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Title: Household words, No. 18, July 27, 1850
        A weekly journal

Editor: Charles Dickens


        
Release date: March 11, 2026 [eBook #78183]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78183

Credits: Richard Tonsing, Steven desJardins, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD WORDS, NO. 18, JULY 27, 1850 ***


     “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.




                            HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
                           A WEEKLY JOURNAL.


                     CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.


      N^{o.} 18.]      SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1850.      [PRICE 2_d._




                       A DETECTIVE POLICE PARTY.


In pursuance of the intention mentioned at the close of a former paper
on “The Modern Science of Thief-taking,” we now proceed to endeavour to
convey to our readers some faint idea of the extraordinary dexterity,
patience, and ingenuity, exercised by the Detective Police. That our
description may be as graphic as we can render it, and may be perfectly
reliable, we will make it, so far as in us lies, a piece of plain truth.
And first, we have to inform the reader how the anecdotes we are about
to communicate, came to our knowledge.

We are not by any means devout believers in the Old Bow-Street Police.
To say the truth, we think there was a vast amount of humbug about those
worthies. Apart from many of them being men of very indifferent
character, and far too much in the habit of consorting with thieves and
the like, they never lost a public occasion of jobbing and trading in
mystery and making the most of themselves. Continually puffed besides by
incompetent magistrates anxious to conceal their own deficiencies, and
hand-in-glove with the penny-a-liners of that time, they became a sort
of superstition. Although as a Preventive Police they were utterly
ineffective, and as a Detective Police were very loose and uncertain in
their operations, they remain with some people, a superstition to the
present day.

On the other hand, the Detective Force organised since the establishment
of the existing Police, is so well chosen and trained, proceeds so
systematically and quietly, does its business in such a workman-like
manner, and is always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of
the public, that the public really do not know enough of it, to know a
tithe of its usefulness. Impressed with this conviction, and interested
in the men themselves, we represented to the authorities at Scotland
Yard, that we should be glad, if there were no official objection, to
have some talk with the Detectives. A most obliging and ready permission
being given, a certain evening was appointed with a certain Inspector
for a social conference between ourselves and the Detectives, at our
Office in Wellington Street, Strand, London. In consequence of which
appointment the party “came off,” which we are about to describe. And we
beg to repeat that, avoiding such topics as it might for obvious reasons
be injurious to the public, or disagreeable to respectable individuals,
to touch upon in print, our description is as exact as we can make it.

The reader will have the goodness to imagine the Sanctum Sanctorum of
Household Words. Anything that best suits the reader’s fancy, will best
represent that magnificent chamber. We merely stipulate for a round
table in the middle, with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it; and
the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece of
furniture and the wall.

It is a sultry evening at dusk. The stones of Wellington Street are hot
and gritty, and the watermen and hackney-coachmen at the Theatre
opposite, are much flushed and aggravated. Carriages are constantly
setting down the people who have come to Fairy-Land; and there is a
mighty shouting and bellowing every now and then, deafening us for the
moment, through the open windows.

Just at dusk, Inspectors Wield and Stalker are announced; but we do not
undertake to warrant the orthography of any of the names here mentioned.
Inspector Wield presents Inspector Stalker. Inspector Wield is a
middle-aged man of a portly presence, with a large, moist, knowing eye,
a husky voice, and a habit of emphasising his conversation by the aid of
a corpulent fore-finger, which is constantly in juxta-position with his
eyes or nose. Inspector Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman—in
appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained
schoolmaster, from the Normal Establishment at Glasgow. Inspector Wield
one might have known, perhaps, for what he is—Inspector Stalker, never.

The ceremonies of reception over, Inspectors Wield and Stalker observe
that they have brought some sergeants with them. The sergeants are
presented—five in number, Sergeant Dornton, Sergeant Witchem, Sergeant
Mith, Sergeant Fendall, and Sergeant Straw. We have the whole Detective
Force from Scotland Yard with one exception. They sit down in a
semi-circle (the two Inspectors at the two ends) at a little distance
from the round table, facing the editorial sofa. Every man of them, in a
glance, immediately takes an inventory of the furniture and an accurate
sketch of the editorial presence. The Editor feels that any gentleman in
company could take him up, if need should be, without the smallest
hesitation, twenty years hence.

The whole party are in plain clothes. Sergeant Dornton, about fifty
years of age, with a ruddy face and a high sun-burnt forehead, has the
air of one who has been a Sergeant in the army—he might have sat to
Wilkie for the Soldier in the Reading of the Will. He is famous for
steadily pursuing the inductive process, and, from small beginnings,
working on from clue to clue until he bags his man. Sergeant Witchem,
shorter and thicker-set, and marked with the small pox, has something of
a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he were engaged in deep
arithmetical calculations. He is renowned for his acquaintance with the
swell mob. Sergeant Mith, a smooth-faced man with a fresh bright
complexion, and a strange air of simplicity, is a dab at housebreakers.
Sergeant Fendall, a light-haired, well-spoken, polite person, is a
prodigious hand at pursuing private inquiries of a delicate nature.
Straw, a little wiry Sergeant of meek demeanour and strong sense, would
knock at a door and ask a series of questions in any mild character you
chose to prescribe to him, from a charity-boy upwards, and seem as
innocent as an infant. They are, one and all, respectable-looking men;
of perfectly good deportment and unusual intelligence; with nothing
lounging or slinking in their manners; with an air of keen observation,
and quick perception when addressed; and generally presenting in their
faces, traces more or less marked of habitually leading lives of strong
mental excitement. They have all good eyes; and they all can, and they
all do, look full at whomsoever they speak to.

We light the cigars, and hand round the glasses (which are very
temperately used indeed), and the conversation begins by a modest
amateur reference on the Editorial part to the swell mob. Inspector
Wield immediately removes his cigar from his lips, waves his right hand,
and says, “Regarding the Swell Mob, Sir, I can’t do better than call
upon Sergeant Witchem. Because the reason why? I’ll tell you. Sergeant
Witchem is better acquainted with the Swell Mob than any officer in
London.”

Our heart leaping up when we beheld this rainbow in the sky, we turn to
Sergeant Witchem, who very concisely, and in well-chosen language, goes
into the subject forthwith. Meantime, the whole of his brother officers
are closely interested in attending to what he says, and observing its
effect. Presently they begin to strike in, one or two together, when an
opportunity offers, and the conversation becomes general. But these
brother officers only come in to the assistance of each other—not to the
contradiction—and a more amicable brotherhood there could not be. From
the swell mob, we diverge to the kindred topics of cracksmen, fences,
public-house dancers, area-sneaks, designing young people who go out
“gonophing,” and other “schools,” to which our readers have already been
introduced. It is observable throughout these revelations, that
Inspector Stalker, the Scotchman, is always exact and statistical, and
that when any question of figures arises, everybody as by one consent
pauses, and looks to him.

When we have exhausted the various schools of Art—during which
discussion the whole body have remained profoundly attentive, except
when some unusual noise at the Theatre over the way, has induced some
gentleman to glance inquiringly towards the window in that direction,
behind his next neighbour’s back—we burrow for information on such
points as the following. Whether there really are any highway robberies
in London, or whether some circumstances not convenient to be mentioned
by the aggrieved party, usually precede the robberies complained of,
under that head, which quite change their character? Certainly the
latter, almost always. Whether in the case of robberies in houses, where
servants are necessarily exposed to doubt, innocence under suspicion
ever becomes so like guilt in appearance, that a good officer need be
cautious how he judges it? Undoubtedly. Nothing is so common or
deceptive as such appearances at first. Whether in a place of public
amusement, a thief knows an officer, and an officer knows a
thief,—supposing them, beforehand, strangers to each other—because each
recognises in the other, under all disguise, an inattention to what is
going on, and a purpose that is not the purpose of being entertained?
Yes. That’s the way exactly. Whether it is reasonable or ridiculous to
trust to the alleged experiences of thieves as narrated by themselves,
in prisons, or penitentiaries, or anywhere? In general, nothing more
absurd. Lying is their habit and their trade; and they would rather
lie—even if they hadn’t an interest in it, and didn’t want to make
themselves agreeable—than tell the truth.

From these topics, we glide into a review of the most celebrated and
horrible of the great crimes that have been committed within the last
fifteen or twenty years. The men engaged in the discovery of almost all
of them, and in the pursuit or apprehension of the murderers, are here,
down to the very last instance. One of our guests gave chase to and
boarded the Emigrant Ship, in which the murderess last hanged in London
was supposed to have embarked. We learn from him that his errand was not
announced to the passengers, who may have no idea of it to this hour.
That he went below, with the captain, lamp in hand—it being dark, and
the whole steerage abed and seasick—and engaged the Mrs. Manning who
_was_ on board, in a conversation about her luggage, until she was, with
no small pains, induced to raise her head, and turn her face towards the
light. Satisfied that she was not the object of his search, he quietly
re-embarked in the Government steamer alongside, and steamed home again
with the intelligence.

When we have exhausted these subjects, too, which occupy a considerable
time in the discussion, two or three leave their chairs, whisper
Sergeant Witchem, and resume their seats. Sergeant Witchem, leaning
forward a little, and placing a hand on each of his legs, then modestly
speaks as follows:

“My brother officers wish me to relate a little account of my taking
Tally-ho Thompson. A man oughtn’t to tell what he has done himself; but
still, as nobody was with me, and, consequently, as nobody but myself
can tell it, I’ll do it in the best way I can, if it should meet your
approval.”

We assure Sergeant Witchem that he will oblige us very much, and we all
compose ourselves to listen with great interest and attention.

“Tally-ho Thompson,” says Sergeant Witchem, after merely wetting his
lips with his brandy-and-water, “Tally-ho Thompson was a famous
horse-stealer, couper, and magsman. Thompson, in conjunction with a pal
that occasionally worked with him, gammoned a countryman out of a good
round sum of money, under pretence of getting him a situation—the
regular old dodge—and was afterwards in the ‘Hue and Cry’ for a horse—a
horse that he stole, down in Hertfordshire. I had to look after
Thompson, and I applied myself, of course, in the first instance, to
discovering where he was. Now, Thompson’s wife lived, along with a
little daughter, at Chelsea. Knowing that Thompson was somewhere in the
country, I watched the house—especially at post-time in the
morning—thinking Thompson was pretty likely to write to her. Sure
enough, one morning the postman comes up, and delivers a letter at Mrs.
Thompson’s door. Little girl opens the door, and takes it in. We’re not
always sure of postmen, though the people at the post-offices are always
very obliging. A postman may help us, or he may not,—just as it happens.
However, I go across the road, and I say to the postman, after he has
left the letter, ‘Good morning! how are you?’ ‘How are _you_?’ says he.
‘You’ve just delivered a letter for Mrs. Thompson.’ ‘Yes, I have.’ ‘You
didn’t happen to remark what the post-mark was, perhaps?’ ‘No,’ says he,
‘I didn’t.’ ‘Come,’ says I, ‘I’ll be plain with you. I’m in a small way
of business, and I have given Thompson credit, and I can’t afford to
lose what he owes me. I know he’s got money, and I know he’s in the
country, and if you could tell me what the post-mark was, I should be
very much obliged to you, and you’d do a service to a tradesman in a
small way of business that can’t afford a loss.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I do
assure you that I did not observe what the post-mark was; all I know is,
that there was money in the letter—I should say a sovereign.’ This was
enough for me, because of course I knew that Thompson having sent his
wife money, it was probable she’d write to Thompson, by return of post,
to acknowledge the receipt. So I said ‘Thankee’ to the postman, and I
kept on the watch. In the afternoon I saw the little girl come out. Of
course I followed her. She went into a stationer’s shop, and I needn’t
say to you that I looked in at the window. She bought some writing-paper
and envelopes, and a pen. I think to myself, ‘That’ll do!’—watch her
home again—and don’t go away, you may be sure, knowing that Mrs.
Thompson was writing her letter to Tally-ho, and that the letter would
be posted presently. In about an hour or so, out came the little girl
again, with the letter in her hand. I went up, and said something to the
child, whatever it might have been; but I couldn’t see the direction of
the letter, because she held it with the seal upwards. However, I
observed that on the back of the letter there was what we call a kiss—a
drop of wax by the side of the seal—and again, you understand, that was
enough for me. I saw her post the letter, waited till she was gone, then
went into the shop, and asked to see the Master. When he came out, I
told him, ‘Now, I’m an Officer in the Detective Force; there’s a letter
with a kiss been posted here just now, for a man that I’m in search of;
and what I have to ask of you, is, that you will let me look at the
direction of that letter.’ He was very civil—took a lot of letters from
the box in the window—shook ’em out on the counter with the faces
downwards—and there among ’em was the identical letter with the kiss. It
was directed, Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post-Office, B——, to be left ’till
called for. Down I went to B—— (a hundred and twenty miles or so) that
night. Early next morning I went to the Post-Office; saw the gentleman
in charge of that department; told him who I was; and that my object was
to see, and track, the party that should come for the letter for Mr.
Thomas Pigeon. He was very polite, and said, ‘You shall have every
assistance we can give you; you can wait inside the office; and we’ll
take care to let you know when anybody comes for the letter.’ Well, I
waited there, three days, and began to think that nobody ever _would_
come. At last the clerk whispered to me, ‘Here! Detective! Somebody’s
come for the letter!’ ‘Keep him a minute,’ said I, and I ran round to
the outside of the office. There I saw a young chap with the appearance
of an Ostler, holding a horse by the bridle—stretching the bridle across
the pavement, while he waited at the Post-Office Window for the letter.
I began to pat the horse, and that; and I said to the boy, ‘Why, this is
Mr. Jones’s Mare!’ ‘No. It an’t.’ ‘No?’ said I. ‘She’s very like Mr.
Jones’s Mare!’ ‘She an’t Mr. Jones’s Mare, anyhow,’ says he. ‘It’s Mr.
So-and-So’s, of the Warwick Arms.’ And up he jumped, and off he
went—letter and all. I got a cab, followed on the box, and was so quick
after him that I came into the stable-yard of the Warwick Arms, by one
gate, just as he came in by another. I went into the bar, where there
was a young woman serving, and called for a glass of brandy-and-water.
He came in directly, and handed her the letter. She casually looked at
it, without saying anything, and stuck it up behind the glass over the
chimney-piece. What was to be done next?

