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diff --git a/78195-0.txt b/78195-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1689685 --- /dev/null +++ b/78195-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2393 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78195 *** + + + “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE. + + + + + HOUSEHOLD WORDS. + A WEEKLY JOURNAL. + + + CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. + + + N^{o.} 25.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._ + + + + + THREE “DETECTIVE” ANECDOTES. + + + I.—THE PAIR OF GLOVES. + +“It’s a singler story, Sir,” said Inspector Wield, of the Detective +Police, who, in company with Sergeants Dornton and Mith, paid us another +twilight visit, one July evening; “and I’ve been thinking you might like +to know it. + +“It’s concerning the murder of the young woman, Eliza Grimwood, some +years ago, over in the Waterloo Road. She was commonly called The +Countess, because of her handsome appearance and her proud way of +carrying of herself; and when I saw the poor Countess (I had known her +well to speak to), lying dead, with her throat cut, on the floor of her +bedroom, you’ll believe me that a variety of reflections calculated to +make a man rather low in his spirits, came into my head. + +“That’s neither here nor there. I went to the house the morning after +the murder, and examined the body, and made a general observation of the +bedroom where it was. Turning down the pillow of the bed with my hand, I +found, underneath it, a pair of gloves. A pair of gentleman’s dress +gloves, very dirty; and inside the lining, the letters TR, and a cross. + +“Well, Sir, I took them gloves away, and I showed ’em to the magistrate, +over at Union Hall, before whom the case was. He says, ‘Wield,’ he says, +‘there’s no doubt this is a discovery that may lead to something very +important; and what you have got to do, Wield, is, to find out the owner +of these gloves.’ + +“I was of the same opinion, of course, and I went at it immediately. I +looked at the gloves pretty narrowly, and it was my opinion that they +had been cleaned. There was a smell of sulphur and rosin about ’em, you +know, which cleaned gloves usually have, more or less. I took ’em over +to a friend of mine at Kennington, who was in that line, and I put it to +him. ‘What do you say now? Have these gloves been cleaned?’ ‘These +gloves have been cleaned,’ says he. ‘Have you any idea who cleaned +them?’ says I. ‘Not at all,’ says he; ‘I’ve a very distinct idea who +_didn’t_ clean ’em, and that’s myself. But I’ll tell you what, Wield, +there ain’t above eight or nine reg’lar glove cleaners in London,’—there +were not, at that time, it seems—‘and I think I can give you their +addresses, and you may find out, by that means, who did clean ’em.’ +Accordingly, he gave me the directions, and I went here, and I went +there, and I looked up this man, and I looked up that man; but, though +they all agreed that the gloves had been cleaned, I couldn’t find the +man, woman, or child, that had cleaned that aforesaid pair of gloves. + +“What with this person not being at home, and that person being expected +home in the afternoon, and so forth, the inquiry took me three days. On +the evening of the third day, coming over Waterloo Bridge from the +Surrey side of the river, quite beat, and very much vexed and +disappointed, I thought I’d have a shilling’s worth of entertainment at +the Lyceum Theatre to freshen myself up. So I went into the Pit, at +half-price, and I sat myself down next to a very quiet, modest sort of +young man. Seeing I was a stranger (which I thought it just as well to +appear to be) he told me the names of the actors on the stage, and we +got into conversation. When the play was over, we came out together, and +I said, ‘We’ve been very companionable and agreeable, and perhaps you +wouldn’t object to a drain?’ ‘Well, you’re very good,’ says he; ‘I +_shouldn’t_ object to a drain.’ Accordingly, we went to a public house, +near the Theatre, sat ourselves down in a quiet room upstairs on the +first floor, and called for a pint of half-and-half, a piece, and a +pipe. + +“Well, Sir, we put our pipes aboard, and we drank our half-and-half, and +sat a talking, very sociably, when the young man says, ‘You must excuse +me stopping very long,’ he says, ‘because I’m forced to go home in good +time. I must be at work all night.’ ‘At work all night?’ says I. ‘You +ain’t a Baker?’ ‘No,’ he says, laughing, ‘I ain’t a baker.’ ‘I thought +not,’ says I, ‘you haven’t the looks of a baker.’ ‘No,’ says he, ‘I’m a +glove-cleaner.’ + +“I never was more astonished in my life, than when I heard them words +come out of his lips. ‘You’re a glove-cleaner, are you?’ says I. ‘Yes,’ +he says, ‘I am.’ ‘Then, perhaps,’ says I, taking the gloves out of my +pocket, ‘you can tell me who cleaned this pair of gloves? It’s a rum +story,’ I says. ‘I was dining over at Lambeth, the other day, at a +free-and-easy—quite promiscuous—with a public company—when some +gentleman, he left these gloves behind him! Another gentleman and me, +you see, we laid a wager of a sovereign, that I wouldn’t find out who +they belonged to. I’ve spent as much as seven shillings already, in +trying to discover; but, if you could help me, I’d stand another seven +and welcome. You see there’s TR and a cross, inside.’ ‘_I_ see,’ he +says. ‘Bless you, _I_ know these gloves very well! I’ve seen dozens of +pairs belonging to the same party.’ ‘No?’ says I. ‘Yes,’ says he. ‘Then +you know who cleaned ’em?’ says I. ‘Rather so,’ says he. ‘My father +cleaned ’em.’ + +“‘Where does your father live?’ says I. ‘Just round the corner,’ says +the young man, ‘near Exeter Street, here. He’ll tell you who they belong +to, directly.’ ‘Would you come round with me now?’ says I. ‘Certainly,’ +says he, ‘but you needn’t tell my father that you found me at the play, +you know, because he mightn’t like it.’ ‘All right!’ We went round to +the place, and there we found an old man in a white apron, with two or +three daughters, all rubbing and cleaning away at lots of gloves, in a +front parlour. ‘Oh, Father!’ says the young man, ‘here’s a person been +and made a bet about the ownership of a pair of gloves, and I’ve told +him you can settle it.’ ‘Good evening, Sir,’ says I to the old +gentleman. ‘Here’s the gloves your son speaks of. Letters TR, you see, +and a cross.’ ‘Oh yes,’ he says, ‘I know these gloves very well; I’ve +cleaned dozens of pairs of ’em. They belong to Mr. Trinkle, the great +upholsterer in Cheapside.’ ‘Did you get ’em from Mr. Trinkle, direct,’ +says I, ‘if you’ll excuse my asking the question?’ ‘No,’ says he; ‘Mr. +Trinkle always sends ’em to Mr. Phibbs’s, the haberdasher’s, opposite +his shop, and the haberdasher sends ’em to me.’ ‘Perhaps _you_ wouldn’t +object to a drain?’ says I. ‘Not in the least!’ says he. So I took the +old gentleman out, and had a little more talk with him and his son, over +a glass, and we parted excellent friends. + +“This was late on a Saturday night. First thing on the Monday morning, I +went to the haberdasher’s shop, opposite Mr. Trinkle’s, the great +upholsterer’s in Cheapside. ‘Mr. Phibbs in the way?’ ‘My name is +Phibbs.’ ‘Oh! I believe you sent this pair of gloves to be cleaned?’ +Yes, I did, for young Mr. Trinkle over the way. There he is, in the +shop!’ ‘Oh! that’s him in the shop, is it? Him in the green coat?’ ‘The +same individual.’ ‘Well, Mr. Phibbs, this is an unpleasant affair; but +the fact is, I am Inspector Wield of the Detective Police, and I found +these gloves under the pillow of the young woman that was murdered the +other day, over in the Waterloo Road?’ ‘Good Heaven!’ says he. ‘He’s a +most respectable young man, and if his father was to hear of it, it +would be the ruin of him!’ ‘I’m very sorry for it,’ says I, ‘but I must +take him into custody.’ ‘Good Heaven!’ says Mr. Phibbs, again; ‘can +nothing be done?’ ‘Nothing,’ says I. ‘Will you allow me to call him over +here,’ says he, ‘that his father may not see it done?’ ‘I don’t object +to that,’ says I; ‘but unfortunately, Mr. Phibbs, I can’t allow of any +communication between you. If any was attempted, I should have to +interfere directly. Perhaps you’ll beckon him over here?’ Mr. Phibbs +went to the door and beckoned, and the young fellow came across the +street directly; a smart, brisk young fellow. + +“‘Good morning, Sir,’ says I. ‘Good morning, Sir,’ says he. ‘Would you +allow me to inquire, Sir,’ says I, ‘if you ever had any acquaintance +with a party of the name of Grimwood?’ ‘Grimwood! Grimwood!’ says he, +‘No!’ ‘You know the Waterloo Road?’ ‘Oh! of course I know the Waterloo +Road!’ ‘Happen to have heard of a young woman being murdered there?’ +‘Yes, I read it in the paper, and very sorry I was to read it.’ ‘Here’s +a pair of gloves belonging to you, that I found under her pillow the +morning afterwards!’ + +“He was in a dreadful state, Sir; a dreadful state! ‘Mr. Wield,’ he +says, ‘upon my solemn oath I never was there. I never so much as saw +her, to my knowledge, in my life!’ ‘I am very sorry,’ says I. ‘To tell +you the truth; I don’t think you _are_ the murderer, but I must take you +to Union Hall in a cab. However, I think it’s a case of that sort, that, +at present, at all events, the magistrate will hear it in private.’” + +A private examination took place, and then it came out that this young +man was acquainted with a cousin of the unfortunate Eliza Grimwoods, and +that, calling to see this cousin a day or two before the murder, he left +these gloves upon the table. Who should come in, shortly afterwards, but +Eliza Grimwood! ‘Whose gloves are these?’ she says, taking ’em up. +‘Those are Mr. Trinkle’s gloves,’ says her cousin. ‘Oh!’ says she, ‘they +are very dirty and of no use to him, I am sure. I shall take ’em away +for my girl to clean the stoves with.’ And she put ’em in her pocket. +The girl had used ’em to clean the stoves, and, I have no doubt, had +left ’em lying on the bedroom mantel-piece, or on the drawers, or +somewhere; and her mistress, looking round to see that the room was +tidy, had caught ’em up and put ’em under the pillow where I found ’em. + +“That’s the story, Sir.” + + + II. THE ARTFUL TOUCH. + +“One of the most _beautiful_ things that ever was done, perhaps,” said +Inspector Wield, emphasising the adjective, as preparing us to expect +dexterity or ingenuity rather than strong interest, “was a move of +Serjeant Witchem’s. It was a lovely idea! + +“Witchem and me were down at Epsom one Derby Day, waiting at the station +for the Swell Mob. As I mentioned, when we were talking about these +things before, we are ready at the station when there’s races, or an +Agricultural Show, or a Chancellor sworn in for an university, or Jenny +Lind, or any thing of that sort; and as the Swell Mob come down, we send +’em back again by the next train. But some of the Swell Mob, on the +occasion of this Derby that I refer to, so far kiddied us as to hire a +horse and shay; start away from London by Whitechapel, and miles round; +come into Epsom from the opposite direction; and go to work, right and +left, on the course, while we were waiting for ’em at the Rail. That, +however, ain’t the point of what I’m going to tell you. + +“While Witchem and me were waiting at the station, there comes up one +Mr. Tatt; a gentleman formerly in the public line, quite an amateur +Detective in his way, and very much respected. ‘Halloa, Charley Wield,’ +he says. ‘What are you doing here? On the look out for some of your old +friends?’ ‘Yes, the old move, Mr. Tatt.’ ‘Come along,’ he says, ‘you and +Witchem, and have a glass of sherry.’ ‘We can’t stir from the place,’ +says I, ‘till the next train comes in; but after that, we will with +pleasure.’ Mr. Tatt waits, and the train comes in, and then Witchem and +me go off with him to the Hotel. Mr. Tatt he’s got up quite regardless +of expense, for the occasion; and in his shirt-front there’s a beautiful +diamond prop, cost him fifteen or twenty pound—a very handsome pin +indeed. We drink our sherry at the bar, and have had our three or four +glasses, when Witchem cries, suddenly, ‘Look out, Mr. Wield! stand +fast!’ and a dash is made into the place by the swell mob—four of +’em—that have come down as I tell you, and in a moment Mr. Tatt’s prop +is gone! Witchem, he cuts ’em off at the door, I lay about me as hard as +I can, Mr. Tatt shows fight like a good ‘un, and there we are, all down +together, heads and heels, knocking about on the floor of the +bar—perhaps you never see such a scene of confusion! However, we stick +to our men (Mr. Tatt being as good as any officer), and we take ’em all, +and carry ’em off to the station. The station’s full of people, who have +been took on the course; and it’s a precious piece of work to get ’em +secured. However, we do it at last, and we search ’em; but nothing’s +found upon ’em, and they’re locked up; and a pretty state of heat we are +in by that time, I assure you! + +“I was very blank over it, myself, to think that the prop had been +passed away; and I said to Witchem, when we had set ’em to rights, and +were cooling ourselves along with Mr. Tatt, ‘we don’t take much by +_this_ move, anyway, for nothing’s found upon ’em, and it’s only the +braggadocia[1] after all.’ ‘What do you mean, Mr. Wield?’ says Witchem. +‘Here’s the diamond pin!’ and in the palm of his hand there it was, safe +and sound! ‘Why, in the name of wonder,’ says me and Mr. Tatt, in +astonishment, ‘how did you come by that?’ ‘I’ll tell you how I come by +it,’ says he. ‘I saw which of ’em took it; and when we were all down on +the floor together, knocking about, I just gave him a little touch on +the back of his hand, as I knew his pal would; and he thought it WAS his +pal; and gave it me!’ It was beautiful, beau-ti-ful! + +Footnote 1: + + Three months’ imprisonment as reputed thieves. + +“Even that was hardly the best of the case, for that chap was tried at +the Quarter Sessions at Guildford. You know what Quarter Sessions are, +Sir. Well, if you’ll believe me, while them slow justices were looking +over the Acts of Parliament, to see what they could do to him, I’m +blowed if he didn’t cut out of the dock before their faces! He cut out +of the dock, Sir, then and there; swam across a river; and got up into a +tree to dry himself. In the tree he was took—an old woman having seen +him climb up—and Witchem’s artful touch transported him!” + + + III.—THE SOFA. + +“What young men will do, sometimes, to ruin themselves and break their +friends’ hearts,” said Serjeant Dornton, “it’s surprising! I had a case +at Saint Blank’s Hospital which was of this sort. A bad case, indeed, +with a bad end! + +“The Secretary, and the House-Surgeon, and the Treasurer, of Saint +Blank’s Hospital, came to Scotland Yard to give information of numerous +robberies having been committed on the students. The students could +leave nothing in the pockets of their great-coats, while the great-coats +were hanging at the Hospital, but it was almost certain to be stolen. +Property of various descriptions was constantly being lost; and the +gentlemen were naturally uneasy about it, and anxious, for the credit of +the Institution, that the thief or thieves should be discovered. The +case was entrusted to me, and I went to the Hospital. + +“‘Now, gentlemen,’ said I, after we had talked it over, ‘I understand +this property is usually lost from one room.’ + +“Yes, they said. It was. + +“‘I should wish, if you please,’ said I, ‘to see that room.’ + +“It was a good-sized bare room downstairs, with a few tables and forms +in it, and a row of pegs, all round, for hats and coats. + +“‘Next, gentlemen,’ said I, ‘do you suspect anybody?’ + +“Yes, they said. They did suspect somebody. They were sorry to say, they +suspected one of the porters. + +“‘I should like,’ said I, ‘to have that man pointed out to me, and to +have a little time to look after him.’ + +“He was pointed out, and I looked after him, and then I went back to the +Hospital, and said, ‘Now, gentlemen, it’s not the porter. He’s, +unfortunately for himself, a little too fond of drink, but he’s nothing +worse. My suspicion is, that these robberies are committed by one of the +students; and if you’ll put me a sofa into that room where the pegs +are—as there’s no closet—I think I shall be able to detect the thief. I +wish the sofa, if you please, to be covered with chintz, or, something +of that sort, so that I may lie on my chest, underneath it, without +being seen.’ + +“The sofa was provided, and next day at eleven o’clock, before any of +the students came, I went there, with those gentlemen, to get underneath +it. It turned out to be one of those old-fashioned sofas with a great +cross beam at the bottom, that would have broken my back in no time if I +could ever have got below it. We had quite a job to break all this away +in the time; however, I fell to work, and they fell to work, and we +broke it out, and made a clear place for me. I got under the sofa, lay +down on my chest, took out my knife, and made a convenient hole in the +chintz to look through. It was then settled between me and the gentlemen +that when the students were all up in the wards, one of the gentlemen +should come in, and hang up a great-coat on one of the pegs. And that +that great-coat should have, in one of the pockets, a pocket-book +containing marked money. + +“After I had been there some time, the students began to drop into the +room, by ones, and twos, and threes, and to talk about all sorts of +things, little thinking there was anybody under the sofa—and then to go +upstairs. At last there came in one who remained until he was alone in +the room by himself. A tallish, good-looking young man of one or two and +twenty, with a light whisker. He went to a particular hat-peg, took off +a good hat that was hanging there, tried it on, hung his own hat in its +place, and hung that hat on another peg, nearly opposite to me. I then +felt quite certain that he was the thief, and would come back +by-and-bye. + +“When they were all upstairs, the gentleman came in with the great-coat. +I showed him where to hang it, so that I might have a good view of it; +and he went away; and I lay under the sofa on my chest, for a couple of +hours or so, waiting. + +“At last, the same young man came down. He walked across the room, +whistling—stopped and listened—took another walk and whistled—stopped +again, and listened—then began to go regularly round the pegs, feeling +in the pockets of all the coats. When he came to THE great-coat, and +felt the pocket-book, he was so eager and so hurried that he broke the +strap in tearing it open. As he began to put the money in his pocket, I +crawled out from under the sofa, and his eyes met mine. + +“My face, as you may perceive, is brown now, but it was pale at that +time, my health not being good; and looked as long as a horse’s. Besides +which, there was a great draught of air from the door, underneath the +sofa, and I had tied a handkerchief round my head; so what I looked +like, altogether, I don’t know. He turned blue—literally blue—when he +saw me crawling out, and I couldn’t feel surprised at it. + +“‘I am an officer of the Detective Police,’ said I, ‘and have been lying +here, since you first came in this morning. I regret, for the sake of +yourself and your friends, that you should have done what you have; but +this case is complete. You have the pocket-book in your hand and the +money upon you; and I must take you into custody!’ + +“It was impossible to make out any case in his behalf, and on his trial +he pleaded guilty. How or when he got the means I don’t know; but while +he was awaiting his sentence, he poisoned himself in Newgate.” + + +“We inquired of this officer, on the conclusion of the foregoing +anecdote, whether the time appeared long, or short, when he lay in that +constrained position under the sofa? + +“‘Why, you see, Sir,’ he replied, ‘if he hadn’t come in, the first time, +and I had not been quite sure he was the thief, and would return, the +time would have seemed long. But, as it was, I being dead-certain of my +man, the time seemed pretty short.’” + + + + + “EVIL IS WROUGHT BY WANT OF THOUGHT.”[2] + + +Footnote 2: + + THOMAS HOOD. + +“It must come some day; and come when it will, it will be hard to do, so +we had best go at once, Sally. I shall have more trouble with Miss +Isabel than you will with Miss Laura; for I am twice the favourite you +are.” + +So said Fanny to her cousin, who had just turned to descend the +staircase of Aldington Hall, where they had both lived since they were +almost children, in attendance on the two daughters of the old baronet, +who were near their own ages, and had always treated them with great +kindness. + +“I am not sure of that,” replied Sally, “for Miss Laura is so seldom put +out, that when once she is vexed, she will be hard to comfort; and I am +sure, Fanny, she loves me every bit as well as Miss Isabel does you, +though it is her way to be so quiet. I dare say she will cry when I say +I must go; but then John would be like to cry too, if I put him off +longer.” + +This consideration restored Sally’s courage, and she proceeded with +Fanny to the gallery into which the rooms of their young mistresses +opened; but here Fanny’s heart failed her; and, stopping short, she +said, + +“Suppose we tell them to wait awhile longer, as the young ladies are +going to travel. We might as well see the world first, and marry in a +year or two. But still” added she, after a pause, “I could not find it +in my heart to say so to Thomas; and I promised him to speak to-day.” + +Each cousin then knocked at the door of her mistress. Laura was not in +her room, and Sally went to seek her below stairs; but Isabel called to +Fanny to go in. + +Fanny obeyed, and walking forward a few steps, faltered out, with many +blushes, that as young Thomas had kept company with her for nearly a +twelvemonth, and had taken and furnished a little cottage, and begged +hard to take her home to it. She was sorry to say, that if Miss Isabel +would give her leave, she wished to give warning and to go from her +service in a month. + +Fanny’s most sanguine wishes or fears, must have been surpassed by the +burst of surprise and grief that followed her modest statement. Isabel +reproached her; refused to take her warning; declared she would never +see her again if she left the Hall, and that rather than be served by +any but her dear Fanny, she would wait upon herself all her life. Fanny +expostulated, and told her mistress that, foreseeing her unwillingness +to lose her, she had already put Thomas off several months; and that at +last, to gain further delay, she had run the risk of appearing selfish, +by refusing to marry him till he had furnished a whole cottage for her. +This, she said he had—by working late and early—accomplished in a +surprisingly short time, and had the day before, claimed the reward of +his industry. “And now, Miss,” added she, “he gets quite pale, and +begins to believe I do not love him, and yet I do, better than all the +world, and could not find it in my heart to vex him, and make him look +sad again. Yesterday he seemed so happy, when I promised to be his wife +in a month.” Here Fanny burst into tears. Her sobs softened Isabel, who +consented to let her go; and after talking over her plans, became as +enthusiastic in promoting, as she had at first been, in opposing them. +Thomas was to take Fanny over to see the cottage, that evening, and +Isabel, in the warmth of her heart, promised to accompany them. Fanny +thanked her with a curtsey, and thought how pleased she ought to be at +such condescension in her young mistress, but could not help fearing +that her sweetheart would not half appreciate the favour. + +After receiving many promises of friendship and assistance, Fanny +hastened to report to Sally the success of her negotiation. Sally was +sitting in their little bedroom, thoughtful, and almost sad. She +listened to Fanny’s account; and replied in answer to her questions +concerning Miss Laura’s way of taking her warning, “I am afraid, Fanny, +you were right in thinking yourself the greatest favourite, for Miss +Laura seemed almost pleased at my news; she shook me by the hand, and +said, ‘I am very glad to hear you are to marry such a good young man as +everyone acknowledges John Maythorn to be, and you may depend upon my +being always ready to help you, if you want assistance.’ She then said a +deal about my having lived with her six years, and not having once +displeased her, and told me that master had promised my mother and yours +too, that his young ladies should see after us all our lives. This was +very kind, to be sure; but then Miss Isabel promised you presents +whether you wanted assistance or not, and is to give you a silk gown and +a white ribbon for the wedding, and is to go over to the cottage with +you: now Miss Laura did not say a word of any such thing.” + +Fanny tried to comfort her cousin by saying it was Miss Laura’s quiet +way; but she could not help secretly rejoicing that her own mistress was +so generous and affectionate. + +In the evening the two sweethearts came to lead their future wives to +the cottages, which were near each other, and at about a mile from the +Hall. John had a happy walk. He learned from Sally that he was to “take +her home” in a month, and was so pleased at the news, that he could +scarcely be happier when she bustled about, exclaiming at every new +sight in the pretty bright little cottage. The tea-caddy, the cupboard +of china, and a large cat, each called forth a fresh burst of joy. Sally +thought everything “the prettiest she had ever seen;” and when John made +her sit in the arm-chair and put her foot on the fender, as if she were +already mistress of the cottage, she burst into sobs of joy. We will not +pause to tell how her sobs were stopped, nor what promises of unchanging +kindness, were made in that bright little kitchen; but we may safely +affirm that Sally and John were happier than they had ever been in their +lives, and that old Mrs. Maythorn, who was keeping the cottage for +Sally, felt all her fondest wishes were fulfilled as she saw the two +lovers depart. + +Fanny and Thomas, who had left them at the cottage door, walked on to +their own future home, quite overwhelmed by the honour Miss Isabel was +conferring on them by walking at their side. + +“You see, Miss,” said Thomas, as he turned the key of his cottage door, +“there is nothing to speak of here, only such things as are necessary, +and all of the plainest; but it will do well enough for us poor folks:” +and as he threw open the door, he found to his surprise that what had +seemed to him yesterday so pretty and neat, now looked indeed “all of +the plainest.” The very carpet, and metal teapot, which he had intended +as surprises for Fanny, he was now ashamed of pointing out to her, and +he apologised to Isabel for the coarse quality of the former, telling +her it was only to serve till he could get a better. + +“Yes,” answered she, “this is not half good enough for my little Fanny, +she must have a real Brussels carpet. I will send her one. I will make +your cottage so pretty, Fanny, you shall have a nice china tea set, not +these common little things, and I will give you some curtains for the +window.” Thomas blushed as this deficiency was pointed out. “Why, Miss,” +said he, “I meant to have trained the rose tree over the window, I +thought that would be shady, and sweet in the summer, and in the winter, +why, we should want all the day-light; but then to be sure, curtains +will be much better.” + +“Yes, Thomas,” replied the young lady, “and warm in the winter; you +could not be comfortable with a few bare rose stalks before your window, +when the snow was on the ground.” This had not occurred to Thomas, who +now said faintly, “Oh no, Miss,” and felt that curtains were +indispensable to comfort. + +Similar deficiencies or short-comings were discovered everywhere, so +that even Fanny, who would at first be pleased with all she saw, in +spite of the numerous defects that seemed to exist everywhere, gradually +grew silent and ashamed of her cottage. She did her utmost to conceal +from Thomas how entirely she agreed with her mistress, and as this +generous young lady finished every remark, by saying “I will get you +one,” or, “I will send you another,” she felt that all would be right +before long. + +As Thomas closed the door, he wondered how in his wish to please Fanny +he could have deceived himself so completely as to the merits of his +cottage and furniture; but he too comforted himself by remembering how +his kind patroness was to remedy all the defects; “though,” thought he, +“I should have liked better to have done it all well myself.” + +The lady and the two lovers walked homewards, almost without speaking +till they overtook John and Sally, who were whispering and laughing, +talking of their cottage, Mrs. Maythorn’s joy at seeing them happy, +their future plans for themselves and her, and all in so confused a way, +that though twenty new subjects were started and discussed, none came to +any conclusion, but that John and Sally loved each other and were very, +very happy. + +“What ails you, Thomas?” said John, “Has any one robbed your house? I +told you it was not safe to leave it,” but seeing Miss Isabel, he +touched his hat and fell back to where Fanny was talking to her cousin. +Isabel, however, left them that she might take a short cut through the +park, while they went round by the road. + +At the end of the walk, Sally was half inclined to be dissatisfied with +her furniture, so much had Fanny boasted of the improvements that were +to be made in her own, but she could not get rid of the first impression +it had made on her, and in a few days she quite forgot the want of +curtains and carpet, and could only remember the happy time when she sat +in the arm-chair with her foot on the fender. + +As the month drew to a close, the two sisters made presents to their +maids. Laura gave Sally a merino dress, a large piece of linen, a cellar +full of coals, and a five pound note. Isabel gave Fanny a silk gown that +cost three guineas, a beautiful white bonnet ribbon, a small chimney +glass (for which she kindly went into debt), three left-off muslin +dresses, a painting done by her own hand, in a handsome gilt frame, and +a beautiful knitted purse. Besides all this, she told Fanny it was still +her intention to get the other things she had promised for the cottage, +as soon as she had paid for the chimney glass. “I am very sorry,” she +said, “that just now I am so poor, for unfortunately, as you know, I +have had to pay for those large music volumes I ordered when I was in +London, and which after all I never used. It always happens that I am +poor when I want to make presents.” + +Fanny stopped her mistress with abundant thanks for the beautiful things +she had already given her. “I am sure, Miss,” said she, “I shall +scarcely dare wear these dresses, they look so lady-like and fine; Sally +will seem quite strange by me. And this purse too, Miss; I never saw +anything so smart.” + +Isabel was quite satisfied that she had eclipsed her sister in the +number and value of her gifts, but she still assured Fanny she had but +made a beginning. Large and generous indeed, were this young lady’s +intentions. + +On the wedding morning Isabel rose early and dressed herself without +assistance, then crossing to the room of the two cousins, she entered +without knocking. Sally was gone, and Fanny lay sleeping alone. + +“How pretty she is!” said Isabel to herself. “She ought to be dressed +like a lady to day. I will see to it;” then glancing proudly at the silk +gown, which was laid out with all the other articles of dress, ready for +the coming ceremony, her heart swelled with consciousness of her own +generosity. “I have done nothing yet,” continued she; “she has been with +me nearly six years, and always pleased me entirely, then papa promised +her mother that he should befriend her as long as we both lived, and he +has charged us both to do our utmost for our brides. Laura has bought +Sally a shawl, I ought to give one too—what is this common thing? Fanny! +Fanny! wake up. I am come to be your maid to day, for you shall be +mistress on your wedding morning and have a lady to dress you. What is +this shawl? It will not do with a silk dress, wait a minute,” and off +she darted, leaving Fanny sitting up and rubbing her eyes trying to +remember what her young mistress had said. Before she was quite +conscious, Isabel returned with a Norfolk shawl of fine texture and +design, but somewhat soiled. “There,” said she, throwing it across the +silk gown, “those go much better together. I will give it you, Fanny.” + +“Thank you, Miss,” said Fanny, in a tone of hesitation; “but—but +suppose, Miss, I was to wear Thomas’ shawl just to-day, as he gave it me +for the wedding, and John got Sally one like it—I think, Miss—don’t you +think, Miss, it might seem unkind to wear another just to-day?” + +“Why, it is just to-day I want to make you look like a lady, Fanny; no, +no, you must not put on that white cotton-looking shawl with a silk +dress, and this ribbon,” said Isabel, taking up the bonnet, proudly. +Fanny looked sad, but the young mistress did not see this, for she was +examining the white silk gloves, that lay beside the bonnet. “These,” +thought she, “are not quite right, they look servantish, but my kid +gloves would not fit her, besides, I have none clean, and it is well, +perhaps, that she should have a few things to mark her rank. Yes, they +will do.” + +There was so much confusion between the lady’s offering help, and the +maid’s modestly refusing it, that the toilette was long in completing. +At