Title: Chambers's journal of popular literature, science, and art, fifth series, no. 131, vol. III, July 3, 1886
Author: Various
Language: English
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[Illustration:

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 131.—VOL. III.       SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1886.       PRICE 1½_d._]



PREHISTORIC MAN.


The early history of man in every country is shrouded in considerable
mystery and uncertainty. Of our own history, we have fairly full
and accurate knowledge as far back as the days of the Saxon kings;
but beyond that period, the light of history gradually fades into
tradition. In seeking to follow the earlier history, even the light
of tradition soon fails us, and we are left in complete darkness. The
history of some other countries reaches further into the gloom of the
past. But even Greece and Egypt have their dim dawn of history, beyond
which the voice of massive ancient Sphinx and temple-ruins of the
one are silent, and the beautiful myths of the other have no further
record. When, however, tradition fails us, we have not by any means
reached the farthest point in the history of the race. At that point,
geology comes to our assistance with revelations of men of the rudest
stage of life living in prehistoric ages under circumstances of great
interest. It is to this early age of which geology speaks, that we here
turn attention.

The peat-mosses of Denmark supply important data for the early history
of man in that country. In these peats are imbedded many relics of
a people who dwelt in that region long before the present race had
migrated thither. These relics consist chiefly of curiously formed
implements and weapons in stone and bronze—hammer, arrow, and spear
heads, hatchets and knives, &c. Now, peat is formed slowly. It is the
result of the annual growth and decay of numerous marsh-plants—each
year’s mass of dead rushes, reeds, and grasses being overgrown by the
vegetation of the succeeding year. The formation takes place in marshy
hollows; and in process of time, consolidates and sinks into the soft
soil on which it rests. The growth of each year, however, adds only a
very thin stratum to the formation, and when this is pressed by the
strata of subsequent years, it sinks into still smaller compass. The
Danish peats attain a thickness of about thirty feet, and they must
therefore have been a very considerable time under formation. Imbedded
in peat are often found the trunks of trees; indeed, in some instances
part of a forest growing in the hollow in which peat was being formed,
has been choked by the rank growth of marsh-plants, and the soil
becoming too moist for the favourable growth of the trees, they, robbed
of their strength from these two causes, have fallen a prey to storms,
and become overgrown with peat. Thus single trees or clusters of trees,
or even whole forests, may be part of a peat-moss.

In these Danish peats occur, at different depths, the remains of three
kinds of trees. At or near the surface, the remains are of beech-trees;
farther down we find remnants of oaks; and still lower and near the
bottom of the moss, are discovered remains of the Scotch fir. This
gives us a provisional chronology. At the present time, firs and oaks
are not found in the country; but beeches attain a perfect growth in
very large numbers. During the time of the Roman empire, Denmark was
famous for its growth of beeches; in all probability, all through the
historic period the characteristic tree-growth of this locality has
been beeches. It is certain that oaks have never been predominant in
Denmark during any period of the historic epoch. The prehistoric period
of man’s life upon the globe is divided into three divisions—the Stone
age, the Bronze age, and the Iron age. These distinctions are based
upon the character of the tools and weapons that he used. Lucretius hit
on what was in reality these divisions when he said:

    Man’s earliest arms were fingers, teeth, and nails,
    And stones, and fragments from the branching woods;
    Then copper next; and last, as later traced,
    The tyrant iron.

Now the implements of the prehistoric age found in the upper portion
of the Danish peats, and associated with the remains of beeches, are
made of iron. Those that occur farther from the surface in conjunction
with remains of oaks are of bronze; while those that lie nearer the
bottom of the peat by the side of the ancient firs, are made of stone.
Here is evidence of an early race of men existing in three stages of
antique civilisation. In the first instance, when the plains of Denmark
were clothed with the graceful forms of the _Pinus silvestris_, came
men into the country, who were in a rude state of what can be called
by no other name than barbarism. They had no notion of obtaining or
working the metals, but were content to make their implements of the
rough flints that lay at their feet. They may have been driven westward
by stronger and more powerful tribes, or may have wandered hither and
settled by the mere accident of a gipsy-like life.

As time moved on, and the events in the public and private life of that
antique colony came and went, a change gradually came over the land and
people. The Scotch firs, from some cause or other, passed away, and
in their place grew stalwart oaks. The people developed in many ways,
so that they were now able to carry on rude mining operations, and,
by alloying tin with copper, produce bronze, of which henceforth they
made their implements. All the relics associated in the peats with oaks
are of bronze. It is interesting to remember that the ‘more modern’
ancients procured their tin chiefly from the mines of Cornwall, and it
may have been that the people of this Bronze age found their way in
their rude canoes to the coasts of Cornwall, or, at anyrate, obtained
their tin from other tribes who had done business with the earliest of
the Cornish miners.

In process of time, another change occurred. The conditions favourable
to the growth of the oak ceased to exist, and in place of the defunct
emblems of strength and durability, came a growth of fine beech-trees,
which has continued, as we have seen, to beautify the country down to
the present time. The people, too, improved in their knowledge of the
arts, and were now able to manufacture their various articles out of
the more refractory iron.

We have thus evidence of what, for the sake of clearness, we may term
three distinct ages, though there is no real distinction, because
one period glided into another as imperceptibly as our old year is
followed by the new. First was a time when the land was covered with
beech-trees, and the people worked their implements out of iron.
This period, viewed broadly, joins the historic and the prehistoric
into one. Second was an age when, in place of the present beeches,
stalwart oaks grew in large numbers, and the inhabitants of the
country separated the softer metals from their ores, and, by mixing
them, produced bronze, of which material they then made their tools.
Third was a time reaching still further into the uncertainty of the
prehistoric era, when the graceful form of the _Pinus silvestris_
grew about the sites of the present peat-mosses, and man, with rude
uncultured notions on everything, and devoid of the broader lights
that have cheered and helped him on in later days, with a kind of
superior cunning instinct, shaped his early implements rudely out of
the flints that came readily to his hand. It is easy to understand that
a vast amount of time is necessary to bring about so great a variation
in the conditions that govern the growth of vegetation as to cause
three great changes in the kinds of trees that have grown in the land
to occur in a given locality. Yet, long time as this requires, man has,
in Denmark and in several other countries, been coexistent with the
history of these changes.

In peats of the Bronze age, scarcely any human bones have been
discovered, though they occur in peats of the Iron and Stone ages,
and the other relics of man are about equal in all the three epochs.
Scientists seem to agree in referring this to the probability that
the people of this epoch always burned their dead. It is certain that
cremation is a very ancient custom, and this theory, it is to be
presumed, accounts for us not finding human remains in the deposits of
this period.

The _Kjökken-möddings_, or _Kitchen-middens_, found on the shores of
some of the Baltic islands, tell of the Stone age, and give evidence
of the existence of man at a very remote period. The kitchen-middens
are large refuse-heaps left by the former inhabitants of these islands,
and consist chiefly of the castaway shells of the oyster, cockle,
periwinkle, and other eatable mollusks. Sir Charles Lyell says of these
remains: ‘No implements of metal have ever been detected. All the
knives, hatchets, and other tools are of stone, horn, bone, or wood.
With them are often intermixed fragments of rude pottery, charcoal,
and cinders, and the bones of quadrupeds on which the rude people fed.
These bones belong to wild species still living in Europe, though some
of them, like the beaver, have long since been extirpated in Denmark.
The only animal which they seem to have domesticated was the dog.’
There is geological evidence that at the time this people were thus
feasting on local mollusks, Denmark was more intersected by fjords
than it is now. In some places, the land has encroached on the sea; in
others, the waves have eaten their way into the old coast-line. This
is further evidence of the antiquity of the race that first lived in
this district. It may also be mentioned that the bones of the Great
Auk, which is now considered quite extinct, occur in these _möddings_
in very large numbers; also that some of the testacea that occur in the
refuse-heaps have since that time partially removed from these shores,
while others have diminished in size.

The Stone age is the oldest prehistoric era we have any evidence of;
but it is subdivided into two periods—the _Palæolithic_ (ancient-stone)
and the _Neolithic_ (new-stone). The flint weapons of the Neolithic
period, manufactured when man had made some _little_ progress in the
art of tool-making, are better finished than those of the Palæolithic
period. Those of the earlier period (the Palæolithic) are so crude
and ill finished that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between
them and pieces of flint worn and chipped by the forces of nature.
The relics of the Danish peats are referable _only_ to the Neolithic
period. Before the earliest immigrants of the rude tribes of the
Neolithic age had made their homes among the prehistoric firs of
Denmark, there had roamed over vast tracts of country, not very far
removed from that locality, a race of men, if possible more simple
in their modes of life and workmanship—the men of the Palæolithic
age. But, between this age and the Neolithic of the Danish peats a
subdivision has been defined. In the caves in the south of France
occur ‘vast quantities of the bones and horns of the reindeer. In some
cases, separate plates of molars of the mammoth, and several teeth of
the great Irish deer (_Cervus magaceros_) and of the cave-lion (_Felis
spelæa_), and an extinct variety of _Felis leo_, have been found mixed
up with cut and carved antlers of the reindeer.’

This period has been named by French geologists the Reindeer age,
because the remains of that animal occur in very great profusion in
these French caves. As a proof of the existence of man at a time when
the reindeer and several other animals, now confined to far higher
latitudes, roamed as far towards the equator as the south of France,
perhaps farther, it is to be noticed that not only are his implements
found side by side with the remains of the reindeer in such a manner
as to show that they were deposited at the same time, but many of
the antlers of that animal are cut and rudely carved, bearing ample
evidence of the work of a more or less intelligent race of men. On
one of the bones found in a cave of the Reindeer age, the outlines
of the great mammoth have been rudely carved by some ingenious hand,
long since laid to rest; and the long curved tusks and shaggy coat of
wool are easily recognisable. M. Laret thinks that this places beyond
all doubt that the early inhabitants of these caves must have seen,
at least, a few specimens of this species of elephant roaming through
these regions. The presence of the mammoth, one of the mammals of
the Tertiary epoch, long ages ago quite extinct, known to have been
clothed with a warm coat of shaggy hair and wool, is evidence at once
of the great antiquity of the age in whose broken monuments we are
able to read fragments of a witching history, and of the prevalence
of a far more severe climate at that period than that which the
southern countries of Europe enjoy now. It is evident that in this
period we approach a time when the winters of the whole of Europe
were much longer and more severe, and accompanied by a short, almost
imperceptible summer; in fact, that we are in the midst of lingering
evidences of a severe climate that the great Glacier age left behind it
for a long time after our valleys were emptied of their snow and our
waters cleared of ice.

