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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75329 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+[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. 148.—VOL. III.      SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1886.      PRICE 1½_d._]
+
+
+
+
+THE MATTERHORN, AND ITS VICTIMS.
+
+
+The Matterhorn, or Mont Cervin, a peak of the Pennine Alps, fourteen
+thousand seven hundred and eighty feet high, is unique amongst the
+mountains of the Alps, for elsewhere throughout their length and
+breadth there is no single peak that approaches to it in massive
+grandeur of shape. Standing alone, apart from the neighbouring peaks,
+holding itself proudly aloof, as it were, from the common herd, it is
+truly a monarch among mountains. To look upon it is to realise at once
+the feeling of awe and reverence with which, even to this day, the
+peasants of the valley regard it—a feeling which in former years had
+perhaps more to do with its reputed inaccessibility than anything else;
+whilst other peaks whose ascent is now thought to be more difficult,
+were falling one by one before the early pioneers of the Alpine Club.
+In that time—with very few exceptions—even the boldest hunters of
+Zermatt and the Val Tournanche shrank from attempting the ascent, for
+time-honoured legends said that the Matterhorn was haunted, that evil
+spirits made it their trysting-place; and when the storm raged high,
+and the lightning played about its crags, danced and shrieked around
+it in unholy glee. Then, too, the Matterhorn has a history of its own,
+such as no other mountain save Mont Blanc possesses.
+
+Every one who has read Mr Whymper’s _Scrambles amongst the Alps_—a book
+which has probably done more to stimulate the love of climbing than
+any written before or since—knows how he alone—when other mountaineers
+tried and failed, coming back always with the same tale, that the
+summit was inaccessible—persisted that it could be reached; and how,
+though driven back many and many a time, he refused to accept defeat,
+till at length, after an expenditure of time and money which some
+would deem completely thrown away in such a cause, his indomitable
+perseverance met with its due reward. As Mr Whymper’s adventures in
+connection with the ascent of the Matterhorn have been already related
+in this _Journal_ under the title ‘Ascent of the Matterhorn,’ January
+10, 1880, we need only refer to them here in so far as is necessary for
+the sequence of the narrative.
+
+There were several attempts made to ascend the Matterhorn previous
+to 1858; but the first known were those of the four Val Tournanche
+guides—Jean Antoine Carrel, J. J. Carrel, Victor Carrel, Gabriel
+Maquignaz, with the Abbé Gorret, in that and in the following year.
+These attempts were all made on the Italian side, from Breuil; and
+it does not appear that at any time a greater height than twelve
+thousand six hundred and fifty feet was attained. Very little definite
+information, however, has ever been obtainable on the subject.
+
+The next attempt of which we have record was a remarkable one, for
+it was made by three brothers, the Messrs Parker of Liverpool, _and
+without guides_. The attempt was made in 1860 from Zermatt, and these
+daring climbers attacked the eastern face, looked upon at that time as
+quite beyond the powers of any human being to climb. They succeeded
+in ascending to a height of some twelve thousand feet, and were then
+driven back by bad weather. In the same year, another attempt was made
+from Breuil by Professor Tyndall and Mr Vaughan Hawkins, with the
+guides J. J. Carrel and Bennen; but they did not make much advance upon
+what had been done during the attempts of the Val Tournanche guides;
+and it is doubtful if a greater height than thirteen thousand feet was
+reached.
+
+In 1861, the Messrs Parker tried again, but did not succeed in getting
+much higher than they did in the previous year; while on the Italian
+side, the two Carrels, J. A. and J. J., made another attempt, which was
+unsuccessful.
+
+Then began the attempts of Mr Whymper, and from that moment until
+the last successful expedition, with two exceptions, his name was
+associated with all the attempts that were made upon the mountain. The
+two exceptions were those of Mr T. S. Kennedy and of Professor Tyndall
+in 1862. The first was unique, as having been made in the winter—on
+the 7th of January. Mr Kennedy seems to have thought that the ascent
+might prove practicable in winter, if not in summer; but his experience
+was a severe one. A fierce wind, bitter cold, and a superabundance
+of snow, prevented his getting very far; and, like all the rest, he
+returned completely discomfited. The attempt of Professor Tyndall on
+the Italian side, in July of that year, was perhaps the nearest to
+success of any that had yet been made. He had two celebrated Swiss
+guides with him, Bennen and Walter; and he also took, but only as
+porters, three Val Tournanche men, of whom J. A. Carrel was one. This
+expedition was only stopped when within eight hundred feet of the top.
+Professor Tyndall came back so deeply impressed with the difficulties
+surrounding the ascent, that he made no effort to renew his attempt.
+In fact, he does not appear to have gone on the mountain again till he
+ascended it in 1868, three years after the first ascent had been made.
+Professor Tyndall’s want of success appears in great measure to have
+been due to the jealousy existing between the guides of the two rival
+nationalities, Swiss and Italian.
+
+The first attempt by Mr Whymper was made from Breuil on the 29th of
+August 1861, the same day as the attempt by the two Carrels. Mr Whymper
+was accompanied by an Oberland guide, who proved a somewhat inefficient
+companion; and they failed to get higher than the ‘Chimney,’ twelve
+thousand six hundred and fifty feet above the sea-level. He made other
+five attempts in 1862, one in 1863, and two in 1865. In the ninth and
+last, he was successful.
+
+In Mr Whymper’s ninth and successful attempt the united party
+consisted of Lord Francis Douglas, Mr Hudson, Mr Hadow—a friend of Mr
+Hudson’s—and the guides Michel Croz and the two Taugwalders, father and
+son. They started from Zermatt on July 13, 1865, and camped out above
+the Hörnli ridge. The weather was fine and with everything in their
+favour, next day, they climbed with ease the apparently inaccessible
+precipices, and reached the actual summit at 1.40 P.M.
+
+In the account of the expedition which Mr Whymper has given to the
+world, he graphically describes the wild delight which they all felt
+at a success so much beyond their hopes, and how for a full hour they
+sat drinking-in the sweets of victory before preparing to descend.
+It is almost needless to re-tell a story which we have previously
+related, and which is so well known as the terrible tragedy which took
+place during the descent—how Mr Hadow slipped, struck Croz from his
+steps, and dragged down Mr Hudson and Lord Francis Douglas; how the
+rope snapped midway between Lord Francis Douglas and old Taugwalder;
+and how Mr Whymper and the two Taugwalders watched, horrified, whilst
+their unfortunate companions slid rapidly downwards, spreading out
+their hands in a vain endeavour to save themselves, till they finally
+disappeared over the edge of the precipice, falling a distance of four
+thousand feet on to the glacier below! The bodies of Messrs Hudson,
+Hadow, and Croz were subsequently recovered, and now lie buried in the
+graveyard of the Zermatt village church; but of Lord Francis Douglas,
+nothing could be seen. Beyond a boot, a pair of gloves, and the torn
+and bloodstained sleeve of a coat, no trace of him has ever since been
+found. What became of his body is to this day a mystery.
+
+It is strange how the memory of this the most dramatic—if it may be
+so termed—of all the accidents which have ever happened in the Alps
+is still indelibly impressed on the minds of climbers, guides, and
+amateurs alike. It is the commonest thing to hear it discussed, and the
+theories put forward as to the cause of the rope giving way where it
+did are various and ingenious. Unfortunately for the reputation of old
+Taugwalder, the report of the official investigation held by the local
+authorities after the accident has never to this day been made public.
+As a consequence, old Taugwalder has suffered irretrievably from a
+report mischievously circulated by his fellow-villagers to the effect,
+that at the moment of the slip, he sacrificed his companions to save
+himself, by severing the rope! And in spite of Mr Whymper’s assertions
+that the thing was impossible, there are some who still persist in
+maintaining that he cut it. The suspicion under which he laboured so
+preyed upon his spirits that he quitted the scene, and for many years
+never returned to his native village. The younger Taugwalder became one
+of the leading guides of the valley.
+
+Thrice again has the Matterhorn been the scene of death in a terrible
+form. In 1879, the mountain claimed two more victims. In the one case,
+an American, Dr Moseley, disregarding the most ordinary precautions,
+slipped and perished horribly, falling a height of some two thousand
+feet, on to some rocks a little way down the Furggen Glacier. Dr
+Moseley, accompanied by Mr Craven and the well-known Oberland guides,
+Christian Inäbnit and Peter Rubi, left Zermatt on the night of August
+13, with the intention of making a one-day ascent of the Matterhorn.
+Both gentlemen were members of the Alpine Club, and mountaineers
+of considerable experience. The summit was reached successfully at
+nine o’clock on the morning of the 14th; and after a short halt, the
+descent was commenced. Dr Moseley, who was a skilful rock-climber,
+and possessed of great confidence in his own climbing powers, soon
+after passing the most difficult bit of the mountain, complained
+that the rope was a considerable hindrance; and notwithstanding the
+remonstrances of Mr Craven and the guides, insisted on detaching
+himself from the other members of the party. At some little distance
+from the old hut, the party had to cross a projecting ledge of smooth
+rock. Rubi crossed first, and planted his axe so as to give Dr Moseley
+a firm foothold; but Dr Moseley, declining the proffered assistance,
+placed his hand upon the rock and endeavoured to vault over it. In an
+instant, his foot slipped, his axe flew out of his hand, and he fell
+on to some snow beneath, down which he commenced to slide on his back.
+The snow was frozen, and he dropped on to some rocks below. With a
+desperate effort, he turned himself round and tried to grasp the rocks
+with his hands; but the impetus attained was too great, and he fell
+from rock to rock till lost to his companions’ sight. The body was
+subsequently recovered; and from the terrible nature of the fall, death
+must have ensued long before the bottom was reached.
+
+Here was a case of a valuable life absolutely thrown away, for, had Dr
+Moseley remained on the rope, the accident would never have happened.
+It was the same over-confidence that cost the life of the Rev. J.
+M. Elliott on the Schreckhorn, and it is to be feared will cost the
+lives of others yet, if the warning conveyed by the fall of these
+two accomplished mountaineers continues to be disregarded. There was
+another circumstance, too, which had a bearing on the accident, and
+which is an additional proof of a want of carefulness on the part of
+the unfortunate man—his boots were found, on examination, to be almost
+entirely devoid of nails, and were, therefore, practically useless for
+mountaineering purposes.
+
+In the other case, a death occurred under circumstances which are
+happily without a parallel in the annals of mountaineering. Two
+members of the Basle section of the Swiss Alpine Club—a body in no
+way connected with our own Alpine Club—engaged three guides—J. M.
+Lochmatter and Joseph Brantschen, both of St Nicolas, and P. Beytrison
+of Evolena—to take them over the Matterhorn from Breuil to Zermatt.
+They left the first-named place on the morning of August 12, and in the
+afternoon reached the hut which the Italian Alpine Club have built at
+an elevation of some thirteen thousand feet, amidst the wildest crags
+of the Matterhorn, intending to sleep there, and cross the mountain
+to Zermatt in the course of the following day. During the night, the
+guide Brantschen was taken ill, and by morning had become so weak
+as to be quite unable to move. Now, under these circumstances, it
+might have been supposed that Brantschen would have been the first
+consideration; but the two Swiss gentlemen thought otherwise. Instead
+of at once abandoning the expedition, and sending down for help to
+Breuil, after a brief consultation they announced to Lochmatter their
+intention of proceeding to Zermatt, and ordered him and Beytrison to
+get ready to start. They were conscious of the fact that Brantschen
+had become dangerously ill, and appear to have demurred at first, but
+weakly gave in on their employers insisting. A blanket was thrown over
+the sick man, a little food placed beside him, and then the party filed
+out of the hut, and the door was shut. It is possible that in their
+leaving Brantschen they were scarcely alive to the consequences of
+their act; it is to be hoped, at all events, that they were not; but
+from the moment that the hut was left, they deliberately condemned the
+sick man to at least thirty-six hours of absolute solitude. In fact,
+by the adoption of this course, the nearest succour—at the pace of the
+party—was nineteen and a half hours off, whereas Breuil would have been
+only eight. They crossed the mountain safely, but being bad walkers,
+did not reach Zermatt till half-past one the following morning. They
+then caused a relief party of guides to be sent out; but it was too
+late. On reaching the hut, the unfortunate man was found to be dead.
+The conduct of his employers did not escape criticism both at home and
+abroad.
+
+There have been accidents on the Matterhorn since 1879; but although in
+more than one instance there has been a narrow escape, only once has
+any further life been sacrificed.
+
+Within a few days of the first ascent of the Matterhorn, on July 18,
+1865, J. A. Carrel and Bich succeeded in reaching the summit from the
+Italian side, by a feat of rock-climbing scarcely equalled for daring
+in the annals of mountaineering. Since then, ascents of the Matterhorn
+have multiplied year by year; but for every one ascent by the Italian
+route, there must be twenty at least by the Zermatt. In fact, the
+former route is scarcely adapted for any but good mountaineers. The
+Matterhorn has also been climbed from the Zmutt side; but this route
+has never become popular. The first traveller to ascend the Matterhorn
+from Breuil was Mr F. Craufurd Grove, the present President of the
+Alpine Club; and of other remarkable ascents may be mentioned those of
+Miss Walker, accompanied by her brother and Mr Gardiner—Miss Walker
+being the first lady to climb the Matterhorn—of the Misses Pigeon, who
+were weather-bound for three days in the hut on the Italian side; and
+in descending to Zermatt, after crossing the summit, were benighted,
+and had to remain on the open mountain-side till daybreak; of Messrs
+Cawood, Colgrove, and Cust, who made the ascent from Zermatt without
+guides; of the ill-fated expeditions in which the lives of Dr Moseley,
+the guide Brantschen, and Mr Borckhardt were lost; and of Mr Mummery
+and the late Mr Penhall, who each discovered a new route from the Zmutt
+side.
+
+The Matterhorn has likewise been ascended in the winter; as the writer
+can assert from experience, having accomplished the feat—such as it
+was—in the days when it had not become the everyday affair that it is
+now. With two guides, one of whom was the well-known Joseph Imboden
+of St Nicolas, I arrived at Zermatt one fine afternoon in August,
+resolved upon a one-day ascent of the Matterhorn. A start was to be
+made at midnight; and soon after that hour, we were picking our way
+over the stones which paved the deserted village street in the darkness
+of a moonless night. Leaving the village behind us, we commenced to
+ascend through the meadows beyond the village, Imboden leading, and
+never for a moment pausing, although, in that uncertain light, it was
+difficult to distinguish a track of any kind. We reached the barren
+Hörnli Ridge, and as we commenced to traverse it, the sky grew lighter
+with the dawn of day. We were close to the foot of the Matterhorn now,
+and it loomed upon us, towering high into the sky, and seeming to my
+eyes one mighty series of precipices from base to summit. There was a
+solemn grandeur about the scene which seemed even to have its influence
+upon my companion, for not a word was spoken as we strode on towards
+the mountain. But when once we were upon the rock itself, I found that
+the difficulties which I had pictured to myself as likely to arise had
+little existence in fact; the series of precipices resolved themselves
+into a rocky surface, much broken, and yielding capital hand and foot
+hold everywhere. The incline, too, was very much less steep than it
+had appeared at a distance. No difficulty indeed presented itself;
+and climbing upwards rapidly, in two hours from the Hörnli we were at
+the hut which in those days was generally made use of for passing the
+night previous to an ascent. This hut is built beneath the shelter
+of an overhanging cliff, on a narrow rock platform, and its position
+does not give one an idea of security. It is cramped, and when I saw
+it, was very dirty, and indeed looked altogether so uninviting, that
+I congratulated myself on having avoided a night in it. We found the
+stove useful, though, for cooking our breakfast. This hut has now been
+superseded by a larger building, erected lower down the mountain. We
+finished our breakfast, and set out once more.
+
+Hitherto, the work had been quite easy; but now came something stiffer,
+our first experience being on an ice-slope at an angle of perhaps
+forty-five degrees, overhanging the route by which we had ascended,
+and by which, had any false step been made, we should have returned
+somewhat hastily. A party that had gone up the day before spared us
+any step-cutting, for they had done their work so satisfactorily that
+quite a staircase remained for our use. We reached the top of the
+slope in safety; a knife-edge of snow led us to the right, and almost
+immediately we found ourselves upon the most difficult bit of the
+mountain, the northern face. Rounding the edge of the mountain, you
+look down, and below you, the face of the cliff falls away steeply,
+till it terminates in a drop of three thousand feet or more. Above,
+rises perpendicularly almost a succession of knobs of rock, overlapping
+one another, and more or less coated with snow and ice. The position
+may be rendered exciting enough to please any one by the addition of
+one or two incompetent individuals to the party.
+
+Our progress was slow but steady. Imboden would scan the face of the
+cliff, climb up a few feet, and when firmly fixed, call to me to
+follow, the operation then being repeated with the second guide. We
+sighted the summit at fifteen minutes past eight; and in less than two
+hours after leaving the hut we were on the highest point. The summit
+varies much, differing in shape with each successive season; and when
+we were there, it was a ridge of snow, narrow in places, broader in
+others, though nowhere was it possible to walk three abreast. We had a
+glorious view; but in this respect the Matterhorn is perhaps inferior
+to some of its neighbours, notably to Monte Rosa and the Dom.
+
+During the descent, Imboden exercised even greater care, and we
+reached the hut again safely. From there, we made our way leisurely
+down to Zermatt, where we arrived soon after three o’clock in the
+afternoon, after an unusually quick ascent, thanks to the splendid
+weather and the easy state of the northern face, which, while it cost
+us only two hours, has sometimes given a party seven hours or more of
+hard work. On the way down, Imboden pointed out to me two blanched
+fragments of rope trailing from the rocks far up on the northern face.
+They were left there by Mr Whymper after the accident, and marked the
+spot close by where it occurred. There they remained as cherished
+relics till last year, when a traveller sent his guide to cut them down
+and bring them away. It is sad to think that it was an Englishman who
+was guilty of this wanton act.
+
+As far as the actual ascent of the Matterhorn goes, it is far from
+being the formidable affair which it was once considered to be; but at
+the same time it is certainly not an expedition to be recommended to
+every one. It is not that the ascent is dangerous in itself, though
+some may have their own opinion about that, but it cannot be too
+strongly insisted on that, under certain conditions, it ought not to
+be attempted. Every experienced climber knows how weather can affect
+a mountain, and how ascents which, under ordinary conditions, are
+easy enough, are apt after bad weather to become difficult—sometimes
+impossible; and for a party of novices, with possibly guides not of the
+best class, to attempt the Matterhorn in a bad state is to run a risk
+such as no one in the pursuit of pleasure is justified in running.
+
+The latest accident upon the Matterhorn, up to date of writing, has
+perhaps more than any other Alpine accident illustrated the folly of
+attempting great mountains without a proper mountaineering training
+beforehand. On the morning of the 17th of August, at three A.M., a
+party, consisting of Messrs F. C. Borckhardt and T. Davies, with
+Zermatt guides, Peter Aufdemblatten and Fridolin Kronig, left the
+lower Matterhorn hut, and in fine weather reached the summit about
+nine A.M. Soon after leaving it, the weather, with one of those sudden
+changes which must always more or less constitute a danger in Alpine
+climbing, became very bad, and it began to snow. The progress of the
+party was very slow, for neither of the two gentlemen seems to have
+been a good walker, and both were exhausted; and by seven o’clock that
+same evening they had only reached the spot near where Dr Moseley made
+his fatal slip. Here they halted. It continued to snow all that night
+and till past noon on the following day, by which time travellers
+and guides were reduced to a pitiable condition. And now comes the
+saddest part of the story. Of the party, Mr Borckhardt was by this time
+the most helpless, and as such, ought to have received the greatest
+consideration; but the guides persuaded Mr Davies that the only chance
+of saving their own lives was to leave their helpless companion, and
+make a push to the nearest point whence help could be obtained. At
+that moment, it so happened that a rescue party was on its way from
+Zermatt, and they met it about half-way down to the hut. On hearing of
+the abandonment of Mr Borckhardt on the open mountain-side, the relief
+party pushed on to his aid with all haste; but it was of no avail; they
+only arrived to find that the unfortunate gentleman was past all human
+help.
+
+
+
+
+BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Besides the consolation of recovering the precious insignia, the spice
+of romance in the affair appealed to Le Gautier’s natural sentiment.
+He might, it may be thought, have had something similar made; but it
+must be remembered that he had no fac-simile in his possession; and he
+knew, or suspected, that the coin bore private marks known only to the
+Supreme Three. At all hazards, therefore, the device must be recovered,
+and perhaps a little pleasant pastime enjoyed in addition.
+
+After long cogitation, Le Gautier decided to keep the appointment,
+and, in accordance with this determination, walked to Charing Cross
+the following night. He loitered along the broad stone platform for
+some time till the clock struck nine, idly speculating upon the
+people hurrying to and fro, and turning over the books and papers on
+the bookstall. At a few minutes after the hour he looked up at the
+clock, and then down again, and his heart beat a shade more quickly,
+for there, standing by the swinging door leading to the first-class
+waiting-room, was a long cloaked figure, closely veiled. Walking
+carelessly in the direction, and approaching, he looked at his watch as
+he muttered: ‘Past nine—no sign of the Eastern Eagle.’
+
+By way of answer, the mysterious stranger raised her hand to the clasp
+of her cloak, and there, in the centre of the fastening, was a gold
+moidore.
+
+Le Gautier’s eyes glistened as he noticed this. ‘You wish to see me?’
+he said at length. ‘I must thank you for’——
+
+‘If your name is Le Gautier,’ she interrupted, ‘I do want to say a few
+words to you.—Am I right, sir?’
+
+Le Gautier bowed, thinking that, if the face matched the voice and
+figure, he had a treasure here.
+
+‘This is no place to discuss this matter. If you can suggest any place
+where we can hold a few minutes’ conversation, I shall be obliged.’
+
+Le Gautier mused a moment; he had a good knowledge of London, but
+hesitated to take a lady to any place so late. The only suggestion
+he could make was the Embankment; and apparently this suited his
+companion, for, bowing her head, she took the proffered arm, walked out
+from the station, down Villiers Street, and so on to the waterside. Le
+Gautier noticed how the fingers on his arm trembled, attributing this
+to natural timidity, never dreaming that the emotion might be a warmer
+one. He began to feel at home now, and his tongue ran on accordingly.
