band dare not cross
me; my power is too great for that. To-morrow, I leave for Rome, and
pray heaven that I may not be too late!’




AMERICAN TRAITS.


It is usual in this country to regard the Americans as a homogeneous
people, and to accept the Yankee as a fair type of the whole nation.
But this is a fallacy. The inhabitants of the South, and more
especially the descendants of the early French and Spanish colonists
to be found in the Gulf States, differ radically in their morals,
manners, and customs from the population of other sections of the
Union. It is not, however, our purpose in this paper to enter into an
extended disquisition upon the characteristics of the people of the
United States, our object being simply to touch briefly upon a few
of their more prominent traits. The Puritan element in the character
of the first settlers of New England has exercised an influence upon
social life there which has not been confined to that limited area,
but has made itself felt, in a more or less marked degree, throughout
the whole of the Northern States. The differences of race and climate
have, however, not only been obstacles to the inhabitants of the South
accepting the Puritan standard of morals, but have also prevented
the development of those traits of character to be found in the
population of other parts of the country, and which are more peculiarly
distinctive of the Americans as a people. We shall therefore limit
ourselves to dealing with those national characteristics which have
come under our observation in the Northern States.

That submission to the will of the majority which is inculcated by
democratic institutions has exercised a marked influence upon the
social no less than upon the political life of the people of the United
States, save in the late Slave States. It has not only had the result
of preventing the development of individuality of character, but
likewise has considerably modified that obstinacy of temper and dogged
tenacity of opinion which are to be found in the Anglo-Saxon race. The
late Lord Beaconsfield on one occasion said in the House of Commons
that a gentleman who had spent several years in America had declared to
him that it was his belief that ‘the citizens of the republic were the
most tractable people in the world, and the readiest open to conviction
by argument.’

In the United States, the absence of that segregation of the various
grades of society which exist in Europe is evinced by the habits and
manners of the masses in that country. If the national independence of
character be occasionally pushed too far, and degenerate into offensive
self-assertion, at least it prevents any approach to servility. No
inequality of position or circumstances will induce a native of any
of the Northern States to submit to being dealt with in the manner
or spoken to in the tone which, in England, the man in broadcloth
too frequently adopts, as a matter of course, towards the man in
fustian. The late Sydney Godolphin Osborne used to relate how, once, a
respectable artisan said to him: ‘I like you, my lord; there is nothing
of the gentleman about you.’ The meaning of the speaker was undoubtedly
that Lord Osborne did not treat him in the patronising manner that
members of the higher class usually address those whom they regard as
their social inferiors. Now, no one perhaps has a keener appreciation
of the advantages of wealth and education than the American; but that
the possessor of them should feel himself justified in using towards
the man who lacks these adventitious gifts the language of a superior
to an inferior, is what he cannot understand, and which he will not
for one moment put up with. An anecdote Thackeray used to relate of an
experience of his when in the United States well illustrates this trait
of the people. While in New York, he expressed to a friend a desire
to see some of the ‘Bowery Bhoys,’ who, he had heard, were a class of
the community peculiar to that city. So one evening he was taken to
the Bowery, and he was shown a ‘Bhoy.’ The young man, the business
of the day being over, had changed his attire. He wore a dress-coat,
black trousers, and a satin waistcoat; whilst a tall hat rested on the
back of his head, which was adorned with long well-greased hair—known
as ‘soap-locks’—a style which the rowdies of that day affected. The
youth was leaning against a lamp-post, smoking an enormous cigar; and
his whole aspect was one of ineffable self-satisfaction. The eminent
novelist, after contemplating him for a few moments with silent
admiration, said to the gentleman by whom he was accompanied: ‘This is
a great and gorgeous creature!’ adding: ‘Can I speak to him without his
taking offence?’

Receiving an answer in the affirmative, Thackeray went up to the
fellow, on the pretext of asking his way, and said: ‘My good man, I
want to go to Broome Street.’

But the unlucky phrase, ‘My good man,’ roused the gall of the
individual spoken to. Instead, therefore, of affording the information
sought, the ‘Bhoy’—a diminutive specimen of humanity, scarcely over
five feet in height—eyeing the tall form of his interlocutor askance,
answered the query in the sense that his permission had been asked
for the speaker to visit the locality in question, and he said,
patronisingly: ‘Well, sonny, yer kin go thar.’

When Thackeray subsequently related the incident, he laughingly
declared that he was so disconcerted by the unexpected response, that
he had not the courage to continue the dialogue.

The question, however, differently put would, in all probability,
have elicited a civil answer from ninety-nine out of a hundred of
the members of the class to which the man belonged. In fact, the
discourtesy, and even rudeness, of which some travellers in the
United States complain have arisen from the fact of their failing to
appreciate the difference existing between the social systems of that
country and their own.

The wide gulf in culture which in England separates the upper and
middle classes from the lower orders, does not exist in America. This
has arisen from various causes. In the first place, the great bulk of
the people of the Union are much better educated than is as yet the
case in this country. The admirable system of common or, as they are
termed, ‘public’ schools which prevails in America affords facilities
for all children obtaining a sound English education without the
payment by their parents of any school fees, and at a trifling cost to
the taxpayer in all sections of the Union, and especially in the West,
where large grants have been made of the State lands in support of the
public schools. In the second place, the social status of the working
classes who are _natives_ of the United States has been raised by the
fact that the Americans are almost exclusively engaged in avocations
demanding intelligence and skilled labour. This has been owing to the
circumstance that upon the coloured population and the Irish and German
immigrants have devolved those coarse and irksome occupations which
have to be followed by a portion of the inhabitants of other countries.
To give one instance of this alone, it may be stated that rarely is a
native American citizen, man or woman, found occupying the position of
a domestic servant in any of the Atlantic cities.

The wages, too, commanded by artisans and mechanics averaging nearly
double those of the same class in other countries, it follows,
necessarily, that vice and crime—the inevitable concomitants of a state
of society in which the condition of the mass of the lower classes is
but one step removed from absolute indigence, as is the case in most
European countries—are not nearly so prevalent in America. In the New
England States, where the foreign population is small, there is not a
country in Europe—possibly with the exception of Holland—where there is
so little crime. Few persons, indeed, are aware how much the foreign
element in the community, in many of the States, contributes to the
statistics of the offences which come under the cognisance of the
criminal tribunals. In the State of New York alone, seventy per cent.
of the infractions of the law are committed by the Irish, whilst the
fair ratio of this class in proportion to the whole population would be
a little less than twenty per cent.

