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                     CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

  CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
  INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.


  No. 461. NEW SERIES.   SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1852.   PRICE 1-1/2_d._




THE SLAVER.


On the 18th day of February 1850, Her Majesty's steamship _Rattler_
was lying at anchor about twenty miles to the northward of Ambriz, a
slave depôt situated on the western coast of Africa. Week after week
had passed away in dull uniformity; while the oppressive heat, the
gentle breeze which scarcely ruffled the surface of the deep, and the
lazy motion of the vessel as it rolled on the long unceasing swell
that ever sets on that rocky shore, lulled the senses of all into a
sleepy apathy. The only music that ever reached our ears was the
eternal roar of that monotonous surf, as it licked the rugged beach
with its snowy tongue.

A few miles off, a range of low brown hills, covered with a stunted
vegetation, runs parallel with the shore--along their undulating
sides, angular spires of granite project through the parched and
scanty soil; while on their highest brow one solitary giant stands,
resembling an obelisk, from which the anchorage derives its name, 'The
Granite Pillar.' No appearance of human life or labour exists
around; the whole is a desert, over which these columnar
formations--resembling a city of the Titans, crumbling slowly into
dust--hold an empire of solitude and death. The imagination is
oppressed with a sense of utter desolation that withers every mental
effort.

This day was passing like so many before it; the sun was low on the
horizon, and its yellow beams were throwing a brassy tint over the sea
and sky; the sailors were engaged, some fishing with patient
assiduity, others, grouped into small knots, listening to prosy yarns;
while a few were prostrated round the decks in attitudes of perfect
abandonment or sleep. The officers were leaning over the taffrail,
trying, with a sportsman-like anxiety worthy of better prey, to hook a
shark, which was slowly meandering under the stern; or looking
contemplatively into the dark-brown waves, either watching the many
forms of animal life which floated by, or recalling to memory the dear
objects of distant lands. The officer of the watch, with his spyglass
under his arm, was pacing languidly his narrow round, when 'Sail ho!'
in clear and piercing tones, resounded from the mast-head, and with
electric speed filled the dreamers with life and energy.

'Point to her,' cried the officer of the watch; while all eyes were
directed to the look-out aloft, whose glass was immediately stretched
to the north. Speculation now sits in every vacant eye, and conjecture
on every silent tongue. The captain was at his post with vigilant
alacrity. 'How is she standing? what sail is she under?' was soon
answered, and the orders, 'Get the steam up, lower the propeller,'
echoed round the decks, mingled with the shrill pipes of the
boatswain's mates.

The men flew to their posts; and whilst the cumbrous screw was
descending slowly into the water, the stokers had roused the
smouldering embers into life.

'All hands up anchor!' The capstan revolves and creaks, as one and all
of these willing men strain their starting muscles at the bars. The
anchor reluctantly leaves its oozy bed; but the chinking of the cable,
as it steadily ascends, reveals no change, until it swings at the bow.

'Go on ahead!' The steam whistles through its silent chambers, like
sweet music, calling into life that ponderous mechanism, until it
appears to dance with joy.

'Helm a-port--steady so!' The waves rise high on either bow as we dash
through the foaming waters. Our distance from the object rapidly
diminishes, while eager eyes are directed ahead, until it is seen from
the deck. Hope fills the breast of the sanguine, despair that of the
gloomy and desponding. Sure eyes and good telescopes soon descry the
Yankee ensign floating aloft in lazy folds; and as we come still
nearer, those accustomed to observe the shape of sails and set of
masts, detect the peculiarities of an old acquaintance. It is the
_Lucy Ann_, an American vessel of a very suspicious character, which
has been frequently boarded by our cruisers, but has ever been
protected by the flag of her apparent country.

We are soon alongside, and our captain boards her, to examine her
'papers' once again, and to insnare, if possible, our wily enemy. On
his return, we continue our course towards the Congo, whither they
have been persuaded we are going for water. No sooner, however, do the
shades of evening protect our movements from observation, than we
change our course, and proceed directly out to sea a hundred miles or
so, to prevent her passing us in the dark should she take her slaves
on board this night, as it is suspected she will do.