+‘Ah! how good of you,’ he exclaimed, pressing the arm lying in his own
+tenderly—‘how angelic of you to come to my aid! Tell me how you knew I
+was so rash, so impetuous?’
+
+‘Men who carry their lives in their hands always are,’ Isodore replied.
+‘The story does not need much telling. I was in the Kursaal at the
+time, and had my eyes on you. I saw you detach the insignia from your
+watchchain; I saw you hand it to a woman to stake; in short, I can put
+my hand upon it now.’
+
+‘My protector, my guardian angel!’ Le Gautier cried rapturously; and
+then, with a sudden prosaic touch, added: ‘Have you got it with you?’
+
+Isodore hesitated. If he could only have seen the smile behind the
+thick dark veil which hid the features so tantalisingly!
+
+‘I have not your insignia with me,’ she said; ‘that I must give you at
+some future time, not now. Though I am alarmed for you, I cannot but
+admire your reckless audacity.’
+
+‘I thought perhaps you might,’ Le Gautier observed in a disappointed
+tone, and glancing at the clasp of his companion’s cloak.
+
+‘That is mine,’ she explained, noting his eager look. ‘I do not part
+with it so recklessly as you. I, too, am one of you, as you see. Ah,
+Monsieur le Gautier, how truly fortunate your treasure fell into a
+woman’s hands!’
+
+‘Indeed, yes,’ he replied gravely, a little puzzled, nevertheless,
+by the half-serious, half-mocking tone of these last words. ‘And how
+grateful I am! Pardon me if, in my anxiety, I ask when I may have it?’
+
+‘It may be some days yet. It is not in my hands; but be assured that
+you shall have it. I always keep my promises—in love or war, gratitude
+or revenge, I never forget.—And now I must leave you.’
+
+‘But you will at least tell me the name of my benefactor, and when I
+shall have the great felicity of seeing her again.’
+
+‘If I disclose myself to you, my secret must be respected. Some time,
+when I know you better, I will tell you more. I live in Ventnor Street,
+Fitzroy Square. You may come and see me any night at ten. You must
+inquire for Marie St Jean.’
+
+‘I will come,’ Le Gautier exclaimed, kissing the proffered hand
+gallantly. ‘Nothing save the sternest duty shall keep me from Fitzroy
+Square.’
+
+‘And you will respect my secret? I, too, am on the business of the
+League. You will guard my secret?’
+
+‘On my life!’ was the fervid response.—‘Goodnight, and _au revoir_.’
+
+‘On his life,’ Isodore murmured as she walked rapidly away in the
+direction of the Temple Gardens.
+
+It was a beautiful night, the moon hanging behind Westminster, and
+throwing a glowing track along the swift rushing river, dancing like
+molten silver as it turned and switched under the arches of Waterloo.
+It was getting quiet now, save for the echoing footfall from a few
+hurrying feet or the shout of voices from the Surrey shore. Soft and
+subdued came the hoarse murmurs of the distant Strand; but Isodore
+heeded them not. In imagination, she was standing under the shadow of
+the grape-vines, the sunny Tiber down at her feet, and a man was at
+her side. And now the grapes were thorns, the winding Tiber the sullen
+Thames, and the hero standing by her side, a hero no longer, but a man
+to be despised—and worse. As she walked along, busy among the faded
+rose-leaves of the past, a hand was laid upon her arm, and Valerie
+stood before her.
+
+‘I thought you were going to walk over me,’ she said. ‘I knew you would
+return this way, and came to meet you.—Have you seen him?’
+
+‘Yes, I have seen him; and what I have heard, does not alter my
+feelings. He is cold and vain, callous and unfeeling as ever. And to
+think I once loved that man, and trusted him! The poor fool thinks he
+has made another conquest, another captive to his bow and spear. Under
+cover of my veil, I have been studying his features. It is well he
+thinks so; it will help me to my revenge.—Valerie, he is going to call
+upon me to-morrow night at ten o’clock.’
+
+‘But consider what a rash thing you are doing. Besides, how is this
+going to benefit you or injure him? He will boast of it; he will talk
+of it to his friends, and injure you.’
+
+‘Not while I have this,’ Isodore cried triumphantly, touching the clasp
+of her cloak.—‘Do not you see how he is within my power? Besides, he
+can give me some information of the utmost value. They hold a Council
+to-morrow night; the business is pressing, and a special envoy is to go
+to Rome. The undertaking will be one of extreme danger. They will draw
+lots, but the choice will fall upon Frederick Maxwell.’
+
+‘How do you know this?’ Valerie asked. ‘I do not understand your
+mission; but it seems to me that where every man has a stake at issue,
+it is his own interest to see the matter conducted fairly.’
+
+‘You may think so; but perhaps you will think differently when I tell
+you that Le Gautier is, for the evening, President of the Council. It
+does not need a vast amount of discrimination to see how the end will
+be. Le Gautier is determined to marry this Enid Charteris; and much as
+she despises him, he will gain his end if he is not crossed.’
+
+‘But what are you going to do?’ Valerie asked, horrified at the
+infamous plot. ‘You will not allow an innocent man to go to his death
+like this?’
+
+‘I shall not, as you say, allow a good man to be done to death,’
+Isodore replied with the calmness of perfect conviction. ‘The pear is
+not yet ripe. Le Gautier is not sufficiently hoist with his own petard.
+This Maxwell will go to Rome; but he will never execute the commission
+allotted to him; I shall take care of that.—And now, mind you are out
+of the way, when Le Gautier comes to-morrow night.’
+
+Valerie silently shivered as she turned over the dark plot in her mind.
+‘Suppose you fail, Isodore,’ she suggested—‘fail from over-confidence?
+You speak of the matter as already accomplished, as if you had only
+to say a thing and it is done. One would think, to hear you, that
+Frederick Maxwell’s safety, my husband’s life even, was yours.’
+
+‘Yes,’ she answered calmly; ‘his life is mine. I hold it in the hollow
+of my hand.’
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+In one of those quiet by-thoroughfares between Gray’s Inn Road and
+Holborn stands a hairdresser’s shop. It is a good enough house above
+stairs, with capacious rooms over the shop; below, it has its
+plate-glass windows and the pole typical of the tonsorial talent
+within; a window decorated with pale waxen beauties, rejoicing in wigs
+of great luxuriance and splendour of colour; brushes of every shape and
+design; and cosmétiques from all nations, dubbed with high-sounding
+names, and warranted to make the baldest scalp resemble the aforesaid
+beauties, after one or more applications. But the polite proprietor of
+‘The Cosmopolitan Toilette Club’ had something besides hair-cutting to
+depend upon, for Pierre Ferry’s house was the London headquarters of
+the League.
+
+As he stood behind a customer’s chair in the ‘saloon’ snipping and
+chatting as barbers, especially if they be foreigners, always will,
+his restless little black eyes twinkled strangely. Had the customer
+been a man of observation, he would have noticed one man after another
+drop in, making a sign to the tonsorial artist, and then passing into
+an inner room. Salvarini entered presently, accompanied by Frederick
+Maxwell, both making some sign and passing on. Pierre Ferry looked
+at the newcomer keenly; but a glance of intelligence satisfied his
+scruples, and he resumed his occupation. Time went on until Le Gautier
+arrived, listless and cool, as was his wont, and in his turn passed in,
+turning to the barber as he shut the door behind him. ‘This room is
+full,’ he said; ‘we want no more.’
+
+Ferry bowed gravely, and turning the key in the lock, put the former
+in his pocket. That was the signal of the assembly being complete. He
+wished his customer good-night, then closing the door, seated himself,
+to be on the alert in case of any threatened danger.
+
+As each of the conspirators passed through the shop, they ascended
+a dark winding staircase into the room above; and at the end of the
+apartment, a window opened upon another light staircase, for flight in
+case of danger, and which led into a courtyard, and thence into a back
+street. The windows looking upon Gray’s Inn Road were carefully barred,
+and the curtains drawn so as to exclude any single ray of light, and
+talking quietly together were a few grave-looking men, foreigners
+mostly. Maxwell surveyed the plain-looking apartment, almost bare of
+furniture, with the exception of a long table covered with green cloth,
+an inkstand and paper, together with a pack of playing-cards. The
+artist’s scrutiny and speculations were cut short by the entrance of Le
+Gautier.
+
+To an actor of his stamp, the change of manner from a light-hearted man
+of the world to a desperate conspirator was easy enough. He had laid
+aside his air of levity, and appeared now President of the Council to
+the life—grave, stern, with a touch of hauteur in his gait, his voice
+deliberate, and his whole manner speaking of earnest determination of
+purpose. Maxwell could not but admire the man now, and gave him credit
+at least for sincerity in this thing.
+
+‘Gentlemen,’ he said, in deep sonorous tones, ‘we will commence
+business, if you please. I shall not detain you long to-night, for I
+have business of grave importance myself. Will you take your seats?’
+
+The men gathered round the table, drawing up their chairs, Le Gautier
+at the head, and every eye turned upon him with rapt attention. From
+an inside pocket he produced a packet of papers and laid them before
+him. ‘Brothers,’ he asked, ‘what is our first duty to the League?’
+
+‘The removal of tyrants!’ came from every throat there in a kind of
+deep chorus. ‘And death to traitors!’ added one, low down the board.
+
+‘You are right, my friend,’ Le Gautier continued. ‘That is a duty to
+which none can yield. I hold evidence in my hand that we have a traitor
+amongst us—not in the room, I mean, but in our camp. Does any Brother
+here know Visci, the Deputy at Rome?’
+
+The assembly looked one to the other, though without speaking; and
+Maxwell noted the deathly pallor upon Salvarini’s face, wondering what
+brought it there. The President repeated the question, and looked round
+again, as if waiting for some one to speak.
+
+‘Yes, I know him. He was my friend,’ Salvarini observed in melancholy
+tones. ‘Let us hear what his fault is.’
+
+‘He is a traitor to the Order,’ Le Gautier continued; ‘and as such,
+he must die. His crime is a heavy one,’ he went on, looking keenly at
+Maxwell: ‘he has refused to obey a mandate of the Three.’
+
+‘Death!’ shouted the voices in chorus again—‘death to the traitor!’
+
+‘That is your verdict, then?’ the President asked, a great shout of
+‘Ay’ going up in reply.—‘It is proper for you to see his refusal; we
+must be stern in spite of our justice. See for yourselves.’ Saying
+these words, he passed the papers down the table from hand to hand,
+Maxwell reading them in his turn, though the whole thing was a puzzle
+to him. He could only see that the assembly were in deadly earnest
+concerning something he did not understand. He was destined to have a
+rude awakening ere long. The papers were passed on until they reached
+the President’s hands again. With great care he burnt them at one of
+the candles, crushing the charred ashes with his fingers.
+
+‘You are all agreed,’ he asked. ‘What is your verdict to be?’ And like
+a solemn echo came the one word, ‘Death!’ Salvarini alone was silent,
+and as Le Gautier took up the cards before him, his deathly pallor
+seemed to increase.
+
+‘It is well—it is just,’ Le Gautier said sternly, as he poured the
+cards like water from one hand to the other. ‘My friends, we will draw
+lots. In virtue of my office as President, I am exempt; but I will not
+stand out in the hour of danger; I will take my chance with you.’
+
+A murmur of applause followed this sentiment, and the cards were passed
+round by each, after being carefully examined and duly shuffled.
+Maxwell shuffled the cards in his hands, quite unconscious of what they
+might mean to him, and passed them to Salvarini.
+
+‘No,’ he said despondingly; ‘there is fate in such things as these. If
+the lot falls to me, I bow my head. There is a higher Hand than man’s
+guiding such destinies as ours; I will not touch them.’ Saying these
+words with an air of extremely deep melancholy, he pushed the cards
+in Le Gautier’s direction. The latter turned back his cuffs, laid the
+cards on the palm of one hand, and looked at the assembly.
+
+‘I will deal them round, and the first particular card that falls to a
+certain individual shall decide,’ he said. ‘Choose a card.’
+
+‘The dagger strikes to the heart,’ came a foreign voice from the end
+of the table; ‘what better can we have than the ace of hearts?’ He
+stopped, and a murmur of assent ran round the room.
+
+It was a thrilling moment. Every face was bent forward eagerly as the
+President stood up to deal the cards. He placed one before himself, a
+harmless one, and then, with unerring dexterity, threw one before every
+man there. Each face was a study of rapt attention, for any one might
+mean a life, and low hoarse murmurs ran round as one card after another
+was turned up and proved to be harmless. One round was finished,
+containing, curiously enough, six hearts, and yet the fatal ace had not
+appeared. Each anxious face would light up for a moment as the owner’s
+card was turned up, and then be fixed with sickening anxiety on his
+neighbour’s. At the end of the second round the ace was still absent.
+The excitement now was almost painful; not a word was spoken, and only
+the deep breathing gave evidence of the inward emotion. Slowly, one by
+one, the cards dwindled away in the dealer’s hands till only seven were
+left. It was a sight never to be forgotten even with one chance for
+each; and when the first of the seven was dealt, a simple two, every
+envying eye was bent upon the fortunate one as he laughed unsteadily,
+wiped his face, and hastily filled and swallowed a glass of water. Six,
+five, four; the last to the President, and there only remained three
+cards now—one for Salvarini, one for Maxwell, and one for the suggester
+of the emblem card. The Frenchman’s card was placed upon the table; he
+turned it up with a shrug which was not altogether affected, and then
+came Salvarini’s turn. The whole room had gathered round the twain,
+Maxwell calm and collected, Salvarini white and almost fainting. He had
+to steady one hand with the other, like a man afflicted with paralysis,
+as he turned over his card. For a moment he leaned back in his chair,
+the revulsion of feeling almost overpowering him. His card was the
+seven of clubs.
+
+With a long sweeping throw, the President tossed the last card in
+Maxwell’s direction. No need to look at it. There it lay—the fatal ace
+of hearts!
+
+They were amazed at the luckless man’s utter coolness, as he sat there
+playing with the card, little understanding as yet his danger; and
+then, one by one shaking his hand solemnly, they passed out. Maxwell
+was inclined to make light of this dramatic display, ascribing it to a
+foreigner’s love of the mysterious. He did not understand it to mean a
+last farewell between Brothers. They had all gone by that time with the
+exception of Le Gautier and Salvarini, the latter looking at the doomed
+man sadly, the Frenchman with an evil glitter and a look of subdued
+triumph in his eyes.
+
+‘Highly dramatic, at anyrate,’ Maxwell observed, turning to Le Gautier,
+‘and vastly entertaining. They seemed to be extremely sorry for me.’
+
+‘Well, you take the matter coolly enough,’ the Frenchman smiled. ‘Any
+one would think you were used to this sort of thing.’
+
+‘I should like to have caught some of those expressions,’ Maxwell
+replied. ‘They would make a man’s fortune if he could get them
+on canvas. What do you think of an Academy picture entitled “The
+Conspirators?”—And now, will you be good enough to explain this little
+farce to me?’
+
+His cool, contemptuous tones knocked Le Gautier off his balance for a
+moment, but he quickly recovered his habitual cynicism. ‘There will be
+a pendant to that picture, called “The Vengeance;” or, if you like it
+better, “The Assassination,”’ he replied with a sneer. ‘Surely you do
+not think I dealt these cards for amusement? No, my friend; a life was
+at stake there, perhaps two.’
+
+‘A life at stake? Do you mean that I am to play the part of murderer to
+a man unknown to me—an innocent man?’
+
+‘Murder is not a pleasant word,’ Le Gautier replied coldly. ‘We prefer
+the expression “remove,” as being more elegant, and not so calculated
+to shock the nerves of novices—like yourself. Your perspicacity does
+you credit, sir. Your arm is the one chosen to strike Visci down.’
+
+‘Gracious powers!’ Maxwell exclaimed, falling back into his chair faint
+and dizzy. ‘I stain my hand with an unoffending man’s blood? Never! I
+would die first. I never dreamt—I never thought—— Salvarini, I did not
+think you would lead me into this!’
+
+‘I warned you,’ the Italian said mournfully. ‘As far as I dared, I told
+you what the consequences would be.’
+
+‘If you had told me you were a gang of callous, bloodthirsty murderers,
+I should not have joined you. I, like every Englishman, am the friend
+of liberty as much as you, but no cowardly dagger-thrust for me. Do
+your worst, and come what may, I defy you!’
+
+‘A truce to these histrionics,’ Le Gautier exclaimed fiercely; ‘or we
+shall hold a Council, and serve you the same. There are your orders.
+I am your superior. Take them, and obey. Refuse, and’—— He stopped,
+folding his arms, and looked Maxwell full in the face for a moment;
+then turning abruptly upon his heel, quitted the room without another
+word.
+
+Maxwell and his friend confronted each other. ‘And who is this Visci I
+am to murder?’ the artist demanded bitterly.
+
+Salvarini bowed his head lower and lower till his face almost rested
+upon his breast. ‘You know him,’ he said. ‘He was a good friend of mine
+once, and his crime is the one you are contemplating now—disobedience
+to orders. Is it possible you have not guessed the doomed man to be
+Carlo Visci?’
+
+‘Carlo Visci—my friend, my more than brother? I must be mad, mad
+or dreaming. Lay foul hands upon the best friend man ever had—the
+noble-hearted fellow whose purse was mine, who taught me all I know,
+who saved my life; and I to stab him in the dark because, perchance,
+he refuses to serve a companion the same! Never! May my right hand rot
+off, before I injure a hair of Carlo Visci’s head!’
+
+‘Then you will die yourself,’ Salvarini put in sadly.
+
+‘Then I shall die—death comes only once,’ Maxwell exclaimed proudly,
+throwing back his head. ‘No sin like that shall stain my soul!’
+
+For a moment the two men were silent.
+
+Salvarini broke the silence. ‘Listen, Maxwell,’ he said. ‘I am in a
+measure to blame for this, and I will do what I can to serve you. You
+must go to Rome, as if you intended to fulfil your task, and wait there
+till you hear from me. I am running great risks in helping you so, and
+you must rely on me. One thing is in your favour: time is no particular
+object. Will you go so far, for your sake and mine?’
+
+‘Anything, anywhere!’ burst out the Englishman passionately.
+
+(_To be continued._)
+
+
+
+
+PITMEN, PAST AND PRESENT.
+
+
+The coal-trade of Scotland dates from the early part of the thirteenth
+century. In its earliest stages it embraced only the shallowest
+seams, and those without water, or any other difficulty requiring
+machinery to overcome. The digging of coal, therefore, is one of our
+oldest industries; and it may be interesting to look at some phases
+of the work from the miner’s point of view. Taking this stand-point,
+we will see that the improvement in the miner’s condition—physical,
+intellectual, moral and spiritual—is almost inconceivable. When
+machinery became necessary for pumping water from coal-pits—about the
+beginning of the seventeenth century—there appears to have been a
+demand for workmen greater than the supply, and power was granted to
+colliery owners ‘to apprehend all vagabonds and sturdy beggars’ and set
+them to work. This shows that the life of a miner was not at all an
+attractive one; and this is not to be wondered at, as will be seen from
+some of the allusions made in this article as we proceed. The one fact,
+that colliers were, for two centuries after the date referred to—that
+is, till near the end of the eighteenth century—bought and sold with
+the collieries in which they wrought, is sufficient to stamp mining as
+a most undesirable kind of employment, even in those early and more or
+less barbarous times. One can easily understand, from this instance
+of hardship, how it became necessary to keep up the supply of miners
+from the criminal classes. An analogous case still presents itself in
+Russia, where one of the most hopeless sentences that can be passed on
+political and other offenders is banishment to the Siberian mines.
+
+Some time after the repeal (about 1790) of the laws enslaving miners,
+there would appear to have been experienced a similar difficulty
+to recruit the ranks of pit-workers, and one of the means adopted
+to procure workmen was only a few degrees less objectionable than
+slavery itself. This was what was termed the ‘Bond’ system. A man,
+more especially when he had a family, some of them coming to be
+helpful at his calling, had the bait held out to him of a bounty if he
+signed the bond. By this bond he obliged himself to continue in the
+employment of his master for a fixed period, varying from one year to
+four years. In return for this, he received the immediate payment of
+a bounty, variable in amount in proportion to the period engaged for,
+and also regulated by the value of the man’s services. As much as five
+pounds might be given. Should the bond be faithfully carried out by
+the workman, the master had no claim upon the money; but should the
+engagement be brought prematurely to an end, he often retained the
+power to claim the amount as a debt, besides having the right to sue
+the workman for desertion of service. Of course, the bounty formed a
+payment over and above the ordinary wages.
+
+At the period referred to, it was the practice amongst many classes of
+workmen in Scotland to leave their usual avocations during the summer
+months, and fee themselves to farmers in the times known familiarly as
+‘hay and hairst.’ From this custom, it was often a serious matter for a
+coalmaster to find that his workmen had deserted him. The ‘bond’ system
+was intended partly to counteract this practice, as well as to meet the
+prevailing unpopularity of the work. The system was a thoroughly bad
+one for the workmen, as it practically lengthened the period of actual
+slavery, though nominally that had disappeared. The inducement to sign
+the bond was very much the same as it now is to join the militia—the
+bounty-money gave the prospect of a ‘spree’ in both cases, and in this
+way the system operated badly.
+
+We may well be astonished at the statement, that in the memory of men
+still living it was the regular thing for miners in some districts
+to go to and from the pits with bare feet. The wages were small and
+the hours long. We have heard it said by a miner that the grandfather
+of a companion a little older than himself wrought in the mines for
+twopence a day, he at the time being man grown. This case would take us
+back to about the close of the last century, when miners were employed
+compulsorily under an Act of Parliament. In any case it is an extreme
+instance of the small wages earned for a long time by miners. In regard
+to the hours of employment, even till a period well advanced in the
+present century, the usual time to begin work was four A.M.; whilst the
+hour for allowing the men to quit the mine was six o’clock at night—a
+length of day’s work that left little time even for sleep. No wonder
+that such a joke should be in circulation that miners’ children in
+those days did not know their fathers, as the children were asleep all
+the time the father was at home.