One of the most marked characteristics of the Americans is their rooted
determination to resist any legislation which shall recognise any class
distinctions in the community. Of course, no one contends that the man
of wealth, education, and culture is not the superior, in one sense of
the word, of him who lacks these. The equality insisted upon is simply
this: that no class of society shall make the circumstance of enjoying
these adventitious advantages a ground for the members of it basing a
claim to be a separate caste, possessing rights and privileges—fenced
in by law—denied to the bulk of their countrymen. This sentiment found
expression in the opposition which the proposal met with, a few years
ago, that persons in the Civil Service of the Federal government should
be irremovable, save for misconduct, instead of being turned out of
their places after every change of administration, as had previously
been the case. It was argued that fixity of tenure of office would
have the result of creating a bureaucracy, the members of which would
come in time to regard themselves as a privileged class. That these
apprehensions were unfounded, experience of the practical working of
the new system of government patronage has proved. But the very fact
of the objection having been raised at all shows how sensitive public
opinion was on the subject.

One noticeable feature of American society is that in none of the
Northern States does an officer in the army or navy enjoy the social
status that he commands in all European countries. Holmes, in _The
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_, has commented upon this trait of his
countrymen. He says: ‘It is curious to observe of how small account
military folk are held among our Northern people. Our young men must
gild their spurs, but they need not win them. The equal division of
property keeps the younger sons of rich people above the necessity of
military service. Thus, the army loses one element of refinement, and
the moneyed upper classes forget what it is to count heroism amongst
their virtues. Still, I don’t believe in any aristocracy without pluck
as its backbone. Ours may show it when the day comes, if ever it does
come.’

The opportunity for young men of the wealthier class proving their
manhood came sooner than Holmes anticipated when he penned the above
remarks; for less than three years later, the civil war broke out,
and then this class were not slack in responding to the call of their
country for their services. Numerous instances occurred of young
men reared in luxury—unable to obtain commissions owing to their
want of military training—shouldering muskets in the ranks of the
Federal armies; and their patriotism received due recognition from
their fellow-citizens. But in time of peace it is the members of the
community who are engaged in those pursuits best remunerated who are
held in the highest estimation—a necessary result of a condition of
society in which wealth is the standard by which social position is
measured and defined. The girl who in the French song exclaims, ‘Oh!
que j’aime les militaires!’ utters a sentiment which as a rule finds no
echo in the hearts of the American fair. An odd illustration of this
fact came under the observation of the writer when he was resident in
New York. A lady—whose brother had been educated at the government
Military Academy at West Point—gave, in all seriousness, the reason
why this gentleman, after graduating, had not accepted a commission in
the army, in these words: ‘He had a higher ambition than to be a mere
soldier, so he has become a dry-goods merchant.’

In New York, and indeed in all the larger Atlantic cities, a class has
sprung up of late years which affects to look down upon the political
and social institutions of their country. Mr Howells, in his novel _A
Woman’s Reason_, speaking of one of the Upper Ten, says: ‘He saw what
a humbug democracy and equality really were. He must have seen that
nobody practically believes in them.’ This sentiment may accurately
reflect the opinions of a limited class, but it is an absolute fallacy
to assert that such views are generally entertained. On the contrary,
they have not to any appreciable extent permeated the people at large,
and there is not the slightest likelihood of their affecting the
national life or changing its standards.

In closing these desultory observations upon some of the characteristic
traits of the Americans, the writer may state that they are based upon
personal observation during a residence of several years in the United
States.




COUSIN GEORGE.


IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.

Mr Nicholas Smethby lived, in pretty easy circumstances, at a town some
thirty or forty miles distant from London, from which metropolis he had
retired on leaving off business. His profession had been, nominally,
that of an accountant; but he had seldom troubled himself greatly
about accounts, and had not received many commissions to investigate
them. He had really been a speculator in stocks and shares, in a small
but profitable way; and while he lent but little of his own money
in loans, had made a great deal of profit as agent, or ‘middleman,’
between those who wished to borrow and those who were able to lend. So
Mr Smethby had lived in a circle in which it was necessary for him
to have his wits about him, and in which a somewhat decided hankering
for gain was likely to be developed; yet in this he was perhaps no
worse than most of his neighbours; while, ’cute as he was, he was not
a bad sort of fellow, take him altogether. He was pleasant and social
enough in his family circle, a pretty large one, but reduced, as far as
his own household was concerned, to one daughter, Harriet, the other
members having married. Two of these had settled in the neighbourhood
of Valeborough, the town referred to; while Mr Smethby had long been
a widower. He had no other relations, that he knew of, and, as he was
wont to say when speaking on the subject, he did not want to hear of
any. His cousin, George Styles, was the last he had had much to do
with, and, ah!—Mr Smethby would exclaim at such times as the subject
was brought up—he did not care about any more like him.

‘Twenty years ago, sir,’ he would explain, ‘he called on me with a
cock-and-bull story of his being in trouble and wanting to get to
Australia; and I was fool enough to lend him twenty pounds. Yes, sir,
lent twenty pounds to a man I did not care two straws for, and had seen
barely a dozen times in my life. What was the consequence? Why, I never
heard any more of him or my twenty pounds either, and don’t know to
this day whether he went to Australia or not. I should decidedly say
_not_. That is all I know about my relations.’

It must be owned that it was at the best a selfish kind of
cheerfulness, which was derived from the belief that he had no kith or
kin out of his own household; but Smethby was rather a selfish man. He
certainly was too fond of talking in this strain.

It happened that, towards the close of a bright June day, Mr Smethby
was at a railway station some two or three miles from his residence.
To aid in identifying the town, we may say that there was another line
which ran through or at least close to it; but from the station in
question, an omnibus plied to Valeborough, and it was for this vehicle
that Mr Smethby waited on the little platform.

‘We shall have a wet night, I expect,’ said a voice in his ear.

He looked round, and saw a sailor-like man, whom he had already
noticed, and who was scanning the horizon in a sailor-like manner.
Mr Smethby made a fitting reply to this remark, and a desultory
conversation ensued. The expected omnibus now coming into sight as it
crossed a rise in the road at some distance, Smethby instinctively
shifted his valise a little nearer to the gate. The man good-naturedly
helped him, as he was close to the bag, and exclaimed, as he saw the
label upon it: ‘Smethby! It is odd that I should see that name to-day,
for it is not a common one.’

‘I do not think it is often met with,’ said Mr Smethby. ‘But what is
there odd in your seeing it to-day?’

‘Well, perhaps not much,’ replied the man, with a smile; ‘but I was
talking about that name a good deal yesterday, and for weeks before.’

‘Indeed! May I ask how that was?’ said his listener.

‘I have just come from Australia,’ returned the sailor. (Mr Smethby
could not help growing suddenly attentive at this.) ‘I landed yesterday
at Gravesend, and bade good-bye to an old chum. Ah! he was a good chum
too! Five years had I worked in the next claim to old George, as we
called him. His right name was George Styles.’