But beyond the Neolithic and the Reindeer ages lies the Palæolithic
epoch, reaching back still further into prehistoric times. The tools
and implements of man referable to this epoch are found chiefly in the
_high-level_ gravels of our valleys, and are of the rudest type. They
occur mixed with bones of the horse, bear, tiger, deer, hippopotamus,
rhinoceros, and extinct species of the hyena, in such a manner as
to leave no doubt of their coexistence with these animals. They are
‘always unground, having evidently been brought to their present form
simply by the chopping off of fragments by repeated blows, such as
could be given by a stone hammer.’ The gravels in which these relics
are found flank the modern rivers, but occupy a much higher level,
sometimes being as high as a hundred feet above the bed of the present
river, although there is no doubt they were formed by it. In some
instances there may be three series of these ancient gravels in one
valley, one above the other, forming well-defined terraces, and marking
former levels of the river that now flows at the bottom of the valley.
In such a case, the relics found in the uppermost two terraces, which
would, of course, be the oldest, would probably be of the Palæolithic
age—rudely formed, unpolished, and without any ornamentation. The
remaining gravels of more recent date would probably contain Neolithic
and bronze weapons, the flints being ground, polished, and rudely
ornamented.

It is difficult to form any approximate idea of the vast antiquity of
these Palæolithic gravels. Since they were laid down, and these early
prehistoric men lived in these localities, the rivers over vast tracts
of country have slowly cut their way through, in some instances, over a
hundred feet of hard rock, and spread the sediment around their mouths
or over the bottom of the sea. What a vast amount of time it must have
required to scoop out the valleys of a country to a depth of a hundred
feet! And it is to be remembered that all through the historic period,
to a very large extent, no change has taken place in the relative
position of these rivers and valleys. We quote Sir Charles Lyell again,
who says: ‘Nearly all the known Pleistocene quadrupeds have now been
found accompanying flint knives or hatchets in such a way as to imply
their coexistence with man; and we have thus the concurrent testimony
of several classes of geological facts to the vast antiquity of the
human race. The disappearance of a large variety of species of wild
animals from every part of a wide continent must have required a vast
period of time for its accomplishment; yet this took place while man
existed on the earth, and was completed before that early period when
the Danish shell-mounds were formed. The deepening and widening of
valleys implies an amount of change of which that which has occurred
during the historical period forms scarcely a perceptible part. Ages
must have been required to change the climate of wide regions to such
an extent as completely to alter the geographical distribution of many
mammalia, as well as land and fresh-water shells. The three or four
thousand years of the historical period do not furnish us with any
appreciable measure for calculating the number of centuries which would
suffice for such a series of changes, which are by no means of a local
character, but have operated over a considerable part of Europe.’

In these gravels we gather all that is at present known of that
earliest period on which history sheds no light. This period probably
reaches back into the closing acts of the physical drama of the great
Glacial age, when the valleys and plains of the northern hemisphere,
down to the fortieth parallel of latitude, were groaning beneath the
burden of grinding glaciers and untold depths of snow; while the rivers
were mostly covered with thick ice, and the seas were full of icebergs
floating, with infinite collisions, to the southward, or covered
with hummocked, snow-covered icefloe, as the arctic seas are to-day.
Amid scenes like these, these earliest pioneers of the races of men
struggled through their first experiences of the rough world. Could
these scenes, through the touch of some magic wand, be reconstructed,
and made to pass in dioramic form before our eyes, how interesting
they would be! How closely we should listen to their stories of that
far-gone age, could the men who lived while these gravels were being
formed, spring to life again and tell us what they saw, and knew, and
felt! What problems might thus be satisfactorily solved! But such
cannot be: the past has successfully buried its dead, and what we know
of its history must be through the tortuous course of induction.

But these men were most probably hunters; their business was to live.
And no trapper of modern American fame could want higher or, to us,
more interesting game. Across the snow-clad plains roamed herds of
the gigantic mammoth in search of food; wild savage boars kept cover
under the brushwood of the forests; and packs of hungry wolves, on
the scent of prey, filled the clear frosty air with their dismal cry,
as their modern representatives in Russia and other countries do
to-day. The magnificent Irish deer—not then extinct, and than which
no deer of modern age has antlers half so large, or has half so noble
an appearance—galloped with bounding, graceful step across the plains
of Ireland. Bears hibernated through the greater part of the severe,
almost endless winter; and when the climate became suitable, cunning
beavers followed their life’s work by the side of broad shallow rivers
that drained continents, part of which are now no more. As the climate
became warmer when the age of boulder-drift was past, ferocious tigers
prowled around man’s rude hut in search of sweet morsels—veritable
ancestors of modern ‘man-eaters’—and in the vicinity of the rivers, the
huge hippopotamus and scale-covered crocodile sought their livelihood.
Among this variety of animal life, and in the excitement of a hunter’s
existence, during the latter part of the great Glacial age, lived these
Palæolithic men, clothing themselves from the bitter cold with the warm
furs of the animals their superior intelligence enabled them to trap,
or that came within reach of their curiously flint-barbed arrows, and
living almost entirely on the game they were able to ‘bag.’

The question that should most concern us is not who and what were the
ancestors of the human race, but what men are to-day, and what they
may well become. It is said that ‘history repeats itself;’ probably
it is partially true. The _chief_ business of man in relation to the
question of evolution, which the consideration of this subject may tend
to lead back to, is to see that that part of history which tells of an
early crude barbarism in the ancestry of men does _not_ repeat itself.
It rests with men of to-day whether Macaulay’s savage from southern
climes shall, or shall not, at some future time stand on London Bridge
and contemplate the ruins of a fallen greatness.



IN ALL SHADES.

BY GRANT ALLEN,

AUTHOR OF ‘BABYLON,’ ‘STRANGE STORIES,’ ETC. ETC.


CHAPTER XXXIII.

Next day was Tuesday; and to Louis Delgado and his friends at least,
the days were now well worth counting; for was not the hour of the
Lord’s deliverance fixed for eight o’clock on Wednesday evening?

Nora, too, had some reason to count the days for her own purposes,
for on Tuesday night they were to have a big dinner-party—the biggest
undertaken at Orange Grove since Nora had first returned to her
father’s house in the capacity of hostess. Mr Dupuy, while still
uncertain about Harry Noel’s precise colour, had thought it well—giving
him the benefit of the doubt—to invite all the neighbouring planters to
meet the distinguished member of the English aristocracy: it reminded
him, he said, of those bygone days when Port-of-Spain was crowded
with carriages, and Trinidad was still one of the brightest jewels
in the British crown (a period perfectly historical in every English
colony all the world over, and usually placed about the date when the
particular speaker for the time being was just five-and-twenty).

That Tuesday morning, as fate would have it, Mr Dupuy had gone with
the buggy into Port-of-Spain for the very prosaic purpose—let us fain
confess it—of laying in provisions for the night’s entertainment.
In a country where the fish for your evening’s dinner must all have
been swimming about merrily in the depths of the sea at eight o’clock
the same morning, where your leg of mutton must have been careering
joyously in guileless innocence across the grassy plain, and your
chicken cutlets must have borne their part in investigating the
merits of the juicy caterpillar while you were still loitering over
late breakfast, the question of commissariat is of course a far less
simple one than in our own well-supplied and market-stocked England.
To arrange beforehand that a particular dusky fisherman shall stake
his life on the due catching and killing of a turtle for the soup on
that identical morning and no other; that a particular oyster-woman
shall cut the bivalves for the oyster sauce from the tidal branches
of the mangrove swamp not earlier than three or later than five in
the afternoon, on her honour as a purveyor; and that a particular
lounging negro coffee-planter somewhere on the hills shall guarantee
a sufficient supply of black landcrabs for not less than fourteen
persons—turtle and oyster and crab being all as yet in the legitimate
enjoyment of their perfect natural freedom—all this, I say, involves
the possession of strategical faculties of a high order, which would
render a man who has once kept house in the West Indies perfectly
capable of undertaking the _res frumentaria_ for an English army on
one of its innumerable slaughtering picnics for the extension of the
blessings of British rule among a totally new set of black, benighted,
and hitherto happy heathen. Now, Mr Dupuy was a model entertainer,
of the West Indian pattern; and having schemed and devised all these
his plans beforehand with profound wisdom, he had now gone into
Port-of-Spain with the buggy, on hospitable thoughts intent, to bring
out whatever he could get, and make arrangements, by means of tinned
provisions from England, for the inevitable deficiencies which always
turn up under such circumstances at the last moment. So Harry and Nora
were left alone quite to themselves for the whole morning.

The veranda of the house—it fronted on the back garden at Orange
Grove—is always the pleasantest place in which to sit during the heat
of the day in a West Indian household. The air comes so delightfully
fresh through the open spaces of the creeper-covered trellis-work,
and the humming-birds buzz about so merrily among the crimson
passion-flowers under your very eyes, and the banana bushes whisper
so gently before the delicate fanning of the cool sea-breezes in the
leafy courtyard, that you lie back dreamily in your folding-chair and
half believe yourself, for once in your life, in the poet’s Paradise.
On such a veranda, Harry Noel and Nora Dupuy sat together that Tuesday
morning; Harry pretending to read a paper, which lay, however, unfolded
on his knees—what does one want with newspapers in Paradise?—and Nora
almost equally pretending to busy herself, Penelope-like, with a wee
square of dainty crewel-work, concerning which it need only be said
that one small flower appeared to take a most unconscionable and
incredible time for its proper shaping. They were talking together
as young man and maiden will talk to one another idly under such
circumstances—circling half unconsciously round and round the object
of both their thoughts, she avoiding it, and he perpetually converging
towards it, till at last, like a pair of silly, fluttering moths around
the flame of the candle, they find themselves finally landed, by a
sudden side-flight in the very centre at an actual declaration.