“I turned it over in my mind while I drank my brandy-and-water (looking
pretty sharp at the letter the while), but I couldn’t see my way out of
it at all. I tried to get lodgings in the house, but there had been a
horse-fair, or something of that sort, and it was full. I was obliged to
put up somewhere else, but I came backwards and forwards to the bar for
a couple of days, and there was the letter, always behind the glass. At
last I thought I’d write a letter to Mr. Pigeon myself, and see what
that would do. So I wrote one, and posted it, but I purposely addressed
it, Mr. John Pigeon, instead of Mr. Thomas Pigeon, to see what _that_
would do. In the morning (a very wet morning it was) I watched the
postman down the street, and cut into the bar, just before he reached
the Warwick Arms. In he came presently with my letter. ‘Is there a Mr.
John Pigeon staying here?’ ‘No!—stop a bit though,’ says the barmaid;
and she took down the letter behind the glass. ‘No,’ says she, ‘it’s
Thomas, and _he_ is not staying here. Would you do me a favor, and post
this for me, as it is so wet?’ The postman said Yes; she folded it in
another envelope, directed it, and gave it him. He put it in his hat,
and away he went.

“I had no difficulty in finding out the direction of that letter. It was
addressed, Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post-Office, R——, Northamptonshire, to be
left till called for. Off I started directly for R——; I said the same at
the Post-Office there, as I had said at B——; and again I waited three
days before anybody came. At last another chap on horseback came. ‘Any
letters for Mr. Thomas Pigeon?’ ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘New Inn, near
R——.’ He got the letter, and away _he_ went—at a canter.

“I made my enquiries about the New Inn, near R——, and hearing it was a
solitary sort of house, a little in the horse line, about a couple of
miles from the station, I thought I’d go and have a look at it. I found
it what it had been described, and sauntered in, to look about me. The
landlady was in the bar, and I was trying to get into conversation with
her; asked her how business was, and spoke about the wet weather, and so
on; when I saw, through an open door, three men sitting by the fire in a
sort of parlor, or kitchen; and one of those men, according to the
description I had of him, was Tally-ho Thompson!

“I went and sat down among ’em, and tried to make things agreeable; but
they were very shy—wouldn’t talk at all—looked at me, and at one
another, in a way quite the reverse of sociable. I reckoned ’em up, and
finding that they were all three bigger men than me, and considering
that their looks were ugly—that it was a lonely place—railroad station
two miles off—and night coming on—thought I couldn’t do better than have
a drop of brandy-and-water to keep my courage up. So I called for my
brandy-and-water; and as I was sitting drinking it by the fire, Thompson
got up and went out.

“Now the difficulty of it was, that I wasn’t sure it _was_ Thompson,
because I had never set eyes on him before; and what I had wanted was to
be quite certain of him. However, there was nothing for it now, but to
follow, and put a bold face upon it. I found him talking, outside in the
yard, with the landlady. It turned out afterwards, that he was wanted by
a Northampton officer for something else, and that, knowing that officer
to be pock-marked (as I am myself), he mistook me for him. As I have
observed, I found him talking to the landlady, outside. I put my hand
upon his shoulder—this way—and said, ‘Tally-ho Thompson, it’s no use. I
know you. I’m an officer from London, and I take you into custody for
felony!’ ‘That be d—d!’ says Tally-ho Thompson.

“We went back into the house, and the two friends began to cut up rough,
and their looks didn’t please me at all, I assure you. ‘Let the man go.
What are you going to do with him?’ ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do
with him. I’m going to take him to London to-night, as sure as I’m
alive. I’m not alone here, whatever you may think. You mind your own
business, and keep yourselves to yourselves. It’ll be better for you,
for I know you both very well.’ _I_‘d never seen or heard of ’em in all
my life, but my bouncing cowed ’em a bit, and they kept off, while
Thompson was making ready to go. I thought to myself, however, that they
might be coming after me on the dark road, to rescue Thompson; so I said
to the landlady, ‘What men have you got in the house, Missis?’ ‘We
haven’t got no men here,’ she says, sulkily. ‘You have got an ostler, I
suppose?’ ‘Yes, we’ve got an ostler.’ ‘Let me see him.’ Presently he
came, and a shaggy-headed young fellow he was. ‘Now attend to me, young
man,’ says I; ‘I’m a Detective Officer from London. This man’s name is
Thompson. I have taken him into custody for felony. I’m going to take
him to the railroad station. I call upon you in the Queen’s name to
assist me; and mind you, my friend, you’ll get yourself into more
trouble than you know of, if you don’t!’ You never saw a person open his
eyes so wide. ‘Now, Thompson, come along!’ says I. But when I took out
the handcuffs, Thompson cries, ‘No! None of that! I won’t stand _them_!
I’ll go along with you quiet, but I won’t bear none of that!’ ‘Tally-ho
Thompson,’ I said, ‘I’m willing to behave as a man to you, if you are
willing to behave as a man to me. Give me your word that you’ll come
peaceably along, and I don’t want to handcuff you.’ ‘I will,’ says
Thompson, ‘but I’ll have a glass of brandy first.’ ‘I don’t care if I’ve
another,’ said I. ‘We’ll have two more, Missis,’ said the friends, ‘and
con-found you, Constable, you’ll give your man a drop, won’t you?’ I was
agreeable to that, so we had it all round, and then my man and I took
Tally-ho Thompson safe to the railroad, and I carried him to London that
night. He was afterwards acquitted, on account of a defect in the
evidence; and I understand he always praises me up to the skies, and
says I’m one of the best of men.”

This story coming to a termination amidst general applause, Inspector
Wield, after a little grave smoking, fixes his eye on his host, and thus
delivers himself:

“It wasn’t a bad plant that of mine, on Fikey, the man accused of
forging the Sou’ Western Railway debentures—it was only t’other
day—because the reason why? I’ll tell you.

“I had information that Fikey and his brother kept a factory over yonder
there,” indicating any region on the Surrey side of the river, “where he
bought second-hand carriages; so after I’d tried in vain to get hold of
him by other means, I wrote him a letter in an assumed name, saying that
I’d got a horse and shay to dispose of, and would drive down next day,
that he might view the lot, and make an offer—very reasonable it was, I
said—a reg’lar bargain. Straw and me then went off to a friend of mine
that’s in the livery and job business, and hired a turn-out for the day,
a precious smart turn-out, it was—quite a slap-up thing! Down we drove,
accordingly, with a friend (who’s not in the Force himself); and leaving
my friend in the shay near a public-house, to take care of the horse, we
went to the factory, which was some little way off. In the factory,
there was a number of strong fellows at work, and after reckoning ’em
up, it was clear to me that it wouldn’t do to try it on there. They were
too many for us. We must get our man out of doors. ‘Mr. Fikey at home?’
‘No, he ain’t.’ ‘Expected home soon?’ ‘Why, no, not soon.’ ‘Ah! is his
brother here?’ ‘_I_’m his brother.’ ‘Oh! well, this is an
ill-conwenience, this is. I wrote him a letter yesterday, saying I’d got
a little turn-out to dispose of, and I’ve took the trouble to bring the
turn-out down, a’ purpose, and now he ain’t in the way.’ ‘No, he an’t in
the way. You couldn’t make it convenient to call again, could you?’
‘Why, no, I couldn’t. I want to sell; that’s the fact; and I can’t put
it off. Could you find him anywheres?’ At first he said No, he couldn’t,
and then he wasn’t sure about it, and then he’d go and try. So, at last
he went up-stairs, where there was a sort of loft, and presently down
comes my man himself, in his shirt sleeves.

“‘Well,’ he says, ‘this seems to be rayther a pressing matter of yours.’
‘Yes,’ I says, ‘it _is_ rayther a pressing matter, and you’ll find it a
bargain—dirt-cheap.’ ‘I ain’t in partickler want of a bargain just now,’
he says, ‘but where is it!’ ‘Why,’ I says, ‘the turn-out’s just outside.
Come and look at it.’ He hasn’t any suspicions, and away we go. And the
first thing that happens is, that the horse runs away with my friend
(who knows no more of driving than a child) when he takes a little trot
along the road to show his paces. You never saw such a game in your
life!

“When the bolt is over, and the turn-out has come to a stand-still
again, Fikey walks round and round it, as grave as a judge—me too.
‘There, Sir!’ I says. ‘There’s a neat thing!’ ‘It an’t a bad style of
thing,’ he says. ‘I believe you,’ says I. ‘And there’s a horse!’—for I
saw him looking at it. ‘Rising eight!’ I says, rubbing his fore-legs.
(Bless you, there an’t a man in the world knows less of horses than I
do, but I’d heard my friend at the Livery Stables say he was eight year
old, so I says, as knowing as possible, ‘Rising Eight.’) ‘Rising eight,
is he?’ says he. ‘Rising eight,’ says I. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘what do you
want for it?’ ‘Why, the first and last figure for the whole concern is
five-and-twenty pound!’ ‘That’s very cheap!’ he says, looking at me.
‘An’t it?’ I says. ‘I told you it was a bargain! Now, without any
higgling and haggling about it, what I want is to sell, and that’s my
price. Further, I’ll make it easy to you, and take half the money down,
and you can do a bit of stiff[1] for the balance.’ ‘Well,’ he says
again, ‘that’s very cheap.’ ‘I believe you,’ says I; ‘get in and try it,
and you’ll buy it. Come! take a trial!’

Footnote 1:

  Give a bill.

“Ecod, he gets in, and we get in, and we drive along the road, to show
him to one of the railway clerks that was hid in the public-house window
to identify him. But the clerk was bothered, and didn’t know whether it
was him, or wasn’t—because the reason why? I’ll tell you,—on account of
his having shaved his whiskers. ‘It’s a clever little horse,’ he says,
‘and trots well; and the shay runs light.’ ‘Not a doubt about it,’ I
says. ‘And now, Mr. Fikey, I may as well make it all right, without
wasting any more of your time. The fact is, I’m Inspector Wield, and
you’re my prisoner.’ ‘You don’t mean that?’ he says. ‘I do, indeed.’
‘Then burn my body,’ says Fikey, ‘if this ain’t _too_ bad!’

“Perhaps you never saw a man so knocked over with surprise. ‘I hope
you’ll let me have my coat?’ he says. ‘By all means.’ ‘Well, then, let’s
drive to the factory.’ ‘Why, not exactly that, I think,’ said I; ‘I’ve
been there, once before, to-day. Suppose we send for it,’ He saw it was
no go, so he sent for it, and put it on, and we drove him up to London,
comfortable.”

This reminiscence is in the height of its success, when a general
proposal is made to the fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with
the strange air of simplicity, to tell the “Butcher’s story.” But we
must reserve the Butcher’s story, together with another not less curious
in its way, for a concluding paper.




                          “SWINGING THE SHIP.”
                  A VISIT TO THE COMPASS OBSERVATORY.


The noble ship with her floating battery of heavy guns, her hundreds of
seamen, smart and brave, her powder, shot, and shell for destroying an
enemy, and her tons of provender to supply her crew; with her anxious
captain and aspiring lieutenants, mates, middys, warrant officers, and
her pipeclayed marines are on board. The long pennon whips the winds;
the hurry, bustle, and noise of preparation has subsided into the
quietude of everything in its place; when the word passes that she is
“Ready for Sea.”

Next morning the newspapers find just a line and a half in their naval
corner for the announcement,—“Her Majesty’s ship Unutterable, 120 guns,
went out of harbour yesterday. After she has been swung, and had her
compasses adjusted, she will sail for the Pacific.”

“_Swing_ a hundred and twenty gun ship?” says the good citizen
interrogatively to himself, as he devours his coffee and his newspaper
at breakfast. He pays his taxes and is proud of Britannia and the
British navy, but his admiration of the nautical does not help him to a
solution. “After she has been swung!” he repeats, and then more
immediate affairs draw off his attention, and he leaves the Unutterable
to undergo the mysterious. He turns to the debates.

Naval officers are of course more wise on the point, and some of them
have more knowledge of the operation than liking for it. It’s apt to
spoil the paint now and then, and gives trouble, and upsets some of
their arrangements. Many, it must be confessed, have more experience
than science in their composition, and when they let out their true
feeling, indulge, perhaps, in a half growl, in which the words
“new-fangled” and “deal of trouble” might be heard. But the operation
goes on nevertheless, and little doubt but the toil is forgotten and the
growl repented when—far, far at sea, a murky sky shuts out the sun and
the stars, and forbids heaven to tell the navigator where he is—with a
waste of waters, hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles around him, he has
nought but his figures and his little trembling needles of magnetised
iron to guide him on his way; to direct him wide of the sunken rock and
the sandy shoal as he nears the wished-for coast.

The loss of British ships by wreck has been stated at between five and
six hundred in a year—or about “a ship and a half-a-day.” This terrible
loss has been ascribed to many causes—to the tides and currents of the
ocean; to imperfect logs; inaccurate charts; unsteady steerage;
inattention to the lead; stress of weather; defective ships, and
defective management; but last, if not greatest, says Captain Johnson,
who gives this catalogue of sources of disaster, we have the errors of
the compass. These errors were noticed—now nearly a couple of centuries
ago, and from those days to the present time careful mariners have often
called attention to the subject. “Officers in charge of convoys during
the war,” continues Captain Johnson, “will probably remember the care
with which the general signal was displayed at sunset, to steer a given
course during the night,” with what alacrity that signal was repeated by
the ships of war in their stations, and answered by every
merchant-vessel in the fleet; and they will also possibly remember with
what surprise,—nay, indignation,—they observed when daylight came,
almost the entire convoy dispersed over the ocean as far as the eye
could reach, and mayhap a suspicious looking stranger or two escorting
those farthest away, further astray, in despite of all the shots fired
during a morning watch to recall them. That such dispersements were in
part attributable to the differences of the compasses in each ship,
there can be no doubt; but the greatest delinquents in this particular,
in all probability, were not the merchant vessels, but rather the ships
of war; _the attractive power of their guns upon the compasses_ being
now a well-known and constantly proved fact.