+
+Not only had miners in times past hard work with long hours and small
+wages, but even the scanty earnings were settled up only at long
+intervals, and on this fact hangs a series of abuses that required a
+long and determined struggle to remove. Monthly pays were considered
+frequent; and it could hardly be expected that mining human nature
+could endure for a month even at a time without some temporary means
+being provided. Out of this arose some of the most indefensible
+hardships suffered by the miner. ‘Truck’ and ‘Poundage’ in all their
+various forms were the foul growths from the system of long delayed
+pays. The truck system had many developments. Let us begin with one
+of its earliest—namely, ‘lines.’ A workman wants an advance, and goes
+to the pay office for that purpose; but instead of getting hard cash,
+he receives a line to the following effect: ‘Please give bearer goods
+to the value of ____________.’ This line was addressed to a person
+owning a general provision and dry-goods store, who had entered into
+an arrangement to honour these lines; and when they were brought to
+the colliery proprietor at stated intervals, the shopkeeper received
+payment of their amount, less an agreed upon commission, varying from
+five to ten per cent. But, supposing the storekeeper did not keep some
+of the goods required by the workman for his family or personal use,
+the workman could obtain a part of the sum marked on the line in money,
+less a discount of usually one penny per shilling. As time went on,
+however, another development of the truck system took place, and on
+the whole it was a little better than that described. The mine-owner
+provided a store, managed under his own charge, in which was sold
+everything from the proverbial ‘needle to an anchor.’ One of the sore
+points in the management of many of these works-stores was that the men
+were terrorised into buying all their goods there, and there alone.
+Indeed, where advances were given under the line-system, the poor miner
+had usually to spend nearly all his money in the master’s stores. Even
+in the comparatively rare instances where workmen waited until the end
+of the pay without accepting advances, some of the colliery proprietors
+used a sort of tyrannical power over the men to force them to buy from
+the works-store, and that alone. Under the line-system, barter pure and
+simple obtained full play. And yet since the passing in 1831 of what is
+popularly known as the Truck Act, this barbarous method of payment was
+fully provided against, though the criminality of unscrupulous masters
+was not brought home to them until the Truck Commission sat in 1870.
+This Commission fully investigated the wholesale evasion of the law of
+1831, and brought such a flood of light on the disgraceful proceedings
+of many masters, as to at once bring to an end the hateful truck or
+tally system. It forms a curious comment on the manner of administering
+our laws, that the Truck Act of 1831 only became operative in 1870,
+after a most exhaustive inquiry.
+
+Whilst ‘truck’ was an attempt on the part of some masters to pay
+wages in kind and not in sterling money, what is known as ‘poundage’
+was a different system of making a large profit off the poverty of
+the workmen—a system, unfortunately, which is not altogether dead
+yet. Under the system of poundage, the monthly or larger pays were
+continued—short pays would have been its death—but the privilege was
+granted to employees of receiving advances in cash during the currency
+of the pay. But this was done, let it be noted, for a ‘consideration,’
+that consideration being the grand and simple system of five per
+cent.—a shilling a pound. This is how the calculation would work
+out: In a four-weekly pay, let us presume that there are only three
+advances made—if there were more it would not alter the principle at
+work—one made each week for three weeks, and each advance amounting to
+one pound. The first advance is twenty shillings for three weeks, the
+second for two weeks, and the third for one week—the whole advances
+during the currency of the pay amounting to three pounds, and costing
+the workman three shillings. This looks a very simple charge—five per
+cent.; but when we look at it in the light of being interest on lent
+money, we find the first pound has cost 83⅔ per cent. per annum; the
+second, 130, and the third, 260 per cent. per annum—or an average of
+nearly 160 per cent. per annum on the whole. It must be remembered too
+that this was the rate of interest charged, not for an unsecured debt,
+but rather for wages actually earned by the employee, though settlement
+was deferred for a month through the system of long pays. The writer
+has known a firm derive from this one source of income as much as a
+thousand pounds a year up to the time a more enlightened policy was
+adopted.
+
+Another system from which unscrupulous employers derived some income,
+more trifling in amount than the annoyance and irritation it produced,
+was that known as ‘Fines.’ In remote collieries, fines were of regular
+occurrence under one pretext or another. It is quite likely that the
+system was a survival of feudal jurisdiction exercised by the superior
+all over the country, and finally put an end to, as it was supposed, by
+Act of Parliament passed in 1747. Instead of the workman being brought
+before a magistrate for an alleged offence, a court-martial was held
+upon him by the employer or manager, and a fine was usually exacted.
+It mattered not whether the offence related to the man’s employment or
+to his conduct with his neighbours, whether it had a criminal or only
+a civil origin—the court-martial was held, and the result invariably
+the same—a fine. The curious thing was that these fines were taken
+as a matter of course, the decisions being usually respected after a
+little necessary grumbling. The amount of money gained annually from
+these fines was not large, so that their justification must have been
+that this was the only available method of keeping law and order. In
+this view, ‘fines’ may have suited an earlier state of civilisation;
+but the system is too rough and ready to be consonant with modern ideas
+of justice. The miner has suffered under slavery, and its twin-brother
+the bond system; but he has seen these totally disappear, not, however,
+very many years before slavery was abolished amongst the aborigines of
+our colonies. Truck or the tally system has also become a thing of the
+past, though we have seen how hard it was to kill. Fines likewise have
+given place to the ordinary operation of the law; and the exaction of
+poundage is now only made by a small residuum of coal-masters, on whom
+the action of public opinion is slow and uncertain; but the system is
+doomed, and must, sooner or later, follow the other abuses we have
+enumerated.
+
+We will now look for a short time at a different phase of the subject,
+‘Pitmen, Past and Present;’ and in this no less than in the past,
+already treated, it will be found that there is a strong contrast
+between the past and the present in the miner’s condition. Take as an
+example the ventilation of mines. The benefits brought about in the
+miner’s health by the greater quantities of fresh air now forced into
+the pits are almost incalculable. A ‘wheezing’ miner of thirty is now
+a very rare phenomenon; indeed, apart from the inevitable danger from
+accidents—and that is even greatly lessened—the miner has now nearly as
+good a chance of long life as any other class of workmen. At a period
+within the memory of not very old colliers still living, the pit was
+merely a hole in the ground, having no separate upcast and downcast
+division, so essential to proper ventilation. In short, there was
+absolutely no attempt at the artificial ventilation of the mines. The
+only agent at work was the wind on the surface, and this was as often
+as not adverse to the pitman. In the heat of summer, the mine became
+quite unworkable from the rarefied and polluted nature of the air. From
+the operation of various causes, this state of things has been altered
+to the great benefit of the miner. An air-tight mid-wall is now made
+in each pit: the one side of the shaft being used for drawing out—by
+fans or otherwise—the foul air; and the other for the introduction into
+the mine of a current of fresh air, which finds its way through all
+the workings until it reaches the upcast shaft, and there obtains an
+outlet. In addition to this, every shaft has now a communication pit,
+either expressly made for that purpose, or advantage may be taken of
+some old pit for giving pitmen a certain means of exit and entrance in
+the event of a shaft being blocked up through accident.
+
+The year of the famous battle of Waterloo is one that should ever
+be remembered gratefully by miners. It was then that Humphry Davy
+perfected his safety-lamp, that has done so much for mankind. How much
+it has done to prevent accidents no one can say. Being a preventive,
+all we can claim is that it must have rendered the annals of mining
+comparatively free of the records of accidents, and given a degree
+of comfort and safety in the fieriest mines that otherwise would be
+impossible, besides making available for public use a vast amount of
+coal that without it would be unworkable.
+
+In regard to the age of those engaged in mines, thirty, forty, or
+fifty years ago it was the rule rather than the exception to send boys
+to work at eight or nine years of age. The Mines Act of 1872 wholly
+prohibits the employment below ground of women or girls of any age, and
+fixes for boys the minimum age at twelve for a full day’s employment,
+and that only when a certain educational standard has been reached.
+Curiously enough, however, a boy _above_ ground cannot be engaged
+full time until he is thirteen years old. Surely it is one of the
+unintentional anomalies of the Mines Act that in the open air boys are
+precluded from working till they are a year older than they may be at
+work underground. A warning note may be sounded in regard to the age at
+which boys are engaged. We know that many are employed in mines at the
+minimum age of twelve, irrespective of their educational standard. If
+the Education Act and the Mines Act are here at variance, or if there
+is the want of a public prosecutor to see them enforced, the wants
+should be without waste of time supplied, and not cause beneficial
+clauses to be inoperative.
+
+Respecting the education of miners’ children, the Education Acts
+have been highly advantageous in giving compulsory powers to School
+Boards and managers; but even before their introduction, this class of
+children had many comparative benefits in a much less degree enjoyed
+by others. The works-schools have always been a feature in Scotch
+mining centres. We have not seen any pointed allusion to the fact that
+these schools, long before the introduction of Education Acts, solved
+the problem of free education in a way satisfactory to all concerned.
+Happily, in many places these schools are still left under the old
+management, though nominally connected with School Boards. Under the
+works-school system, all the workers, whether married or single, agreed
+to pay a weekly sum, say, of twopence. This insured the education of
+the workman’s family, however large it might be. The unmarried suffered
+by this voluntary sacrifice on their part, but they did so at a time
+of life when they were least burdened; but the struggling married man
+reaped the full benefit when he most needed assistance. In the case
+of a workman with four children of school-age at one time, the almost
+nominal cost of a halfpenny per week paid for each child’s education.
+Small though this sum is, we have known schools self-supporting
+under the system for years, with no other aid than the government
+grant earned at the annual inspection, besides being able to supply
+night-school education in the winter months to the elderly youths of
+the place.
+
+Besides a school, it is one of the evidences of the improved state
+of mining communities that they usually have all the adjuncts of
+civilisation amongst them. There is the church, where the rich and
+the poor meet together, and in this connection it may be said that
+miners are as a class either very zealous religionists, or they go to
+the other extreme, and care for none of these things. The clergy of
+our day is largely recruited from mining villages; whilst the list of
+miners who have become home missionaries is a long one. Then there is
+the Temperance Society, either a Good Templars’ Lodge, or an offshoot
+from some of the other anti-alcohol societies; there is the Library of
+well-selected books, which are much read. There is the Savings-bank;
+the Reading-room, with a full supply of daily newspapers and other
+periodical literature; the String and Reed Bands; the Bowling Green,
+Football and Quoiting Field—the amusements of the miners of our day
+being all on a higher level than those of forty years ago, when
+cock-fighting and dog-fighting monopolised attention. Nor can we omit
+to mention that Sick and Funeral and other benevolent Societies are
+marked associations in every colliery village worthy of the name.
+Miners are indeed remarkably considerate to each other, when any
+special emergency occurs to call forth their active sympathy, being
+ever ready to subscribe for a brother-worker who has been unfortunate
+beyond the common lot.
+
+The prospect of the temporary nature of a mining village at the
+best, forms a strong temptation for nothing but necessary house
+accommodation, and that of the barest kind, being provided for workmen.
+The mining proprietor takes a lease of a mineral field, in the middle
+of a moor it may be, where no houses exist, and where everything has
+to be erected and provided. Accommodation for the workpeople has to
+be erected whether the field proves successful or not; and when the
+field is exhausted, he is in the power of the landlord whether he must
+remove the buildings and restore the ground, or leave them as they are.
+In either of these cases, the mineral lessee receives no compensation
+for his outlay, usually of many thousands of pounds. Hence, as we
+have stated, there is much temptation for the colliery lessee to erect
+flimsy houses in keeping with the possible shortness of their use. But
+colliery owners often rise superior to this evident temptation, and
+in spite of the possible unremunerative nature of the mineral field,
+excellent houses, with copious water-supply, are provided. Where this
+is done, naturally a better class of workers settle down; and when
+there is a fairly good prospect before the lessee, it is doubtless
+nothing but justice to himself and his workmen to afford the men every
+comfort.
+
+It is not too much to say that in the best collieries, the interests
+of the workmen are cared for in the most enlightened manner. Situated
+as are many colliery villages, beyond the oversight of regularly
+constituted municipalities, the whole onus of sanitary and other
+regulations falls upon the master, and he does not shirk his duty
+in such cases. Means of social enjoyment are provided—the physical,
+intellectual, moral, and spiritual well-being of the populace are cared
+for, and the colliers of to-day are in consequence an intelligent
+and respectable class of men. Crime is proportionately small amongst
+mining villages, and those who best know the miner are aware that he is
+possessed of much kindness of heart, and that in the prosecution of his
+dangerous calling he often exhibits true heroism.
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE HANNAY’S LOVE AFFAIR.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.—THE EDITOR’S SANCTUM—A DISCLOSURE.
+
+Alfred Roberton felt the smart of Nan’s summary dismissal more than he
+could have expected, or even than he owned to himself. His vanity was
+sorely hurt, and he lost a good deal of that audacious _insouciance_
+in his manner towards the opposite sex for which he had been before
+remarkable. He sent back Nan’s letters honourably enough, and set
+himself to forget her, as she had him. In order to effect this, he
+determined to supplant the old love by a new; and commenced paying
+marked attentions to Miss Curtiss, the twenty-thousand-pound young
+lady. His suit prospered, and the fair one capitulated; but the terms
+of the surrender were to be fixed by her friends. They made objections
+to the smallness and uncertainty of his income. On the other hand,
+Alfred’s solicitor found the young lady’s properties were so heavily
+mortgaged as only to leave a very small margin of income; and the
+result was the negotiations were broken off. Then, somehow or another,
+his society was no longer so eagerly sought after. A young violinist
+had taken the place he formerly held in Mrs Judson’s social circle,
+and when that gentleman was present, Alfred was cast entirely in the
+shade. But there was worse than that: he could no longer find a market
+for the remainder of his manuscripts. The publishers and editors who
+had patronised him before were desirous of seeing what course the
+_Olympic_ took with regard to him. It was very singular, they thought,
+that there never was any second article from his pen inserted in it.
+Some ill-speaking folks even went the length of hinting that he wasn’t
+‘Ariel’ at all; that the claim he made to that _nom de plume_ was a
+mere ruse to get into society, and get some of his trashy manuscripts
+palmed off on unsuspicious editors and publishers.
+
+He felt these things very grievous to bear: the only hope that buoyed
+him up was, that when the editor of the _Olympic_ returned to town, all
+would be put right. He would go straight to him and say: ‘I am Ariel!
+and here is a much superior sketch to the one I first sent you. Insert
+it, and I will not haggle with you about the amount of the honorarium,
+for I know you are a generous paymaster.’ Then all would again be well;
+he would resume his proper place in society, and his writings would be
+as eagerly sought after as ever.
+
+It was towards the end of March when Mr Hannay returned from his
+prolonged continental tour. Allowing him a day or two to get settled
+down, one blowy, blustering forenoon, Alfred sallied forth to call on
+him. He sent in his card, and in a few minutes was in the editor’s
+sanctum.
+
+‘Pray, be seated, sir,’ said Mr Hannay politely. ‘I—I do not remember
+your name, Mr Roberton.’
+
+‘Ah, I daresay not,’ he replied, smiling. ‘You’ll know me better by my
+_nom de plume_. I am Ariel!’
+
+Alfred was gratified to see the slight start which followed this
+important announcement, and he likewise became conscious that he was
+being inventoried by a pair of keen black eyes. He put a favourable
+interpretation on these indications of interest.
+
+‘And what then, Mr Ariel, can I have the pleasure of doing for you?’
+said Mr Hannay after a brief pause.
+
+‘Well, sir, I have an excellent little paper here,’ Alfred replied,
+producing a manuscript from his coat-pocket. ‘It is entitled “A Week’s
+Yachting on the Rhine.” It is very carefully written; and I can vouch
+for its accuracy in details, as it is extended from notes I made when
+yachting there with a friend.’
+
+‘Oh, very well, sir,’ said the editor, laying the paper aside. ‘I’ll
+take a look at it. But I can hold out hardly the least hope of being
+able to accept it. We are literally deluged with that sort of matter,
+and can’t find room for one in fifty of the manuscripts that are sent
+us.—At anyrate,’ he added, laughing, ‘it would require to be a little
+better than your “Ramble in Kirkcudbright.”’
+
+What could all this mean? thought the bewildered Alfred. Was the editor
+making a fool of him? At the very suggestion, he flushed red, and it
+was with an effort he was able to stammer forth: ‘And pray, sir, if the
+article was so worthless, why did you accept it? And why did you send
+me so handsome an honorarium?’
+
+The editor looked both surprised and puzzled. Instead of replying to
+the question, he asked one: ‘Are you the gentleman who is engaged to be
+married to Miss Anne Porteous?’
+
+‘No!—Yes! That is to say, I was engaged, but am not so now.’
+
+‘Indeed! And how is that?’ said the editor, with an air of interest.
+
+‘Well, you see,’ said Alfred, who had now regained his self-possession,
+‘my friends advised me to break off the connection. You know, between
+ourselves, it wouldn’t do for a literary man of any standing to marry a
+common innkeeper’s daughter; although I must say the girl herself was
+well enough, and might have passed muster after a little training.’
+
+The editor’s eyes became blacker, keener, and sharper—they seemed
+almost to flash fire as he said; ‘You would know what she was, I
+suppose, when you sought her love.—Yes? Then what right had you to
+avail yourself of that as an excuse for casting her off? It’s about the
+most unmanly thing I ever’——
+
+‘Hold, hold!’ cried Alfred, who saw he had gone on the wrong tack for
+conciliating the editor’s favour. ‘You misunderstand the matter. My
+friends wanted me to break off the marriage; but I never proposed such
+a thing to the young lady. I meant to marry her in two or three years
+honourably. But she wrote to me; and I went down to see her—and we had
+a quarrel, and she broke off the engagement herself—upon my honour, she
+did!’
+
+The editor’s features relaxed their tension; there was almost the
+suggestion of a smile lurking in the corners of his mouth. ‘Well, Mr
+Roberton, I am glad you have cleared your character so well.—You are
+anxious to know why I accepted your first paper. This, I think, will
+explain it,’ he added, unlocking a private drawer and handing him a
+manuscript.
+
+Alfred looked at it with a stupefied air. Here were a dozen sheets of
+foolscap covered with Nan’s neat lady-like writing, and signed Ariel;
+reply to be addressed, Ariel, Glenluce post-office.—To lie till called
+for.
+
+He felt as if he were listening to a voice in a dream, as the editor
+went on to say: ‘You see, sir, I heard that Nan was going to be married
+to a young student she had met in Brussels. Now, students, as a rule,
+are not over-burdened with ready cash; and when I got the manuscript
+in her handwriting, I readily came to the conclusion that it was a
+production of her lover’s, and that she had copied it out in her own
+handwriting, thinking that, for old acquaintance’ sake, I would stretch
+a point, and give it admission to our pages, and pay handsomely for it.
+This I did; for I thought that, as her father would be certain to be
+opposed to the match, a little ready cash would be useful to her and
+her lover in taking up house. In fact, I may say I sent the little sum
+as a marriage present! But I cannot understand how you are not aware of
+all this.’
+
+The whole truth was now made plain to the unfortunate lover. He
+remembered now her snatching the letter from his hand and running
+up-stairs with it. He remembered now her red and sleepy-looking eyes
+the next morning. He knew now the cause—the devoted girl had sat up all
+night copying his manuscript, so that it might have the better chance
+of acceptance! How carefully she had kept the knowledge to herself of
+the great service she had done him, and that in spite of his foolish
+gasconading talk! To her and her alone he owed his little brief season
+of popularity and success: and that popularity and success was the
+cause of his looking down on her! Oh, what a blinded fool he had
+been—blinded by his own selfish vanity!
+
+He mumbled a few words of explanation to the editor, and left the
+office a sadder and, it is to be hoped, a wiser man. He thought of
+flying to Nan, throwing himself at her feet, and entreating her
+forgiveness and love. But remembering the proud white face, the
+outstretched arm pointing to the door, and the clear emphatic ‘Go!’
+twice repeated, he shook his head sadly, and muttered, ‘Too late—too
+late.’ It may be said here that he gave up literature for good and all,
+obtained a situation as a surgeon in an emigrant ship, fell in love
+with a lady-patient during the voyage, married her on their arrival at
+Sydney, and starting the practice of his profession, settled down there.
+
+As for the editor of the _Olympic_, he went down as usual the following
+September to Lochenbreck, repeated a question he had asked before, and
+got a different reply. Nan is now his wife.
+
+
+
+
+THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.
+
+
+The late meeting of the British Association at Birmingham has proved
+a success with regard both to the attendance of members and to the
+importance of the various papers read in the several sections. Next
+year the Association will meet at Manchester, and the year after at
+Bath. The suggestion from Sydney, that the Association should in 1888
+visit New South Wales and hold its meeting there in the January of that
+year, cannot, on account of many difficulties which are foreseen, be
+accepted in its entirety. But it is intended that about fifty members
+shall form a representative delegation to our Australian colony, their
+expenses being liberally defrayed by the government of New South Wales.
+It is very pleasing to record this little sign of the good-fellowship
+which exists between far-off Australia and the mother-country.
+
+We expressed a hope some months ago that an institution of a permanent
+nature might grow out of the splendid Indian and Colonial Exhibition at
+South Kensington, which in a few days will close its prosperous career.
+It has now been proposed by the Prince of Wales that the Jubilee of
+Queen Victoria’s reign shall be commemorated by an Institute which
+should represent the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce of Her Majesty’s
+Colonial and Indian Empire, and which should be at once a Museum, an
+Exhibition, and the proper locality for the discussion of Colonial and
+Indian subjects.
+
+Very little is heard now of tempered or toughened glass for domestic
+purposes, although, a year or two back, such glass was much advertised
+and its praises constantly sung. We understand that the reason why it
+has at present disappeared from public notice is that its efficiency
+does not last. When fresh from the factory, it can be dropped from
+a height on to the floor and knocked about with impunity. But some
+gradual and not understood change occurs in its constitution, for
+after a short time it will fly to pieces without any apparent cause.
+It is said, too, that unscrupulous traders who have a stock of the
+faulty material are selling it as ordinary glass. Those, therefore,
+who experience unaccountable breakages, will know to what cause to
+attribute them. A really unbreakable glass would be such a boon, that
+it is to be hoped that further experiment will soon show how it can be
+manufactured.