‘Really,’ Harry said at length, at a pause in the conversation, ‘this
is positively too delicious, Miss Dupuy, this sunshine and breeziness.
How the light glances on the little green lizards on the wall over
yonder! How beautiful the bougainvillea looks, as it clambers with its
great purple masses over that big bare trunk there! We have a splendid
bougainvillea in the greenhouse at our place in Lincolnshire; but oh,
what a difference, when one sees it clambering in its native wildness
like that, from the poor little stunted things we trail and crucify on
our artificial supports over yonder in England! I almost feel inclined
to take up my abode here altogether, it all looks so green and sunny
and bright and beautiful.’

‘And yet,’ Nora said, ‘Mr Hawthorn told me your father’s place in
Lincolnshire is so very lovely. He thinks it’s the finest country-seat
he’s ever seen anywhere in England.’

‘Yes, it _is_ pretty, certainly,’ Harry Noel admitted with a
depreciating wave of his delicate right hand—‘very pretty, and very
well kept up, one must allow, as places go nowadays. I took Hawthorn
down there one summer vac., when we two were at Cambridge together,
and he was quite delighted with it; and really, it is a very nice
place, too, though it _is_ in Lincolnshire. The house is old, you know,
really old—not Elizabethan, but early Tudor, Henry the Seventh, or
something thereabouts: all battlements and corner turrets, and roses
and portcullises on all the shields, and a fine old portico, added by
Inigo Jones, I believe, and out of keeping, of course, with the rest
of the front, but still, very fine and dignified in its own way, for
all that, in spite of what the architects (awful prigs) say to the
contrary. And then there’s a splendid avenue of Spanish chestnuts,
considered to be the oldest in all England, you know (though, to be
sure, they’ve got the oldest Spanish chestnuts in the whole country at
every house in all Lincolnshire that I’ve ever been to). And the lawn’s
pretty, very pretty; a fine stretch of sward, with good parterres of
these ugly, modern, jam-tart flowers, leading down to about the best
sheet of water in the whole county, with lots of swans on it.—Yes,’ he
added reflectively, contrasting the picture in his own mind with the
one then actually before him, ‘the Hall’s not a bad sort of place in
its own way—far from it.’

‘And Mr Hawthorn told me,’ Nora put in, ‘that you’d got such splendid
conservatories and gardens too.’

‘Well, we have: there’s no denying it. They’re certainly good in their
way, too, very good conservatories. You see, my dear mother’s very
fond of flowers: it’s a perfect passion with her: brought it over from
Barbadoes, I fancy. She was one of the very first people who went in
for growing orchids on the large scale in England. Her orchid-houses
are really awfully beautiful. We never have anything but orchids on
the table for dinner—in the way of flowers, I mean—we don’t dine off
a lily, of course, as they say the æsthetes do. And my mother’s never
so proud as when anybody praises and admires her masdevallias or her
thingumbobianas—I’m sorry to say I don’t myself know the names of half
of them. She’s a dear, sweet, old lady, my mother, Miss Dupuy; I’m sure
you couldn’t fail to like my dear mother.’

‘She’s a Barbadian too, you told us,’ Nora said reflectively. ‘How
curious that she too should be a West Indian!’

Harry half sighed. He misunderstood entirely the train of thought that
was passing that moment through Nora’s mind. He believed she saw in
it a certain _rapprochement_ between them two, a natural fitness of
things to bring them together. ‘Yes,’ he said, with more tenderness
in his tone than was often his wont, ‘my mother’s a Barbadian, Miss
Dupuy: such a grand, noble-looking, commanding woman—not old yet; she
never _will_ be old, in fact; she’s too handsome for that; but so
graceful and beautiful, and wonderfully winning as well, in all her
pretty, dainty, old coffee-coloured laces.’ And he pulled from his
pocket a little miniature, which he always wore next to his heart. He
wore another one beside it, too, but that one he didn’t show her just
then: it was her own face, done on ivory by a well-known artist, from a
photograph which he had begged or borrowed from Marian Hawthorn’s album
twelve months before in London.

‘She’s a beautiful old lady, certainly,’ Nora answered, gazing in
some surprise at Lady Noel’s clear-cut and haughty, high-born-looking
features. She couldn’t for the moment exactly remember where she had
seen some others so very like them; and then, as Harry’s evil genius
would unluckily have it, she suddenly recollected with a start of
recognition: she had seen them just the evening before on the lawn
in front of her: they answered precisely, in a lighter tint, to the
features and expression of Isaac Pourtalès!

‘How proud she must be to be the mistress of such a place as Noel
Hall!’ she said musingly, after a short pause, pursuing in her own
mind to herself her own private line of reflection. It seemed to
her as if the heiress of the Barbadian brown people must needs find
herself immensely lifted up in the world by becoming the lady of such a
splendid mansion as Harry had just half unconsciously described to her.

But Harry himself, to whom, of course, Lady Noel had been Lady Noel,
and nothing else, as long as ever he could remember her, again
misunderstood entirely the course of Nora’s thoughts, and took her
naive expression of surprise as a happy omen for his own suit. ‘She
thinks,’ he thought to himself quietly, ‘that it must be not such a
very bad position after all to be mistress of the finest estate in
Lincolnshire! But I don’t want her to marry me for that. O no, not for
that! that would be miserable! I want her to marry me for my very self,
or else for nothing.’ So he merely added aloud, in an unconcerned tone:
‘Yes; she’s very fond of the place and of the gardens; and as she’s a
West Indian by birth, I’m sure you’d like her very much, Miss Dupuy, if
you were ever to meet her.’

Nora coloured. ‘I should like to see some of these fine English places
very much,’ she said, half timidly, trying with awkward abruptness to
break the current of the conversation. ‘I never had the chance, when I
was last in England. My aunt, you know, knew only very quiet people in
London, and we never visited at any of the great country-houses.’

Harry determined that instant to throw his last die at once on this
evident chance that opened up so temptingly before him, and said with
fervour, bending forward towards her: ‘I hope, Miss Dupuy, when you are
next in England, you’ll have the opportunity of seeing many, and some
day of becoming the mistress of the finest in Lincolnshire. I told you
at Southampton, you know, that I would follow you to Trinidad, and I’ve
kept my promise.—Oh, Miss Dupuy, I hope you don’t mean to say _no_ to
me this time again! We have each had twelve months more to make up our
minds in. During all those twelve months, I have only learned every
day, whether in England or in Trinidad, to love you better. I have felt
compelled to come out here and ask you to accept me. And you—haven’t
you found your heart growing any softer meanwhile towards me? Will you
unsay now the refusal you gave me a year ago over in England?’

He spoke in a soft persuasive voice, which thrilled through Nora’s very
inmost being; and as she looked at him, so handsome, so fluent, so
well born, so noble-looking, she could hardly refrain from whispering
low a timid ‘Yes,’ on the impulse of the moment. But something that was
to her almost as the prick of conscience arose at once irresistibly
within her, and she motioned away quickly, with a little gesture of
positive horror, the hand with which Harry strove half forcibly to
take her own. The image of scowling Isaac Pourtalès as he emerged, all
unexpectedly, from the shadow the night before, rose up now in strange
vividness before her eyes and blinded her vision; next moment, for
the first time in her life, she perceived hurriedly that Isaac not
only resembled Lady Noel, but quite as closely resembled in face and
feature Harry also. That unhappy resemblance was absolutely fatal to
poor Harry’s doubtful chance of final acceptance. Nora shrank back,
half frightened and wholly disenchanted, as far as she could go, in her
own chair, and answered in a suddenly altered voice: ‘Oh, Mr Noel, I
didn’t know you were going to begin that subject again; I thought we
met on neutral ground, merely as friends now. I—I gave you my answer
definitely long ago at Southampton. There has been nothing—nothing of
any sort—to make me alter it since I spoke to you then. I like you—I
like you very much indeed; and I’m so grateful to you for standing up
as you have stood up for Mr Hawthorn and for poor dear Marian—but I can
never, never, never—never marry you!’

Harry drew back hastily with sudden surprise and great astonishment.
He had felt almost sure she was going this time really to accept him;
everything she said had sounded so exactly as if she meant at last to
take him. The disappointment took away his power of fluent speech. He
could only ask, in a suddenly checked undertone: ‘Why, Miss Dupuy? You
will at least tell me, before you dismiss me for ever, why your answer
is so absolutely final.’

Nora took up the little patch of crewel-work she had momentarily
dropped, and pretended, with rigid, trembling fingers, to be stitching
away at it most industriously. ‘I cannot tell you,’ she answered very
slowly, after a moment’s long hesitation: ‘don’t ask me. I can never
tell you.’

Harry rose and gazed at her anxiously. ‘You cannot mean to say,’ he
whispered, bending down towards her till their two faces almost touched
one another, ‘that you are going willingly to marry your cousin, for
whom your father intends you? Miss Dupuy, that would be most unworthy
of you! You do not love him! You cannot love him!’

‘I hate him!’ Nora answered with sudden vehemence; and at the words,
the blood rushed hot again into Harry’s cheek, and he whispered once
more: ‘Then, why do you say—why do you say, Nora, you will never marry
me?’

At the sound of her name, so uttered by Harry Noel’s lips, Nora rose
and stood confronting him with crimson face and trembling fingers.
‘Because, Mr Noel,’ she answered slowly and with emphasis, ‘an
impassable barrier stands for ever fixed and immovable between us!’

‘Can she mean,’ Harry thought to himself hastily, ‘that she considers
my position in life too far above her own to allow of her marrying
me?—O no; impossible, impossible! A lady’s a lady wherever she may be;
and nobody could ever be more of a lady, in every action and every
movement, than Nora, my Nora. She _shall_ be my Nora. I _must_ win her
over. But I can’t say it to her; I can’t answer her little doubt as to
her perfect equality with me; it would be far too great presumption
even to suggest it.’

Well it was, indeed, for Harry Noel that he didn’t hint aloud in the
mildest form this unlucky thought, that flashed for one indivisible
second of time across the mirror of his inner consciousness; if he had,
heaven only knows whether Nora would have darted away angrily like a
wounded tigress from the polluted veranda, or would have stood there
petrified and chained to the spot, like a Gorgon-struck Greek figure in
pure white marble, at the bare idea that any creature upon God’s earth
should even for a passing moment appear to consider himself superior in
position to a single daughter of the fighting Dupuys of Orange Grove,
Trinidad!

