No. 16.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 1884.
{241}
SUDDEN FORTUNES.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
THE HOMING PIGEON.
A WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE.
COIN TREASURES.
MY FELLOW-PASSENGER.
A SKATING REGIMENT.
ECHOES.
No. 16.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 1884.
Few things are so fascinating to read as stories of fortunes suddenly made. They lend to the adventures of miners in gold or diamond fields an interest possessed by enterprises of no other kind; they also impart a most seductive glamour to accounts published in continental newspapers of prize-winners in big lotteries. When the French annual state lotteries were abolished in 1837, a writer of some distinction, M. Alphonse Karr, protested energetically against what he called a hardship for the poor. His defence was curious. ‘For five sous,’ he said, ‘the most miserable of beings may purchase the chance of becoming a millionaire; by suppressing this chance, you take away the ray of hope from the poor man’s life.’
Almost any man can relate from his own experience tales of suddenly acquired wealth; and by this we do not mean the riches that may be inherited through the death of a relative, or those which are won by speculation. The professed money-hunter who succeeds on ’Change is like the sportsman who brings home a good bag—his spoils, though they may be large, are not unexpected. But there is the man who goes out without any thought of sport, and returns with a plump bird that has dropped into his hands; or the man who, wandering on the seashore, picks up a pearl. It is with persons of this description that we may compare those lucky individuals who, awaiting nothing from fortune, are suddenly overwhelmed by her favours. A few examples of such luck may induce the reader who sees no signs of wealth on his path just yet, never to despair.
At the beginning of 1870, the Hôtel des Réservoirs at Versailles was for sale. It was the largest hotel in the city; but as Versailles had become a sleepy place, almost deserted in winter, and only frequented in summer by casual tourists and Sunday excursionists, the landlord had scarcely been able to pay his way. The hotel was disposed of in January for a very low figure, and the new proprietor entered upon his tenancy on the first of April. He soon repented of his bargain. The season of 1870 brought fewer excursionists than usual; and when, in the middle of July, war was declared against Germany, all the landlord’s chances of recouping himself during the months when foreign tourists abound, seemed gone, so that he had serious thoughts of reselling the house. Within eight weeks, the whole of his prospects were altered. The French were defeated, Paris was invested, Versailles became the headquarters of the invading armies, and suddenly the Hôtel des Réservoirs entered upon a period of such prosperity as doubtless could not be matched by the records of any other hostelry. From the middle of September till the following February it was the lodging-place of Grand Dukes and Princes, as many as it would hold; whilst its dining-rooms were resorted to by all the wealthiest officers in the German forces. As the siege operations kept troops in movement at all hours, meals were served at every time of the day and night. Three relays of cooks and as many of waiters had to be hired; and the consumption of wines, spirits, and liqueurs beggars all reckoning. Princes and rich officers going into action or returning from victory are naturally free with their money; every triumph of German arms was a pretext for banquets and toasts. In fact, from the 1st of October to the date when the occupation of the city ceased—a period of about one hundred and thirty days—the average number of champagne bottles uncorked every day exceeded five hundred! As the Prussians held Rheims, the landlord was enabled to renew his stock of champagne as often as was necessary; but he could not renew his stock of Bordeaux—the Bordelais being in French hands, so that towards the end of the war he was selling his clarets at fancy prices.
The Germans marched away in February; but still the Hôtel des Réservoirs’ marvellous run of luck continued. In March the Communist insurrection broke out; the National Assembly transferred its sittings to Versailles,{242} which was proclaimed the political capital of France; and during the second siege of Paris the hotel was crowded with ministers, foreign ambassadors, deputies, and other persons of note. The result of all this and of the steady custom which the hotel received so long as Versailles remained the seat of government, was that the landlord, who was at the point of ruin in 1870, retired in 1875 worth one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, after selling the hotel for three times what he had paid for it. We may add that in 1870 other very fine hauls of money were made by hotel-keepers in cities which the German armies occupied, and at Tours and Bordeaux, which were successively the seats of the French Government of National Defence.
But it will be objected that such fortunes as war, revolutions, and other great commotions bring to the few, in compensation for the ruin which they scatter among the many, are not to be met with in lands enjoying profound peace like England. Well, there are local convulsions too in England. An obscure village becomes the scene of a murder or a railway accident; an inquest is held; reporters are sent down from London; idlers by the trainful come to view the spot where the mishap occurred; and the village public-house, which had been doing a poor business, all at once finds itself taking gold and silver like a first-class London buffet. Such things happen pretty often; indeed, Fortune now and then knocks at houses whose inmates, from sheer bewilderment or stupidity, do not know how to take advantage of her unexpected visit. We have the recollection of a publican in a village on the Great Western line who positively spurned a chance of handsome gains thrown into his way by a snowstorm. An express train had got snowed up in the night; with infinite difficulty, by reason of the darkness, the passengers crawled out, and made across the fields for a public-house about a mile distant; but on arriving there, they met with anything but a hospitable reception. The landlord had been roused from sleep; he could not serve drink, he said, because it was past hours; he had no spare-room for travellers; there was only one ounce of tea in his house; and so forth. In the end, most of the benighted party found a refuge at the vicarage. Had the landlord been a more astute fellow, he might have secured some valuable patrons that night, for there were wealthy people among the passengers; and two of them had to linger for more than a week in the village, having fallen ill.
Let us now leave publicans, and come to stories of sudden professional advancement. All young doctors know what uphill work it sometimes is to establish a practice. Years will often elapse before a doctor gets any return for the money which his friends invested in obtaining his diploma. On the other hand, a single fortunate case may bring patients by the score. About twenty years ago, a young doctor who had been established three years in London without making an income, lost heart, and determined to emigrate to Australia. He sold his small house and furniture, paid his passage-money, and a week before his ship was to sail, went into the country to say good-bye to his parents. Having to change trains at a junction, he was waiting on the platform, when a groom in a smart livery galloped up to the station, and calling excitedly to a porter, handed him a telegraphic message for transmission. From some remarks exchanged between the two men, the young doctor understood that the Duke of ——, a member of the Cabinet, had fallen dangerously ill, and that an eminent physician in London was being telegraphed for. The groom added that he had ridden to the houses of three local doctors, who had all been absent, and that ‘Her Grace was in a terrible way.’
The young doctor saw his opportunity, and at once seized it. ‘I am a medical man,’ he said to the groom; ‘and I will go to the Hall to offer my assistance till another doctor arrives.’
The groom was evidently attached to his master, for he said: ‘Jump on my horse, sir, and ride straight down the road for about four miles; you can’t miss the Hall; any one will tell you where it is.’
The doctor went, was gratefully received by the Duchess, and happened to be just in time to stop a mistake in treatment of the patient, which might have proved fatal if continued for a few hours longer. The Duke was suffering from typhoid fever; and when the eminent physician arrived from town, he declared that the young doctor’s management of the case had been perfect. The result of this was, that the latter was requested to remain at the Hall to take charge of the patient; and his name figured on the bulletins which were issued during the next fortnight, and were printed in all the daily newspapers of the kingdom. Such an advertisement is always the making of a medical man, especially when his patient recovers, as the Duke did. Our penniless friend received a fee of five hundred guineas; took a house at the West End, and from that time to this has been at the head of one of the largest practices in London.
Curiously enough, his sudden rise was indirectly the means of bringing another needy young doctor to great fortune. Having abandoned his emigration scheme, our friend had made a present of his ticket to a former fellow-student of his, a shiftless sort of young man, who was loafing about town, with no regular work or prospects. This ne’er-do-weel had never thought of leaving the mother-country, and he accepted the ticket rather with the idea of making a pleasant voyage gratis than of settling at the antipodes. But on the way out, an epidemic of smallpox occurred among the passengers; the ship’s surgeon died; and the emigrant doctor, stepping into his place, displayed such skill and devotion that he won golden opinions from all on board. As often happens with men of good grit, the sudden call to noble work and great responsibilities completely altered his character, and he became thenceforth a steady fellow. On landing at Sydney, he was presented with a handsome cheque by the agents of the Steamship Company for his services, and soon afterwards was, on their recommendation, appointed physician to the quarantine depôt. This position put him in the way of forming a first-rate private practice and of winning municipal honours. He is now one of the most prosperous men in the colony, and a member of the colonial legislature.
{243}
Talking of sea-voyages reminds us of a barrister who has owed professional success to the mere lucky, or let us say providential, hazard which sent him out on a trip to China. Having lived three or four years in chambers without getting a brief, he was almost destitute, when a friend of his who was in the tea-trade offered him a free passage to Shanghai and back on condition of his transacting some piece of business there. On the passage out, the barrister had many conversations with the captain, who chanced to have lately given evidence at Westminster in a lawsuit which was of great importance to the shipping interest. But he had been disgusted with the ‘stupidity,’ as he called it, of the judge and counsel in the case, when talking of maritime and commercial customs; and he exclaimed: ‘Why don’t some of those lawyers who mean to speak in shipping cases, study our ways a little?’ These words struck the young barrister, who, after thinking the matter over for a few days, resolved to live at sea for a while.
On his return to England, he sought for a situation as purser or secretary on board one of the great ocean steamers, and in this capacity made several trips. Then he successively tried expeditions on board whalers, vessels engaged in the cod and herring fisheries, &c.; in fact, he led a sailor’s life for rather more than three years, picking up a full acquaintance with the manners, customs, grievances, and wants of those who had their business in the great waters. On going back to the bar, he almost at once got briefs in the Admiralty Court; and becoming known to solicitors as an expert on shipping questions, his professional fortune was made.
