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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78183 ***
+
+
+     “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+
+
+                            HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
+                           A WEEKLY JOURNAL.
+
+
+                     CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+      N^{o.} 18.]      SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1850.      [PRICE 2_d._
+
+
+
+
+                       A DETECTIVE POLICE PARTY.
+
+
+In pursuance of the intention mentioned at the close of a former paper
+on “The Modern Science of Thief-taking,” we now proceed to endeavour to
+convey to our readers some faint idea of the extraordinary dexterity,
+patience, and ingenuity, exercised by the Detective Police. That our
+description may be as graphic as we can render it, and may be perfectly
+reliable, we will make it, so far as in us lies, a piece of plain truth.
+And first, we have to inform the reader how the anecdotes we are about
+to communicate, came to our knowledge.
+
+We are not by any means devout believers in the Old Bow-Street Police.
+To say the truth, we think there was a vast amount of humbug about those
+worthies. Apart from many of them being men of very indifferent
+character, and far too much in the habit of consorting with thieves and
+the like, they never lost a public occasion of jobbing and trading in
+mystery and making the most of themselves. Continually puffed besides by
+incompetent magistrates anxious to conceal their own deficiencies, and
+hand-in-glove with the penny-a-liners of that time, they became a sort
+of superstition. Although as a Preventive Police they were utterly
+ineffective, and as a Detective Police were very loose and uncertain in
+their operations, they remain with some people, a superstition to the
+present day.
+
+On the other hand, the Detective Force organised since the establishment
+of the existing Police, is so well chosen and trained, proceeds so
+systematically and quietly, does its business in such a workman-like
+manner, and is always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of
+the public, that the public really do not know enough of it, to know a
+tithe of its usefulness. Impressed with this conviction, and interested
+in the men themselves, we represented to the authorities at Scotland
+Yard, that we should be glad, if there were no official objection, to
+have some talk with the Detectives. A most obliging and ready permission
+being given, a certain evening was appointed with a certain Inspector
+for a social conference between ourselves and the Detectives, at our
+Office in Wellington Street, Strand, London. In consequence of which
+appointment the party “came off,” which we are about to describe. And we
+beg to repeat that, avoiding such topics as it might for obvious reasons
+be injurious to the public, or disagreeable to respectable individuals,
+to touch upon in print, our description is as exact as we can make it.
+
+The reader will have the goodness to imagine the Sanctum Sanctorum of
+Household Words. Anything that best suits the reader’s fancy, will best
+represent that magnificent chamber. We merely stipulate for a round
+table in the middle, with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it; and
+the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece of
+furniture and the wall.
+
+It is a sultry evening at dusk. The stones of Wellington Street are hot
+and gritty, and the watermen and hackney-coachmen at the Theatre
+opposite, are much flushed and aggravated. Carriages are constantly
+setting down the people who have come to Fairy-Land; and there is a
+mighty shouting and bellowing every now and then, deafening us for the
+moment, through the open windows.
+
+Just at dusk, Inspectors Wield and Stalker are announced; but we do not
+undertake to warrant the orthography of any of the names here mentioned.
+Inspector Wield presents Inspector Stalker. Inspector Wield is a
+middle-aged man of a portly presence, with a large, moist, knowing eye,
+a husky voice, and a habit of emphasising his conversation by the aid of
+a corpulent fore-finger, which is constantly in juxta-position with his
+eyes or nose. Inspector Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman—in
+appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained
+schoolmaster, from the Normal Establishment at Glasgow. Inspector Wield
+one might have known, perhaps, for what he is—Inspector Stalker, never.
+
+The ceremonies of reception over, Inspectors Wield and Stalker observe
+that they have brought some sergeants with them. The sergeants are
+presented—five in number, Sergeant Dornton, Sergeant Witchem, Sergeant
+Mith, Sergeant Fendall, and Sergeant Straw. We have the whole Detective
+Force from Scotland Yard with one exception. They sit down in a
+semi-circle (the two Inspectors at the two ends) at a little distance
+from the round table, facing the editorial sofa. Every man of them, in a
+glance, immediately takes an inventory of the furniture and an accurate
+sketch of the editorial presence. The Editor feels that any gentleman in
+company could take him up, if need should be, without the smallest
+hesitation, twenty years hence.
+
+The whole party are in plain clothes. Sergeant Dornton, about fifty
+years of age, with a ruddy face and a high sun-burnt forehead, has the
+air of one who has been a Sergeant in the army—he might have sat to
+Wilkie for the Soldier in the Reading of the Will. He is famous for
+steadily pursuing the inductive process, and, from small beginnings,
+working on from clue to clue until he bags his man. Sergeant Witchem,
+shorter and thicker-set, and marked with the small pox, has something of
+a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he were engaged in deep
+arithmetical calculations. He is renowned for his acquaintance with the
+swell mob. Sergeant Mith, a smooth-faced man with a fresh bright
+complexion, and a strange air of simplicity, is a dab at housebreakers.
+Sergeant Fendall, a light-haired, well-spoken, polite person, is a
+prodigious hand at pursuing private inquiries of a delicate nature.
+Straw, a little wiry Sergeant of meek demeanour and strong sense, would
+knock at a door and ask a series of questions in any mild character you
+chose to prescribe to him, from a charity-boy upwards, and seem as
+innocent as an infant. They are, one and all, respectable-looking men;
+of perfectly good deportment and unusual intelligence; with nothing
+lounging or slinking in their manners; with an air of keen observation,
+and quick perception when addressed; and generally presenting in their
+faces, traces more or less marked of habitually leading lives of strong
+mental excitement. They have all good eyes; and they all can, and they
+all do, look full at whomsoever they speak to.
+
+We light the cigars, and hand round the glasses (which are very
+temperately used indeed), and the conversation begins by a modest
+amateur reference on the Editorial part to the swell mob. Inspector
+Wield immediately removes his cigar from his lips, waves his right hand,
+and says, “Regarding the Swell Mob, Sir, I can’t do better than call
+upon Sergeant Witchem. Because the reason why? I’ll tell you. Sergeant
+Witchem is better acquainted with the Swell Mob than any officer in
+London.”
+
+Our heart leaping up when we beheld this rainbow in the sky, we turn to
+Sergeant Witchem, who very concisely, and in well-chosen language, goes
+into the subject forthwith. Meantime, the whole of his brother officers
+are closely interested in attending to what he says, and observing its
+effect. Presently they begin to strike in, one or two together, when an
+opportunity offers, and the conversation becomes general. But these
+brother officers only come in to the assistance of each other—not to the
+contradiction—and a more amicable brotherhood there could not be. From
+the swell mob, we diverge to the kindred topics of cracksmen, fences,
+public-house dancers, area-sneaks, designing young people who go out
+“gonophing,” and other “schools,” to which our readers have already been
+introduced. It is observable throughout these revelations, that
+Inspector Stalker, the Scotchman, is always exact and statistical, and
+that when any question of figures arises, everybody as by one consent
+pauses, and looks to him.
+
+When we have exhausted the various schools of Art—during which
+discussion the whole body have remained profoundly attentive, except
+when some unusual noise at the Theatre over the way, has induced some
+gentleman to glance inquiringly towards the window in that direction,
+behind his next neighbour’s back—we burrow for information on such
+points as the following. Whether there really are any highway robberies
+in London, or whether some circumstances not convenient to be mentioned
+by the aggrieved party, usually precede the robberies complained of,
+under that head, which quite change their character? Certainly the
+latter, almost always. Whether in the case of robberies in houses, where
+servants are necessarily exposed to doubt, innocence under suspicion
+ever becomes so like guilt in appearance, that a good officer need be
+cautious how he judges it? Undoubtedly. Nothing is so common or
+deceptive as such appearances at first. Whether in a place of public
+amusement, a thief knows an officer, and an officer knows a
+thief,—supposing them, beforehand, strangers to each other—because each
+recognises in the other, under all disguise, an inattention to what is
+going on, and a purpose that is not the purpose of being entertained?
+Yes. That’s the way exactly. Whether it is reasonable or ridiculous to
+trust to the alleged experiences of thieves as narrated by themselves,
+in prisons, or penitentiaries, or anywhere? In general, nothing more
+absurd. Lying is their habit and their trade; and they would rather
+lie—even if they hadn’t an interest in it, and didn’t want to make
+themselves agreeable—than tell the truth.
+
+From these topics, we glide into a review of the most celebrated and
+horrible of the great crimes that have been committed within the last
+fifteen or twenty years. The men engaged in the discovery of almost all
+of them, and in the pursuit or apprehension of the murderers, are here,
+down to the very last instance. One of our guests gave chase to and
+boarded the Emigrant Ship, in which the murderess last hanged in London
+was supposed to have embarked. We learn from him that his errand was not
+announced to the passengers, who may have no idea of it to this hour.
+That he went below, with the captain, lamp in hand—it being dark, and
+the whole steerage abed and seasick—and engaged the Mrs. Manning who
+_was_ on board, in a conversation about her luggage, until she was, with
+no small pains, induced to raise her head, and turn her face towards the
+light. Satisfied that she was not the object of his search, he quietly
+re-embarked in the Government steamer alongside, and steamed home again
+with the intelligence.
+
+When we have exhausted these subjects, too, which occupy a considerable
+time in the discussion, two or three leave their chairs, whisper
+Sergeant Witchem, and resume their seats. Sergeant Witchem, leaning
+forward a little, and placing a hand on each of his legs, then modestly
+speaks as follows:
+
+“My brother officers wish me to relate a little account of my taking
+Tally-ho Thompson. A man oughtn’t to tell what he has done himself; but
+still, as nobody was with me, and, consequently, as nobody but myself
+can tell it, I’ll do it in the best way I can, if it should meet your
+approval.”
+
+We assure Sergeant Witchem that he will oblige us very much, and we all
+compose ourselves to listen with great interest and attention.
+
+“Tally-ho Thompson,” says Sergeant Witchem, after merely wetting his
+lips with his brandy-and-water, “Tally-ho Thompson was a famous
+horse-stealer, couper, and magsman. Thompson, in conjunction with a pal
+that occasionally worked with him, gammoned a countryman out of a good
+round sum of money, under pretence of getting him a situation—the
+regular old dodge—and was afterwards in the ‘Hue and Cry’ for a horse—a
+horse that he stole, down in Hertfordshire. I had to look after
+Thompson, and I applied myself, of course, in the first instance, to
+discovering where he was. Now, Thompson’s wife lived, along with a
+little daughter, at Chelsea. Knowing that Thompson was somewhere in the
+country, I watched the house—especially at post-time in the
+morning—thinking Thompson was pretty likely to write to her. Sure
+enough, one morning the postman comes up, and delivers a letter at Mrs.
+Thompson’s door. Little girl opens the door, and takes it in. We’re not
+always sure of postmen, though the people at the post-offices are always
+very obliging. A postman may help us, or he may not,—just as it happens.
+However, I go across the road, and I say to the postman, after he has
+left the letter, ‘Good morning! how are you?’ ‘How are _you_?’ says he.
+‘You’ve just delivered a letter for Mrs. Thompson.’ ‘Yes, I have.’ ‘You
+didn’t happen to remark what the post-mark was, perhaps?’ ‘No,’ says he,
+‘I didn’t.’ ‘Come,’ says I, ‘I’ll be plain with you. I’m in a small way
+of business, and I have given Thompson credit, and I can’t afford to
+lose what he owes me. I know he’s got money, and I know he’s in the
+country, and if you could tell me what the post-mark was, I should be
+very much obliged to you, and you’d do a service to a tradesman in a
+small way of business that can’t afford a loss.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I do
+assure you that I did not observe what the post-mark was; all I know is,
+that there was money in the letter—I should say a sovereign.’ This was
+enough for me, because of course I knew that Thompson having sent his
+wife money, it was probable she’d write to Thompson, by return of post,
+to acknowledge the receipt. So I said ‘Thankee’ to the postman, and I
+kept on the watch. In the afternoon I saw the little girl come out. Of
+course I followed her. She went into a stationer’s shop, and I needn’t
+say to you that I looked in at the window. She bought some writing-paper
+and envelopes, and a pen. I think to myself, ‘That’ll do!’—watch her
+home again—and don’t go away, you may be sure, knowing that Mrs.
+Thompson was writing her letter to Tally-ho, and that the letter would
+be posted presently. In about an hour or so, out came the little girl
+again, with the letter in her hand. I went up, and said something to the
+child, whatever it might have been; but I couldn’t see the direction of
+the letter, because she held it with the seal upwards. However, I
+observed that on the back of the letter there was what we call a kiss—a
+drop of wax by the side of the seal—and again, you understand, that was
+enough for me. I saw her post the letter, waited till she was gone, then
+went into the shop, and asked to see the Master. When he came out, I
+told him, ‘Now, I’m an Officer in the Detective Force; there’s a letter
+with a kiss been posted here just now, for a man that I’m in search of;
+and what I have to ask of you, is, that you will let me look at the
+direction of that letter.’ He was very civil—took a lot of letters from
+the box in the window—shook ’em out on the counter with the faces
+downwards—and there among ’em was the identical letter with the kiss. It
+was directed, Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post-Office, B——, to be left ’till
+called for. Down I went to B—— (a hundred and twenty miles or so) that
+night. Early next morning I went to the Post-Office; saw the gentleman
+in charge of that department; told him who I was; and that my object was
+to see, and track, the party that should come for the letter for Mr.
+Thomas Pigeon. He was very polite, and said, ‘You shall have every
+assistance we can give you; you can wait inside the office; and we’ll
+take care to let you know when anybody comes for the letter.’ Well, I
+waited there, three days, and began to think that nobody ever _would_
+come. At last the clerk whispered to me, ‘Here! Detective! Somebody’s
+come for the letter!’ ‘Keep him a minute,’ said I, and I ran round to
+the outside of the office. There I saw a young chap with the appearance
+of an Ostler, holding a horse by the bridle—stretching the bridle across
+the pavement, while he waited at the Post-Office Window for the letter.
+I began to pat the horse, and that; and I said to the boy, ‘Why, this is
+Mr. Jones’s Mare!’ ‘No. It an’t.’ ‘No?’ said I. ‘She’s very like Mr.
+Jones’s Mare!’ ‘She an’t Mr. Jones’s Mare, anyhow,’ says he. ‘It’s Mr.
+So-and-So’s, of the Warwick Arms.’ And up he jumped, and off he
+went—letter and all. I got a cab, followed on the box, and was so quick
+after him that I came into the stable-yard of the Warwick Arms, by one
+gate, just as he came in by another. I went into the bar, where there
+was a young woman serving, and called for a glass of brandy-and-water.