last, however, Isabel was in ecstasies. “Look,” said she, “how the +bonnet becomes you! and the Norfolk shawl, too, no one would think you +were only a lady’s-maid, Fanny. Stop, I will get a ribbon for your +throat.” Off she flew, and was back again in five minutes. “But what is +that for, Fanny? Are you afraid it will rain, this bright morning?” + +Fanny had, in Isabel’s absence, folded Thomas’ shawl, and hung it across +her arm. “I thought, Miss,” answered she, blushing, “that I might just +carry it, to show Thomas that I did not forget his present, or think it +too homely to go to church with me.” + +“Impossible,” said Isabel, who, to do her justice, we must state, was +far too much excited to suspect that she was making Fanny uncomfortable; +“you will spoil all. There, put the shawl away,—that’s right, you look +perfect. Go down to your bridegroom, I hear his voice in the hall, I +will not come too, though I should like above all things to see his +surprise, but I should spoil your meeting, and I am the last person in +the world to do anything so selfish. One thing more, Fanny: I shall give +you two guineas, that you may spend three or four days at L——, by the +seaside; no one goes home directly, you would find it very dull to +settle down at once in your cottage; tell Thomas so.” Isabel then +retired to her room, wishing heartily that she could part with half her +prettiest things, that she might heap more favours on the interesting +little bride. + +Laura’s first thought that morning had also been of the little orphan, +who had served her so long and faithfully, and whom her father had +commended to her special care. She, too, had risen early, but without +dressing herself, she went across to Sally. Sally was asleep, with the +traces of tears on her cheeks; Laura looked at her for a few moments, +and remembered how, when both were too young to understand the +distinction of rank, they had been almost playmates; she wiped from her +own eyes a little moisture that dimmed them, then putting her hand +gently on Sally’s shoulder, she said, “Wake, Sally, I call you early +that you may have plenty of time to dress me first and yourself +afterwards. I know you would not like to miss waiting on me, or to do it +hurriedly for the last time. You have been crying, Sally, do not colour +about it, I should think ill of you if you were not sorry to leave us, +you cannot feel the parting more than I do. I dare say I shall have hard +work to keep dry eyes all day, but we must do our best, Sally, for it +will not do for John to think I grudge you to him, or that you like me +better than you do him.” + +“Oh no, Miss!” replied Sally, who felt at that moment that she could +scarcely love any one better than her kind mistress. “Still John will +not be hard upon me for a few tears,” added she, putting the sheet to +her eyes. + +“Come, come, Sally, this will not do, jump up and dress yourself +quickly, that you may be ready to brush my hair when I return from the +dressing-room; you must do it well to day, for you know I am not yet +suited with a maid, and must do it myself to-morrow.” + +This roused Sally, who dressed in great haste and was soon at her post. +Laura asked her many questions about her plans for the future, and found +with pleasure that most things had been well considered and arranged. +“There is only one thing, Miss,” said Sally in conclusion, “that we are +sorry for, and it is that we cannot offer old Mrs. Maythorn a home. She +has no child but John, and will sadly feel his leaving her.” + +“But why cannot she live with you and work as she does now, so as to pay +you for what she costs?” + +“Why, Miss, where she is she works about the house for her board, and +does a trifle outdoors besides, that gets her clothing. John says it +makes him feel quite cowardly, as it were, to see his old mother working +at scrubbing and scouring, making her poor back ache, when he is so +young and strong; yet we scarcely know if we could undertake for her +altogether. I wish we could.” + +“How much would it cost you?” + +“A matter of four shillings a week; besides, we must get a bed and +bedding. That we could put up in the kitchen, if we bought it to shut up +in the day-time, and, as John says, Mrs. Maythorn would help us nicely +when we get some little ones. But it would cost a deal of money to begin +and go on with.” + +“I will think of this for you, Sally. It would be easy for me to give +you four shillings a week now, but I may not always be able to do it. I +may marry a poor man, or one who will not allow me to spend my money as +I please, and were Mrs. Maythorn to give up her present employments, she +would not be able to get them back again three or four years hence, nor +would she, at her age, be able to meet with others; and if you would +find it difficult to keep her now, you would much more when you have a +little family; so we must do nothing hastily. I will consult Papa; he +will tell me directly whether I shall be right in promising you the four +shillings a week. If I do promise it, you may depend on always having +it.” + +“Oh, thank you, thank you, Miss, for the thought: I will tell John +directly I see him; the very hope will fill him with joy.” + +“No,” said Laura, “do not tell him yet, Sally, for you would be sorry to +disappoint him afterwards, if I could not undertake it. Wait a day or +two, and I will give you an answer; or, if possible, it shall be sooner. +Now, thank you for the nice brushing: I will put up my hair while you go +and dress; it is getting late. If you require assistance, and Fanny is +not in your room, tap at my door, for I shall be pleased to help you +to-day.” + +Laura was not called in; but when she thought the toilette must be +nearly completed, went to Sally with the shawl which she had bought for +her the day before. As she entered, Sally was folding the white one John +had given her. “I have brought you a shawl,” said Laura, “which I want +you to wear to-day; it is much handsomer than that you are folding. See, +do you like it?” + +“Yes, Miss,” said Sally, “It is a very good one, I see,” and she began +to re-fold the other; but Laura noticed the expression of disappointment +with which she made the change, and taking up the plain shawl, said, “I +do not know whether this does not suit your neat muslin dress better +than mine. Did you buy it yourself, Sally?” + +“No, Miss, it was John’s present; but I will put on yours this morning, +if you please, Miss, and I can wear John’s any day.” + +“No, no,” replied Laura, “you must put on John’s to-day. It matters but +little to me when you wear mine, so long as it does you good service; +but John will feel hurt if you cast his present aside on your +wedding-day, because some one else has given you a shawl worth a few +shillings more.” So Laura put the white shawl on the shoulders of Sally, +who valued it more than the finest Cashmere in the world. + +As Sally went down stairs, she saw Fanny in tears on the landing. “I +cannot think how it is,” answered she, in reply to Sally’s questioning, +“but just on this day, when I thought to feel so happy, I am quite low. +Miss Isabel has been so kind, she has dressed me, and quite flustered me +with her attentions. See what nice things she has given me—this +shawl—though for that matter, I’d rather have worn Thomas’s. Oh, how +nice you look. Dear, so neat and becoming your station, and with John’s +shawl, too, but then Miss Laura has made you no present.” + +“Yes, a good shawl, and a promise besides, but I will tell you about +that another time. Let us go in now, they must be waiting for us.” + +Fanny felt so awkward in her fine clothes, that she could scarcely be +prevailed on to encounter the gaze of the servants; but her good-natured +cousin promising to explain that all her dress was given and chosen by +her mistress, she at last went into the hall. Sally’s explanation was +only heard by a few of the party, and as Fanny, in trying to conceal +herself from the gaze of the astonished villagers, slunk behind old Mrs. +Maythorn, she had the mortification of hearing her say to John, in the +loud whisper peculiar to deaf people, “I am so glad, John, the neat one +is yours; I should be quite frightened to see you take such a fine lady +as Fanny to the altar; it makes me sorry for Thomas to see her begin so +smart.” + +When the ceremony was over, the party returned to the Hall, where an +hospitable meal had been provided for all the villagers of good +character who chose to partake of it. It was a merry party, for even +Fanny, when every one had seen her finery long enough to forget it, +forgot it herself. Thomas was very good-natured about the shawl, and +delighted at the prospect of spending a few days at L——. He and Fanny +talked of the boat-excursions they would have, the shells they would +gather for a grotto in their garden, and the long rambles they would +take by the seaside, till they wondered how ever they could have been +contented with the prospect of going to their cottage at once. + +As the pony chaise which the good baronet had lent for the day, drove up +to take the bridal party to L——, for John and Sally were also to spend +one day there, the two young ladies came to take leave of their +_protégées_. Laura said, “Good bye, Sally, I have consulted Papa and +will undertake to allow you four shillings a week as long as Mrs. +Maythorn lives. Here is a sovereign towards expenses; you will not, I am +sure, mind changing your five pound note for the rest.” + +Isabel said, “Good bye, Fanny. I am very, very sorry to disappoint you +of your treat at L——, but I intended to have borrowed the two pounds of +Miss Laura, and I find she cannot lend them to me. Never mind, I am sure +you will be happy enough in your little cottage. I never saw such a +sweet little place as it is.” So the bridal party drove away. + +In less than a week the cousins were established in their new abode. +Sally settled and happy; but Fanny, unsettled, always expected the new +carpet, the china tea set, and the various other alterations that Isabel +had suggested and promised to make. The young lady was, however, +unfortunate with her money. At one time she lost a bank-note; at +another, just as she was counting out money for the Brussels carpet, the +new maid entered to tell her that sundry articles of dress were “past +mending,” and must be immediately replaced. One thing after another +nipped her generous intentions in the bud, and at last she was obliged +to set out for her long-expected journey to France, without having done +more towards the fulfilment of her promises than call frequently on +Fanny, to remind her that all her present arrangements were temporary, +and that she should shortly have almost everything new. + +“Good bye, Fanny,” said she at parting; “I shall often write to you, and +send you money. I will not make any distinct promise, for I daresay I +shall be able to do more than I should like to say now.” + +Laura had given Sally a great many useful things for her cottage, but +made no promise at parting. She said, “Be sure you write to me, Sally, +from time to time, to say how you are going on, and tell me if you want +help.” + +When Isabel was gone, Fanny saw that she must accustom herself to her +cottage as it was, and banish from her mind the idea of the +long-anticipated improvements. It was, however, no easy task. The window +once regarded as bare and comfortless still seemed so, in spite of +Fanny’s reasoning that it was no worse than Sally’s, which always looked +cheerful and pretty. To be sure, John, who did not think of getting +curtains, had trained a honeysuckle over it, still that made but little +show at present. The carpet, too, so long regarded as a coarse temporary +thing, never regained the beauty it first had to the eye of Thomas, as +he laid it down the evening before he took Fanny to the cottage; and +Fanny could never forget, as she arranged her tea-things, that Miss +Isabel had called them “common little things;” so of all the other +pieces of furniture that the young lady had remarked upon. Sally’s house +was, in reality, more homely than her cousin’s, yet as she had never +entertained a wish that it should be better, and as Laura had been +pleased with all its arrangements, she bustled about it with perfect +satisfaction; and even to Fanny it seemed replete with the comfort her +own had always wanted. + +At the end of three months Isabel enclosed an order for three pounds to +Fanny, desiring her to get a Brussels carpet, and if there was a +sufficient remainder, to replace the tea set. + +“I would rather,” said Fanny to her cousin, “put up with the old carpet +and china, and get a roll of fine flannel, some coals, an extra blanket +or two, and a cradle for the little one that’s coming, for it will be +cold weather when I am put to bed; but I suppose as Miss Isabel has set +her mind on the carpet and china, I must get them.” + +A week or two after John was invited, with his wife and mother, to drink +tea from Fanny’s new china. It was very pretty, so was the carpet, and +so was Fanny making tea, elated with showing her new wealth. + +“Is not Miss Isabel generous?” asked she, as she held the milk-pot to be +admired. + +“I sometimes wish Miss Laura had as much money to spare,” replied Sally; +“for she lets me lay it out as I please, and I could get a number of +things for three guineas.” + +“Fie, Sally,” said her husband; “are not three shillings to spend as one +pleases, better than three guineas laid out to please some one else?” + +“Nonsense, John,” said Fanny, pettishly; “how can a carpet for my +kitchen be bought to please any one but me?” + +“John isn’t far wrong either,” answered her husband; “but the carpet is +very handsome, and does please you and me too, now it is here.” + +Time passed on, and Fanny gave birth to a little girl. Isabel stood +sponsor for her by proxy, sending her an embroidered cloak and lace cap, +and desiring that she should be called by her own name. Little Bella was +very sickly, and as her mother had not been able to procure her good +warm clothing, or lay in a large stock of firing, she suffered greatly +from cold during the severe winter that followed her birth. The spring +and summer did not bring her better health; and as Fanny always +attributed her delicacy to the want of proper warmth in her infancy, she +took a great dislike to the Brussels carpet, which now lay in a roll +behind a large chest, having been long ago taken up as a piece of +inconvenient luxury in a kitchen. “I wish you could find a corner for it +in your cottage, Sally,” said she, “for I never catch a sight of it +without worrying myself to think how much flannels and coals I might +have bought with the money it cost.” + +Laura frequently sent Sally small presents of money, but Isabel, though +not so regular as her sister, surprised every one by the splendour of +her presents, when they did come. As Bella entered her second year, she +received from her godmother a beautiful little carriage, which Thomas +said must have “spoilt a five pound note.” This was Isabel’s last gift, +for it was at about this time that she accepted an offer from a French +count, and became so absorbed in her own affairs, that she forgot Fanny +and Bella too. Poor Bella grew more and more sickly every month; the +apothecary ordered her beef tea, arrowroot, and other strengthening +diet, but work was slack with Thomas, and it was with difficulty that he +could procure her the commonest food. “I am sure,” said Fanny to her +cousin, as little Bella was whining on her knee, “that if only Miss +Isabel were here, she would set us all right. She never could bear to +see even a stranger in distress.” + +“I wish,” said Thomas, “that great folks would think a little of what +they don’t see. I’ll lay anything Miss Isabel gives away a deal of +money, more than enough to save our little one, to a set of French +impostors that cry after her in the street, and yet, when she knows our +child is ill, she never cares, because she can’t see it grow thin, or +hear it cry.” + +“For shame, Thomas,” said his wife, “do not speak so rudely of the young +lady. Have you forgotten the pretty carriage she sent Bella, and how +pleased we were when it came?” + +“I don’t mean any harm,” answered her husband; “only it strikes me that +Miss was pleased to buy the carriage because it was pretty, and seemed a +great thing to send us, and that she would ’nt have cared a straw to +give us a little each, that would have served us every bit as well.” + +“I never heard you so ungrateful, Thomas. Of course she would ’nt, +because she wished to please us.” + +“Or herself, as John said; but may be I am wrong; only it goes to my +heart to see the child want food while there is a filagree carriage in +the yard that cost more than would keep her for six months.” + +“Well, cheer up,” said Sally; “Miss Laura will be coming home soon, and +I’ll lay anything