We might quote several cases similar to this one where special knowledge, sometimes acquired by accident, has put men in the way of getting highly honourable and well-paid positions on the newspaper press. A gentleman who is now a distinguished leader-writer on one of the London dailies, got his situation in consequence of having broken his leg while travelling in Germany. He was laid up for months in lodgings, and there became intimate with a Russian refugee, who taught him the Russian language and instructed him thoroughly in Muscovite politics. This occurred at the beginning of the Eastern imbroglio in 1876; and when the patient was getting better, he sent to a London paper a series of letters which exhibited such a familiarity with Russian affairs, that they attracted general notice. He was soon asked to go to St Petersburg as special correspondent; and from that date all things prospered with him. At the time when he broke his leg, he was about to accept a clerkship in a merchant’s office, where he would have had small chance of making any figure in the world.
But we fancy we can hear people exclaim that talent well directed is pretty sure to make a man’s fortune, so that it is never surprising to hear of clever men growing rich. True; but nevertheless there are chances for those who are not clever. We have heard of a man who had two thousand pounds a year left him because he was civil to an infirm old lady in church, finding the hymns for her, setting her hassock, &c. He did not know her name; but she took care to ascertain his, and when she died, he found that she had bequeathed to him the bulk of her property ‘as a reward for his patient kindness.’ A clergyman of our acquaintance obtained a living of good value from a baronet in Norfolk for no other reason than that he was the only curate within ten miles round who had not applied for it when it fell vacant. And another clergyman whom we know got a still better living for having refused preferment offered to him under circumstances derogatory to his dignity. He was a fair singer; and a vulgar plutocrat who had invited him to dinner promised to give him a living if he would sing a comic song at dessert. The quiet rebuke which the young clergyman administered made the plutocrat ashamed of himself, so that the next day he proffered the living with a letter of apology; but the living was refused, the clergyman stating that it would be impossible for him to forget the circumstances under which it was first tendered. This was the more honourable, as the clergyman was very badly off. Another patron, hearing of what he had done, appointed him to a benefice, as a testimony of his admiration.
We may conclude with a story of a man who was suddenly made rich because of his great stupidity. He was the only dull man in a bright-witted family, and going to dine with a wealthy relative who had a horror of fools, he made so many silly remarks, that the old man cried in exasperation: ‘I must do something for you, for you’ll never do anything for yourself. If I don’t make a rich man of you, you’ll become a laughing-stock to the world and a disgrace to your family.’
Philip spoke lightly to Madge about the ‘chambers in town;’ but he was not quite satisfied with the arrangement, when she told him frankly that she did not like it. He confessed that the idea pleased him chiefly because it would give him a sense of independence, which he could never experience so long as he remained at Ringsford and the family continued to be in the same mood as at present. Very little had been said to him there, beyond a few expressions of curiosity on the part of the girls, and a cunning question from Coutts as to what guarantee Uncle Shield could give for the wealth he professed to possess.
‘The amount he promised to place at my disposal is in the bank,’ Philip answered; ‘and that, I fancy, would be sufficient, Coutts, to satisfy even you.’
Coutts nodded, was silent, and began privately to speculate on the possibility of ingratiating himself with this mysterious relative, who seemed to have discovered the mines of Golconda.
Nothing more was said. Mr Hadleigh enjoined silence on the subject until he should please to speak; and he had done so with a sternness which effectually checked the tongue even of Miss Hadleigh, who, being ‘engaged,’ felt herself in some measure released from parental authority.
The consequence was that there had grown up a feeling of constraint, which was exceedingly irksome to the frank, loving nature of Philip;{244} and yet he could not divine how he was to overcome it. He could not tell whether this feeling was due to his own anxiety to reconcile two opposing elements, or to the unspoken irritation of the family with him for having leagued himself with their enemy. It never occurred to him that any one of them could be jealous of his good fortune.
However, this new arrangement seemed to offer an opportunity for making the position clear. Standing apart from the influence of his family, he would be able to consider all the circumstances of his position with more calmness and impartiality than would be otherwise possible.
At the same time, he was a good deal perplexed by the conduct of Mr Shield, and was gradually beginning to feel something like vexation at it. There was the difficulty of seeing him, and then the impossibility of getting him to discuss anything when he did see him. Mr Shield was still at the Langham; and if Philip called without having made an appointment, he was either sent away with some excuse, which he knew to be nothing more than an excuse, or there was a great fuss of attendants entering and leaving the room before he was admitted. On these occasions Philip was conscious of an atmosphere of brandy-and-soda; and several times his uncle had been served with a glass of this potent mixture during their interviews, brief as they were. It was to this weakness Philip had been about to refer, when speaking to Dame Crawshay, and to it he was disposed to attribute much of his uncle’s eccentricity of conduct.
But he was always the same roughly good-natured man, although short of speech and decided in manner.
‘Once for all,’ he said gruffly, when Philip made a more strenuous effort than usual to induce him to discuss the scheme he was elaborating; ‘I am not a good talker—see things clearer when they are put down on paper for me. You do that; and if there is anything that does not please me, I’ll tell you fast enough in writing. Then there can be no mistakes between us. Had enough of mistakes in my time already.’
And notwithstanding his peculiarly jerky mode of expressing himself in talking, his letters were invariably clear and to the point. They formed, indeed, a bewildering contrast to the man as he appeared personally, for they were the letters of one who had clear vision and cool judgment. But as yet Philip had not found any opportunity to approach the subject of a reconciliation with his father. He kept that object steadily in view, however, and waited patiently for the right moment in which to speak.
Wrentham was well pleased that Mr Shield should keep entirely in the background; it left him the more freedom in action; and he was delighted with his appointment as general manager for Philip. His first transaction in that capacity was to sublet his offices in Golden Alley to his principal. This saved so much expense, and there were the clerks and all the machinery ready for conducting any business which might be entered upon. Wrentham had agreeable visions of big prizes to be won on the Stock Exchange. He was confident that the whole theory of exchange business was as simple as A B C to him; and only the want of a little capital had prevented him from making a large fortune long ago. His chance had come at last.
Here was this young man, who knew almost nothing of business, but possessed capital which he desired to employ. He, Martin Wrentham, knew how to employ it to the best advantage. What more simple, then? He should employ the capital; instead of dabbling in hundreds, he would be able to deal in thousands, and in no time he would double the capital and make his own fortune too!
But when the time came for Philip to unfold the project which he had been quietly maturing, the sanguine and volatile Wrentham was for an instant dumb with amazement, then peered inquiringly into the face of the young capitalist, as if seeking some symptoms of insanity, and next laughed outright.
‘That’s the best joke I have heard for a long time,’ he exclaimed.
‘Where is the joke?’ asked Philip, a little surprised.
‘You don’t mean to say that you are serious in thinking of investing your capital in this way?’ Wrentham’s hilarity disappeared as he spoke.
‘Perfectly serious; and Mr Shield approves of the idea.’
‘But you will never make money out of it.’
‘I do not know what you may mean by making money; but unless the calculations which have been supplied to me by practical men are utterly wrong, I shall obtain a fair percentage on the capital invested. I do not mean to do anything foolish, for I consider the money as held in trust, and will do what is in my power to make a good use of it.’
‘You want to drive Philanthropy and Business in one team; but I never heard of them going well in harness together.’
‘I think they have done so, and may do so again,’ said Philip cheerfully.
‘You will be an exception to all the rules I know anything about, if you manage to make them go together. If you had five times the capital you are starting with, you could make nothing out of it.’
‘I hope to make a great deal out of it, although not exactly in the sense you mean.’
Wrentham passed his hand through his hair, as if he despaired of bringing his principal to reason.
‘What do you expect to make out of it?’
‘First of all, beginning on our small scale, we shall provide work for so many men. By the system of paying for the work done, rather than by wages whether the work is done or not, each man will be able to earn the value of what he can produce or cares to produce.’
‘You will not find half-a-dozen men willing to accept that arrangement.’
‘We must make the most of those we do find. When the advantages are made plain in practice, others will come in fast enough.’
‘The Unions will prevent them.’
‘It is a kind of Union I am proposing to form—a Union of capital and labour. Then, I propose to divide amongst the men all profits above, say, six or eight per cent. on the capital, in proportion to the work each has done. I believe we shall find plenty of workmen, who will understand and appreciate the scheme.’
{245}
Wrentham was resting his elbows on the table and twisting a piece of paper between his fingers. He had got over his first surprise. The one thing he understood was, that Philip would hold obstinately to this ridiculous ideal of a social revolution until experience showed him how impracticable it was. The one thing he did not understand was, how Mr Shield had agreed to let him try it.
‘I admire the generous spirit which prompts you to try this experiment; it is excellent, benevolent, and all that sort of thing,’ he said coolly; ‘but it is not business, and it will be a failure. Every scheme of the same sort that has been tried has failed. However, I shall do my best to help you. How do you propose to begin?’
Philip was prepared for this lukewarm support; he had not expected Wrentham to enter upon the plan with enthusiasm, and was aware that men of business would regard it as a mere fancy, in which a good deal of money would be thrown away. But he was confident that the result would justify his sanguine calculations.
‘I am sorry you cannot take a more cheerful view of my project, Wrentham; but I hope some day to hear you own that you were mistaken. We shall begin by buying this land—here is the plan. Then if we get it at a fair price, we shall proceed to erect two blocks of good healthy tenements for working-people. We shall be our own contractors, and so begin our experiment with the men at once. Take the plans home with you, and look them over; and to-morrow you can open negotiations for the purchase of the land.’