‘Then you dismiss me for ever?’ Harry asked quivering.

Nora cast her eyes irresolutely down upon the ground and faltered
for a second; then, with a sudden burst of firmness, she answered
tremulously: ‘Yes, for ever.’

At the word, Harry bounded away like a wounded man from her side, and
rushed wildly with tempestuous heart into his own bedroom. As for Nora,
she walked quietly back, white, but erect, to her little boudoir,
and when she reached it, astonished Aunt Clemmy by flinging herself
with passionate force down at full length upon the big old sofa, and
bursting at once into uncontrollable floods of silent, hot, and burning
tears.



POPULAR LEGAL FALLACIES.[1]

BY AN EXPERIENCED PRACTITIONER.

_LOTTERIES AND ART-UNIONS._


The laws of England relating to lotteries may conveniently be divided
into three classes, according to the objects which are sought to be
attained thereby. (1) The imposition of penalties. (2) The punishment
of offenders as rogues and vagabonds. (3) The legalisation of
art-unions. The inconsistent provisions of the Act of Parliament
relating to the third class, with the tone of legislation within the
first and second classes, have led to some curious misconceptions. For
example, in Wales, especially in South Wales, and to a smaller extent
in some counties of England, it is generally believed that a common
raffle can be made quite legal by advertising it as being conducted
upon art-union principles; although—as we shall presently show—there
is no connection between the two, and therefore no ground for the
supposition that the pretence implied in the words quoted has any real
existence.

The pernicious effects of lotteries appear to have early been a subject
of careful attention on the part of the legislature. To go no farther
back than the year 1698, we find it recited that ‘several evil-disposed
persons for divers years last passed have set up many mischievous
and unlawful games called lotteries, not only in the cities of London
and Westminster and in the suburbs thereof and places adjoining,
but in most of the eminent towns and places in England and in the
dominion of Wales, and have thereby most unjustly and fraudulently
got to themselves great sums of money from the children and servants
of several gentlemen, traders, and merchants, and from other unwary
persons, to the utter ruin and impoverishment of many families, and
to the reproach of the English laws and government, by colour of
several patents or grants under the Great Seal of England for the said
lotteries or some of them, which said grants or patents are against
the common good, trade, welfare, and peace of His Majesty’s kingdoms.’
It was accordingly enacted that any person keeping, &c., any lottery
either by dice, lots, cards, balls, or any other numbers or figures,
should be liable to a penalty of five hundred pounds, one-third part
thereof for the use of His Majesty, his heirs and successors; one other
third part thereof to the use of the poor of the parish where such
offence should have been committed; and the other third part thereof
with double costs to the use of the informer suing for the same. In
the year 1806, the latter part of the preceding enactment was altered
to this extent—the whole of the penalty was to go to the Crown, and
no proceedings were to be taken for recovery of penalties inflicted
by any of the laws concerning lotteries except in the name and by
the authority of the Attorney-general for the time being. Since the
last-mentioned date, the proceedings for recovery of penalties under
the former Act have been very rare, although the law stands thus to the
present day.

It is somewhat remarkable that many of the enactments against lotteries
have been contained in Acts of Parliament by which government lotteries
were authorised, thus leading to the inference that the raising of
money for the service of the state, which must necessarily lead to
the same evils of gambling, &c., as the lotteries set up by the
‘evil-disposed persons’ against whom the former legislation was aimed,
was of more importance than the cause of morality which had been sought
to be served by the imposition of penalties so heavy. The persons
who availed themselves of the advantages offered by the keepers of
unauthorised lotteries were not allowed to go free from the danger of
being proceeded against for penalties; but these penalties were much
more moderate, being only twenty pounds for each offence.

The second branch of our subject—the punishment of keepers of lotteries
as common rogues and vagabonds—had its origin in the year first
mentioned, and has now become an ordinary part of the law applicable
to the punishment of vagrancy, although it must be noted that there
is no necessary connection between vagrancy as universally understood
and this statutory definition. A man who is convicted of an offence
against a certain law is held to be a rogue and vagabond, and is
thereby rendered liable to imprisonment with hard labour for three
calendar months; and if he should commit the offence specified, he is
what the law calls him, although he should be a respectable tradesman,
a clergyman, or a justice of the peace. There is nothing practically
obsolete about this branch of the law. Seldom is Christmas allowed to
pass over without some prosecutions under the Vagrants’ Act for raffles
or some other forms of lotteries in some part of the kingdom or other;
and the effect of this has been to render almost unknown in some towns
and cities the drawings which were so numerous in the days of our
youth. One form of petty lottery which has engaged the attention of the
police at all times of the year is the insertion of small sums of money
in packets of sweets and other articles principally sold to children,
for which there have been several convictions within the last few
years. If the principle be admitted that the moral effects of lotteries
are pernicious, then it follows that this mode of instilling the
gambling spirit into the tender minds of children is its most injurious
manifestation, on account of its tendency to train up the children in
the way in which they should _not_ go; and the probability that the
spirit thus implanted in their minds will be more fully developed as
they grow up.

Besides the penalties and punishments provided for the conductors of
and participants in lotteries, there is a distinct set of enactments
which aim at the prevention of advertising lotteries, whether English
or foreign. So far as the latter class is concerned, the law has no
power to interfere with the persons implicated therein so long as they
are without the jurisdiction of our courts. But if any person in the
United Kingdom should endeavour to spread the knowledge of such schemes
by allowing advertisements to be inserted in his newspaper or other
periodical, or by printing and distributing notices relating thereto,
then the law provides that he shall become liable to a penalty of fifty
pounds besides full costs; and the same penalty applies to private
lotteries which may have been established in this country.

In the year 1846, an Act of Parliament was passed for legalising
art-unions. The following are the requisites for enabling an
Association of individuals interested in the promotion of art to take
advantage of the protection thus afforded. The Association must be
purely voluntary, and must not be established for the acquisition of
pecuniary profit, the subscriptions—beyond the necessary expenses—being
entirely expended in the purchase of drawings, paintings, and other
works of art for distribution amongst the subscribers. The art-union
which is to be protected by the Act must either have been incorporated
by royal charter, or a license must be obtained from the Board of
Trade, after the deed of settlement, or the rules and regulations
of the Association—as the case may be—have been submitted to that
honourable body for approval. Whenever the Association is so conducted
as to become perverted from the purposes contemplated by the Act,
power is reserved to revoke the charter, &c., previously granted to
such Association. It will be observed that the provisions respecting
art-unions are not of an elastic nature; but that the protection
intended to be afforded by the Act is strictly limited to Associations
for artistic purposes, established under government sanction and
supervision. Hence, it should be noted that the advertising of an
intended lottery which has not been so sanctioned, as being on
art-union principles, would be of no avail to protect the managers of
such a lottery from prosecution under the vagrancy laws; or from an
action for penalties at the suit of the Attorney-general for the time
being.

It is not our present purpose to attempt to criticise or to vindicate
the laws in question; we simply explain how the law stands, and leave
to others to reconcile the principles of legislation in the interests
of morality, which appear to place art upon a pedestal outside the
sphere of moral considerations.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] It should be understood that this series of articles deals mainly
with English as apart from Scotch law.



WHERE THE TRACKS LED TO.


IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.

I have been often much inclined to write down the particulars of a
remarkable business I was once engaged in, which was not only queer
and full of unexpected turns in itself, but was of unusual interest to
me personally. The account will also be curious, as showing how much,
or how little, of the qualities the public always will assign to us is
required. I had been in the metropolitan police, and, when my story
begins, had just retired on a decent superannuation. While in the
force, I think I had as much experience as many of the men who have
been talked about; but I never before met with anything in the least
like the incident I am going to describe.

I was pensioned off late in the year, in November; so, as Christmas
drew near, I had not yet grown tired of the pleasure of being my own
master, and would sit, after the gas was lighted, by the hour at a time
alone with my pipe, picturing how I would enjoy myself in the holidays,
when some of my friends would be coming up to London; for I had not
much of a family party at home, as I lived with my daughter, the only
one left with me out of four. She was now nineteen years old, and
just like her mother, as I remembered her, some thirty years before.
Winifred—called so after a favourite sister of my wife, who died
young—was a very pretty girl, as many others besides me thought; and
wonderfully steady too. She was a dressmaker; none of your day-workers
or needlewomen, but really an artist—I believe that is now the correct
name; and at the West End would have commanded a high salary. She could
have gone to the West End easily enough; but she would not do this, nor
would she live in the house where she was employed, and where she might
have had, young as she was, full charge of a department. She would not
leave her father, who, she knew, if she went away, would be dull and
mopish in the house without her.

Well, as you see, I was comfortable enough, and truly thankful that I
had for ever done with station-houses, police courts, prison vans, and
the like, of which I had grown heartily tired. I had bought a couple
of fowls, with etceteras, for our Christmas dinner; and I am not at
all ashamed to say that I stoned the plums, chopped the suet, cut up
the peel, and did a lot more towards getting the pudding ready; Winny
of course finishing everything, polishing off my rough work, so to
speak. Everything of this kind being done, my time hung a little heavy
on my hands. It was only one clear day from Christmas, so the shops
would be gay and busy, and I should have enjoyed a stroll through the
streets; but in the morning a cold drizzle had set in, which made the
pavements greasy and everything around sloppy, forbidding all chance
of a saunter. Luckily, the omnibus which passed Winifred’s shop also
passed our door, so she could ride every yard of the way.

I made up my mind to do the best I could with the newspaper, and a nap
in my easy-chair—this had already grown into a habit—and was turning
away from the window, when I saw a shabby-looking man run up the three
steps which led to our front door. I am a pretty good judge of a man by
his looks, and I at once decided that this was not only a shabby man,
but that he was in the law; he seemed the sort of man who would be ‘put
in possession;’ and I was not far wrong. The man knocked. I heard him
ask for me; then the servant—not mine, I had none, but the servant of
the house—said a gentleman wanted to see me. I already knew what kind
of gentleman this was, and had a vague prophetic feeling that he was
coming on no very pleasant errand; however, I told the girl to show him
in.