Daylight comes next morning, and the best telescopes from aloft sweep
the horizon, but not a speck can be seen on that desert sea. The sails
are stripped from the vessel's masts, and she lies like a dead log,
round which, at the unwonted spectacle, shoals of dolphins and
porpoises come to gambol. It was pleasant to have something like life
near us, and though it belonged to another element, it seemed a
connecting-link with the rest of the animated creation. One long hour
after another had passed away, and the most hopeful began to despair,
while the expressions of the desponding grew more energetic against
the propriety of lying thus inactive; but Captain Cumming, as patient
in biding his time as he is quick in resolving and acting when the
moment arrives, only replied: 'Wait till to-morrow morning!' This
arrived like the last, and every eye was turned towards the rising sun
as it slowly emerged from the waves, not to gaze on the purple
radiance that streamed from its broad disk, but with the expectation
of seeing the object of our solicitude revealed by the light of the
eastern sky. Each one turned slowly away, disappointed, as soon as he
found that he had been looking in vain; but there appeared a sullen
pleasure in the eyes of those who had been prophesying evil, as their
predictions appeared to be fulfilled.

As a matter of precaution for whatever might happen, the steam was
ready; orders were now given to proceed, and we steamed on slowly
towards the land. One hour passed away thus, another, and nearly a
third, when a negro, perched beside the main truck, sang out with all
his lungs: 'Sail ho!' His keen sense of vision, outstripping that of
his white comrade, distinguished as a small speck the lofty royals,
while the vessel was far below the horizon. A smile of satisfaction
wreathed with dimples even the grimest faces, when the object of our
pursuit approached us near enough to be recognised. Without faltering,
she came on steadily, with every sail set, and her banner proudly
waving in the gentle breeze, forbidding search. Each eye eagerly
scrutinised her, speculation was busy, and the emotions were various
as the temper and habit of each individual mind.

Having arrived alongside, our captain again boarded her in his gig. He
was received politely, and without embarrassment, by the Yankee, who
immediately offered refreshments, which were declined. Not a slave was
to be seen, nor did there exist any smell, so universal a concomitant
to indicate their presence. Some forty Brazilians, each with a cigar
in his mouth, were loitering round the clean decks, while the crew
were busy at the pumps, creating the greatest possible noise, in the
accomplishment of which they were assisted by a flock of parrots and
love-birds, perched in every direction.

Once more the ship's papers were produced, and carefully scanned, and
the absence of one important document was detected. On being demanded,
it was positively refused, and the presumption was thus created that
it did not exist, and that therefore all were false.

These proceedings occupied a considerable time--a matter of
preconcerted importance, as the suspicion was entertained that slaves
were concealed below, and that soon the danger of impending
suffocation would reveal the fact. Our chief took up a position near
the main hatchway, and listened anxiously for the slightest
indication. Various manoeuvres were tried to get him away without
success. The Brazilians were beginning to appear impatient; and on
board the _Rattler_, whence, by telescopes, the proceedings were
watched with deepest interest, the hopes of even the most sanguine
were becoming faint, when Captain Cumming was observed to start, and
point to the deck. He had heard the stifled sound of intolerable agony
rise from below his feet, like a peal of distant thunder. The slaves
were suffocating from want of air, and their dread of their jailers
was extinguished in the immediate struggle for life.

In a moment, the American perceived that the game he had been so
skilfully playing was lost, and his assumed coolness deserted him. In
a voice choked with emotion, he rapidly uttered: 'She is a Brazilian.
I am not the captain; this is,' pointing to a tawny Portuguese at his
elbow.

'Haul down the flag, and hoist her proper colours.'

Down came that ensign, polluted by the traffic it protected, amid the
cheers of our men, which made the welkin ring.

'Don't let the poor devils die,' cried the stout American mate,
actuated by the generosity of the race he sprang from, which his
degrading employment could not wholly stifle. Assisted by our men, who
had jumped out of the boat, the hatches were soon removed, exposing to
view a mass of human misery which, being once seen, must remain
impressed on the memory for ever--the naked bodies of men, women, and
children, writhing in a heap, contorted, gasping for air, sinking from
exhaustion, and covered with sweat and foam. The darkness which
surrounded them only deepened the shades, without concealing a single
feature; whilst the dense and sickening steam which curled heavily up
from the reeking mass, made it a picture too horrible to contemplate,
and one the minute details of which must be left to haunt the memory
of those who were unfortunate enough to witness it.