Wrentham’s eyes brightened.
‘Ah, that’s better—that’s something I can do.’
‘You will find that there are many things you can do in carrying out the work,’ said Philip, smiling.
The general manager was restored to equanimity by the prospect of a speculation in land. The young enthusiast went his way, contented with the thought that he had taken the first step towards a social reform of vast importance.
The same afternoon the agents for the land in question received a communication from a solicitor inquiring the terms on which it was to be sold.
BY GORDON STABLES, M.D., R.N.
‘Let it off at Leicester, sir.’
My train had already started, when the speaker—an earnest-faced, enthusiastic-looking working-man—breathless with running, leapt on to the step, and after a hurried glance round the compartment, popped a paper bag into my arms and disappeared.
‘Let it off at Leicester?’ What did the man mean? Did he take me for one of the Fenian brotherhood? Had he handed me an ‘infernal machine’ with which to destroy Leicester railway station? I was taken aback for a moment, but only for a moment, for something rustled inside the bag, and I ‘keeked’ in at a corner.
‘You’re there, are you?’ I said sotto voce, as the bright, inquiring eye of a blue homing pigeon met my gaze.
The man’s meaning was plain enough now. Leicester was our first stopping-place. I was to throw the bird up there—which I duly did—and knowing the hour the train was due there, its owner could thus judge of its flying powers from the time it took to regain the loft in London.
By many people, it is believed that the homing pigeon is guided in its wonderful flights by some special instinct; others think that sight alone is the bird’s guide. In the far-distant past, long before railways, telegraphs, or telephones were dreamt of, pigeons were used to convey intelligence of all kinds from distant quarters; and even in our own day and in times of peace, homing or carrier pigeons are found exceedingly useful as message-bearers in a hundred ways needless to name.
In time of war, their utility can hardly be overrated. The ‘Paris pigeon-post’ of the Franco-German War of 1870-71 is well known. During the siege, when the gayest city in the world was closely beleaguered by the Prussians, and all communication with the outside world was totally cut off, homing pigeons brought to Paris by balloons, found their way back to Tours and other places, bearing with them news of the beleaguered city. How welcome they must have been to the thousands of people who had friends and relatives in Paris at that time! The messages carried by the pigeons were written or printed, then photographed on thin paper, the words being so reduced in size that it required the aid of a powerful magnifier to decipher them. These tiny documents were carried in small sealed quills, carefully fastened to the centre tail-feathers. From the very moment of the arrival of the first homing pigeon, the Paris pigeon-post was firmly established as an institution; and in times of war among all civilised nations, the aërial voyageur will in future doubtless play a most important part.
We have already in England a large number of clubs devoted to pigeon-flying or pigeon-racing; but it is in Brussels that the sport is carried out to the fullest extent. In Belgium alone, there are at this moment nearly twenty-five hundred clubs, and every town, village, or district in the whole country goes in for its weekly race. The birds are sent off on the Friday or Saturday by special trains, and are liberated in clouds of thousands on the Sunday mornings, two, three, four, or even five hundred miles from home.
I know many people in this country who have as their special hobby the breeding and flying of pigeons in a private way, quite independent of clubs—people who never go very far away from home without taking a pigeon or two along with them, to send back with news of their safe arrival, or their success or non-success in matters of business. I had the following told me by a friend, and have no reason to doubt the truth of it. A gentleman of rather shy disposition came down from London to a town not a hundred miles from Warwick, bent on proposing to a young lady, with whom he was greatly in love. She was the daughter of a well-to-do landowner, and a fancier of Antwerp carriers. The Londoner, however, lacked the courage or opportunity of popping the question. He was bold enough, though, before taking leave, to beg the loan of one of his lady-love’s pets, just ‘to tell her of his{246} safe arrival in town.’ The bird returned from London the same day; and in the little quill, it bore to its mistress a message—that, after all, might more simply and naturally have been conveyed by lip—to wit, a declaration and a proposal. A more artful though innocent way of getting out of a difficulty could hardly have been devised. It was successful too.
The homing pigeon of the present day is not only remarkably fond of the cot and scenes around it wherein it has been bred and reared, but fond of its owner as well, and exceedingly sagacious and docile. The power of wing of this bird is very great, and emulates the speed of the swiftest train, over five hundred miles being done sometimes in less than twelve hours.
Now, although, in our foggy and uncertain climate, we can never hope to attain such results in pigeon-flying as they do in Belgium or sunny France, still, the breeding and utilising of these useful birds deserve far more attention than we in this country give them. It is in the hope that some of the readers of this Journal may be induced to adopt the breeding and flying of these pigeons as a fancy or hobby, that I now devote the rest of this article to a few practical hints about their general management.
I should say, then, to a beginner, join a club, by all means, if there be one anywhere near you. If there is not, and you are energetic enough, why, then, start one; or, independent of all clubs, make your hobby an entirely private one. Now, before doing anything else in the matter, you must have a proper loft or pigeonry for your coming pets. This should be placed as high as possible, so that the birds, from their area or flight, may catch glimpses of the country all round, and thus familiarise themselves with it.
The loft should be divided into two by means of a partition with a door in it, each apartment having an outlet to the area in front. The one room is devoted to the young birds, the other to the old. Without illustrations, it is somewhat difficult to describe the area or trap and its uses, but I will try. In its simplest form, then, it is a large wooden cage—with a little platform in front of it—that is fixed against the pigeons’ own private door to their loft. At the back of the cage is a sliding-door, communicating with the loft, and in command of the owner of the pigeons; and another in the front of the cage. It is evident, then, that if you open the back-door, the bird can get into the area from the loft; and if you open the front one as well, he can get out altogether, to fly about at his own sweet will. Returning from his exercise when tired, if both trap or sliding-doors are open, he can pass right through the cage into the loft; if only the front-door is open, he can get no farther than the interior of the cage or area. But independent of these trap-doors, there are two little swing-doors, called bolting-wires—one in front of the cage, and one behind, that is, betwixt the area and the loft. The peculiarity of these swing-doors is this: they are hinged at the top, and open inwardly, being prevented from opening outwardly by a beading placed in front of them at the foot. Well, suppose a bird to have just arrived from off a journey, and alighting on the little platform, found the sliding-door shut, it would immediately shove against the door, which would swing open, permitting the bird’s entrance, and at once shut again against the beading, and prevent its exit. In the same way, through the back bolting-wires, a pigeon could enter the area, but could not return to the loft in that way, nor get out through the bolting-wires in front. When a bird returns home from a journey, the exact time of its arrival may even, by a very simple contrivance attached to the external bolting-wires, be signalled to the owner.
The breeding compartment should have around the walls nesting-boxes, I might call them, or divisions, four feet long, two and a half feet high, and about two feet wide; these ought to be barred in front, with a doorway, to put the pigeons through for breeding purposes, and two earthenware nest-pans in each, hidden from view behind an L-shaped screen of wood. In the loft are pigeon-hoppers and drinking-fountains, as well as a box containing a mixture of gravel, clay, and old mortar, with about one-third of coarse salt; the whole wetted and made into a mass with brine.
About twice a week, a bath is greatly relished by the birds; but care should be taken not to leave the floor of the loft damp. Old lime and gravel should be sprinkled about. The food of the homing pigeon is not different from that of any other pigeon, and consists chiefly of beans, small gray peas, with now and then, by way of change, a little wheat, tares, rice or Indian corn. Soft food may sometimes be given also, such as boiled rice or potato, mixed with oatmeal.
The drinking-water should be changed every day, and the fountain frequently well rinsed out. The greatest cleanliness should prevail in the loft. Everything should be clean and sweet and dry, and there should never be either dust or a bad smell. Green food may be given when the birds cannot get out to supply themselves. It should be given fresh, and on no account left about the loft to decay. Never let the hoppers be empty, and see that the grains are not only good, but free from dust as well.
Next as to getting into stock. There are two or three ways of doing this. It is sometimes possible to get the eggs, which may be placed under an ordinary pigeon. Good old birds may be got—a few pairs; but they must, of course, be kept strict prisoners, else they will fly away. The best plan, however, of getting into stock is that of purchasing young birds as soon as they are fit to leave the mother. These must be put in the loft, but not let out for a week or two, although they should be permitted to go into the area and look around them, to get familiar with the place. After some time, they may be permitted to go out and fly around. If good, they will return; if of a bad strain, they are as well lost. But training should not begin until the bird is fully three months old, and strong. The young birds are first ‘tossed’ two or three hundred yards from their loft. If they have already become familiar with their home surroundings, they will speedily get back to the cot. Toss them unfed, flinging them well up in an open space; and repeat this day after day for some time; then gradually increase the distance, to a quarter of a mile, half a mile, and a mile, and so on to five, ten, up to fifty or a hundred miles of railway. The tossing should{247} be done on a fine day, at all events never on a foggy one.
Birds may be sent to station-masters at different distances along the line to be tossed, the basket in which they have been carried being sent back as a returned empty, with the exact time at which the birds were let out marked on the label by the station-master or porter. When this plan is adopted, it is of course necessary to write to the station-master first, and get his permission to send birds to him for the purpose of being tossed.
I have purposely avoided saying anything about the points and properties of homing pigeons; it is good wing you want, more than shape of head or face, although there ought always to be a skull indicative of room for brains. It is wing you want, I repeat, strength, health, and strain. Why I put the last word in italics is this: I consider that it is essential to success, and cheapest in the long-run, to breed from a good working strain. The rule holds good in the breeding of all kinds of live-stock. So the reader, if he intends to take up the homing-pigeon hobby, will do well to see that he gets birds of a good working stock to begin with.