+He came in directly, and handed her the letter. She casually looked at
+it, without saying anything, and stuck it up behind the glass over the
+chimney-piece. What was to be done next?
+
+“I turned it over in my mind while I drank my brandy-and-water (looking
+pretty sharp at the letter the while), but I couldn’t see my way out of
+it at all. I tried to get lodgings in the house, but there had been a
+horse-fair, or something of that sort, and it was full. I was obliged to
+put up somewhere else, but I came backwards and forwards to the bar for
+a couple of days, and there was the letter, always behind the glass. At
+last I thought I’d write a letter to Mr. Pigeon myself, and see what
+that would do. So I wrote one, and posted it, but I purposely addressed
+it, Mr. John Pigeon, instead of Mr. Thomas Pigeon, to see what _that_
+would do. In the morning (a very wet morning it was) I watched the
+postman down the street, and cut into the bar, just before he reached
+the Warwick Arms. In he came presently with my letter. ‘Is there a Mr.
+John Pigeon staying here?’ ‘No!—stop a bit though,’ says the barmaid;
+and she took down the letter behind the glass. ‘No,’ says she, ‘it’s
+Thomas, and _he_ is not staying here. Would you do me a favor, and post
+this for me, as it is so wet?’ The postman said Yes; she folded it in
+another envelope, directed it, and gave it him. He put it in his hat,
+and away he went.
+
+“I had no difficulty in finding out the direction of that letter. It was
+addressed, Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post-Office, R——, Northamptonshire, to be
+left till called for. Off I started directly for R——; I said the same at
+the Post-Office there, as I had said at B——; and again I waited three
+days before anybody came. At last another chap on horseback came. ‘Any
+letters for Mr. Thomas Pigeon?’ ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘New Inn, near
+R——.’ He got the letter, and away _he_ went—at a canter.
+
+“I made my enquiries about the New Inn, near R——, and hearing it was a
+solitary sort of house, a little in the horse line, about a couple of
+miles from the station, I thought I’d go and have a look at it. I found
+it what it had been described, and sauntered in, to look about me. The
+landlady was in the bar, and I was trying to get into conversation with
+her; asked her how business was, and spoke about the wet weather, and so
+on; when I saw, through an open door, three men sitting by the fire in a
+sort of parlor, or kitchen; and one of those men, according to the
+description I had of him, was Tally-ho Thompson!
+
+“I went and sat down among ’em, and tried to make things agreeable; but
+they were very shy—wouldn’t talk at all—looked at me, and at one
+another, in a way quite the reverse of sociable. I reckoned ’em up, and
+finding that they were all three bigger men than me, and considering
+that their looks were ugly—that it was a lonely place—railroad station
+two miles off—and night coming on—thought I couldn’t do better than have
+a drop of brandy-and-water to keep my courage up. So I called for my
+brandy-and-water; and as I was sitting drinking it by the fire, Thompson
+got up and went out.
+
+“Now the difficulty of it was, that I wasn’t sure it _was_ Thompson,
+because I had never set eyes on him before; and what I had wanted was to
+be quite certain of him. However, there was nothing for it now, but to
+follow, and put a bold face upon it. I found him talking, outside in the
+yard, with the landlady. It turned out afterwards, that he was wanted by
+a Northampton officer for something else, and that, knowing that officer
+to be pock-marked (as I am myself), he mistook me for him. As I have
+observed, I found him talking to the landlady, outside. I put my hand
+upon his shoulder—this way—and said, ‘Tally-ho Thompson, it’s no use. I
+know you. I’m an officer from London, and I take you into custody for
+felony!’ ‘That be d—d!’ says Tally-ho Thompson.
+
+“We went back into the house, and the two friends began to cut up rough,
+and their looks didn’t please me at all, I assure you. ‘Let the man go.
+What are you going to do with him?’ ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do
+with him. I’m going to take him to London to-night, as sure as I’m
+alive. I’m not alone here, whatever you may think. You mind your own
+business, and keep yourselves to yourselves. It’ll be better for you,
+for I know you both very well.’ _I_‘d never seen or heard of ’em in all
+my life, but my bouncing cowed ’em a bit, and they kept off, while
+Thompson was making ready to go. I thought to myself, however, that they
+might be coming after me on the dark road, to rescue Thompson; so I said
+to the landlady, ‘What men have you got in the house, Missis?’ ‘We
+haven’t got no men here,’ she says, sulkily. ‘You have got an ostler, I
+suppose?’ ‘Yes, we’ve got an ostler.’ ‘Let me see him.’ Presently he
+came, and a shaggy-headed young fellow he was. ‘Now attend to me, young
+man,’ says I; ‘I’m a Detective Officer from London. This man’s name is
+Thompson. I have taken him into custody for felony. I’m going to take
+him to the railroad station. I call upon you in the Queen’s name to
+assist me; and mind you, my friend, you’ll get yourself into more
+trouble than you know of, if you don’t!’ You never saw a person open his
+eyes so wide. ‘Now, Thompson, come along!’ says I. But when I took out
+the handcuffs, Thompson cries, ‘No! None of that! I won’t stand _them_!
+I’ll go along with you quiet, but I won’t bear none of that!’ ‘Tally-ho
+Thompson,’ I said, ‘I’m willing to behave as a man to you, if you are
+willing to behave as a man to me. Give me your word that you’ll come
+peaceably along, and I don’t want to handcuff you.’ ‘I will,’ says
+Thompson, ‘but I’ll have a glass of brandy first.’ ‘I don’t care if I’ve
+another,’ said I. ‘We’ll have two more, Missis,’ said the friends, ‘and
+con-found you, Constable, you’ll give your man a drop, won’t you?’ I was
+agreeable to that, so we had it all round, and then my man and I took
+Tally-ho Thompson safe to the railroad, and I carried him to London that
+night. He was afterwards acquitted, on account of a defect in the
+evidence; and I understand he always praises me up to the skies, and
+says I’m one of the best of men.”
+
+This story coming to a termination amidst general applause, Inspector
+Wield, after a little grave smoking, fixes his eye on his host, and thus
+delivers himself:
+
+“It wasn’t a bad plant that of mine, on Fikey, the man accused of
+forging the Sou’ Western Railway debentures—it was only t’other
+day—because the reason why? I’ll tell you.
+
+“I had information that Fikey and his brother kept a factory over yonder
+there,” indicating any region on the Surrey side of the river, “where he
+bought second-hand carriages; so after I’d tried in vain to get hold of
+him by other means, I wrote him a letter in an assumed name, saying that
+I’d got a horse and shay to dispose of, and would drive down next day,
+that he might view the lot, and make an offer—very reasonable it was, I
+said—a reg’lar bargain. Straw and me then went off to a friend of mine
+that’s in the livery and job business, and hired a turn-out for the day,
+a precious smart turn-out, it was—quite a slap-up thing! Down we drove,
+accordingly, with a friend (who’s not in the Force himself); and leaving
+my friend in the shay near a public-house, to take care of the horse, we
+went to the factory, which was some little way off. In the factory,
+there was a number of strong fellows at work, and after reckoning ’em
+up, it was clear to me that it wouldn’t do to try it on there. They were
+too many for us. We must get our man out of doors. ‘Mr. Fikey at home?’
+‘No, he ain’t.’ ‘Expected home soon?’ ‘Why, no, not soon.’ ‘Ah! is his
+brother here?’ ‘_I_’m his brother.’ ‘Oh! well, this is an
+ill-conwenience, this is. I wrote him a letter yesterday, saying I’d got
+a little turn-out to dispose of, and I’ve took the trouble to bring the
+turn-out down, a’ purpose, and now he ain’t in the way.’ ‘No, he an’t in
+the way. You couldn’t make it convenient to call again, could you?’
+‘Why, no, I couldn’t. I want to sell; that’s the fact; and I can’t put
+it off. Could you find him anywheres?’ At first he said No, he couldn’t,
+and then he wasn’t sure about it, and then he’d go and try. So, at last
+he went up-stairs, where there was a sort of loft, and presently down
+comes my man himself, in his shirt sleeves.
+
+“‘Well,’ he says, ‘this seems to be rayther a pressing matter of yours.’
+‘Yes,’ I says, ‘it _is_ rayther a pressing matter, and you’ll find it a
+bargain—dirt-cheap.’ ‘I ain’t in partickler want of a bargain just now,’
+he says, ‘but where is it!’ ‘Why,’ I says, ‘the turn-out’s just outside.
+Come and look at it.’ He hasn’t any suspicions, and away we go. And the
+first thing that happens is, that the horse runs away with my friend
+(who knows no more of driving than a child) when he takes a little trot
+along the road to show his paces. You never saw such a game in your
+life!
+
+“When the bolt is over, and the turn-out has come to a stand-still
+again, Fikey walks round and round it, as grave as a judge—me too.
+‘There, Sir!’ I says. ‘There’s a neat thing!’ ‘It an’t a bad style of
+thing,’ he says. ‘I believe you,’ says I. ‘And there’s a horse!’—for I
+saw him looking at it. ‘Rising eight!’ I says, rubbing his fore-legs.
+(Bless you, there an’t a man in the world knows less of horses than I
+do, but I’d heard my friend at the Livery Stables say he was eight year
+old, so I says, as knowing as possible, ‘Rising Eight.’) ‘Rising eight,
+is he?’ says he. ‘Rising eight,’ says I. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘what do you
+want for it?’ ‘Why, the first and last figure for the whole concern is
+five-and-twenty pound!’ ‘That’s very cheap!’ he says, looking at me.
+‘An’t it?’ I says. ‘I told you it was a bargain! Now, without any
+higgling and haggling about it, what I want is to sell, and that’s my
+price. Further, I’ll make it easy to you, and take half the money down,
+and you can do a bit of stiff[1] for the balance.’ ‘Well,’ he says
+again, ‘that’s very cheap.’ ‘I believe you,’ says I; ‘get in and try it,
+and you’ll buy it. Come! take a trial!’
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  Give a bill.
+
+“Ecod, he gets in, and we get in, and we drive along the road, to show
+him to one of the railway clerks that was hid in the public-house window
+to identify him. But the clerk was bothered, and didn’t know whether it
+was him, or wasn’t—because the reason why? I’ll tell you,—on account of
+his having shaved his whiskers. ‘It’s a clever little horse,’ he says,
+‘and trots well; and the shay runs light.’ ‘Not a doubt about it,’ I
+says. ‘And now, Mr. Fikey, I may as well make it all right, without
+wasting any more of your time. The fact is, I’m Inspector Wield, and
+you’re my prisoner.’ ‘You don’t mean that?’ he says. ‘I do, indeed.’
+‘Then burn my body,’ says Fikey, ‘if this ain’t _too_ bad!’
+
+“Perhaps you never saw a man so knocked over with surprise. ‘I hope
+you’ll let me have my coat?’ he says. ‘By all means.’ ‘Well, then, let’s
+drive to the factory.’ ‘Why, not exactly that, I think,’ said I; ‘I’ve
+been there, once before, to-day. Suppose we send for it,’ He saw it was
+no go, so he sent for it, and put it on, and we drove him up to London,
+comfortable.”
+
+This reminiscence is in the height of its success, when a general
+proposal is made to the fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with
+the strange air of simplicity, to tell the “Butcher’s story.” But we
+must reserve the Butcher’s story, together with another not less curious
+in its way, for a concluding paper.
+
+
+
+
+                          “SWINGING THE SHIP.”
+                  A VISIT TO THE COMPASS OBSERVATORY.
+
+
+The noble ship with her floating battery of heavy guns, her hundreds of
+seamen, smart and brave, her powder, shot, and shell for destroying an
+enemy, and her tons of provender to supply her crew; with her anxious
+captain and aspiring lieutenants, mates, middys, warrant officers, and
+her pipeclayed marines are on board. The long pennon whips the winds;
+the hurry, bustle, and noise of preparation has subsided into the
+quietude of everything in its place; when the word passes that she is
+“Ready for Sea.”
+
+Next morning the newspapers find just a line and a half in their naval
+corner for the announcement,—“Her Majesty’s ship Unutterable, 120 guns,
+went out of harbour yesterday. After she has been swung, and had her
+compasses adjusted, she will sail for the Pacific.”
+
+“_Swing_ a hundred and twenty gun ship?” says the good citizen
+interrogatively to himself, as he devours his coffee and his newspaper
+at breakfast. He pays his taxes and is proud of Britannia and the
+British navy, but his admiration of the nautical does not help him to a
+solution. “After she has been swung!” he repeats, and then more
+immediate affairs draw off his attention, and he leaves the Unutterable
+to undergo the mysterious. He turns to the debates.
+
+Naval officers are of course more wise on the point, and some of them
+have more knowledge of the operation than liking for it. It’s apt to
+spoil the paint now and then, and gives trouble, and upsets some of
+their arrangements. Many, it must be confessed, have more experience
+than science in their composition, and when they let out their true
+feeling, indulge, perhaps, in a half growl, in which the words
+“new-fangled” and “deal of trouble” might be heard. But the operation
+goes on nevertheless, and little doubt but the toil is forgotten and the
+growl repented when—far, far at sea, a murky sky shuts out the sun and
+the stars, and forbids heaven to tell the navigator where he is—with a
+waste of waters, hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles around him, he has
+nought but his figures and his little trembling needles of magnetised
+iron to guide him on his way; to direct him wide of the sunken rock and
+the sandy shoal as he nears the wished-for coast.
+
+The loss of British ships by wreck has been stated at between five and
+six hundred in a year—or about “a ship and a half-a-day.” This terrible
+loss has been ascribed to many causes—to the tides and currents of the
+ocean; to imperfect logs; inaccurate charts; unsteady steerage;
+inattention to the lead; stress of weather; defective ships, and
+defective management; but last, if not greatest, says Captain Johnson,
+who gives this catalogue of sources of disaster, we have the errors of
+the compass. These errors were noticed—now nearly a couple of centuries
+ago, and from those days to the present time careful mariners have often
+called attention to the subject. “Officers in charge of convoys during
+the war,” continues Captain Johnson, “will probably remember the care
+with which the general signal was displayed at sunset, to steer a given
+course during the night,” with what alacrity that signal was repeated by
+the ships of war in their stations, and answered by every
+merchant-vessel in the fleet; and they will also possibly remember with
+what surprise,—nay, indignation,—they observed when daylight came,
+almost the entire convoy dispersed over the ocean as far as the eye
+could reach, and mayhap a suspicious looking stranger or two escorting
+those farthest away, further astray, in despite of all the shots fired
+during a morning watch to recall them. That such dispersements were in
+part attributable to the differences of the compasses in each ship,
+there can be no doubt; but the greatest delinquents in this particular,
+in all probability, were not the merchant vessels, but rather the ships
+of war; _the attractive power of their guns upon the compasses_ being
+now a well-known and constantly proved fact.