‘George Styles!’ exclaimed Mr Smethby.—‘But I must apologise for
interrupting you.’

‘He had done well—better than any of us,’ continued the sailor. ‘Some
folks said he was worth a quarter of a million of money; but I never
believed that; about half the figure would be nigher. He said he had
no friends in England he cared for now, except one Mr Smethby. That
is why the name startled me. He was always talking about him. It was
on purpose to see him he went on to London with the ship; he lives
somewhere in the City.’

‘O—h!’ said Mr Smethby. This was a long-sustained syllable, the
gentleman having a curiously complicated rush of thought just then.

‘Yes, he lives in London; and I think old George means playing a rare
trick on him,’ said the sailor, whose smile broke into a laugh here.
‘He used to say what a game it would be to go and pretend he was poor
and broken down, so as to see who were his real friends and who were
not. It is my belief he will do it too; and when I go back to London,
I’ll try to find him out, to hear all about it. Ha, ha, ha!’

The omnibus drew up at this moment; and the sailor, knowing their
conference must end, touched his cap and drew back.

‘A—was this George Styles really so rich? I ask, because your story has
interested me,’ said Mr Smethby hurriedly. ‘He must be a droll fellow!’

‘Rich! Why, I’ve seen with my own eyes the banker’s receipts for the
best part of a ton of gold of his, first and last,’ returned the
sailor; ‘and that was only a part of his luck. His last words to me
were: “Bill”—my name is Bill Brown—“Bill, as long as I live, you shall
never want a friend.” Nor I shan’t, I know.—Good-day, sir.’

Mr Smethby entered the vehicle, and had a silent, thoughtful ride to
Valeborough. The sailor’s conversation, helter-skelter and rattle-brain
as it was, had furnished him with much food for thought; and finding
that his son was at his house, when he arrived there—this son was
married and settled at Valeborough—he immediately took him, with Miss
Harriet, into council. During his narrative, repeated exclamations of
astonishment broke from his hearers.

‘Why, father,’ cried his daughter as he finished, ‘this must be your
cousin George; and you are the Mr Smethby he is looking for.’

‘Of course I am; I saw that at once,’ replied her father.

‘But what is to be done?’ asked Mr Joe, the son. ‘You have left London
for years; he may be looking about for you till doomsday, and be no
nearer finding you.’

‘I suppose he will go to my old address. The people there know where I
am, and will send him down,’ said Mr Smethby. ‘I expect that is how it
will be.’

‘I hope so, I am sure,’ continued his son; ‘otherwise, we may lose a
splendid chance.’

Smethby could not help admitting the possibility of this, which seemed
to disturb him a good deal, yet nothing could be done to avert it.

‘We must be careful to show him every kindness,’ said Harriet. ‘After
having been away from England so long, he will feel pleased at’——

‘Leave me alone,’ interposed Smethby, with a nod and a wink, which
meant much. ‘I flatter myself I can see my way here pretty clearly. I
only hope he comes, that is all.’

Mr Smethby would have written to his successors in London, asking them
to give his address to any inquirer; but he abstained, partly because
he felt sure they would do this in any case, but chiefly from the
danger that his request might be mentioned to his cousin, and so show
that he, Mr Smethby, had a knowledge of his arrival in England.

No days in the lives of Mr Smethby and his family had ever appeared
so long as each of the next two or three which followed their little
family interview. The suspense was—as the elder gentleman pronounced it
to be—‘excruciating;’ but it came to an end in time.

Mr Smethby was in his front-garden in the afternoon, trying to occupy
himself; but his mind was busy on a subject very different from botany,
when, happening to look up from his flower-beds, he met the eyes of
a man who was watching him over the fence, as this man stood on the
footpath. He smiled when he met the glance of Smethby, who actually
recoiled in his astonishment; for although he had been thinking without
cessation of his cousin, yet it was like an electric shock in its
suddenness to look round and find the very man face to face with him;
for this was, must be, he felt, George Styles. He did not know him,
had no recollection of his features; but the bronzed, bushy-whiskered,
bushy-bearded man, dressed something like a sailor, yet not to be
mistaken for one, who smiled at him across the garden fence, was his
cousin, there could be no doubt of that.

‘Well, Nick, old fellow!’ began the stranger; ‘I see you know me,
although it is many years since we parted.’

‘Why, it is George Styles!’ exclaimed Mr Smethby, with an assumption
of surprise and ‘gush’ which did him infinite credit, and of which he
felt secretly proud for a good while. He seized the other’s hand and
wrung it over the fence with a prolonged heartiness, as though he could
not bear to relinquish it. ‘My dear old boy, how glad I am to see you!’
he resumed, as soon, it appeared, as his feelings would allow him to
speak. ‘Come in. How did you find me out? But never mind that now. Come
in! I shall have a thousand things to talk about.—This is Harriet; the
only unmarried one now; she was in arms when you went away, so I don’t
expect you to remember her.—Now, Harriet, let us have a cup of tea; and
put the best we have in the house on the table to-day, if we never do
so again.’

‘You are almost too kind, Nick,’ said the other, and there was really
a little catch in his voice as he spoke. ‘I did not expect—indeed, I
don’t deserve such generosity. I think I had first better run down to
the _Railway Tap_ and bespeak my room there, for I hope to stay three
or four days at Valeborough.’

‘Three or four days!’ exclaimed Mr Smethby; ‘bespeak a room at the
_Railway Tap_! I don’t mean to part with you, now I have found you
again, under three or four months; and if you do not make this your
home for everything, I—I—I’ll never forgive you.’

Miss Harriet, in an equally gratifying strain, indorsed these
sentiments, at which Styles was evidently affected.

‘I did not expect—could not have hoped for this,’ he returned; ‘and
seeing that I have returned a—a poor man’—the awkward stop he made, ere
he could get this out, amused Smethby—‘it is so kind of you. If it will
not cause any inconvenience, I will stay here a little while, and I
will do anything I can to repay your generosity’——

Here he was interrupted by the good-tempered laughter which such an
idea excited, and the evening passed off merrily.

Mr Joe and his wife looked in—by chance, as they explained; as did Mr
Brooks and his wife—formerly Miss Susy Smethby—who came also by chance;
the result being that there was quite a jovial party, and that Mr
Styles received the warmest invitations to become a frequent visitor at
the house of Mr Joe and at that of Mr Brooks.

After this night, too, there was unwonted pleasantry at Mr Smethby’s,
for not only his family but some of the neighbours were constantly
dropping in, and it was wonderful what an interest they all took in
the gentleman from Australia. The latter was very guarded—kept up his
character well, did him great credit, Mr Joe said. But no one can avoid
an occasional flaw, and one or two were detected even in him. He was
wont to deplore the hardships which unsuccessful men suffered in a
colony—in fact, he did not like to enter on any detail of his painful
experiences—never would do so.