she won’t let Bella die of want.” + +“I’m afraid she won’t think of giving to me, Sally,” said Fanny +despondingly; “I was never her maid, you know.” + +“You would ’nt fear, if you knew Miss Laura as I do, Fanny; she never +cares who she helps so long as the person is deserving, and in want. She +has no pride of that sort.” + +Isabel’s marriage was put off, and Laura’s return, consequently, +postponed. As Bella grew worse every day, and yet no help came, the +unselfish Sally wrote to her patroness, telling her of poor Fanny’s +distress, and begging her either to send her help, or speak on her +behalf to her sister. + +Isabel was dressing for a party when Laura showed her Sally’s letter. +“Poor Fanny,” said she, “I wish I had known it before I bought this +wreath. I have, absolutely, not a half-franc in the world. Will you buy +the wreath of me at half-price, it has not even been taken from its +box.” + +“I do not want it,” said Laura, “but I will lend you some money.” + +“No, I cannot borrow more,” said her sister despondingly. “I owe you +already for the flowers, the brooch, the bill you paid yesterday, and I +know not what else besides; but I will tell Eugène there is a poor +Englishwoman in distress, I am sure he will send her something.” + +Eugène gave a five-franc piece. + +It was late one frosty evening when Sally ran across to her cousin’s +cottage, delighted to be the bearer of the long hoped-for letter. Fanny +was sitting on the fender before a small fire, hugging her darling to +her breast, and breathing on its little face to make the air warmer. +“I’m afraid,” said she, in answer to Sally’s inquiries, “that the child +won’t be here long;” and she wiped away a few hot tears that had forced +their way as she sat listening to the low moans of the little sufferer. + +“But I have good news for you,” said her cousin, cheerfully. “Here is a +letter from Miss Isabel at last. I would not tell you before, but I +wrote to Miss Laura, saying how you were expecting every week to be put +to bed again, and how Bella was wasting away, and see, I was right about +her, she has sent you a sovereign, and her sister’s letter, no doubt, +contains a pretty sum.” + +Fanny started up, and could scarcely breathe as she broke the seal. What +was her disappointment on seeing an order for five shillings! + +“I am very sorry, my good Fanny,” said Isabel, “that just now I have no +money. A charitable gentleman sends you five shillings, and as soon as I +possibly can, I will let you have a large sum. I have not yet paid for +the carriage I sent you, and as the bill has been given me several +times, I must discharge it before I send away more money. I hope that by +this time, little Bella is better.” + +Fanny laid her child upon the bed, and putting her face by its side, +shed bitter tears. Sally did not speak, and so both remained till Thomas +came in from his work. Fanny would have hidden the letter from him, but +he saw and seized it in a moment. + +“Five guineas for a carriage, and five shillings for a child’s life,” +said he with a sneer, as he laid it down. “Do not look for the large +sum, Fanny, you won’t get it; but I will work hard, and bury the child +decently.” + +Fanny felt no inclination to defend her mistress. For the first time, it +occurred to her that Thomas and John might be right in their judgment of +her. She raised Bella, as Thomas, who had been twisting up the money +order, was about to throw it in the fire. He caught a sight of the +child’s wan face, and, advancing to the bed, said, in a softened tone, +“Do you know father, pretty one?” and as Bella smiled, faintly, he +added, “I will do anything for your sake. Here, Fanny, take the money, +and get the child something nourishing.” + +Bella seemed to revive from getting better food; and the apothecary held +out great hope of her ultimate recovery, if the improved diet could be +continued; but expenses fell heavily on Thomas, Fanny was put to bed +with a fine strong little boy, and, though Sally and Mrs. Maythorn +devoted themselves to her and Bella, the anxiety she suffered from being +separated from her invalid child, added to her former constant +uneasiness, and want of proper food, brought on a fever that threatened +her life. In a few days she became quite delirious. During this time +Isabel was married, and Laura returned to England. + +When Fanny regained her consciousness she was in the dark, but she could +see someone standing by the window. On her speaking the person advanced +to her side. “Do not be startled to find me here,” said a sweet soft +voice. “Sally has watched by your side for three nights, and when I came +this evening she looked so ill that I insisted on her going to bed; +then, as we could find no one on whose care and watchfulness we could +depend, I took her place. You have been in a sound sleep Dr. Hart said +you would wake up much better. Are you better?” + +“Yes, ma’am, a deal better; but where am I, and who is it with me?” + +“You are in your own pretty cottage, and Miss Laura is with you. You +expected me home, did you not?” + +“Oh thank God; who sent you, dear Miss Laura? How is—but may be I had +best not ask just while I am so weak. Is the dear boy well?” + +“Yes, quite well; and Bella is much better. I have sent her for a few +days to L——, with Mrs. Maythorn; the sea air will do her good.” + +“Oh, thank you—thank you—dear young lady for the thought. I seem so +bound up in that dear child, that nothing could comfort me for her loss. +How good and kind you are, Miss—you do all so well and so quietly!” + +“Yes, Fanny, dear,” said Thomas, coming from behind the curtain and +stooping to kiss his wife. “Miss Laura has saved you and Bella, and me +too, for I could’nt have lived if you had died; and has found me work; +and all without making one great present, or doing anything one could +speak about. I’ll tell you what it is, wife, dear, Miss Isabel does all +for the best, but it is just as she feels at the moment. Now Miss +Laura—if I may be so bold to speak, Miss—Miss Laura does not give to +please her own feelings, but to do good. I can’t say it well, but do you +say it for me, Miss; I want Fanny to know the right words, to teach the +little ones by-and-bye. You know what I wish to say, Miss Laura.” + +“Yes Thomas,” said Laura, blushing, “but I do not say you are right. You +mean, I think, that my sister acts from impulse, and I from principle. +Is that it?” + +“I suppose that’s it, Miss,” said Thomas, considering, and apparently +not quite satisfied. + +“You have no harder meaning, I am sure,” said Laura, quietly, “because I +love my sister very much.” + +“Certainly not, Miss,” returned Thomas. “But, myself, if I may take the +liberty of gratefully saying so, I prefer to be acted to on principle, +and think it a good deal better than impulse.” + + + + + CHIPS. + + + TORTURE IN THE WAY OF BUSINESS. + +The mention in a recent number of the extreme cruelty practised on +calves, has drawn forth the following statement from a correspondent,—a +clergyman in Bedfordshire:— + +“A member of my family was witness to the following act of barbarity, +viz., that of plucking the feathers from a duck while yet alive. Upon +being expostulated with, the man replied that it was a common +practice,—‘we _half_ break their necks, then pluck them while they are +warm, and then finish them off.’ This act of cruelty was witnessed in +Brighton Market. If the above will at all assist you in exposing the +atrocities which are practised on the brute creation, I shall be +thankful. The public generally (save a few gross sensualists) have only, +it is to be hoped, to be told what is practised on many articles of +consumption, to make them protest against such wanton insults on God’s +workmanship.” + +The only means of accounting for such irrational cruelty, is the +supposition that the offending poulterers imagine ducks to be endowed by +nature with no more feeling than feather-beds. + +The savage indifference with which unappreciable agonies are +systematically inflicted upon sentient creatures, strikes us +occasionally with wonder. The police reports have lately revealed a case +which nothing but the best testimony could render credible. A +correspondent of the Times Newspaper was some weeks since walking in the +Walworth Road, when he saw several persons assembled round the shop of a +butcher; half a dozen men were endeavouring to force two bullocks into a +slaughter-house. The butcher’s journeyman struck one of the animals on +the legs with a broom handle, which had a sharp pointed spike. The door +of the slaughter-house was very narrow; the man got a rope and fixed it +tightly round the horns of the bullock, and some of them then pulled +this from the inside of the slaughter-house; the others were beating the +brute behind and pushing it on. He saw one of the butchers twisting the +animal’s tail till he doubled it up, and the bones were dislocated—at +least, he was led to think so by the right angle formed by the two +portions of the tail. The man’s hands were covered with blood which +flowed from the tail; and he rubbed the dislocated parts together, which +caused the poor animal to moan most piteously. Several of the bystanders +expressed their disgust. + +The fellows were brought before the Lambeth magistrate by the Society +for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; but unfortunately the +principal witness mistook one of the offenders for another person—his +brother. The complaint, therefore, from that legal informality, broke +down. + +The defendants appeared to treat the mere pulling a bullock through a +passage too small for its comfortable admission, with ropes tied to its +horns; the pushing it with goads from behind; the agonising twisting of +its tail; as matters of the most perfect indifference. In his exultation +at getting off, one of them facetiously promised the magistrate, in +answer to an expostulation as to the narrowness of the passage, “that, +to oblige his Worship, he would make the place big enough to admit a +full-grown elephant, or a hippopotamus.” + +We have in former articles shown that this sort of brutality is of +everyday occurrence, and perpetrated in the regular way of business. Use +begets insensibility. We have no doubt that the poulterer and butchers +concerned in the atrocities we have detailed, are worthy men enough in +their families. They would not tear the hair out of the head of a child, +or goad a wife with a broomstick, for the world. They are most likely +tender fathers and affectionate husbands; but in the way of business, as +poulterers, and butchers, what can exceed, or what censure can be too +sharp for, their cruelty? Exposure is the only cure; and this we will +always do our part in administering. + + + + + A COTTAGE MEMORY. + + + In that far foreign country, the dream of old days + And old haunts often bears me to Anthony Wray’s; + The white little cottage with nest-crowded eaves, + Peeping out half the year from an ambush of leaves. + + And now once again have my footsteps been there, + And have found it—deserted, dismantled, and bare; + Except where the wall-flow’rs still cluster and wave + On the gable: they now are like flow’rs on a grave. + + At that window, I thought as I passed through the door, + Where the late sunbeam strikes down the weed-covered floor, + How often the sunlight and moonlight have shone + Upon bright, living faces, that now are all gone. + + In the choice ingle-nook stood no Martha’s arm-chair, + But a heap of dead leaves which the wind had swept there; + The low-talking wind that breathed thoughts of the time + When young voices rang round like a holiday chime. + + And the hearth had become like a cold churchyard stone, + Encrusted with mould and with moss overgrown, + That had glowed through so many a long winter night, + The heart of the cottage, a core of warm light. + + What talk and what mirth there! what tales told or read + To the children that listened in joy tinged with dread! + A storm shakes the window; they solemnly gaze + On each other, and draw their stools nearer the blaze. + + Their father is drowsy with labour gone through, + And the deep satisfaction of nothing to do; + The woof of light sleep in its network has bound him, + And home mildly shines through the mist that’s around him. + + The mother sits knitting and smiling fond praise; + The cheek of the youngest shines warm in the blaze + As he rests his white head on his grandmother’s knee; + Alas! that these pictures mere phantoms should be. + + As ghosts of burnt roses cloud up from their ashes, + Rise scenes from the past in these transient flashes; + Thin visions, soon melted, which leave the heart sore, + By half-showing that which they will not restore. + + Could it be that this Household was gone, and for ever? + The wood looked unchanged, and the fields, and the river; + Co-tenants of time, even part did these seem + Of beings who now are but shapes of a dream. + + The broad-leaved horse-chesnut my thoughts used to wed + With those for whose shelter its boughs seemed to spread, + Dipped slowly in sunlight its fans as of old, + But beneath, all had passed “like a tale that is told.” + + Long I stood, and had no word of comfort to say + Yet not unconsoled did I turn me away: + Thank God for the faith that is stronger than grief, + The fountain that springs to the parched soul’s relief. + + The whispered assurance which raises and soothes, + That these are the phantoms, and those still the truths; + And their trials and virtues, their tears and their mirth + _Not_ faded like yesterday’s light from the earth! + + + + + “CAPE” SKETCHES. + + +There is a peculiarity evinced by such of the advocates of colonisation +as have acquainted themselves personally with colonial life, which puts +in a strong light the adaptability of most of our territories beyond sea +for bettering the condition of enterprising emigrants. It is this:—each +man vaunts loudly the superiority of the colony he has visited over all +the others. “How is it possible,” writes a settler in New Zealand to us, +“that people will be so blind as to risk their capital in Australia +while there is New Zealand, the finest country, with the finest climate +in the world!” The friend, who occasionally amuses and instructs us with +his vivid sketches of Australian life, exclaims—“New Zealand!—Where are +its markets?—What is a farmer to do with his produce when he has got +it?—No, no; my advice is Sydney.” “By no means,” ejaculates a third, +just home from Port Philip, “South Australia is the country for an +energetic man to gain independence and wealth.” A successful emigrant, +hot from Hobart Town, vaunts the advantages of Van Dieman’s Land. Our +friend from Canada over-rides all these opinions. “Why,” he argues, “go +to uncivilised, uncultivated, and far-off countries, when you can, at +once, join established communities, and enjoy regular British +institutions, only a three weeks’ sail distant; where markets are +regular, food cheap, and where (on account of the intense cold) there is +nothing to do for one-third of the year?” Lastly, we are favoured with +the opinion of a five years’ resident in South Africa:—“Truly,” he says, +“people who brave the regions of a northern climate, who expose their +lives in dangerous proximity to savages, who heed not agues in swamps, +nor thirst in deserts, forget there is such a place as the Cape of Good +Hope.” + +Although all this one-sided enthusiasm does not prove either of the +respective cases argued by the different advocates; yet it shows in a +broad light the certain advantages of emigration in general. To whatever +quarter of the globe the observer turns, he sees, amidst occasional +instances of disappointment and loss, that emigration has, in general, +answered the expectations of the emigrants. But this general success he +does not attribute to the soundness of the principle in the abstract, +but to the advantages of the particular country in which he has +witnessed the most prosperity. + +In, therefore, sifting and comparing with other evidence the numerous +papers which we receive from, and relative to, the various colonies, it +is our aim to give such true pictures of colonial life as enable the +reader to judge fairly of the pains, pleasures, losses and gains of all +the new homes which have been established by and for Englishmen in +various parts of the globe. + +We have been led into these remarks by a communication now before us +from the gentleman already mentioned who has passed five active years in +the colony of the Cape of Good Hope. His characteristic preface to the +amusing and instructive sketches of Cape Life is as follows:— + + “I cannot but think, that, in the present rage for promoting + emigration, too much attention is paid to new and untried countries + whose resources are as yet doubtful and undeveloped, to the detriment + of the old established colonies, whose constant cry is for ‘labour, + labour, labour.’ Amongst the least popular of our old colonies is the + Cape of Good Hope. Yet I think, that most, if not all, the objections + usually raised against it are erroneous; while many of its undoubted + advantages are overlooked. It is my desire, if possible, to remove + some of the prejudices entertained against a land where I spent five + happy years of my life. My intention is simply to give a few + travelling sketches, and to portray some of the characteristic + features of the country and its inhabitants.” + +Cape Wine enjoys a very unenviable notoriety in England. Order a glass +of sherry at a fourth-rate tavern: taste it—it is _very_ bad—you turn up +your nose and cry “Cape!” Mr. Lazarus, a Hebrew dealer in wine and +money, “does a little bill” for you, and sends you home as part payment +a few dozen of “excellent Madeira.” Are you rash enough to taste it? If +so, as soon as you have recovered from the sputtering caused by its +fearful acidity, you mutter a phrase never mentioned to ears polite, and +say again—“Cape!” In fact, whenever you drink any vile compound, under +the name of wine, to which you are at a loss to ascribe a native land, +you cry—“Cape!” + +The old adage of “give a dog a bad name and hang him,” is fully +exemplified here. Still it must be admitted that the dog must first have +_earned_ his bad name. So it is with Cape Wine. It _was_ very bad, and a +great part of it is so still; while decidedly the worst of it is sent to +England. I have often endeavoured to persuade the wine farmers that this +is bad policy on their part; but they will not be convinced. They say +that Cape Wine has a bad name in the market; that it is bought only as +“Cape Wine,” without any distinction of vintage or class; and that the +worst of it brings them as good a price as the best. And yet there is a +vast difference in the various qualities; and even the best of them are +still susceptible of wonderful improvement. + +There is a similarity between the Cape and the Madeira grape. Both are +cultivated very much in the same manner, but the grand point of +difference between the two is the time of gathering the grapes. In +Madeira they are not gathered till so ripe that many begin to fall, and +many are withered from over ripeness; these are of course rejected. By +this means a smaller amount of wine is obtained from a vineyard than +would have been produced had the grapes been gathered earlier: but the +quality of the wine is improved beyond conception. Every grape is full, +ripe, and luscious, and the wine partakes of its quality. Nothing can +prove more clearly the necessity of the grape being fully, and rather +_over_ ripe, than the difference of the wine produced on the north side +of the Island of Madeira, where this perfection of the grape can +scarcely be attained, and that grown on the south side: the latter is +Nectar; the former Cape; or little better. + +Now at _the_ Cape the object of the farmer is always to get the greatest +_quantity_ of wine from his vineyard; and consequently he gathers his +grapes when they are barely ripe, and none have fallen or withered; +whereby he fills his storehouses with wine full of acidity and of that +vile twang which all who have tasted shudder to recal. + +Some of the wine-growers in the colony have lately pursued a different +plan, and with vast success. This has been chiefly among the English +colonists; for a Dutch boor at the Cape is a very intractable animal, +and not easily induced to swerve from old systems, be they ever so bad. +Probably, the principal reason why the colony produced from the very +first such bad wines, was its having been colonised by Dutchmen, who +could have had no experience at home in wine-growing. + +Who knows what might have been the case had a colony from the plains of +Champagne or Bordeaux first settled there? Apropos of this, I may +mention that a fellow passenger of mine was a Frenchman from Champagne. +At the Cape he entered into partnership with a young Englishman (also a +fellow passenger), and agreed to take a wine farm. The Englishman was to +supply capital—the Frenchman knowledge. Monsieur had determined to make +“Cape Champagne;” and remarkably well he succeeded. Often at public and +even at private dinners, when swallowing something dignified with the +name of that right-royal wine, have I sighed to think how far more +palatable would be a bottle of Monsieur L——’s vintage. + +It perhaps requires a greater outlay of capital to be a successful +wine-grower than almost anything else in the colony. There are, in +addition to the purchase of land and vines, the expenses of storehouses, +casks, and, above all, that most difficult commodity to attain—labour. +So great is the want of the latter, and so uncertain the supply of even +that which is attainable, that he is a bold man who ventures on +wine-farming at the Cape. + +The wine-growers are generally wealthy men, for, in spite of all +obstacles, their profits are very large. Few people who even touch at +the Cape fail to visit the Constantia wine farms, producing the +delicious sweet wine of that name. It is grown on a mountain named after +the wife of one of the former Governors of the Cape—whether in +compliment to the lady’s sweetness of disposition, or her love for the +wine then produced, I know not. Three farms monopolise this mountain. +Even half a mile from them, the wine produced is of a very inferior +flavour. They live in excellent style, these Constantia wine-growers. +When first I visited one of them, a carriage-and-four and two buggies, +conveying a party of Indian visitors, had just drawn up at the door. A +_déjeûner_ was spread in a long, handsome, and elegantly-furnished +apartment, for the entertainment of any one who might chance to come and +visit the farm. Two or three superintendents were ready to show the +“lions” of the place to visitors, and to give them samples of the wine +to taste. There are many varieties of it. And, oh, how seductive that +same Constantia is! Who can resist it in all its delicious varieties? + +I recollect that as I rode towards the farm I passed a toll-gate, and +looking, I suppose, extremely like a “griffin” (for I had only been a +week in the colony), the “pikeman” observed, as he took my twopence, and +handed me the ticket, “Hopes you’ll be able to read it as you comes +back, Sir!” + +“What do you mean?” I asked. + +“No offence, Sir,” said the man with a grin; “only I’ve seed a many as +_couldn’t_—that’s all.” + +The three Constantia wine-growers are Dutchmen; and so, in fact, are +nearly all the wine farmers throughout the colony. Englishmen who go out +there generally take to trade or sheep-farming; and they are right,—for +it requires far less experience, less capital, and less labour, to +follow almost any calling at the Cape than that of a wine-grower. I +think, however, that a Company might be profitably established here or +in the colony, for cultivating the vine there and importing its produce +to Europe. For this purpose, they should send out labourers and +superintendents, carefully selected from the wine districts of France +and Germany; and take care that the Madeira plan of gathering the grapes +be adopted. They should agitate, too, for a reduction of the duty on the +wine: at present it is far too high. Perhaps the profits would not at +first be great, for there is a serious obstacle to be overcome,—a bad +name in the market; but eventually I believe that the speculation would +be a lucrative one, and that it would in time remove the unfortunate +stigma now affixed to Cape wine. + + +In these days of railroad travelling, when twenty miles an hour would be +considered slow enough to justify a letter of complaint from “Viator” to +the editor of the Times, it may rather astonish my readers to learn that +twenty miles is considered a fair day’s journey at the Cape. Yet so it +is. + +Unless you amble on horseback, which only men and _young_ men can +undertake, the sole and universal method of travelling is by an +ox-wagon. Just go and see the wagon exhibited by Cumming in his +South-African Exhibition, at Hyde Park corner! Imagine such a machine, +with twelve or fourteen oxen attached to it by a long rope of plaited +hide (called a treck-tow) attached to the pole, and to which are +fastened the yokes of the oxen. Then fancy a little Hottentot lad, very +much like one of the Bushmen lately exhibited in London (but, perhaps, +hardly so handsome,) leading the two front oxen by a strip of hide +fastened to their horns (called a reim), and a full-grown Hottentot +seated on the driving-seat, in the front of the wagon, with an enormous +whip in his hands formed of a long bamboo handle and a lash of plaited +thongs, with which he can, from his seat, reach the leaders of his team; +and you have the “travelling carriage” of South Africa complete before +your eyes. + +The same team (or “span” in South-African phraseology) of oxen take you +the whole journey, whether it be twenty or two hundred miles; and as +they have no other food on the way, nor indeed at any other time, than +the grass and water on the roadside, you may imagine that twenty or +twenty-five miles a day is quite work enough for them. The journey is, +however, by no means so tedious or uninteresting an affair as might be +supposed. It is like so many days of pic-nic-ing, with new scenery each +day, and in a glorious climate. The wagon is of course well furnished +with tea, sugar, coffee, wine, flour, eggs, fresh and preserved meat, +vegetables, and in fact all that refreshes and cheers the inward man: +for, be it recollected, that there are no inns, or at least the very few +there are are scattered at such great distances apart over the country +that no wagon traveller thinks of visiting them. The wagon in fact +becomes your home and your store-house as well as your travelling +carriage. A long stretcher is slung in it, on which is placed your bed, +which serves for a lounging couch by day. Some people travel with a +tent, but this is unnecessary when the party does not exceed two or +three, besides the Hottentots, who sleep under the wagon, or under a +bush or anywhere else on the ground, as soundly as their masters in +their beds. + +Travellers generally take their guns with them, as they may chance to +get a little sport on the road. At six in the morning we will suppose +the carriage to start; at about ten you will “outspan”—that is, take out +the oxen and let them feed, and prepare for breakfast. Your Hottentots +soon collect fuel, the wagon is drawn up close by a mimosa or some other +bush, a fire is lighted, the kettle set to boil, the coffee prepared, +the steaks cooked in a frying-pan, and perhaps some hot cakes made of +meal baked for you; and with a beautiful country round you, and a +magnificent sky above you, if you cannot make a good breakfast, and feel +a light heart, I fear that you must be terribly “used up.” + +Then comes a stroll through the bush with your double-barrel on your +shoulder, in search of a partridge or a Guinea fowl, or a stray +antelope; and back to the wagon, now ready for another start. + +Forward, again, till dinner-time, when the same process is gone through. +After dinner, perhaps you will go forward another four or five miles, +and then “outspan” for the night. + +The nights of the Cape climate are glorious! I can scarcely imagine +anything more beautiful. The sky of that deep, dark blue, which we never +see in northern climates; the moon shining as she only can in such a +sky, the stars so bright and distinct, with the beautiful southern cross +in all its brilliancy, among them; the perfect stillness of everything +around; the lofty and rugged mountains where the foot of man has never +trodden; the thick dark bush, penetrable only by the wild beast or the +savage; the broad plain covered with Aloes, Cape Heaths, Wild Stocks, +and the ten thousand variegated shrubs which make a carpet beneath your +feet as beautiful as the canopy of heaven above your head; and that +little spot worthy the pencil of Salvator Rosa—the dark foliage of the +bush lighted up by your fire, and around it the dusky forms of your +Hottentots stretched at their ease, and enjoying, as none but a half +savage knows how thoroughly to enjoy, the requisite delight of the +“Dolce far niente.” + +No doubt railroads are glorious inventions. All honour, too, to Macadam, +and to stagecoaches and post-chaises; all praise to the comforts and +convenience of a good English Inn. But if you have a spark of native +poetry in your composition, in spite of bad roads, slow travelling, +rough fare, and a bed “al fresco,” you will enjoy one of these South +African journeys more than any trip you ever took in Europe. You have no +other travelling companions than the beauties of Nature’s works around +you, fresh as from the hands of their Creator, and the thoughts and +reflections high and holy, as such scenes and such companionship will +not fail to call forth. + + + + + CHEMICAL CONTRADICTIONS. + + +Science, whose aim and end is to prove the harmony and “eternal fitness +of things,” also proves that we live in a world of paradoxes; and that +existence itself, is a whirl of contradictions. Light and darkness, +truth and falsehood, virtue and vice, the negative and positive poles of +galvanic or magnetic mysteries, are evidences of all-pervading +antitheses, which acting like the good and evil genii of Persian +Mythology, neutralise each other’s powers when they come into collision. +It is the office of science to solve these mysteries. The appropriate +symbol of the lecture-room is a Sphinx; for a scientific lecturer is but +a better sort of unraveller of riddles. + +Who would suppose, for instance, that water—which everybody knows, +extinguishes fire—may, under certain circumstances, add fuel to flame, +so that the “coming man” who is to “set the Thames on fire,” may not be +far off. If we take some mystical grey-looking globules of potassium +(which is the metallic basis of common pearl-ash) and lay them upon +water, the water will instantly appear to ignite. The globules will swim +about in flames, reminding us of the “death-fires” described by the +Ancient Mariner, burning “like witches’ oil” on the surface of the +stagnant sea. Sometimes even, without any chemical ingredient being +added, Fire will appear to spring spontaneously from water; which is not +a simple element, as Thales imagined, when he speculated upon the origin +of the Creation, but two invisible gases—oxygen and hydrogen, chemically +combined. During the electrical changes of the atmosphere in a +thunder-storm, these gases frequently combine with explosive violence, +and it is this combination which takes place when “the big rain comes +dancing to the earth.” These fire-and-water phenomena are thus accounted +for; certain substances have peculiar affinities or attractions for one +another; the potassium has so inordinate a desire for oxygen, that the +moment it touches, it decomposes the water, abstracts all the oxygen, +and sets free the hydrogen or inflammable gas. The potassium, when +combined with the oxygen, forms that corrosive substance known as +caustic potash, and the heat disengaged during this process, ignites the +hydrogen. Here the mystery ends; and the contradictions are +solved;—Oxygen and hydrogen when combined, become water; when separated +the hydrogen gas burns with a pale lambent flame. Many of Nature’s most +delicate deceptions are accounted for by a knowledge of these laws. + +Your analytical chemist sadly annihilates, with his scientific +machinations, all poetry. He bottles up at pleasure the Nine Muses, and +proves them—as the fisherman in the Arabian Nights did the Afrite—to be +all smoke. Even the Will o’ the Wisp cannot flit across its own morass +without being pursued, overtaken, and burnt out by this scientific +detective policeman. He claps an extinguisher upon Jack o’ Lanthorn +thus:—He says that a certain combination of phosphorus and hydrogen, +which rises from watery marshes, produces a gas called phosphuretted +hydrogen, which ignites spontaneously the moment it bubbles up to the +surface of the water and meets with atmospheric air. Here again, the +Ithuriel wand of science dispels all delusion, pointing out to us, that +in such places animal and vegetable substances are undergoing constant +decomposition; and as phosphorus exists under a variety of forms in +these bodies, as phosphate of lime, phosphate of soda, phosphate of +magnesia, &c., and as furthermore the decomposition of water itself is +the initiatory process in these changes, so we find that phosphorus and +hydrogen are supplied from these sources; and we may therefore easily +conceive the consequent formation of phosphuretted hydrogen. This gas +rises in a thin stream from its watery bed, and the moment it comes in +contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere, it