The Apollo frigate, and forty merchantmen of her convoy, in 1803 were
wrecked together on the coast of Portugal, when they believed themselves
to be two hundred miles to the westward. The error of the frigate’s
compasses is believed to have been the cause of the disaster; and a
similar belief exists with respect to the dreadful wrecks of our line of
battle ships on the coasts of Jutland and Holland in 1811. The wreck of
the Reliance, Indiaman, on the coast of France, when one hundred and
nine lives were lost, in 1842, is another painful accident ascribed to
errors of the compasses induced by the presence on board of a large iron
tank forty-six feet long, the attraction of which had been
overlooked—for a hollow tank has a magnetic influence as great as a
solid mass of the same external dimensions—and such a mass would weigh
four hundred and sixty-eight tons.

These errors in the needle that guides the ship, so dangerous in their
results, at last attracted official attention in England. Inquiries were
extended in various directions, and it was found that “in some ships the
deviation was small; in others it was large enough to cause the loss of
a ship, even during a short run; whilst in others, again, from the
position of some iron stancheon, bolt or bar, or stand of arms, the
error might be changed in the opposite direction; so that the deviation
in one vessel was not a guide to its amount or direction in another; and
that there was no other remedy but ascertaining the fact by direct
experiment in each ship.” These facts were recognised by a committee of
English officers, appointed to investigate the matter, one of whom was
the Captain Johnson whom we have already quoted, and of whose subsequent
labours we shall have further presently to speak.

With these words of explanatory preface, let us set out on a visit to
the establishment where the dangers of those afloat are sought to be
lessened by scientific investigations on shore.

About two miles and a half eastwards from the Greenwich Observatory, in
the picturesque parish of Charlton, and on the extreme corner of the
high land that runs from Blackheath, till it juts out close upon the
banks of the Thames—stands the building we are in search of. Those who
may try to discover it will probably find some little difficulty in the
task, for the place is unpretending in outward aspect, and is little
known in the neighbourhood; has never before been publicly
described—except, perhaps, in those unread publications called Blue
Books, and in the technical volume of the naval officer who has charge
of this sanctum of science.

It is called the Compass Observatory; and its locality may probably be
more completely indicated by saying that it is not very distant from,
though on a far higher level than that corner of the Woolwich Dockyard
whence the great chimney soars up like a rival monument to that on Fish
Street Hill, and where the engine that sets the Dockyard Machines in
motion hums like a bee of forty-horse power. When the place is reached,
those who expect to see “a public building,” will be disappointed; those
who like to find that Science may abide in small and humble places, will
be pleased. A long strip of newly-reclaimed land, a detached brick
house, and in its rear, an octagonal wooden structure of little greater
outward pretensions than a citizen’s “summer house,” make up the whole
establishment.

Passing under the pleasant shade of two fine oak trees, and then between
a collection of very promising roses, we enter the house. Once inside,
we see that the spirit of order, regularity, and neatness, is there
paramount. The exactitude requisite for scientific observation, gives a
habit of exactness in other things. In one room we perceive a galvanic
battery ready for experiments; a disc of iron for showing a now defunct
mode of steadying the vibrations of the compass; a specimen of the mixed
iron and wood braced together as they are now employed in the
construction of first-class ships of the Royal Navy, like the Queen’s
Yacht; and more, interesting than all the rest, a copper bowl, contrived
by Arago, for stilling the irritability (so to speak) of the magnetic
needle.

The French astronomer and ex-minister of the Provisional Government here
claims our admiration of his scientific skill, and his work suggests the
reflexion how much more pleasant the calm pursuit of nature’s laws must
be to such a man, than the turbulent effort to enact rules and
constitutions for an impetuous and changeable people. Passing from this
room to another, we find books, and charts, and maps, on which are laid
down the magnetic currents over the great oceans, and amongst its
instrumental relics, a magnetic needle that belonged to poor Captain
Cook. It is a plain small bar of steel in a rough wooden case, but to
the mariner who loves his craft and its heroes, this morsel of iron has
an interest greater than the most perfect of nautical inventions—for
Cook was a seaman who achieved great ends with humble means and from
humble beginnings. A third room is full of compasses of all sorts,
sizes, and kinds, from China, from Denmark, from France; from the most
rude and simple, to the most complex and finished. All the schemes and
plans ever proposed for improving this useful invention are here
preserved. Many of the contrivances have been discovered more than once.
A sanguine theorist completes what to him is perfectly new. Certain that
he is to be immortalised and enriched, he sets off to the Observatory
with his treasure, to reveal his grand secret, and receive the
anticipated reward. He is shown into the compass-room, and there,—horror
of horrors,—upon the table, amidst a host of others, there is an old
discarded instrument the very counterpart of his own! It was made, and
tried, and discarded, years ago.

From the main brick building we pass through another line of roses, and
under a bower, boasting some fifty different varieties of that charming
flower, to the wooden structure in the rear, which is, in fact, the
Observatory.

This building is entirely free from iron. It is approached by stone
steps; the door has a pure copper lock, which being opened by a copper
key, swings on copper hinges to admit the visitor after he has first
cleared the dirt from his shoes upon a copper scraper. Nearly facing the
door is a stove to keep up the temperature in cold weather. It looks
black enough, and has a black funnel. When the visitor is told that
Captain Johnson has his coat-buttons carefully made without any iron
shank concealed under their silken cover; and that his assistant, Mr.
Brunton, repudiates buttons to his jacket altogether, and has pockets
guiltless of a knife; he is apt to turn to the stove, and hint the
presence there of the forbidden metal.

“Ah, ah!” is the reply, it looks like iron sure enough; but the
fireplace, the chimney, the poker, the shovel, are all alike. Nothing
but copper, copper, pure copper. This suggests an anecdote. When the
operations in this Compass Observatory were first commenced, there was
found to be a small variation in the magnet. The instruments were
readjusted; their character was investigated, their construction
re-examined; other observations were made—but still the variation
continued. Pockets were searched for knives; the garden looked over to
see that no stray spade or rake had been left outside the building, yet
near enough for mischief. Nothing could be discovered. At length the
_brass_ bolt on the window was suspected; and though brass had a good
character, not being thought capable of coaxing the magnet from its
truth, it was, in despair of finding any other delinquent, unscrewed
from its position. No sooner was this done, than the wayward needle
returned to its true position; the brass bolt was ejected in disgrace,
and no morsel of the brazen metal has since been allowed to show itself
within the precincts of the building sacred to the mysterious fluid that
draws the iron needle to the North.

Once inside the Observatory, the first impression is one of isolation
and quietude. Look up to the wooden roof, and you see two shutters, to
be opened when an observation is to be made upon a star. Through the
floor rise three pedestals of masonry, built solidly from the earth, and
isolated from the Observatory floor, so that no vibration may be
communicated to them. All three stand in a row, running north and south.
The object of two of them is to support with complete steadiness and
truth two instruments for determining, at any moment of time, the exact
magnetic north, whilst the third pedestal holds one by one the compasses
brought there to be tested. The most northern of these three narrow
stone tables is, in fact, a bed of trial—a place of ordeal—whilst the
other two support the instrumental judges, who are to pass sentence upon
the fluttering needles brought under their unyielding gaze. The test is
a severe one. It is easy, with proper means, to get the true magnetic
north with a fixed instrument on shore, but to make something that shall
tell it with equal truth upon the deck of a ship, as it heaves and
tosses, and plunges on the sea, is a very different thing. Yet,
instruments equal to such triumphs of skill are obtained, and in this
place it is that their qualities are first investigated. The south
pedestal has upon it a tall tube of glass, within which there hang some
long fibres of untwisted silk, supporting a magnetic tube so beautifully
poised, that it obeys without let or hindrance its natural tendency
towards the magnetic north. This tubular magnet has at one end a glass
on which a scale and figures are engraved, but so fine and small as to
be with difficulty seen by the naked eye. The second pedestal supports a
telescope, with which the observer looks down the tubular throat of the
magnet towards this tiny scale on the glass at its extremity. Our
friends, the “spiders,” have contributed some lines to the telescope,
and the centre one of these crosses the exact figure showing the
magnetic position at the moment.

With this figure in his mind, the telescope and the observer’s eye are
poised in the opposite direction, through the window of the Observatory,
towards a spot some half mile to the north, called Cox’s Mount; an
eminence on which a wall has been raised to bear a numbered scale
similar to that on the magnet—with this difference—that the one is very
minute, and the other very large. To the corresponding figure on the
distant wall the instrument is directed, and being thus pointed towards
the true magnetic north, it is brought to bear upon the pivot of the
compass—which by this time occupies a place on the top of the third
pedestal to be tested. Without a complex description, and the free use
of scientific terms, it would be perhaps impossible to convey a
thoroughly exact conception of the steps of the whole process. Such a
detail would be not only too technical, but unnecessary, here. It will
be enough in general terms to say, therefore, that the indication
obtained from a star, or from the instrument on the south pedestal,
called the collimator, is, by means of the instrument in the centre,
combined with a mark upon a distant object, and then brought down to
prove the true powers of the compass placed on the third pedestal. It is
a beautifully exact operation. The silence of isolation, the steadiness
of stone tables and practised operators, the most beautifully
constructed instruments, are combined to ensure accurate realities as a
result. The tests are so varied, and so often repeated, that no error
can escape, and the compass, when it leaves the building to begin its
adventures afloat, commences its career with an irreproachable character
as a Standard Compass of the Royal Navy—to be, on board the ship of war
to which it is sent, a kind of master instrument of reference, by which
ruder and cheaper compasses may be checked and regulated.

Just as the history of the stars and of the variations of the magnet is
registered and posted up at the Greenwich Observatory, so is that of the
compasses entered up here. Every compass that passes its examination may
be said to receive its commission, and be appointed to a ship. Its
number is taken; its vessel and destination are noted, and,
subsequently, its length of service. On its return home from successive
trips, it comes back to this place, when its character is again
investigated and note made of any loss of magnetic power, of any
deviations it may have exhibited, how it may have lost and how gained,
and of any other circumstances showing either improvement or
deterioration. Now and then one is blacklisted, but this seldom happens;
the greatest loss yet noted being 30 minutes. The Standard Compasses
cost, when made new, with tripod and all complete, 25_l._ each. After
they have been some years in service afloat, they are sent into hospital
for overhaul and repair. This costs generally 4_l._ or 5_l._, and they
are then again as good as ever, and ready to guide another ship on her
way over the mighty waters. The scientific part of the fittings of a
ship of war, though of greatest value, are thus of lowest cost. A
Standard Compass is, indeed, a beautiful result of human ingenuity.
Generations of seamen and men of science have discussed the best form
and materials, and the best mode of suspending the needle, that it may
most freely and truly follow its mysterious love for the north. From the
days of the old adventurers round the globe, to the date of the last
voyages to the Arctic regions, successive sea captains have thought, and
watched, and suggested, and the Standard Compass of the English Navy
combines, it is believed, all that is best in all their thinking. After
the Observatory was established, and one of its duties had been defined
to be to pursue investigations on the deviation of the needle, it was
thought desirable to have specimens of the instruments used in the war
ships of other naval nations. With the open liberality that unites in
brotherhood the scientific men of all countries, France and Denmark sent
specimens of what their best men had succeeded in perfecting for the use
of their navies. These instruments are very good, and attract deserved
attention in the observatory-collection of specimens. The Frenchman is
scientific, simple, and with an excellent contrivance for a moveable
agate plane to avoid friction in the motion of the needle. The Dane is a
good substantial instrument, even more excellently finished than the
compasses issued to our navy.

The English Compass is, however, believed with good reason to be the
best yet contrived. It has grown up to its present excellence by slow
degrees. Human ingenuity has been taxed to its utmost, and it has passed
to its present perfection through the various trials of needles of all
sorts of shapes swung in all sorts of ways, and by springs, and floating
cards, modifying the instrument to the varying conditions of a small
boat tossing on waves, or a line of battle ship jarring under the recoil
of a broadside. And now we find our Compass-needle made of iron that,
being got from the Swedish mines, has travelled to Strasbourg to be
prepared for clock springs; thence to Paris, to be still more highly
wrought by the watchmaker; and then to London, to take its sea-going
shape. Four bars of this choice metal, or of shear-steel of equally fine
quality, are ranged edgewise under a card, thickened and stiffened yet
kept transparent by a sheet of mica, brought from the Russian mines;
this card moves upon a point made of a metal harder than steel, and
incapable of corrosion; and which sometimes, under the name of Iridium,
but more correctly under that of “native alloy,” is found by the
refiners as they smelt the platinum and silver gained from the Ural
Mountains or the mines of Spain. The Iridium or alloy comes to the
workshop in the tiniest of glass bottles—bottles as small round as a
goose-quill, and about an inch long—in morsels not much bigger than a
pin’s head, and weighing each less than half a grain. Some of these
prove too soft, some too spongy, some too brittle, but at last one is
found hard and good, and it is soldered upon the pivot, that, when
sharpened and polished, is to work upon a cap, formed of a ruby, brought
from the East. A bowl of the metal suggested by the French philosopher
being prepared, from the produce of the mines of Cornwall; and the
science of the English philosopher, and the skill of the English
workman, having brought all these things into their proper shape and
places; we have, as the result, the Standard Compass, whose fitness to
guide her Majesty’s ship the Unutterable, we have just seen tested by
Captain Johnson at the Woolwich Compass Observatory.