‘Your hardships do not seem greatly to have injured you, George,’ his
host would answer; ‘you look a good ten years younger than your age;
and many a man who has never been fifty miles from London shows the
wear and tear of toil and worry, of which you complain so much, more
than you do.’

‘Ah! but it is the future!’ Mr Styles would say, when such a debate
arose—he would say it with a sad shake of the head—‘it is the future
which preys on my mind, what I am to do for the rest of my life.’

It was difficult for Mr Smethby, knowing so much as he did, to listen
gravely to such arguments as these; but he was grave, and his manner
encouraged Styles to confide in him—after a fashion.

He soon showed an interest in speaking of certain Australian
investments which it appeared some friend of his thought highly of; a
shallow ruse, not likely to deceive such a man as his cousin. Styles
further mentioned that a gold-miner whom he knew had put ten thousand
pounds into one of these specs less than two years before, and he could
now sell out for thirty thousand any day he chose; but he was too good
a judge to do that, as in another two years the present value would be
doubled, and then, perhaps, he might be tempted to realise. This same
miner, as he had heard, held five or six other investments, nearly all
as good, and was in expectation of hearing news which would enable him
to employ the other half of his capital, which was now lying idle—only
making a paltry three per cent.—quite as well. All this Mr Styles had
heard from his friend.

All this amused Smethby, who read his visitor the more thoroughly in
proportion as the latter sought to envelop himself in these far-fetched
disguises. No additional proof was needed to satisfy Smethby; but the
evidence was in a manner forced upon him to expose most completely the
absurd trick which his cousin was attempting to play off upon him.

Harriet found a letter on the floor of their visitor’s room: it would
have been expecting too much from the feminine, or perhaps from any
temperament, to suppose she would not read it. Its contents were so
interesting, although exceedingly brief, that she showed the note to
her father. It was from a firm in London, a stockbroker’s evidently,
referring to some inquiry from ‘George Styles, Esq.’ as to the purchase
of shares to the amount of twenty thousand pounds, in the Bodgamaree
mines—the very speculation that Smethby had heard his cousin refer to
in their last conversation as being in great favour with the unnamed
gold-miner! The shares were low at present, the letter said, and could
be bought at about eighty per cent., so that a little over sixteen
thousand pounds would be sufficient.

‘That settles it, then,’ said Smethby. ‘Be sure to put the letter back
where you found it, Harriet; and mind what I told you the other day.
Play your cards properly, and I am sure you will win.’

This utterance was rather obscure; but his daughter understood it well
enough to induce her to pout and frown a little, and to move with what
is generally described as a ‘flounce.’

‘Ah! it is all very well,’ said the gentleman; ‘but you ought to know
better than to dream of allowing a quarter of a million of money to go
out of the family.—Who is Robert Crewe, I should like to know?’

This speech would have been, to a third party, equally obscure with
that which had gone before; but as we do not wish to have any mystery,
we may explain that, almost from the first, Cousin George had appeared
much impressed by Harriet’s good looks, and had shown her attentions
which gradually became more marked. He was five-and-twenty years older
than the girl, it was true; but as he had himself said to Smethby, a
man ought to be a good deal older than a woman, when they marry; and
when a man had been abroad, knocking about the world best part of his
time, he then knew what a home was, and felt the want of a young and
cheerful wife.

All this Smethby had pointed out to his daughter before; but was
shocked to find—for he really considered her a sensible, clear-headed
girl, as a rule—that a ridiculous friendship with one Robert Crewe, a
doctor’s assistant in the town, blocked the way of this new road to
wealth and position.

Robert Crewe! Smethby had not ordinary patience with the idea. He
admitted that he had known of, and in some sort of way approved, or,
rather, had not forbidden this intimacy—it was in this roundabout
manner he now described his conduct—and the young fellow, in his
place, might be well enough; but to compare him and his miserable
gallipot and sticking-plaster prospects, with George Styles, was enough
to put any man out of temper. Robert Crewe, forsooth!

Yet, with all this natural indignation and in spite of this sarcasm,
Miss Harriet could not quite make up her mind to renounce the young
doctor; but it might come in time.

That very night—after the discovery of the letter, we mean—Mr Styles
on his return broached two subjects which were strongly suggestive,
especially when his hearers were behind the scenes to a degree he did
not suspect. These hearers were only Mr Smethby and his daughter. It
was a quiet night, such as delighted Mr Styles; he really appeared to
enjoy himself pretty well under all conditions; but he declared this
evening that a snug little family chat was sweeter than anything else,
to an old wanderer like himself. Port, sherry, and claret were at
hand; for while Smethby was, as a rule, strictly economical, so that
wine rarely appeared at his table, his hospitality to his cousin led
him into a freer display of such luxuries now, than of old. But the
taste of Mr Styles was simple—old-fashioned, he said; and he drank
scarcely anything but cold brandy-and-water, to which he was remarkably
partial. It was over a glass of this innocent beverage—always mixed
half and half, at which, even in his bloom of hospitality, Mr Smethby
winced—that he spoke of the subjects indicated. He referred to a friend
of his—it was odd how satisfied he seemed with this shallow artifice,
and how often he resorted to it—who was about to buy a small property
near London. This property was at Richmond—only a mere toy, a little
villa, with coachhouse and stables; a pretty conservatory, with a
couple of acres of land—that was all. It was freehold—his friend would
have nothing else—and it commanded the prettiest view on the river.

Now, what was Miss Harriet’s opinion? Did she prefer living in the
country outright, or near London? What did she think of his friend’s
choice? Harriet hesitated, and her colour went and came; but Smethby
spoke up for her, and said that, like every other young girl, she would
prefer living near the great metropolis, with its theatres, its balls,
its parks and the like.—O yes! of course. Harriet but feebly echoed
this opinion, which was repeated and enlarged on by Smethby.

Later in the evening, when the elders were alone, Styles brought up his
friend again; it was, as before, in reference to an investment, and Mr
George said how he wished his cousin had a little money to spare, as he
knew—his friend knew, that was—of a chance for doubling and trebling
every penny invested.

Smethby, with his usual good-tempered laugh—he was always
good-tempered, when with Styles—said that for all George knew he
might have a trifle by him. On hearing this, his cousin expressed his
pleasure, and said that his friend was going to invest nearly twenty
thousand pounds in the spec. Such figures were beyond Smethby, as that
gentleman owned; but one, or even two thousand, he might command. In
short, ere they parted that night, he had resolved to remove his cash
from his deposit account at the town bank and join this friend in his
speculation.