bursts into a flame so +buoyant, that it flickers with every breath of air, and realises the +description of Goëthe’s Mephistopheles, that the course of +Jack-o’-lantern is generally “zig-zag.” + +Who would suppose that absolute darkness may be derived from two rays of +light! Yet such is the fact. If two rays proceed from two luminous +points very close to each other, and are so directed as to cross at a +given point on a sheet of white paper in a dark room, their united light +will be twice as bright as either ray singly would produce. But if the +difference in the distance of the two points be diminished only one +half, the one light will extinguish the other, and produce absolute +darkness. The same curious result may be produced by viewing the flame +of a candle through two very fine slits near to each other in a card. +So, likewise, strange as it may appear, if two musical strings be so +made to vibrate, in a certain succession of degrees, as for the one to +gain half a vibration on the other, the two resulting sounds will +antagonise each other and produce an interval of perfect silence. How +are these mysteries to be explained? The Delphic Oracle of science must +again be consulted, and among the high priests who officiate at the +shrine, no one possesses more recondite knowledge, or can recal it more +instructively, than Sir David Brewster. “The explanation which +philosophers have given,” he observes, “of these remarkable phenomena, +is very satisfactory, and may easily be understood. When a wave is made +on the surface of a still pool of water by plunging a stone into it, the +wave advances along the surface, while the water itself is never carried +forward, but merely rises into a height and falls into a hollow, each +portion of the surface experiencing an elevation and a depression in its +turn. If we suppose two waves equal and similar, to be produced by two +separate stones, and if they reach the same spot at the same time, that +is, if the two elevations should exactly coincide, they would unite +their effects, and produce a wave twice the size of either; but if the +one wave should be put so far before the other, that the hollow of the +one coincided with the elevation of the other, and the elevation of the +one with the hollow of the other, the two waves would obliterate or +destroy one another; the elevation as it were of the one filling up half +the hollow of the other, and the hollow of the one taking away half the +elevation of the other, so as to reduce the surface to a level. These +effects may be exhibited by throwing two equal stones into a pool of +water; and also may be observed in the Port of Batsha, where the two +waves arriving by channels of different lengths actually obliterate each +other. Now, as light is supposed to be produced by waves or undulations +of an ethereal medium filling all nature, and occupying the pores of the +transparent bodies; and as sound is produced by undulations or waves in +the air: so the successive production of light and darkness by two +bright lights, and the production of sound and silence by two loud +sounds, may be explained in the very same manner as we have explained +the increase and obliteration of waves formed on the surface of water.” + +The apparent contradictions in chemistry are, indeed, best exhibited in +the lecture-room, where they may be rendered visible and tangible, and +brought home to the general comprehension. The Professor of Analytical +Chemistry, J. H. Pepper, who demonstrates these things in the Royal +Polytechnic Institution, is an expert manipulator in such mysteries; +and, taking a leaf out of his own magic-book, we shall conjure him up +before us, standing behind his own laboratory, surrounded with all the +implements of his art. At our recent visit to this exhibition we +witnessed him perform, with much address, the following experiments:—He +placed before us a pair of tall glass vessels, each filled, apparently, +with water;—he then took two hen’s eggs, one of these he dropped into +one of the glass vessels, and, as might have been expected, it +immediately sank to the bottom. He then took the other egg, and dropped +it into the other vessel of water, but, instead of sinking as the other +had done, it descended only half way, and there remained suspended in +the midst of the transparent fluid. This, indeed, looked like magic—one +of Houdin’s sleight-of-hand performances—for what could interrupt its +progress? The water surrounding it appeared as pure below as around and +above the egg, yet there it still hung like Mahomet’s coffin, between +heaven and earth, contrary to all the well established laws of gravity. +The problem, however, was easily solved. Our modern Cagliostro had +dissolved in one half of the water in this vessel as much common salt as +it would take up, whereby the density of the fluid was so much augmented +that it opposed a resistance to the descent of the egg after it had +passed through the unadulterated water, which he had carefully poured +upon the briny solution, the transparency of which, remaining +unimpaired, did not for a moment suggest the suspicion of any such +impregnation. The good housewife, upon the same principle, uses an egg +to test the strength of her brine for pickling. + +Every one has heard of the power which bleaching gas (chlorine) +possesses in taking away colour, so that a red rose held over its fumes +will become white. The lecturer, referring to this fact, exhibited two +pieces of paper; upon one was inscribed, in large letters, the word +“PROTEUS;” upon the other no writing was visible; although he assured us +the same word was there inscribed. He now dipped both pieces of paper in +a solution of bleaching-powder, when the word “Proteus” disappeared from +the paper upon which it was before visible; whilst the same word +instantly came out, sharp and distinct, upon the paper which was +previously a blank. Here there appeared another contradiction: the +chlorine in the one case obliterating, and in the other reviving the +written word; and how was this mystery explained? Easily enough! Our +ingenious philosopher, it seems, had used indigo in penning the one word +which had disappeared; and had inscribed the other with a solution of a +chemical substance, iodide of potassium and starch; and the action which +took place was simply this: the chlorine of the bleaching solution set +free the iodine from the potassium, which immediately combined with the +starch, and gave colour to the letters which were before invisible. +Again—a sheet of white paper was exhibited, which displayed a broad and +brilliant stripe of scarlet—(produced by a compound called the +bin-iodide of mercury)—when exposed to a slight heat the colour changed +immediately to a bright yellow, and, when this yellow stripe was crushed +by smartly rubbing the paper, the scarlet colour was restored, with all +its former brilliancy. This change of colour was effected entirely by +the alteration which the heat, in the one case, and the friction, in the +other, produced in the particles which reflected these different +colours;—and, upon the same principle, we may understand the change of +the colour in the lobster-shell, which burns from black to red in +boiling; because the action of the heat produces a new arrangement in +the particles which compose the shell. + +With the assistance of water and fire, which have befriended the +magicians of every age, contradictions of a more marvellous character +may be exhibited, and even the secret art revealed of handling red hot +metals, and passing through the fiery ordeal. If we take a platinum +ladle, and hold it over a furnace until it becomes of a bright red heat, +and then project cold water into its bowl, we shall find that the water +will remain quiescent and give no sign of ebullition—not so much as a +single “fizz;” but, the moment the ladle begins to cool, it will boil up +and quickly evaporate. So also, if a mass of metal, heated to whiteness, +be plunged in a vessel of cold water, the surrounding fluid will remain +tranquil so long as the glowing white heat continues; but, the moment +the temperature falls, the water will boil briskly. Again—if water be +poured upon an iron sieve, the wires of which are made red hot, it will +not run through; but, on the sieve cooling, it will run through rapidly. +These contradictory effects are easily accounted for. The repelling +power of intense heat keeps the water from immediate contact with the +heated metal, and the particles of the water, collectively, retain their +globular form; but, when the vessel cools, the repulsive power +diminishes, and the water coming into closer contact with the heated +surface its particles can no longer retain their globular form, and +eventually expand into a state of vapour. This globular condition of the +particles of water will account for many very important phenomena; +perhaps it is best exhibited in the dew-drop, and so long as these +globules retain their form, water will retain its fluid properties. An +agglomeration of these globules will carry with them, under certain +circumstances, so much force that it is hardly a contradiction to call +water itself a solid. The water-hammer, as it is termed, illustrates +this apparent contradiction. If we introduce a certain quantity of water +into a long glass tube, when it is shaken, we shall hear the ordinary +splashing noise as in a bottle; but, if we exhaust the air, and again +shake the tube, we shall hear a loud ringing sound, as if the bottom of +the tube were struck by some hard substance—like metal or wood—which may +fearfully remind us of the blows which a ship’s side will receive from +the waves during a storm at sea, which will often carry away her +bulwarks. + +It is now time to turn to something stronger than water for more +instances of chemical contradictions. The chemical action of certain +poisons (the most powerful of all agents,) upon the human frame, has +plunged the faculty into a maze of paradoxes; indeed there is actually a +system of medicine, advancing in reputation, which is founded on the +principle of contraries. The famous Doctor Hahnemann, who was born at +Massieu in Saxony, was the founder of it, and, strange to say, medical +men, who are notorious for entertaining contrary opinions, have not yet +agreed among themselves whether he was a very great quack or a very +great philosopher. Be this as it may, the founder of this system, which +is called HOMŒOPATHY, when translating an article upon bark in Dr. +Cullen’s Materia Medica, took some of this medicine, which had for many +years been justly celebrated for the cure of ague. He had not long taken +it, when he found himself attacked with agueish symptoms, and a light +now dawned upon his mind, and led him to the inference that medicines +which give rise to the symptoms of a disease, are those which will +specifically cure it, and however curious it may appear, several +illustrations in confirmation of this principle were speedily found. If +a limb be frost-bitten, we are directed to rub it with snow; if the +constitution of a man be impaired by the abuse of spirituous liquors, +and he be reduced to that miserable state of enervation when the limbs +tremble and totter, and the mind itself sinks into a state of low +muttering delirium, the physician to cure him must go again to the +bottle and administer stimulants and opiates. + +It was an old Hippocratic aphorism that two diseases cannot co-exist in +the same body; wherefore, gout has actually been cured by the afflicted +person going into a fenny country and catching the ague. The fatality of +consumption is also said to be retarded by a common catarrh; and upon +this very principle depends the truth of the old saying, that ricketty +doors hang long on rusty hinges. In other words, the strength of the +constitution being impaired by one disease has less power to support the +morbid action of another. + +We thus live in a world of apparent contradictions; they abound in every +department of science, and beset us even in the sanctuary of domestic +life. The progress of discovery has reconciled and explained the nature +of some of them; but many baffle our ingenuity, and still remain +involved in mystery. This much, however, is certain, that the most +opposed and conflicting elements so combine together as to produce +results, which are strictly in unison with the order and harmony of the +universe. + + + + + AN IRISH PECULIARITY. + + +The characteristics attributed by one nation to another are never +patented without some foundation in truth; but, in time, by means of +successive overlays of jest, constant repetition, and the heaping up of +one exaggeration upon another, national portraiture flashes forth into +glaring caricature. If we were to believe old plays and old novels, we +should suppose that, only a half century since, every Englishman fed +exclusively on roast beef and plum-pudding—rattled his guineas in ample +pockets, tightened by the portly protuberance of his figure, and rapped +out oaths against “frog-eating Mounseers” with the same energy with +which, after dinner, he imbibed crusted port to the health and +prosperity of Church and State. On Sunday morning we view him, through +the same medium, standing upright in his red-cushioned pew, pronouncing +the responses with the _ore rotundo_ of Sir Roger de Coverley, and, like +that worthy baronet, looking daggers at little boys whom he catches +napping. + +The Scotchman of the same authorities was invariably a long, lean, +raw-boned, hungry, grey-eyed Sawney, with high cheek-bones, reddish +hair, and a diffused aroma of brimstone pervading his threadbare +garments. Pertaining to him also, by inalienable birth-right, was an +insatiable appetite for oaten-cakes, haggis, and singed sheep’s head; of +which viands the supply usually fell very far short of the demand. No +matter what his rank in life might be, he was forced, as a necessary +condition of his existence, to talk “braid scots,” and to look sharply +after the “siller.” Somehow, he regularly found his way to London, where +a lucrative place, and a rich wife, to whom he continually proclaimed +the glories of the “Land o’ Cakes,” gratified and rewarded his cautious +persevering endeavours to replenish his “pouch and sporran;” for all +Scotchmen were Highlanders, and were supposed only to have abandoned +their kilts in deference to decency and English prejudice while in the +act of crossing the border. + +The Irishman of novel, tale, or comedy, was a Phelim or a Patrick, +always either immersed in love or drink and often the victim of both +these exciting predicaments:—telling humorous lies, making unheard-of +blunders, winning money by his tricking cleverness, and losing it by his +unaccountable folly; leading a good-humoured, reckless, rollicking life, +breaking the hearts and emptying the purses of maid, wife, and widow; +and carrying off every shade of embarrassment with the cut-and-dry +exclamation, “By the powers!”—“Arrah, honey!”—or, “Och, my jewel!” + +All this served very well to amuse the juvenile minds of our grand +parents, but in these days when the wandering jewish propensity to +travel over the face of the earth, has attained its full development, we +find it to be a well-ascertained fact that there are Englishmen who +affect fricassees more than roast beef, drink French wines, and dress in +the French fashion; that Scotchmen may be found, even in Scotland, who +have neither caution in their heads, avarice in their hearts, nor kilts +round their bodies. Facility of intercourse has done this. The ancient +prophecy is being daily fulfilled:—“Many shall run to and fro, and +knowledge shall be increased.” Railways have rounded off the sharp +angles of national dislikes, by promoting social attrition. The +locomotive engine is the steam-plough which tears up local prejudices by +the roots. + +Thus the Rose and the Thistle are vindicated, but the tiny shamrock +still droops its green leaf in the atmosphere of public estimation. In +judging of Irish character, a very useful distinction drawn in the days +of good Queen Bess is overlooked. It divided the nation into “the Irish, +the wild Irish, and the extreme wild Irish.” In justice, these +distinctions ought to be preserved; for the “Irish” of the present day +are, upon the whole, pretty much like other well-bred, well-educated +members of the civilised world; eating, drinking, sleeping, dressing, +and living much as their neighbours do. But it must be owned that the +lower orders,—the “wild Irish” of the towns, and the “extreme wild +Irish” of the bogs and mountains,—present some striking and picturesque +peculiarities to justify the conventional Irishman of the old novel: the +most prominent being that mingled love of fun and fighting, which would +make one believe that the atmosphere of the four fair provinces is +compounded in equal portions of inflammable and laughing gas. + +Very deplorable, indeed, must be the state of an Irishman—he must “be +gone to the bad entirely,” when he can neither smile nor quarrel; and +often even “under the ribs of death” is “an appetite created” for these +excitements. He loves fun; but fighting is his pride and his glory. For +fighting he forswears name and wealth. You may call him by all the +uncomplimentary names in the vocabulary of censure, and he hears you +meekly; but cast an imputation on his courage or his prowess, and—“Hah! +Whoo!”