Our favourite newspaper has just stated that that gallant ship “is now
at Greenhithe waiting to have her compasses adjusted.” So, then, the
instruments so accurate at the Observatory a few days ago, are all wrong
again on shipboard. Just so. The moment they get to their places afloat,
their fidelity to the north wavers,—in one ship more, in another less;
but in all in a greater or smaller degree in proportion to the quantity
of iron used in the construction of the vessel, and the nearness of that
metal to the compasses; in proportion to the number of the iron guns and
the total weight of metal carried; to the length of the funnel in
steamships, and to the condition of that funnel whether upright or
hauled down. All this is both new and strange enough. We have learnt
already what loss of ships convoyed and ships wrecked has arisen from
these deviations: deviations long neglected on board all vessels and to
this hour unrecognised or unattended to in our mercantile marine! Since
the Royal Navy, however, has a scientific officer, Captain Johnson,
especially employed in attending to the important duty of adjusting the
compasses: let us go with him and his assistant, Mr. Brunton, from the
Compass Observatory to the anchorage at Greenhithe, and see how he will
“swing” the gallant line of battle ship, the Unutterable.

The trip occupies a very short time, for we have steam at command.
Arrived in the Reach, we find five floating buoys anchored in the
stream, one forming a centre, and four being disposed at equal distances
about it, just as the five pips are placed upon a card—say the five of
spades. The good ship to be operated upon is already fast by the head to
the centre buoy, and Captain Johnson having mounted her deck, and his
assistant, Mr. Brunton, having been rowed ashore, a rope is run out from
the ship’s stern and made fast to one of the corner buoys. The Standard
Compass being fixed in the proper position which it is to occupy in the
ship, neither too high nor too low, and the guns and other iron being
round about it, as they are to remain during the voyage, the mooring
ropes are adjusted, and the ship’s head is put due north. Meanwhile, Mr.
Brunton has set up a compass ashore, and all being ready, Captain
Johnson, at a given moment, observes the bearing of a distant object—the
Tower at Shooter’s Hill—noting the bearing of the needle on board. At
that instant the pennant that floated at the mast-head is hauled down
from the truck. This being the concerted signal, at the same second of
time the assistant ashore observed the needle of his compass. The two
instruments vary, and the deviation of that on board, compared with that
ashore, is due to the iron of the ship. The stern ropes are hauled from
one buoy to another, and again made fast, the ship’s head now pointing
in another direction. The observations and the signals are repeated.
Each deviation of the ship’s compass is carefully noted upon a card
previously prepared for the purpose. The ship’s stern is then hauled
round to the third outside buoy, and the compasses being again examined,
she is next hauled round to the fourth buoy. Her head by this time has
been north, east, south, west; on each point the deviations of her
compasses have been tested, noted, and the card shows their character
and proper adjustment. _The ship has been swung._ Science has done its
best for her, and the word is given to heave anchor, for she is now
truly “Ready for Sea.”




                        AN EXPLORING ADVENTURE.


The Litany of a Bushman on the Borders might well run, “From native
dogs, from scabby sheep, from blacks, from droughts, from governors’
proclamations, good Lord, deliver us.”

The droughts come in their appointed season, and the day will be, when
wells and tanks and aqueducts will redeem many a part from the curse of
periodical barrenness: the blacks soon tame or fade before the white
man’s face; unfortunately the seat of the native dogs, and home-bred or
town-bred governing crotchets are more plentiful in long settled than
new found countries. At any rate, I have experienced them all, and now
give the following passage of my life for the benefit of the gentlemen
“who live at home at ease,” hatching theories for our good—Heaven help
their silliness!

I had been two years comfortably settled with a nice lot of cattle and
sheep, part my own, part on “thirds,” when the people south of me began
to complain of drought. _I_ had enough feed and water; the question was,
whether it would last.

I called my bullock-driver, Bald-faced Dick, into consultation. He was
laid up at the time with a broken leg. Dick strongly advised looking for
a new station “to the nor’ard.”

The sheep would do for months, but he thought we were overstocked with
cattle. I had a good deal of confidence in Dick’s judgment; for he was a
“first fleeter,” that is, came over with Governor Phillips in the first
fleet; had seen everything in the colony, both good and bad; had, it was
whispered, in early years fled from a flogging master, and lived, some
said, with the blacks; others averred with a party of Gully-rakers
(cattle-stealers); he swore horridly, was dangerous when he had drunk
too much rum, but was a thorough Bushman; by the stars, or by sun, and
the fall of the land, could find his way anywhere by day or night,
understood all kinds of stock, and could make bullocks understand him.
He knew every roving character in the colony, the quality of every
station, and more about the far interior than he chose to tell to every
one. With all his coarseness, he was generous and good-natured, and when
well paid, and fairly and strictly treated, stood upon “Bush honour,”
and could be thoroughly depended on.

Having had an opportunity of serving him in a rather serious matter
previous to his entering my service, I was pretty sure of his best
advice.

The end of it was, for a promise of five pounds he obtained from a
friend of his a description of a country hitherto unsettled, and
first-rate for cattle. These men, who can neither read nor write, have
often a talent for description, which is astonishing.

Having heard a minute detail of the “pack,” and studied a sort of map
drawn on the lid of a tea-chest with a burned stick, I decided on
exploring with my overseer, Jem Carden, and, if successful, returning
for the cattle and drags, all loaded for founding a station.

We only took our guns and tomahawks, with tea, sugar, a salt tongue, and
small damper ready baked, being determined to make long marches,
starting early, camping at mid-day, and marching again in the evening as
long as it was light.

Our first stage was only twenty-five miles to young Marson’s
cattle-station. Marson was a cadet, of a noble family, and having been
too fast at home and in India as a cavalry subaltern, had been sent out
with a fair capital to Australia, under the idea that a fortune was to
be had for asking, and no means of expense open in the Bush. What money
he did not leave in the bars and billiard rooms of Sydney, he invested
in a herd of six hundred cattle; to look after these, he had four men,
whom he engaged, one because he could fight, another because he could
sing, and all because they flattered him. With these fellows he lived
upon terms of perfect equality, with a keg of rum continually on the
tap. Then, for want of better society, he made his hut the rendezvous of
a tribe of tame blacks.

We found him sitting on the floor in a pair of trowsers and ragged
shirt, unwashed, uncombed, pale-faced and red-eyed, surrounded by
half-a-dozen black gins (his sultanas), a lot of dogs, poultry, a tame
kangaroo, and two of his men. The floor was littered with quart pots,
lumps of fat, and damper outside the hut; the relations of the black
ladies had made a fire, and were cooking a piece of a fine young heifer.
What with the jabbering of the gins, the singing and swearing of the
men, and the yelping of the dogs, it was no place for a quiet meal, so
we only stayed long enough to drink a pot of tea, so as not to offend,
and passed on to camp an hour under the shade of a thicket near the
river.

Marson having, with the assistance of his black friends, consumed all
his stock, has returned home; and, I hear, asserts everywhere that
Australia is not a country a gentleman can live in.

Our course next, after crossing the dividing range, lay over a very flat
country, all burned up as far as the eye could reach,—a perfect desert
of sand. The chain of pools which formed the river after rain, were
nearly choked up by the putrifying carcases of cattle, smothered in
fighting for water. The air was poisonous; the horses sank fetlock-deep
at every stride; the blazing sun was reflected back from the hot sand
with an intensity that almost blinded our half-shut eyes. After three
hours of this misery, we struck into a better country, and soon after
came up to the camp of a squatter, who had been forced forward by the
drought. He had marked out about twenty miles along the river for his
run,—a pretty good slice, I thought, when, before turning back, he said,
“That is all I want.” It was no business of ours, as we had views
further a-field. For three days we pushed on, making from thirty to
forty miles a day, without seeing anything exactly to our mind. We rode
over arid plains, dotted with scrubby brushwood, then up precipitous
hills; now leaping, now clambering down and up, and now riding round to
avoid dry gullies and ravines; passing occasionally breaks of green
pasture, but insufficiently watered for my purpose. Sometimes our way
lay along mountain sides, sometimes in the dry bed of a torrent.
Sometimes huge boulders interrupted our course, sometimes the gigantic
trunks of fallen trees. More than once we had to steer through a forest
of the monotonous, shadeless gum, with its lofty, dazzlingly white
trunks festooned with the brown, curly bark of the previous year, and
its parasol-like but shadeless branches, where crimson, green, and snowy
parrot tribes shrieked and whistled among the evergreen leaves. It is
impossible to conceive anything more gorgeous than these birds as they
fluttered in the sun; but I confess that, “on serious thoughts intent,”
during this journey, they were more often associated with my ideas of
supper than anything else.

The evening of the third day, we found ourselves obliged to camp down
with a scanty supply of brackish water, and no signs of any living
thing. The next day was worse; a land of silence and desolation, where
it seemed as if mountains had been crumbled up and scattered about in
hills and lumps. The dry earth cracked and yawned in all directions.
Failing to find water, we camped down, parched, weary, silent, but not
despairing.

The next morning the horses were gone.

I cannot find words to describe what we suffered in the subsequent
twelve hours. I had walked until my feet were one mass of blisters, and
was ready to lie down and die ten times in the day; but somehow I found
strength to walk, always chewing a bullet. At length, at nightfall, we
found our horses; and, nearly at the same time, to crown our
delight—water. At the sight of this, we both involuntarily sank down on
our knees to return thanks for life saved.

The next morning, after a scanty breakfast, we set to work, and by dint
of cutting away with axe and jack-knife, at the expense of clothes and
skin, through a brigalow scrub for half a mile, found our way into a gap
through which our track lay, and which we had missed. It led straight to
the dividing range.

After crossing five miles from the foot of the range, through a barren
tract, our eyes and hearts were suddenly rejoiced by the sight of the
wished-for land.

A plain, covered with fine green barley-grass, as high as our horses’
heads, and sprinkled over with the myal shrub, which cattle and sheep
will eat and thrive on, even without grass. Such was the delicious
prospect before us. A flood had evidently but lately subsided, for
lagoons full of water were scattered all about; a river running at the
rate of five miles an hour, serpentined as far as the eye could see,
from which the water-fowl fluttered up as we passed; the eagle hawks
were sweeping along after flocks of quail, and mobs of kangaroos hopping
about like huge rabbits. There was not a sign of horn or hoof anywhere,
but it was evident the aborigines were numerous, for there were paths
worn down where they had been in the habit of travelling, from one angle
of the river to another; we could trace their footmarks and of all
sizes, and thereupon we unslung our guns and looked at the priming.
Altogether I thought I had discovered the finest place for a
cattle-station in the colony; I found out afterwards that the first
appearance of a new country before it has been stocked is not to be
depended on.

We formed a camp in an angle of the river, so as to have protection on
three sides, ventured, in spite of the danger, to light a fire and cook
some game. Oh, how delicious was that meal! As I lay near the river’s
edge, peeping through the tall grass, I saw the horrid emus, that rare
and soon to be extinct bird, come down the slopes on the opposite side
to drink in numbers; a sure sign that white men were as yet strangers to
these plains.

We spent some days in examination, and during the exploration met with
adventures with the aborigines, I will not now relate. Having marked a
station with my initials, and in returning made out a route practicable
for drays, by which I afterwards made my way with a large herd of
cattle, although not without enduring more than I could tell in a few
lines.

Our horses having picked up their flesh in a fortnight’s spell on the
green plains, we got back at a rattling pace, but, before arriving home,
met with an adventure I shall not soon forget. It was at the first
station we reached after crossing the “barrens” that divided our newly
discovered country. A hut had just been built for the Stockman, a big
strong Irishman, more than six feet high, a regular specimen of a
Tipperary chicken. He had been entertaining us with characteristic
hospitality; and we were smoking our pipes round the fire, when the
hut-keeper rushed in without his hat, crying—

“Tom! Tom! the blacks are coming down on us, all armed, as hard as they
can run. Shut the door! for Heaven’s sake shut the door!” Tom banged it
to, and put his shoulder against it, while the keeper was pulling up the
bar, and Carden and I were getting the lock-cases off our fire-arms.
Unfortunately the door was made roughly of green wood, and had shrunk,
leaving gaps between the slabs.

In the mean time about thirty blacks hurled a volley of spears that made
the walls ring again; and then advancing boldly up, one of them thrust a
double-jagged spear through the door, slap into Tom’s throat. My back
was turned towards him, being busy putting a fresh cap on my carbine. I
heard his cry, and, turning, saw him fall into the arms of the
hut-keeper. I thrust the barrel of my piece through a hole against a
black devil, and fired at the same moment that my man did. The two
dropped; the rest retreated, but turned back, and caught up their dead
friends. Carden flung open the door again, and gave them the contents of
his other barrel. My black put the hut-keeper’s musket into my hand; I
gave them a charge of buckshot. Three more fell, and the rest, dropping
their friends, disappeared across the river. All this was the work of a
moment. We then turned our attention to the stock-keeper. The spear had
entered at the chin, and come out on the other side three or four
inches. There was not a great flow of blood, but he was evidently
bleeding inwardly. He was perfectly collected, and said he was quite
sure he should die.

We cut the end of the spear short off, but did not dare to take it out.
The hut-keeper got on a horse, leading another, and rode for a doctor
who lived one hundred and fifty miles off; he never stopped except to
give the horses a feed two or three times in the whole distance, but
when he reached his journey’s end, the doctor was out. In the mean time
poor Tom made his will, disposing of a few head of cattle, mare and
foal, and also signed a sort of dying testament to the effect that he
had never wronged any of the blacks in any way. The weather was very
hot, mortification came on, and he died in agony two days after
receiving his wound.

The outrage was reported to the Commissioner, but no notice was taken of
it although we were paying a tax for Border Police at the time.