+
+From some recent experiments in New York, it would seem that the danger
+of using dynamite as a charge for explosive projectiles has been
+obviated. The weapon used was a four and a half inch rifled gun, with
+a charge of three and a quarter pounds of gunpowder, the experimental
+shells holding each more than one pound of dynamite. To avoid any
+risk from concussion, and premature explosion of the shell in the
+bore of the gun, the cartridge and shell were separated by wads made
+of asbestos. Twenty-seven shells were fired with such safety to the
+gunners, that the extraordinary precautions observed during the first
+rounds were ignored during the later ones.
+
+The boat which the other day twice crossed the Channel between Dover
+and Calais affords an example of the rapid progress which has lately
+been made in the science of electricity. This little craft, which
+is only thirty-seven feet in length, glided over the water with no
+visible means of propulsion. The voyage was an experimental one, and
+was designed to show that this plan of electrical propulsion was as
+practicable on the sea as before it had been proved to be on inland
+waters. Such a boat could, say her promoters, be carried hanging to
+the davits of a ship, and be ready for immediate use. The required
+electrical current is derived from accumulators, or secondary
+batteries, stored and acting as ballast beneath the deck floor of
+the little vessel. These require to be charged by a dynamo machine
+at intervals, and such a charge this Channel trip amply proves will
+suffice for a run of between forty and fifty miles. Supposing that the
+system were adopted for torpedo vessels, it is obvious that this amount
+of storage capacity would be far more than sufficient for ordinary
+needs.
+
+Another vessel which obtains its motive-power from a very different
+source, but which must also be looked upon as an experimental boat,
+has been invented and built by Messrs Secor of Brooklyn. Unlike the
+electric boat, it possesses no screw propeller or other moving parts.
+But it is furnished on each side with open ports below the water-level,
+which are in communication with an ‘exploding chamber.’ This chamber is
+constructed of steel, and is capable of sustaining an enormous internal
+pressure. It is filled with charges of petroleum vapour and air under
+pressure, and this explosive mixture is ignited by electricity. It
+will therefore be seen that the propelling apparatus of this boat may
+be compared to a gas-engine; but the explosions, which occur several
+times in a minute, instead of forcing forward a piston to act upon a
+fly-wheel, impinge upon the water at the stern of the vessel, and so
+push the boat forward. Should this method of driving a vessel through
+the water prove efficient, it will certainly be economical, for little
+more than half a barrel of petroleum will suffice for a twenty-four
+hours’ run.
+
+Another invention from Brooklyn is of far greater importance than
+the one just recorded, for it is of a life-saving character, and is
+designed to prevent those collisions at sea which seem to be so greatly
+on the increase. It consists of a marine brake, and is the contrivance
+of Mr John M‘Adams. The experimental vessel, _The Florence_, which
+is fitted with the brake, has been reported upon officially, and the
+behaviour of the apparatus is highly commended. The brake consists
+of two wings made of steel, one on each side of the vessel and below
+water-level. These have the appearance of flat boards about eight feet
+square, hinged to the stern-post, and which when not in action fold
+forwards, secured by hidden chains, close to and touching the vessel’s
+sides. In case of danger of collision, the touch of a button by the
+captain on the bridge will loosen these chains, and cause some springs
+to act upon the wings, so that they fly out at right angles to the
+sides of the ship. In this position they are held by the now lengthened
+chains, and form an obstacle to the water, which checks the motion of
+the vessel immediately, even if the engines continue to work. If the
+engines are stopped at the moment the brake is put into action, the
+ship is brought to a standstill in twenty-two seconds. If, again, the
+engine be stopped and reversed at the moment of working the brake, the
+vessel commences to go astern in the remarkably short space of twelve
+seconds. It will be seen from these results that the invention gives
+every promise of being of great use. Besides being efficient, it is
+simple in character, and, from its nature, cannot be a very expensive
+additional fitting to a ship.
+
+The lamentable accident at the Crarae Quarries, by which seven persons
+lost their lives, is happily a most unusual one, although in character
+it is closely allied with those fatalities from ‘choke-damp’ by
+which so many poor colliers have been killed. The explosion of gas
+underground, or of gunpowder above ground, leads to the evolution of
+a quantity of carbonic acid gas, or, to call it by its proper name,
+carbon dioxide, the principal product of combustion in either case. In
+the workings of a mine, this gas fills every available space, and has
+no outlet. In the quarry, on the occasion referred to, much the same
+condition of affairs existed, for there was no wind to carry off the
+deadly vapour, and its natural heaviness made it cling to the place of
+its creation. The surviving relatives of the victims of this accident
+have our heartfelt sympathy. They will be comforted by knowing that
+death under such conditions is supposed to be painless. It is a sending
+to sleep, but a sleep, unfortunately, from which there is no awakening
+in this world.
+
+The little town of East Moulsey is now lighted, so far as its public
+lamps are concerned, by paraffin instead of gas, as heretofore. The
+reason of this apparent retrogression is found in the excessive demands
+of the Gas Company, who required the local board to pay at the rate of
+four guineas per annum for each lamp. This the local board refused to
+do, and provided the district under their care with paraffin lamps.
+They are rewarded for their pluck by finding that the cost of the
+oil-lamps is but one half of the charge demanded by the Gas Company,
+and by hearing the generally expressed opinion of the people that the
+place had never before been so well lighted.
+
+The recent earthquakes, which have caused such fearful havoc and loss
+of life both in Southern Europe and in America, remind us that our
+knowledge of the causes of such terrible phenomena is very meagre, and
+that science has not yet discovered any means by which their occurrence
+may be predicted. But, in spite of these admitted facts, there are
+not wanting on occasions of earthquake self-styled prophets, who will
+boldly declare what the morrow will bring forth. Such mischievous
+charlatans do much harm, for they terrify the ignorant at a time when
+men’s nerves have been already unstrung by recent calamities. In
+the year 1750, when London felt a sharp earthquake shock, a prophet
+announced the immediate coming of the judgment day. Another predicted
+a terrible earthquake for a certain night, with the result that the
+people encamped in thousands in Hyde Park. Coming nearer to present
+times, we may note the destructive earthquake in 1881 in the island
+of Ischia. Here, again, there was a prophecy that there would not be
+another visitation of the kind for eighty years. But only two years
+after this the beautiful island was shaken to its foundations, and many
+lives were lost. During the late disaster at Charleston, a prediction
+was made that upon the 29th of September a fearful catastrophe was to
+take place. The originator of this mischievous statement should be
+severely punished.
+
+We have lately received from Messrs Burton Brothers of Dunedin,
+New Zealand, a set of most interesting photographs, taken in the
+neighbourhood of Tarawera and Rotomahana, immediately after the late
+volcanic eruption. Were we not aware of the terrible facts, we should
+suppose that these were winter scenes, for the trees are stripped of
+their foliage, and everything is covered with a white ash, which in the
+photographs looks likes snow. The ruins of M‘Rae’s hotel at Wairoa, of
+which there are front and back views, exhibit such a mass of broken
+masonry and twisted iron-work, that one can hardly believe that the
+place has not been bombarded.
+
+We are glad to learn, from the _New Zealand Herald_, that the layer of
+ashes which covers so many miles of the country, will not, as was at
+first feared, choke and kill every blade of grass, but will probably in
+time act as a valuable fertilising agent. Already the grass is in many
+places growing up through the dust; but the ash has been submitted to
+experiment, and is found to be really nourishing to plants grown in it.
+Mr Pond, a resident analytical chemist, obtained several samples of the
+volcanic dust, and sowed in it grass and clover seeds, and kept them
+moistened with distilled water. In each case, we are told, the seedling
+plants have come up well and are growing vigorously; it is therefore
+hoped that those districts which have received only a light covering of
+this dreaded dust will find that the visitation will in the end prove
+beneficial to their crops.
+
+As we stated last month, the armour-plated ship _Resistance_ has
+lately formed a target for various experiments with different types
+of guns. The unfortunate old ship is now being subjected to attacks
+by torpedoes, the object being to determine the nearness at which one
+of those submarine mines can be exploded without injury to a vessel
+when protected by wire-netting. It is proved that if the defensive
+netting is supported on booms thirty feet from the ship, it forms
+a good protection from torpedoes, and that though a torpedo should
+explode on touching the netting, as it will do if fitted with the new
+form of pistol trigger, which is very sensitive, the explosion will
+do no great harm. The distance of the netting from the ship will be
+gradually reduced until the _Resistance_ can resist no longer, and must
+be destroyed.
+
+A strange sight was lately witnessed at Salzburg, in the shape of
+a vast procession of butterflies, which passed over the city in a
+south-westerly direction. They seemed to fly in groups, and while
+preserving one line of direction in flight, the groups revolved round
+that line. This aërial insect army must have numbered millions of
+individual butterflies. From those which fell to the ground, it was
+seen that they were of the kind known as willow-spinners.
+
+Photographic tourists—and their name now is legion—will all admit
+that their greatest drawback is represented by the weight of the
+glass plates which they must carry from place to place in addition to
+their other apparatus. This difficulty has just been obviated by the
+introduction of a material as a support for the photographic image
+which is as light as paper, so that in the compass of an ordinary
+two-shilling railway novel, the tourist can carry with him the
+sensitised material for a couple of hundred pictures. This material
+is known as Woodbury tissue, and was the last invention of the late
+eminent experimenter who gave his name to the beautiful Woodburytype
+process of photography. His successors have brought the tissue to
+marketable perfection, and produce a material as translucent as
+glass and one-twentieth part of its weight. The tissue is used in a
+singularly ingenious form of dark slide or double back, which can be
+readily adjusted to existing forms of cameras.
+
+In the _Camera_ magazine, a very curious phenomenon in connection
+with photography is recorded by the person who observed it. He took a
+portrait of a child apparently in full health and with a clear skin.
+The negative picture showed the face to be thickly covered with an
+eruption. Three days afterwards, the child was covered with spots due
+to prickly heat. ‘The camera had seen and photographed the eruption
+three days before it was visible to the eye.’ Another case of a
+somewhat similar kind is also recorded where a child showed spots on
+his portrait which were invisible on his face a fortnight previous to
+an attack of smallpox. It is suggested that these cases might point to
+a new method of medical diagnosis.
+
+The Severn tunnel, one of the greatest engineering undertakings of
+modern times, is at last finished, and will be shortly open for
+passenger traffic, as it has been some weeks for the conveyance of
+goods. The total cost of this great work is estimated at two millions
+sterling. The cost has been greatly augmented by the unlooked-for
+difficulties which have cropped up during the progress of the works.
+Commencing in 1873, the contractor had made steady progress for the
+following six years, when a land spring was accidentally tapped,
+and the partially constructed tunnel was flooded. Again, in 1881 the
+seawater found out a weak place on the Gloucestershire side of the
+works, and poured in in torrents. Once more, in 1883 the old land
+spring again filled the works with water, which had to be pumped out;
+and finally, about the same time, a tidal wave brought about a great
+amount of destruction to the works; so we may look upon the completed
+tunnel not only as a great monument of engineering skill, but as
+an example of unusual difficulties well grappled with, and finally
+overcome.
+
+
+
+
+OCCASIONAL NOTES.
+
+
+PHARAOH’S HOUSE.
+
+It is but a month or two ago that people of an archæological turn of
+mind were delighted with the tidings sent home by the Egypt Exploration
+Fund of the discovery of Pharaoh’s House in Tahpanhes. An account of
+the wonderful old ruin and its reliques of a past civilisation has
+been already given; but it may interest many to know that a number of
+antiquities have been collected and sent home, and have recently been
+on view at the Archæological Institute at Oxford Mansion. It will be
+remembered that the ruins were as much those of a military fortress as
+of a royal residence, and the objects recovered are almost entirely
+those which would be likely to be found in either of two such places.
+
+The first things of interest are the foundation deposits, from under
+the four corners of the castle, which consist of small vessels, little
+tablets engraved with the name and titles of the royal founder,
+Psammetichus I., specimens of ore, &c. The chief articles of jewelry
+are earrings, rings, amulets, and engraved stones bearing traces of
+Greek workmanship, having been probably manufactured by Greek jewellers
+in the town of Tahpanhes, or Daphnæ. Numbers of small weights have been
+turned up while digging among the ruins, which it is thought were for
+weighing the gold and precious stones previous to purchase.
+
+Rome, too, has left her mark among the charred remains of this ancient
+stronghold, and some rings with names inscribed upon them, and ten gems
+of good Roman work, prove an intercourse with that nation. There is
+a little silver shrine case in which is a beautiful statuette of the
+Egyptian war-god, Mentu. Possibly, it may have once been a talisman
+belonging to Pharaoh Hophra. A silver ram’s head and gold handle
+complete the list of the most important specimens of jewelry.
+
+Among the domestic treasures are a long knife, fourteen inches long
+and quite flat; this comes from Pharaoh’s kitchen; so also do the
+small frying-pans, and some bowls, bottles, dishes, plates and cups,
+all of which date from B.C. 550, and were probably used daily by the
+royal household. An old brasier and some ring-stands have also been
+brought home. From the butler’s pantry come amphoræ stoppers, stamped
+with the cartouches of Psammetichus I., Necho, Psammetichus II., and
+Aahmes. These were clay stoppers, sealed by the inspector, and then
+plastered over and stamped with the royal oval. Ten specimens of these
+Mr Petrie has sent home. Arrow-heads, a sword-handle and part of the
+blade, a horse’s bit of twisted pattern, some spikes from the top of
+a Sardinian mercenary’s helmet, knives and lances, and some fragments
+of scale-armour, show that the old castle had once been a military
+stronghold.
+
+This is but an outline, showing the kind of specimens found among the
+ruins of El Kasr el Bint el Yahudî (the Castle of the Jew’s Daughter),
+and serve to add to the innumerable proofs—if proof were needed—of the
+advanced civilisation of the ancient Egyptians. It is believed that
+those antiquities will eventually be divided between the Museum at
+Boulak (Cairo), the British Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston,
+U.S., and several of the provincial museums of Great Britain.
+
+
+THE EMIGRANTS’ INFORMATION OFFICE.
+
+It is satisfactory to know that government has at last opened an
+office for the dissemination of authentic information to intending
+emigrants. The emigration schemes before the country are legion; but
+those who apply here will be safe to receive information as to the
+British colony to which they propose to emigrate, which does not spring
+from any interested motive. At the same time it is always safe for
+intending settlers to supplement any knowledge received in this way by
+authoritative handbooks, books of travel, and the experiences of former
+settlers. Now that there is a prospect of the Indian and Colonial
+Exhibition becoming a permanent institution in our midst, we will be
+kept pretty well informed as to the position and prospects of our
+different colonies. The premises of the Emigrants’ Information Office
+are at 31 Broadway, Westminster, London, S.W. The office will be open
+every day from twelve noon to eight P.M., except on Wednesdays, when
+it will be open from ten A.M. to one P.M. The circulars issued by the
+office will be sent to the secretaries of any societies or institutions
+who will send in their addresses to the chief clerk.
+
+
+INCREASED CONSUMPTION OF BRITISH-COLONIAL TEAS.
+
+In a paper read by Mr L. J. Shand of the Ceylon Court at the Colonial
+and Indian Exhibition, the present position of the Indian tea-trade was
+reviewed. British-colonial teas, which in 1865 formed but three per
+cent. of the total quantity consumed in the United Kingdom, amounted
+to sixteen per cent. in 1875, and to thirty-three per cent. in 1885.
+India had two hundred and fifty thousand acres under tea-cultivation,
+and produced seventy million pounds of tea; the capital invested in
+the industry was sixteen million pounds; and a quarter of a million
+of Her Majesty’s subjects, who indirectly contributed to the income
+tax of Great Britain, were engaged in it. The tea-plant was introduced
+to Ceylon from China about the year 1842; but it was not till coffee
+was stricken by disease that attention was generally directed to the
+cultivation of tea in Ceylon. In 1873, a small parcel of twenty-three
+pounds of tea was exported from Ceylon; this year, nine million
+pounds would be exported, and, estimating the acreage now planted with
+tea, the exports in 1890 would be forty million pounds. Proceeding to
+consider why British people should drink British-colonial teas, Mr
+Shand said that these teas came into the London market pure; there
+was no recorded evidence of adulteration having been discovered. The
+adulteration of China tea, on the other hand, had been the subject of
+several volumes and of special legislation. The purity of Indian and
+Ceylon teas made them more sensitive than the ordinary China mixture.
+It was not necessary to put such large quantities into the teapot, but
+it was all the more necessary that the water should be boiling and that
+the tea should not be allowed to stand too long. Disappointment should
+not be felt because the liquor was not black; that was in consequence
+of the tea being quite pure and unmixed with blacklead or indigo. If
+Indian and Ceylon teas were fairly tried and carefully treated, they
+would be found more economical than China teas.
+
+
+
+
+IF THIS WERE SO.
+
+
+    O Love, if I could see you standing here,
+      I, to whom the memory of a scene—
+    This lane, tree-shadowed, with the summer’s light
+      Falling in golden showers, the boughs between,
+    Upon your upturned face—shines out as clear,
+    Against the background dark of many a year,
+    As yonder solitary starlet bright
+    Gleams on the storm-clad bosom of the night.
+
+    If this were so—if you should come to me
+      With your calm, angel face, framed in with gold,
+    And lay your hand in mine as long ago
+      You laid it coldly, would the love untold
+    Hidden within my heart, set my lips free
+    To speak of it and know the certainty
+    Of love crowned or rejected—yes or no?
+    O Love, I could not speak if this were so.
+
+    But if you came to meet me in the lane
+      With footsteps swifter than you used of yore—
+    And if your eyes grew brighter, dear, as though
+      They gladdened at my coming back once more—
+    If, when I held your little hand again,
+    Your calmness grew less still, then not in vain
+    My heart would strive to speak, for it would know
+    What words to utter, Love, if this were so!
+
+            KATE MELLERSH.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Conductor of CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL begs to direct the attention of
+CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice:
+
+  _1st._ All communications should be addressed to the ‘Editor, 339
+    High Street, Edinburgh.’
+
+  _2d._ For its return in case of ineligibility, postage-stamps should
+    accompany every manuscript.
+
+  _3d._ To secure their safe return if ineligible, ALL MANUSCRIPTS,
+    whether accompanied by a letter of advice or otherwise, _should
+    have the writer’s Name and Address written upon them_ IN FULL.
+
+  _4th._ Offerings of Verse should invariably be accompanied by a
+    stamped and directed envelope.
+
+_If the above rules are complied with, the Editor will do his best to
+insure the safe return of ineligible papers._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+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 693: Villiars to Villiers—“down Villiers Street”.]
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75329 ***
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+      Chambers’s Journal, October 30, 1886 | Project Gutenberg
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75329 ***</div>
+<h1>CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL<br>
+OF<br>
+POPULAR<br>
+LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.</h1>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<a href="#THE_MATTERHORN">THE MATTERHORN, AND ITS VICTIMS.</a><br>
+<a href="#BY_ORDER_OF_THE_LEAGUE">BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.</a><br>
+<a href="#PITMEN_PAST_AND_PRESENT">PITMEN, PAST AND PRESENT.</a><br>
+<a href="#GEORGE_HANNAYS_LOVE_AFFAIR">GEORGE HANNAY’S LOVE AFFAIR.</a><br>
+<a href="#THE_MONTH_SCIENCE_AND_ARTS">THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.</a><br>
+<a href="#OCCASIONAL_NOTES">OCCASIONAL NOTES.</a><br>
+<a href="#IF_THIS_WERE_SO">IF THIS WERE SO.</a><br>
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_689">{689}</span></p>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter" id="header" style="max-width: 37.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/header.jpg"  alt="Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science,
+and Art. Fifth Series. Established by William and Robert Chambers, 1832. Conducted by R. Chambers (Secundus).">
+</div>
+
+<hr class="full">
+<div class="center">
+<div class="header">
+<p class="floatl"><span class="smcap">No. 148.—Vol. III.</span></p>
+<p class="floatr"><span class="smcap">Price</span> 1½<em>d.</em></p>
+<p class="floatc">SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1886.</p>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+
+<div class="chapter"><h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_MATTERHORN">THE MATTERHORN,
+AND ITS VICTIMS.</h2></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Matterhorn, or Mont Cervin, a peak of
+the Pennine Alps, fourteen thousand seven hundred
+and eighty feet high, is unique amongst
+the mountains of the Alps, for elsewhere throughout
+their length and breadth there is no single
+peak that approaches to it in massive grandeur
+of shape. Standing alone, apart from the neighbouring
+peaks, holding itself proudly aloof, as
+it were, from the common herd, it is truly a
+monarch among mountains. To look upon it
+is to realise at once the feeling of awe and
+reverence with which, even to this day, the
+peasants of the valley regard it—a feeling which
+in former years had perhaps more to do with
+its reputed inaccessibility than anything else;
+whilst other peaks whose ascent is now thought
+to be more difficult, were falling one by one
+before the early pioneers of the Alpine Club.