He entered, and at once said; ‘Mr Holdrey. I know you, of course; and
I daresay you know me. At anyrate, I am a clerk in Mr Browle’s office,
and I have come from him.’

I recognised the man now. I knew him and his master well enough. Dicky
Browle, we used to call the lawyer. He had a good deal of business, but
all of the lowest kind, and was, in fact, so mixed up with the worst
of the class who got into ‘trouble,’ that I often wondered how it was
that he escaped getting into trouble himself, for many was the felony
he had been the means of ‘squaring’ or compounding. One or two of these
cases I knew of to an absolute certainty; but the knowledge never came
to me at a time or in a manner so that I could use it. As just said, I
expected him to get into trouble some day, and thought, on hearing the
messenger, that the day had come.

‘Well,’ I answered shortly, ‘what do you want of me?’

‘Mr Browle wishes you to go up to the Central Criminal at once, if
you please, Mr Holdrey,’ returned the man. ‘You know Sam Braceby, I
believe—Long-necked Sam, they call him—he is in trouble, and wants you
as a witness.’

Know Long-necked Sam! I should think I did! There were few old officers
in the force who did not know him.

‘What is he in trouble about? and what does he want me for?’ I
naturally asked. ‘I have heard nothing of this.’

‘No. The governor did not know that you could say anything until this
morning,’ replied the clerk. ‘Sam is up for burglary. He has been in
trouble so often, that a very little will send him for life.’

He went on to say that Sam declared that I, and no one else, could save
him; and so, almost before I had made up my mind on the subject, I
found I had pulled on my coat and was in a ’bus with the clerk.

He apologised for not calling a cab by saying that it ‘was dead low
water with Sam,’ and the governor did not care about laying out more
money than could be helped. This, however, did not explain why I was
wanted; and the inside of a ’bus not being a good place for talking
secrets, we said little more until we got down at the corner of the Old
Bailey, and then there was too much hurry to think of talking.

Sam’s trial had begun; the facts were so simple that it was not likely
to last long. A robbery had been committed, somewhat early in the
night—eleven or twelve o’clock—at a house in Camberwell. Two of the
residents in the next house saw a man leap from a back window into
the garden, and gave the alarm. This man the witnesses believed to be
Sam. They had even described the burglar as having a remarkably long
neck; and the accused being notoriously a bad character, the event was
likely to be against him. Mr Browle hurried to me the moment I entered
the court—leaving the then witness to go without cross-examination—and
thanked me for coming. ‘We hardly hoped it, you know,’ continued the
legal gentleman, ‘as you had not been subpœnaed, and I know you do
not think much of Braceby. But the man is innocent this time; he is,
indeed, Mr Holdrey.’

I naturally asked about my expenses and so forth—I did this as a matter
of business—before I entered on what I was expected to prove.

‘Don’t hesitate over that, there’s a good fellow,’ said Browle. ‘Sam
will pay you; you know he will, for he is honest enough in private
life, even if he is not so professionally. I don’t think you are the
man to sacrifice a poor wretch for the sake of your fees; but if you
insist—why, I will guarantee them myself, and it is no business of mine
to do that, as you know.’

I was fairly surprised at this, and liked the old fellow for being so
much in earnest. I felt that I could not let him outdo me, and said so.

Two minutes told me what I was expected to say, and the case for the
prosecution being closed, I was at once called on. I was the only
witness for the defence. Long-necked Sam was not likely to call any
of his friends as to character, and indeed all his ‘pals’ were shy of
showing themselves in the Old Bailey when the trials were on and the
police about. Braceby had recollected on the very morning of the trial,
that the day on which the burglary took place was the St Leger day, and
that I had met him late in the evening and expressed my wonder that he
was not down at the races. Had he not been able to fix the day by this
incident, it would have gone hard with him; but I was able to prove
beyond all sort of doubt that I was in his company, fully five miles
from the scene of the burglary, at the very moment the robber, whoever
he was, was leaving the house. So it was impossible that Sam could have
been the burglar, and the case virtually broke down at once.

The prosecuting counsel and, for the matter of that, the judge also, or
I fancied so, looked anything but pleased at my interference, and some
of my old comrades rallied me a little on my new friends—but that was
all in good temper.

Sam met me outside the court, and rough as he was, the tears stood in
his eyes as he thanked me. ‘I won’t ask you to have a glass with me,
Mr Holdrey,’ he said, ‘because I know I am not in your line. I daresay
you will live to see me in the dock again and to hear of my getting a
lifer. But if, afore that comes on, I can do anything to show you what
I think of you to-day, I will do it; and if I send that pretty daughter
of yours a present—and I have watched her bright face many a day, when
she did not know I was looking at her—if I send her a present, it shall
be something as I have come by honestly, and that she needn’t be afraid
of taking from my hands.’

Having got rid of him, I went home, all the more disposed to enjoy my
daughter’s conversation—and she had always plenty to tell me of her
little adventures during the day—and all the more inclined to enjoy my
unread newspaper, from the long and disagreeable business I had gone
through.

Winny came in soon after me; her place had closed a little earlier,
being so near Christmas. I was glad I had got home first, as she might
have been anxious about me and my going off so suddenly. I told her my
adventures; and when I said it was almost a pity that I had been able
to clear such a bad lot as Sam undoubtedly was, and had always been, as
he would be sure to do some harm soon, she put her hand over my mouth,
to prevent my saying anything so wicked. The poor creature had one
more chance, she said, and perhaps he would make good use of it—there
was hope for everybody. I knew, better perhaps than she did, how much
hope there was for Sam; but Winny was always soft-hearted, and took the
most favourable view of everything. I gave way to her; and somehow, she
seemed to be more affectionate than ever that night, and I felt pleased
at the idea of a quiet evening with her. Then she got her needlework,
and I my pipe, while the beating of the rain against the window—for
the wind had risen at nightfall—made everything seem brighter and
cosier than before. I had scarcely taken a single whiff, when I heard
a vehicle stop opposite the house, then a double knock followed. ‘Some
one for the landlord,’ I thought. But no; it was for me, and for the
second time that day I told the servant to show a strange gentleman in.

This arrival was a very different-looking man from the shabby clerk
from Browle the lawyer, but his errand was much the same in effect.
It was to take me out; indeed, a cab had been brought so that no time
should be lost, and the stranger was directed to take me to the private
house of Mr Thurles—Mr Thurles of Cornhill, the man explained.

I knew who Mr Thurles was—knew where he lived, and knew his house of
business as well as I knew St Paul’s; but I had never spoken to him;
and what he wanted me for, I could not guess. And what was stranger,
the messenger knew little more than I did. He was valet, or butler, or
something; but all he had been told was to ask Mr Holdrey to accompany
him, and to say, if any objection should be made, that money was no
object. He believed it was about a robbery—that was all he knew.

This sounded stranger still; and I turned to my daughter to say
something about it, when I was horrified at her pale, almost ghastly
looks. All the bloom had gone from her face, and she held one hand on
her breast as if to stop her heart from beating too violently.

‘Why, Winny, what are you frightened at?’ I exclaimed. ‘There is no
harm in my being sent for by Mr Thurles, who is a highly respectable
gentleman. You should not let yourself be excited.’

‘O father!’ she said, ‘it was so unexpected, so sudden—I thought—I do
not know what I thought.’ She faltered as she spoke, and the tears were
in her eyes.

This was so different from her usual cheerful manner, that I would not
go out until she had recovered herself. Perhaps I should not have gone
then, but that a young friend of her own happened to call in, and so I
was more satisfied to leave her.

My companion scarcely spoke during the ride; and when we arrived at the
square where Mr Thurles lived, I was at once shown up into the library,
where the gentleman was waiting for me. I never saw a harsher or
sterner looking man than the merchant. He was, I supposed, about sixty
years old, with thin iron-gray hair, gray bushy whiskers, and large
heavy eyebrows, which, when he frowned, gave an expression to his face
which was anything but pleasant.

He came to business directly, and spoke in just the tone one would have
expected from such a man. ‘You are, or were, Sergeant Holdrey, of the
— division, I believe?’

I replied that he was right.

‘I have sent for you,’ he went on, ‘because our house was interested in
a case managed by you, and I then made up my mind that if ever I wanted
a detective, you should be the man.’

I began to say something about my feeling flattered by being thus
distinguished; but he continued, without taking notice of it.

‘You will be paid well; and the quicker you are, the better I shall pay
you. I am inclined to think that you will not find your work specially
difficult. I believe I know who is wanted, but I must have better
information. My counting-house has been robbed, the safe opened with
false keys, and ransacked.’

‘It has been kept very quiet,’ I said, as he paused; ‘for I have never
heard a word of it. I hope you did not lose much?’

‘It has been kept quiet,’ answered Mr Thurles; ‘no one out of my
establishment knows of it, and very few of our own people have more
than a dim idea of the right story. We did not lose much; only the
outer safe was opened. The thieves had not the keys of the inner one,
which contained a large amount in money; but perhaps they did not want
to open that.’

‘Not want to’—— I began, in some astonishment, for such an idea was
enough to astonish anybody, when he again snapped me up sharply.

‘If you will listen to me, and not interrupt,’ was his pleasant remark,
‘you may understand your instructions the sooner. The person who stole,
or caused to be stolen, what really was taken, wanted only a couple of
bills, accepted by Waterman & Co.—Do you know the firm?’

‘No; I can’t say I do. I know most of the City houses, but I never came
across them.’

‘And you are not likely to do so,’ he returned; ‘for there is no such
firm in existence. The bills were forgeries. They were never intended
to get into my hands, and no doubt would have been taken up by the
drawer. But the holders were pressed for money, and gave them to
another firm not much better off, who handed them to us. I did not
believe that a large house, as I heard Waterman & Co. were, would have
anything to do with such small matters; and some other things, trivial
enough in themselves, adding to my suspicions, I caused inquiries to
be made, with the result I expected—that is, of finding they were
forgeries. The next thing was to trace them; and as I was already
pretty certain of the forger, I should easily have done that, when the
office was entered, the safe unlocked, not forced, so it must have been
done by some one who had access to the keys. These bills were stolen,
so all proof is lost. But if I cannot trace the forger, I may the
burglar, and that is what I want you for—and for this I will pay five
hundred pounds.’