Styles was pleased to hear this; and when Smethby said he should like
to see his friend, laughed, and confusedly said he would tell his
cousin more about him soon.




ECONOMY OF FUEL.


Mr Hull, a celebrated geologist, has calculated that there is still
a quantity of coal in store in England and Wales sufficient to
afford a supply of one hundred and twenty millions of tons for about
five hundred years. This would be a cheerful estimate, if we could
cordially and unquestioningly accept it. But, unfortunately, we cannot,
other competent observers having affirmed that the coal deposits of
this country will be exhausted in less than two hundred years. We
would, therefore, urge with all earnestness, that the people and the
government should pay more especial attention to this vital subject
than they have hitherto done.

Of course, there are two chief points on which any interference could
be effectual: these are, the exportation of coal, and the wasteful
processes of mining now in vogue. The former of these involves the
great question of free-trade, and the right of each coal-proprietor to
sell the produce of his land and labour at the best possible price. The
latter is even a still more difficult thing to meddle with, and must,
perhaps, be met rather by the provisions made on the part of landed
proprietors, when leasing their subterranean property to practical
miners, than by anything government can do. At present, the proprietor,
having a life-interest in his estate, desires to obtain from the mines
the largest amount of the most valuable coal at the smallest working
loss. The result is, that vast quantities of inferior but yet valuable
material are left in the pits; quantities that would do something
towards meeting the growing consumption in this kingdom.

Selfish, narrow-minded people might exclaim: ‘Oh! there will be quite
enough of coal to last us our time. We don’t expect or want to live for
ever; therefore, we won’t bother ourselves about the economy of fuel.’

Let us remind such unpatriotic mortals that our manufacturing
and commercial interests rest upon our supplies of coal as their
foundation-stone. Our commercial rivals across the Atlantic possess
magnificent coal-fields, that are practically of indefinite extent.
Exhaust _our_ coal-fields, and their supremacy will become complete. It
behoves each and every one of us to think of the future of our country
and of the interests of those who come after us.

Perchance some cynic may say: ‘What has posterity ever done for me? Let
posterity take care of itself.’

‘Very well,’ we reply; ‘let posterity do for itself. Let us only be
influenced by selfish and non-altruistic principles, and think only of
ourselves. The question is, how can we put money into our own pockets
by using less coal than we do?’

First, we can do so by using proper grates. Down to the time of Count
Rumford, the modern world of coal-burners never thought of the true
theory of caloric in connection with grates. Burners of wood had not
tried to be economical; they did not expect to be warm on more than one
side. When their bodies were scorched and their eyes smarted, they had
what they bargained for. Rumford appeared as a new teacher; he laid
down the principles of heat and combustion with admirable clearness,
and flooded England with grates of his favourite type. But in spite of
the teachings of the Count, coal-fires of to-day are as dirty, chilly,
and as wasteful as ever.

The waste of coal in Britain is positively disgraceful. One hundred
and twenty millions of tons are consumed every year. Of this, one half
might be saved by the adoption of improved appliances. About thirty
million pounds sterling might thus be kept in our banks, instead
of being turned into cinders and smoke. The pall of smoke and fog
that broods over London contains in a single day fifty tons of coal!
The fact is that we burn coal in house-fires on an entirely false
principle—that is, on the principle of a blast-furnace, letting cold
air pass through the centre of the fire, to blaze the coal rapidly
away, and hurry the heat and half-burnt gases unused up the chimney.
We have to go back to the good old principle of the embers on the
earth, when the hearth was, as it is at the present day in many Irish
cottages, a true ‘focus,’ a centre of accumulated heat. We must, then,
return to truer lines, and make our fireplace again a ‘focus’ or ‘well’
of stored heat, into which we put our fuel, first to be distilled into
gas, which, rising at a high temperature from its hot bed, meets the
air gliding towards the chimney, and bursts into flame, communicating
heat to the firebrick back and to the room. Then, when all the gases
have been burnt off, the red-hot coke remains, and burns away in the
bottom of the grate at a slow rate, yet radiating abundant heat into
the room.

This desirable end is gained by using Mr Teale’s ‘Economiser.’ The
‘Coal Economiser’ is simply a shield of sheet-iron which stands on the
hearth, and rises as high as the lowest bar of the grate, against which
it should fit accurately, so as to shut in the space under the fire.
Any ordinary blacksmith can make the ‘Economiser.’ It is applicable to
any range, whether in the cottages of the poor or the mansions of the
rich. Those who wish for greater elegance can have it made of steel or
brass. Its chief purpose is to cut off the under current, and to keep
the chamber under the fire hot.

Count Rumford affirmed that seven-eighths of the heat was carried up
the chimney. Heat is wasted in three ways: by combustion under the
influence of a strong draught; by imperfect combustion; by the escape
of heat through the sides and the back of the fireplace. By using the
‘Economiser’ all this is altered. If there is plenty of heat round the
fuel, then but little oxygen will do. But burn coal with a chilling
jacket, and it needs a fierce draught of oxygen to sustain it. High
temperature does not imply complete combustion, for in making gas,
coke is left. When the ‘Economiser’ is applied, the fire burns with an
orange colour, for the stream of oxygen is slow and steady, and the
coal undergoes complete combustion; consequently, there is an entire
absence of cinders, and only a little fine snuff-like powder falls
into the ‘economised’ chamber. Smoke is also conspicuous by its absence.

In a recent lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, Mr Teale
mentioned several additional points about the structure of fireplaces,
which tend to the saving of fuel. (1) As much firebrick and as little
iron as possible should be used. Iron absorbs the heat, and chiefly in
directions in which the heat is least wanted. Firebrick retains and
accumulates heat. (2) The back of the fireplace should lean or arch
over the fire, so as to become heated by the rising flame. The heated
back sends forth abundant radiant heat into the room. ‘Milner’s’ back
is a capital arrangement; so is the Nelson ‘Rifle’ back. (3) The bottom
of the grating should be deep from before backwards. (4) The slits in
the grating should be narrow; this prevents small cinders from falling
through. (5) The bars in front should be narrow.

If the foregoing instructions are attended to, there will be an
enormous saving of fuel. Soot and smoke will be diminished, and there
will be no half-burnt cinders.

The late Sir William Siemens was an ardent advocate for the use of gas
as a heating agent. At the British Association of 1882, he said: ‘The
time is not far distant when both rich and poor will largely resort to
gas, the most convenient, the cleanest, and cheapest of heating agents,
and when raw coal will only be seen at the colliery or gasworks. In all
cases where the town to be supplied is within, say, thirty miles of
the colliery, the gasworks may with advantage be placed at the mouth,
or, still better, at the bottom of the pit, whereby all haulage of
fuel would be avoided, and the gas in its ascent from the bottom of
the colliery would acquire an onward pressure sufficient, probably,
to impel it to its destination.’ No doubt, if this scheme could be
realised, we would all be deeply indebted to the great man who first
suggested it. More than one half of the coal now consumed would be
saved by its adoption. At present, we must be content with the old
order of things.