+In that time—with very few exceptions—even
+the boldest hunters of Zermatt and the Val
+Tournanche shrank from attempting the ascent,
+for time-honoured legends said that the Matterhorn
+was haunted, that evil spirits made it their
+trysting-place; and when the storm raged high,
+and the lightning played about its crags, danced
+and shrieked around it in unholy glee. Then,
+too, the Matterhorn has a history of its own,
+such as no other mountain save Mont Blanc
+possesses.</p>
+
+<p>Every one who has read Mr Whymper’s
+<i>Scrambles amongst the Alps</i>—a book which has
+probably done more to stimulate the love of
+climbing than any written before or since—knows
+how he alone—when other mountaineers tried
+and failed, coming back always with the same
+tale, that the summit was inaccessible—persisted
+that it could be reached; and how, though
+driven back many and many a time, he refused
+to accept defeat, till at length, after an expenditure
+of time and money which some would
+deem completely thrown away in such a cause,
+his indomitable perseverance met with its due
+reward. As Mr Whymper’s adventures in connection
+with the ascent of the Matterhorn have
+been already related in this <i>Journal</i> under the
+title ‘Ascent of the Matterhorn,’ January 10, 1880,
+we need only refer to them here in so far as
+is necessary for the sequence of the narrative.</p>
+
+<p>There were several attempts made to ascend the
+Matterhorn previous to 1858; but the first known
+were those of the four Val Tournanche guides—Jean
+Antoine Carrel, J. J. Carrel, Victor Carrel,
+Gabriel Maquignaz, with the Abbé Gorret, in that
+and in the following year. These attempts were
+all made on the Italian side, from Breuil; and
+it does not appear that at any time a greater
+height than twelve thousand six hundred and
+fifty feet was attained. Very little definite information,
+however, has ever been obtainable on the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>The next attempt of which we have record
+was a remarkable one, for it was made by three
+brothers, the Messrs Parker of Liverpool, <i>and
+without guides</i>. The attempt was made in 1860
+from Zermatt, and these daring climbers attacked
+the eastern face, looked upon at that time as
+quite beyond the powers of any human being to
+climb. They succeeded in ascending to a height of
+some twelve thousand feet, and were then driven
+back by bad weather. In the same year, another
+attempt was made from Breuil by Professor
+Tyndall and Mr Vaughan Hawkins, with the
+guides J. J. Carrel and Bennen; but they did
+not make much advance upon what had been
+done during the attempts of the Val Tournanche
+guides; and it is doubtful if a greater height
+than thirteen thousand feet was reached.</p>
+
+<p>In 1861, the Messrs Parker tried again, but
+did not succeed in getting much higher than
+they did in the previous year; while on the
+Italian side, the two Carrels, J. A. and J. J.,
+made another attempt, which was unsuccessful.</p>
+
+<p>Then began the attempts of Mr Whymper,
+and from that moment until the last successful
+expedition, with two exceptions, his name was
+associated with all the attempts that were made
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_690">{690}</span>upon the mountain. The two exceptions were
+those of Mr T. S. Kennedy and of Professor
+Tyndall in 1862. The first was unique, as having
+been made in the winter—on the 7th of January.
+Mr Kennedy seems to have thought that the
+ascent might prove practicable in winter, if not
+in summer; but his experience was a severe
+one. A fierce wind, bitter cold, and a superabundance
+of snow, prevented his getting very
+far; and, like all the rest, he returned completely
+discomfited. The attempt of Professor
+Tyndall on the Italian side, in July of that year,
+was perhaps the nearest to success of any that
+had yet been made. He had two celebrated
+Swiss guides with him, Bennen and Walter;
+and he also took, but only as porters, three Val
+Tournanche men, of whom J. A. Carrel was
+one. This expedition was only stopped when
+within eight hundred feet of the top. Professor
+Tyndall came back so deeply impressed with the
+difficulties surrounding the ascent, that he made
+no effort to renew his attempt. In fact, he does
+not appear to have gone on the mountain again
+till he ascended it in 1868, three years after
+the first ascent had been made. Professor
+Tyndall’s want of success appears in great
+measure to have been due to the jealousy existing
+between the guides of the two rival nationalities,
+Swiss and Italian.</p>
+
+<p>The first attempt by Mr Whymper was made
+from Breuil on the 29th of August 1861, the same
+day as the attempt by the two Carrels. Mr
+Whymper was accompanied by an Oberland
+guide, who proved a somewhat inefficient companion;
+and they failed to get higher than the
+‘Chimney,’ twelve thousand six hundred and
+fifty feet above the sea-level. He made other
+five attempts in 1862, one in 1863, and two in
+1865. In the ninth and last, he was successful.</p>
+
+<p>In Mr Whymper’s ninth and successful attempt
+the united party consisted of Lord Francis
+Douglas, Mr Hudson, Mr Hadow—a friend of
+Mr Hudson’s—and the guides Michel Croz and
+the two Taugwalders, father and son. They
+started from Zermatt on July 13, 1865, and
+camped out above the Hörnli ridge. The weather
+was fine and with everything in their favour,
+next day, they climbed with ease the apparently
+inaccessible precipices, and reached the actual
+summit at 1.40 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span></p>
+
+<p>In the account of the expedition which Mr
+Whymper has given to the world, he graphically
+describes the wild delight which they all felt
+at a success so much beyond their hopes, and
+how for a full hour they sat drinking-in the
+sweets of victory before preparing to descend.
+It is almost needless to re-tell a story which we
+have previously related, and which is so well
+known as the terrible tragedy which took place
+during the descent—how Mr Hadow slipped,
+struck Croz from his steps, and dragged down
+Mr Hudson and Lord Francis Douglas; how
+the rope snapped midway between Lord Francis
+Douglas and old Taugwalder; and how Mr
+Whymper and the two Taugwalders watched,
+horrified, whilst their unfortunate companions
+slid rapidly downwards, spreading out their hands
+in a vain endeavour to save themselves, till they
+finally disappeared over the edge of the precipice,
+falling a distance of four thousand feet on to the
+glacier below! The bodies of Messrs Hudson,
+Hadow, and Croz were subsequently recovered,
+and now lie buried in the graveyard of the
+Zermatt village church; but of Lord Francis
+Douglas, nothing could be seen. Beyond a boot,
+a pair of gloves, and the torn and bloodstained
+sleeve of a coat, no trace of him has ever since
+been found. What became of his body is to
+this day a mystery.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange how the memory of this the most
+dramatic—if it may be so termed—of all the
+accidents which have ever happened in the
+Alps is still indelibly impressed on the minds
+of climbers, guides, and amateurs alike. It is
+the commonest thing to hear it discussed, and
+the theories put forward as to the cause of the
+rope giving way where it did are various and
+ingenious. Unfortunately for the reputation
+of old Taugwalder, the report of the official
+investigation held by the local authorities after
+the accident has never to this day been made
+public. As a consequence, old Taugwalder has
+suffered irretrievably from a report mischievously
+circulated by his fellow-villagers to the effect,
+that at the moment of the slip, he sacrificed
+his companions to save himself, by severing the
+rope! And in spite of Mr Whymper’s assertions
+that the thing was impossible, there are some
+who still persist in maintaining that he cut it.
+The suspicion under which he laboured so
+preyed upon his spirits that he quitted the scene,
+and for many years never returned to his native
+village. The younger Taugwalder became one of
+the leading guides of the valley.</p>
+
+<p>Thrice again has the Matterhorn been the scene
+of death in a terrible form. In 1879, the mountain
+claimed two more victims. In the one case,
+an American, Dr Moseley, disregarding the most
+ordinary precautions, slipped and perished horribly,
+falling a height of some two thousand
+feet, on to some rocks a little way down the
+Furggen Glacier. Dr Moseley, accompanied by
+Mr Craven and the well-known Oberland guides,
+Christian Inäbnit and Peter Rubi, left Zermatt
+on the night of August 13, with the intention
+of making a one-day ascent of the Matterhorn.
+Both gentlemen were members of the
+Alpine Club, and mountaineers of considerable
+experience. The summit was reached successfully
+at nine o’clock on the morning of the
+14th; and after a short halt, the descent was
+commenced. Dr Moseley, who was a skilful rock-climber,
+and possessed of great confidence in his
+own climbing powers, soon after passing the most
+difficult bit of the mountain, complained that
+the rope was a considerable hindrance; and notwithstanding
+the remonstrances of Mr Craven
+and the guides, insisted on detaching himself
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_691">{691}</span>from the other members of the party. At some
+little distance from the old hut, the party
+had to cross a projecting ledge of smooth rock.
+Rubi crossed first, and planted his axe so as
+to give Dr Moseley a firm foothold; but Dr
+Moseley, declining the proffered assistance, placed
+his hand upon the rock and endeavoured to
+vault over it. In an instant, his foot slipped,
+his axe flew out of his hand, and he fell on
+to some snow beneath, down which he commenced
+to slide on his back. The snow was
+frozen, and he dropped on to some rocks below.
+With a desperate effort, he turned himself round
+and tried to grasp the rocks with his hands;
+but the impetus attained was too great, and he
+fell from rock to rock till lost to his companions’
+sight. The body was subsequently recovered;
+and from the terrible nature of the fall, death
+must have ensued long before the bottom was
+reached.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a case of a valuable life absolutely
+thrown away, for, had Dr Moseley remained
+on the rope, the accident would never have
+happened. It was the same over-confidence that
+cost the life of the Rev. J. M. Elliott on the
+Schreckhorn, and it is to be feared will cost
+the lives of others yet, if the warning conveyed
+by the fall of these two accomplished mountaineers
+continues to be disregarded. There was
+another circumstance, too, which had a bearing
+on the accident, and which is an additional
+proof of a want of carefulness on the part of
+the unfortunate man—his boots were found,
+on examination, to be almost entirely devoid
+of nails, and were, therefore, practically useless
+for mountaineering purposes.</p>
+
+<p>In the other case, a death occurred under circumstances
+which are happily without a parallel
+in the annals of mountaineering. Two members
+of the Basle section of the Swiss Alpine Club—a
+body in no way connected with our own Alpine
+Club—engaged three guides—J. M. Lochmatter
+and Joseph Brantschen, both of St Nicolas, and
+P. Beytrison of Evolena—to take them over the
+Matterhorn from Breuil to Zermatt. They left
+the first-named place on the morning of August
+12, and in the afternoon reached the hut which
+the Italian Alpine Club have built at an elevation
+of some thirteen thousand feet, amidst the
+wildest crags of the Matterhorn, intending to
+sleep there, and cross the mountain to Zermatt
+in the course of the following day. During the
+night, the guide Brantschen was taken ill, and
+by morning had become so weak as to be quite
+unable to move. Now, under these circumstances,
+it might have been supposed that Brantschen
+would have been the first consideration; but
+the two Swiss gentlemen thought otherwise.
+Instead of at once abandoning the expedition,
+and sending down for help to Breuil, after a brief
+consultation they announced to Lochmatter their
+intention of proceeding to Zermatt, and ordered
+him and Beytrison to get ready to start. They
+were conscious of the fact that Brantschen
+had become dangerously ill, and appear to have
+demurred at first, but weakly gave in on their
+employers insisting. A blanket was thrown over
+the sick man, a little food placed beside him,
+and then the party filed out of the hut, and the
+door was shut. It is possible that in their leaving
+Brantschen they were scarcely alive to the consequences
+of their act; it is to be hoped, at all
+events, that they were not; but from the moment
+that the hut was left, they deliberately condemned
+the sick man to at least thirty-six hours
+of absolute solitude. In fact, by the adoption
+of this course, the nearest succour—at the pace
+of the party—was nineteen and a half hours off,
+whereas Breuil would have been only eight.
+They crossed the mountain safely, but being
+bad walkers, did not reach Zermatt till half-past
+one the following morning. They then
+caused a relief party of guides to be sent out;
+but it was too late. On reaching the hut, the
+unfortunate man was found to be dead. The
+conduct of his employers did not escape criticism
+both at home and abroad.</p>
+
+<p>There have been accidents on the Matterhorn
+since 1879; but although in more than one
+instance there has been a narrow escape, only
+once has any further life been sacrificed.</p>
+
+<p>Within a few days of the first ascent of the
+Matterhorn, on July 18, 1865, J. A. Carrel and
+Bich succeeded in reaching the summit from the
+Italian side, by a feat of rock-climbing scarcely
+equalled for daring in the annals of mountaineering.
+Since then, ascents of the Matterhorn have
+multiplied year by year; but for every one ascent
+by the Italian route, there must be twenty at least
+by the Zermatt. In fact, the former route is
+scarcely adapted for any but good mountaineers.
+The Matterhorn has also been climbed from the
+Zmutt side; but this route has never become
+popular. The first traveller to ascend the Matterhorn
+from Breuil was Mr F. Craufurd Grove,
+the present President of the Alpine Club; and
+of other remarkable ascents may be mentioned
+those of Miss Walker, accompanied by her brother
+and Mr Gardiner—Miss Walker being the first
+lady to climb the Matterhorn—of the Misses
+Pigeon, who were weather-bound for three days
+in the hut on the Italian side; and in descending
+to Zermatt, after crossing the summit, were benighted,
+and had to remain on the open mountain-side
+till daybreak; of Messrs Cawood, Colgrove,
+and Cust, who made the ascent from Zermatt
+without guides; of the ill-fated expeditions in
+which the lives of Dr Moseley, the guide
+Brantschen, and Mr Borckhardt were lost; and
+of Mr Mummery and the late Mr Penhall, who
+each discovered a new route from the Zmutt
+side.</p>
+
+<p>The Matterhorn has likewise been ascended in
+the winter; as the writer can assert from experience,
+having accomplished the feat—such as it was—in
+the days when it had not become the everyday
+affair that it is now. With two guides, one
+of whom was the well-known Joseph Imboden of
+St Nicolas, I arrived at Zermatt one fine afternoon
+in August, resolved upon a one-day ascent
+of the Matterhorn. A start was to be made at
+midnight; and soon after that hour, we were
+picking our way over the stones which paved
+the deserted village street in the darkness of a
+moonless night. Leaving the village behind us,
+we commenced to ascend through the meadows
+beyond the village, Imboden leading, and never
+for a moment pausing, although, in that uncertain
+light, it was difficult to distinguish a track of
+any kind. We reached the barren Hörnli Ridge,
+and as we commenced to traverse it, the sky
+grew lighter with the dawn of day. We were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_692">{692}</span>close to the foot of the Matterhorn now, and it
+loomed upon us, towering high into the sky, and
+seeming to my eyes one mighty series of precipices
+from base to summit. There was a solemn
+grandeur about the scene which seemed even to
+have its influence upon my companion, for not
+a word was spoken as we strode on towards the
+mountain. But when once we were upon the
+rock itself, I found that the difficulties which I
+had pictured to myself as likely to arise had
+little existence in fact; the series of precipices
+resolved themselves into a rocky surface, much
+broken, and yielding capital hand and foot hold
+everywhere. The incline, too, was very much
+less steep than it had appeared at a distance.
+No difficulty indeed presented itself; and climbing
+upwards rapidly, in two hours from the Hörnli
+we were at the hut which in those days was
+generally made use of for passing the night
+previous to an ascent. This hut is built beneath
+the shelter of an overhanging cliff, on a narrow
+rock platform, and its position does not give one
+an idea of security. It is cramped, and when
+I saw it, was very dirty, and indeed looked
+altogether so uninviting, that I congratulated
+myself on having avoided a night in it. We
+found the stove useful, though, for cooking our
+breakfast. This hut has now been superseded
+by a larger building, erected lower down the
+mountain. We finished our breakfast, and set
+out once more.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto, the work had been quite easy; but
+now came something stiffer, our first experience
+being on an ice-slope at an angle of perhaps
+forty-five degrees, overhanging the route by which
+we had ascended, and by which, had any false
+step been made, we should have returned somewhat
+hastily. A party that had gone up the
+day before spared us any step-cutting, for they
+had done their work so satisfactorily that quite
+a staircase remained for our use. We reached
+the top of the slope in safety; a knife-edge
+of snow led us to the right, and almost immediately
+we found ourselves upon the most difficult
+bit of the mountain, the northern face. Rounding
+the edge of the mountain, you look down,
+and below you, the face of the cliff falls away
+steeply, till it terminates in a drop of three
+thousand feet or more. Above, rises perpendicularly
+almost a succession of knobs of rock, overlapping
+one another, and more or less coated
+with snow and ice. The position may be rendered
+exciting enough to please any one by the
+addition of one or two incompetent individuals
+to the party.</p>
+
+<p>Our progress was slow but steady. Imboden
+would scan the face of the cliff, climb up a few
+feet, and when firmly fixed, call to me to follow,
+the operation then being repeated with the second
+guide. We sighted the summit at fifteen minutes
+past eight; and in less than two hours after
+leaving the hut we were on the highest point.
+The summit varies much, differing in shape
+with each successive season; and when we were
+there, it was a ridge of snow, narrow in places,
+broader in others, though nowhere was it possible
+to walk three abreast. We had a glorious view;
+but in this respect the Matterhorn is perhaps
+inferior to some of its neighbours, notably to
+Monte Rosa and the Dom.</p>
+
+<p>During the descent, Imboden exercised even
+greater care, and we reached the hut again safely.
+From there, we made our way leisurely down
+to Zermatt, where we arrived soon after three
+o’clock in the afternoon, after an unusually quick
+ascent, thanks to the splendid weather and the
+easy state of the northern face, which, while it
+cost us only two hours, has sometimes given a
+party seven hours or more of hard work. On
+the way down, Imboden pointed out to me two
+blanched fragments of rope trailing from the rocks
+far up on the northern face. They were left
+there by Mr Whymper after the accident, and
+marked the spot close by where it occurred.
+There they remained as cherished relics till last
+year, when a traveller sent his guide to cut them
+down and bring them away. It is sad to think
+that it was an Englishman who was guilty of
+this wanton act.</p>
+
+<p>As far as the actual ascent of the Matterhorn
+goes, it is far from being the formidable affair
+which it was once considered to be; but at the
+same time it is certainly not an expedition to
+be recommended to every one. It is not that the
+ascent is dangerous in itself, though some may
+have their own opinion about that, but it cannot
+be too strongly insisted on that, under certain
+conditions, it ought not to be attempted. Every
+experienced climber knows how weather can
+affect a mountain, and how ascents which, under
+ordinary conditions, are easy enough, are apt after
+bad weather to become difficult—sometimes impossible;
+and for a party of novices, with possibly
+guides not of the best class, to attempt the
+Matterhorn in a bad state is to run a risk such
+as no one in the pursuit of pleasure is justified
+in running.</p>
+
+<p>The latest accident upon the Matterhorn, up to
+date of writing, has perhaps more than any other
+Alpine accident illustrated the folly of attempting
+great mountains without a proper mountaineering
+training beforehand. On the morning of
+the 17th of August, at three <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, a party, consisting
+of Messrs F. C. Borckhardt and T. Davies, with
+Zermatt guides, Peter Aufdemblatten and Fridolin
+Kronig, left the lower Matterhorn hut, and in
+fine weather reached the summit about nine <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>
+Soon after leaving it, the weather, with one of
+those sudden changes which must always more
+or less constitute a danger in Alpine climbing,
+became very bad, and it began to snow. The
+progress of the party was very slow, for neither
+of the two gentlemen seems to have been a good
+walker, and both were exhausted; and by seven
+o’clock that same evening they had only reached
+the spot near where Dr Moseley made his fatal
+slip. Here they halted. It continued to snow
+all that night and till past noon on the following
+day, by which time travellers and guides were
+reduced to a pitiable condition. And now comes
+the saddest part of the story. Of the party,
+Mr Borckhardt was by this time the most
+helpless, and as such, ought to have received
+the greatest consideration; but the guides persuaded
+Mr Davies that the only chance of saving
+their own lives was to leave their helpless
+companion, and make a push to the nearest
+point whence help could be obtained. At that
+moment, it so happened that a rescue party
+was on its way from Zermatt, and they met it
+about half-way down to the hut. On hearing
+of the abandonment of Mr Borckhardt on the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_693">{693}</span>open mountain-side, the relief party pushed on
+to his aid with all haste; but it was of no avail;
+they only arrived to find that the unfortunate
+gentleman was past all human help.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><h2 class="nobreak x-ebookmaker-important" id="BY_ORDER_OF_THE_LEAGUE">BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.</h2></div>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Besides</span> the consolation of recovering the precious
+insignia, the spice of romance in the affair appealed
+to Le Gautier’s natural sentiment. He might, it
+may be thought, have had something similar
+made; but it must be remembered that he had no
+fac-simile in his possession; and he knew, or
+suspected, that the coin bore private marks
+known only to the Supreme Three. At all
+hazards, therefore, the device must be recovered,
+and perhaps a little pleasant pastime enjoyed
+in addition.</p>
+
+<p>After long cogitation, Le Gautier decided to
+keep the appointment, and, in accordance with
+this determination, walked to Charing Cross the
+following night. He loitered along the broad
+stone platform for some time till the clock struck
+nine, idly speculating upon the people hurrying
+to and fro, and turning over the books and
+papers on the bookstall. At a few minutes after
+the hour he looked up at the clock, and then
+down again, and his heart beat a shade more
+quickly, for there, standing by the swinging
+door leading to the first-class waiting-room, was
+a long cloaked figure, closely veiled. Walking
+carelessly in the direction, and approaching, he
+looked at his watch as he muttered: ‘Past nine—no
+sign of the Eastern Eagle.’</p>
+
+<p>By way of answer, the mysterious stranger
+raised her hand to the clasp of her cloak, and
+there, in the centre of the fastening, was a gold
+moidore.</p>
+
+<p>Le Gautier’s eyes glistened as he noticed this.
+‘You wish to see me?’ he said at length. ‘I
+must thank you for’——</p>
+
+<p>‘If your name is Le Gautier,’ she interrupted,
+‘I do want to say a few words to you.—Am
+I right, sir?’</p>
+
+<p>Le Gautier bowed, thinking that, if the face
+matched the voice and figure, he had a treasure
+here.</p>
+
+<p>‘This is no place to discuss this matter. If
+you can suggest any place where we can hold
+a few minutes’ conversation, I shall be obliged.’</p>
+
+<p>Le Gautier mused a moment; he had a good
+knowledge of London, but hesitated to take a
+lady to any place so late. The only suggestion
+he could make was the Embankment; and apparently
+this suited his companion, for, bowing
+her head, she took the proffered arm, walked
+out from the station, down Villiers Street, and
+so on to the waterside. Le Gautier noticed how
+the fingers on his arm trembled, attributing this
+to natural timidity, never dreaming that the
+emotion might be a warmer one. He began to
+feel at home now, and his tongue ran on accordingly.
+‘Ah! how good of you,’ he exclaimed,
+pressing the arm lying in his own tenderly—‘how
+angelic of you to come to my aid! Tell me
+how you knew I was so rash, so impetuous?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Men who carry their lives in their hands
+always are,’ Isodore replied. ‘The story does
+not need much telling. I was in the Kursaal
+at the time, and had my eyes on you. I saw
+you detach the insignia from your watchchain;
+I saw you hand it to a woman to stake; in
+short, I can put my hand upon it now.’</p>
+
+<p>‘My protector, my guardian angel!’ Le Gautier
+cried rapturously; and then, with a sudden
+prosaic touch, added: ‘Have you got it with
+you?’</p>
+
+<p>Isodore hesitated. If he could only have seen
+the smile behind the thick dark veil which hid
+the features so tantalisingly!</p>
+
+<p>‘I have not your insignia with me,’ she said;
+‘that I must give you at some future time, not
+now. Though I am alarmed for you, I cannot
+but admire your reckless audacity.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I thought perhaps you might,’ Le Gautier
+observed in a disappointed tone, and glancing
+at the clasp of his companion’s cloak.</p>
+
+<p>‘That is mine,’ she explained, noting his eager
+look. ‘I do not part with it so recklessly as
+you. I, too, am one of you, as you see. Ah,
+Monsieur le Gautier, how truly fortunate your
+treasure fell into a woman’s hands!’</p>
+
+<p>‘Indeed, yes,’ he replied gravely, a little
+puzzled, nevertheless, by the half-serious, half-mocking
+tone of these last words. ‘And how
+grateful I am! Pardon me if, in my anxiety,
+I ask when I may have it?’</p>
+
+<p>‘It may be some days yet. It is not in my
+hands; but be assured that you shall have it.