He went on to explain that he was not upon good terms with his wife.
But I could have told _him_ all about that; every one in the City knew
that he had married a widow of great wealth, who had an only son,
and that he had almost broken the poor woman’s heart by his coldness
and neglect. There had been no open outbreak or scandal, but they
were separated; the son, who was now some four or five and twenty
years old, being a sort of link between the pair, by remaining in his
step-father’s counting-house.

All this, with a very different colouring, the merchant told me now.
I could have saved him the trouble, but you should always let such
persons have as much talking as they like. When he had finished
this part, he told me something which surprised me. He had reason
to believe, he said, that this step-son, Godfrey Harleston, was the
person who forged these bills and who robbed the office. There were
marks on the counting-house window frames and sills which showed that
the burglar had entered and left by that way; indeed, it would have
been almost impossible for any one to leave by the front of the house
without attracting attention. All this was clear enough; but then
he went on to say that he would cheerfully spend a thousand pounds,
besides the reward, to bring the crime home to his step-son, who, he
explained, was a thoroughly bad character, and had been a thorn in his
side for a long time.

‘If he is as bad as you are, old gentleman,’ I thought to myself, ‘he
must be a bad one indeed.’

I took a great dislike to Mr Thurles for showing such bitter animosity
to the young fellow; but I could see that the chief aim of the
merchant was to wound his mother through him; and although, after
seven-and-twenty years in the police, it took more than a little to
upset me, I could hardly stand this. However, some one else would have
the job if I did not, so I agreed to undertake the business.

I was to do what I liked, spend what I pleased, and have whatever
help I wanted; but I do not care much about help. In some things, of
course, you must have people with you; but, as a rule, a single man can
do all there is to be done, and when he works, he is sure to be always
working on the same line, which is more than you can be certain of when
there are two or three of you in it. Nor did I see that laying out much
money would help us. I told him so; and before I left him, had given
him a sketch of what I thought would be a good beginning.

He rang for a bottle of port and some cigars. After a time, I went home
in capital temper with myself, and talked my last cigar out with Winny,
who was sitting up for me, and still, I thought, looking anything but
her usual self.



MUSICAL SAND.


Most persons have heard of stones which on being struck give out
musical notes, and many may have seen the arrangement of such stones
known as the Rock Harmonicon, which is capable of discoursing eloquent
music. But the existence of musical or sonorous sand is not so well
known, although such sand appears to occur in localities widely
distributed over the earth’s surface. A paper giving some interesting
particulars respecting this phenomenon was communicated to the
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science at
Philadelphia in 1884, by Professor Bolton of Hartford, Connecticut, and
Dr Alexis Julien of New York. The authors begin their paper by stating
that at the Minneapolis meeting of the Association they had given some
account of the so-called ‘Singing Beach’ at Manchester-by-the-Sea,
Massachusetts, and of the occurrence of sonorous sand at Eigg, in the
Hebrides, and other localities. During the twelve months that had
elapsed, they had continued their researches; and by means of extensive
correspondence, they had established the fact, that sonorous sand,
instead of being a rarity, is of very common occurrence. Circulars
were sent to all keepers of life-saving stations throughout the United
States; and from the replies received to date, a list of seventy-four
localities in America had been obtained.

Through the Smithsonian Institution, specimens of sonorous sand
had been received from the island of Bornholm, Denmark; Colberg,
Prussia; and Kanai, Hawaii Islands. Experiments had been conducted
both at Manchester-by-the-Sea and at Far Rockaway, Long Island, to
determine accurately the properties of sonorous sand, with the object
of explaining the cause of its singular characteristics. It was
found that the loudest sound of which a given sand is capable was
most conveniently produced by confining a quart or more in a bag and
strongly striking together the contents. Sounds thus produced were
heard distinctly at both the Manchester and Rockaway beaches at a
distance of one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, the distance
varying according to the strength and direction of the wind and the
interference of the surf-noise. At Rockaway, a careful experiment
was made in fields removed from the beach. The sound produced by
striking the bag was heard at a distance of four hundred and fifty
feet, measured by a tape-line. The sound has a hoot-like tone, easily
recognised.

The character of the sounds obtained by friction on the beach is
decidedly musical, and the experimenters were able to indicate the
exact notes on a musical staff. The shrillness and lowness of note
depend chiefly on the quantity of sand disturbed. By plunging both
hands into the sand and bringing them together quickly, a tone is heard
of which the dominant note is B below the treble stave [Illustration:
note on staff]. By stroking the sand nearer the surface and with less
force, very high notes were heard confused. They ranged from E, fourth
space treble clef, to B above the stave. By rubbing firmly and briskly
a double handful of the sand, several notes on a rising scale were
heard. The ear received an impression something like that formed by
sliding a finger up a violin string at the same time that the bow is
drawn. These results were obtained at Manchester. The Rockaway beach
gave somewhat different tones—the B below the leger-line was not heard
at all; but the note F, first space treble, B, C, and G above the
stave, were heard at different times according to the manner of the
friction. The notes were determined by comparison with those made on a
violin, concert pitch.

The evanescent character of the acoustic quality of the sand is
strongly marked. Sand which has been recently wet requires thorough
drying before it resumes its acoustic powers; consequently, sandy
beaches do not always possess the sonorous power in equal measure, and
the seeker sometimes fails to discover musical sand in the locality
reputed. Meteorological conditions decidedly affect the sonorousness.

Musical sand is easily deprived of its acoustic qualities. Besides
wetting it, friction between the dry hands also accomplishes the
result. The quickest way of ‘killing’ the sand—except by water—is to
shake a small quantity in a tin box. When first agitated, a peculiar
sound is heard, which entirely ceases after twenty to twenty-five slow
up-and-down movements of the box. Attempts to restore to ‘killed’ sand
its sonorous properties have met with indifferent success. Sonorous
and mute sand occur in the beach closely adjoining, but they cannot be
distinguished by the eye; friction alone determines the difference. In
sand of strongly marked acoustic properties, a tingling sensation is
perceived in the finger and also in the toe, even through the boots.

Careful search in literature shows that allusions to sonorous sand are
scattered sparingly through writings of a thousand years. An obscure
allusion to the phenomenon occurs in one of the stories of the _Arabian
Nights_. Old Chinese chronicles mention sonorous sand as occurring in
the desert of Lob-nor. Marco Polo narrates superstitions concerning
it. The Emperor Baber refers to a locality in Afghanistan; and many
travellers in the East describe hills of moving sand whence issue
mysterious noises. The famous Jebel Nakous, situated on the east coast
of the Gulf of Suez, has been visited by at least six European and
American travellers, including Ehrenberg, who was there in 1823. By
comparing their descriptions, it has been discovered that they describe
not one locality, but two, or possibly three, in the same region. The
dry sand rests on a steep incline, and when agitated, slides down the
slope with a gradually increasing noise, variously described, but the
loudest tones of which are universally compared to distant thunder. In
1850, Hugh Miller discovered musical sand at Eigg, in the Hebrides. In
1882, Professor Bolton visited the same locality and began a monograph.

Microscopical examination of the samples of musical sand showed that
the great majority were remarkable for a certain degree in uniformity
of size—usually about 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 millimetres in diameter, general
round form, polished superficies, and freedom from fine dust or minute
fragments; consequently, they often present a characteristic oolitic
or roe-like appearance, light colour, and mobile condition. At certain
localities, the sonorous sand has been found to present the decided
features of a quicksand; and a general connection between these two
facts is suspected to prevail wherever the conformation of coasts and
oceanic currents permit the concentration of the sonorous sand below
the high-tide mark.

The information on this curious subject collected by the two
American savants may perhaps set some of our readers to search for
‘singing beaches’ on these islands. The phenomenon is well worthy of
investigation, and no light seems as yet to have been thrown on its
cause, nor any progress made towards the solution of the mystery of the
difference between mute and musical sand.



NOSES.


A popular lecturer in one of his discourses had occasion to speak on
noses, and he himself, ‘defective only in his Roman nose,’ declared,
had he the choice of noses, his face should be ornamented by a ‘regular
weather-cutter.’ The desire was commendable and worthy attention,
for strangers are instinctively judged by their noses. The nose
indeed proclaims the man, and is the outward and visible symbol of
inward mental calibre and intellectual character. Men of note almost
invariably possess decided and prominent ‘leading articles;’ whilst
an insufficient nasal accompaniment not unfrequently denotes inanity,
lack of moral vigour, and at once negatives qualities which would
otherwise give respect and credit. Of course there are extremes and
exceptions; but generally, it is, that the more prolonged the proboscis
the more striking is the countenance, and the more original the force
of character.

An extreme case is recorded of a Lancashire man, whose prodigious
feature became a centre of attraction in the busiest thoroughfares of
Manchester, whilst he was on a visit there. Becoming at length either
tired or confused by the inquisitive attention and wonderment of a
crowd of admirers, he seized his nose with both hands and gave it a
sudden impatient twist, as though removing an obstruction from the
footway, and said sharply: ‘There—be quick, and get past as soon as you
can.’

A Yorkshire manufacturer whose good living had given him ‘a nose as red
as a comet,’ was told by a wealthy friend very bluntly, ‘I couldn’t
afford to keep that nose of thine.’ Another friend assured him he had
no cause for fear of not living comfortably, for should all other means
of subsistence fail, he could easily hire himself out as a railway
danger-signal.

Amongst the South Sea islanders, the nose is made to be a medium of
expression of affection and amity. Tribes swearing everlasting peace,
seal the compact with a promiscuous rubbing of noses against noses; by
the same frictional process, maidens declaim their woes at parting and
joys on reunion with other maidens, the action being attended by—so
said an eye-witness—‘the shedding of a power of tears.’ Lovers make
their amatory declarations through their noses, their courtship being a
protracted series of rub-rub-rubbing of nose to nose.

We recall an interruption Dr Binney had whilst he was preaching on one
occasion. He saw opposite to him in the gallery a countryman making
elaborate preparations for putting his handkerchief to the common usage
appointed to it. The doctor became interested, and stayed expectant in
his discourse just before the crisis. The countryman blew a terrible
blast, awakening the echoes, and almost perceptibly shaking the
building to its foundations. The doctor, having

    Met with many a breeze before,
    But never such a blow,

waited for the fainting echoes to die, and then said with impressive
gravity: ‘Let us now resume.’