A pigeon is not at its best till it is two years of age; care should be taken, therefore, not to attempt too much with them the first year of training. When a bird returns, treat it to a handful of nice grain, or even hemp; but during training, give nothing that is too fattening in large quantities. Great care and attention are required all the year round; exercise should never be neglected; they should be permitted to get out frequently during the day, or indeed, to have their liberty all day, taking precautions against the tender attentions of vagrant cats. The moulting season is a somewhat critical time, and so is the breeding-time; but this class of pigeons is, on the whole, hardy. Treat your birds with universal kindness, and they will certainly reward you.[1]
To say that there was a ‘sensation’ would feebly describe what followed. Every one in court sprang to his feet. The prisoner looked as if he had seen a ghost. There was a perfect hubbub of voices, as bar and jury talked among themselves, and my brethren at the solicitors’ table poured questions upon me—to none of which I replied. Silence being restored, the voice of the judge—grave and dignified, but with a perceptible tremor—descended like vocal oil on the troubled waves of sound. ‘Who instructs you, Mr Clincher?’
‘Mr Bentley, my lord.’
The judge looked more astonished than ever. My name was familiar enough to him as a judge, and he had known it even better when, as a leading barrister, he had held many a brief from me.
‘I am persuaded,’ said he, ‘that a gentleman of Mr Bentley’s repute and experience has good reason for what he does. But so extraordinary and unheard-of—— I will ask Mr Bentley himself if he really considers that duty requires him to offer himself as a witness, and when and why he came to that conclusion?’
‘My lord,’ I replied, ‘I am certain that, believing what I have had cause to believe within the last five minutes, I should be greatly to blame if I did not testify on oath to certain facts which are within my own knowledge. But if the prisoner chooses to call me as a witness, your lordship will presently understand why it is that, with all submission, I cannot at this moment, or until I am in the box, give my reasons. And I must add that the value of my evidence to the prisoner will greatly depend on his answers to certain questions which I wish, with your lordship’s sanction, to put to him in writing. And if he answers me as I expect, I believe my evidence will put an end to the case against him.’
‘Really, gentlemen of the jury,’ said his lordship, ‘this matter is assuming a more and more remarkable aspect. I hardly know what to say. That a prisoner on trial for his life should answer questions put to him in private by the prosecuting solicitor is the most extraordinary proposal, I am bound to say, which ever came under my notice. It is the more difficult for me to decide because the prisoner has not the advantage of counsel’s assistance.—Prisoner, is it your wish that this gentleman should be called as a witness on your behalf? You have heard what he has said about certain questions which he wishes to put to you beforehand. Of course you are not bound to answer any such questions, and may nevertheless call him. What do you say?’
‘I am in God’s hands, my lord,’ answered the prisoner, who was quite calm again. ‘It may be that He has raised up a deliverer for me—I cannot tell. But I know that if He wills that I should die, no man can save me; if He wills to save me, nought can do me harm. So I am ready to answer any questions the gentleman wishes.’
‘I propose,’ said the judge, ‘before deciding this extraordinary point, to consult with the learned Recorder in the next court.’
All rose as the judge retired; and during his absence I escaped the questions which assailed me from every side by burying myself in a consultation with my counsel. When he heard what the reader knows, he fully upheld me in what I proposed to do; and then threw himself back in his seat with the air of a man whom nothing could ever astonish again.
‘Si-lence!’ cried the usher. The judge was returning.
‘I have decided,’ said he, ‘to allow the questions to be put as Mr Bentley proposes. Let them be written out and submitted to me for my approval.’
I sat down and wrote my questions, and they were passed up to the judge. As he read them, he looked more surprised than ever. But all he said, as he handed them down, was, ‘Put the questions.’
I walked up to the dock and gave them into the prisoner’s hands, together with my pencil. He read them carefully through, and wrote his answers slowly and with consideration. With the paper in my hand, I got into the witness-box and was sworn.
{248}
My evidence was to the effect already stated. As I described the man I had seen under the lamp, with my face averted from the prisoner and turned to the jury, I saw that they were making a careful comparison, and that, allowing for the change wrought by twelve years, they found that the description tallied closely with the man’s appearance.
‘I produce this paper, on which I just now wrote certain questions, to which the prisoner wrote the answers under my eyes. These are the questions and answers:
‘Question. Were you smoking when you came up to the corner of Hauraki Street?—Answer. No.
‘Question. Did you afterwards smoke?—Answer. I had no lights.
‘Question. Did you try to get a light?—Answer. Yes, by climbing a lamp at the corner; but I was not steady enough, and I remember I broke my hat against the crossbar.
‘Question. Where did you carry your pipe and tobacco?—Answer. In my hat.
‘Those answers,’ I concluded, ‘are absolutely correct in every particular. The man whom I saw under the lamp, at eight o’clock on the night of the murder, behaved as the answers indicate. That concludes the evidence I have felt bound to tender.’ And I handed the slip of paper to the usher for inspection by the jury.
‘Prisoner,’ inquired the judge, ‘do you call any other witness?’
‘I do not, my lord.’
‘Then, gentlemen,’ said the judge, turning to the jury, ‘the one remark that I shall make to you is this—that if you believe the story of the prisoner’s witness, there can be little doubt but that the prisoner was the man whom the witness saw at the corner of Hauraki Street at eight o’clock on the night in question; and if that was so, it is clear, on the case of the prosecution, that he cannot have committed this murder. I should not be doing my duty if I did not point out to you that the witness in question is likely, to say the least, to be without bias in the prisoner’s favour, and that his evidence is very strongly corroborated indeed by the prisoner’s answers to the written questions put to him. Gentlemen, you will now consider your verdict.’
‘We are agreed, my lord,’ said the foreman.
‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ sung out the clerk of arraigns, ‘are you all agreed upon your verdict?’
‘We are.’
‘And that verdict is?’
‘Not guilty.’
‘And that is the verdict of you all?’
‘It is.’
There followed a burst of cheering which the usher could not silence, but which silenced itself as the judge was seen to be speaking. ‘John Harden—I am thankful, every man in this court is thankful, that your trust in the mercy and power of the All-merciful and All-powerful has not been in vain. You stand acquitted of a foul crime by the unhesitating verdict of the jury, and most wonderful has been your deliverance. You go forth a free man; and I am glad to think that the goodness of God has been bestowed on one who has repented of his past sins, and who is not likely, I hope and believe, to be unmindful of that goodness hereafter.—You are discharged.’
Had he been left to himself, I think the prisoner’s old master would have climbed into the dock, with the view of personally delivering his servant out of the house of bondage. But he was restrained by a sympathetic constable, while John Harden was re-conveyed for a short time to the jail, to undergo certain necessary formalities connected with his release from custody. I volunteered to take charge of Mr Slocum, and took him to the vestibule of the prison, overwhelmed during the short walk by thanks and praises. We were soon joined by Harden, whose meeting with his master brought a lump into the throat even of a tough criminal lawyer like myself. I saw them into a cab, and they drove off to Mr Slocum’s hotel, after promising to call on me next day, and enlighten me on certain points as to which I was still in the dark.
As strange a part of my story as any, has yet to be told. I had hardly got back to my office and settled down to read over the various letters which were awaiting my signature, when my late client (Harden’s prosecutor) was announced. I had lost sight of him in the excitement which followed the acquittal. He did not wait to learn whether I was engaged or not, but rushed after the clerk into my room. He was ashen white, or rather gray, and his knees shook so that he could scarcely stand; but his eyes positively blazed with wrath. Leaning over my table, he proceeded, in the presence of the astonished clerk, to pour upon me a flood of abuse and invective of the foulest kind. I had sold him; I was in league with the prisoner. I was a swindling thief of a lawyer, whom he would have struck off the rolls, &c.; until I really thought he had gone out of his mind.
As soon as I could get in a word, I curtly explained that it was no part of a lawyer’s duty to try and hang a man whom he knew to be innocent. As he only replied with abusive language, I ordered him out of the office. The office quieted itself once more—being far too busy, and also too well accustomed to eccentric people to have time for long wonderment at anything—and in an hour I had finished my work, and was preparing to leave for home, when another visitor was announced—Inspector Forrester.
‘Well, Mr Forrester, what’s the matter now? I’m just going off.’
‘Sorry if I put you out of the way, sir; but I thought you’d like to hear what’s happened. The prosecutor in Harden’s case has given himself up for the murder!’
‘What?’ I shouted.
‘He just has, sir. It’s a queer day, this is. When I heard you get up and give evidence for the man you were prosecuting, I thought curiosities was over for ever; but seems they ain’t, and never will be.’
‘How was it?’
‘Well, he came into the station quite quiet, and seemed a bit cast down, but that was all. Said fate was against him, and had saved the man he thought to hang in his stead, and he knew how it must end, and couldn’t wait any longer. I cautioned him, of course—told him to{249} sleep on it before he said anything; but make a statement he would. The short of it all is, that the idea of murdering the old lady for her money had come into his mind in a flash when he saw that poor drunken fool exhibiting his knife in the tavern. He followed him, and picked his pocket of the knife, and then hung about the house, meaning to get in after dark. Then he saw the girl come out and go off, leaving the door closed but not latched, the careless hussy! Then in slips the gentleman, and does what he’d made up his mind to—for you see the old woman knew him well, so he couldn’t afford to leave her alive—gets the cash, and slips out. All in gold it was, two hundred and fifty pounds. When he heard that Harden couldn’t be found, he got uneasy in his mind, and has been getting worse ever since, though he did well enough in trade with the money. Seems he considered he wasn’t safe until some one had been hanged. So, when he recognised Harden, he was naturally down on him at once, and was intensely eager to get him convicted—which I noticed myself, sir, as of course you did, and thought it queer too, I don’t doubt. He took too much pains, you see—he must employ you to make certain, instead of leaving it to us; whereas if he hadn’t come to you, your evidence would never have been given, and I think you’ll say nothing could have saved the prisoner.’