+I always keep my promises—in love or war,
+gratitude or revenge, I never forget.—And now
+I must leave you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘But you will at least tell me the name of my
+benefactor, and when I shall have the great
+felicity of seeing her again.’</p>
+
+<p>‘If I disclose myself to you, my secret must
+be respected. Some time, when I know you
+better, I will tell you more. I live in Ventnor
+Street, Fitzroy Square. You may come and see
+me any night at ten. You must inquire for
+Marie St Jean.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I will come,’ Le Gautier exclaimed, kissing
+the proffered hand gallantly. ‘Nothing save the
+sternest duty shall keep me from Fitzroy Square.’</p>
+
+<p>‘And you will respect my secret? I, too, am
+on the business of the League. You will guard
+my secret?’</p>
+
+<p>‘On my life!’ was the fervid response.—‘Goodnight,
+and <i>au revoir</i>.’</p>
+
+<p>‘On his life,’ Isodore murmured as she walked
+rapidly away in the direction of the Temple
+Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful night, the moon hanging
+behind Westminster, and throwing a glowing
+track along the swift rushing river, dancing like
+molten silver as it turned and switched under
+the arches of Waterloo. It was getting quiet
+now, save for the echoing footfall from a few
+hurrying feet or the shout of voices from the
+Surrey shore. Soft and subdued came the hoarse
+murmurs of the distant Strand; but Isodore
+heeded them not. In imagination, she was
+standing under the shadow of the grape-vines,
+the sunny Tiber down at her feet, and a man was
+at her side. And now the grapes were thorns,
+the winding Tiber the sullen Thames, and the
+hero standing by her side, a hero no longer, but
+a man to be despised—and worse. As she walked
+along, busy among the faded rose-leaves of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_694">{694}</span>past, a hand was laid upon her arm, and Valerie
+stood before her.</p>
+
+<p>‘I thought you were going to walk over me,’
+she said. ‘I knew you would return this way,
+and came to meet you.—Have you seen him?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, I have seen him; and what I have heard,
+does not alter my feelings. He is cold and vain,
+callous and unfeeling as ever. And to think I
+once loved that man, and trusted him! The
+poor fool thinks he has made another conquest,
+another captive to his bow and spear. Under
+cover of my veil, I have been studying his features.
+It is well he thinks so; it will help me
+to my revenge.—Valerie, he is going to call upon
+me to-morrow night at ten o’clock.’</p>
+
+<p>‘But consider what a rash thing you are doing.
+Besides, how is this going to benefit you or injure
+him? He will boast of it; he will talk of it
+to his friends, and injure you.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Not while I have this,’ Isodore cried triumphantly,
+touching the clasp of her cloak.—‘Do
+not you see how he is within my power? Besides,
+he can give me some information of the utmost
+value. They hold a Council to-morrow night;
+the business is pressing, and a special envoy is
+to go to Rome. The undertaking will be one
+of extreme danger. They will draw lots, but
+the choice will fall upon Frederick Maxwell.’</p>
+
+<p>‘How do you know this?’ Valerie asked. ‘I
+do not understand your mission; but it seems
+to me that where every man has a stake at issue,
+it is his own interest to see the matter conducted
+fairly.’</p>
+
+<p>‘You may think so; but perhaps you will
+think differently when I tell you that Le Gautier
+is, for the evening, President of the Council. It
+does not need a vast amount of discrimination
+to see how the end will be. Le Gautier is determined
+to marry this Enid Charteris; and much
+as she despises him, he will gain his end if he
+is not crossed.’</p>
+
+<p>‘But what are you going to do?’ Valerie asked,
+horrified at the infamous plot. ‘You will not
+allow an innocent man to go to his death like
+this?’</p>
+
+<p>‘I shall not, as you say, allow a good man to
+be done to death,’ Isodore replied with the calmness
+of perfect conviction. ‘The pear is not yet
+ripe. Le Gautier is not sufficiently hoist with his
+own petard. This Maxwell will go to Rome; but
+he will never execute the commission allotted
+to him; I shall take care of that.—And now,
+mind you are out of the way, when Le Gautier
+comes to-morrow night.’</p>
+
+<p>Valerie silently shivered as she turned over
+the dark plot in her mind. ‘Suppose you fail,
+Isodore,’ she suggested—‘fail from over-confidence?
+You speak of the matter as already
+accomplished, as if you had only to say a thing
+and it is done. One would think, to hear you,
+that Frederick Maxwell’s safety, my husband’s
+life even, was yours.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes,’ she answered calmly; ‘his life is mine.
+I hold it in the hollow of my hand.’</p>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3>
+
+<p>In one of those quiet by-thoroughfares between
+Gray’s Inn Road and Holborn stands a hairdresser’s
+shop. It is a good enough house above
+stairs, with capacious rooms over the shop;
+below, it has its plate-glass windows and the
+pole typical of the tonsorial talent within; a
+window decorated with pale waxen beauties,
+rejoicing in wigs of great luxuriance and splendour
+of colour; brushes of every shape and design;
+and cosmétiques from all nations, dubbed with
+high-sounding names, and warranted to make
+the baldest scalp resemble the aforesaid beauties,
+after one or more applications. But the polite
+proprietor of ‘The Cosmopolitan Toilette Club’
+had something besides hair-cutting to depend
+upon, for Pierre Ferry’s house was the London
+headquarters of the League.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood behind a customer’s chair in the
+‘saloon’ snipping and chatting as barbers, especially
+if they be foreigners, always will, his restless
+little black eyes twinkled strangely. Had the
+customer been a man of observation, he would
+have noticed one man after another drop in,
+making a sign to the tonsorial artist, and then
+passing into an inner room. Salvarini entered
+presently, accompanied by Frederick Maxwell,
+both making some sign and passing on. Pierre
+Ferry looked at the newcomer keenly; but a
+glance of intelligence satisfied his scruples, and
+he resumed his occupation. Time went on until
+Le Gautier arrived, listless and cool, as was
+his wont, and in his turn passed in, turning to
+the barber as he shut the door behind him.
+‘This room is full,’ he said; ‘we want no more.’</p>
+
+<p>Ferry bowed gravely, and turning the key
+in the lock, put the former in his pocket. That
+was the signal of the assembly being complete.
+He wished his customer good-night, then closing
+the door, seated himself, to be on the alert in
+case of any threatened danger.</p>
+
+<p>As each of the conspirators passed through the
+shop, they ascended a dark winding staircase
+into the room above; and at the end of the
+apartment, a window opened upon another light
+staircase, for flight in case of danger, and which
+led into a courtyard, and thence into a back
+street. The windows looking upon Gray’s Inn
+Road were carefully barred, and the curtains
+drawn so as to exclude any single ray of light,
+and talking quietly together were a few grave-looking
+men, foreigners mostly. Maxwell surveyed
+the plain-looking apartment, almost bare
+of furniture, with the exception of a long table
+covered with green cloth, an inkstand and paper,
+together with a pack of playing-cards. The
+artist’s scrutiny and speculations were cut short
+by the entrance of Le Gautier.</p>
+
+<p>To an actor of his stamp, the change of manner
+from a light-hearted man of the world to a desperate
+conspirator was easy enough. He had laid
+aside his air of levity, and appeared now President
+of the Council to the life—grave, stern, with
+a touch of hauteur in his gait, his voice deliberate,
+and his whole manner speaking of earnest
+determination of purpose. Maxwell could not
+but admire the man now, and gave him credit
+at least for sincerity in this thing.</p>
+
+<p>‘Gentlemen,’ he said, in deep sonorous tones,
+‘we will commence business, if you please. I
+shall not detain you long to-night, for I have
+business of grave importance myself. Will you
+take your seats?’</p>
+
+<p>The men gathered round the table, drawing
+up their chairs, Le Gautier at the head, and
+every eye turned upon him with rapt attention.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_695">{695}</span>From an inside pocket he produced a packet
+of papers and laid them before him. ‘Brothers,’
+he asked, ‘what is our first duty to the League?’</p>
+
+<p>‘The removal of tyrants!’ came from every
+throat there in a kind of deep chorus. ‘And
+death to traitors!’ added one, low down the
+board.</p>
+
+<p>‘You are right, my friend,’ Le Gautier continued.
+‘That is a duty to which none can
+yield. I hold evidence in my hand that we
+have a traitor amongst us—not in the room, I
+mean, but in our camp. Does any Brother here
+know Visci, the Deputy at Rome?’</p>
+
+<p>The assembly looked one to the other, though
+without speaking; and Maxwell noted the deathly
+pallor upon Salvarini’s face, wondering what
+brought it there. The President repeated the
+question, and looked round again, as if waiting
+for some one to speak.</p>
+
+<p>‘Yes, I know him. He was my friend,’ Salvarini
+observed in melancholy tones. ‘Let us
+hear what his fault is.’</p>
+
+<p>‘He is a traitor to the Order,’ Le Gautier
+continued; ‘and as such, he must die. His crime
+is a heavy one,’ he went on, looking keenly
+at Maxwell: ‘he has refused to obey a mandate
+of the Three.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Death!’ shouted the voices in chorus again—‘death
+to the traitor!’</p>
+
+<p>‘That is your verdict, then?’ the President
+asked, a great shout of ‘Ay’ going up in reply.—‘It
+is proper for you to see his refusal; we
+must be stern in spite of our justice. See for
+yourselves.’ Saying these words, he passed the
+papers down the table from hand to hand,
+Maxwell reading them in his turn, though the
+whole thing was a puzzle to him. He could
+only see that the assembly were in deadly earnest
+concerning something he did not understand.
+He was destined to have a rude awakening ere
+long. The papers were passed on until they
+reached the President’s hands again. With great
+care he burnt them at one of the candles, crushing
+the charred ashes with his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>‘You are all agreed,’ he asked. ‘What is
+your verdict to be?’ And like a solemn echo
+came the one word, ‘Death!’ Salvarini alone
+was silent, and as Le Gautier took up the
+cards before him, his deathly pallor seemed to
+increase.</p>
+
+<p>‘It is well—it is just,’ Le Gautier said sternly,
+as he poured the cards like water from one
+hand to the other. ‘My friends, we will draw
+lots. In virtue of my office as President, I am
+exempt; but I will not stand out in the hour
+of danger; I will take my chance with you.’</p>
+
+<p>A murmur of applause followed this sentiment,
+and the cards were passed round by each, after
+being carefully examined and duly shuffled.
+Maxwell shuffled the cards in his hands, quite
+unconscious of what they might mean to him,
+and passed them to Salvarini.</p>
+
+<p>‘No,’ he said despondingly; ‘there is fate in
+such things as these. If the lot falls to me,
+I bow my head. There is a higher Hand than
+man’s guiding such destinies as ours; I will
+not touch them.’ Saying these words with an
+air of extremely deep melancholy, he pushed
+the cards in Le Gautier’s direction. The latter
+turned back his cuffs, laid the cards on the
+palm of one hand, and looked at the assembly.</p>
+
+<p>‘I will deal them round, and the first particular
+card that falls to a certain individual
+shall decide,’ he said. ‘Choose a card.’</p>
+
+<p>‘The dagger strikes to the heart,’ came a foreign
+voice from the end of the table; ‘what better
+can we have than the ace of hearts?’ He stopped,
+and a murmur of assent ran round the room.</p>
+
+<p>It was a thrilling moment. Every face was bent
+forward eagerly as the President stood up to deal
+the cards. He placed one before himself, a harmless
+one, and then, with unerring dexterity, threw
+one before every man there. Each face was a
+study of rapt attention, for any one might mean
+a life, and low hoarse murmurs ran round as one
+card after another was turned up and proved to
+be harmless. One round was finished, containing,
+curiously enough, six hearts, and yet the fatal ace
+had not appeared. Each anxious face would light
+up for a moment as the owner’s card was turned
+up, and then be fixed with sickening anxiety
+on his neighbour’s. At the end of the second
+round the ace was still absent. The excitement
+now was almost painful; not a word was spoken,
+and only the deep breathing gave evidence of the
+inward emotion. Slowly, one by one, the cards
+dwindled away in the dealer’s hands till only
+seven were left. It was a sight never to be
+forgotten even with one chance for each; and
+when the first of the seven was dealt, a simple
+two, every envying eye was bent upon the fortunate
+one as he laughed unsteadily, wiped his
+face, and hastily filled and swallowed a glass of
+water. Six, five, four; the last to the President,
+and there only remained three cards now—one
+for Salvarini, one for Maxwell, and one for the
+suggester of the emblem card. The Frenchman’s
+card was placed upon the table; he turned it
+up with a shrug which was not altogether affected,
+and then came Salvarini’s turn. The whole room
+had gathered round the twain, Maxwell calm and
+collected, Salvarini white and almost fainting.
+He had to steady one hand with the other, like
+a man afflicted with paralysis, as he turned over
+his card. For a moment he leaned back in his
+chair, the revulsion of feeling almost overpowering
+him. His card was the seven of clubs.</p>
+
+<p>With a long sweeping throw, the President
+tossed the last card in Maxwell’s direction. No
+need to look at it. There it lay—the fatal ace
+of hearts!</p>
+
+<p>They were amazed at the luckless man’s utter
+coolness, as he sat there playing with the card,
+little understanding as yet his danger; and then,
+one by one shaking his hand solemnly, they
+passed out. Maxwell was inclined to make light
+of this dramatic display, ascribing it to a foreigner’s
+love of the mysterious. He did not
+understand it to mean a last farewell between
+Brothers. They had all gone by that time with
+the exception of Le Gautier and Salvarini, the
+latter looking at the doomed man sadly, the
+Frenchman with an evil glitter and a look of
+subdued triumph in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>‘Highly dramatic, at anyrate,’ Maxwell observed,
+turning to Le Gautier, ‘and vastly entertaining.
+They seemed to be extremely sorry for
+me.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, you take the matter coolly enough,’ the
+Frenchman smiled. ‘Any one would think you
+were used to this sort of thing.’</p>
+
+<p>‘I should like to have caught some of those
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_696">{696}</span>expressions,’ Maxwell replied. ‘They would
+make a man’s fortune if he could get them on
+canvas. What do you think of an Academy
+picture entitled “The Conspirators?”—And now,
+will you be good enough to explain this little
+farce to me?’</p>
+
+<p>His cool, contemptuous tones knocked Le
+Gautier off his balance for a moment, but he
+quickly recovered his habitual cynicism. ‘There
+will be a pendant to that picture, called “The
+Vengeance;” or, if you like it better, “The
+Assassination,”’ he replied with a sneer. ‘Surely
+you do not think I dealt these cards for amusement?
+No, my friend; a life was at stake there,
+perhaps two.’</p>
+
+<p>‘A life at stake? Do you mean that I am to
+play the part of murderer to a man unknown to
+me—an innocent man?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Murder is not a pleasant word,’ Le Gautier
+replied coldly. ‘We prefer the expression
+“remove,” as being more elegant, and not so
+calculated to shock the nerves of novices—like
+yourself. Your perspicacity does you credit, sir.
+Your arm is the one chosen to strike Visci down.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Gracious powers!’ Maxwell exclaimed, falling
+back into his chair faint and dizzy. ‘I stain my
+hand with an unoffending man’s blood? Never!
+I would die first. I never dreamt—I never
+thought—— Salvarini, I did not think you
+would lead me into this!’</p>
+
+<p>‘I warned you,’ the Italian said mournfully.
+‘As far as I dared, I told you what the consequences
+would be.’</p>
+
+<p>‘If you had told me you were a gang of callous,
+bloodthirsty murderers, I should not have joined
+you. I, like every Englishman, am the friend
+of liberty as much as you, but no cowardly dagger-thrust
+for me. Do your worst, and come what
+may, I defy you!’</p>
+
+<p>‘A truce to these histrionics,’ Le Gautier exclaimed
+fiercely; ‘or we shall hold a Council,
+and serve you the same. There are your orders.
+I am your superior. Take them, and obey.
+Refuse, and’—— He stopped, folding his arms,
+and looked Maxwell full in the face for a moment;
+then turning abruptly upon his heel,
+quitted the room without another word.</p>
+
+<p>Maxwell and his friend confronted each other.
+‘And who is this Visci I am to murder?’ the
+artist demanded bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>Salvarini bowed his head lower and lower till
+his face almost rested upon his breast. ‘You
+know him,’ he said. ‘He was a good friend of
+mine once, and his crime is the one you are
+contemplating now—disobedience to orders. Is
+it possible you have not guessed the doomed man
+to be Carlo Visci?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Carlo Visci—my friend, my more than brother?
+I must be mad, mad or dreaming. Lay foul
+hands upon the best friend man ever had—the
+noble-hearted fellow whose purse was mine, who
+taught me all I know, who saved my life; and
+I to stab him in the dark because, perchance, he
+refuses to serve a companion the same! Never!
+May my right hand rot off, before I injure a
+hair of Carlo Visci’s head!’</p>
+
+<p>‘Then you will die yourself,’ Salvarini put in
+sadly.</p>
+
+<p>‘Then I shall die—death comes only once,’
+Maxwell exclaimed proudly, throwing back his
+head. ‘No sin like that shall stain my soul!’</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the two men were silent.</p>
+
+<p>Salvarini broke the silence. ‘Listen, Maxwell,’
+he said. ‘I am in a measure to blame for this,
+and I will do what I can to serve you. You
+must go to Rome, as if you intended to fulfil
+your task, and wait there till you hear from me.
+I am running great risks in helping you so, and
+you must rely on me. One thing is in your
+favour: time is no particular object. Will you
+go so far, for your sake and mine?’</p>
+
+<p>‘Anything, anywhere!’ burst out the Englishman
+passionately.</p>
+
+<p class="center">(<i>To be continued.</i>)</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><h2 class="nobreak" id="PITMEN_PAST_AND_PRESENT">PITMEN, PAST AND PRESENT.</h2></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> coal-trade of Scotland dates from the early
+part of the thirteenth century. In its earliest
+stages it embraced only the shallowest seams,
+and those without water, or any other difficulty
+requiring machinery to overcome. The digging
+of coal, therefore, is one of our oldest industries;
+and it may be interesting to look at some phases
+of the work from the miner’s point of view.
+Taking this stand-point, we will see that the
+improvement in the miner’s condition—physical,
+intellectual, moral and spiritual—is almost inconceivable.
+When machinery became necessary for
+pumping water from coal-pits—about the beginning
+of the seventeenth century—there appears
+to have been a demand for workmen greater
+than the supply, and power was granted to
+colliery owners ‘to apprehend all vagabonds and
+sturdy beggars’ and set them to work. This
+shows that the life of a miner was not at all
+an attractive one; and this is not to be wondered
+at, as will be seen from some of the allusions
+made in this article as we proceed. The one
+fact, that colliers were, for two centuries after
+the date referred to—that is, till near the end
+of the eighteenth century—bought and sold with
+the collieries in which they wrought, is sufficient
+to stamp mining as a most undesirable kind of
+employment, even in those early and more or
+less barbarous times. One can easily understand,
+from this instance of hardship, how it became
+necessary to keep up the supply of miners from
+the criminal classes. An analogous case still
+presents itself in Russia, where one of the most
+hopeless sentences that can be passed on political
+and other offenders is banishment to the Siberian
+mines.</p>
+
+<p>Some time after the repeal (about 1790) of
+the laws enslaving miners, there would appear
+to have been experienced a similar difficulty
+to recruit the ranks of pit-workers, and one of
+the means adopted to procure workmen was only
+a few degrees less objectionable than slavery
+itself. This was what was termed the ‘Bond’
+system. A man, more especially when he had
+a family, some of them coming to be helpful
+at his calling, had the bait held out to him of
+a bounty if he signed the bond. By this bond
+he obliged himself to continue in the employment
+of his master for a fixed period, varying
+from one year to four years. In return for this,
+he received the immediate payment of a bounty,
+variable in amount in proportion to the period
+engaged for, and also regulated by the value of
+the man’s services. As much as five pounds
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_697">{697}</span>might be given. Should the bond be faithfully
+carried out by the workman, the master had
+no claim upon the money; but should the engagement
+be brought prematurely to an end,
+he often retained the power to claim the amount
+as a debt, besides having the right to sue the
+workman for desertion of service. Of course,
+the bounty formed a payment over and above
+the ordinary wages.</p>
+
+<p>At the period referred to, it was the practice
+amongst many classes of workmen in Scotland
+to leave their usual avocations during the
+summer months, and fee themselves to farmers in
+the times known familiarly as ‘hay and hairst.’
+From this custom, it was often a serious matter
+for a coalmaster to find that his workmen had
+deserted him. The ‘bond’ system was intended
+partly to counteract this practice, as well as
+to meet the prevailing unpopularity of the work.
+The system was a thoroughly bad one for the
+workmen, as it practically lengthened the period
+of actual slavery, though nominally that had disappeared.
+The inducement to sign the bond
+was very much the same as it now is to join the
+militia—the bounty-money gave the prospect of
+a ‘spree’ in both cases, and in this way the system
+operated badly.</p>
+
+<p>We may well be astonished at the statement,
+that in the memory of men still living it was
+the regular thing for miners in some districts to
+go to and from the pits with bare feet. The wages
+were small and the hours long. We have heard
+it said by a miner that the grandfather of a companion
+a little older than himself wrought in the
+mines for twopence a day, he at the time being
+man grown. This case would take us back to
+about the close of the last century, when miners
+were employed compulsorily under an Act of
+Parliament. In any case it is an extreme instance
+of the small wages earned for a long time by
+miners. In regard to the hours of employment,
+even till a period well advanced in the present
+century, the usual time to begin work was four
+<span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>; whilst the hour for allowing the men to
+quit the mine was six o’clock at night—a length
+of day’s work that left little time even for sleep.