Not many years have elapsed since we fought for our lives—since I read
the burial service over the poor murdered Stockman. A handsome
verandah’d villa now stands in the place of the slab hut; yellow corn
waves over the Irishman’s grave, and while cattle and sheep abound, as
well white men, women, and children, there is not a wild black within
two hundred miles.




                         THE BIRTH OF MORNING.


         Pure, calm, diffused, the twilight of the morn
         Is in the glen, among the dewy leaves.
         Its gentle radiance, more heavenly-born
         Than the half-loving sunbeam, never grieves
         A nook, unvisited. This Earth receives
         The light which makes no shade, as the caress
         Of God on his creation, and upheaves
         Her soft face, innocent with peace, to bless,
       Babe-like, his watchful eye with waking tenderness.

         A gate admits us to the Hill we seek;
         Through woods a track upon the turf we find;
         The trees are dripping dew, their tall stems creak
         And rub together when the morning wind
         Lightly caresses them. We pause to mind
         The note of one awakened bird, whose cry,
         Quaint and repeated, is not like its kind.
         Our ears are ignorant. Now up the high
       And mossy slope we climb, beneath an open sky.

         We reach the summit. Earth is in a dream
         Of misty seas, and islands strangely born—
         The unreal, from reality. The stream
         Of wraith-like sights which, ere he can be torn
         From peaceful sleep, delights the travel-worn
         At slumber’s painted gate, is not more wild
         Than the imagining of Earth when Morn
         Bids her awaken. So a dreaming child
       Looks through white angel wings, and sees all undefiled.

         The blessed dream-land fancy of the young,
         More truthful than the reasoning of age,
         Is like this vision of the morning, sprung
         Of earth and air. These lines upon the page
         Of Nature have life in them. They assuage
         The fevers of the world, they are the dew
         Of calm,—and God is calm. How mortals wage
         Their wars of weakness Light reveals to view;
       Reason fights through the false, but Fancy feels the true.




                       AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY.


In one of the dirtiest and most gloomy streets leading to the Rue Saint
Denis, in Paris, there stands a tall and ancient house, the lower
portion of which is a large mercer’s shop. This establishment is held to
be one of the very best in the neighbourhood, and has for many years
belonged to an individual on whom we will bestow the name of Ramin.

About ten years ago, Monsieur Ramin was a jovial red-faced man of forty,
who joked his customers into purchasing his goods, flattered the pretty
_grisettes_ outrageously, and now and then gave them a Sunday treat at
the barrier, as the cheapest way of securing their custom. Some people
thought him a careless, good-natured fellow, and wondered how, with his
off-hand ways, he contrived to make money so fast, but those who knew
him well saw that he was one of those who “never lost an opportunity.”
Others declared that Monsieur Ramin’s own definition of his character
was, that he was a “_bon enfant_,” and that “it was all luck.” He
shrugged his shoulders and laughed when people hinted at his deep
scheming in making, and his skill in taking advantage of Excellent
Opportunities.

He was sitting in his gloomy parlour one fine morning in Spring,
breakfasting from a dark liquid honoured with the name of onion soup,
glancing at the newspaper, and keeping a vigilant look on the shop
through the open door, when his old servant Catherine suddenly observed:

“I suppose you know Monsieur Bonelle has come to live in the vacant
apartment on the fourth floor?”

“What!” exclaimed Monsieur Ramin in a loud key.

Catherine repeated her statement, to which her master listened in total
silence.

“Well!” he said, at length, in his most careless tones; “what about the
old fellow?” and he once more resumed his triple occupation of reading,
eating, and watching.

“Why,” continued Catherine, “they say he is nearly dying, and that his
housekeeper, Marguerite, vowed he could never get up-stairs alive. It
took two men to carry him up; and when he was at length quiet in bed,
Marguerite went down to the porter’s lodge and sobbed there a whole
hour, saying, Her poor master, had the gout, the rheumatics, and a bad
asthma; that though he had been got up-stairs, he would never come down
again alive; that if she could only get him to confess his sins and make
his will, she would not mind it so much; but that when she spoke of the
lawyer or the priest, he blasphemed at her like a heathen, and declared
he would live to bury her and every body else.”

Monsieur Ramin heard Catherine with great attention, forgot to finish
his soup, and remained for five minutes in profound rumination, without
so much as perceiving two customers who had entered the shop and were
waiting to be served. When aroused, he was heard to exclaim:

“What an excellent opportunity!”

Monsieur Bonelle had been Ramin’s predecessor. The succession of the
latter to the shop was a mystery. No one ever knew how it was that this
young and poor assistant managed to replace his patron. Some said that
he had detected Monsieur Bonelle in frauds which he threatened to
expose, unless the business were given up to him as the price of his
silence; others averred that, having drawn a prize in the lottery, he
had resolved to set up a fierce opposition over the way, and that
Monsieur Bonelle, having obtained a hint of his intentions, had thought
it most prudent to accept the trifling sum his clerk offered, and avoid
a ruinous competition. Some charitable souls—moved no doubt by Monsieur
Bonelle’s misfortune—endeavoured to console and pump him; but all they
could get from him was the bitter exclamation, “To think I should have
been duped by _him_!” For Ramin had the art, though then a mere youth,
to pass himself off on his master as an innocent provincial lad. Those
who sought an explanation from the new mercer, were still more
unsuccessful. “My good old master,” he said in his jovial way, “felt in
need of repose, and so I obligingly relieved him of all business and
botheration.”

Years passed away; Ramin prospered, and neither thought nor heard of his
“good old master.” The house, of which he tenanted the lower portion,
was offered for sale: he had long coveted it, and had almost concluded
an agreement with the actual owner, when Monsieur Bonelle unexpectedly
stepped in at the eleventh hour, and by offering a trifle more secured
the bargain. The rage and mortification of Monsieur Ramin were extreme.
He could not understand how Bonelle, whom he had thought ruined, had
scraped up so large a sum; his lease was out, and he now felt himself at
the mercy of the man he had so much injured. But either Monsieur Bonelle
was free from vindictive feelings, or those feelings did not blind him
to the expediency of keeping a good tenant; for though he raised the
rent, until Monsieur Ramin groaned inwardly, he did not refuse to renew
the lease. They had met at that period; but never since.

“Well, Catherine,” observed Monsieur Ramin to his old servant, on the
following morning, “How is that good Monsieur Bonelle getting on?”

“I dare say you feel very uneasy about him,” she replied with a sneer.

Monsieur Ramin looked up and frowned.

“Catherine,” said he, dryly, “you will have the goodness, in the first
place, not to make impertinent remarks; in the second place, you will
oblige me by going up-stairs to inquire after the health of Monsieur
Bonelle, and say that I sent you.”

Catherine grumbled, and obeyed. Her master was in the shop, when she
returned in a few minutes, and delivered with evident satisfaction the
following gracious message:

“Monsieur Bonelle desires his compliments to you, and declines to state
how he is; he will also thank you to attend to your own shop, and not to
trouble yourself about his health.”

“How does he look?” asked Monsieur Ramin with perfect composure.

“I caught a glimpse of him, and he appears to me to be rapidly preparing
for the good offices of the undertaker.”

Monsieur Ramin smiled, rubbed his hands, and joked merrily with a
dark-eyed grisette, who was cheapening some ribbon for her cap. That
girl made an excellent bargain that day.

Towards dusk the mercer left the shop to the care of his attendant, and
softly stole up to the fourth story. In answer to his gentle ring, a
little old woman opened the door, and, giving him a rapid look, said
briefly,

“Monsieur is inexorable; he won’t see any doctor whatever.”

She was going to shut the door in his face, when Ramin quickly
interposed, under his breath, with “_I_ am not a doctor.”

She looked at him from head to foot.

“Are you a lawyer?”

“Nothing of the sort, my good lady.”

“Well then, are you a priest?”

“I may almost say, quite the reverse.”

“Indeed you must go away, Master sees no one.”

Once more she would have shut the door; but Ramin prevented her.

“My good lady,” said he in his most insinuating tones, “it is true I am
neither a lawyer, a doctor, nor a priest. I am an old friend, a very old
friend of your excellent master; I have come to see good Monsieur
Bonelle in his present affliction.”

Marguerite did not answer, but allowed him to enter, and closed the door
behind him. He was going to pass from the narrow and gloomy ante-chamber
into an inner room—whence now proceeded a sound of loud coughing—when
the old woman laid her hand on his arm, and raising herself on tiptoe,
to reach his ear, whispered:

“For Heaven’s sake, Sir, since you are his friend, do talk to him; do
tell him to make his will, and hint something about a soul to be saved,
and all that sort of thing: do, Sir!”

Monsieur Ramin nodded and winked in a way that said “I will.” He proved
however his prudence by not speaking aloud; for a voice from within
sharply exclaimed,

“Marguerite, you are talking to some one. Marguerite, I will see neither
doctor nor lawyer; and if any meddling priest dare—”

“It is only an old friend, Sir;” interrupted Marguerite, opening the
inner door.

Her master, on looking up, perceived the red face of Monsieur Ramin
peeping over the old woman’s shoulder, and irefully cried out,

“How dare you bring that fellow here? And you, Sir, how dare you come?”

“My good old friend, there are feelings,” said Ramin, spreading his
fingers over the left pocket of his waistcoat,—“there are feelings,” he
repeated, “that cannot be subdued. One such feeling brought me here. The
fact is, I am a good-natured easy fellow, and I never bear malice. I
never forget an old friend, but love to forget old differences when I
find one party in affliction.”

He drew a chair forward as he spoke, and composedly seated himself
opposite to his late master.

Monsieur Bonelle was a thin old man with a pale sharp face and keen
features. At first he eyed his visitor from the depths of his vast
arm-chair; but, as if not satisfied with this distant view, he bent
forward, and laying both hands on his thin knees, he looked up into
Ramin’s face with a fixed and piercing gaze. He had not, however, the
power of disconcerting his guest.

“What did you come here for?” he at length asked.

“Merely to have the extreme satisfaction of seeing how you are, my good
old friend. Nothing more.”

“Well, look at me—and then go.”

Nothing could be so discouraging: but this was an Excellent Opportunity,
and when Monsieur Ramin _had_ an excellent opportunity in view, his
pertinacity was invincible. Being now resolved to stay, it was not in
Monsieur Bonelle’s power to banish him. At the same time, he had tact
enough to render his presence agreeable. He knew that his coarse and
boisterous wit had often delighted Monsieur Bonelle of old, and he now
exerted himself so successfully as to betray the old man two or three
times into hearty laughter.

“Ramin,” said he, at length, laying his thin hand on the arm of his
guest, and peering with his keen glance into the mercer’s purple face,
“you are a funny fellow, but I know you; you cannot make me believe you
have called just to see how I am, and to amuse me. Come, be candid for
once; what do you want?”

Ramin threw himself back in his chair, and laughed blandly, as much as
to say, “_Can_ you suspect me?”

“I have no shop now out of which you can wheedle me,” continued the old
man; “and surely you are not such a fool as to come to me for money.”

“Money?” repeated the draper, as if his host had mentioned something he
never dreamt of. “Oh, no!”

Ramin saw it would not do to broach the subject he had really come
about, too abruptly, now that suspicion seemed so wide awake—_the_
opportunity had not arrived.

“There is something up, Ramin, I know; I see it in the twinkle of your
eye: but you can’t deceive me again.”

“Deceive _you_?” said the jolly schemer, shaking his head reverentially.
“Deceive a man of your penetration and depth? Impossible! The bare
supposition is flattery. My dear friend,” he continued, soothingly, “I
did not dream of such a thing. The fact is, Bonelle, though they call me
a jovial, careless, rattling dog, I have a conscience; and, somehow, I
have never felt quite easy about the way in which I became your
successor down-stairs. It _was_ rather sharp practice, I admit.”

Bonelle seemed to relent.

“Now for it,” said the Opportunity-hunter to himself.—“By-the-by,”
(speaking aloud,) “this house must be a great trouble to you in your
present weak state? Two of your lodgers have lately gone away without
paying—a great nuisance, especially to an invalid.”

“I tell you I’m as sound as a colt.”

“At all events, the whole concern must be a great bother to you. If I
were you, I would sell the house.”

“And if I were _you_,” returned the landlord, dryly, “I would buy it——”

“Precisely,” interrupted the tenant, eagerly.

“That is, if you could get it. Phoo! I knew you were after something.
Will you give eighty thousand francs for it?” abruptly asked Monsieur
Bonelle.

“Eighty thousand francs!” echoed Ramin. “Do you take me for Louis
Philippe or the Bank of France?”

“Then, we’ll say no more about it—are you not afraid of leaving your
shop so long?”

Ramin returned to the charge, heedless of the hint to depart. “The fact
is, my good old friend, ready money is not my strong point just now. But
if you wish very much to be relieved of the concern, what say you to a
life annuity? I could manage that.”

Monsieur Bonelle gave a short, dry, churchyard cough, and looked as if
his life were not worth an hour’s purchase. “You think yourself
immensely clever, I dare say,” he said. “They have persuaded you that I
am dying. Stuff! I shall bury you yet.”

The mercer glanced at the thin fragile frame, and exclaimed to himself,
“Deluded old gentleman!” “My dear Bonelle,” he continued, aloud, “I know
well the strength of your admirable constitution; but allow me to
observe that you neglect yourself too much. Now, suppose a good sensible
doctor——.”

“Will you pay him?” interrogated Bonelle sharply.

“Most willingly,” replied Ramin, with an eagerness that made the old man
smile. “As to the annuity, since the subject annoys you, we will talk of
it some other time.”

“After you have heard the doctor’s report,” sneered Bonelle.

The mercer gave him a stealthy glance, which the old man’s keen look
immediately detected. Neither could repress a smile: these good souls
understood one another perfectly, and Ramin saw that this was not the
Excellent Opportunity he desired, and departed.

The next day Ramin sent a neighbouring medical man, and heard it was his
opinion that if Bonelle held on for three months longer, it would be a
miracle. Delightful news!