It was true enough. The wretched man had insured the failure of his own fiendish design by employing me, of all the solicitors to whom he might have gone!
I learned next morning, how Harden, after trying in vain to light his pipe on that memorable evening, had wandered for hours through the hard-hearted streets, until at daybreak he had found himself in the docks, looking at a large ship preparing to drop down the river with the tide. How he had managed to slip aboard unseen and stow himself away in the hold, with some idea of bettering his not over-bright fortunes in foreign parts. How he had supported his life in the hold with stray fragments of biscuit, which he happened to have in his pockets, until, after a day or two of weary beating about against baffling winds, when they were out in mid-channel, the usual search for stowaways had unearthed him. How the captain, after giving him plenty of strong language and rope’s-end, had at length agreed to allow him to work as a sailor on board the vessel. How on landing at Sydney he had gone into the interior, taken service with his present master—under another name than his own, wishing to disconnect himself entirely with his former life—and by honestly doing his duty had attained his present position.
By the light of this narrative, that which had puzzled me became perfectly clear—namely, how it was that he had contrived not only to get so entirely lost in spite of the hue and cry after him, but also to remain in ignorance of his aunt’s fate.
My client was tried, convicted, and executed in due course; his plea of guilty and voluntary surrender having no weight against the cruel and cowardly attempt to put an innocent man in his place.
When I last saw John Harden, he was married to a serious lady, who had been his late master’s housekeeper, and was possessor of a prosperous general shop in a country village, stocked by means of the money which Mr Slocum had generously left him.
Man is a collecting animal. It would be absurd to ask what he collects; more to the point would it be to ask what he does not collect. Books, pictures, marbles, china, precious stones, hats, gloves, pipes, walking-sticks, prints, book-plates, monograms, postage-stamps, hangmen’s ropes; the list might be increased indefinitely.
What is it that impels us to heap up such treasures? We say ‘us,’ because we are convinced that few escape untouched by the disease. It may be dormant; it may possibly never show itself; but it is there, and only wants a favourable conjunction of circumstances to bring it to life.
Of all the forms of the collecting mania, few have been so long in existence as that of coins, and few seize us so soon. The articles are portable, nice to look at, and of some intrinsic value. Every one knows what a coin is, and when a lad happens to get hold of one struck, say, two hundred years ago, he naturally is impressed by the fact. Every one knows how easily the very young and the ignorant are taken by the mere age of an article. The writer dates his acquaintance with numismatics (the history of coins) from his receiving in some change a half-crown of Charles II. when he was eleven years old. It was worn very much, but it was two hundred years old, and that was enough. After that, a good deal of pocket-money went in exchange for sundry copper, brass, and silver coins, with the usual result. The collection was discovered to be rubbish; but experience had been gained, and that, as is well known, must be bought.
The numismatist can head his list of devotees by the illustrious name of Petrarch, who made a collection of Roman coins to illustrate the history of the Empire. He was followed by Alfonso of Aragon; Pope Eugenius IV.; Cosmo de’ Medici; Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary; the Emperor Maximilian I. The man dear to all book-lovers, Grolier, had his cabinet of medals; Politian was the first to study them with reference to their historical value. Gorlaeus succeeded him. Early in the sixteenth century, Goltzius the engraver travelled over Europe in search of coins, and reported the existence of about one thousand cabinets. Our own collections appear to have begun with Camden; he was followed by Sir Robert Cotton, Laud, the Earl of Arundel, both the Charleses, the Duke of Buckingham, and Dr Mead in the early part of last century. Later on, we come to the celebrated William Hunter—not to be confounded with his still greater brother, John—who left to the university of Glasgow his magnificent collection of Greek coins. Archbishop Wake, Dr Barton, Dr Brown,{250} and Dr Rawlinson formed cabinets of considerable extent and value, all of which found a resting-place in the colleges of Oxford. All these, however, were surpassed by Richard Payne-Knight, who was born in the middle of the last century, and formed the finest collection of Greek coins and bronzes that had ever been brought together. It was valued at fifty thousand pounds, and he left it to the nation. The catalogue drawn up by himself was published in 1830 by the Trustees of the British Museum.
At the date of this magnificent legacy, our national collection of coins was of no importance; but since then, by purchase and bequest, it has so greatly increased its stores, that it undoubtedly stands on an equality with the French national collection, long above rivalry. Donations during the lifetime of the owner, too, are not unknown. In 1861, Mr De Salis made the nation a present of his extensive cabinet of Roman coins. In 1864, Mr E. Wigan called one morning on Mr Vaux, the keeper of the coins and medals, and producing a case, told him that was his cabinet of Roman gold medals. Would he be good enough to examine it carefully, and choose for the Museum what he thought best? Needless to say, no scruples were made by the head of the department; consultations were held with the staff, with the result that two hundred and ninety-one were chosen, representing a value, at a modest computation, of nearly four thousand pounds. In 1866, Mr James Woodhouse of Corfu left to the nation five thousand six hundred and seventy-four specimens of Greek coins, mostly in the finest preservation; of these, one hundred and one were gold, two thousand three hundred and eighty-seven silver, three thousand one hundred and twenty-eight copper, and fifty-eight lead. That year was particularly fruitful in acquisitions, for no fewer than eleven thousand five hundred and thirty-two coins were placed in the national cabinets.
But it is impossible that mere donations could be depended on. In every sale, the British Museum is a formidable competitor, and if, as not unfrequently happens, it is outbidden by a private collector, it has the advantage of an institution over a person, in that it lives longer, and often has the opportunity of acquiring what it wants at the dispersal of the cabinet of its rival. One of the most important purchases ever made was that of the collection of the Duc de Blacas in 1867, for which government got a vote of forty-five thousand seven hundred and twenty-one pounds. Amongst its treasures were some two thousand Greek and Roman coins, chiefly gold.
All good and rare specimens gravitate naturally to the chief museums of Europe, which would thus stand in the way of a private individual forming a cabinet, were it not for the fact, that finds are continually taking place, either unexpectedly or in consequence of excavations in ancient countries. Only the other day, we noticed the sale of a large lot of medieval coins at Paris, which had been discovered when pulling down some ancient buildings. During the German excavations at Olympia, extending over six years, some six thousand pieces of all ages from 500 B.C. to 600 A.D. were brought to light. These, however, became the property of the Greek government, and are not likely to come into the market. Some of the finds are most extraordinary. In 1818 were fished up out of the river Tigris two large silver coins of Geta, king of the Edoni; a Thracian people of whom we know only the name, and whose king’s name is all that we have to tell us of his existence. These are now in the British Museum, and are especially interesting as being the earliest pieces we have stamped with a monarch’s name. Their date is placed prior to 480 B.C. We have seen a coin of Philip Aridæus, successor of Alexander the Great, struck at Mitylene, which was found in the roots of a tree which was being grubbed up in a park in Suffolk. The incident was inquired into at the time, and no doubt seems to have arisen as to the fact of its having been found as alleged. Nearly twenty years ago, General Philips discovered at Peshawur twenty milled sixpences of Elizabeth. There was a tradition in the place that an Englishman had been murdered there a very long time before, and the tomb was shown. It is naturally inferred, therefore, that the coins had belonged to him, or how else explain the find? When the railway was being made from Smyrna to Aidin, a few dozen very ancient coins were turned up, which were all sold at once at a few shillings each; but the dealers hearing of this, soon appeared on the spot, and the original buyers had the satisfaction of reselling the coins at four or five pounds apiece.
Smyrna is, as the most important city of Asia Minor, naturally the headquarters of the dealers in Greek antiquities. Mr Whittall, a well-known merchant there, had formed a very fine collection of coins which was dispersed in London in 1867, and fetched two thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine pounds. When excavating at the base of the colossal statue of Athena, in her temple at Priene, Mr Clarke found five tetradrachms of Orophernes, supposed to be the one who was made king of Cappadocia by Demetrius in 158 B.C. These were absolutely unique. In Cyprus, some years ago, the British consul at Larnaca obtained a large hoard, which had been discovered during some building operations. This was a particularly rich find, as amongst them happened to be no fewer than thirty-four undescribed pieces of Philip, Alexander the Great, and Philip Aridæus. Mr Wood, when excavating on the site of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, came upon a lot of more than two thousand coins of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In 1876, some workmen, when digging, came upon a vase containing, amongst other relics of antiquity, some fifty electrum staters of Cyzicus and Lampsacus, all of the end of the fifth century B.C. Only a few years ago, in that most out-of-the-way part of Central Asia, more than a hundred miles beyond the Oxus, was discovered a hoard of coins chiefly of the Seleucidæ, dating from the third{251} century B.C.—showing how far, even in those early days, trade had been carried. A few of them, too, were unknown pieces of Alexander the Great. Without being prepared to go into exact particulars, we should imagine that a find in 1877 of twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and two Roman coins in two vases in Blackmoor Park, Hampshire, was one of the most extensive ever known.