It is astonishing, however, that so few people employ gas instead of
coal as a cooking agent, especially in summer. It secures an immense
saving of labour, not to speak of its superiority over coal in respect
to coolness. In the hot summer days, cooking with a coal-fire in an
ordinary range is a tremendous trial to the poor cook. The kitchen
is like an oven. What a difference if gas is used! The moment it is
no longer required it can be turned off, and the temperature of the
kitchen is soon lowered. By using a gas-stove, no coal is required
during the summer. It is less expensive than coal. Of course, care must
be taken to have it turned off directly it is no longer required, and a
proper economy exercised in its use. Mr Fletcher, of Warrington, a high
authority on gas for cooking and heating purposes, says: ‘The cost of
gas, even if wastefully used, must be considered not only as regards
the saving of coal, but also, what is far greater, the saving in weight
of meat roasted, which is considerable, and the reduced wear and tear,
waste, dirt, and consequent labour. Taken altogether as affecting the
total housekeeping expenses, gas is cheaper than coal for cooking
at any price not exceeding twelve or fourteen shillings per thousand
cubic feet; coal being, say, twelve to fourteen shillings per ton.’ The
majority of people, however, pay very much less for their gas, and more
for coal; in which case, gas will be much cheaper than coal.

Asbestos heated by gas makes a suitable fire. It is cleanly, quiet,
free from dust, and convenient; and it can be turned on or extinguished
in an instant.

Enough has been written to show that economy of fuel is not merely
theoretical and fanciful, but that it is practicable and worthy of
earnest attention.




THE SIGN OF THE _RED INDIAN_.


Just on the outskirts of the seaport and garrison town of Chubleigh,
in the south-west of England, stands a little old-fashioned hostelry
called the _Red Indian_. How it came by its name is involved in
obscurity. The antiquity of the inn is undoubted, and a tradition
is current in the district, that during the unfortunate Monmouth’s
rebellion it was used as the temporary head-quarters of Colonel
Kirke. In its back-garden, a wooden seat is still shown to visitors
on which that bloodthirsty officer, surrounded by his ‘lambs,’ is
alleged to have sat in judgment, and thence ruthlessly consigned to
the gallows scores of the unoffending rustics of the locality. From
time immemorial, the _Red Indian_ has been in the hands of a family
named Slade. The present proprietor, though, generally speaking, as
deliberate in manner as John Willet, is yet apt to be garrulously
communicative in talking of his inn and its interesting historical
associations. Above the rustic porch over the door there is fixed a
large, rudely carved, wooden figure of a savage holding in its hand a
tomahawk. The Indian’s nose was long ago knocked off by a well-directed
stone thrown by some mischievous urchin; his original coat of paint has
peeled off, and large cracks are visible, which run the whole length
of the figure. Altogether, this Indian is as disreputable-looking a
sign as a traveller might perceive throughout the length and breadth of
England. Nevertheless, it is in connection with this dilapidated timber
savage that the writer obtained, from the landlord of the _Red Indian_,
materials for the following story.

When the present century was in its infancy, the son of the then
proprietor, and grand-uncle of the present landlord, was engaged in
the capacity of boatswain of a privateer, which had been fitted out
with the object of preying on the French merchant service. In the
Mediterranean, the privateer captured a large vessel, which in part was
laden with the product of the labours of a Parisian curiosity-hunter,
who had been despoiling ancient Grecian temples, with the object of
supplying the virtuosi of the French metropolis with antique sculptures
and bronzes, and thereby securing a large profit to himself. The
privateersmen were greatly disappointed at not finding specie, and what
they considered marketable merchandise, on board the Frenchman, and
attached but little value to the battered though priceless bas-reliefs
and statues. Boatswain Slade took a great fancy to a life-sized bronze
gladiator, which he considered would prove an acceptable addition to
the attractions of the back-garden of his father’s inn, and managed,
for a few shillings, to effect its purchase from the captain.

Shortly after the glorious victory of Trafalgar, the privateer was
paid off at Chubleigh; and the boatswain conveyed the statue on shore
to his father’s inn. The gladiator was placed on a brick pedestal,
flanked on either side by two rusty carronades; and the bareness of
the surroundings was relieved by the artistic disposal of a number
of huge shells which the boatswain had brought from ‘foreign parts.’
The host of the _Red Indian_, however, was soon struck by the idea
of making the figure a sign for his hostelry. He had but little
sentimental regard for the rich green mould of antiquity, so, with
execrable vandalism, carefully scraped it off the statue, and had the
gladiator painted a bright scarlet by a local artist, who took payment
for his work in the old ale for which the hostelry was famous. This
operation performed, the metamorphosed gladiator was removed to a
prominent position in front of the inn door, and for years did duty
as a Red Indian. Its brilliant appearance was a perpetual source of
gratification and delight to the host and his numerous customers; while
inquiring strangers were proudly informed that it had been captured
from the frog-eaters. Once a year the extemporised Indian received a
fresh coat of paint; and save when its head was decorated at times with
a disused tin pail or an old hat by some facetious individuals, it was
not otherwise interfered with.

At the close of the year 1815, Chubleigh was _en fête_ in connection
with the disembarkation of the 31st Regiment of Light Dragoons, which
during that year had performed doughty service at Waterloo, and which
had just returned from the occupation of Paris. The piping times of
peace had again returned, and, naturally enough, the officers and men
who had assisted to destroy the power of the once dreaded ‘Boney’ were
the objects of popular pride and enthusiasm among the inhabitants of
the town. When the regiment settled down in quarters, invitations to
the houses of the principal townsmen were showered on the officers, and
each vied with the other to entertain these heroes of Waterloo.

The younger officers, several of whom had left school to join their
regiment in Belgium, gave themselves prodigious airs; but no one
considered himself of so much importance as a raw young Connaught-man,
a cornet named Mike Macnamara. Mike, a warrior of about nine months’
service, created great amusement both in the officers’ mess and in
the houses to which he was invited by boasting about the number of
Frenchmen whom he had placed _hors de combat_ in the late short but
eventful campaign. His bounce together with his extreme simplicity
rendered him the butt of his brother-officers, and he was in
consequence the victim of numerous practical jokes. In these days, and
for many years subsequently, rough horseplay and the perpetration of
the most uncomfortable imaginable practical jokes were characteristic
of the spirited gentlemen who officered the regiments of British
cavalry. Those of our readers who took the trouble, some years ago, to
wade through the evidence at the Tichborne trial, will remember the
description of the ruthless tricks played on the simple undoubted Roger
by his brother-carabineers. At the present day, military practical
joking is somewhat out of fashion, and any games that may be played are
curtailed of their former disagreeable proportions, and have assumed a
comparatively mild character.