Charles Lamb’s rebuke to a man who by self-assertion pronounced himself
devoid of any peculiarity, ought not to be omitted. ‘Wh-which hand do
you b-b-blow your n-n-nose with?’ inquired Lamb.

‘With my right hand, to be sure.’

‘Ah!’ said Lamb pensively, ‘that’s your pe-pe-pe-peculiarity. I
b-b-blow mine with my hand-kerchief.’

The nose is quite a proverbial topic; for example, ‘To turn up the
nose,’ ‘Put his nose out of joint,’ ‘Paid through his nose,’ and
‘Putting his nose to the grindstone,’ ‘Led by the nose,’ with many
others equally felicitous. ‘Driving hogs over Swarston Bridge’ is a
Derbyshire polite way of expressing snoring; and several stories are
told respecting pig-drivers. A small boy was once asked: ‘Is your elder
brother musical?’

‘Yes, sir; ’e is that.’

‘Can he play?’

‘O yes, sir; ’e plays beautiful.’

‘On what instrument does he perform?’

‘Why, sir, ’e plays on his nose!’

A celebrated divine was preaching before the king and court in Stuart
times, when the monarch and several noblemen ‘nodded gentle assents’
to all he said, for ‘they slumbered and slept.’ The divine, wishful to
reprove, but fearful to offend, at last summoned courage to shout to
one of the somnolent nobles: ‘My lord, my lord, don’t snore so loud, or
you’ll waken His Majesty!’

The subject has not commended itself generally to poets, yet there are
few who would be inclined to say that there is nothing poetical about
the nose. Here and there, we do find pointed references in poetry to
the homely feature more or less poetical in expression. We can easily
fancy Cowper’s picture of ‘the shivering urchin, with dewdrop at his
nose;’ whilst our poet-laureate indulges in a higher flight over a
maiden’s nose ‘tip-tilted like the petal of a flower,’ which sounds
very refined indeed. Henry, Lord Brougham, whose nose was somewhat of
this latter order, did not feel flattered by a similar reference to it.
In conducting a case in Yorkshire, he was bothered in cross-examining a
witness by a constant repetition of the word ‘humbug.’ ‘Humbug,’ said
Lord Brougham—‘humbug, what do you mean by humbug?’—‘Whoy,’ returned
the Yorkshireman, ‘if I wer to tell ye ’at ye’d getten a nice nose, I
should be humbugging ye.’

_Punch_ frequently alludes to the subject, and in its pages is to be
found a description of what some suppose to be a masonic sign, under
the terms of ‘taking a sight’ and ‘taking a double sight.’ ‘In taking a
sight’ the thumb of one hand is placed to the extreme tip of the nose,
with the fingers extended to their straightest utmost capacity; whilst
‘taking a double sight’ involves the addition of the second hand to the
first, the thumb to the little finger, and action as before. The action
is more varied and considered more expressive when a slight undulatory
movement is observed by the fingers. The London newsboy appreciates
the practice of taking a sight, especially favouring it when he has
managed to sell, under the cry of ‘Third edition,’ a day but one before
yesterday’s paper to a passenger upon an omnibus.

Nursery rhymes are not complete without a nose or noses, and they are
constantly being quoted, for instance:

    Says Moses to Aaron:
    ‘Thy nose is a rare un!’
    Says Aaron to Moses:
    ‘Let us _swap_ noses!’

And we cannot forget:

    The servant in the garden hanging out the clothes,
    By came a dickey bird and popped off her nose!

‘I am satisfied on every point but one,’ said a gentleman to an
applicant for service—‘I cannot get over your nose.’

‘That is not to be wondered at, sir,’ replied the applicant, ‘for the
bridge is broken.’

This last incident gives us a moral wherewith to adorn our paper, that,
out of all noses collective, defective, conceptive, or reflective, it
is better to have an ill-shaped nose than no nose at all.



SMOKING AND SNUFFING IN CHURCH.


Amongst the ‘things not generally known’ to the present generation is
that smoking has been indulged in in the churches of Great Britain, in
various parts of ‘the continent’—particularly in the Netherlands—and
in South America. It is nevertheless true. It must not, however, be
inferred from this statement that the practice was so general amongst
the male portion of the congregation as it is in the ‘smoking concerts’
of our day, or that the fairer sex participated in the ‘weed’ during
the performance of divine worship. The practice prevailed, let us hope,
to only a very limited extent; but that it had been carried on in
church during the delivery of the sermon, in the church immediately
after service, and in the vestry during the holding of service, and
at other times, there is reliable evidence to prove. In England and
Scotland, smoking in religious edifices was practised more or less
during the greater portion of last century, if not the whole of it, and
down into the present century. In Dutch and South American churches,
smoking has been indulged in down to a very recent period. Snuff-taking
in churches is a practice which is common throughout the European
continent. It has also prevailed in the churches of both England and
Scotland for a long period; but the snuff-takers in places of worship
of to-day are not so demonstrative as were those of ‘the good old
times,’ of which we read and hear about, but fail to realise.

Readers of Sir Walter Scott may remember that mention is made in _The
Heart of Midlothian_ of a smoker of considerable local importance,
named Duncan of Knockdunder. Of him it is written: ‘So soon as the
congregation were seated after prayers, and the clergyman had read his
text, the gracious Duncan, after rummaging the leathern purse which
hung in front of his petticoat, produced a short tobacco-pipe made
of iron, and observed almost aloud: “I hae forgotten my spleuchan
[tobacco-pouch], Lachlan; gang down to the clachan and bring me up a
pennyworth of twist.” Six arms, the nearest within reach, presented,
with an obedient start, as many tobacco-pouches to the man of office.
He made choice of one with a nod of acknowledgment, filled his pipe,
lighted it with the assistance of his pistol-flint, and smoked with
infinite composure during the whole time of the sermon. At the end of
the discourse, he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, replaced it in his
sporran, returned the tobacco-pouch to its owner, and joined in the
prayer with decency and attention.’

In a volume of letters written by the Rev. John Disney of Swinderby,
Lincolnshire, to James Grainger, is a communication bearing the date
December 13, 1773, in which this passage occurs: ‘The affair happened
in St Mary’s Church in Nottingham, when Archbishop Blackbourn (of
York) was there on a visitation. The archbishop had ordered some of
the apparitors, or other attendants, to bring him pipes and tobacco
and some liquor into the vestry, for his refreshment after the fatigue
of confirmation. And this coming to Mr Disney’s ears, he forbade
their being brought thither, and with a becoming spirit remonstrated
with the archbishop upon the impropriety of his conduct, at the same
time telling His Grace that his vestry should not be converted into a
smoking-room.’ Mr Disney was grandfather to the writer of the letter
above quoted, and was the vicar of Nottingham; local writers, however,
who refer to this matter attribute the desire to drink and smoke in
St Mary’s to the Rev. Dr Richard Reynolds, who was consecrated to the
bishopric of Lincoln in 1723, and died in 1744.

The Rev. S. Parr, LL.D., was an everlasting smoker. ‘Morning, noon, and
night,’ might he have been seen enveloped in clouds of tobacco-smoke.
Neither time nor place seemed to him to be inappropriate for the
indulgence. When he was perpetual curate of Hatton, in Warwickshire
(1783-90), he regularly smoked in the vestry whilst the congregation
were singing, immediately before the delivery of his sermon. For
this purpose, the hymns selected were lengthy. The doctor frequently
remarked: ‘My people like long hymns; but I prefer a long pipe!’ In all
probability, his pipes on such occasions (to be somewhat in character
with the place) were of the kind known as ‘churchwardens.’ The Rev.
Robert Hall, the distinguished Baptist preacher, indulged in profuse
smoking in the intervals of public worship.

A well-known writer to periodical literature tells us that only last
autumn he spent a few hours at Edam, one of the so-called ‘Dead Cities
of the Zuyder Zee,’ though a quietly active and bustling little place,
and a great centre of the Dutch cheese-trade. The minister, in pointing
out and explaining the various matters of interest about the interior,
smoked a cigar and offered our informant one.

Respecting the practice of smoking in churches in South America, Mr J.
M. Cowper of Canterbury writes: ‘I remember three instances of smoking
in church in Lima, Peru. In the church of La Merced, I saw a layman
surreptitiously enjoying his cigar while service was going on. In the
vestry of the same church I saw a full-robed bishop smoking before
going into the pulpit to preach. In his case, a friendly layman put a
handkerchief under the episcopal chin, to keep the ashes from falling
on the smoker’s robes. In the cathedral vestry, I saw the “Master of
the Ceremonies” (an Englishman) smoking a cigar. A spittoon is placed
in the stall of each cathedral dignitary.’

The Vice-chancellor of Cambridge issued some regulations previous to
the visit of King James I. in 1615, in which it was enjoined ‘That
noe graduate, scholler, or student of this universitie presume to
take tobacco in St Marie’s Church uppon payne of finall expellinge
the universitie.’ This most probably referred to snuffing rather than
smoking. ‘It is hardly possible that a prejudice, in no degree abated,
against smoking in church could have been defied so openly at such
an early stage in the introduction of tobacco. On the other hand, a
pinch of snuff is easily conveyed to the nostrils with a fair degree
of secrecy.’ It must be remembered that at this period snuffing was
in great favour with the faculty, who recommended it as the best
preventive as well as cure for cold in the head.

A late rector of Hackney, the Rev. Mr Goodchild, used to refresh
himself in the middle of his sermon with a tremendous pinch of snuff,
which he conveyed, from his chamois-leather-lined waistcoat pocket,
to his nose. A Free Church minister in Glasgow, one Sunday morning
gave out as the morning lesson the fourth section of the hundred and
nineteenth psalm. While his congregation were looking out the ‘portion
of scripture’ in their Bibles, the Doctor of Divinity (or of Laws,
we know not which) took out his mull, and seizing a lusty pinch with
finger and thumb, regaled his nose with the snuff. He then began the
lesson—‘My soul cleaveth unto the dust!’ The titter that ran round
the church, and the confusion of the minister, showed that both the
congregation and he felt the Psalmist’s ‘pinch.’