+
+The Apollo frigate, and forty merchantmen of her convoy, in 1803 were
+wrecked together on the coast of Portugal, when they believed themselves
+to be two hundred miles to the westward. The error of the frigate’s
+compasses is believed to have been the cause of the disaster; and a
+similar belief exists with respect to the dreadful wrecks of our line of
+battle ships on the coasts of Jutland and Holland in 1811. The wreck of
+the Reliance, Indiaman, on the coast of France, when one hundred and
+nine lives were lost, in 1842, is another painful accident ascribed to
+errors of the compasses induced by the presence on board of a large iron
+tank forty-six feet long, the attraction of which had been
+overlooked—for a hollow tank has a magnetic influence as great as a
+solid mass of the same external dimensions—and such a mass would weigh
+four hundred and sixty-eight tons.
+
+These errors in the needle that guides the ship, so dangerous in their
+results, at last attracted official attention in England. Inquiries were
+extended in various directions, and it was found that “in some ships the
+deviation was small; in others it was large enough to cause the loss of
+a ship, even during a short run; whilst in others, again, from the
+position of some iron stancheon, bolt or bar, or stand of arms, the
+error might be changed in the opposite direction; so that the deviation
+in one vessel was not a guide to its amount or direction in another; and
+that there was no other remedy but ascertaining the fact by direct
+experiment in each ship.” These facts were recognised by a committee of
+English officers, appointed to investigate the matter, one of whom was
+the Captain Johnson whom we have already quoted, and of whose subsequent
+labours we shall have further presently to speak.
+
+With these words of explanatory preface, let us set out on a visit to
+the establishment where the dangers of those afloat are sought to be
+lessened by scientific investigations on shore.
+
+About two miles and a half eastwards from the Greenwich Observatory, in
+the picturesque parish of Charlton, and on the extreme corner of the
+high land that runs from Blackheath, till it juts out close upon the
+banks of the Thames—stands the building we are in search of. Those who
+may try to discover it will probably find some little difficulty in the
+task, for the place is unpretending in outward aspect, and is little
+known in the neighbourhood; has never before been publicly
+described—except, perhaps, in those unread publications called Blue
+Books, and in the technical volume of the naval officer who has charge
+of this sanctum of science.
+
+It is called the Compass Observatory; and its locality may probably be
+more completely indicated by saying that it is not very distant from,
+though on a far higher level than that corner of the Woolwich Dockyard
+whence the great chimney soars up like a rival monument to that on Fish
+Street Hill, and where the engine that sets the Dockyard Machines in
+motion hums like a bee of forty-horse power. When the place is reached,
+those who expect to see “a public building,” will be disappointed; those
+who like to find that Science may abide in small and humble places, will
+be pleased. A long strip of newly-reclaimed land, a detached brick
+house, and in its rear, an octagonal wooden structure of little greater
+outward pretensions than a citizen’s “summer house,” make up the whole
+establishment.
+
+Passing under the pleasant shade of two fine oak trees, and then between
+a collection of very promising roses, we enter the house. Once inside,
+we see that the spirit of order, regularity, and neatness, is there
+paramount. The exactitude requisite for scientific observation, gives a
+habit of exactness in other things. In one room we perceive a galvanic
+battery ready for experiments; a disc of iron for showing a now defunct
+mode of steadying the vibrations of the compass; a specimen of the mixed
+iron and wood braced together as they are now employed in the
+construction of first-class ships of the Royal Navy, like the Queen’s
+Yacht; and more, interesting than all the rest, a copper bowl, contrived
+by Arago, for stilling the irritability (so to speak) of the magnetic
+needle.
+
+The French astronomer and ex-minister of the Provisional Government here
+claims our admiration of his scientific skill, and his work suggests the
+reflexion how much more pleasant the calm pursuit of nature’s laws must
+be to such a man, than the turbulent effort to enact rules and
+constitutions for an impetuous and changeable people. Passing from this
+room to another, we find books, and charts, and maps, on which are laid
+down the magnetic currents over the great oceans, and amongst its
+instrumental relics, a magnetic needle that belonged to poor Captain
+Cook. It is a plain small bar of steel in a rough wooden case, but to
+the mariner who loves his craft and its heroes, this morsel of iron has
+an interest greater than the most perfect of nautical inventions—for
+Cook was a seaman who achieved great ends with humble means and from
+humble beginnings. A third room is full of compasses of all sorts,
+sizes, and kinds, from China, from Denmark, from France; from the most
+rude and simple, to the most complex and finished. All the schemes and
+plans ever proposed for improving this useful invention are here
+preserved. Many of the contrivances have been discovered more than once.
+A sanguine theorist completes what to him is perfectly new. Certain that
+he is to be immortalised and enriched, he sets off to the Observatory
+with his treasure, to reveal his grand secret, and receive the
+anticipated reward. He is shown into the compass-room, and there,—horror
+of horrors,—upon the table, amidst a host of others, there is an old
+discarded instrument the very counterpart of his own! It was made, and
+tried, and discarded, years ago.
+
+From the main brick building we pass through another line of roses, and
+under a bower, boasting some fifty different varieties of that charming
+flower, to the wooden structure in the rear, which is, in fact, the
+Observatory.
+
+This building is entirely free from iron. It is approached by stone
+steps; the door has a pure copper lock, which being opened by a copper
+key, swings on copper hinges to admit the visitor after he has first
+cleared the dirt from his shoes upon a copper scraper. Nearly facing the
+door is a stove to keep up the temperature in cold weather. It looks
+black enough, and has a black funnel. When the visitor is told that
+Captain Johnson has his coat-buttons carefully made without any iron
+shank concealed under their silken cover; and that his assistant, Mr.
+Brunton, repudiates buttons to his jacket altogether, and has pockets
+guiltless of a knife; he is apt to turn to the stove, and hint the
+presence there of the forbidden metal.
+
+“Ah, ah!” is the reply, it looks like iron sure enough; but the
+fireplace, the chimney, the poker, the shovel, are all alike. Nothing
+but copper, copper, pure copper. This suggests an anecdote. When the
+operations in this Compass Observatory were first commenced, there was
+found to be a small variation in the magnet. The instruments were
+readjusted; their character was investigated, their construction
+re-examined; other observations were made—but still the variation
+continued. Pockets were searched for knives; the garden looked over to
+see that no stray spade or rake had been left outside the building, yet
+near enough for mischief. Nothing could be discovered. At length the
+_brass_ bolt on the window was suspected; and though brass had a good
+character, not being thought capable of coaxing the magnet from its
+truth, it was, in despair of finding any other delinquent, unscrewed
+from its position. No sooner was this done, than the wayward needle
+returned to its true position; the brass bolt was ejected in disgrace,
+and no morsel of the brazen metal has since been allowed to show itself
+within the precincts of the building sacred to the mysterious fluid that
+draws the iron needle to the North.
+
+Once inside the Observatory, the first impression is one of isolation
+and quietude. Look up to the wooden roof, and you see two shutters, to
+be opened when an observation is to be made upon a star. Through the
+floor rise three pedestals of masonry, built solidly from the earth, and
+isolated from the Observatory floor, so that no vibration may be
+communicated to them. All three stand in a row, running north and south.
+The object of two of them is to support with complete steadiness and
+truth two instruments for determining, at any moment of time, the exact
+magnetic north, whilst the third pedestal holds one by one the compasses
+brought there to be tested. The most northern of these three narrow
+stone tables is, in fact, a bed of trial—a place of ordeal—whilst the
+other two support the instrumental judges, who are to pass sentence upon
+the fluttering needles brought under their unyielding gaze. The test is
+a severe one. It is easy, with proper means, to get the true magnetic
+north with a fixed instrument on shore, but to make something that shall
+tell it with equal truth upon the deck of a ship, as it heaves and
+tosses, and plunges on the sea, is a very different thing. Yet,
+instruments equal to such triumphs of skill are obtained, and in this
+place it is that their qualities are first investigated. The south
+pedestal has upon it a tall tube of glass, within which there hang some
+long fibres of untwisted silk, supporting a magnetic tube so beautifully
+poised, that it obeys without let or hindrance its natural tendency
+towards the magnetic north. This tubular magnet has at one end a glass
+on which a scale and figures are engraved, but so fine and small as to
+be with difficulty seen by the naked eye. The second pedestal supports a
+telescope, with which the observer looks down the tubular throat of the
+magnet towards this tiny scale on the glass at its extremity. Our
+friends, the “spiders,” have contributed some lines to the telescope,
+and the centre one of these crosses the exact figure showing the
+magnetic position at the moment.
+
+With this figure in his mind, the telescope and the observer’s eye are
+poised in the opposite direction, through the window of the Observatory,
+towards a spot some half mile to the north, called Cox’s Mount; an
+eminence on which a wall has been raised to bear a numbered scale
+similar to that on the magnet—with this difference—that the one is very
+minute, and the other very large. To the corresponding figure on the
+distant wall the instrument is directed, and being thus pointed towards
+the true magnetic north, it is brought to bear upon the pivot of the
+compass—which by this time occupies a place on the top of the third
+pedestal to be tested. Without a complex description, and the free use
+of scientific terms, it would be perhaps impossible to convey a
+thoroughly exact conception of the steps of the whole process. Such a
+detail would be not only too technical, but unnecessary, here. It will
+be enough in general terms to say, therefore, that the indication
+obtained from a star, or from the instrument on the south pedestal,
+called the collimator, is, by means of the instrument in the centre,
+combined with a mark upon a distant object, and then brought down to
+prove the true powers of the compass placed on the third pedestal. It is
+a beautifully exact operation. The silence of isolation, the steadiness
+of stone tables and practised operators, the most beautifully
+constructed instruments, are combined to ensure accurate realities as a
+result. The tests are so varied, and so often repeated, that no error
+can escape, and the compass, when it leaves the building to begin its
+adventures afloat, commences its career with an irreproachable character
+as a Standard Compass of the Royal Navy—to be, on board the ship of war
+to which it is sent, a kind of master instrument of reference, by which
+ruder and cheaper compasses may be checked and regulated.
+
+Just as the history of the stars and of the variations of the magnet is
+registered and posted up at the Greenwich Observatory, so is that of the
+compasses entered up here. Every compass that passes its examination may
+be said to receive its commission, and be appointed to a ship. Its
+number is taken; its vessel and destination are noted, and,
+subsequently, its length of service. On its return home from successive
+trips, it comes back to this place, when its character is again
+investigated and note made of any loss of magnetic power, of any
+deviations it may have exhibited, how it may have lost and how gained,
+and of any other circumstances showing either improvement or
+deterioration. Now and then one is blacklisted, but this seldom happens;
+the greatest loss yet noted being 30 minutes. The Standard Compasses
+cost, when made new, with tripod and all complete, 25_l._ each. After
+they have been some years in service afloat, they are sent into hospital
+for overhaul and repair. This costs generally 4_l._ or 5_l._, and they
+are then again as good as ever, and ready to guide another ship on her
+way over the mighty waters. The scientific part of the fittings of a
+ship of war, though of greatest value, are thus of lowest cost. A
+Standard Compass is, indeed, a beautiful result of human ingenuity.
+Generations of seamen and men of science have discussed the best form
+and materials, and the best mode of suspending the needle, that it may
+most freely and truly follow its mysterious love for the north. From the
+days of the old adventurers round the globe, to the date of the last
+voyages to the Arctic regions, successive sea captains have thought, and
+watched, and suggested, and the Standard Compass of the English Navy
+combines, it is believed, all that is best in all their thinking. After
+the Observatory was established, and one of its duties had been defined
+to be to pursue investigations on the deviation of the needle, it was
+thought desirable to have specimens of the instruments used in the war
+ships of other naval nations. With the open liberality that unites in
+brotherhood the scientific men of all countries, France and Denmark sent
+specimens of what their best men had succeeded in perfecting for the use
+of their navies. These instruments are very good, and attract deserved
+attention in the observatory-collection of specimens. The Frenchman is
+scientific, simple, and with an excellent contrivance for a moveable
+agate plane to avoid friction in the motion of the needle. The Dane is a
+good substantial instrument, even more excellently finished than the
+compasses issued to our navy.
+
+The English Compass is, however, believed with good reason to be the
+best yet contrived. It has grown up to its present excellence by slow
+degrees. Human ingenuity has been taxed to its utmost, and it has passed
+to its present perfection through the various trials of needles of all
+sorts of shapes swung in all sorts of ways, and by springs, and floating
+cards, modifying the instrument to the varying conditions of a small
+boat tossing on waves, or a line of battle ship jarring under the recoil
+of a broadside. And now we find our Compass-needle made of iron that,
+being got from the Swedish mines, has travelled to Strasbourg to be
+prepared for clock springs; thence to Paris, to be still more highly
+wrought by the watchmaker; and then to London, to take its sea-going
+shape. Four bars of this choice metal, or of shear-steel of equally fine
+quality, are ranged edgewise under a card, thickened and stiffened yet
+kept transparent by a sheet of mica, brought from the Russian mines;
+this card moves upon a point made of a metal harder than steel, and
+incapable of corrosion; and which sometimes, under the name of Iridium,
+but more correctly under that of “native alloy,” is found by the
+refiners as they smelt the platinum and silver gained from the Ural
+Mountains or the mines of Spain. The Iridium or alloy comes to the
+workshop in the tiniest of glass bottles—bottles as small round as a
+goose-quill, and about an inch long—in morsels not much bigger than a
+pin’s head, and weighing each less than half a grain. Some of these
+prove too soft, some too spongy, some too brittle, but at last one is
+found hard and good, and it is soldered upon the pivot, that, when
+sharpened and polished, is to work upon a cap, formed of a ruby, brought
+from the East. A bowl of the metal suggested by the French philosopher
+being prepared, from the produce of the mines of Cornwall; and the
+science of the English philosopher, and the skill of the English
+workman, having brought all these things into their proper shape and
+places; we have, as the result, the Standard Compass, whose fitness to
+guide her Majesty’s ship the Unutterable, we have just seen tested by
+Captain Johnson at the Woolwich Compass Observatory.