—you will feel his shillelagh whizzing around your ears like a +fire-work in a state of explosion. + +An illustration of this peculiarity, of the ease with which a “wild +Irishman” will forego every prudent consideration in preference to the +disgrace of having been beaten in battle occurred, but a short while +since. In a Union workhouse in the south, some of the able-bodied +paupers came into rather forcible collision with the officials. The +cause of dispute was the supply of “stirabout,” which being deemed +insufficient by a few stout fellows, they marched into the kitchen, +seized ladles and bowls, and proceeded to help themselves. An alarm of +this lawless incursion being given, in rushed to the rescue the master +and his myrmidons. Fast and furious were the blows dealt by both +parties, but the strong hand of the law at length prevailed, the +well-fed officers triumphed over their famine-weakened foes, and the +stalwart master counted his victory by the number of broken heads +prostrated by the huge ladle which he wielded. The proprietors of the +damaged craniums were subsequently conveyed to the surgeon’s room, and +severally bandaged and plastered as their cases required. Most of the +hurts were found to be trifling, but one poor fellow had received a +severe contusion. With the dislike which many of his countrymen feel, to +submit to the prescription of qualified practitioners, Tim Murphy, in a +day or two, asked for his discharge, threw off the well-fixed bandages, +and betook himself to the squalid shelter of a cabin belonging to an +“uncle’s son,” nearly as poor as himself, an unqualified “docther,” +whose unprofessional practice it was to prescribe charms and philtres in +place of physic. This reckless proceeding was followed by its natural +result. The hurt which, with common care, would have readily healed, +became inflamed, fever ensued, and the man died. This melancholy finale +to the workhouse row caused much excitement, and an investigation of the +whole business was instituted by the magistrates. On the day when it +took place, the hall of the workhouse was crowded, and although it was +shown that the master was justified in using force to protect the +kitchen stores from the paupers, and it was also proved that under +proper surgical treatment the patient would, in all human probability, +have recovered, yet the point to be decided was, whether John Minahan, +the master, had used unnecessary violence in the discharge of his duty. +The principal witness against him, was a man who appeared with evident +“tokens of a foughten field” on his forehead, and who indeed had been +the only recipient, besides Tim Murphy, of any serious injury. The +examination proceeded nearly as follows:— + +After having deposed readily and clearly to the fact of the combat, and +of John Minahan having rushed to the rescue of the porridge-pots, he was +asked: + +“Did you see the master strike any one in particular?” + +“Not he, indeed; he was no ways particular; but he murdhered and killed +every one that came in his way.” + +“Did he strike you?” + +“Did he strike me, is it? Why, then, if he did, I paid it back to him +handsomely.” + +“Answer distinctly. Whom did you see him strike?” + +“Ah, then, little matter ’twould be who he’d strike, if the boys had his +feeding, and he had theirs to depend on for one month. It’s little good +the son of ould Thady Minahan, the tinker, would do, if he was living on +Ingy male and water.” + +“Come, come,” said the magistrate, impatiently, “give me a plain answer +to a plain question. Did Minahan knock _you_ down?” + +“Is it the likes of him to knock me down? I’d like to see him try it. He +didn’t, nor couldn’t, your Honour’s glory.” + +Up started the accused, and cried; “I _did_ knock you down, and bate you +well, too. Your Honours,” he continued, turning to the bench, “if I’m to +swing for it the next minute, I won’t let _that_ go with the vagabone. I +wouldn’t lave it to him to say that I didn’t knock him down, and murder +him handsomely to his heart’s content.” + +The witness had been summoned to prove that the master had used +unnecessary violence; the defendant was there to prove he had not +employed more force than the occasion demanded. But would they establish +such proofs at the expense of their respective reputations? Should it be +said that Tim Murphy’s friend, or John Minahan, were not able to +“murther ach other intirely,” at any given minute’s notice? Never! Tim +Murphy’s friend would starve on “Ingy male,” and John Minahan would lose +his place first. + +What became of the witness has not been stated; but the defendant did +lose his situation; the guardians of the Union thought that his national +ideas of honour were undoubtedly more suited to military than to civil +avocations. + +Although it is doubtful whether _the_ Irish peculiarity will ever be +totally eradicated from the national character, yet the savage custom of +faction-fighting is becoming each year more rare. Sometimes, indeed, at +the close of a fair a “bit of a fight” does spring up; but the +casualties thence resulting, are seldom of a grave or fatal character; +and the contending parties may frequently be seen proceeding homewards, +with arms lovingly linked together, and tongues vowing eternal +friendship; although this, it must be confessed, is an indication of a +renewal rather than of the end of an Irish fight. + +No doubt the process of fusing the national peculiarities of the three +kingdoms is advancing rapidly. It is no wild speculation to anticipate +the probability, that fifty years hence there may be little apparent +difference between an average native of England, Ireland, (always +excepting the “extreme wild Irishman”) or Scotland. + + + + + WHERE DWELL THE DEAD? + + + Where do they dwell? ‘Neath grassy mounts, by daisies, + Lilies, and yellow-cups of fairest gold; + Near grey-grown walls, where in wild, tortuous mazes, + Old clustering ivy wreathes in many a fold: + Where in red summer noons + Fresh leaves are rustling, + Where ’neath large autumn moons + Young birds are nestling— + Do they dwell there? + + Where do they dwell? In sullen waters, lying + On beds of purple sea-flowers newly sprung; + Where the mad whirlpool’s wild and ceaseless sighing, + Frets sloping banks, by dark green reeds o’erhung: + Where, by the torrent’s swell, + Crystal stones glitter, + While sounds the heavy bell + Over the river— + Do they dwell there? + + No: for in these they slumber to decay, + And their remembrance with their life departs; + They have a home,—nor dark, nor far away— + Their proper home.—within our faithful hearts; + There happy spirits wed, + Loving for ever; + There dwell with us, the dead, + Parting—ah, never— + There do they dwell! + + + + + FATE DAYS. + + +It is a difficult puzzle to reconcile the existence of certain +superstitions that continue to have wide influence with the +enlightenment of the nineteenth century. When we have read glowing +paragraphs about the wonderful progress accomplished by the present +generation; when we have regarded the giant machinery in operation for +the culture of the people—moved, in great part, by the collective power +of individual charity; when we have examined the stupendous results of +human genius and ingenuity which are now laid bare to the lowliest in +the realm; we turn back, it must be confessed, with a mournful +despondency, to mark the debasing influence of the old superstitions +which have survived to the present time. + +The superstitions of the ancients formed part of their religion. They +consulted oracles as now men pray. The stars were the arbiters of their +fortunes. Natural phenomena, as lightning and hurricanes, were, to them, +awful expressions of the anger of their particular deities. They had +their _dies atri_ and their _dies albi_; the former were marked down in +their calendars with a black character, to denote ill-luck, and the +latter were painted in white characters to signify bright and propitious +days. They followed the finger-posts of their teachers. Faith gave +dignity to the tenets of the star-gazer and fire-worshipper. + +The priests of old taught their disciples to regard six particular days +in the year as days fraught with unusual danger to mankind. Men were +enjoined not to let blood on these black days, nor to imbibe any liquid. +It was devoutly believed that he who ate goose on one of these black +days would surely die within forty more; and that any little stranger +who made his appearance on one of the _dies atri_ would surely die a +sinful and violent death. Men were further enjoined to let blood from +the right arm on the seventh or fourteenth of March; from the left arm +on the eleventh of April; and from either arm on the third or sixth of +May, that they might avoid pestilential diseases. These barbaric +observances, when brought before people in illustrations of the mental +darkness of the ancients, are considered at once to be proof positive of +their abject condition. We thereupon congratulated ourselves upon living +in the nineteenth century; when such foolish superstitions are laughed +at; and perhaps our vanity is not a little flattered by the contrast +which presents itself, between our own highly cultivated condition, and +the wretched state of our ancestors. + +Yet Mrs. Flimmins will not undertake a sea-voyage on a Friday; nor would +she on any account allow her daughter Mary to be married on that day of +the week. She has great pity for the poor Red Indians who will not do +certain things while the moon presents a certain appearance, and who +attach all kinds of powers to poor dumb brutes: yet if her cat purrs +more than usual, she accepts the warning, and abandons the trip she had +promised herself on the morrow. + +Miss Nippers subscribes largely to the fund for eradicating +superstitions from the minds of the wretched inhabitants of Kamschatka; +and while she is calculating the advantages to be derived from a mission +to the South Sea Islands, to do away with the fearful superstitious +reverence in which those poor dear islanders hold the native flea: a +coal pops from her fire, and she at once augurs from its shape, an +abundance of money that will enable her to set her pious undertaking in +operation; but on no account will she commence collecting subscriptions +for the anti-drinking-slave-grown-sugar-in-tea society, because she has +always remarked that Monday is her unlucky day. On a Monday her poodle +died, and on a Monday she caught that severe cold at Brighton, from the +effects of which she is afraid she will never recover. + +Mrs. Carmine is a very strong-minded woman. Her unlucky day is +Wednesday. On a Wednesday she first caught that flush which she has +never been able to chase from her cheeks, and on one of these fatal days +her Maria took the scarlet fever. Therefore, she will not go to a +pic-nic on a Wednesday, because she feels convinced that the day will +turn out wet, or that the wheel will come off the carriage. Yet the +other morning, when a gipsy was caught telling her eldest daughter her +fortune, Mrs. Carmine very properly reproached the first-born for her +weakness, in giving any heed to the silly mumblings of the old woman. +Mrs. Carmine is considered to be a woman of uncommon acuteness. She +attaches no importance whatever to the star under which a child is +born,—does not think there is a pin to choose between Jupiter and +Neptune; and she has a positive contempt for ghosts; but she believes in +nothing that is begun, continued, or ended on a Wednesday. + +Miss Crumple, on the contrary, has seen many ghosts,—in fact, is by this +time quite intimate with one or two of the mysterious brotherhood; but +at the same time she is at a loss to understand how any woman in her +senses, can believe Thursday to be a more fortunate day than Wednesday, +or why Monday is to be black-balled from the Mrs. Jones’s calendar. She +can state, on her oath, that the ghost of her old schoolfellow, Eliza +Artichoke, appeared at her bedside on a certain night and she distinctly +saw the mole on its left cheek, which poor Eliza, during her brief +career, had vainly endeavoured to eradicate, with all sorts of poisonous +things. The ghost, moreover, lisped,—so did Eliza! This was all clear +enough to Miss Crumple, and she considered it a personal insult for +anybody to suggest that her vivid apparitions existed only in her own +over-wrought imagination. She had an affection for her ghostly visitors, +and would not hear a word to their disparagement. + +The unearthly warnings which Mrs. Piptoss had received had well-nigh +spoilt all her furniture. When a relative dies, the fact is not +announced to her in the commonplace form of a letter,—no, an invisible +sledgehammer falls upon her Broadwood, an invisible power upsets her +loo-table, all the doors of her house unanimously blow open, or a coffin +flies out of the fire into her lap. + +Mrs. Grumple, who is a very economical housewife, looks forward to the +day when the moon re-appears,—on which occasion she turns her money, +taking care not to look at the pale lady through glass. This observance, +she devoutly believes, will bring her good fortune. When Miss Caroline +has a knot in her lace, she looks for a present; and when Miss Amelia +snuffs the candle out, it is her faith that the act defers her marriage +for a twelvemonth. Any young lady who dreams the same dream two +consecutive Fridays, will tell you that her visions will “come true.” + +Yet these are exactly the ladies, who most deplore the “gross state of +superstition” in which many “benighted savages” live, and willingly +subscribe their money for its eradication. The superstition so generally +connected with Friday, may easily be traced to its source. It +undoubtedly and confessedly has its origin in scriptural history: it is +the day on which the Saviour suffered. The superstition is the more +revolting from this circumstance; and it is painful to find that it +exists among persons of education. There is no branch of the public +service, for instance, in which so much sound mathematical knowledge is +to be found, as in the Navy. Yet who are more superstitious than +sailors, from the admiral down to the cabin boy? Friday fatality is +still strong among them. Some years ago, in order to lessen this folly, +it was determined that a ship should be laid down on a Friday, and +launched on a Friday; that she should be called “Friday,” and that she +should commence her first voyage on a Friday. After much difficulty a +captain was found who owned to the name of Friday; and after a great +deal more difficulty men were obtained, so little superstitious, as to +form a crew. Unhappily, this experiment had the effect of confirming the +superstition it was meant to abolish. The “Friday” was lost—was never, +in fact, heard of from the day she set sail. + +Day-fatality, as Miss Nippers interprets it is simply the expression of +an undisciplined and extremely weak mind; for, if any person will stoop +to reason with her on her aversion to Mondays, he may ask her whether +the death of the poodle, or the catching of her cold, are the two +greatest calamities of her life; and, if so, whether it is her opinion +that Monday is set apart, in the scheme of Nature, so far as it concerns +her, in a black character. Whether for her insignificant self there is a +special day accursed! Mrs. Carmine is such a strong-minded woman, that +we approach her with no small degree; of trepidation. Wednesday is her +_dies ater_, because, in the first place, on a Wednesday she imprudently +exposed herself, and is suffering from the consequences; and, in the +second place, on a Wednesday her Maria took the scarlet fever. So she +has marked Wednesday down in her calendar with a black character; yet +her contempt for stars and ghosts is prodigious. Now there is a +consideration to be extended to the friends of ghosts, which +Day-fatalists cannot claim. Whether or not deceased friends take a more +airy and flimsy form, and adopt the invariable costume of a sheet to +visit the objects of their earthly affections, is a question which the +shrewdest thinkers and the profoundest logicians have debated very +keenly, but without ever arriving at any satisfactory conclusion. + +The strongest argument against the positive existence of ghosts, is, +that they appear only