An English lady, on a visit to Scotland, attended public worship in
a parish church at no great distance from Crathie. In the same pew
were about a dozen persons—farmers, their wives, and herdsmen. Shortly
before the beginning of the sermon, a large snuff-mull was passed to
the occupants of the pew. Upon the lady-visitor declining to take a
pinch, an old man, who was evidently a shepherd, whispered, in a very
significant manner: ‘Tak’ the sneeshin’, mem—tak’ the sneeshin’. Ye
dinna ken oor meenister; ye’ll need it afore he’s dune!’



ABOUT DEATH’S-HEADS.


Probably, at some time or other, the reader has found feeding upon
the leaves of potatoes a large green, yellowish green, or brown
creature about the thickness of his finger, with seven dark purple
and yellow-margined streaks upon the sides, and the dorsal portion
decorated with black dots; the tail-end, moreover, being adorned with
a ‘caudal appendage’ somewhat resembling a lamb’s tail in miniature,
save that it is rigid, and not woolly; or it may be that in digging up
the crop, if the owner of a garden, he has turned up a reddish-brown
‘grub,’ which, beyond a jerk or two with the pointed tail segments,
seemed incapable of motion. The fate of these creatures is generally
a sad and sudden one, if the finder happen to be the rustic unlearned
in insect-life. ‘Here be a locust; dang the beast!’ and down comes
the merciless iron heel, and behold, a shapeless mass! Yet the poor
things were harmless enough, and known to the entomologist as, in the
one case, the larva or caterpillar, and in the other, the pupa, of the
Death’s-head Moth (_Acherontia atropos_).

Most years seem remarkable for the prevalence of some particular forms
of insect-life. For instance, in 1877, clover fields teemed with golden
butterflies, which soon spread into high-roads, and even town gardens.
These were the Clouded Yellow (_Colias edusa_), since which only
sparingly has the butterfly been seen. Then, in 1879, came swarms of
Silver Y Moths (_Plusia gamma_), the caterpillars of which played sad
havoc with the farmer’s peas, completely stripping them of leaves—to
plants, both as lungs and stomach—so that the peas never ripened in
the pod. But nature, as we speak, had provided a remedy in the form of
flocks of thrushes, which ‘fared sumptuously every day’ upon the larvæ;
and yet so ignorant was the farmer of the help his little feathered
friends were rendering him, that he attributed the mischief to ‘them
rascally birds,’ and was for ‘shooting them all off.’

Some seasons, the beans in our gardens are thickly covered with
insects (_Aphis rumicis_), and ants may be watched busily plying their
antennæ, and milking their aphis cows, and sipping up the exuded
nectar-like fluid with a gusto an epicure might envy. Or, it may be the
pendulous racemes of the Sycamore (_Acer pseudoplatanus_) look as if
dipped in ink from the swarms of a sable dipteron, or fly (_Dilophus
febrilis_), thickly aggregated thereon. And last year we had clouds
of green-flies—another species of aphis—migrating, in some places
even almost stopping traffic, and, in one little town in the south of
England, extinguishing the lights in the post-office, and filling eyes,
ears, noses, and mouths of the officials to the serious impediment of
their duties. So, too, the season of 1885 proved a good one, as the
lepidopterist would say, for the larvæ of the Death’s-head Moth, in
fact, it is doubtful if it had ever been so abundant. It is a grand
species—the largest of our native _Sphingidæ_, or Hawk Moths, and
interesting in all stages of its existence. It is the only lepidopteron
that we possess capable of making any cry; but the caterpillar, pupa,
and moth of _Atropos_ can all squeak. In putting the moths into a
comatose state, prior to consigning them to the ammonia bottle—when
needing to kill them for the cabinet—I have applied a camel-hair brush
dipped in chloroform to the proboscis, holding them by finger and thumb
by the under side of the wings, so as not to disfigure their beauty,
I have been surprised at the muscular power exhibited, it being all I
could do to prevent their escaping, the insect the while squeaking as
loudly as a poor mouse whilst suffering from the tender mercies of Puss.

The caterpillars are not easy to find. We may go over ridge by ridge
of the potatoes and not see one, so well hidden are they by protective
resemblance to the plants upon which they feed; the colours of the
leaves and flowers of the potato, for example, the dark violet petals,
and yellow anthers, all being reproduced in the caterpillar. The best
and quickest way to discover them is to search for the traces of
their repasts, which are collected in little heaps at the bottom of
the plant; and if these be fresh, we may be confident that a little
scrutiny will speedily reveal an obese, soft larva tightly clasping the
stem. The larvæ are found throughout August; and about the beginning
of September are full-fed, when they bury beneath the soil, forming a
cell in which they turn to pupæ. Sometimes the moth emerges in October
or November; but such specimens are generally barren females, and the
insect usually remains in pupa condition throughout the winter, coming
out about midsummer of the following year.

The moth or imago of _Acherontia atropos_ is very handsome; the upper
wings have a velvety appearance, the colours being an extremely rich
mixture of browns and black and gray, thickly powdered with whitish
dots. The lower wings are orange, with two dusky bands crossing from
the inner to the hind margin. In the centre of the dark plush-like
thorax is a mark curiously resembling a skull, from which the moth
takes its name. The body is very thick, with six or seven black
transverse bands, and a broad bluish-gray one down the middle. They
have a strong penchant for honey, to secure which, they will enter
beehives, putting the bees to flight by their bold front, although
perfectly defenceless themselves. There is a superstition still
lingering in some parts of the New Forest that the Death’s-head Moth
was not seen in England till after the execution of Charles I.



THE PIG PEN.


The question of pig-breeding is one that should force itself on the
attention of the farmer, and the many lessons which the situation
forces upon the country impressed on his mind. At our agricultural
census last year, we found not only that our stock of swine showed a
decrease of something like two hundred thousand head since 1884, and of
over three hundred thousand head since 1883, but also that the country
was understocked in a branch of our agriculture that even in these
times leaves a profit. We believe that a corn-mill and a few extra pigs
would prove a far better market for inferior corn than any other that
can be named. An American writer has told us that ‘Cincinnati owes its
wealth to the discovery of a method of putting fifteen bushels of corn
into a three-bushel barrel and transporting it to distant markets. This
has been accomplished by means of the pig. He converts seven bushels
of corn into one hundred pounds of pork.’ This is a lesson that the
English farmer might well lay to heart; and if this were the case, we
are sure that we should not find the pig-stock of the country declining
at a time when prices for corn have just been at the lowest ebb in the
memory of man.

That we can find a market for an increased production of pork and
bacon is certain. Last year, we paid the foreigner—and chiefly the
Yankee—some three millions sterling for dead pig-meat, sent to us
in the shape of hams, bacon, and pork. There is no reason why we
should not this season increase our breeding-herds of swine and make
some attempt to wrest from the foreigner this market. It lies at our
doors; and the pig himself is perhaps the most profitable of all the
meat-making machinery of the farm. The fecundity of the pig is such
that the breeding-stock may be increased almost at will. At one of the
prize-farms of the Royal Agricultural Society, last year, the judges
report that from nine to ten sows are kept every year, and that from
these from fifty to sixty pigs are sold every year. Their prolificness
is a source of profit, but not the only one. Mr J. C. Morton points
out some other reasons why, in fattening pigs, more profit might be
expected than in fattening oxen or sheep. One is, that the carcase
of the pig includes the head—so much additional weight—which in the
case of the ox or sheep is part of the offal. Another is, that the pig
is a feeder on all manner of vegetable and animal refuse, extracting
nourishment from matter which other animals refuse; and it is useful,
therefore, as a scavenger and utiliser of waste food.

There can be only one answer—and it is one often given in times past to
amateurs, who have been so struck with the fecundity of the pig, that
they have wondered how it is not more largely bred—that can be given to
these claims of the pig to greater attention. ‘Oh,’ it may be retorted,
‘you forget that with the pig, like all other farm-stock, it is a
question of how much the land will carry. For his feeding, crops of
mangolds, cabbage, carrots, and such-like are required; and in summer,
cut clover is wanted.’

That may oftentimes be a good answer, but not in a season when all
kinds of corn can be bought cheap, and when farmers oftentimes are
unable to sell their cereals except at a figure at which it is far
more profitable to manufacture it into pork, and send it in that
form—fifteen bushels in a three-bushel measure—to market. This is a
matter well worthy the attention of farmers at the present moment, and
a thought that ought to lead to a large increase in the pig-stock of
the country.



THE MINSTRELS.


    The minstrels in the gallery,
      The revellers in the hall:
    Across the pauses of the feast
      The singers’ voices fall,
    But in the tide of mirth below,
      They have no share at all.

    They sing of battle and of joust,
      Of deeds of high emprise;
    They sing of honours bravely won,
      Of lovers’ happy sighs,
    Of banquet when the fight is o’er,
      And light of ladies’ eyes.

    Their stirring thoughts, their tender words
      Float down on music’s wing.
    Alas! the joys, the gallant deeds
      Wherewith their verses ring,
    They know not. Those who hear the song,
      Have known, but cannot sing.

    Thus every day, in every age,
      Throbs on the world’s fierce heart,
    In passion-heat of joy or grief
      At banquet, fight, or mart;
    But there the minstrel has no place—
      He needs must stand apart.

    Too soft his flesh to bear life’s storms,
      Too keen his restless brain,
    His heart too ready to perceive
      Joy’s inmost heart of pain;
    But the lone sorrow of his lot
      Makes sad his merriest strain.

    And in his darker hours, the wish
      Consumes him like a fire,
    To cast away for evermore
      The burden of the lyre,
    To share the life of other men,
      Its fullness, its desire.

    In vain! The gladness of the loved,
      The conquest of the strong,
    Life’s heavy tasks and fair rewards,
      Not unto him belong.
    He sighs; and as it leaves his lips,
      The sigh becomes a song.

            CATHERINE GRANT FURLEY.


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Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

       *       *       *       *       *

_All Rights Reserved._

       *       *       *       *       *

[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text:

Page 419: occured to occurred—“has occurred during”.]




*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Chambers's journal of popular literature, science, and art, fifth series, no. 131, vol. III, July 3, 1886" ***

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