+
+Our favourite newspaper has just stated that that gallant ship “is now
+at Greenhithe waiting to have her compasses adjusted.” So, then, the
+instruments so accurate at the Observatory a few days ago, are all wrong
+again on shipboard. Just so. The moment they get to their places afloat,
+their fidelity to the north wavers,—in one ship more, in another less;
+but in all in a greater or smaller degree in proportion to the quantity
+of iron used in the construction of the vessel, and the nearness of that
+metal to the compasses; in proportion to the number of the iron guns and
+the total weight of metal carried; to the length of the funnel in
+steamships, and to the condition of that funnel whether upright or
+hauled down. All this is both new and strange enough. We have learnt
+already what loss of ships convoyed and ships wrecked has arisen from
+these deviations: deviations long neglected on board all vessels and to
+this hour unrecognised or unattended to in our mercantile marine! Since
+the Royal Navy, however, has a scientific officer, Captain Johnson,
+especially employed in attending to the important duty of adjusting the
+compasses: let us go with him and his assistant, Mr. Brunton, from the
+Compass Observatory to the anchorage at Greenhithe, and see how he will
+“swing” the gallant line of battle ship, the Unutterable.
+
+The trip occupies a very short time, for we have steam at command.
+Arrived in the Reach, we find five floating buoys anchored in the
+stream, one forming a centre, and four being disposed at equal distances
+about it, just as the five pips are placed upon a card—say the five of
+spades. The good ship to be operated upon is already fast by the head to
+the centre buoy, and Captain Johnson having mounted her deck, and his
+assistant, Mr. Brunton, having been rowed ashore, a rope is run out from
+the ship’s stern and made fast to one of the corner buoys. The Standard
+Compass being fixed in the proper position which it is to occupy in the
+ship, neither too high nor too low, and the guns and other iron being
+round about it, as they are to remain during the voyage, the mooring
+ropes are adjusted, and the ship’s head is put due north. Meanwhile, Mr.
+Brunton has set up a compass ashore, and all being ready, Captain
+Johnson, at a given moment, observes the bearing of a distant object—the
+Tower at Shooter’s Hill—noting the bearing of the needle on board. At
+that instant the pennant that floated at the mast-head is hauled down
+from the truck. This being the concerted signal, at the same second of
+time the assistant ashore observed the needle of his compass. The two
+instruments vary, and the deviation of that on board, compared with that
+ashore, is due to the iron of the ship. The stern ropes are hauled from
+one buoy to another, and again made fast, the ship’s head now pointing
+in another direction. The observations and the signals are repeated.
+Each deviation of the ship’s compass is carefully noted upon a card
+previously prepared for the purpose. The ship’s stern is then hauled
+round to the third outside buoy, and the compasses being again examined,
+she is next hauled round to the fourth buoy. Her head by this time has
+been north, east, south, west; on each point the deviations of her
+compasses have been tested, noted, and the card shows their character
+and proper adjustment. _The ship has been swung._ Science has done its
+best for her, and the word is given to heave anchor, for she is now
+truly “Ready for Sea.”
+
+
+
+
+                        AN EXPLORING ADVENTURE.
+
+
+The Litany of a Bushman on the Borders might well run, “From native
+dogs, from scabby sheep, from blacks, from droughts, from governors’
+proclamations, good Lord, deliver us.”
+
+The droughts come in their appointed season, and the day will be, when
+wells and tanks and aqueducts will redeem many a part from the curse of
+periodical barrenness: the blacks soon tame or fade before the white
+man’s face; unfortunately the seat of the native dogs, and home-bred or
+town-bred governing crotchets are more plentiful in long settled than
+new found countries. At any rate, I have experienced them all, and now
+give the following passage of my life for the benefit of the gentlemen
+“who live at home at ease,” hatching theories for our good—Heaven help
+their silliness!
+
+I had been two years comfortably settled with a nice lot of cattle and
+sheep, part my own, part on “thirds,” when the people south of me began
+to complain of drought. _I_ had enough feed and water; the question was,
+whether it would last.
+
+I called my bullock-driver, Bald-faced Dick, into consultation. He was
+laid up at the time with a broken leg. Dick strongly advised looking for
+a new station “to the nor’ard.”
+
+The sheep would do for months, but he thought we were overstocked with
+cattle. I had a good deal of confidence in Dick’s judgment; for he was a
+“first fleeter,” that is, came over with Governor Phillips in the first
+fleet; had seen everything in the colony, both good and bad; had, it was
+whispered, in early years fled from a flogging master, and lived, some
+said, with the blacks; others averred with a party of Gully-rakers
+(cattle-stealers); he swore horridly, was dangerous when he had drunk
+too much rum, but was a thorough Bushman; by the stars, or by sun, and
+the fall of the land, could find his way anywhere by day or night,
+understood all kinds of stock, and could make bullocks understand him.
+He knew every roving character in the colony, the quality of every
+station, and more about the far interior than he chose to tell to every
+one. With all his coarseness, he was generous and good-natured, and when
+well paid, and fairly and strictly treated, stood upon “Bush honour,”
+and could be thoroughly depended on.
+
+Having had an opportunity of serving him in a rather serious matter
+previous to his entering my service, I was pretty sure of his best
+advice.
+
+The end of it was, for a promise of five pounds he obtained from a
+friend of his a description of a country hitherto unsettled, and
+first-rate for cattle. These men, who can neither read nor write, have
+often a talent for description, which is astonishing.
+
+Having heard a minute detail of the “pack,” and studied a sort of map
+drawn on the lid of a tea-chest with a burned stick, I decided on
+exploring with my overseer, Jem Carden, and, if successful, returning
+for the cattle and drags, all loaded for founding a station.
+
+We only took our guns and tomahawks, with tea, sugar, a salt tongue, and
+small damper ready baked, being determined to make long marches,
+starting early, camping at mid-day, and marching again in the evening as
+long as it was light.
+
+Our first stage was only twenty-five miles to young Marson’s
+cattle-station. Marson was a cadet, of a noble family, and having been
+too fast at home and in India as a cavalry subaltern, had been sent out
+with a fair capital to Australia, under the idea that a fortune was to
+be had for asking, and no means of expense open in the Bush. What money
+he did not leave in the bars and billiard rooms of Sydney, he invested
+in a herd of six hundred cattle; to look after these, he had four men,
+whom he engaged, one because he could fight, another because he could
+sing, and all because they flattered him. With these fellows he lived
+upon terms of perfect equality, with a keg of rum continually on the
+tap. Then, for want of better society, he made his hut the rendezvous of
+a tribe of tame blacks.
+
+We found him sitting on the floor in a pair of trowsers and ragged
+shirt, unwashed, uncombed, pale-faced and red-eyed, surrounded by
+half-a-dozen black gins (his sultanas), a lot of dogs, poultry, a tame
+kangaroo, and two of his men. The floor was littered with quart pots,
+lumps of fat, and damper outside the hut; the relations of the black
+ladies had made a fire, and were cooking a piece of a fine young heifer.
+What with the jabbering of the gins, the singing and swearing of the
+men, and the yelping of the dogs, it was no place for a quiet meal, so
+we only stayed long enough to drink a pot of tea, so as not to offend,
+and passed on to camp an hour under the shade of a thicket near the
+river.
+
+Marson having, with the assistance of his black friends, consumed all
+his stock, has returned home; and, I hear, asserts everywhere that
+Australia is not a country a gentleman can live in.
+
+Our course next, after crossing the dividing range, lay over a very flat
+country, all burned up as far as the eye could reach,—a perfect desert
+of sand. The chain of pools which formed the river after rain, were
+nearly choked up by the putrifying carcases of cattle, smothered in
+fighting for water. The air was poisonous; the horses sank fetlock-deep
+at every stride; the blazing sun was reflected back from the hot sand
+with an intensity that almost blinded our half-shut eyes. After three
+hours of this misery, we struck into a better country, and soon after
+came up to the camp of a squatter, who had been forced forward by the
+drought. He had marked out about twenty miles along the river for his
+run,—a pretty good slice, I thought, when, before turning back, he said,
+“That is all I want.” It was no business of ours, as we had views
+further a-field. For three days we pushed on, making from thirty to
+forty miles a day, without seeing anything exactly to our mind. We rode
+over arid plains, dotted with scrubby brushwood, then up precipitous
+hills; now leaping, now clambering down and up, and now riding round to
+avoid dry gullies and ravines; passing occasionally breaks of green
+pasture, but insufficiently watered for my purpose. Sometimes our way
+lay along mountain sides, sometimes in the dry bed of a torrent.
+Sometimes huge boulders interrupted our course, sometimes the gigantic
+trunks of fallen trees. More than once we had to steer through a forest
+of the monotonous, shadeless gum, with its lofty, dazzlingly white
+trunks festooned with the brown, curly bark of the previous year, and
+its parasol-like but shadeless branches, where crimson, green, and snowy
+parrot tribes shrieked and whistled among the evergreen leaves. It is
+impossible to conceive anything more gorgeous than these birds as they
+fluttered in the sun; but I confess that, “on serious thoughts intent,”
+during this journey, they were more often associated with my ideas of
+supper than anything else.
+
+The evening of the third day, we found ourselves obliged to camp down
+with a scanty supply of brackish water, and no signs of any living
+thing. The next day was worse; a land of silence and desolation, where
+it seemed as if mountains had been crumbled up and scattered about in
+hills and lumps. The dry earth cracked and yawned in all directions.
+Failing to find water, we camped down, parched, weary, silent, but not
+despairing.
+
+The next morning the horses were gone.
+
+I cannot find words to describe what we suffered in the subsequent
+twelve hours. I had walked until my feet were one mass of blisters, and
+was ready to lie down and die ten times in the day; but somehow I found
+strength to walk, always chewing a bullet. At length, at nightfall, we
+found our horses; and, nearly at the same time, to crown our
+delight—water. At the sight of this, we both involuntarily sank down on
+our knees to return thanks for life saved.
+
+The next morning, after a scanty breakfast, we set to work, and by dint
+of cutting away with axe and jack-knife, at the expense of clothes and
+skin, through a brigalow scrub for half a mile, found our way into a gap
+through which our track lay, and which we had missed. It led straight to
+the dividing range.
+
+After crossing five miles from the foot of the range, through a barren
+tract, our eyes and hearts were suddenly rejoiced by the sight of the
+wished-for land.
+
+A plain, covered with fine green barley-grass, as high as our horses’
+heads, and sprinkled over with the myal shrub, which cattle and sheep
+will eat and thrive on, even without grass. Such was the delicious
+prospect before us. A flood had evidently but lately subsided, for
+lagoons full of water were scattered all about; a river running at the
+rate of five miles an hour, serpentined as far as the eye could see,
+from which the water-fowl fluttered up as we passed; the eagle hawks
+were sweeping along after flocks of quail, and mobs of kangaroos hopping
+about like huge rabbits. There was not a sign of horn or hoof anywhere,
+but it was evident the aborigines were numerous, for there were paths
+worn down where they had been in the habit of travelling, from one angle
+of the river to another; we could trace their footmarks and of all
+sizes, and thereupon we unslung our guns and looked at the priming.
+Altogether I thought I had discovered the finest place for a
+cattle-station in the colony; I found out afterwards that the first
+appearance of a new country before it has been stocked is not to be
+depended on.
+
+We formed a camp in an angle of the river, so as to have protection on
+three sides, ventured, in spite of the danger, to light a fire and cook
+some game. Oh, how delicious was that meal! As I lay near the river’s
+edge, peeping through the tall grass, I saw the horrid emus, that rare
+and soon to be extinct bird, come down the slopes on the opposite side
+to drink in numbers; a sure sign that white men were as yet strangers to
+these plains.
+
+We spent some days in examination, and during the exploration met with
+adventures with the aborigines, I will not now relate. Having marked a
+station with my initials, and in returning made out a route practicable
+for drays, by which I afterwards made my way with a large herd of
+cattle, although not without enduring more than I could tell in a few
+lines.
+
+Our horses having picked up their flesh in a fortnight’s spell on the
+green plains, we got back at a rattling pace, but, before arriving home,
+met with an adventure I shall not soon forget. It was at the first
+station we reached after crossing the “barrens” that divided our newly
+discovered country. A hut had just been built for the Stockman, a big
+strong Irishman, more than six feet high, a regular specimen of a
+Tipperary chicken. He had been entertaining us with characteristic
+hospitality; and we were smoking our pipes round the fire, when the
+hut-keeper rushed in without his hat, crying—
+
+“Tom! Tom! the blacks are coming down on us, all armed, as hard as they
+can run. Shut the door! for Heaven’s sake shut the door!” Tom banged it
+to, and put his shoulder against it, while the keeper was pulling up the
+bar, and Carden and I were getting the lock-cases off our fire-arms.
+Unfortunately the door was made roughly of green wood, and had shrunk,
+leaving gaps between the slabs.
+
+In the mean time about thirty blacks hurled a volley of spears that made
+the walls ring again; and then advancing boldly up, one of them thrust a
+double-jagged spear through the door, slap into Tom’s throat. My back
+was turned towards him, being busy putting a fresh cap on my carbine. I
+heard his cry, and, turning, saw him fall into the arms of the
+hut-keeper. I thrust the barrel of my piece through a hole against a
+black devil, and fired at the same moment that my man did. The two
+dropped; the rest retreated, but turned back, and caught up their dead
+friends. Carden flung open the door again, and gave them the contents of
+his other barrel. My black put the hut-keeper’s musket into my hand; I
+gave them a charge of buckshot. Three more fell, and the rest, dropping
+their friends, disappeared across the river. All this was the work of a
+moment. We then turned our attention to the stock-keeper. The spear had
+entered at the chin, and come out on the other side three or four
+inches. There was not a great flow of blood, but he was evidently
+bleeding inwardly. He was perfectly collected, and said he was quite
+sure he should die.
+
+We cut the end of the spear short off, but did not dare to take it out.
+The hut-keeper got on a horse, leading another, and rode for a doctor
+who lived one hundred and fifty miles off; he never stopped except to
+give the horses a feed two or three times in the whole distance, but
+when he reached his journey’s end, the doctor was out. In the mean time
+poor Tom made his will, disposing of a few head of cattle, mare and
+foal, and also signed a sort of dying testament to the effect that he
+had never wronged any of the blacks in any way. The weather was very
+hot, mortification came on, and he died in agony two days after
+receiving his wound.
+
+The outrage was reported to the Commissioner, but no notice was taken of
+it although we were paying a tax for Border Police at the time.
+
+Not many years have elapsed since we fought for our lives—since I read
+the burial service over the poor murdered Stockman. A handsome
+verandah’d villa now stands in the place of the slab hut; yellow corn
+waves over the Irishman’s grave, and while cattle and sheep abound, as
+well white men, women, and children, there is not a wild black within
+two hundred miles.
+
+
+
+
+                         THE BIRTH OF MORNING.
+
+
+         Pure, calm, diffused, the twilight of the morn
+         Is in the glen, among the dewy leaves.