That coins are interesting, as giving us portraits of those who have made some show in the world, is undoubted. It is equally true that by their means we are made acquainted with the existence of kings and kingdoms of whom history has left no records. The fact of a Greek kingdom of Bactria occupying that even yet comparatively unexplored region, half-way between the Caspian and the Himalaya, was revealed to the world only some fifty years ago by the finding of coins bearing portraits and legends of the Greek-speaking rulers. An extremely large silver piece in the British Museum, supposed to belong to a period anterior to 480 B.C. and struck by the Odomanti of Thrace, a tribe of whom we know nothing, was found at Ishtib. In the same collection is a large silver coin of the Orrescii, an unknown Macedonian people, which was found in Egypt, along with a very early drachma of Terone, and a large decadrachm of Derronikos, a king unknown to history. These are supposed to have been carried to Egypt by some of the soldiers of Xerxes, during their retreat from Greece after the battle of Platæa.
The greatest sale of coins by public auction, we should imagine, was that of Lord Northwick, in December 1859, and April 1860. The former consisted of Greek coins only, and produced eight thousand five hundred and sixty-eight pounds; the latter, of Roman and later pieces, fetched three thousand three hundred and twenty pounds. The Greek coins were especially fine and rare, and some of them unique. One, a large piece of Camarina, bearing as reverse a nymph carried by a swan, a specimen of highest Greek art, went for fifty-two pounds to the British Museum. A splendid piece of Agrigentum, with reverse of the monster Scylla, fetched one hundred and fifty-nine pounds. A coin of Cleopatra, queen of Syria, daughter of Ptolemy VI. of Egypt, and wife successively of Alexander I., Demetrius II., and Antiochus VII., and mother of Seleucus V., and the sixth and seventh Antiochi—all kings of Syria—was bought by the British Museum for two hundred and forty pounds. It is said to be the only one known. Altogether our national collection obtained one hundred specimens at a cost of nine hundred pounds. Lord Northwick had lived to a great age; but up to the last he preserved his faculties, and indulged his passion for ancient art by buying and exchanging objects. His pictures, statuary, everything, in fact, came to the hammer after his death. The years between 1790 and 1800 were spent by him in Italy, and he gained his early initiation into antiquities under the eye of Sir William Hamilton, the well-known ambassador at Naples. His first purchase is said to have been an after-dinner frolic in the shape of eight pounds for a bag of Roman brass coins. He and Payne-Knight bought and divided the fine collections of Prince Torremuzza and Sir Robert Ainslie—for the latter of which they gave eight thousand pounds. Since his lordship’s sale, there has been nothing to approach it. Fine though small cabinets have not been wanting, however, and the enthusiast can always find something with which to feed his passion. At Huxtable’s sale, in 1859, the collection fetched an unusually large sum. Hobler’s Roman cabinet of brass coins was sold for one thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine pounds; Merlin’s, containing one hundred and forty-one lots of Greek and Roman, produced eight hundred and seventy-eight pounds; Sheppard’s Greek, nineteen hundred pounds; Huber’s, containing some hundreds of unpublished Greek, three thousand; Ivanoff’s, three thousand and eight pounds; Bowen, one thousand five hundred and fifty-three pounds; Brown, three thousand and twelve pounds; Sambon, three thousand one hundred and forty-eight pounds; Exereunetes, containing several supposed to be unique, one thousand four hundred and twenty-one. The Sambon sale is memorable for the fact that a brass medallion of Geta, of the intrinsic value of twopence, was knocked down at five hundred and five pounds!
Every one who has read the Antiquary, whether bibliomaniac or not, can enjoy the glowing description by Monkbarns: ‘Snuffy Davie bought the Game of Chess, 1474, the first book ever printed in England, from a stall in Holland, for about two groschen, or twopence of our money. He sold it to Osborne for twenty pounds and as many books as came to twenty pounds more. Osborne resold this inimitable windfall to Dr Askew for sixty guineas. At Dr Askew’s sale, this inestimable treasure blazed forth in its full value, and was purchased by royalty itself for one hundred and seventy pounds.—Could a copy now occur,’ he ejaculated with a deep sigh and lifted-up hands—‘what would be its ransom!’
The progress of intelligence has affected coins in these days no less than books. It is only in the very out-of-the-way places that coins are to be picked up for a song. The chief hunting-ground, Asia Minor, is well looked after by the dealers, and the private collector has, of course, to pay them their profit. The increase in value may be gauged by the following instance: A gold coin of Mithridates, the size of our half-sovereign, fetched twenty-five guineas in 1777. In 1817 it came to the hammer, and was knocked down at eighty pounds to a well-known collector. Unfortunately for him, a duplicate soon afterwards appeared in a sale, and he had to pay ninety pounds for that. Later on still, a third turned up, and that fell to his bid at a hundred pounds. Yet a fourth came to light in 1840. The owner of the three bid up to a hundred and ten pounds, but had to give in to a bid of a hundred and thirteen pounds from a rival. Fancy his feelings! The rare brass medallions of Commodus, intrinsic value twopence or threepence, fetch up to thirty pounds, and the large pieces of Syracuse, the finest coins perhaps that we know of, regularly run up to fifty and sixty pounds. It is evident, therefore, that it is not every one who can indulge the passion for coin-collecting. At a little expense, however, electrotypes which are absolute facsimiles can be obtained from the British Museum, and this fact, which is not generally known, should result in the spread of a knowledge of{252} Greek art; for it must not be forgotten that in the early coinage of the Greek race the progress of art can be traced as completely as in any now existing remains.
To say that the real zest of an Englishman’s delight in England and English home-life is only attained after residence or travel in other countries, is to quote something like a truism. To this influence at least was owing in great measure the feeling of quite indescribable pleasure with which, after a not altogether successful six months of big-game hunting in the interior of Africa—a very far-away country indeed in those days, when no cable communication existed with England—I found myself on board the good ship Balbriggan Castle (Captain Trossach), as she steamed slowly out of the Cape Town Docks on a lovely June evening in 187-, homeward bound. I had come from one of the eastern ports of the colony in sole occupation of a cabin; and though I knew we had taken on board a large number of passengers that afternoon, I was not a little put out to find, on going below, that the berth above mine had been filled, and that the inestimable blessing of solitude was to be denied me for the next twenty days or so. However, there was no help for it; and with the best grace I could command, I answered my fellow-traveller’s courteous expressions of regret with a hope that the voyage would be a pleasant one. The new-comer was a tall, slightly-built, and strikingly handsome man, of about thirty, remarkable for a slow deliberative manner of speech, with which an occasional nervous movement of the features seemed oddly at variance. On a travelling-bag, as to the exact disposition of which he was especially solicitous, I caught sight of the letters P. R. in big white capitals. These being my own initials, the coincidence, though commonplace enough, furnished a topic of small-talk which sufficed to fill up the short time intervening before dinner, and ended, naturally enough, in the discovery of my new friend’s name—Paul Raynor—given, as I afterwards remembered, with some little hesitation, but producing a much finer effect of sound than my own unmelodious Peter Rodd.
At dinner, I found my place laid opposite to Raynor; and thus, notwithstanding the claims of an excellent appetite and the desire to take stock of other passengers, I had again occasion to observe the painful twitching of the fine features, recurring with increased frequency as he, too, looked round at those about him, and seemed to scan each in turn with more than ordinary deliberation. The man interested me greatly; and as I listened to his conversation with some Englishmen near, and noted the dry humour with which he hit off the peculiarities of the worthy colonists we were leaving behind, I saw at once that here at least was promise of relief to the monotony of the voyage, of which I should be constantly able to avail myself.
A sea like glass, and a temperature of unusual mildness for a June evening in those latitudes, drew every one on deck, and ensconcing myself in a pleasant corner just behind the too often violated legend, ‘No smoking abaft the companion,’ I proceeded to illuminate a mild Havana cigar, when I was joined by Raynor, with whom, after a good-humoured joke anent my unsuccessful attempt to obtain that solitude which the cabin could no longer afford, I renewed our conversation of the afternoon, passing from generalities to more personal matters, and sowing in a few hours the seeds of a friendship destined to grow and ripen with that marvellous rapidity only to be attained by the forcing process of life on board a passenger-ship.
Nothing could exceed the frankness of Raynor’s own story, as he told it me in brief before we turned in that night. One of a large family of sons, he had conceived an unconquerable dislike to the profession of teaching, to which, in lieu of one of a more lucrative nature, he had found himself compelled to turn. The suggestion of a friend, that he should try his luck in the colonies, was hardly made before it was acted upon; and a few weeks found him in an up-country town at the Cape, where his letters of introduction speedily brought him employment in a well-known and respected house of business. Here he rose rapidly; and having, by care and occasional discreet speculation, saved a few hundreds, was now on his way home, with four months’ leave of absence, professedly as a holiday trip, but really, as he admitted to me, to see what chances presented themselves of investing his small capital and procuring permanent employment in England. In answer to my question, whether his absence after so short a time of service might not conceivably affect his prospects in the firm, he replied, that his intention of remaining at home had not been communicated to any one; and that, should no suitable opening offer in England, he would, upon returning to the colony, resume his former position with Messrs ——, whose word to that effect had been given.
‘Do you know any one on board?’ said I carelessly, when his short narration was over, and after I had in turn imparted to him a few dry and unrefreshing facts as to my own humble personality.
‘Why do you ask?’
I was taken aback at the sharp, almost angry voice in which the words were uttered; but, strong in the harmless nature of my question, I replied: ‘Because I thought I saw a man at the next table to ours at dinner trying to catch your eye, as if he knew you.’
‘Daresay he did. One gets to know such an unnecessary lot of skunks in the colonies!’ Uttering these remarkable words hurriedly and{253} in a tone of intense irritation, Paul Raynor strode away, and I saw him no more that night.