Several days elapsed, and although very anxious, Ramin assumed a
careless air, and did not call upon his landlord, or take any notice of
him. At the end of the week old Marguerite entered the shop to make a
trifling purchase.

“And how are we getting on up-stairs?” negligently asked Monsieur Ramin.

“Worse and worse, my good Sir,” she sighed. “We have rheumatic pains,
which make us often use expressions the reverse of Christian-like, and
yet nothing can induce us to see either the lawyer or the priest; the
gout is getting nearer to our stomach every day, and still we go on
talking about the strength of our constitution. Oh, Sir, if you have any
influence with us, do, pray do, tell us how wicked it is to die without
making one’s will or confessing one’s sins.”

“I shall go up this very evening,” ambiguously replied Monsieur Ramin.

He kept his promise, and found Monsieur Bonelle in bed, groaning with
pain, and in the worst of tempers.

“What poisoning doctor did you send?” he asked, with an ireful glance;
“I want no doctor, I am not ill; I will not follow his prescription; he
forbade me to eat; I _will_ eat.”

“He is a very clever man,” said the visitor. “He told me that never in
the whole course of his experience has he met with what he called so
much ‘resisting power’ as exists in your frame. He asked me if you were
not of a long-lived race.”

“That is as people may judge,” replied Monsieur Bonelle. “All I can say
is, that my grandfather died at ninety, and my father at eighty-six.”

“The doctor owned that you had a wonderfully strong constitution.”

“Who said I hadn’t?” exclaimed the invalid feebly.

“You may rely on it, you would preserve your health better if you had
not the trouble of these vexatious lodgers. Have you thought about the
life annuity?” said Ramin as carelessly as he could, considering how
near the matter was to his hopes and wishes.

“Why, I have scruples,” returned Bonelle, coughing. “I do not wish to
take you in. My longevity would be the ruin of you.”

“To meet that difficulty,” quickly replied the mercer, “we can reduce
the interest.”

“But I must have high interest,” placidly returned Monsieur Bonelle.

Ramin, on hearing this, burst into a loud fit of laughter, called
Monsieur Bonelle a sly old fox, gave him a poke in the ribs, which made
the old man cough for five minutes, and then proposed that they should
talk it over some other day. The mercer left Monsieur Bonelle in the act
of protesting that he felt as strong as a man of forty.

Monsieur Ramin felt in no hurry to conclude the proposed agreement. “The
later one begins to pay, the better,” he said, as he descended the
stairs.

Days passed on, and the negotiation made no way. It struck the observant
tradesman that all was not right. Old Marguerite several times refused
to admit him, declaring her master was asleep: there was something
mysterious and forbidding in her manner that seemed to Monsieur Ramin
very ominous. At length a sudden thought occurred to him: the
housekeeper—wishing to become her master’s heir—had heard his scheme and
opposed it. On the very day that he arrived at this conclusion, he met a
lawyer, with whom he had formerly had some transactions, coming down the
staircase. The sight sent a chill through the mercer’s commercial heart,
and a presentiment—one of those presentiments that seldom deceive—told
him it was too late. He had, however, the fortitude to abstain from
visiting Monsieur Bonelle until evening came; when he went up, resolved
to see him in spite of all Marguerite might urge. The door was
half-open, and the old housekeeper stood talking on the landing to a
middle-aged man in a dark cassock.

“It is all over! The old witch has got the priests at him,” thought
Ramin, inwardly groaning at his own folly in allowing himself to be
forestalled.

“You cannot see Monsieur to-night,” sharply said Marguerite, as he
attempted to pass her.

“Alas! is my excellent friend so very ill?” asked Ramin, in a mournful
tone.

“Sir,” eagerly said the clergyman, catching him by the button of his
coat, “if you are indeed the friend of that unhappy man, do seek to
bring him into a more suitable frame of mind. I have seen many dying
men, but never so much obstinacy, never such infatuated belief in the
duration of life.”

“Then you think he really _is_ dying?” asked Ramin; and, in spite of the
melancholy accent he endeavoured to assume, there was something so
peculiar in his tone, that the priest looked at him very fixedly as he
slowly replied,

“Yes, Sir, I think he is.”

“Ah!” was all Monsieur Ramin said; and as the clergyman had now relaxed
his hold of the button, Ramin passed in spite of the remonstrances of
Marguerite, who rushed after the priest. He found Monsieur Bonelle still
in bed and in a towering rage.

“Oh! Ramin, my friend,” he groaned, “never take a housekeeper, and never
let her know you have any property. They are harpies, Ramin,—harpies!
such a day as I have had; first, the lawyer, who comes to write down ‘my
last testamentary dispositions,’ as he calls them; then the priest, who
gently hints that I am a dying man. Oh, what a day!”

“And _did_ you make your will, my excellent friend?” softly asked
Monsieur Ramin, with a keen look.

“Make my will?” indignantly exclaimed the old man; “make my will? what
do you mean, Sir? do you mean to say I am dying?”

“Heaven forbid!” piously ejaculated Ramin.

“Then why do you ask me if I have been making my will?” angrily resumed
the old man. He then began to be extremely abusive.

When money was in the way, Monsieur Ramin, though otherwise of a violent
temper, had the meekness of a lamb. He bore the treatment of his host
with the meekest patience, and having first locked the door so as to
make sure that Marguerite would not interrupt them, he watched Monsieur
Bonelle attentively, and satisfied himself that the Excellent
Opportunity he had been ardently longing for had arrived. “He is going
fast,” he thought; “and unless I settle the agreement to-night, and get
it drawn up and signed to-morrow, it will be too late.”

“My dear friend,” he at length said aloud, on perceiving that the old
gentleman had fairly exhausted himself and was lying panting on his
back, “you are indeed a lamentable instance of the lengths to which the
greedy lust of lucre will carry our poor human nature. It is really
distressing to see Marguerite, a faithful, attached servant, suddenly
converted into a tormenting harpy by the prospect of a legacy! Lawyers
and priests flock around you like birds of prey, drawn hither by the
scent of gold! Oh, the miseries of having delicate health combined with
a sound constitution and large property!”

“Ramin,” groaned the old man, looking inquiringly into his visitor’s
face, “you are again going to talk to me about that annuity—I know you
are!”

“My excellent friend, it is merely to deliver you from a painful
position.”

“I am sure, Ramin, you think in your soul I am dying,” whimpered
Monsieur Bonelle.

“Absurd, my dear Sir. Dying? I will prove to you that you have never
been in better health. In the first place you feel no pain.”

“Excepting from rheumatism,” groaned Monsieur Bonelle.

“Rheumatism! who ever died of rheumatism? and if that be all——”

“No, it is not all,” interrupted the old man with great irritability;
“what would you say to the gout getting higher and higher up every day?”

“The gout is rather disagreeable, but if there is nothing else——”

“Yes, there is something else,” sharply said Monsieur Bonelle. “There is
an asthma that will scarcely let me breathe, and a racking pain in my
head that does not allow me a moment’s ease. But if you think I am
dying, Ramin, you are quite mistaken.”

“No doubt, my dear friend, no doubt; but in the meanwhile, suppose we
talk of this annuity. Shall we say one thousand francs a year.”

“What?” asked Bonelle, looking at him very fixedly.

“My dear friend, I mistook; I meant two thousand francs per annum,”
hurriedly rejoined Ramin.

Monsieur Bonelle closed his eyes, and appeared to fall into a gentle
slumber. The mercer coughed; the sick man never moved.

“Monsieur Bonelle.”

No reply.

“My excellent friend.”

Utter silence.

“Are you asleep?”

A long pause.

“Well, then, what do you say to three thousand?”

Monsieur Bonelle opened his eyes.

“Ramin,” said he, sententiously, “you are a fool; the house brings me in
four thousand as it is.”

This was quite false, and the mercer knew it; but he had his own reasons
for wishing to seem to believe it true.

“Good Heavens!” said he, with an air of great innocence, “who could have
thought it, and the lodgers constantly running away. Four thousand?
Well, then, you shall have four thousand.”

Monsieur Bonelle shut his eyes once more, and murmured “The mere
rental—nonsense!” He then folded his hands on his breast, and appeared
to compose himself to sleep.

“Oh, what a sharp man of business he is!” Ramin said, admiringly: but
for once omnipotent flattery failed in its effect: “So acute!” continued
he, with a stealthy glance at the old man, who remained perfectly
unmoved. “I see you will insist upon making it the other five hundred
francs.”

Monsieur Ramin said this as if five thousand five hundred francs had
already been mentioned, and was the very summit of Monsieur Bonelle’s
ambition. But the ruse failed in its effect; the sick man never so much
as stirred.

“But, my dear friend,” urged Monsieur Ramin in a tone of feeling
remonstrance, “there is such a thing as being too sharp, too acute. How
can you expect that I shall give you more when your constitution is so
good, and you are to be such a long liver?”

“Yes, but I may be carried off one of those days,” quietly observed the
old man, evidently wishing to turn the chance of his own death to
account.

“Indeed, and I hope so,” muttered the mercer, who was getting very
ill-tempered.

“You see,” soothingly continued Bonelle, “you are so good a man of
business, Ramin, that you will double the actual value of the house in
no time. I am a quiet, easy person, indifferent to money; otherwise this
house would now bring me in eight thousand at the very least.”

“Eight thousand!” indignantly exclaimed the mercer. “Monsieur Bonelle,
you have no conscience. Come now, my dear friend, do be reasonable. Six
thousand francs a year (I don’t mind saying six) is really a very
handsome income for a man of your quiet habits. Come, be reasonable.”
But Monsieur Bonelle turned a deaf ear to reason, and closed his eyes
once more. What between opening and shutting them for the next quarter
of an hour, he at length induced Monsieur Ramin to offer him seven
thousand francs.

“Very well, Ramin, agreed,” he quietly said; “you have made an
unconscionable bargain.” To this succeeded a violent fit of coughing.

As Ramin unlocked the door to leave, he found old Marguerite, who had
been listening all the time, ready to assail him with a torrent of
whispered abuse for duping her “poor dear innocent old master into such
a bargain.” The mercer bore it all very patiently; he could make
allowances for her excited feelings, and only rubbed his hands and bade
her a jovial good evening.

The agreement was signed on the following day, to the indignation of old
Marguerite, and the mutual satisfaction of the parties concerned.

Every one admired the luck and shrewdness of Ramin, for the old man
every day was reported worse; and it was clear to all that the first
quarter of the annuity would never be paid. Marguerite, in her wrath,
told the story as a grievance to every one: people listened, shook their
heads, and pronounced Monsieur Ramin to be a deuced clever fellow.

A month elapsed. As Ramin was coming down one morning from the attics,
where he had been giving notice to a poor widow who had failed in paying
her rent, he heard a light step on the stairs. Presently a sprightly
gentleman, in buoyant health and spirits, wearing the form of Monsieur
Bonelle, appeared. Ramin stood aghast.

“Well, Ramin,” gaily said the old man, “how are you getting on? Have you
been tormenting the poor widow up-stairs? Why, man, we must live and let
live!”

“Monsieur Bonelle,” said the mercer, in a hollow tone; “may I ask where
are your rheumatics?”

“Gone, my dear friend,—gone.”

“And the gout that was creeping higher and higher every day,” exclaimed
Monsieur Ramin, in a voice of anguish.

“It went lower and lower, till it disappeared altogether,” composedly
replied Bonelle.

“And your asthma——”

“The asthma remains, but asthmatic people are proverbially long-lived.
It is, I have been told, the only complaint that Methuselah was troubled
with.” With this Bonelle opened his door, shut it, and disappeared.

Ramin was transfixed on the stairs; petrified with intense
disappointment, and a powerful sense of having been duped. When he was
discovered, he stared vacantly, and raved about an Excellent Opportunity
of taking his revenge.

The wonderful cure was the talk of the neighbourhood, whenever Monsieur
Bonelle appeared in the streets, jauntily flourishing his cane. In the
first frenzy of his despair, Ramin refused to pay; he accused every one
of having been in a plot to deceive him; he turned off Catherine and
expelled his porter; he publicly accused the lawyer and priest of
conspiracy; brought an action against the doctor, and lost it. He had
another brought against him for violently assaulting Marguerite in which
he was cast in heavy damages. Monsieur Bonelle did not trouble himself
with useless remonstrances, but, when his annuity was refused, employed
such good legal arguments, as the exasperated mercer could not possibly
resist.

Ten years have elapsed, and MM. Ramin and Bonelle still live on. For a
house which would have been dear at fifty thousand francs, the draper
has already handed over seventy thousand.

The once red-faced, jovial Ramin is now a pale haggard man, of sour
temper and aspect. To add to his anguish, he sees the old man thrive on
that money which it breaks his heart to give. Old Marguerite takes a
malicious pleasure in giving him an exact account of their good cheer,
and in asking him if he does not think Monsieur looks better and better
every day. Of one part of this torment Ramin might get rid, by giving
his old master notice to quit, and no longer having him in his house.
But this he cannot do; he has a secret fear that Bonelle would take some
Excellent Opportunity of dying without his knowledge, and giving some
other person an Excellent Opportunity of personating him, and receiving
the money in his stead.

The last accounts of the victim of Excellent Opportunities represent him
as being gradually worn down with disappointment. There seems every
probability of his being the first to leave the world; for Bonelle is
heartier than ever.




                    REVIEW OF A POPULAR PUBLICATION.
                        IN THE SEARCHING STYLE.

  THE BANK NOTE. _Oblong Octavo._ London, 1850. _The Governor and
      Company of the Bank of England. Price, from Five to One Thousand
      Pounds._

  The object of this popular but expensive pocket companion, is not
  wholly dissimilar from that of its clever and cheaper contemporary
  “Notes and Queries.” As the latter is a “medium of intercommunication
  for literary men,” so the former is a medium of intercommunication for
  commercial men; and surely there is no work with which so many queries
  are constantly connected as the Bank Note. Nothing in existence is so
  assiduously inquired for; nothing in nature so perseveringly sought.