+No wonder that such a joke should be in circulation
+that miners’ children in those days did not
+know their fathers, as the children were asleep all
+the time the father was at home.</p>
+
+<p>Not only had miners in times past hard work
+with long hours and small wages, but even the
+scanty earnings were settled up only at long intervals,
+and on this fact hangs a series of abuses
+that required a long and determined struggle to
+remove. Monthly pays were considered frequent;
+and it could hardly be expected that mining
+human nature could endure for a month even at
+a time without some temporary means being
+provided. Out of this arose some of the most
+indefensible hardships suffered by the miner.
+‘Truck’ and ‘Poundage’ in all their various forms
+were the foul growths from the system of long
+delayed pays. The truck system had many developments.
+Let us begin with one of its earliest—namely,
+‘lines.’ A workman wants an advance,
+and goes to the pay office for that purpose; but
+instead of getting hard cash, he receives a line
+to the following effect: ‘Please give bearer goods
+to the value of ____________.’ This line
+was addressed to a person owning a general
+provision and dry-goods store, who had entered
+into an arrangement to honour these lines; and
+when they were brought to the colliery proprietor
+at stated intervals, the shopkeeper received payment
+of their amount, less an agreed upon commission,
+varying from five to ten per cent. But,
+supposing the storekeeper did not keep some
+of the goods required by the workman for his
+family or personal use, the workman could obtain
+a part of the sum marked on the line in money,
+less a discount of usually one penny per shilling.
+As time went on, however, another development
+of the truck system took place, and on the
+whole it was a little better than that described.
+The mine-owner provided a store, managed under
+his own charge, in which was sold everything
+from the proverbial ‘needle to an anchor.’ One
+of the sore points in the management of many
+of these works-stores was that the men were
+terrorised into buying all their goods there, and
+there alone. Indeed, where advances were given
+under the line-system, the poor miner had usually
+to spend nearly all his money in the master’s
+stores. Even in the comparatively rare instances
+where workmen waited until the end of the pay
+without accepting advances, some of the colliery
+proprietors used a sort of tyrannical power over
+the men to force them to buy from the works-store,
+and that alone. Under the line-system,
+barter pure and simple obtained full play. And
+yet since the passing in 1831 of what is popularly
+known as the Truck Act, this barbarous method
+of payment was fully provided against, though
+the criminality of unscrupulous masters was not
+brought home to them until the Truck Commission
+sat in 1870. This Commission fully investigated
+the wholesale evasion of the law of
+1831, and brought such a flood of light on the
+disgraceful proceedings of many masters, as to
+at once bring to an end the hateful truck or
+tally system. It forms a curious comment on
+the manner of administering our laws, that the
+Truck Act of 1831 only became operative in 1870,
+after a most exhaustive inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst ‘truck’ was an attempt on the part
+of some masters to pay wages in kind and not
+in sterling money, what is known as ‘poundage’
+was a different system of making a large profit
+off the poverty of the workmen—a system, unfortunately,
+which is not altogether dead yet.
+Under the system of poundage, the monthly or
+larger pays were continued—short pays would
+have been its death—but the privilege was
+granted to employees of receiving advances in
+cash during the currency of the pay. But this
+was done, let it be noted, for a ‘consideration,’
+that consideration being the grand and simple
+system of five per cent.—a shilling a pound.
+This is how the calculation would work out:
+In a four-weekly pay, let us presume that there
+are only three advances made—if there were
+more it would not alter the principle at work—one
+made each week for three weeks, and each
+advance amounting to one pound. The first
+advance is twenty shillings for three weeks, the
+second for two weeks, and the third for one
+week—the whole advances during the currency
+of the pay amounting to three pounds, and costing
+the workman three shillings. This looks a
+very simple charge—five per cent.; but when
+we look at it in the light of being interest on
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_698">{698}</span>lent money, we find the first pound has cost
+83⅔ per cent. per annum; the second, 130, and
+the third, 260 per cent. per annum—or an
+average of nearly 160 per cent. per annum on
+the whole. It must be remembered too that
+this was the rate of interest charged, not for an
+unsecured debt, but rather for wages actually
+earned by the employee, though settlement was
+deferred for a month through the system of long
+pays. The writer has known a firm derive
+from this one source of income as much as a
+thousand pounds a year up to the time a more
+enlightened policy was adopted.</p>
+
+<p>Another system from which unscrupulous
+employers derived some income, more trifling
+in amount than the annoyance and irritation it
+produced, was that known as ‘Fines.’ In remote
+collieries, fines were of regular occurrence under
+one pretext or another. It is quite likely that
+the system was a survival of feudal jurisdiction
+exercised by the superior all over the country,
+and finally put an end to, as it was supposed,
+by Act of Parliament passed in 1747. Instead
+of the workman being brought before a magistrate
+for an alleged offence, a court-martial was
+held upon him by the employer or manager,
+and a fine was usually exacted. It mattered
+not whether the offence related to the man’s
+employment or to his conduct with his neighbours,
+whether it had a criminal or only a
+civil origin—the court-martial was held, and
+the result invariably the same—a fine. The
+curious thing was that these fines were taken
+as a matter of course, the decisions being usually
+respected after a little necessary grumbling. The
+amount of money gained annually from these fines
+was not large, so that their justification must
+have been that this was the only available
+method of keeping law and order. In this view,
+‘fines’ may have suited an earlier state of civilisation;
+but the system is too rough and ready
+to be consonant with modern ideas of justice.
+The miner has suffered under slavery, and its
+twin-brother the bond system; but he has seen
+these totally disappear, not, however, very many
+years before slavery was abolished amongst the
+aborigines of our colonies. Truck or the tally
+system has also become a thing of the past,
+though we have seen how hard it was to kill.
+Fines likewise have given place to the ordinary
+operation of the law; and the exaction of poundage
+is now only made by a small residuum of coal-masters,
+on whom the action of public opinion
+is slow and uncertain; but the system is doomed,
+and must, sooner or later, follow the other abuses
+we have enumerated.</p>
+
+<p>We will now look for a short time at a different
+phase of the subject, ‘Pitmen, Past and Present;’
+and in this no less than in the past, already
+treated, it will be found that there is a strong
+contrast between the past and the present in the
+miner’s condition. Take as an example the
+ventilation of mines. The benefits brought about
+in the miner’s health by the greater quantities
+of fresh air now forced into the pits are almost
+incalculable. A ‘wheezing’ miner of thirty is
+now a very rare phenomenon; indeed, apart from
+the inevitable danger from accidents—and that
+is even greatly lessened—the miner has now
+nearly as good a chance of long life as any other
+class of workmen. At a period within the
+memory of not very old colliers still living, the
+pit was merely a hole in the ground, having no
+separate upcast and downcast division, so essential
+to proper ventilation. In short, there was
+absolutely no attempt at the artificial ventilation
+of the mines. The only agent at work was the
+wind on the surface, and this was as often as not
+adverse to the pitman. In the heat of summer,
+the mine became quite unworkable from the
+rarefied and polluted nature of the air. From
+the operation of various causes, this state of things
+has been altered to the great benefit of the miner.
+An air-tight mid-wall is now made in each pit:
+the one side of the shaft being used for drawing
+out—by fans or otherwise—the foul air; and the
+other for the introduction into the mine of a
+current of fresh air, which finds its way through
+all the workings until it reaches the upcast shaft,
+and there obtains an outlet. In addition to this,
+every shaft has now a communication pit, either
+expressly made for that purpose, or advantage
+may be taken of some old pit for giving pitmen
+a certain means of exit and entrance in the event
+of a shaft being blocked up through accident.</p>
+
+<p>The year of the famous battle of Waterloo is
+one that should ever be remembered gratefully by
+miners. It was then that Humphry Davy perfected
+his safety-lamp, that has done so much for
+mankind. How much it has done to prevent
+accidents no one can say. Being a preventive, all
+we can claim is that it must have rendered the
+annals of mining comparatively free of the records
+of accidents, and given a degree of comfort and
+safety in the fieriest mines that otherwise would
+be impossible, besides making available for public
+use a vast amount of coal that without it would
+be unworkable.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the age of those engaged in mines,
+thirty, forty, or fifty years ago it was the rule
+rather than the exception to send boys to work at
+eight or nine years of age. The Mines Act of
+1872 wholly prohibits the employment below
+ground of women or girls of any age, and fixes for
+boys the minimum age at twelve for a full day’s
+employment, and that only when a certain educational
+standard has been reached. Curiously
+enough, however, a boy <i>above</i> ground cannot be
+engaged full time until he is thirteen years old.
+Surely it is one of the unintentional anomalies of
+the Mines Act that in the open air boys are precluded
+from working till they are a year older
+than they may be at work underground. A
+warning note may be sounded in regard to the
+age at which boys are engaged. We know that
+many are employed in mines at the minimum
+age of twelve, irrespective of their educational
+standard. If the Education Act and the Mines
+Act are here at variance, or if there is the want
+of a public prosecutor to see them enforced, the
+wants should be without waste of time supplied,
+and not cause beneficial clauses to be inoperative.</p>
+
+<p>Respecting the education of miners’ children,
+the Education Acts have been highly advantageous
+in giving compulsory powers to School
+Boards and managers; but even before their
+introduction, this class of children had many
+comparative benefits in a much less degree enjoyed
+by others. The works-schools have always been a
+feature in Scotch mining centres. We have not
+seen any pointed allusion to the fact that these
+schools, long before the introduction of Education
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_699">{699}</span>Acts, solved the problem of free education in a
+way satisfactory to all concerned. Happily, in
+many places these schools are still left under the
+old management, though nominally connected with
+School Boards. Under the works-school system,
+all the workers, whether married or single, agreed
+to pay a weekly sum, say, of twopence. This
+insured the education of the workman’s family,
+however large it might be. The unmarried suffered
+by this voluntary sacrifice on their part, but
+they did so at a time of life when they were least
+burdened; but the struggling married man reaped
+the full benefit when he most needed assistance.
+In the case of a workman with four children of
+school-age at one time, the almost nominal cost of
+a halfpenny per week paid for each child’s education.
+Small though this sum is, we have known
+schools self-supporting under the system for years,
+with no other aid than the government grant
+earned at the annual inspection, besides being
+able to supply night-school education in the
+winter months to the elderly youths of the
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Besides a school, it is one of the evidences of
+the improved state of mining communities that
+they usually have all the adjuncts of civilisation
+amongst them. There is the church, where
+the rich and the poor meet together, and in
+this connection it may be said that miners are
+as a class either very zealous religionists, or they
+go to the other extreme, and care for none of
+these things. The clergy of our day is largely
+recruited from mining villages; whilst the list
+of miners who have become home missionaries
+is a long one. Then there is the Temperance
+Society, either a Good Templars’ Lodge, or an
+offshoot from some of the other anti-alcohol
+societies; there is the Library of well-selected
+books, which are much read. There is the
+Savings-bank; the Reading-room, with a full
+supply of daily newspapers and other periodical
+literature; the String and Reed Bands; the
+Bowling Green, Football and Quoiting Field—the
+amusements of the miners of our day being
+all on a higher level than those of forty years
+ago, when cock-fighting and dog-fighting monopolised
+attention. Nor can we omit to mention
+that Sick and Funeral and other benevolent
+Societies are marked associations in every colliery
+village worthy of the name. Miners are indeed
+remarkably considerate to each other, when any
+special emergency occurs to call forth their active
+sympathy, being ever ready to subscribe for a
+brother-worker who has been unfortunate beyond
+the common lot.</p>
+
+<p>The prospect of the temporary nature of a
+mining village at the best, forms a strong temptation
+for nothing but necessary house accommodation,
+and that of the barest kind, being
+provided for workmen. The mining proprietor
+takes a lease of a mineral field, in the middle
+of a moor it may be, where no houses exist, and
+where everything has to be erected and provided.
+Accommodation for the workpeople has to be
+erected whether the field proves successful or
+not; and when the field is exhausted, he is in
+the power of the landlord whether he must
+remove the buildings and restore the ground, or
+leave them as they are. In either of these cases,
+the mineral lessee receives no compensation for
+his outlay, usually of many thousands of pounds.
+Hence, as we have stated, there is much temptation
+for the colliery lessee to erect flimsy houses
+in keeping with the possible shortness of their
+use. But colliery owners often rise superior to
+this evident temptation, and in spite of the
+possible unremunerative nature of the mineral
+field, excellent houses, with copious water-supply,
+are provided. Where this is done, naturally a
+better class of workers settle down; and when
+there is a fairly good prospect before the lessee,
+it is doubtless nothing but justice to himself and
+his workmen to afford the men every comfort.</p>
+
+<p>It is not too much to say that in the best
+collieries, the interests of the workmen are cared
+for in the most enlightened manner. Situated
+as are many colliery villages, beyond the oversight
+of regularly constituted municipalities, the
+whole onus of sanitary and other regulations falls
+upon the master, and he does not shirk his duty
+in such cases. Means of social enjoyment are
+provided—the physical, intellectual, moral, and
+spiritual well-being of the populace are cared
+for, and the colliers of to-day are in consequence
+an intelligent and respectable class of
+men. Crime is proportionately small amongst
+mining villages, and those who best know the
+miner are aware that he is possessed of much
+kindness of heart, and that in the prosecution
+of his dangerous calling he often exhibits true
+heroism.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><h2 class="nobreak" id="GEORGE_HANNAYS_LOVE_AFFAIR">GEORGE HANNAY’S LOVE AFFAIR.</h2></div>
+
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V.—THE EDITOR’S SANCTUM—A
+DISCLOSURE.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alfred Roberton</span> felt the smart of Nan’s summary
+dismissal more than he could have expected,
+or even than he owned to himself. His
+vanity was sorely hurt, and he lost a good deal
+of that audacious <i>insouciance</i> in his manner
+towards the opposite sex for which he had been
+before remarkable. He sent back Nan’s letters
+honourably enough, and set himself to forget
+her, as she had him. In order to effect this,
+he determined to supplant the old love by a
+new; and commenced paying marked attentions
+to Miss Curtiss, the twenty-thousand-pound
+young lady. His suit prospered, and the fair
+one capitulated; but the terms of the surrender
+were to be fixed by her friends. They made
+objections to the smallness and uncertainty
+of his income. On the other hand, Alfred’s
+solicitor found the young lady’s properties were
+so heavily mortgaged as only to leave a very
+small margin of income; and the result was
+the negotiations were broken off. Then, somehow
+or another, his society was no longer so
+eagerly sought after. A young violinist had
+taken the place he formerly held in Mrs Judson’s
+social circle, and when that gentleman was present,
+Alfred was cast entirely in the shade. But there
+was worse than that: he could no longer find a
+market for the remainder of his manuscripts.
+The publishers and editors who had patronised
+him before were desirous of seeing what course
+the <i>Olympic</i> took with regard to him. It was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_700">{700}</span>very singular, they thought, that there never
+was any second article from his pen inserted in
+it. Some ill-speaking folks even went the length
+of hinting that he wasn’t ‘Ariel’ at all; that
+the claim he made to that <i>nom de plume</i> was a
+mere ruse to get into society, and get some of
+his trashy manuscripts palmed off on unsuspicious
+editors and publishers.</p>
+
+<p>He felt these things very grievous to bear:
+the only hope that buoyed him up was, that
+when the editor of the <i>Olympic</i> returned to town,
+all would be put right. He would go straight
+to him and say: ‘I am Ariel! and here is a
+much superior sketch to the one I first sent you.
+Insert it, and I will not haggle with you about
+the amount of the honorarium, for I know you
+are a generous paymaster.’ Then all would again
+be well; he would resume his proper place in
+society, and his writings would be as eagerly
+sought after as ever.</p>
+
+<p>It was towards the end of March when Mr
+Hannay returned from his prolonged continental
+tour. Allowing him a day or two to get settled
+down, one blowy, blustering forenoon, Alfred
+sallied forth to call on him. He sent in his
+card, and in a few minutes was in the editor’s
+sanctum.</p>
+
+<p>‘Pray, be seated, sir,’ said Mr Hannay politely.
+‘I—I do not remember your name, Mr Roberton.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Ah, I daresay not,’ he replied, smiling.
+‘You’ll know me better by my <i>nom de plume</i>.
+I am Ariel!’</p>
+
+<p>Alfred was gratified to see the slight start
+which followed this important announcement,
+and he likewise became conscious that he was
+being inventoried by a pair of keen black eyes.
+He put a favourable interpretation on these
+indications of interest.</p>
+
+<p>‘And what then, Mr Ariel, can I have the
+pleasure of doing for you?’ said Mr Hannay
+after a brief pause.</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, sir, I have an excellent little paper
+here,’ Alfred replied, producing a manuscript
+from his coat-pocket. ‘It is entitled “A Week’s
+Yachting on the Rhine.” It is very carefully
+written; and I can vouch for its accuracy in
+details, as it is extended from notes I made
+when yachting there with a friend.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Oh, very well, sir,’ said the editor, laying
+the paper aside. ‘I’ll take a look at it. But
+I can hold out hardly the least hope of being
+able to accept it. We are literally deluged with
+that sort of matter, and can’t find room for one
+in fifty of the manuscripts that are sent us.—At
+anyrate,’ he added, laughing, ‘it would require
+to be a little better than your “Ramble in Kirkcudbright.”’</p>
+
+<p>What could all this mean? thought the bewildered
+Alfred. Was the editor making a fool
+of him? At the very suggestion, he flushed red,
+and it was with an effort he was able to stammer
+forth: ‘And pray, sir, if the article was so worthless,
+why did you accept it? And why did you
+send me so handsome an honorarium?’</p>
+
+<p>The editor looked both surprised and puzzled.
+Instead of replying to the question, he asked
+one: ‘Are you the gentleman who is engaged
+to be married to Miss Anne Porteous?’</p>
+
+<p>‘No!—Yes! That is to say, I was engaged,
+but am not so now.’</p>
+
+<p>‘Indeed! And how is that?’ said the editor,
+with an air of interest.</p>
+
+<p>‘Well, you see,’ said Alfred, who had now
+regained his self-possession, ‘my friends advised
+me to break off the connection. You know,
+between ourselves, it wouldn’t do for a literary
+man of any standing to marry a common innkeeper’s
+daughter; although I must say the girl
+herself was well enough, and might have passed
+muster after a little training.’</p>
+
+<p>The editor’s eyes became blacker, keener, and
+sharper—they seemed almost to flash fire as he
+said; ‘You would know what she was, I suppose,
+when you sought her love.—Yes? Then what
+right had you to avail yourself of that as an
+excuse for casting her off? It’s about the most
+unmanly thing I ever’——</p>
+
+<p>‘Hold, hold!’ cried Alfred, who saw he had
+gone on the wrong tack for conciliating the
+editor’s favour. ‘You misunderstand the matter.
+My friends wanted me to break off the marriage;
+but I never proposed such a thing to the young
+lady. I meant to marry her in two or three
+years honourably. But she wrote to me; and I
+went down to see her—and we had a quarrel,
+and she broke off the engagement herself—upon
+my honour, she did!’</p>
+
+<p>The editor’s features relaxed their tension;
+there was almost the suggestion of a smile
+lurking in the corners of his mouth. ‘Well,
+Mr Roberton, I am glad you have cleared your
+character so well.—You are anxious to know
+why I accepted your first paper. This, I think,
+will explain it,’ he added, unlocking a private
+drawer and handing him a manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>Alfred looked at it with a stupefied air. Here
+were a dozen sheets of foolscap covered with
+Nan’s neat lady-like writing, and signed Ariel;
+reply to be addressed, Ariel, Glenluce post-office.—To
+lie till called for.</p>
+
+<p>He felt as if he were listening to a voice in a
+dream, as the editor went on to say: ‘You see,
+sir, I heard that Nan was going to be married
+to a young student she had met in Brussels.
+Now, students, as a rule, are not over-burdened
+with ready cash; and when I got the manuscript
+in her handwriting, I readily came to
+the conclusion that it was a production of her
+lover’s, and that she had copied it out in her
+own handwriting, thinking that, for old acquaintance’
+sake, I would stretch a point, and give it
+admission to our pages, and pay handsomely
+for it. This I did; for I thought that, as her
+father would be certain to be opposed to the
+match, a little ready cash would be useful to
+her and her lover in taking up house. In fact,
+I may say I sent the little sum as a marriage
+present! But I cannot understand how you are
+not aware of all this.’</p>
+
+<p>The whole truth was now made plain to the
+unfortunate lover. He remembered now her
+snatching the letter from his hand and running
+up-stairs with it. He remembered now her red
+and sleepy-looking eyes the next morning. He
+knew now the cause—the devoted girl had sat
+up all night copying his manuscript, so that it
+might have the better chance of acceptance!
+How carefully she had kept the knowledge to
+herself of the great service she had done him,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_701">{701}</span>and that in spite of his foolish gasconading talk!
+To her and her alone he owed his little brief
+season of popularity and success: and that popularity
+and success was the cause of his looking
+down on her! Oh, what a blinded fool he had
+been—blinded by his own selfish vanity!</p>
+
+<p>He mumbled a few words of explanation to
+the editor, and left the office a sadder and, it
+is to be hoped, a wiser man. He thought of
+flying to Nan, throwing himself at her feet, and
+entreating her forgiveness and love. But remembering
+the proud white face, the outstretched
+arm pointing to the door, and the clear emphatic
+‘Go!’ twice repeated, he shook his head sadly,
+and muttered, ‘Too late—too late.’ It may be
+said here that he gave up literature for good and
+all, obtained a situation as a surgeon in an emigrant
+ship, fell in love with a lady-patient during
+the voyage, married her on their arrival at
+Sydney, and starting the practice of his profession,
+settled down there.</p>
+
+<p>As for the editor of the <i>Olympic</i>, he went
+down as usual the following September to Lochenbreck,
+repeated a question he had asked before,
+and got a different reply. Nan is now his wife.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_MONTH_SCIENCE_AND_ARTS">THE MONTH:<br>
+<span class="smalltext">SCIENCE AND ARTS.</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> late meeting of the British Association at
+Birmingham has proved a success with regard
+both to the attendance of members and to the
+importance of the various papers read in the
+several sections. Next year the Association will
+meet at Manchester, and the year after at Bath.