Cornet Macnamara’s room was the favourite arena for a display of the
ingenious tricks of his facetiously inclined brother-officers. Thistles
and dead cats were placed between his sheets; trapfuls of live rats
were let loose in the apartment; the nuts of his iron bedstead were
unscrewed, so that when the poor fellow turned in, the framework of the
couch tumbled to pieces and landed the mattress on the floor, while at
the same time he was douched by a tub of water from the shelf above,
which was fastened with cord to the mattress, and upset simultaneously
with the collapse of the bed. On such occasions Mike was naturally
wroth, and expressed himself as anxious to call out the offenders; but
despite his utmost vigilance and caution, he could never capture his
tormentors.

Late one evening, a party of revellers from barracks were passing the
_Red Indian_, when they espied the vermilioned gladiator. Nothing
would satisfy them but to feloniously remove the statue and return
with it to quarters—a work of considerable difficulty, as the figure
was heavy. Arrived thither with their load, some one suggested that it
should be placed in Cornet Macnamara’s room; and this idea was hailed
with general enthusiasm. A scout was despatched to the messroom, in
order to keep watch on Mike’s movements, and give the alarm in case
he should appear on the scene. With great labour the gladiator was
hoisted to the top of the staircase of the officer’s house; and Mike’s
room door having been forced open, the jokers placed the statue in
front of his dressing-table, on the top of an inverted iron coal-box.
The staircase at the time was in process of being whitewashed, so the
officers obtained possession of a tub of the mixture, and smeared the
‘Red Indian’ a dirty white; then taking the sheets from Mike’s bed,
they hung them about the figure, turning it into a respectable-looking
ghost. Afterwards, the officers dropped one by one into the messroom,
and joined a group who were listening with great amusement to a
new-fangled story which was being retailed by Macnamara regarding his
prowess at Waterloo.

Mike, after clapping an additional two Frenchmen to the previous grand
total of the number who had fallen by his sword, as narrated in his
tale of the previous night, left the messroom in order to proceed to
his quarters, whither, in a minute or two, he was stealthily followed
by the whole of the officers, who anticipated great fun from the
consternation of their victim when beholding the ghastly apparition in
his bedroom. Mike gaily entered the apartment, singing a love ditty of
his native land, and began to fumble for his tinder-box. After several
attempts, he at last managed to light his candle, and of course at
once perceived the ghost. The cornet was filled with the superstitious
notions of a certain section of his countrymen, and started back nearly
overcome with terror. ‘Ye saints in glory! what’s that?’ he cried;
then leaving the room, he plunged madly down the staircase, and rushed
yelling across the parade ground in the direction of the messroom. In
his headlong progress, poor Mike did not observe a party of two ladies
and a gentleman, who happened to be the colonel, accompanied by his
wife and daughter, who had just returned from a dinner-party. Mike ran
full tilt against his commanding officer, and knocked him into a puddle
in the barrack square. The ladies screamed loudly; and the colonel,
with many objurgations, got on his feet and confronted his assailant.

‘You—Cornet Macnamara!’ he angrily exclaimed. ‘What do you mean, sir,
rushing about like a madman at this time of night? Consider yourself
under arrest, sir.’

‘Faith, colonel,’ answered the unfortunate Mike, ‘I am very sorry,
sorr, but I did not percaive ye. But, sorr, I wint up to me room just
now, and as I hope for salvation, I found the divil in it, wid a big
white shate wrapped round him!’

The irate colonel at once surmised that another trick had been played
on his subordinate; so he sent the ladies home to quarters, and then
called loudly for the sergeant of the guard with a file of men.

When this detachment of the guard appeared on the scene, the colonel
ordered them to follow him to Macnamara’s room, where, by the light of
the sergeant’s lantern, he showed the trembling cornet that there was
nothing supernatural in the character of the figure that had frightened
him so much. He then, under the circumstances, relieved Mike from
arrest and proceeded home.

Mike waited until the commanding officer and the men of the guard were
clear of the staircase, and then slid the gladiator off the coal-box.
He edged the statue to the top of the stair, and by main strength
toppled it over the banister; and an instant later, with a loud crash,
the gladiator was smashed into fragments on the flagstones of the
lobby, four stories beneath.

It is needless to say that there was great anger and consternation
in the breast of the worthy host of the _Red Indian_ when, next
morning, he awoke and found that his cherished statue had mysteriously
disappeared. It was not long, however, before he obtained a clew to its
whereabouts, as a customer informed him that late the previous night
he ‘met a lot of milingtary chaps carrying summut’ in the direction
of the barracks. This ‘summut’ Mr Slade shrewdly conjectured was his
‘Red Indian;’ and he at once wrote to the regimental quarters to make
inquiries into the matter.

When the poor landlord discovered the gladiator in its fragmentary
state, he became most angry and abusive; but was somewhat consoled when
an emissary from the mess informed him that the officers would make
good the damage, and requested him to inform them by letter next day
the price at which he valued his statue. The landlord then procured
the services of a passing cart and had the pieces removed to the inn.
After a long consultation with his wife, he decided to assess the
damage at ten guineas; and by way of making the most of the business,
communicated with a marine store-dealer in town, intending to sell the
smashed gladiator as old metal.

The colonel made the most strenuous though unavailing efforts to
discover the practical jokers, and roundly abused the whole of the mess
for their treatment of poor Mike; but after a while, the affair passed
off in a general laugh.

Affairs, however, were speedily fated to take a turn which caused the
implicated parties to laugh the other way. A large vessel arrived in
the port of Chubleigh from Alexandria, which had among her passengers a
celebrated London virtuoso, who, some months before, had been induced
to pay a visit to Egypt by reason of the excitement produced in
antiquarian circles by the discoveries of the celebrated Belzoni. This
gentleman was posting to London when his chaise broke down opposite the
_Red Indian_, and he entered the hostelry while the vehicle was being
repaired. After partaking of a little refreshment, he took a walk in
the garden, and his eye caught the fragments of the gladiator, which
had been shot in a corner while waiting the arrival of the marine
store-dealer’s cart. Having elicited the story of the statue from the
host, the antiquary submitted the pieces to a most careful examination;
and despite the whitewash and coats of paint with which the figure
had been adorned, he recognised it as a specimen of the work of the
renowned ancient Greek sculptor Lysippus; and in answer to the excited
inquiry of the astonished landlord, appraised its value at six hundred
pounds!