Our cabin was on the starboard side of the ship, and the morning sun streamed in and laid his glorious mandate upon me and all sluggards to be up and stirring. Raynor, who had the berth above me, seemed to have obeyed the call still earlier, for he was gone. Mounting, a little later, to the poop-deck, I arrived just in time to find him in conversation with the odd-looking little Dutchman I had noticed watching Raynor at dinner, and to hear the former say, in that queer-sounding Cape English, which, at a few paces distant, is hardly to be distinguished from Cape Dutch: ‘My name is Jan van Poontjes; and I remember better as anything ’ow I met you six or five months ago by Pieteraasvogelfontein with young Alister of the Kaapstadt Bank, eh?’ To which Raynor replied: ‘I can only assure you again, sir, that you are mistaken. My name is Paul Raynor, and I have never had the honour of seeing you in my life before.’ Turning on his heel, Mynheer van Poontjes shuffled away, expressing sotto voce his readiness to be immediately converted into ‘biltong,’ if he wasn’t right about the ‘verdomd Englischmann.’
Directly he caught sight of me, Raynor left his seat, and coming hastily forward, said: ‘Mr Rodd, I owe you many apologies for my unpardonable rudeness of last night. I am blessed with the vilest of tempers, which, after years of effort, is not yet under my control. Will you forget the episode? Believe me, I shall not offend again.’
My answer need not be recorded. But it struck me as odd at the time, that when our reconciliation was complete, and we were pacing the deck for the short half-hour before breakfast, my companion made no reference whatever to the Dutchman’s mistake, not even evincing the slightest curiosity to know whether Poontjes was the same man whose regards I had observed so intently fixed upon him. Possibly he was not aware that I had been a witness of the interview, or, as seemed more probable, he avoided alluding to a subject so directly tending to recall his extraordinary outburst of the previous night.
The voyage was a quiet one enough, in spite of the very large number of passengers. Three really charming sisters were undergoing a well-sustained siege at the hands of a dozen or so of the most presentable young men, and at least one engagement was shortly expected. Theatricals were projected; but fortunately the ‘company’ would not attend rehearsals, and we were spared. One or two concerts were got up, at which feeble young men complacently rubbed fiddle-strings with rosined bows, and evoked flat and melancholy sounds, expressing no surprise when subsequently complimented on their ‘violin-playing.’ An opulent but unlovely Jew from the Diamond Fields created a diversion by singing, without notice given, a song of the music-hall type—refrain, ‘Oh, you ridic’lous man, why dew yer look so shy!’ &c.; and was genuinely hurt when the captain suggested his ‘going for’ard next time he wanted an audience for that song.’ Several ladies, of several ages, displayed their varied musical acquirements; and Raynor surprised everybody one day by giving us the Village Blacksmith in a round clear baritone, of which no one imagined him to be the possessor.
During these first ten days at sea, Raynor had, apparently without any striving after popularity, established himself as a universal favourite. The children adored him from the first, thereby securing him a straight road to the mothers’ hearts, who in their turn spoke warmly in his praise to the younger ladies on board. These last felt strongly his superiority to the other very ordinary young men, enjoyed his conversation greatly, and were perhaps the least bit afraid of him.
Raynor’s fondness for and influence with children were altogether remarkable. Early in the voyage, a tiny trot of four had tripped and fallen sharply on the deck at his feet. As he lifted her ever so tenderly in his arms and stroked the poor little hurt knee, the child looked up at him through her tears and asked: ‘Is you weally sorry?’ ‘Yes, indeed—I am, Nellie.’ ‘Then me’s better,’ came the little sobbing answer; and forthwith she nestled closer to him, and was comforted. This incident evidently produced a profound effect upon the other children playing near, who thereafter lost no opportunity of showing ‘the tall man’ that he might consider himself entirely one of themselves.
My own intimacy with him grew daily stronger, and our mutual friendship became so firm that we began to project various plans of business and pleasure for months to come in England. How often, in after-days, did I stop to think wonderingly of the man’s earnestness, the intense absorption with which he would ponder upon the relative merits of different undertakings, each more certain than the last to make our fortunes! Was he for the moment actually deceiving himself? or did the habit of concentrated thought forbid him to discuss otherwise than gravely, projects of whose very initiation he alone knew the impossibility?
Raynor spent his money freely, though without ostentation; and I hardly knew whether to be surprised or not when he applied to me one day for a loan of twenty-five pounds, explaining that he had lost rather heavily at cards during the past few days, and having only brought a limited supply of ready cash for the voyage, he found himself for the moment rather inconveniently short. Fortunately, I was in a position to supply his needs; and when we went ashore at Madeira the next afternoon, he invested a small fortune in sweets, toys, and native gimcracks for his army of little friends on board, including an exquisite model of one of the quaint little Funchal carts, destined for a poor crippled lad amongst the passengers in the fore-part of the ship.
Four or five days later, and signs of the approaching end began to be visible in the shape of Railway Guides on the saloon tables, great ease in the procuring of hitherto impossible luxuries from the stewards, and the appearance on the scene of certain towzled officials not previously observed, but with ‘backsheesh’ writ plain on each grimy feature. Raynor and I had during the last few days matured our plans for the immediate future. These were to include a week in town, another on the river, some visits to friends, and, if possible, a few days with the grouse towards the end of August. After this, a tentative negotiation with a City House with a{254} view to the fruition of a certain scheme upon which my friend built great hopes.
Musing pleasurably upon these and other prospective delights, I turned in at ten o’clock, determined to get a few hours’ good sleep before reaching Plymouth—where we expected to put in at four or five o’clock in the morning, to land mails and some few passengers—the rest going on with the ship to Southampton. I had not slept more than an hour or two at most, when I was awakened by a sensation, known to even the soundest of sleepers, as if something were going on near me of which I ought to know. Looking out half-dreamily from my berth, I saw that Raynor was standing in the cabin, a lighted taper placed on a small shelf near him. I was about to close my eyes, when I became aware that there was something unusual in his appearance and actions. Instead of undressing himself for the night, he stood half bent over a locker opposite, upon which was lying open the travelling-bag I have referred to as being the object of his special care at the outset of the voyage. From this he drew one after another a number of small brown packets, in size and look not unlike gun-cartridges—which, indeed, in the dim light of the taper, I took them to be—hurriedly passing them into the various pockets of a light overcoat I now noticed him to be wearing. Still drowsily watching his movements, I was surprised to see him unroll from a bundle of wraps a thick heavy ulster, and putting it on, proceed to transfer more of the queer little brown-paper parcels to the pockets of this second garment. I was now fairly awake, and with a perhaps rather tardy recognition of the unfairness of my espionage, I coughed an artfully prepared cough, so toned as to convey the impression that I had that moment come from the land of dreams.
‘Hullo!’ I said, with the uneasy drawl of somnolence, ‘is that you?’
He started, and made a movement as if trying to stand full between me and the valise, as he answered: ‘Yes; I am just putting away one or two things.’ Then, after a moment’s pause, during which I heard him lock and fasten the bag, ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘you will think me a terribly shifty fellow, Peter, but the fact is, I know those old people in Cornwall will never forgive me if I don’t go and see them whilst I’m at home; and I’m equally positive that if I put it off now, I shall never get anywhere near them’——
‘And so you’ve suddenly made up your mind to get out at Plymouth, and leave me to go on to town alone,’ said I, interrupting, with a feeling of keener disappointment than I cared to show. ‘I see it all. Never mind. I can bear it. I was born to suffer.’
‘So you will say when I have finished,’ was the laughing reply. ‘After all, though, it is only putting off our little jaunt for a few days. Meanwhile, will you do me a favour? I cannot descend upon the old folks with a heap of luggage; and besides, this concern’—pointing to the valise—‘holds everything I am likely to need. Therefore, I want you, like a good boy as you are, to pass through the Customs with your own things, my two portmanteaus which are in the hold, and take them up to town with you. Go to the rooms you spoke of, and I will join you in a week from to-day.’
‘All right, you unblushing deserter. Have it as you will. But remember, if you are not at No. 91 Savile Street by Thursday evening next, I shall “cause your goods to be sold to defray expenses, and reserve to myself the right of deciding what to do with the proceeds,” as the Tipperary lawyers have it.’
‘Do; only keep something to remind you of the biggest scoundrel you are ever likely to know,’ he replied, laughing again, but with a curious ring in his voice, of which, I think, I shall never quite lose the memory. Its effect at the moment was to set me thinking whether this new move of Paul’s might not portend the upsetting of all our schemes.
‘Here, Peter,’ he went on—‘here is what I owe you, with many thanks. You don’t mind having it all in gold, do you? Those fellows have been giving me a very decent revenge at loo the last night or two, and this is the result!’ holding up a handful of sovereigns, and proceeding to pour twenty-five of them with a horrible clatter into my washing-basin.
‘Haven’t you got any English notes?’ I asked, wondering sleepily what I should do with all these sovereigns in addition to an existing small supply of my own.
‘Not one,’ answered Raynor. ‘Now, go to sleep; and I’ll come down and awake you when we’re within anything like reasonable distance of Plymouth. It’s no use turning in for the short time that’s left, so I shall go up and smoke a pipe and watch for the first sight of the land of my birth.’ He then went out into the soft air of the July night, looking strangely uncouth in a superfluity of wraps such as no man would throw about him only to meet the light breeze that just precedes a summer dawn.