+The suggestion from Sydney, that the Association
+should in 1888 visit New South Wales and hold
+its meeting there in the January of that year,
+cannot, on account of many difficulties which
+are foreseen, be accepted in its entirety. But
+it is intended that about fifty members shall
+form a representative delegation to our Australian
+colony, their expenses being liberally defrayed
+by the government of New South Wales. It is
+very pleasing to record this little sign of the good-fellowship
+which exists between far-off Australia
+and the mother-country.</p>
+
+<p>We expressed a hope some months ago that
+an institution of a permanent nature might grow
+out of the splendid Indian and Colonial Exhibition
+at South Kensington, which in a few days
+will close its prosperous career. It has now
+been proposed by the Prince of Wales that the
+Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign shall be commemorated
+by an Institute which should represent
+the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce of
+Her Majesty’s Colonial and Indian Empire, and
+which should be at once a Museum, an Exhibition,
+and the proper locality for the discussion
+of Colonial and Indian subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Very little is heard now of tempered or toughened
+glass for domestic purposes, although, a
+year or two back, such glass was much advertised
+and its praises constantly sung. We understand
+that the reason why it has at present disappeared
+from public notice is that its efficiency
+does not last. When fresh from the factory, it
+can be dropped from a height on to the floor
+and knocked about with impunity. But some
+gradual and not understood change occurs in its
+constitution, for after a short time it will fly
+to pieces without any apparent cause. It is said,
+too, that unscrupulous traders who have a stock
+of the faulty material are selling it as ordinary
+glass. Those, therefore, who experience unaccountable
+breakages, will know to what cause
+to attribute them. A really unbreakable glass
+would be such a boon, that it is to be hoped
+that further experiment will soon show how it
+can be manufactured.</p>
+
+<p>From some recent experiments in New York,
+it would seem that the danger of using dynamite
+as a charge for explosive projectiles has been
+obviated. The weapon used was a four and a
+half inch rifled gun, with a charge of three and
+a quarter pounds of gunpowder, the experimental
+shells holding each more than one pound of
+dynamite. To avoid any risk from concussion,
+and premature explosion of the shell in the bore
+of the gun, the cartridge and shell were separated
+by wads made of asbestos. Twenty-seven shells
+were fired with such safety to the gunners, that
+the extraordinary precautions observed during the
+first rounds were ignored during the later ones.</p>
+
+<p>The boat which the other day twice crossed
+the Channel between Dover and Calais affords an
+example of the rapid progress which has lately
+been made in the science of electricity. This
+little craft, which is only thirty-seven feet in
+length, glided over the water with no visible
+means of propulsion. The voyage was an experimental
+one, and was designed to show that this
+plan of electrical propulsion was as practicable
+on the sea as before it had been proved to be on
+inland waters. Such a boat could, say her promoters,
+be carried hanging to the davits of a
+ship, and be ready for immediate use. The
+required electrical current is derived from accumulators,
+or secondary batteries, stored and acting
+as ballast beneath the deck floor of the little
+vessel. These require to be charged by a dynamo
+machine at intervals, and such a charge this
+Channel trip amply proves will suffice for a run
+of between forty and fifty miles. Supposing that
+the system were adopted for torpedo vessels, it is
+obvious that this amount of storage capacity would
+be far more than sufficient for ordinary needs.</p>
+
+<p>Another vessel which obtains its motive-power
+from a very different source, but which must also
+be looked upon as an experimental boat, has been
+invented and built by Messrs Secor of Brooklyn.
+Unlike the electric boat, it possesses no screw
+propeller or other moving parts. But it is furnished
+on each side with open ports below the
+water-level, which are in communication with an
+‘exploding chamber.’ This chamber is constructed
+of steel, and is capable of sustaining an enormous
+internal pressure. It is filled with charges of
+petroleum vapour and air under pressure, and
+this explosive mixture is ignited by electricity.
+It will therefore be seen that the propelling apparatus
+of this boat may be compared to a gas-engine;
+but the explosions, which occur several
+times in a minute, instead of forcing forward a
+piston to act upon a fly-wheel, impinge upon the
+water at the stern of the vessel, and so push the
+boat forward. Should this method of driving a
+vessel through the water prove efficient, it will
+certainly be economical, for little more than half
+a barrel of petroleum will suffice for a twenty-four
+hours’ run.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_702">{702}</span></p>
+<p>Another invention from Brooklyn is of far
+greater importance than the one just recorded, for
+it is of a life-saving character, and is designed
+to prevent those collisions at sea which seem to
+be so greatly on the increase. It consists of a
+marine brake, and is the contrivance of Mr John
+M‘Adams. The experimental vessel, <i>The Florence</i>,
+which is fitted with the brake, has been reported
+upon officially, and the behaviour of the apparatus
+is highly commended. The brake consists of two
+wings made of steel, one on each side of the
+vessel and below water-level. These have the
+appearance of flat boards about eight feet square,
+hinged to the stern-post, and which when not in
+action fold forwards, secured by hidden chains,
+close to and touching the vessel’s sides. In case
+of danger of collision, the touch of a button by the
+captain on the bridge will loosen these chains, and
+cause some springs to act upon the wings, so that
+they fly out at right angles to the sides of the
+ship. In this position they are held by the now
+lengthened chains, and form an obstacle to the
+water, which checks the motion of the vessel
+immediately, even if the engines continue to work.
+If the engines are stopped at the moment the
+brake is put into action, the ship is brought to
+a standstill in twenty-two seconds. If, again, the
+engine be stopped and reversed at the moment of
+working the brake, the vessel commences to go
+astern in the remarkably short space of twelve
+seconds. It will be seen from these results that
+the invention gives every promise of being of
+great use. Besides being efficient, it is simple in
+character, and, from its nature, cannot be a very
+expensive additional fitting to a ship.</p>
+
+<p>The lamentable accident at the Crarae Quarries,
+by which seven persons lost their lives, is happily
+a most unusual one, although in character it
+is closely allied with those fatalities from ‘choke-damp’
+by which so many poor colliers have
+been killed. The explosion of gas underground,
+or of gunpowder above ground, leads to the
+evolution of a quantity of carbonic acid gas, or,
+to call it by its proper name, carbon dioxide,
+the principal product of combustion in either
+case. In the workings of a mine, this gas fills
+every available space, and has no outlet. In the
+quarry, on the occasion referred to, much the
+same condition of affairs existed, for there was
+no wind to carry off the deadly vapour, and
+its natural heaviness made it cling to the place
+of its creation. The surviving relatives of the
+victims of this accident have our heartfelt sympathy.
+They will be comforted by knowing
+that death under such conditions is supposed to
+be painless. It is a sending to sleep, but a sleep,
+unfortunately, from which there is no awakening
+in this world.</p>
+
+<p>The little town of East Moulsey is now lighted,
+so far as its public lamps are concerned, by
+paraffin instead of gas, as heretofore. The reason
+of this apparent retrogression is found in the
+excessive demands of the Gas Company, who
+required the local board to pay at the rate of
+four guineas per annum for each lamp. This the
+local board refused to do, and provided the
+district under their care with paraffin lamps.
+They are rewarded for their pluck by finding
+that the cost of the oil-lamps is but one half of
+the charge demanded by the Gas Company, and
+by hearing the generally expressed opinion of
+the people that the place had never before been
+so well lighted.</p>
+
+<p>The recent earthquakes, which have caused
+such fearful havoc and loss of life both in
+Southern Europe and in America, remind us
+that our knowledge of the causes of such terrible
+phenomena is very meagre, and that science has
+not yet discovered any means by which their
+occurrence may be predicted. But, in spite of
+these admitted facts, there are not wanting on
+occasions of earthquake self-styled prophets, who
+will boldly declare what the morrow will bring
+forth. Such mischievous charlatans do much
+harm, for they terrify the ignorant at a time
+when men’s nerves have been already unstrung
+by recent calamities. In the year 1750, when
+London felt a sharp earthquake shock, a prophet
+announced the immediate coming of the judgment
+day. Another predicted a terrible earthquake
+for a certain night, with the result that
+the people encamped in thousands in Hyde Park.
+Coming nearer to present times, we may note
+the destructive earthquake in 1881 in the island
+of Ischia. Here, again, there was a prophecy
+that there would not be another visitation of the
+kind for eighty years. But only two years after
+this the beautiful island was shaken to its foundations,
+and many lives were lost. During the
+late disaster at Charleston, a prediction was made
+that upon the 29th of September a fearful catastrophe
+was to take place. The originator of
+this mischievous statement should be severely
+punished.</p>
+
+<p>We have lately received from Messrs Burton
+Brothers of Dunedin, New Zealand, a set of most
+interesting photographs, taken in the neighbourhood
+of Tarawera and Rotomahana, immediately
+after the late volcanic eruption. Were we not
+aware of the terrible facts, we should suppose
+that these were winter scenes, for the trees
+are stripped of their foliage, and everything is
+covered with a white ash, which in the photographs
+looks likes snow. The ruins of M‘Rae’s
+hotel at Wairoa, of which there are front and
+back views, exhibit such a mass of broken
+masonry and twisted iron-work, that one can
+hardly believe that the place has not been
+bombarded.</p>
+
+<p>We are glad to learn, from the <i>New Zealand
+Herald</i>, that the layer of ashes which covers so
+many miles of the country, will not, as was
+at first feared, choke and kill every blade of
+grass, but will probably in time act as a valuable
+fertilising agent. Already the grass is in
+many places growing up through the dust; but
+the ash has been submitted to experiment, and
+is found to be really nourishing to plants grown
+in it. Mr Pond, a resident analytical chemist,
+obtained several samples of the volcanic dust,
+and sowed in it grass and clover seeds, and kept
+them moistened with distilled water. In each case,
+we are told, the seedling plants have come up
+well and are growing vigorously; it is therefore
+hoped that those districts which have
+received only a light covering of this dreaded
+dust will find that the visitation will in the
+end prove beneficial to their crops.</p>
+
+<p>As we stated last month, the armour-plated
+ship <i>Resistance</i> has lately formed a target for
+various experiments with different types of guns.
+The unfortunate old ship is now being subjected
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_703">{703}</span>to attacks by torpedoes, the object being to
+determine the nearness at which one of those
+submarine mines can be exploded without injury
+to a vessel when protected by wire-netting. It
+is proved that if the defensive netting is supported
+on booms thirty feet from the ship, it
+forms a good protection from torpedoes, and that
+though a torpedo should explode on touching
+the netting, as it will do if fitted with the new
+form of pistol trigger, which is very sensitive,
+the explosion will do no great harm. The distance
+of the netting from the ship will be gradually
+reduced until the <i>Resistance</i> can resist no
+longer, and must be destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>A strange sight was lately witnessed at Salzburg,
+in the shape of a vast procession of butterflies,
+which passed over the city in a south-westerly
+direction. They seemed to fly in groups,
+and while preserving one line of direction in
+flight, the groups revolved round that line. This
+aërial insect army must have numbered millions
+of individual butterflies. From those which
+fell to the ground, it was seen that they were
+of the kind known as willow-spinners.</p>
+
+<p>Photographic tourists—and their name now is
+legion—will all admit that their greatest drawback
+is represented by the weight of the glass
+plates which they must carry from place to place
+in addition to their other apparatus. This difficulty
+has just been obviated by the introduction
+of a material as a support for the photographic
+image which is as light as paper, so that in the
+compass of an ordinary two-shilling railway novel,
+the tourist can carry with him the sensitised
+material for a couple of hundred pictures. This
+material is known as Woodbury tissue, and was
+the last invention of the late eminent experimenter
+who gave his name to the beautiful
+Woodburytype process of photography. His successors
+have brought the tissue to marketable
+perfection, and produce a material as translucent
+as glass and one-twentieth part of its weight.
+The tissue is used in a singularly ingenious form
+of dark slide or double back, which can be
+readily adjusted to existing forms of cameras.</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Camera</i> magazine, a very curious
+phenomenon in connection with photography is
+recorded by the person who observed it. He
+took a portrait of a child apparently in full
+health and with a clear skin. The negative
+picture showed the face to be thickly covered
+with an eruption. Three days afterwards, the
+child was covered with spots due to prickly heat.
+‘The camera had seen and photographed the
+eruption three days before it was visible to the
+eye.’ Another case of a somewhat similar kind
+is also recorded where a child showed spots on
+his portrait which were invisible on his face a
+fortnight previous to an attack of smallpox. It
+is suggested that these cases might point to a
+new method of medical diagnosis.</p>
+
+<p>The Severn tunnel, one of the greatest engineering
+undertakings of modern times, is at last
+finished, and will be shortly open for passenger
+traffic, as it has been some weeks for the conveyance
+of goods. The total cost of this great work
+is estimated at two millions sterling. The cost
+has been greatly augmented by the unlooked-for
+difficulties which have cropped up during the
+progress of the works. Commencing in 1873, the
+contractor had made steady progress for the
+following six years, when a land spring was
+accidentally tapped, and the partially constructed
+tunnel was flooded. Again, in 1881 the seawater
+found out a weak place on the Gloucestershire
+side of the works, and poured in in
+torrents. Once more, in 1883 the old land
+spring again filled the works with water, which
+had to be pumped out; and finally, about the
+same time, a tidal wave brought about a great
+amount of destruction to the works; so we may
+look upon the completed tunnel not only as a
+great monument of engineering skill, but as an
+example of unusual difficulties well grappled
+with, and finally overcome.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><h2 class="nobreak" id="OCCASIONAL_NOTES">OCCASIONAL NOTES.</h2></div>
+
+
+<h3>PHARAOH’S HOUSE.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is but a month or two ago that people of
+an archæological turn of mind were delighted
+with the tidings sent home by the Egypt Exploration
+Fund of the discovery of Pharaoh’s House
+in Tahpanhes. An account of the wonderful
+old ruin and its reliques of a past civilisation
+has been already given; but it may interest many
+to know that a number of antiquities have been
+collected and sent home, and have recently
+been on view at the Archæological Institute at
+Oxford Mansion. It will be remembered that
+the ruins were as much those of a military
+fortress as of a royal residence, and the objects
+recovered are almost entirely those which would
+be likely to be found in either of two such
+places.</p>
+
+<p>The first things of interest are the foundation
+deposits, from under the four corners of the
+castle, which consist of small vessels, little tablets
+engraved with the name and titles of the
+royal founder, Psammetichus I., specimens of ore,
+&amp;c. The chief articles of jewelry are earrings,
+rings, amulets, and engraved stones bearing traces
+of Greek workmanship, having been probably
+manufactured by Greek jewellers in the town
+of Tahpanhes, or Daphnæ. Numbers of small
+weights have been turned up while digging among
+the ruins, which it is thought were for weighing
+the gold and precious stones previous to purchase.</p>
+
+<p>Rome, too, has left her mark among the charred
+remains of this ancient stronghold, and some
+rings with names inscribed upon them, and ten
+gems of good Roman work, prove an intercourse
+with that nation. There is a little silver shrine
+case in which is a beautiful statuette of the
+Egyptian war-god, Mentu. Possibly, it may
+have once been a talisman belonging to Pharaoh
+Hophra. A silver ram’s head and gold handle
+complete the list of the most important specimens
+of jewelry.</p>
+
+<p>Among the domestic treasures are a long knife,
+fourteen inches long and quite flat; this comes
+from Pharaoh’s kitchen; so also do the small
+frying-pans, and some bowls, bottles, dishes,
+plates and cups, all of which date from <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> 550,
+and were probably used daily by the royal household.
+An old brasier and some ring-stands have
+also been brought home. From the butler’s
+pantry come amphoræ stoppers, stamped with
+the cartouches of Psammetichus I., Necho, Psammetichus
+II., and Aahmes. These were clay
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_704">{704}</span>stoppers, sealed by the inspector, and then plastered
+over and stamped with the royal oval.
+Ten specimens of these Mr Petrie has sent home.
+Arrow-heads, a sword-handle and part of the
+blade, a horse’s bit of twisted pattern, some spikes
+from the top of a Sardinian mercenary’s helmet,
+knives and lances, and some fragments of scale-armour,
+show that the old castle had once been
+a military stronghold.</p>
+
+<p>This is but an outline, showing the kind of
+specimens found among the ruins of El Kasr
+el Bint el Yahudî (the Castle of the Jew’s
+Daughter), and serve to add to the innumerable
+proofs—if proof were needed—of the advanced
+civilisation of the ancient Egyptians. It is
+believed that those antiquities will eventually
+be divided between the Museum at Boulak
+(Cairo), the British Museum, the Museum of
+Fine Arts at Boston, U.S., and several of the
+provincial museums of Great Britain.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE EMIGRANTS’ INFORMATION OFFICE.</h3>
+
+<p>It is satisfactory to know that government has
+at last opened an office for the dissemination of
+authentic information to intending emigrants.
+The emigration schemes before the country are
+legion; but those who apply here will be safe
+to receive information as to the British colony
+to which they propose to emigrate, which does
+not spring from any interested motive. At the
+same time it is always safe for intending settlers
+to supplement any knowledge received in this
+way by authoritative handbooks, books of travel,
+and the experiences of former settlers. Now that
+there is a prospect of the Indian and Colonial
+Exhibition becoming a permanent institution in
+our midst, we will be kept pretty well informed
+as to the position and prospects of our different
+colonies. The premises of the Emigrants’ Information
+Office are at 31 Broadway, Westminster,
+London, S.W. The office will be open every
+day from twelve noon to eight <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span>, except on
+Wednesdays, when it will be open from ten <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>
+to one <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> The circulars issued by the office
+will be sent to the secretaries of any societies
+or institutions who will send in their addresses
+to the chief clerk.</p>
+
+
+<h3>INCREASED CONSUMPTION OF BRITISH-COLONIAL
+TEAS.</h3>
+
+<p>In a paper read by Mr L. J. Shand of the Ceylon
+Court at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, the
+present position of the Indian tea-trade was
+reviewed. British-colonial teas, which in 1865
+formed but three per cent. of the total quantity
+consumed in the United Kingdom, amounted
+to sixteen per cent. in 1875, and to thirty-three
+per cent. in 1885. India had two hundred and
+fifty thousand acres under tea-cultivation, and
+produced seventy million pounds of tea; the
+capital invested in the industry was sixteen
+million pounds; and a quarter of a million of
+Her Majesty’s subjects, who indirectly contributed
+to the income tax of Great Britain, were engaged
+in it. The tea-plant was introduced to Ceylon
+from China about the year 1842; but it was not
+till coffee was stricken by disease that attention
+was generally directed to the cultivation of tea
+in Ceylon. In 1873, a small parcel of twenty-three
+pounds of tea was exported from Ceylon;
+this year, nine million pounds would be exported,
+and, estimating the acreage now planted with
+tea, the exports in 1890 would be forty million
+pounds. Proceeding to consider why British
+people should drink British-colonial teas, Mr
+Shand said that these teas came into the London
+market pure; there was no recorded evidence of
+adulteration having been discovered. The adulteration
+of China tea, on the other hand, had been
+the subject of several volumes and of special legislation.
+The purity of Indian and Ceylon teas
+made them more sensitive than the ordinary
+China mixture. It was not necessary to put
+such large quantities into the teapot, but it was
+all the more necessary that the water should be
+boiling and that the tea should not be allowed
+to stand too long. Disappointment should not
+be felt because the liquor was not black; that was
+in consequence of the tea being quite pure and
+unmixed with blacklead or indigo. If Indian
+and Ceylon teas were fairly tried and carefully
+treated, they would be found more economical
+than China teas.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><h2 class="nobreak" id="IF_THIS_WERE_SO">IF THIS WERE SO.</h2></div>
+
+
+<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry">
+<div class="stanza"><div class="verse indent0"><span class="smcap">O Love</span>, if I could see you standing here,</div>
+<div class="verse indent2">I, to whom the memory of a scene—</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">This lane, tree-shadowed, with the summer’s light</div>
+<div class="verse indent2">Falling in golden showers, the boughs between,</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">Upon your upturned face—shines out as clear,</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">Against the background dark of many a year,</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">As yonder solitary starlet bright</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">Gleams on the storm-clad bosom of the night.</div></div>
+
+<div class="stanza"><div class="verse indent0">If this were so—if you should come to me</div>
+<div class="verse indent2">With your calm, angel face, framed in with gold,</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">And lay your hand in mine as long ago</div>
+<div class="verse indent2">You laid it coldly, would the love untold</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">Hidden within my heart, set my lips free</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">To speak of it and know the certainty</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">Of love crowned or rejected—yes or no?</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">O Love, I could not speak if this were so.</div></div>
+
+<div class="stanza"><div class="verse indent0">But if you came to meet me in the lane</div>
+<div class="verse indent2">With footsteps swifter than you used of yore—</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">And if your eyes grew brighter, dear, as though</div>
+<div class="verse indent2">They gladdened at my coming back once more—</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">If, when I held your little hand again,</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">Your calmness grew less still, then not in vain</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">My heart would strive to speak, for it would know</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">What words to utter, Love, if this were so!</div>
+
+<div class="attrib"><span class="smcap">Kate Mellersh.</span></div></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<p>The Conductor of <span class="smcap">Chambers’s Journal</span> begs to direct
+the attention of <span class="smcap">Contributors</span> to the following notice:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><i>1st.</i> All communications should be addressed to the
+‘Editor, 339 High Street, Edinburgh.’</p>
+
+<p><i>2d.</i> For its return in case of ineligibility, postage-stamps
+should accompany every manuscript.</p>
+
+<p><i>3d.</i> To secure their safe return if ineligible, <span class="smcap">All Manuscripts</span>,
+whether accompanied by a letter of advice or
+otherwise, <i>should have the writer’s Name and Address
+written upon them</i> <span class="allsmcap">IN FULL</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>4th.</i> Offerings of Verse should invariably be accompanied
+by a stamped and directed envelope.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>If the above rules are complied with, the Editor will
+do his best to insure the safe return of ineligible papers.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<p class="center">Printed and Published by <span class="smcap">W. &amp; R. Chambers</span>, 47 Paternoster
+Row, <span class="smcap">London</span>, and 339 High Street, <span class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>.</p>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<p>[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text.</p>
+
+<p>Page 693: Villiars to Villiers—“down Villiers Street”.]</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75329 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75329 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75329)