+         Its gentle radiance, more heavenly-born
+         Than the half-loving sunbeam, never grieves
+         A nook, unvisited. This Earth receives
+         The light which makes no shade, as the caress
+         Of God on his creation, and upheaves
+         Her soft face, innocent with peace, to bless,
+       Babe-like, his watchful eye with waking tenderness.
+
+         A gate admits us to the Hill we seek;
+         Through woods a track upon the turf we find;
+         The trees are dripping dew, their tall stems creak
+         And rub together when the morning wind
+         Lightly caresses them. We pause to mind
+         The note of one awakened bird, whose cry,
+         Quaint and repeated, is not like its kind.
+         Our ears are ignorant. Now up the high
+       And mossy slope we climb, beneath an open sky.
+
+         We reach the summit. Earth is in a dream
+         Of misty seas, and islands strangely born—
+         The unreal, from reality. The stream
+         Of wraith-like sights which, ere he can be torn
+         From peaceful sleep, delights the travel-worn
+         At slumber’s painted gate, is not more wild
+         Than the imagining of Earth when Morn
+         Bids her awaken. So a dreaming child
+       Looks through white angel wings, and sees all undefiled.
+
+         The blessed dream-land fancy of the young,
+         More truthful than the reasoning of age,
+         Is like this vision of the morning, sprung
+         Of earth and air. These lines upon the page
+         Of Nature have life in them. They assuage
+         The fevers of the world, they are the dew
+         Of calm,—and God is calm. How mortals wage
+         Their wars of weakness Light reveals to view;
+       Reason fights through the false, but Fancy feels the true.
+
+
+
+
+                       AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY.
+
+
+In one of the dirtiest and most gloomy streets leading to the Rue Saint
+Denis, in Paris, there stands a tall and ancient house, the lower
+portion of which is a large mercer’s shop. This establishment is held to
+be one of the very best in the neighbourhood, and has for many years
+belonged to an individual on whom we will bestow the name of Ramin.
+
+About ten years ago, Monsieur Ramin was a jovial red-faced man of forty,
+who joked his customers into purchasing his goods, flattered the pretty
+_grisettes_ outrageously, and now and then gave them a Sunday treat at
+the barrier, as the cheapest way of securing their custom. Some people
+thought him a careless, good-natured fellow, and wondered how, with his
+off-hand ways, he contrived to make money so fast, but those who knew
+him well saw that he was one of those who “never lost an opportunity.”
+Others declared that Monsieur Ramin’s own definition of his character
+was, that he was a “_bon enfant_,” and that “it was all luck.” He
+shrugged his shoulders and laughed when people hinted at his deep
+scheming in making, and his skill in taking advantage of Excellent
+Opportunities.
+
+He was sitting in his gloomy parlour one fine morning in Spring,
+breakfasting from a dark liquid honoured with the name of onion soup,
+glancing at the newspaper, and keeping a vigilant look on the shop
+through the open door, when his old servant Catherine suddenly observed:
+
+“I suppose you know Monsieur Bonelle has come to live in the vacant
+apartment on the fourth floor?”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Monsieur Ramin in a loud key.
+
+Catherine repeated her statement, to which her master listened in total
+silence.
+
+“Well!” he said, at length, in his most careless tones; “what about the
+old fellow?” and he once more resumed his triple occupation of reading,
+eating, and watching.
+
+“Why,” continued Catherine, “they say he is nearly dying, and that his
+housekeeper, Marguerite, vowed he could never get up-stairs alive. It
+took two men to carry him up; and when he was at length quiet in bed,
+Marguerite went down to the porter’s lodge and sobbed there a whole
+hour, saying, Her poor master, had the gout, the rheumatics, and a bad
+asthma; that though he had been got up-stairs, he would never come down
+again alive; that if she could only get him to confess his sins and make
+his will, she would not mind it so much; but that when she spoke of the
+lawyer or the priest, he blasphemed at her like a heathen, and declared
+he would live to bury her and every body else.”
+
+Monsieur Ramin heard Catherine with great attention, forgot to finish
+his soup, and remained for five minutes in profound rumination, without
+so much as perceiving two customers who had entered the shop and were
+waiting to be served. When aroused, he was heard to exclaim:
+
+“What an excellent opportunity!”
+
+Monsieur Bonelle had been Ramin’s predecessor. The succession of the
+latter to the shop was a mystery. No one ever knew how it was that this
+young and poor assistant managed to replace his patron. Some said that
+he had detected Monsieur Bonelle in frauds which he threatened to
+expose, unless the business were given up to him as the price of his
+silence; others averred that, having drawn a prize in the lottery, he
+had resolved to set up a fierce opposition over the way, and that
+Monsieur Bonelle, having obtained a hint of his intentions, had thought
+it most prudent to accept the trifling sum his clerk offered, and avoid
+a ruinous competition. Some charitable souls—moved no doubt by Monsieur
+Bonelle’s misfortune—endeavoured to console and pump him; but all they
+could get from him was the bitter exclamation, “To think I should have
+been duped by _him_!” For Ramin had the art, though then a mere youth,
+to pass himself off on his master as an innocent provincial lad. Those
+who sought an explanation from the new mercer, were still more
+unsuccessful. “My good old master,” he said in his jovial way, “felt in
+need of repose, and so I obligingly relieved him of all business and
+botheration.”
+
+Years passed away; Ramin prospered, and neither thought nor heard of his
+“good old master.” The house, of which he tenanted the lower portion,
+was offered for sale: he had long coveted it, and had almost concluded
+an agreement with the actual owner, when Monsieur Bonelle unexpectedly
+stepped in at the eleventh hour, and by offering a trifle more secured
+the bargain. The rage and mortification of Monsieur Ramin were extreme.
+He could not understand how Bonelle, whom he had thought ruined, had
+scraped up so large a sum; his lease was out, and he now felt himself at
+the mercy of the man he had so much injured. But either Monsieur Bonelle
+was free from vindictive feelings, or those feelings did not blind him
+to the expediency of keeping a good tenant; for though he raised the
+rent, until Monsieur Ramin groaned inwardly, he did not refuse to renew
+the lease. They had met at that period; but never since.
+
+“Well, Catherine,” observed Monsieur Ramin to his old servant, on the
+following morning, “How is that good Monsieur Bonelle getting on?”
+
+“I dare say you feel very uneasy about him,” she replied with a sneer.
+
+Monsieur Ramin looked up and frowned.
+
+“Catherine,” said he, dryly, “you will have the goodness, in the first
+place, not to make impertinent remarks; in the second place, you will
+oblige me by going up-stairs to inquire after the health of Monsieur
+Bonelle, and say that I sent you.”
+
+Catherine grumbled, and obeyed. Her master was in the shop, when she
+returned in a few minutes, and delivered with evident satisfaction the
+following gracious message:
+
+“Monsieur Bonelle desires his compliments to you, and declines to state
+how he is; he will also thank you to attend to your own shop, and not to
+trouble yourself about his health.”
+
+“How does he look?” asked Monsieur Ramin with perfect composure.
+
+“I caught a glimpse of him, and he appears to me to be rapidly preparing
+for the good offices of the undertaker.”
+
+Monsieur Ramin smiled, rubbed his hands, and joked merrily with a
+dark-eyed grisette, who was cheapening some ribbon for her cap. That
+girl made an excellent bargain that day.
+
+Towards dusk the mercer left the shop to the care of his attendant, and
+softly stole up to the fourth story. In answer to his gentle ring, a
+little old woman opened the door, and, giving him a rapid look, said
+briefly,
+
+“Monsieur is inexorable; he won’t see any doctor whatever.”
+
+She was going to shut the door in his face, when Ramin quickly
+interposed, under his breath, with “_I_ am not a doctor.”
+
+She looked at him from head to foot.
+
+“Are you a lawyer?”
+
+“Nothing of the sort, my good lady.”
+
+“Well then, are you a priest?”
+
+“I may almost say, quite the reverse.”
+
+“Indeed you must go away, Master sees no one.”
+
+Once more she would have shut the door; but Ramin prevented her.
+
+“My good lady,” said he in his most insinuating tones, “it is true I am
+neither a lawyer, a doctor, nor a priest. I am an old friend, a very old
+friend of your excellent master; I have come to see good Monsieur
+Bonelle in his present affliction.”
+
+Marguerite did not answer, but allowed him to enter, and closed the door
+behind him. He was going to pass from the narrow and gloomy ante-chamber
+into an inner room—whence now proceeded a sound of loud coughing—when
+the old woman laid her hand on his arm, and raising herself on tiptoe,
+to reach his ear, whispered:
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, Sir, since you are his friend, do talk to him; do
+tell him to make his will, and hint something about a soul to be saved,
+and all that sort of thing: do, Sir!”
+
+Monsieur Ramin nodded and winked in a way that said “I will.” He proved
+however his prudence by not speaking aloud; for a voice from within
+sharply exclaimed,
+
+“Marguerite, you are talking to some one. Marguerite, I will see neither
+doctor nor lawyer; and if any meddling priest dare—”
+
+“It is only an old friend, Sir;” interrupted Marguerite, opening the
+inner door.
+
+Her master, on looking up, perceived the red face of Monsieur Ramin
+peeping over the old woman’s shoulder, and irefully cried out,
+
+“How dare you bring that fellow here? And you, Sir, how dare you come?”
+
+“My good old friend, there are feelings,” said Ramin, spreading his
+fingers over the left pocket of his waistcoat,—“there are feelings,” he
+repeated, “that cannot be subdued. One such feeling brought me here. The
+fact is, I am a good-natured easy fellow, and I never bear malice. I
+never forget an old friend, but love to forget old differences when I
+find one party in affliction.”
+
+He drew a chair forward as he spoke, and composedly seated himself
+opposite to his late master.
+
+Monsieur Bonelle was a thin old man with a pale sharp face and keen
+features. At first he eyed his visitor from the depths of his vast
+arm-chair; but, as if not satisfied with this distant view, he bent
+forward, and laying both hands on his thin knees, he looked up into
+Ramin’s face with a fixed and piercing gaze. He had not, however, the
+power of disconcerting his guest.
+
+“What did you come here for?” he at length asked.
+
+“Merely to have the extreme satisfaction of seeing how you are, my good
+old friend. Nothing more.”
+
+“Well, look at me—and then go.”
+
+Nothing could be so discouraging: but this was an Excellent Opportunity,
+and when Monsieur Ramin _had_ an excellent opportunity in view, his
+pertinacity was invincible. Being now resolved to stay, it was not in
+Monsieur Bonelle’s power to banish him. At the same time, he had tact
+enough to render his presence agreeable. He knew that his coarse and
+boisterous wit had often delighted Monsieur Bonelle of old, and he now
+exerted himself so successfully as to betray the old man two or three
+times into hearty laughter.
+
+“Ramin,” said he, at length, laying his thin hand on the arm of his
+guest, and peering with his keen glance into the mercer’s purple face,
+“you are a funny fellow, but I know you; you cannot make me believe you
+have called just to see how I am, and to amuse me. Come, be candid for
+once; what do you want?”
+
+Ramin threw himself back in his chair, and laughed blandly, as much as
+to say, “_Can_ you suspect me?”
+
+“I have no shop now out of which you can wheedle me,” continued the old
+man; “and surely you are not such a fool as to come to me for money.”
+
+“Money?” repeated the draper, as if his host had mentioned something he
+never dreamt of. “Oh, no!”
+
+Ramin saw it would not do to broach the subject he had really come
+about, too abruptly, now that suspicion seemed so wide awake—_the_
+opportunity had not arrived.
+
+“There is something up, Ramin, I know; I see it in the twinkle of your
+eye: but you can’t deceive me again.”
+
+“Deceive _you_?” said the jolly schemer, shaking his head reverentially.
+“Deceive a man of your penetration and depth? Impossible! The bare
+supposition is flattery. My dear friend,” he continued, soothingly, “I
+did not dream of such a thing. The fact is, Bonelle, though they call me
+a jovial, careless, rattling dog, I have a conscience; and, somehow, I
+have never felt quite easy about the way in which I became your
+successor down-stairs. It _was_ rather sharp practice, I admit.”
+
+Bonelle seemed to relent.
+
+“Now for it,” said the Opportunity-hunter to himself.—“By-the-by,”
+(speaking aloud,) “this house must be a great trouble to you in your
+present weak state? Two of your lodgers have lately gone away without
+paying—a great nuisance, especially to an invalid.”
+
+“I tell you I’m as sound as a colt.”
+
+“At all events, the whole concern must be a great bother to you. If I
+were you, I would sell the house.”
+
+“And if I were _you_,” returned the landlord, dryly, “I would buy it——”
+
+“Precisely,” interrupted the tenant, eagerly.
+
+“That is, if you could get it. Phoo! I knew you were after something.
+Will you give eighty thousand francs for it?” abruptly asked Monsieur
+Bonelle.
+
+“Eighty thousand francs!” echoed Ramin. “Do you take me for Louis
+Philippe or the Bank of France?”
+
+“Then, we’ll say no more about it—are you not afraid of leaving your
+shop so long?”
+
+Ramin returned to the charge, heedless of the hint to depart. “The fact
+is, my good old friend, ready money is not my strong point just now. But
+if you wish very much to be relieved of the concern, what say you to a
+life annuity? I could manage that.”
+
+Monsieur Bonelle gave a short, dry, churchyard cough, and looked as if
+his life were not worth an hour’s purchase. “You think yourself
+immensely clever, I dare say,” he said. “They have persuaded you that I
+am dying. Stuff! I shall bury you yet.”
+
+The mercer glanced at the thin fragile frame, and exclaimed to himself,
+“Deluded old gentleman!” “My dear Bonelle,” he continued, aloud, “I know
+well the strength of your admirable constitution; but allow me to
+observe that you neglect yourself too much. Now, suppose a good sensible
+doctor——.”
+
+“Will you pay him?” interrogated Bonelle sharply.
+
+“Most willingly,” replied Ramin, with an eagerness that made the old man
+smile. “As to the annuity, since the subject annoys you, we will talk of
+it some other time.”
+
+“After you have heard the doctor’s report,” sneered Bonelle.
+
+The mercer gave him a stealthy glance, which the old man’s keen look
+immediately detected. Neither could repress a smile: these good souls
+understood one another perfectly, and Ramin saw that this was not the
+Excellent Opportunity he desired, and departed.
+
+The next day Ramin sent a neighbouring medical man, and heard it was his
+opinion that if Bonelle held on for three months longer, it would be a
+miracle. Delightful news!
+
+Several days elapsed, and although very anxious, Ramin assumed a
+careless air, and did not call upon his landlord, or take any notice of
+him. At the end of the week old Marguerite entered the shop to make a
+trifling purchase.