Having, at the host’s urgent request, given a written opinion on the
matter, the virtuoso departed on his journey, and then Mr Slade hurried
with his certificate to a Chubleigh attorney, in whose hands he placed
the matter, with instructions to leave no stone unturned to recover the
full amount from the officers.

Words could scarcely express the chagrin of the purloiners of the
gladiator, when the colonel of the 31st Light Dragoons read at mess
the contents of the letter he received from the legal adviser of
the landlord of the _Red Indian_. The commanding officer further
significantly hinted that the implicated parties would have to uphold
their reputation as officers and gentlemen by paying the amount
demanded, or run the risk of being cashiered.

At first, the jokers were inclined to dispute the claim, and invited
the opinion of an expert; but that authority, when he had inspected
the figure, corroborated the London man’s decision, with a further
assurance that the statue was cheap at the money.

Cornet Macnamara, with reasonable show of justification, stoutly
declined to pay a farthing of the six hundred pounds. It was, however,
with a very bad grace, indeed, that the sum was subscribed by the
interested parties; and served as a valuable lesson to them to modify
for the future their spirit of mischief.

When Mike discovered the identity of his tormentors, he sent a
challenge to each, and an arrangement was come to by which a
representative was selected by ballot to meet the Irishman. The old
trick of leadless pistols was resorted to; the combatants fired three
shots at each other without any perceptible result, and then the
seconds interfered, and declared honour satisfied.

A Jew purchased the fragments of the gladiator from the officers for a
few guineas; but the wily Israelite well knew that a genuine Lysippus
is almost as valuable broken as whole. He had the pieces skilfully
rejoined, and disposed of the statue to a local virtuoso for a large
sum, who in turn bequeathed it to the Chubleigh Museum.

With part of the money the lucky landlord of the _Red Indian_ received
for his gladiator, he invested in a wooden figure, which did duty for
a sign equally well, and which he placed above the porch out of the
reach of predatory officers, and where, as has been mentioned, it still
stands, battered, cracked, and mouldy.

Shortly after the episode of the gladiator, the 31st Light Dragoons
were hurriedly despatched to Lancashire, in order to quell the bread
riots which had broken out in that county; and the actors in the comedy
just narrated were heard of no more by the good folks of Chubleigh.

A little more remains to be told of the statue by Lysippus. We must
come down to 1851, the year in which the Great Exhibition was held in
Hyde Park. A middle-aged Frenchman landed at Chubleigh from Havre on
his way to London, and while taking a walk about the town, entered
the _Red Indian_. The landlord, who had profited so handsomely by
his statue, had years before gone to his rest, and his son the
ex-boatswain, then an aged man, reigned in his stead. The Frenchman
was interested in learning that his host had taken a share in the old
war, and after a time, he had narrated to him the whole history of the
statue.

‘Vat vas de name of de vessel you took?’ he eagerly asked.

‘The _Hercules_, sir.’

To the landlord’s astonishment, Monsieur leant back in his chair and
indulged in a fit of uncontrollable laughter, and recovering himself,
asked to be directed to the Museum. Having reached that establishment,
he was not long in picking out the Lysippus, of which the learned in
Chubleigh were so proud. The Frenchman put on his glasses and examined
the gladiator’s toe-nail, and then gave vent to another guffaw, which
speedily brought round him the officials of the establishment. He
asked to see the secretary; and when introduced to the presence of
that functionary, exclaimed: ‘Begar, sir, dat gladiateur is no more a
Lysippus dan I am de Czar Nicholas of all de Russias. My oncle, who die
ven I vas a leetle boy, keep vat you call a foundree in Athens, and
have casts, or _replicas_ you call dem, made of all de antiques. He den
put dem down a sewer until dey get a green magnifique; dey look like
de real article; and he make heaps of money by selling dem as such in
Paris. Your gladiateur is one of dem!’

‘But, my dear sir,’ asked the astounded secretary, ‘how are you going
to substantiate your statement?’

‘Come wit me,’ said the Frenchman; and the twain proceeded to the
statue. ‘My oncle,’ resumed the Frenchman, ‘deal in de antique, as I
have told you; and in case he himself be cheated wit his own spurious
statues, he have a private mark. Here is dis mark—a leetle hole drilled
under dis toe-nail!’

The secretary communicated the purport of Monsieur’s statement to the
Museum directors; experts were called who substantiated the Frenchman’s
assertion that the work was spurious, and was no more the production of
Lysippus than an Italian moulder’s plaster-cast of Venus is the work of
Phidias. In disgust, the directors ordered the statue to be transferred
to the lumber-room of the establishment, and its description,
‘Gladiator, by Lysippus, B.C. about 324; bequeathed by the late ——,
Esq.,’ disappeared from the Museum catalogue.




ANOTHER ‘SHIP-CANAL.’


Another has been proposed, although the idea is not new, but seems
to have been an old idea revived, and that is, to cut a canal from
the sea to Birkenhead Docks across the low flat country lying between
the outfalls of the Dee and Mersey, and thus getting a wide passage
which will enable ships to avoid the bar of the Mersey. Elaborate
plans have been prepared by an eminent engineer; and as the whole
scheme seems feasible, and as money for great schemes seems to be
readily forthcoming in this wealth-producing country, there can be
no reason why the ‘ship-canal of Birkenhead’ should not be carried
out as well as the ‘ship-canal of Manchester.’ It would have a great
and reviving effect on the town of Birkenhead, which by this means
may one day become an important commercial city, a rival to, instead
of a mere suburb of, her wealthy sister on the opposite Lancastrian
shore; and the expectations of half a century ago of a grand city, with
magnificent streets, and squares, and splendid commercial docks, may
even yet be realised.




THIS IS ALL.


    Just a saunter in the twilight,
    Just a whisper in the hall,
    Just a sail on sea or river,
    Just a dance at rout or ball,
    Just a glance that hearts enthral—
    This is all—and this is all.

    Just a few harsh words of doubting,
    Just a silence proud and cold,
    Just a spiteful breath of slander,
    Just a wrong that is not told,
    Just a word beyond recall—
    This is all—and this is all.

    Just a life robbed of its brightness,
    Just a heart by sorrow filled,
    Just a faith that trusts no longer,
    Just a love by doubting chilled,
    Just a few hot tears that fall—
    This is all—ah! this is all.

            ROSIE CHURCHILL.

       *       *       *       *       *

Printed and Published by W. & 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. 151, VOL. III, NOVEMBER 20, 1886 ***


    

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.


START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
    at www.gutenberg.org. If you
    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
  
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

    • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
        Literary Archive Foundation.”
    
    • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
        works.
    
    • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
        receipt of the work.
    
    • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
    

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.