A few hours afterwards, I was leaning over the taffrail waving good-bye to my friend as he stood near the wheel of the little tender that bore him and some half-dozen others to the shore. There had been a deep sadness in his eyes at parting; and the foreboding of the night before changed now to a chill conviction that Paul Raynor and I should meet no more.
‘So your friend has just now landed already, eh?’ said the voice of Mr van Poontjes, a gentleman with whom I had not exchanged a dozen words during the voyage, but who now, planting himself heavily on the deck-chair next mine, gave evidence of his intention to put a full stop to my enjoyment of the book which I was struggling to finish before delivering it to its owner that evening.
‘Yes,’ I replied wearily, wondering a little whether this worthy but slightly repulsive individual was going to stay long, and mentally laying plans of escape to meet the contingency.
‘Well, now,’ he continued, ‘I dessay you consider your Mister Raynor a jolly fine feller, eh?’
Suppressing the instantaneous impulse to take the little boer by the collar and shake him, I answered: ‘Mr Raynor is a friend of mine, as you are aware; and as I am not in the habit of discussing my friends with strangers, perhaps you will leave me to my book!’
‘Strangers, eh! Stranger to you, per’aps, yes!{255} but not stranger to Mister—what do you call ’im?—Raynor! Eh, I could tell you something’——
‘Now, look you here, Mr van Poontjes,’ I burst out; ‘you have courageously waited to speak like this until Mr Raynor is no longer here to answer you. But I happen to have heard that gentleman inform you with his own lips that he had never set eyes on you until the day you met on board this ship; and therefore to say that you are not a stranger to Mr Raynor is equivalent to the assertion that Mr Raynor has told a lie. You had better not dare to repeat that statement either to me or to any other passenger on board.—Now, good-morning; and take care that mischievous tongue of yours doesn’t get you into trouble yet!’
As the little crowd that these angry words had brought about us moved away, a few clustering inquisitively round the little Dutchman, my reading was once more postponed by Jack Abinger, the second officer, a man with whom Raynor and I had struck up something of a friendship. ‘Hullo, Rodd,’ he said, strolling up to where I sat, ‘what’s all the row about? I saw you from my cabin standing in the recognised attitude of the avenger, apparently slating Mynheer van Poontjes as if he were a pickpocket.’ After listening to my story of what had occurred, he said: ‘Ah, a clear case of mistaken identity! But, I say, talking of Paul Raynor, it was a pity, as far as he was concerned, that we couldn’t have got to Plymouth a day or two earlier.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked surprisedly.
‘Only, that he would have gone ashore a richer man by a good bit. Surely he told you what a bad time he’s been having of it lately? Anybody else would have been stone-broke long ago. And last night, by way of a finish, that unspeakable little reptile, Barnett Moss, took a lot of money out of him at écarté. Never saw a man hold such cards in my life!’
‘It’s a good thing Paul was able to pay the little beast,’ I said, trying to speak easily, and miserably failing, as I recalled what had passed between us the night before.
‘Pay!’ replied Abinger; ‘I believe you! Why, Paul must have brought a perfect bank on board with him! I only hope he hasn’t lost enough to spoil his holiday.’
‘Never mind, Jack; he’ll be all right. He has gone to stay with friends in Cornwall for a week—to economise, I expect.’
‘A week!’ shouted Jack. ‘Why, I know I shouldn’t be able to go ashore for the next year or two, if I had had his bad luck!’ And he ran off on some duty or other, leaving me in perplexed and restless cogitation. If, as Abinger said, Paul had ‘brought a perfect bank on board with him’—the words ran in my head—what could have been his object in seeking to produce exactly the opposite impression upon myself—even going so far as to borrow money during the voyage ostensibly to replace his losses—repaying the amount, too, at the very moment when his ill-luck had reached a climax, with a few light words about the ‘revenge’ which, as it now appeared, he had been so very far from obtaining? The whole affair was inexplicable and disquieting; and I was glad when the necessity for making my final preparations left me little further time for thoughts which, do what I would, kept crossing the border-line into the hateful regions of doubt.
BY A NORWEGIAN.
The following account of a Norwegian corps of soldiers, called in their language skielober-corpset, as they existed some years since, will no doubt be interesting to readers of your Journal. Whether any changes have been made of late years, the writer is unable to say. The denomination skielober (skater) comes from skie, which signifies a long plank, narrow and thin, fastened upon the feet for sliding on the snow.
It is well known that during four or five months of the year Norway is covered with snow, which at a few leagues’ distance from the borders of the sea is driven into such heaps as to render it impossible for the traveller to go out of the beaten track, either on foot or on horseback. It is even found necessary to clear this road after every fall of snow, which is done by means of a machine in the form of a plough, pointed at the front, and of a triangular shape. It is drawn by horses. It pierces and levels the snow at one and the same time, and thus opens a passable road. Notwithstanding these difficulties, hunting has at all times been the great sport and exercise of that country, formerly abounding in fierce animals, and still in deer and most kinds of smaller game. Hunting is indeed an occupation which appears to be in a peculiar manner prescribed to the inhabitants by the shortness of the days and the length of the winters. It is therefore natural that the Norwegian should have occupied himself from the earliest period about the means of quitting his hut and penetrating into the forest in every direction and with all possible speed. The skier or skates presented these means.
Let us figure in our minds two planks of wood as broad as the hand, and nearly of the thickness of the little finger, the middle underneath being hollowed, to prevent vacillation, and to facilitate the advancing in a direct line. The plank fastened under the left foot is ten feet in length; that intended for the right is only six, or thereabouts; both of them are bent upwards at the extremities, but higher before than behind. They are fastened to the feet by leather straps, attached to the middle, and for this purpose are formed a little higher and stronger in that part. The plank of the right foot is generally lined below with the skin of the reindeer or the sea-wolf, so that in drawing the feet successively in right and parallel lines with skates thus lined with skins, and very slippery in the direction of the hair, the skater finds them nevertheless capable of resistance, by affording a kind of spring when he would support himself with one foot in a contrary direction, as by such movements he raises up the hair or bristly part of the skin. It is affirmed that an expert skater, however loose and uncompact the snow may be, will go over more ground in an open place, and will continue his course for a longer time together, than the{256} best horse can do upon the trot over the finest and best paved road. If a mountain is to be descended, he does it with such precipitation, that he is obliged to moderate his flight, to avoid losing his breath. He ascends more slowly, and with some trouble, because he is compelled to make a zigzag course; but he arrives at the summit as soon as the best walker or foot-soldier, with this advantage, that however little consistence the snow may have acquired, he can never sink into it.
Experience has proved that in spite of the multiplied obstacles produced by the rigour of the winter, the Norwegians have often been attacked by their enemies in precisely such seasons; and from the above manner of going out to hunt, and undertaking long journeys, it was not at all surprising that the forming of a military corps of skaters should be thought of. The whole body consisted of two battalions, one stationed in the north, the other in the south. Its strength was nine hundred and sixty men. The uniform consisted of a short jacket or waistcoat, a gray surtout with a yellow collar, gray pantaloons, and a black leather cap. The skater’s arms were—a carabine, hung in a leather belt passing over the shoulder; a large couteau de chasse; and a staff three yards and a half long, to the end of which is affixed a pointed piece of iron. At a little distance from the extremity it is surrounded by a circular projecting piece of iron, which serves principally to moderate his speed in going down-hill. The skater then puts it between his legs, and contrives to draw it in that manner; or he drags it by his side; or uses it to help himself forward, when he has occasion to ascend a hill; in short, he makes use of it according to the occasion and the circumstances in which he may be placed. Besides this, it affords a support to the firelock, when the skater wishes to discharge its contents. With such a rest, the Norwegian peasant fires a gun dexterously, and very seldom misses his aim.
The corps of skaters, to this service adds that of the ordinary chasseurs, of which they might be considered as making a part; they fulfil all the functions of those troops, and only differ from them by marching on skates. This gives them a considerable advantage over others. The skaters, moving with great agility, and, from the depth of the snow, being out of the reach of the pursuit of cavalry as well as infantry, are enabled with impunity to harass the columns of the enemy in their march, on both sides of the road, running little or no danger themselves. Even cannon-shot could produce little effect upon men spread here and there at the distance of two or three hundred paces. Their motions are besides so quick, that at the moment when it is believed they are still to be aimed at, they have disappeared, to come in sight again when least expected. Should the enemy be inclined to take his repose, this is the precise time for the skater to show his superiority, whatever may have been the precautions taken against him. There is no moment free from the attack of troops which have no need of either roads or bypaths; crossing indifferently marshes, lakes, and rivers, provided there be but ice and snow. No corps could be more proper in winter for reconnoitring and giving accounts of the enemy, and, in short, for performing the functions of couriers. It may be conceived, however, that they find great difficulty in turning, on account of the length of their skates. This, however, is not the case; they make a retrograde motion with the right foot, to which the shortest plank is attached, and put it vertically against the left. They then raise the left foot, and place it parallel to the right, by which movement they have made a half-face; if they would face about, they repeat the manœuvre.
In the ordinary winter exercise, the skaters draw up in three ranks, at the distance of three paces between each file, and eight paces between each rank, a distance which they keep in all their movements—whenever they do not disperse—in order that they may not be incommoded in the use of their skates. When there is occasion to fire, the second and third ranks advance towards the first. Their baggage—kettles, bottles, axes, &c.—is conveyed upon sledges, or carriages fixed on skates, and easily drawn by men, by the help of a leather strap passing from the right shoulder to the left side, like that of a carabineer.
Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.
All Rights Reserved.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] [An excellent article on the subject, with drawings of loft, &c., will be found in The Field for 23d Feb. last.—Ed.]