  This is not to be wondered at; for in whatever light we view it, to
  whatever test we bring it, whether we read it backwards or forwards,
  from left to right, or from right to left; or whether we make it a
  transparency to prove its substantial genuineness and worth, who can
  deny that the Bank Note is a most valuable work?—a publication, in
  short, without which no gentleman’s pocket can be complete?

  Few can rise from a critical examination of the literary contents of
  this narrow sheet, without being forcibly struck with the power,
  combined with the exquisite fineness of the writing. It strikes
  conviction at once. It dispels all doubts, and relieves all
  objections. There is a pithy terseness in the construction of the
  sentences; a downright, direct, straightforward, coming to the point,
  which would be wisely imitated in much of the contemporaneous
  literature that constantly obtains currency (though not as much). Here
  we have no circumlocution, no discursive pedantry, no smell of the
  lamp; the figures, though wholly derived from the East (being Arabic
  numerals), are distinct and full of purpose; and if the writing
  abounds in flourishes, which it does, these are not rhetorical, but
  boldly graphic: struck with a nervous decision of style, which,
  instead of obscuring the text and meaning, convinces the reader that
  he who traced them when promising to pay the sum of five, ten, twenty,
  thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred, or a thousand pounds, means
  honestly and instantly to keep his word: that he _will_ pay it to
  bearer on demand, without one moment’s hesitation.

  Strictly adapted for utility, yet the dulcet is not wholly overlooked;
  for, besides figures and flourishes, the graces of art are shed over
  this much-prized publication. The figure of Britannia is no slavish
  reproduction of any particular school whatever. She sits upon her
  scroll of state utterly inimitable and alone. She is hung up in one
  corner of the page, the sole representative of the P. R. F. P., or
  pre-reissue-of-the-fourpenny-piece, school. Neither, if judged by the
  golden rule of our greatest bard, is the work wholly deficient in
  another charm. As we have just explained, its words are few: brevity
  is the soul of wit. And we fearlessly put it to the keenest
  appreciator of good things, whether a Bank Note (say for a hundred) is
  not the best joke conceivable—except, indeed, a Bank Note for a
  thousand.

  A critical analysis of a work of this importance cannot be complete
  without going deeply into the subject. Reviewing is, alas, too often
  mere surface-work; for seldom do we find the critic going below the
  superficies, or extending his scrutiny beyond the letter-press. We
  shall, however, set a bright example of profundity, and having
  discharged our duty to the face of the Bank Note, shall proceed to
  penetrate below it: having analysed the print, we shall now speak of
  the paper.

  The late Mr. Cobbett, to express his idea of the intrinsic
  worthlessness of these sheets, in comparison with the prices at which
  they pass current, was wont to designate Bank Notes as “Rags.” It may,
  indeed, be said of them that, “Rags they were, and to tinder they
  return;” for they are born of shreds of linen, and, ten years after
  death, are converted in bonfires into the finest of known tinder. It
  may be considered a curious fact by those who wear shirts, and a
  painful, because hopeless one, by those who make them, that the refuse
  or cuttings of linen forms, with a slight admixture of cotton, the
  pabulum or pulp of Bank Note Paper. Machinery has made no inroads on
  this branch of paper-making. The pulp is kept so well mixed in a large
  vat, that the fibrous material presents the appearance of a huge
  cauldron of milk. Into this the paper-maker dips his mould, which is a
  fine wire sieve, having round its edge, a slight mahogany frame,
  called the “Deckel,” which confines the pulp to the dimensions of the
  mould. This dip is quite a feat of dexterity, for on it depends the
  thickness and evenness of the sheet of paper. The water-mark, or, more
  properly, the wire-mark, is obtained by twisting wires to the desired
  form or design, and stitching them on the face of the mould; therefore
  the design is above the level face of the mould, by the thickness of
  the wires it is composed of. Hence, the pulp in settling down on the
  mould, must of necessity be thinner on the wire design than on other
  parts of the sheet. When the water has run off through the sieve-like
  face of the mould, the new-born sheet of paper is transferred to a
  blanket; this operation is called “couching,” and is effected by
  pressing the mould gently but firmly on the blanket, when the spongy
  sheet clings to the cloth. Sizing is a subsequent process, and, when
  dry, the water-mark is plainly discernible, being, of course,
  transparent where the substance is thinnest. The paper is then made up
  into reams of five hundred sheets each, ready for press. The
  water-mark in the notes of the Bank of England is secured to that
  Establishment by a special Act of Parliament. Indeed, imitation of
  anything whatever connected with a Bank Note is an extremely hazardous
  feat.

  A scrupulous examination of this curious piece of paper, implants a
  thorough conviction that it is a very superior article—in short,
  unique. There is nothing like it in the world of sheets. Tested by the
  touch, it gives out a crisp, crackling, sharp, sound—a note
  essentially its own—a music which resounds from no other quires. To
  the eye it shows a colour belonging neither to blue-wove nor
  yellow-wove, nor to cream-laid, but a white, like no other white,
  either in paper and pulp. The rough fringiness of three of its edges
  are called the “deckled” edges, being the natural boundary of the pulp
  when first moulded; the fourth is left smooth by the knife, which
  eventually cuts the two notes in twain. It is so thin that, when
  printed, there is much difficulty in making erasures; yet it is so
  strong that a “water-leaf” (a leaf before the application of size)
  will support thirty-six pounds; and, with the addition of one grain of
  size, half a hundred weight, without tearing; yet the quantity of
  fibre of which it consists, is no more than eighteen grains and a
  half.

  The process of engraving the Bank Note is peculiar. Its general design
  is remarkably plain—steel plates are used, and are engraved in a
  manner somewhat analogous to that employed in the Mint for the
  production of the coin, except that heavy pressure is used instead of
  a blow. The form of the Note is divided into four or five sections,
  each engraved on steel dies which are hardened. Steel rollers, or
  mills, are obtained from these dies, and each portion of the Note is
  impressed on a steel plate to be printed from by the mills until the
  whole form is complete.

  By means of a very ingenious machine, the engraving on the plates when
  worn by long printing is repaired by the same mills, and thus perfect
  identity of form is permanently secured. The merits of this system are
  due to the late Mr. Oldham, and the many improvements introduced not
  only into this, but into the printing department, are the work of his
  son and successor, Mr. Thomas Oldham, the present chief engraver to
  the Bank of England. The plate—always with a pair of notes upon it—is
  now ready for the press; for it contains all the literary part of the
  work, except the date, the number, and the cashier’s signature.

  We must now review the manner of printing. Before passing through the
  press, all paper must be damped that it may readily absorb ink; and
  Bank Note paper is not exempt from this law; but the process by which
  it is complied with is an ingenious exception to the ordinary modes.
  The sheets are put into an iron chamber which is exhausted of air;
  water is then admitted, and forces itself through every pore at the
  rate of thirty thousand sheets, or double notes, per minute!

  In a long gallery that looks like a chamber of the Inquisition with
  self-acting racks, stands a row of plate-printing presses worked by
  steam. Every time a sheet passes through them they emit a soft “click”
  like a ship’s capstan creaking in a whisper. By this sound they
  announce to all whom it may concern that they have printed two Bank
  Notes. They are tell-tales, and keep no secrets; for, not content with
  stating the fact aloud, each press moves, by means of a chain, an
  index of numerals at the end of the room; so that the chief of the
  department can see at any hour of the day how many each press has
  printed. To take an impression of a note plate “on the sly,” is
  therefore impossible. By a clever invention of Mr. Oldham the
  impression returns to the printer when made, instead of remaining on
  the opposite side of the press, after it has passed through the
  rollers, as of old. The plates are heated, for inking, over steam
  boxes instead of charcoal fires.

  When a ream, consisting of five hundred sheets or one thousand notes,
  have been printed, they are placed in a tray which is inserted in a
  sort of shelf-trap that shuts up with a spring. No after-abstraction
  can, therefore, take place. One such repository is over the index
  appertaining to each press, and at the end of the day it can at once
  be seen whether the number of sheets corresponds with the numerals of
  the tell-tale. Any sort of mistake can thus be readily detected. The
  average number of “promises to pay” printed per diem is thirty
  thousand.

  As we cannot allow the dot over an _i_, or the cross of a _t_ to
  escape the focus of our critical microscope, we now proceed to apply
  it to the Bank Ink. Like the liquid of Messrs. Day and Martin, this
  inestimable composition, with half the usual labour, produces the most
  brilliant jet-black, fully equal to the highest Japan varnish, and is
  warranted to keep in any climate. It is made from the charred husks of
  Rhenish grapes after their juice has been expressed and bottled for
  exportation to the dinner-tables of half the world. When mixed with
  pure linseed oil, carefully prepared by boiling and burning, the
  vinous refuse produces a species of blacks so tenacious that they
  obstinately refuse to be emancipated from the paper when once enslaved
  to it by the press. It is so intensely nigritious that, compared with
  it, all other blacks are musty browns; and pale beside it. If the word
  of a printer’s devil may be taken, it is many degrees darker than the
  streams of Erebus. Can deeper praise be awarded?

  The note is, when plate-printed, two processes distant from
  negotiable; the first being the numbering and dating—and here we must
  point out the grand distinction which exists between the publication
  which we have the satisfaction of stating, now lies before us (but it
  is only a “Five”) and ordinary prints. When the types for this
  miscellany, for instance, are once set up, every copy struck off from
  them by the press is precisely similar. On the contrary, of those
  emitted from the Bank presses _no two are alike_. They differ either
  in date, in number, or in denomination. This difference constitutes a
  grand system of check, extending over every stage of every Bank Note’s
  career—a system which records its completion and issue, tracks it
  through its public adventures, recognises it when it returns to the
  Bank, from among hundreds of thousands of companions, and finally
  enables the proper officers to pounce upon it, in case of inquiry, at
  any official half hour for ten years after it has returned in
  fulfilment of its “promise to pay,” To promise an explanation of what
  must appear so complicated a plan, may seem to the reader like a
  threat of prolixity. But he may read on in security; the system is as
  simple as the alphabet.

  Understand then, that the dates of Bank Notes are arbitrary, and bear
  no reference to the day of issue. At the beginning of the official
  year (February) the Directors settle what dates each of the eleven
  denominations of Bank Notes shall bear during the ensuing twelve
  months, taking care to apportion to each sort of note a separate date.
  The table of dates is then handed to the proper officer, who prints
  accordingly. The five-pound Note which now rejoices our eyes is, for
  example, dated February the 2nd, 1850; we therefore know that there is
  no genuine note in existence, for any other sum, which bears that
  date; and if a note for ten, twenty, fifty, hundred, &c., having “2nd
  Feb., 1850,” upon it were to be offered to us or to a Bank Clerk, we
  or he would, without a shadow of further evidence, impound it as a
  forgery.

  Now, as to the numbering:—It is a rule that of every date and
  denomination, one hundred thousand Notes—no more and no less—shall be
  completed and issued at one time. We know, therefore, that our
  solitary five is one of a hundred thousand other fives, each bearing a
  different number—from 1[2] to 100,000—but all dated 2nd Feb., 1850.
  The numbers are printed on each Note by means of a letter-press, the
  types of which change with each pull of the press. For the first Note,
  the press is set at “00001,” and when that is printed, the “1,” by the
  mere act of impression, retires to make room for “2,” which impresses
  itself on the next Note, and so on up to “100,000.” The system has
  been applied to the stamping of railway tickets. The date, being
  required for the whole series, is of course immovable. After this has
  been done, the autograph of a cashier is only requisite to render the
  Note worth the value inscribed on it, in gold.

Footnote 2:

    To prevent fraudulent additions of numerals, less than five figures
    are never used. When units, tens, &c., are required, they are
    preceded by cyphers. “One” is therefore expressed on a Bank Note
    thus:—“00001.”

  While the printers are at work, manufacturing each series of Notes,
  the account-book makers are getting-up a series of ledgers so exactly
  to correspond, that the books of themselves, without the stroke of a
  pen, are a record of the existence of the Note. The book in which the
  birth of our own especial and particular “Five” is registered, is
  legibly inscribed,

                          “Fives, Feb. 2, 1850.”

  When you open a page, you find it to consist of a series of horizontal
  and perpendicular lines, like the pattern of a pair of shepherd’s
  plaid inexpressibles, variegated with columns of numerals; these
  figures running on regularly from No. 1, on the top of the first page,
  to No. 100,000 at the bottom of the last. It must therefore be obvious
  to the meanest capacity that the mere existence of that book, with its
  arbitrary date and series of numbers, corresponding to the like series
  of Notes, is a sufficient record of the existence and issue of the
  latter. The return of each Note after its public travels, is recorded
  in the square opposite to its number. Each page of the book contains
  two hundred squares and numbers; consequently, whatever number a Note
  may bear, the Clerk who has to register its safe return from a long
  round of public circulation, knows at once on which page of the book
  to pounce for its own proper and particular square. In that he inserts
  the date of its return—not at full length, but in cypher. “S” in red
  ink means 1850, and the months are indicated by one of the letters of
  the word AMBIDEXTROUS, with the date in numerals. Our only, and
  therefore favourite, five is numbered 31177. Should it chance to
  finish its travels in the Accountant’s Office on the 6th of August
  next, it will be narrowly inspected (for fear of forgery) and
  defaced—a Clerk will then turn at once to the book lettered “Fives,
  Feb. 2,” and so exactly will he know which page to open, and where the
  square numbered 31177 is situated, that he could point to it
  blindfold. He will write in it “6 t,” which means 6th August; that
  being the eighth month in the year, and “t” the eighth letter in the
  chosen word.