+
+“And how are we getting on up-stairs?” negligently asked Monsieur Ramin.
+
+“Worse and worse, my good Sir,” she sighed. “We have rheumatic pains,
+which make us often use expressions the reverse of Christian-like, and
+yet nothing can induce us to see either the lawyer or the priest; the
+gout is getting nearer to our stomach every day, and still we go on
+talking about the strength of our constitution. Oh, Sir, if you have any
+influence with us, do, pray do, tell us how wicked it is to die without
+making one’s will or confessing one’s sins.”
+
+“I shall go up this very evening,” ambiguously replied Monsieur Ramin.
+
+He kept his promise, and found Monsieur Bonelle in bed, groaning with
+pain, and in the worst of tempers.
+
+“What poisoning doctor did you send?” he asked, with an ireful glance;
+“I want no doctor, I am not ill; I will not follow his prescription; he
+forbade me to eat; I _will_ eat.”
+
+“He is a very clever man,” said the visitor. “He told me that never in
+the whole course of his experience has he met with what he called so
+much ‘resisting power’ as exists in your frame. He asked me if you were
+not of a long-lived race.”
+
+“That is as people may judge,” replied Monsieur Bonelle. “All I can say
+is, that my grandfather died at ninety, and my father at eighty-six.”
+
+“The doctor owned that you had a wonderfully strong constitution.”
+
+“Who said I hadn’t?” exclaimed the invalid feebly.
+
+“You may rely on it, you would preserve your health better if you had
+not the trouble of these vexatious lodgers. Have you thought about the
+life annuity?” said Ramin as carelessly as he could, considering how
+near the matter was to his hopes and wishes.
+
+“Why, I have scruples,” returned Bonelle, coughing. “I do not wish to
+take you in. My longevity would be the ruin of you.”
+
+“To meet that difficulty,” quickly replied the mercer, “we can reduce
+the interest.”
+
+“But I must have high interest,” placidly returned Monsieur Bonelle.
+
+Ramin, on hearing this, burst into a loud fit of laughter, called
+Monsieur Bonelle a sly old fox, gave him a poke in the ribs, which made
+the old man cough for five minutes, and then proposed that they should
+talk it over some other day. The mercer left Monsieur Bonelle in the act
+of protesting that he felt as strong as a man of forty.
+
+Monsieur Ramin felt in no hurry to conclude the proposed agreement. “The
+later one begins to pay, the better,” he said, as he descended the
+stairs.
+
+Days passed on, and the negotiation made no way. It struck the observant
+tradesman that all was not right. Old Marguerite several times refused
+to admit him, declaring her master was asleep: there was something
+mysterious and forbidding in her manner that seemed to Monsieur Ramin
+very ominous. At length a sudden thought occurred to him: the
+housekeeper—wishing to become her master’s heir—had heard his scheme and
+opposed it. On the very day that he arrived at this conclusion, he met a
+lawyer, with whom he had formerly had some transactions, coming down the
+staircase. The sight sent a chill through the mercer’s commercial heart,
+and a presentiment—one of those presentiments that seldom deceive—told
+him it was too late. He had, however, the fortitude to abstain from
+visiting Monsieur Bonelle until evening came; when he went up, resolved
+to see him in spite of all Marguerite might urge. The door was
+half-open, and the old housekeeper stood talking on the landing to a
+middle-aged man in a dark cassock.
+
+“It is all over! The old witch has got the priests at him,” thought
+Ramin, inwardly groaning at his own folly in allowing himself to be
+forestalled.
+
+“You cannot see Monsieur to-night,” sharply said Marguerite, as he
+attempted to pass her.
+
+“Alas! is my excellent friend so very ill?” asked Ramin, in a mournful
+tone.
+
+“Sir,” eagerly said the clergyman, catching him by the button of his
+coat, “if you are indeed the friend of that unhappy man, do seek to
+bring him into a more suitable frame of mind. I have seen many dying
+men, but never so much obstinacy, never such infatuated belief in the
+duration of life.”
+
+“Then you think he really _is_ dying?” asked Ramin; and, in spite of the
+melancholy accent he endeavoured to assume, there was something so
+peculiar in his tone, that the priest looked at him very fixedly as he
+slowly replied,
+
+“Yes, Sir, I think he is.”
+
+“Ah!” was all Monsieur Ramin said; and as the clergyman had now relaxed
+his hold of the button, Ramin passed in spite of the remonstrances of
+Marguerite, who rushed after the priest. He found Monsieur Bonelle still
+in bed and in a towering rage.
+
+“Oh! Ramin, my friend,” he groaned, “never take a housekeeper, and never
+let her know you have any property. They are harpies, Ramin,—harpies!
+such a day as I have had; first, the lawyer, who comes to write down ‘my
+last testamentary dispositions,’ as he calls them; then the priest, who
+gently hints that I am a dying man. Oh, what a day!”
+
+“And _did_ you make your will, my excellent friend?” softly asked
+Monsieur Ramin, with a keen look.
+
+“Make my will?” indignantly exclaimed the old man; “make my will? what
+do you mean, Sir? do you mean to say I am dying?”
+
+“Heaven forbid!” piously ejaculated Ramin.
+
+“Then why do you ask me if I have been making my will?” angrily resumed
+the old man. He then began to be extremely abusive.
+
+When money was in the way, Monsieur Ramin, though otherwise of a violent
+temper, had the meekness of a lamb. He bore the treatment of his host
+with the meekest patience, and having first locked the door so as to
+make sure that Marguerite would not interrupt them, he watched Monsieur
+Bonelle attentively, and satisfied himself that the Excellent
+Opportunity he had been ardently longing for had arrived. “He is going
+fast,” he thought; “and unless I settle the agreement to-night, and get
+it drawn up and signed to-morrow, it will be too late.”
+
+“My dear friend,” he at length said aloud, on perceiving that the old
+gentleman had fairly exhausted himself and was lying panting on his
+back, “you are indeed a lamentable instance of the lengths to which the
+greedy lust of lucre will carry our poor human nature. It is really
+distressing to see Marguerite, a faithful, attached servant, suddenly
+converted into a tormenting harpy by the prospect of a legacy! Lawyers
+and priests flock around you like birds of prey, drawn hither by the
+scent of gold! Oh, the miseries of having delicate health combined with
+a sound constitution and large property!”
+
+“Ramin,” groaned the old man, looking inquiringly into his visitor’s
+face, “you are again going to talk to me about that annuity—I know you
+are!”
+
+“My excellent friend, it is merely to deliver you from a painful
+position.”
+
+“I am sure, Ramin, you think in your soul I am dying,” whimpered
+Monsieur Bonelle.
+
+“Absurd, my dear Sir. Dying? I will prove to you that you have never
+been in better health. In the first place you feel no pain.”
+
+“Excepting from rheumatism,” groaned Monsieur Bonelle.
+
+“Rheumatism! who ever died of rheumatism? and if that be all——”
+
+“No, it is not all,” interrupted the old man with great irritability;
+“what would you say to the gout getting higher and higher up every day?”
+
+“The gout is rather disagreeable, but if there is nothing else——”
+
+“Yes, there is something else,” sharply said Monsieur Bonelle. “There is
+an asthma that will scarcely let me breathe, and a racking pain in my
+head that does not allow me a moment’s ease. But if you think I am
+dying, Ramin, you are quite mistaken.”
+
+“No doubt, my dear friend, no doubt; but in the meanwhile, suppose we
+talk of this annuity. Shall we say one thousand francs a year.”
+
+“What?” asked Bonelle, looking at him very fixedly.
+
+“My dear friend, I mistook; I meant two thousand francs per annum,”
+hurriedly rejoined Ramin.
+
+Monsieur Bonelle closed his eyes, and appeared to fall into a gentle
+slumber. The mercer coughed; the sick man never moved.
+
+“Monsieur Bonelle.”
+
+No reply.
+
+“My excellent friend.”
+
+Utter silence.
+
+“Are you asleep?”
+
+A long pause.
+
+“Well, then, what do you say to three thousand?”
+
+Monsieur Bonelle opened his eyes.
+
+“Ramin,” said he, sententiously, “you are a fool; the house brings me in
+four thousand as it is.”
+
+This was quite false, and the mercer knew it; but he had his own reasons
+for wishing to seem to believe it true.
+
+“Good Heavens!” said he, with an air of great innocence, “who could have
+thought it, and the lodgers constantly running away. Four thousand?
+Well, then, you shall have four thousand.”
+
+Monsieur Bonelle shut his eyes once more, and murmured “The mere
+rental—nonsense!” He then folded his hands on his breast, and appeared
+to compose himself to sleep.
+
+“Oh, what a sharp man of business he is!” Ramin said, admiringly: but
+for once omnipotent flattery failed in its effect: “So acute!” continued
+he, with a stealthy glance at the old man, who remained perfectly
+unmoved. “I see you will insist upon making it the other five hundred
+francs.”
+
+Monsieur Ramin said this as if five thousand five hundred francs had
+already been mentioned, and was the very summit of Monsieur Bonelle’s
+ambition. But the ruse failed in its effect; the sick man never so much
+as stirred.
+
+“But, my dear friend,” urged Monsieur Ramin in a tone of feeling
+remonstrance, “there is such a thing as being too sharp, too acute. How
+can you expect that I shall give you more when your constitution is so
+good, and you are to be such a long liver?”
+
+“Yes, but I may be carried off one of those days,” quietly observed the
+old man, evidently wishing to turn the chance of his own death to
+account.
+
+“Indeed, and I hope so,” muttered the mercer, who was getting very
+ill-tempered.
+
+“You see,” soothingly continued Bonelle, “you are so good a man of
+business, Ramin, that you will double the actual value of the house in
+no time. I am a quiet, easy person, indifferent to money; otherwise this
+house would now bring me in eight thousand at the very least.”
+
+“Eight thousand!” indignantly exclaimed the mercer. “Monsieur Bonelle,
+you have no conscience. Come now, my dear friend, do be reasonable. Six
+thousand francs a year (I don’t mind saying six) is really a very
+handsome income for a man of your quiet habits. Come, be reasonable.”
+But Monsieur Bonelle turned a deaf ear to reason, and closed his eyes
+once more. What between opening and shutting them for the next quarter
+of an hour, he at length induced Monsieur Ramin to offer him seven
+thousand francs.
+
+“Very well, Ramin, agreed,” he quietly said; “you have made an
+unconscionable bargain.” To this succeeded a violent fit of coughing.
+
+As Ramin unlocked the door to leave, he found old Marguerite, who had
+been listening all the time, ready to assail him with a torrent of
+whispered abuse for duping her “poor dear innocent old master into such
+a bargain.” The mercer bore it all very patiently; he could make
+allowances for her excited feelings, and only rubbed his hands and bade
+her a jovial good evening.
+
+The agreement was signed on the following day, to the indignation of old
+Marguerite, and the mutual satisfaction of the parties concerned.
+
+Every one admired the luck and shrewdness of Ramin, for the old man
+every day was reported worse; and it was clear to all that the first
+quarter of the annuity would never be paid. Marguerite, in her wrath,
+told the story as a grievance to every one: people listened, shook their
+heads, and pronounced Monsieur Ramin to be a deuced clever fellow.
+
+A month elapsed. As Ramin was coming down one morning from the attics,
+where he had been giving notice to a poor widow who had failed in paying
+her rent, he heard a light step on the stairs. Presently a sprightly
+gentleman, in buoyant health and spirits, wearing the form of Monsieur
+Bonelle, appeared. Ramin stood aghast.
+
+“Well, Ramin,” gaily said the old man, “how are you getting on? Have you
+been tormenting the poor widow up-stairs? Why, man, we must live and let
+live!”
+
+“Monsieur Bonelle,” said the mercer, in a hollow tone; “may I ask where
+are your rheumatics?”
+
+“Gone, my dear friend,—gone.”
+
+“And the gout that was creeping higher and higher every day,” exclaimed
+Monsieur Ramin, in a voice of anguish.
+
+“It went lower and lower, till it disappeared altogether,” composedly
+replied Bonelle.
+
+“And your asthma——”
+
+“The asthma remains, but asthmatic people are proverbially long-lived.
+It is, I have been told, the only complaint that Methuselah was troubled
+with.” With this Bonelle opened his door, shut it, and disappeared.
+
+Ramin was transfixed on the stairs; petrified with intense
+disappointment, and a powerful sense of having been duped. When he was
+discovered, he stared vacantly, and raved about an Excellent Opportunity
+of taking his revenge.
+
+The wonderful cure was the talk of the neighbourhood, whenever Monsieur
+Bonelle appeared in the streets, jauntily flourishing his cane. In the
+first frenzy of his despair, Ramin refused to pay; he accused every one
+of having been in a plot to deceive him; he turned off Catherine and
+expelled his porter; he publicly accused the lawyer and priest of
+conspiracy; brought an action against the doctor, and lost it. He had
+another brought against him for violently assaulting Marguerite in which
+he was cast in heavy damages. Monsieur Bonelle did not trouble himself
+with useless remonstrances, but, when his annuity was refused, employed
+such good legal arguments, as the exasperated mercer could not possibly
+resist.
+
+Ten years have elapsed, and MM. Ramin and Bonelle still live on. For a
+house which would have been dear at fifty thousand francs, the draper
+has already handed over seventy thousand.
+
+The once red-faced, jovial Ramin is now a pale haggard man, of sour
+temper and aspect. To add to his anguish, he sees the old man thrive on
+that money which it breaks his heart to give. Old Marguerite takes a
+malicious pleasure in giving him an exact account of their good cheer,
+and in asking him if he does not think Monsieur looks better and better
+every day. Of one part of this torment Ramin might get rid, by giving
+his old master notice to quit, and no longer having him in his house.
+But this he cannot do; he has a secret fear that Bonelle would take some
+Excellent Opportunity of dying without his knowledge, and giving some
+other person an Excellent Opportunity of personating him, and receiving
+the money in his stead.
+
+The last accounts of the victim of Excellent Opportunities represent him
+as being gradually worn down with disappointment. There seems every
+probability of his being the first to leave the world; for Bonelle is
+heartier than ever.
+
+
+
+
+                    REVIEW OF A POPULAR PUBLICATION.
+                        IN THE SEARCHING STYLE.
+
+  THE BANK NOTE. _Oblong Octavo._ London, 1850. _The Governor and
+      Company of the Bank of England. Price, from Five to One Thousand
+      Pounds._
+
+  The object of this popular but expensive pocket companion, is not
+  wholly dissimilar from that of its clever and cheaper contemporary
+  “Notes and Queries.” As the latter is a “medium of intercommunication
+  for literary men,” so the former is a medium of intercommunication for
+  commercial men; and surely there is no work with which so many queries
+  are constantly connected as the Bank Note. Nothing in existence is so
+  assiduously inquired for; nothing in nature so perseveringly sought.