to people of a certain temperament, and under +certain exciting circumstances. The obtuse, matter-of-fact man, never +sees a ghost; and we may take it as a natural law, that none of these +airy visitants ever appeared to an attorney. But the attorney, Mr. Fee +Simple, we are assured, holds Saturday to be an unlucky day. It was on a +Saturday that his extortionate bill in poor Mr. G.’s case, was cut down +by the taxing master; and it was on a Saturday that a certain heavy bill +was duly honoured, upon which he had hoped to reap a large sum in the +shape of costs. Therefore Mr. Fee Simple believes that the destinies +have put a black mark against Saturday, so far as he is concerned. + +The Jew who thought that the thunder-storm was the consequence of his +having eaten a slice of bacon, did not present a more ludicrous picture, +than Mr. Fee Simple presents with his condemned Saturday. + +We have an esteem for ghost-inspectors, which it is utterly impossible +to extend to Day-fatalists. Mrs. Piptoss, too, may be pitied; but Mog, +turning her money when the moon makes her re-appearance, is an object of +ridicule. We shall neither be astonished, nor express condolence, if the +present, which Miss Caroline anticipates from the knot in her lace, be +not forthcoming; and as for Miss Amelia, who has extinguished the +candle, and to the best of her belief lost her husband for a +twelvemonth, we can only wish for her, that when she is married, her +lord and master will shake her faith in the prophetic power of snuffers. +But of all the superstitions that have survived to the present time, and +are to be found in force among people of education and a thoughtful +habit, Day-fatalism is the most general, as it is the most unfounded and +preposterous. It is a superstition, however, in which many great and +powerful thinkers have shared, and by which they have been guided; it +owes much of its present influence to this fact; but reason, +Christianity, and all we have comprehended of the great scheme of which +we form part, alike tend to demonstrate its absurdity, and utter want of +all foundation. + + + + + A LETTER ABOUT SMALL BEGINNINGS. + + +SIR,—Fortunate mistakes are by no means uncommon. In your number +seventeen you fall into an error in reference to the Westminster Ragged +Dormitory; in the correction of which I have the good fortune to be able +to give you some interesting information. You stated that the particular +institution there alluded to was founded by Mr. Walker, the city +missionary—that was the error. The credit is due, and should have been +given to Mr. C. Nash, who was formerly a schoolmaster, employed by Mr. +Walker to teach a ragged school which that gentleman had established +before “Ragged Schools” had received their appropriate designation and +wide popularity. + +The tact, management, and energy displayed by Mr. Nash in forming and +establishing the St. Ann Street dormitory deserve every praise; but the +ground was in some measure prepared for him by his former principal. The +manner in which this was done shows “the power of small beginnings,” +even in a stronger light than was exhibited in your article with that +title.[3] + +Footnote 3: + + At page 407. + +In the year 1840 it became my duty to enquire into the condition of what +are but too literally the outcasts of society; and for that purpose +obtained introductions to several city missionaries—adequate description +of the scenes of harrowing want, disease, and crime into which those +gentlemen introduced me, it would be impossible to pen. They alone +seemed able to penetrate the dark moral atmosphere. They were always +welcomed even by the poorest and the worst. + +As one specimen of the efforts made by the Westminster missionaries, I +was introduced to a dilapidated shed in New Pye Street. Here I found +several young children of both sexes, in rags, and some nearly naked. +The scene was most grotesque; the clotted hair, the mud-covered hands +and faces, and the haggard countenances, at once told a tale which would +have pierced the coldest heart. They were being taught reading and +needlework. They were not particularly orderly and some showed a quaint, +pantomimic, half-witted disposition to be funny, which pained rather +than amused the spectator. Most of them were the sons and daughters of +thieves. The small beginning which gave rise to the general idea of +Ragged Dormitories took rise in an event for which I can vouch. + +The missionary who had formed this school was standing one day, in 1846, +at its door, when two adult thieves appealed to him in behalf of a +wretched boy who had, they said, been cruelly maltreated and kicked out +of doors by his mother, because his day’s prowl for the purpose of +thieving had been unsuccessful. “Why do you not take pity on him +yourselves?”—asked the missionary. “Why!”—one of them answered,—“why, if +you knew what a thief’s life is as well as we do; you would not train a +dog to thieving.” It must have been, thought the missionary, a desperate +case which could have so forcibly excited the sympathies of two hardened +depredators; and he determined to see into it. He soon found the boy; +and his condition was too debased for any description which would not +excite loathing. Having made the lad decent, he took him to the model +lodging-house in Great Peter Street, benevolently commenced and mainly +supported by Lord Kinnaird. The boy was kept there for four months; +supported three out of the four solely out of the missionary’s slender +private funds. + +This circumstance forced on his attention the necessity of providing +shelter for such juvenile outcasts, and he drew up an appeal to certain +benevolent persons to that effect. The secretary of the Ragged School +Union immediately promised that if the missionary would find house room, +he would find funds. A house was taken in Old Pye Street, which was soon +afterwards opened as the Westminster Juvenile Refuge and School of +Industry. This establishment was afterwards removed to Duck Lane, where +it now flourishes, under a roof which formerly covered a Thieves’ +public-house. The transformation is thus described by the gentleman who +made it, in a pamphlet now before me:— + +“Indulge me for a moment,” he says, “with a glance at the old +public-house, (now The Refuge!) Let us look in at the upper room—(now +the girls’ school). Here were fifty youths met around their master (as +able a one in his calling as England could produce), listening with +undivided attention to his instructions on the ‘map,’—(a pair of +trowsers suspended from the ceiling)—on the subject of ‘fob-ology,’ or +pocket-picking. After this course of tuition, the next was the mock +trial—an imitation of the Old Bailey Court, with a _fac-simile_ of its +functionaries and ordeal, done with very great taste, and calculated to +make the young rascal not only expert in extracting from the fob or +pocket, but clever in defence. To train the young novice in his first +essay, he was supplied with a glass, below in the tap—(now the +dining-room of the children). If successful, then he returned for the +purpose of reporting his success, and having a game at skittles in the +skittle ground—(now the boys’ school-room.)” + +A concise calculation of the respective expenses entailed on the +country, in the same house, under its former and present destiny, may +here be made. When it was a finishing-school for thieves, each, on +conviction and transportation, cost the community not less than one +hundred and fifty pounds. Comparing fifty thieves in the upper room with +the fifty pupils now in the lower room, we find that, for the first +fifty the cost was five thousand five hundred pounds; for the present +fifty, two hundred and fifty pounds. Had the five thousand five hundred +pounds been used for the preventing instead of the punishing of crime, +what would not have been accomplished for these neglected mortals? It +would have educated eleven hundred youths, many of whom would not only +have been rescued from vice and crime, but have become a blessing +instead of a curse to society. + +What I have described, then, is the true origin of the class of +institutions to which that founded by Mr. Nash belongs. + +The Duck Lane Ragged School and Dormitory averages at present a daily +attendance of two hundred and twenty children of both sexes, forty have +no fathers, twenty eight have no mothers, eighteen are orphans, six of +the fathers have been transported. Provision is made for ten who are +totally destitute; they are fed and lodged on the premises; twenty-four +thieves and vagrants have been admitted during the year, and many more +refused for want of support; eleven have emigrated, three have been +provided with situations in this country; some of those have spent +three, five, seven, and ten years in a course of crime; who have gone +forth from this Institution after a moral and an industrial training, +and are now doing well. + +Three of the emigrants have given an account of themselves in the +following joint epistle to Mr. Walker, their benefactor. It is so +characteristic that we print it almost literally:— + + “_B——, July 18th 1850._ + “Mr. Walker, + + “Dear Sir,—You may wonder how it is that you have not heard from us + before, but as they that came from Mr. Nash, was going to write, they + promised Mr. Cain that they would acquaint you of our safe arrival. We + left Gravesend on the Sunday morning, and sailed out for the great + depths of the Atlantic, which gave us some _great shakes_ before we + got to our journey’s end. The vessel proved to be in but a sorry + condition for passengers, there being hardly any dry berths on board, + and ours the worst of the whole lot, Mr. Cain and Churn got another + berth aft, and Fred and me had to take to the sails room aft where we + stopt during the remainder of the voyage. We had four deaths on board, + two babies, one old lady, and one of the poor sailors who fell from + the fore top across the windlass, which killed him instantly. We made + the passage in about five weeks and five days, as we arrived at New + York on the 17th of May. We found it to be a place quite different to + our likeing, and so we left it and proceeded up the country without + anything in our pockets, for we were determined not to be discouraged, + though in a strange land, for we knew that we had the same eye + watching over us here as we had in England so we pushed on, on board + of a canal boat that was going to Buffalo, but stopping about 2½ Miles + from the Town of B—— on account of a breakage in the canal, we took + the opportunity to look round the Town for work and was fortunate + enough to fall into work, the three of us. Fred is learning the + harness making, as he did not much care about learning the shoemaking + over again, as me and Churn has to do, for the work here is as + different to what we had been accustomed to as light from darkness. I + do scarcely anything but upper leathers, with now and then a pair or + two of Boy’s Boots which I make here in about three hours, being all + pegged work, as for closing you must not take a day to close one pair, + but must do 16 or 18 pair a day, and 6 or 8 pair of what you call + Wellingtons. So you will see by this that it is no use coming over + unless you mean to work in downright ernest, for they think of nothing + but of making money, up at ½ past 4 four in the morning, begin work at + five and keep on till seven in the evening, and no time allowed for + your meals but eat away as fast as you like and then back again to + work, our breakfast here beats all the dinners in England, for theres + roast and boil meats, pies, puddings, cakes, salids, tea, coffee, + bread and butter which latter article comes on at all meals. We had + grand doings here on the fourth of July, in anniversary of their + Independence fireworks, Bonfires, Circus, shows, firemen going round + all the City with the engines decorated out with flowers which look + very pretty. The President of the united States died at Washington on + the tenth of this month of Billious Diarrhoæ, he is to be buried on + Friday the 12th. Twenty years ago this Town was nothing but a low + swampy mass of Land, with but one house on it, now it is a flourishing + place with twenty thousand inhabitants, its rise is owing to a salt + spring about 2 miles off where they make vast quantities of salt, + indeed it is one of the chief trades here it employs about three + thousand hands all the summer, but they do not work at it in the + winter, their weekly earnings are from 4 to 5 Dollars that is 1 pound + English. It is very hard work I can tell you, in this country were the + thermometer is never much less than 100 during the summer, where they + have got to stand over large Furnaces, attending to the boiling of the + salt. I do not think that I shall rest contended over here longer than + a few years, for a man earns not a fraction more here than he does in + England, the only difference is, that he works more hours here than he + does there and consequently he is glad to get home to rest himself, + instead of fooling his money away at the pothouse, and then some of + the things are rather cheaper here, and as I told you before they only + think of getting money. I shall write and let you know more about it + when I have been over some time longer, I shall then I guess know more + about the place. You can tell the others if they come over that I + should advise them to push up a little higher in the country than stop + in New York as it is far better, and tell them that they need not mind + having any money for they will not starve over here for we found the + people very kind to us here not like they are in England. You must + excuse this funny letter, as it is the work of several evenings, and + therefore it may read curious, for I have felt rather unsettled as yet + being among strangers, but I will write you another shortly, when I + feel more at home, and will give you a further description of the + place, so you must excuse all faults. Timothy Case left his place in + New York, for what reason I do not know further than that he said he + only was going there till we came that he might go with us, as he felt + sure when I saw New York that I should not stop in it, and that if we + would not go with him, he should then have gone by himself. I felt + very vexed with him at leaving, and tried to persuade to stop but it + was no use, so Fred and me took him under our care and got our boss to + take him where he is now learning the harness making. I guess he will + get about 20 Dollars a year he being hardly an inch taller than he was + at home. When you return an answer direct to me at Mr. Apples Boot and + Shoe Store 8 Empire Block B—— Onoydaga County State of New York. They + don’t say streets, but call them Blocks, and they _guess_ they don’t + _think_ here so I suppose that I shall get a regular Yankee in time. + It is tremendous hot here now, and I feel it so when at work very + much. Tell Mr. Slade that I will write him a letter _soon_. I get + 2_s._ 6_d._ english money a week or 30 Dollars a year of this, board + lodging and washing which is pretty fair wages here for boys, learning + pegged work, the general pay being 15 or 18 dollars a year, but as we + had learned the other work our boss gave us thirty, (boss here is what + they call the Master in England) Fred and Churn gets the same wages, + as me, you must give all our best loves and wishes to all the School + children, and we hope that they will all value their learning, which + they will find will be a blessing and comfort to them hereafter. You + can tell them that I often think of them when I sit at work and that I + almost fancy that I am in the old shop once more hearing their voices + as they say their lessons showing how strong fancy leads us back again + to old familiar scenes, I hope that God will bless and prosper them + all in this life, and that he will take them to his everlasting home + is the fervent prayer of John Jones. Give our love to all kind friends + at home, for so I am bound to call it, and receive the same yourself + with Mrs. W—— and Harriet. + + “From yours ever affectionate pupils, + “J. J., J. H. C., and F. J.” + +Before reception into the Duck Lane School, all these boys had been +thieves. J. J. had lived by plunder for seven years; J. H. C. had been a +thief from early childhood; and F. J. from the age of five years. + + * * * * * + + _On the 20th inst. will be published, price 5s. 6d., neatly bound in + Cloth_, + + THE FIRST VOLUME + OF + “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,” + + _Containing Numbers 1 to 26_. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + Page Changed from Changed to + + 581 her with a curtesy, and thought her with a curtsey, and thought + how pleased how pleased + + ● 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 78195 *** |