  The intermediate history of a Bank Note is soon told.
  Nineteen-twentieths are issued to Bankers or known houses of business.
  If Glynn’s, or Smith’s, or any other banking firm, require a hundred
  ten-pound Notes, the Clerk who issues them makes a memorandum showing
  the number of the Notes so issued, and the name of the party to whom
  they have been handed—an easy process, because Notes being new,[3] are
  always given out in regular series, and the first and last Note that
  makes the sum required need only be recorded. Most Bankers make
  similar memoranda when notes pass out of their hands; and the public,
  as each Note circulates among them, frequently sign the name of the
  last holder. When an unknown person presents a Note for gold at the
  Bank of England, he is required to write his name and address on it,
  and if the sum be very large, it is not paid without inquiry. By these
  expedients, a stolen, lost, or forged note can often be traced from
  hand to hand up to its advent.

Footnote 3:

    The Bank ceased to re-issue its Notes since 1835.

  The average periods which each denomination of London Notes remain in
  circulation has been calculated, and is shown by the following

                             ACCOUNT OF THE
                             NUMBER OF DAYS
                              A BANK NOTE
                               ISSUED IN
                             LONDON REMAINS
                                   IN
                             CIRCULATION:—

                               £5 72·7 days
                               10 77·0  „
                               20 57·4  „
                               30 18·9  „
                               40 13·7  „
                               50 38·8  „
                              100 29·4  „
                              200 12·7  „
                              300 10·6  „
                              500 11·8  „
                             1000 11·1  „

  The exceptions to these averages are few, and, therefore, remarkable.
  The time during which some Notes remain unpresented are reckoned by
  the century. On the 27th of September, 1845, a fifty pound Note was
  presented bearing date 20th January, 1743. Another for ten pounds,
  issued on the 19th November, 1762, was not paid till the 20th April,
  1843. There is a legend extant, of the eccentric possessor of a
  thousand pound Note, who kept it framed and glazed for a series of
  years, preferring to feast his eyes on it, to putting the amount it
  represented out at interest. It was converted into gold, however,
  without a day’s loss of time by his heirs, on his demise. Stolen and
  lost Notes are generally long absentees. The former usually make their
  appearance soon after some great horse-race, or other sporting event,
  altered or disguised so as to deceive Bankers, to whom the Bank of
  England furnishes a list of the numbers and dates of stolen Notes. In
  a Chapter on Forgery, which we are preparing, the reader will see some
  singular facts on this point.

  Mr. Francis, in his “History of the Bank of England,” tells a curious
  story about a bank post bill, which was detained during thirty years
  from presentation and payment. It happened in the year 1740:—“One of
  the Directors, a very rich man, had occasion for 30,000_l._, which he
  was to pay as the price of an estate be had just bought; to facilitate
  the matter, he carried the sum with him to the Bank and obtained for
  it a Bank bill. On his return home, he was suddenly called out upon
  particular business; he threw the Note carelessly on the chimney, but
  when he came back a few minutes afterwards to lock it up, it was not
  to be found. No one had entered the room; he could not therefore
  suspect any person. At last, after much ineffectual search, he was
  persuaded that it had fallen from the chimney into the fire. The
  Director went to acquaint his colleagues with the misfortune that had
  happened to him; and as he was known to be a perfectly honourable man
  he was readily believed. It was only about four-and-twenty hours from
  the time that he had deposited his money; they thought, therefore,
  that it would be hard to refuse his request for a second bill. He
  received it upon giving an obligation to restore the first bill, if it
  should ever be found, or to pay the money himself, if it should be
  presented by any stranger. About thirty years afterwards (the Director
  having been long dead, and his heirs in possession of his fortune), an
  unknown person presented the lost bill at the Bank, and demanded
  payment. It was in vain that they mentioned to this person the
  transaction by which that bill was annulled; he would not listen to
  it; he maintained that it had come to him from abroad, and insisted
  upon immediate payment. The Note was payable to bearer; and the thirty
  thousand pounds were paid him. The heirs of the Director would not
  listen to any demands of restitution; and the Bank was obliged to
  sustain the loss. It was discovered afterwards that an architect
  having purchased the Director’s house, had taken it down, in order to
  build another upon the same spot, had found the Note in a crevice of
  the chimney, and made his discovery an engine for robbing the Bank.”

[Illustration: ‘Illustration]

  Carelessness, equal to that recorded above, is not at all uncommon,
  and gives the Bank enormous profit, against which the loss of a mere
  thirty thousand pound is but a trifle. Bank Notes have been known to
  light pipes, to wrap up snuff, to be used as curl-papers; and British
  tars, mad with rum and prize-money, have not unfrequently, in time of
  war, made sandwiches of them, and eaten them between bread-and-butter.
  In the forty years between the years 1792 and 1812 there were
  out-standing Notes (presumed to have been lost or destroyed) amounting
  to one million, three hundred and thirty odd thousand pounds; every
  shilling of which was clear profit to the Bank.

  The superannuation, death, and burial of a Bank of England Note is a
  story soon told. The returned Notes, or promises performed, are kept
  in “The Library” for ten years, and then burnt in an iron cage in one
  of the Bank yards.

  A few words on the history and general appearance of the Bank of
  England Note will conclude our criticism.

  The strong principle to insure the detection of forgery is uniformity;
  hence, from the very first Note issued by the Bank, to that, the
  merits of which we are now discussing, the same general design has
  been preserved,—only that the execution has been from time to time
  improved; except, we are bound to add, that of the signatures, some of
  which are still as illegible as ever. Originally, Notes were granted
  more in the form of Bank post-bills,—that is, not nominally to a
  member of the establishment, but really to the party applying for
  them, and for any sum he might require. If it suited his convenience,
  he presented his Note several times, drawing such lesser sums as he
  might require; precisely as if it were a letter of credit, after the
  manner of the Sailor mentioned in the latest edition of Joe Miller.
  Jack, somehow or other, got possession of a fifty pound Note; the sum
  was so dazzlingly enormous that he had not the heart, on presenting it
  for payment, to demand the whole sum at once, for fear of breaking the
  Bank. So, leaning confidentially over the counter, he whispered to the
  cashier, that he wouldn’t be hard upon ’em. He knew times were
  bad,—so, as it was all the same to him, he would take five sovereigns
  now, and the rest at so much a week. In like manner, the fac-simile on
  the opposite page, while it presents a specimen of one of the earliest
  Bank Notes in existence, shows that the holder took the amount as Jack
  proposed;—by instalments. It was granted to Mr. Thomas Powell, on the
  19th of December, 1699, for five hundred and fifty-five pounds. His
  first draft was one hundred and thirty-one pounds, ten shillings, and
  one penny; the second “in gould,” three hundred and sixty; the third,
  sixty-three pounds, nine shillings, and elevenpence, when the note was
  retained by the Bank as having been fully honoured.

  With this curious specimen of the ancient Bank of England Note, we
  take leave of the modern ones—only, however, for a short time. In a
  week or two, we shall change the topic (as we have previously
  intimated) to one closely bearing upon it. Circumstances, however,
  demand that we should change the subject of it at a much earlier date.




                          INNOCENCE AND CRIME.
                              AN ANECDOTE.


  A benevolent old gentleman—the late Mr. Harcourt Brown of Beech
  Hall—was plodding his way home to his hotel from a ramble in the
  suburbs of London; and having made a bold attempt at “a short cut,”
  soon found himself lost in a maze of squalid streets, leading one into
  the other, and apparently leading no where else. He inquired his way
  in vain. From the first person, he received a coarse jest; from
  another, a look of vacant stupidity; a third eyed him in dogged
  silence. He stepped with one foot into several wretched little shops;
  but the people really seemed to know nothing beyond the next street or
  alley, except one man, a dealer in tripe, of a strange, earthy colour,
  who called over his shoulder, “Oh, you’re miles out o’ your way!” The
  only exception to the general indifference, rudeness and stupidity,
  was a thin sallow-cheeked man, who had a fixed smile on his face, and
  spoke in rather an abject cringing tone of obsequiousness, and even
  walked up one street and down a second to show Mr. Brown the way. But
  it soon became evident that he knew nothing about the matter, and he
  slunk away with the same fixed unmeaning smile.

  In this state of affairs Mr. Brown buttoned up his coat, and manfully
  resolved to work his way out of this filthy locality by walking
  straight forward.

  Trudging onward at a smart pace, the worthy gentleman presently heard
  the sound of sobbing and crying, and behind the boards of a shed at
  the side of a ruined hovel he saw a girl of some nine or ten years of
  age, clasping and unclasping her hands in a paroxysm of grief and
  apprehension. “Oh, what _shall_ I do?—what _shall_ I do?” sobbed the
  child.

  She started with terror as Mr. Brown approached, and hid her head in
  the folds of her little apron; but on being assured by the mild voice
  of Mr. Brown that he had no thought of hurting her, she ventured to
  look up. She had soft blue eyes, flaxen hair of silvery glossiness,
  pretty features; and, notwithstanding the stain of tears down a cheek
  which had a smear of brickdust upon it, had a most innocent and
  prepossessing face.

  “What is the matter, my little girl?” inquired Mr. Brown.

  The child turned one shoulder half round, and displayed the red and
  purple marks of blows from a whip or stick.

  “What cruel wretch has done this?” asked Mr. Brown. “Tell me, child;
  tell me directly.”

  “It was mother,” sobbed the child.

  “Ah—I’m sorry to hear this. Perhaps you have been naughty?”

  “Yes, Sir;” answered the child.

  “Poor child,” ejaculated Mr. Brown; “but you will not be naughty
  again. What was your offence. Come, tell me?”

  “I shook it, Sir; oh, yes, it’s quite true; I did shake it very much.”

  “What did you shake?” inquired Mr. Brown.

  “I shook the doll, Sir.”

  “The doll! Oh, you mean you shook the baby; that, certainly was
  naughty of you;” said Mr. Brown.

  “No, Sir; it was not the baby I shook—it was the doll; and I’m afraid
  to go home—mother will be sure to beat me again.”

  An impulse of benevolence led Mr. Brown’s hand to search for his
  purse. Had he tried the wrong pocket? His purse was on the other side.
  No, it was not—it must be in this inner pocket. Where _is_ Mr. Brown’s
  purse? It is not in any of his pockets! He tries them all over again.
  And his pocket-book!—chiefly of memorandums, but also having a few
  bank notes. This is gone too—and his silk handkerchief—both his
  handkerchiefs!—also his silver-gilt snuff-box, filled with rappee only
  five minutes before he left the hotel this morning—he is certain he
  had it when he came out—but it is certainly gone! Every single thing
  he had in his pockets is gone.

  The child also—now _she_ is gone! Mr. Brown looks around him, and
  yonder he sees the poor child flying with frequent looks behind of
  terror,—and now a shrill and frightful voice causes him to start.
  Turning in that direction, the sudden flight of the little girl is
  immediately explained. Over the rubbish and refuse, at a swift, wild
  pace, courses a fiendish woman, with a savage eye and open mouth, her
  cheeks hollow, her teeth projecting, her thin hair flying like a bit
  of diseased mane over her half-naked shoulder; she has a stick in her
  hand, with which she constantly threatens the flying child, whom her
  execrations follow yet more swiftly than her feet.

  Mr. Brown remained watching them till they were out of sight. He once
  more searched all his pockets, but they were all empty. He called to
  mind the man with the fixed smile on his hollow cadaverous cheek, and
  several other faces of men whom he had casually noticed in the course
  of the last half hour, thinking what a pity it was that something
  could not be done for them. He now began to think it was a very great
  pity that something had not _already_ been done for them or with them,
  for they had certainly “done” him. Poor Mr. Brown!

  Some six or seven months after this most disagreeable adventure, it
  chanced that Mr. Brown was going over the prison at Coldbath Fields,
  accompanied by the Governor. As they entered one of the wards, the
  voice of a child sobbing, attracted the ears of our philanthropist. In
  answer to his inquiries, the Governor informed him that it was a child
  of about eleven years of age, who had been detected in the act of
  picking a lady’s pocket in one of the most crowded thoroughfares.

  On a few kind words being spoken to her, she looked up; and in the
  blue eye, glossy flaxen hair, and pretty features, Mr. Brown at once
  recognised the little girl who had “shaken the doll.”

  “This child is an innocent creature!” cried he, turning to the
  Governor, “the victim of ignorance and cruel treatment at home. I
  recollect her well. Her mother had beaten her most shamefully; and the
  last glimpse I had of her was in her flight from a still more savage
  assault. And for what crime do you suppose?”

  “For not picking pockets expertly, I dare say:” replied the Governor.

  “Nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “Would you believe it,
  Sir; it was for nothing more than a childish bit of pretence-anger
  with her doll, on which occasion she gave the doll a good shaking.
  Mere pretence, you know.”

  “My dear Sir,” said the Governor, smiling, “I fancy I am right, after
  all. She was beaten for not being expert in the study and practice of
  pocket-picking at home. You are not, perhaps, aware that the lesson
  consists in picking the pockets of a figure which is hung up in the
  room, in such a way that the least awkwardness of touch makes it
  shake, and rings a little bell attached to it. This figure is called
  the ‘doll.’ Those who ring the bell, shake it in emptying its pockets,
  are punished according to the mind and temper of the instructor.”

  “Good heavens!” ejaculated Mr. Brown, “to what perfection must the art
  be brought! Then it is all accounted for. The sallow gentleman with
  the fixed smile must have been master of the craft of not shaking the
  doll, when he took my purse, pocket-book, snuff-box, and both
  handkerchiefs from me, without my feeling so much as the motion of the
  air!”

                  *       *       *       *       *

                 Monthly Supplement of “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,”
                       Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS.


                        _Price 2d., Stamped, 3d._,
                          THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
                                    OF
                              CURRENT EVENTS.


   _The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with
                              the Magazines._

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                           TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


  ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
  ● Renumbered footnotes.
  ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
  ● The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript, whether applied to a
      single character (as in 2^d) or to an entire expression (as in
      1^{st}).



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD WORDS, NO. 18, JULY 27, 1850 ***


    

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