+
+  This is not to be wondered at; for in whatever light we view it, to
+  whatever test we bring it, whether we read it backwards or forwards,
+  from left to right, or from right to left; or whether we make it a
+  transparency to prove its substantial genuineness and worth, who can
+  deny that the Bank Note is a most valuable work?—a publication, in
+  short, without which no gentleman’s pocket can be complete?
+
+  Few can rise from a critical examination of the literary contents of
+  this narrow sheet, without being forcibly struck with the power,
+  combined with the exquisite fineness of the writing. It strikes
+  conviction at once. It dispels all doubts, and relieves all
+  objections. There is a pithy terseness in the construction of the
+  sentences; a downright, direct, straightforward, coming to the point,
+  which would be wisely imitated in much of the contemporaneous
+  literature that constantly obtains currency (though not as much). Here
+  we have no circumlocution, no discursive pedantry, no smell of the
+  lamp; the figures, though wholly derived from the East (being Arabic
+  numerals), are distinct and full of purpose; and if the writing
+  abounds in flourishes, which it does, these are not rhetorical, but
+  boldly graphic: struck with a nervous decision of style, which,
+  instead of obscuring the text and meaning, convinces the reader that
+  he who traced them when promising to pay the sum of five, ten, twenty,
+  thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred, or a thousand pounds, means
+  honestly and instantly to keep his word: that he _will_ pay it to
+  bearer on demand, without one moment’s hesitation.
+
+  Strictly adapted for utility, yet the dulcet is not wholly overlooked;
+  for, besides figures and flourishes, the graces of art are shed over
+  this much-prized publication. The figure of Britannia is no slavish
+  reproduction of any particular school whatever. She sits upon her
+  scroll of state utterly inimitable and alone. She is hung up in one
+  corner of the page, the sole representative of the P. R. F. P., or
+  pre-reissue-of-the-fourpenny-piece, school. Neither, if judged by the
+  golden rule of our greatest bard, is the work wholly deficient in
+  another charm. As we have just explained, its words are few: brevity
+  is the soul of wit. And we fearlessly put it to the keenest
+  appreciator of good things, whether a Bank Note (say for a hundred) is
+  not the best joke conceivable—except, indeed, a Bank Note for a
+  thousand.
+
+  A critical analysis of a work of this importance cannot be complete
+  without going deeply into the subject. Reviewing is, alas, too often
+  mere surface-work; for seldom do we find the critic going below the
+  superficies, or extending his scrutiny beyond the letter-press. We
+  shall, however, set a bright example of profundity, and having
+  discharged our duty to the face of the Bank Note, shall proceed to
+  penetrate below it: having analysed the print, we shall now speak of
+  the paper.
+
+  The late Mr. Cobbett, to express his idea of the intrinsic
+  worthlessness of these sheets, in comparison with the prices at which
+  they pass current, was wont to designate Bank Notes as “Rags.” It may,
+  indeed, be said of them that, “Rags they were, and to tinder they
+  return;” for they are born of shreds of linen, and, ten years after
+  death, are converted in bonfires into the finest of known tinder. It
+  may be considered a curious fact by those who wear shirts, and a
+  painful, because hopeless one, by those who make them, that the refuse
+  or cuttings of linen forms, with a slight admixture of cotton, the
+  pabulum or pulp of Bank Note Paper. Machinery has made no inroads on
+  this branch of paper-making. The pulp is kept so well mixed in a large
+  vat, that the fibrous material presents the appearance of a huge
+  cauldron of milk. Into this the paper-maker dips his mould, which is a
+  fine wire sieve, having round its edge, a slight mahogany frame,
+  called the “Deckel,” which confines the pulp to the dimensions of the
+  mould. This dip is quite a feat of dexterity, for on it depends the
+  thickness and evenness of the sheet of paper. The water-mark, or, more
+  properly, the wire-mark, is obtained by twisting wires to the desired
+  form or design, and stitching them on the face of the mould; therefore
+  the design is above the level face of the mould, by the thickness of
+  the wires it is composed of. Hence, the pulp in settling down on the
+  mould, must of necessity be thinner on the wire design than on other
+  parts of the sheet. When the water has run off through the sieve-like
+  face of the mould, the new-born sheet of paper is transferred to a
+  blanket; this operation is called “couching,” and is effected by
+  pressing the mould gently but firmly on the blanket, when the spongy
+  sheet clings to the cloth. Sizing is a subsequent process, and, when
+  dry, the water-mark is plainly discernible, being, of course,
+  transparent where the substance is thinnest. The paper is then made up
+  into reams of five hundred sheets each, ready for press. The
+  water-mark in the notes of the Bank of England is secured to that
+  Establishment by a special Act of Parliament. Indeed, imitation of
+  anything whatever connected with a Bank Note is an extremely hazardous
+  feat.
+
+  A scrupulous examination of this curious piece of paper, implants a
+  thorough conviction that it is a very superior article—in short,
+  unique. There is nothing like it in the world of sheets. Tested by the
+  touch, it gives out a crisp, crackling, sharp, sound—a note
+  essentially its own—a music which resounds from no other quires. To
+  the eye it shows a colour belonging neither to blue-wove nor
+  yellow-wove, nor to cream-laid, but a white, like no other white,
+  either in paper and pulp. The rough fringiness of three of its edges
+  are called the “deckled” edges, being the natural boundary of the pulp
+  when first moulded; the fourth is left smooth by the knife, which
+  eventually cuts the two notes in twain. It is so thin that, when
+  printed, there is much difficulty in making erasures; yet it is so
+  strong that a “water-leaf” (a leaf before the application of size)
+  will support thirty-six pounds; and, with the addition of one grain of
+  size, half a hundred weight, without tearing; yet the quantity of
+  fibre of which it consists, is no more than eighteen grains and a
+  half.
+
+  The process of engraving the Bank Note is peculiar. Its general design
+  is remarkably plain—steel plates are used, and are engraved in a
+  manner somewhat analogous to that employed in the Mint for the
+  production of the coin, except that heavy pressure is used instead of
+  a blow. The form of the Note is divided into four or five sections,
+  each engraved on steel dies which are hardened. Steel rollers, or
+  mills, are obtained from these dies, and each portion of the Note is
+  impressed on a steel plate to be printed from by the mills until the
+  whole form is complete.
+
+  By means of a very ingenious machine, the engraving on the plates when
+  worn by long printing is repaired by the same mills, and thus perfect
+  identity of form is permanently secured. The merits of this system are
+  due to the late Mr. Oldham, and the many improvements introduced not
+  only into this, but into the printing department, are the work of his
+  son and successor, Mr. Thomas Oldham, the present chief engraver to
+  the Bank of England. The plate—always with a pair of notes upon it—is
+  now ready for the press; for it contains all the literary part of the
+  work, except the date, the number, and the cashier’s signature.
+
+  We must now review the manner of printing. Before passing through the
+  press, all paper must be damped that it may readily absorb ink; and
+  Bank Note paper is not exempt from this law; but the process by which
+  it is complied with is an ingenious exception to the ordinary modes.
+  The sheets are put into an iron chamber which is exhausted of air;
+  water is then admitted, and forces itself through every pore at the
+  rate of thirty thousand sheets, or double notes, per minute!
+
+  In a long gallery that looks like a chamber of the Inquisition with
+  self-acting racks, stands a row of plate-printing presses worked by
+  steam. Every time a sheet passes through them they emit a soft “click”
+  like a ship’s capstan creaking in a whisper. By this sound they
+  announce to all whom it may concern that they have printed two Bank
+  Notes. They are tell-tales, and keep no secrets; for, not content with
+  stating the fact aloud, each press moves, by means of a chain, an
+  index of numerals at the end of the room; so that the chief of the
+  department can see at any hour of the day how many each press has
+  printed. To take an impression of a note plate “on the sly,” is
+  therefore impossible. By a clever invention of Mr. Oldham the
+  impression returns to the printer when made, instead of remaining on
+  the opposite side of the press, after it has passed through the
+  rollers, as of old. The plates are heated, for inking, over steam
+  boxes instead of charcoal fires.
+
+  When a ream, consisting of five hundred sheets or one thousand notes,
+  have been printed, they are placed in a tray which is inserted in a
+  sort of shelf-trap that shuts up with a spring. No after-abstraction
+  can, therefore, take place. One such repository is over the index
+  appertaining to each press, and at the end of the day it can at once
+  be seen whether the number of sheets corresponds with the numerals of
+  the tell-tale. Any sort of mistake can thus be readily detected. The
+  average number of “promises to pay” printed per diem is thirty
+  thousand.
+
+  As we cannot allow the dot over an _i_, or the cross of a _t_ to
+  escape the focus of our critical microscope, we now proceed to apply
+  it to the Bank Ink. Like the liquid of Messrs. Day and Martin, this
+  inestimable composition, with half the usual labour, produces the most
+  brilliant jet-black, fully equal to the highest Japan varnish, and is
+  warranted to keep in any climate. It is made from the charred husks of
+  Rhenish grapes after their juice has been expressed and bottled for
+  exportation to the dinner-tables of half the world. When mixed with
+  pure linseed oil, carefully prepared by boiling and burning, the
+  vinous refuse produces a species of blacks so tenacious that they
+  obstinately refuse to be emancipated from the paper when once enslaved
+  to it by the press. It is so intensely nigritious that, compared with
+  it, all other blacks are musty browns; and pale beside it. If the word
+  of a printer’s devil may be taken, it is many degrees darker than the
+  streams of Erebus. Can deeper praise be awarded?
+
+  The note is, when plate-printed, two processes distant from
+  negotiable; the first being the numbering and dating—and here we must
+  point out the grand distinction which exists between the publication
+  which we have the satisfaction of stating, now lies before us (but it
+  is only a “Five”) and ordinary prints. When the types for this
+  miscellany, for instance, are once set up, every copy struck off from
+  them by the press is precisely similar. On the contrary, of those
+  emitted from the Bank presses _no two are alike_. They differ either
+  in date, in number, or in denomination. This difference constitutes a
+  grand system of check, extending over every stage of every Bank Note’s
+  career—a system which records its completion and issue, tracks it
+  through its public adventures, recognises it when it returns to the
+  Bank, from among hundreds of thousands of companions, and finally
+  enables the proper officers to pounce upon it, in case of inquiry, at
+  any official half hour for ten years after it has returned in
+  fulfilment of its “promise to pay,” To promise an explanation of what
+  must appear so complicated a plan, may seem to the reader like a
+  threat of prolixity. But he may read on in security; the system is as
+  simple as the alphabet.
+
+  Understand then, that the dates of Bank Notes are arbitrary, and bear
+  no reference to the day of issue. At the beginning of the official
+  year (February) the Directors settle what dates each of the eleven
+  denominations of Bank Notes shall bear during the ensuing twelve
+  months, taking care to apportion to each sort of note a separate date.
+  The table of dates is then handed to the proper officer, who prints
+  accordingly. The five-pound Note which now rejoices our eyes is, for
+  example, dated February the 2nd, 1850; we therefore know that there is
+  no genuine note in existence, for any other sum, which bears that
+  date; and if a note for ten, twenty, fifty, hundred, &c., having “2nd
+  Feb., 1850,” upon it were to be offered to us or to a Bank Clerk, we
+  or he would, without a shadow of further evidence, impound it as a
+  forgery.
+
+  Now, as to the numbering:—It is a rule that of every date and
+  denomination, one hundred thousand Notes—no more and no less—shall be
+  completed and issued at one time. We know, therefore, that our
+  solitary five is one of a hundred thousand other fives, each bearing a
+  different number—from 1[2] to 100,000—but all dated 2nd Feb., 1850.
+  The numbers are printed on each Note by means of a letter-press, the
+  types of which change with each pull of the press. For the first Note,
+  the press is set at “00001,” and when that is printed, the “1,” by the
+  mere act of impression, retires to make room for “2,” which impresses
+  itself on the next Note, and so on up to “100,000.” The system has
+  been applied to the stamping of railway tickets. The date, being
+  required for the whole series, is of course immovable. After this has
+  been done, the autograph of a cashier is only requisite to render the
+  Note worth the value inscribed on it, in gold.
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+    To prevent fraudulent additions of numerals, less than five figures
+    are never used. When units, tens, &c., are required, they are
+    preceded by cyphers. “One” is therefore expressed on a Bank Note
+    thus:—“00001.”
+
+  While the printers are at work, manufacturing each series of Notes,
+  the account-book makers are getting-up a series of ledgers so exactly
+  to correspond, that the books of themselves, without the stroke of a
+  pen, are a record of the existence of the Note. The book in which the
+  birth of our own especial and particular “Five” is registered, is
+  legibly inscribed,
+
+                          “Fives, Feb. 2, 1850.”
+
+  When you open a page, you find it to consist of a series of horizontal
+  and perpendicular lines, like the pattern of a pair of shepherd’s
+  plaid inexpressibles, variegated with columns of numerals; these
+  figures running on regularly from No. 1, on the top of the first page,
+  to No. 100,000 at the bottom of the last. It must therefore be obvious
+  to the meanest capacity that the mere existence of that book, with its
+  arbitrary date and series of numbers, corresponding to the like series
+  of Notes, is a sufficient record of the existence and issue of the
+  latter. The return of each Note after its public travels, is recorded
+  in the square opposite to its number. Each page of the book contains
+  two hundred squares and numbers; consequently, whatever number a Note
+  may bear, the Clerk who has to register its safe return from a long
+  round of public circulation, knows at once on which page of the book
+  to pounce for its own proper and particular square. In that he inserts
+  the date of its return—not at full length, but in cypher. “S” in red
+  ink means 1850, and the months are indicated by one of the letters of
+  the word AMBIDEXTROUS, with the date in numerals. Our only, and
+  therefore favourite, five is numbered 31177. Should it chance to
+  finish its travels in the Accountant’s Office on the 6th of August
+  next, it will be narrowly inspected (for fear of forgery) and
+  defaced—a Clerk will then turn at once to the book lettered “Fives,
+  Feb. 2,” and so exactly will he know which page to open, and where the
+  square numbered 31177 is situated, that he could point to it
+  blindfold. He will write in it “6 t,” which means 6th August; that
+  being the eighth month in the year, and “t” the eighth letter in the
+  chosen word.
+
+  The intermediate history of a Bank Note is soon told.
+  Nineteen-twentieths are issued to Bankers or known houses of business.
+  If Glynn’s, or Smith’s, or any other banking firm, require a hundred
+  ten-pound Notes, the Clerk who issues them makes a memorandum showing
+  the number of the Notes so issued, and the name of the party to whom
+  they have been handed—an easy process, because Notes being new,[3] are
+  always given out in regular series, and the first and last Note that
+  makes the sum required need only be recorded. Most Bankers make
+  similar memoranda when notes pass out of their hands; and the public,
+  as each Note circulates among them, frequently sign the name of the
+  last holder. When an unknown person presents a Note for gold at the
+  Bank of England, he is required to write his name and address on it,
+  and if the sum be very large, it is not paid without inquiry. By these
+  expedients, a stolen, lost, or forged note can often be traced from
+  hand to hand up to its advent.
+
+Footnote 3:
+
+    The Bank ceased to re-issue its Notes since 1835.
+
+  The average periods which each denomination of London Notes remain in
+  circulation has been calculated, and is shown by the following
+
+                             ACCOUNT OF THE
+                             NUMBER OF DAYS
+                              A BANK NOTE
+                               ISSUED IN
+                             LONDON REMAINS
+                                   IN
+                             CIRCULATION:—
+
+                               £5 72·7 days
+                               10 77·0  „
+                               20 57·4  „
+                               30 18·9  „
+                               40 13·7  „
+                               50 38·8  „
+                              100 29·4  „
+                              200 12·7  „
+                              300 10·6  „
+                              500 11·8  „
+                             1000 11·1  „
+
+  The exceptions to these averages are few, and, therefore, remarkable.
+  The time during which some Notes remain unpresented are reckoned by
+  the century. On the 27th of September, 1845, a fifty pound Note was
+  presented bearing date 20th January, 1743. Another for ten pounds,
+  issued on the 19th November, 1762, was not paid till the 20th April,
+  1843. There is a legend extant, of the eccentric possessor of a
+  thousand pound Note, who kept it framed and glazed for a series of
+  years, preferring to feast his eyes on it, to putting the amount it
+  represented out at interest. It was converted into gold, however,
+  without a day’s loss of time by his heirs, on his demise. Stolen and
+  lost Notes are generally long absentees. The former usually make their
+  appearance soon after some great horse-race, or other sporting event,
+  altered or disguised so as to deceive Bankers, to whom the Bank of
+  England furnishes a list of the numbers and dates of stolen Notes. In
+  a Chapter on Forgery, which we are preparing, the reader will see some
+  singular facts on this point.
+
+  Mr. Francis, in his “History of the Bank of England,” tells a curious
+  story about a bank post bill, which was detained during thirty years
+  from presentation and payment. It happened in the year 1740:—“One of
+  the Directors, a very rich man, had occasion for 30,000_l._, which he
+  was to pay as the price of an estate be had just bought; to facilitate
+  the matter, he carried the sum with him to the Bank and obtained for
+  it a Bank bill. On his return home, he was suddenly called out upon
+  particular business; he threw the Note carelessly on the chimney, but
+  when he came back a few minutes afterwards to lock it up, it was not
+  to be found. No one had entered the room; he could not therefore
+  suspect any person. At last, after much ineffectual search, he was
+  persuaded that it had fallen from the chimney into the fire. The
+  Director went to acquaint his colleagues with the misfortune that had
+  happened to him; and as he was known to be a perfectly honourable man
+  he was readily believed. It was only about four-and-twenty hours from
+  the time that he had deposited his money; they thought, therefore,
+  that it would be hard to refuse his request for a second bill. He
+  received it upon giving an obligation to restore the first bill, if it
+  should ever be found, or to pay the money himself, if it should be
+  presented by any stranger. About thirty years afterwards (the Director
+  having been long dead, and his heirs in possession of his fortune), an
+  unknown person presented the lost bill at the Bank, and demanded
+  payment. It was in vain that they mentioned to this person the
+  transaction by which that bill was annulled; he would not listen to
+  it; he maintained that it had come to him from abroad, and insisted
+  upon immediate payment. The Note was payable to bearer; and the thirty
+  thousand pounds were paid him. The heirs of the Director would not
+  listen to any demands of restitution; and the Bank was obliged to
+  sustain the loss. It was discovered afterwards that an architect
+  having purchased the Director’s house, had taken it down, in order to
+  build another upon the same spot, had found the Note in a crevice of
+  the chimney, and made his discovery an engine for robbing the Bank.”
+
+[Illustration: ‘Illustration]
+
+  Carelessness, equal to that recorded above, is not at all uncommon,
+  and gives the Bank enormous profit, against which the loss of a mere
+  thirty thousand pound is but a trifle. Bank Notes have been known to
+  light pipes, to wrap up snuff, to be used as curl-papers; and British
+  tars, mad with rum and prize-money, have not unfrequently, in time of
+  war, made sandwiches of them, and eaten them between bread-and-butter.
+  In the forty years between the years 1792 and 1812 there were
+  out-standing Notes (presumed to have been lost or destroyed) amounting
+  to one million, three hundred and thirty odd thousand pounds; every
+  shilling of which was clear profit to the Bank.
+
+  The superannuation, death, and burial of a Bank of England Note is a
+  story soon told. The returned Notes, or promises performed, are kept
+  in “The Library” for ten years, and then burnt in an iron cage in one
+  of the Bank yards.
+
+  A few words on the history and general appearance of the Bank of
+  England Note will conclude our criticism.
+
+  The strong principle to insure the detection of forgery is uniformity;
+  hence, from the very first Note issued by the Bank, to that, the
+  merits of which we are now discussing, the same general design has
+  been preserved,—only that the execution has been from time to time
+  improved; except, we are bound to add, that of the signatures, some of
+  which are still as illegible as ever. Originally, Notes were granted
+  more in the form of Bank post-bills,—that is, not nominally to a
+  member of the establishment, but really to the party applying for
+  them, and for any sum he might require. If it suited his convenience,
+  he presented his Note several times, drawing such lesser sums as he
+  might require; precisely as if it were a letter of credit, after the
+  manner of the Sailor mentioned in the latest edition of Joe Miller.
+  Jack, somehow or other, got possession of a fifty pound Note; the sum
+  was so dazzlingly enormous that he had not the heart, on presenting it
+  for payment, to demand the whole sum at once, for fear of breaking the
+  Bank. So, leaning confidentially over the counter, he whispered to the
+  cashier, that he wouldn’t be hard upon ’em. He knew times were
+  bad,—so, as it was all the same to him, he would take five sovereigns
+  now, and the rest at so much a week. In like manner, the fac-simile on
+  the opposite page, while it presents a specimen of one of the earliest
+  Bank Notes in existence, shows that the holder took the amount as Jack
+  proposed;—by instalments. It was granted to Mr. Thomas Powell, on the
+  19th of December, 1699, for five hundred and fifty-five pounds. His
+  first draft was one hundred and thirty-one pounds, ten shillings, and
+  one penny; the second “in gould,” three hundred and sixty; the third,
+  sixty-three pounds, nine shillings, and elevenpence, when the note was
+  retained by the Bank as having been fully honoured.
+
+  With this curious specimen of the ancient Bank of England Note, we
+  take leave of the modern ones—only, however, for a short time. In a
+  week or two, we shall change the topic (as we have previously
+  intimated) to one closely bearing upon it. Circumstances, however,
+  demand that we should change the subject of it at a much earlier date.
+
+
+
+
+                          INNOCENCE AND CRIME.
+                              AN ANECDOTE.
+
+
+  A benevolent old gentleman—the late Mr. Harcourt Brown of Beech
+  Hall—was plodding his way home to his hotel from a ramble in the
+  suburbs of London; and having made a bold attempt at “a short cut,”
+  soon found himself lost in a maze of squalid streets, leading one into
+  the other, and apparently leading no where else. He inquired his way
+  in vain. From the first person, he received a coarse jest; from
+  another, a look of vacant stupidity; a third eyed him in dogged
+  silence. He stepped with one foot into several wretched little shops;
+  but the people really seemed to know nothing beyond the next street or
+  alley, except one man, a dealer in tripe, of a strange, earthy colour,
+  who called over his shoulder, “Oh, you’re miles out o’ your way!” The
+  only exception to the general indifference, rudeness and stupidity,
+  was a thin sallow-cheeked man, who had a fixed smile on his face, and
+  spoke in rather an abject cringing tone of obsequiousness, and even
+  walked up one street and down a second to show Mr. Brown the way. But
+  it soon became evident that he knew nothing about the matter, and he
+  slunk away with the same fixed unmeaning smile.
+
+  In this state of affairs Mr. Brown buttoned up his coat, and manfully
+  resolved to work his way out of this filthy locality by walking
+  straight forward.
+
+  Trudging onward at a smart pace, the worthy gentleman presently heard
+  the sound of sobbing and crying, and behind the boards of a shed at
+  the side of a ruined hovel he saw a girl of some nine or ten years of
+  age, clasping and unclasping her hands in a paroxysm of grief and
+  apprehension. “Oh, what _shall_ I do?—what _shall_ I do?” sobbed the
+  child.
+
+  She started with terror as Mr. Brown approached, and hid her head in
+  the folds of her little apron; but on being assured by the mild voice
+  of Mr. Brown that he had no thought of hurting her, she ventured to
+  look up. She had soft blue eyes, flaxen hair of silvery glossiness,
+  pretty features; and, notwithstanding the stain of tears down a cheek
+  which had a smear of brickdust upon it, had a most innocent and
+  prepossessing face.
+
+  “What is the matter, my little girl?” inquired Mr. Brown.
+
+  The child turned one shoulder half round, and displayed the red and
+  purple marks of blows from a whip or stick.
+
+  “What cruel wretch has done this?” asked Mr. Brown. “Tell me, child;
+  tell me directly.”
+
+  “It was mother,” sobbed the child.
+
+  “Ah—I’m sorry to hear this. Perhaps you have been naughty?”
+
+  “Yes, Sir;” answered the child.
+
+  “Poor child,” ejaculated Mr. Brown; “but you will not be naughty
+  again. What was your offence. Come, tell me?”
+
+  “I shook it, Sir; oh, yes, it’s quite true; I did shake it very much.”
+
+  “What did you shake?” inquired Mr. Brown.
+
+  “I shook the doll, Sir.”
+
+  “The doll! Oh, you mean you shook the baby; that, certainly was
+  naughty of you;” said Mr. Brown.
+
+  “No, Sir; it was not the baby I shook—it was the doll; and I’m afraid
+  to go home—mother will be sure to beat me again.”
+
+  An impulse of benevolence led Mr. Brown’s hand to search for his
+  purse. Had he tried the wrong pocket? His purse was on the other side.
+  No, it was not—it must be in this inner pocket. Where _is_ Mr. Brown’s
+  purse? It is not in any of his pockets! He tries them all over again.
+  And his pocket-book!—chiefly of memorandums, but also having a few
+  bank notes. This is gone too—and his silk handkerchief—both his
+  handkerchiefs!—also his silver-gilt snuff-box, filled with rappee only
+  five minutes before he left the hotel this morning—he is certain he
+  had it when he came out—but it is certainly gone! Every single thing
+  he had in his pockets is gone.
+
+  The child also—now _she_ is gone! Mr. Brown looks around him, and
+  yonder he sees the poor child flying with frequent looks behind of
+  terror,—and now a shrill and frightful voice causes him to start.
+  Turning in that direction, the sudden flight of the little girl is
+  immediately explained. Over the rubbish and refuse, at a swift, wild
+  pace, courses a fiendish woman, with a savage eye and open mouth, her
+  cheeks hollow, her teeth projecting, her thin hair flying like a bit
+  of diseased mane over her half-naked shoulder; she has a stick in her
+  hand, with which she constantly threatens the flying child, whom her
+  execrations follow yet more swiftly than her feet.
+
+  Mr. Brown remained watching them till they were out of sight. He once
+  more searched all his pockets, but they were all empty. He called to
+  mind the man with the fixed smile on his hollow cadaverous cheek, and
+  several other faces of men whom he had casually noticed in the course
+  of the last half hour, thinking what a pity it was that something
+  could not be done for them. He now began to think it was a very great
+  pity that something had not _already_ been done for them or with them,
+  for they had certainly “done” him. Poor Mr. Brown!
+
+  Some six or seven months after this most disagreeable adventure, it
+  chanced that Mr. Brown was going over the prison at Coldbath Fields,
+  accompanied by the Governor. As they entered one of the wards, the
+  voice of a child sobbing, attracted the ears of our philanthropist. In
+  answer to his inquiries, the Governor informed him that it was a child
+  of about eleven years of age, who had been detected in the act of
+  picking a lady’s pocket in one of the most crowded thoroughfares.
+
+  On a few kind words being spoken to her, she looked up; and in the
+  blue eye, glossy flaxen hair, and pretty features, Mr. Brown at once
+  recognised the little girl who had “shaken the doll.”
+
+  “This child is an innocent creature!” cried he, turning to the
+  Governor, “the victim of ignorance and cruel treatment at home. I
+  recollect her well. Her mother had beaten her most shamefully; and the
+  last glimpse I had of her was in her flight from a still more savage
+  assault. And for what crime do you suppose?”
+
+  “For not picking pockets expertly, I dare say:” replied the Governor.
+
+  “Nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “Would you believe it,
+  Sir; it was for nothing more than a childish bit of pretence-anger
+  with her doll, on which occasion she gave the doll a good shaking.
+  Mere pretence, you know.”
+
+  “My dear Sir,” said the Governor, smiling, “I fancy I am right, after
+  all. She was beaten for not being expert in the study and practice of
+  pocket-picking at home. You are not, perhaps, aware that the lesson
+  consists in picking the pockets of a figure which is hung up in the
+  room, in such a way that the least awkwardness of touch makes it
+  shake, and rings a little bell attached to it. This figure is called
+  the ‘doll.’ Those who ring the bell, shake it in emptying its pockets,
+  are punished according to the mind and temper of the instructor.”
+
+  “Good heavens!” ejaculated Mr. Brown, “to what perfection must the art
+  be brought! Then it is all accounted for. The sallow gentleman with
+  the fixed smile must have been master of the craft of not shaking the
+  doll, when he took my purse, pocket-book, snuff-box, and both
+  handkerchiefs from me, without my feeling so much as the motion of the
+  air!”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+                 Monthly Supplement of “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,”
+                       Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+                        _Price 2d., Stamped, 3d._,
+                          THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
+                                    OF
+                              CURRENT EVENTS.
+
+
+   _The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with
+                              the Magazines._
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                           TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+  ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+  ● Renumbered footnotes.
+  ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+  ● The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript, whether applied to a
+      single character (as in 2^d) or to an entire expression (as in
+      1^{st}).
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78183 ***