First one and then another endeavoured to ascend, but with a strength
unequal to the task, they fell back into the mephitic abyss. Our men
rushed forward to their aid, and catching hold of their imploring
hands, placed them upon deck. There, prostrate and indiscriminately
huddled together, they gradually recovered from the effects of that
terrible confinement, where 547 human beings were, without a breath of
fresh air, kept for above two hours crushed together in a space only
about three feet in height, and with a superficial extent not equal to
that of their bodies, unless in a sitting position! The ordeal proved
too much for the vital energy of above twenty, who perished one by one
during the next fortnight or three weeks, without having felt the
blessing of freedom.

An officer with a few men were immediately placed in charge of the
prize, and navigated it to St Helena. The slaves, when there, are
declared free, but upon conditions such as render it generally
necessary for them to emigrate to the West Indies, to become, let us
hope, happy and useful members of a British colony.

The Brazilians and American crew were taken on board the _Rattler_,
and conveyed back to Ambriz, from thence, in all probability, to
return to their horrible trade, in the hope of being more successful
on another occasion. The captain was seen a few months afterwards, in
another American vessel, returning from the Brazils, prepared, in all
likelihood, to play a similar game with better success from the lesson
he had received. The opportunity afforded us of observing the
character of these men, produced a more favourable feeling towards
them than was at first sight entertained. Several pleaded honourable
motives for the degraded position in which they felt themselves
placed, and nearly all would have done credit to a more respectable
calling.

Our gallant chief's calculations were found to have been rigidly
correct. That night after we left them, they believed that a boat
would be detached to watch their movements; they therefore anchored,
and waited for daylight. When that arrived without an enemy in sight,
they felt secure.

The slaves, worn out by previous marching and counter-marching to
shipping places, where their embarkation was prevented by the
vigilance of our cruisers, rendered it almost a matter of necessity
that they should now be taken on board. Their bodies had been galled
and emaciated by the chains they carried, by the slender store of dry
farina--the only food provided for them--and by the precarious and
scanty supply of water obtainable on the arid plains or in the tangled
forests they had traversed. The first canoe-load was taken alongside
the ship about four o'clock in the afternoon, and in an hour the whole
were on board. This is reckoned the most favourable time for getting
under-way, as darkness enables them to leave the land without danger
of being observed.

The preceding is a faithful picture of one of the melancholy incidents
belonging to the hateful traffic in slaves. Let us hope that the time
has at length nearly arrived which has been so long waited for, when
we may say with truth, it is abolished; leaving only the memory of it
to darken the page of history, and remain a moral lesson to mankind.




THE 'ADVOCATE' AND ITS AUTHOR.


Literary talents and habits are fortunately not always dissociated
from world-like conduct and skill in affairs. We have now become
familiar with a class of men who, while cultivating even the more
flowery fields of the Muses, are not on that account the less
distinguished in their professional walks, or by the active part they
take in the great practical movements of the age. The public, which
does not readily admit of two ideas respecting any one man, is apt to
lose sight of the literary in the worldly merit; but the former does
not the less exist, and perhaps in time it will be equally
acknowledged. We regard Mr Cox, author of the book under notice, as a
remarkable example of the union of the man of affairs with the author.
We learn, from a local record,[1] that he rose, about twenty years ago
as an attorney in a western town, and took an active part in the
fervid political doings of 1830-31. Ambitious of higher professional
honours, he removed to London, and entered at the bar. In the course
of eight or nine years, he has proceeded from one adventure to
another, till he is now one of the most multiform of men. Not merely
does he follow a strictly professional course as a barrister, but he
conducts several periodical works of a laborious nature--the _Law
Times_ (newspaper), the _Magistrate_, the _County Courts' Chronicle_,
and a series of Criminal Law Cases. For the preparation of these
works, he has a printing establishment, the management of which would
be a sufficient occupation for most men. It gives work to 250 persons,
and 10,000 business accounts are kept in it. As if all these
engagements were not enough, Mr Cox has established the well-known
literary periodical work (fortnightly) the _Critic_. The conducting of
a work designed to report upon the current literature of the day is
perhaps one of the most delicate of tasks, for the critics necessarily
are themselves authors, are the friends and enemies of authors, and
are of course liable to all the usual fallacies which beset human
judgment. Hence it is that we see one such work lose credit through
its universal benevolence, and another rush to the opposite extreme,
of asserting independence by an unvarying tone of rancour and
dissatisfaction--obviously a not less unjust course both to literary
men and the public, and in the long-run, equally sure to destroy the
credit of the men who adopt it. Amidst the difficulties proper to such
a task, we believe the _Critic_ has hitherto steered a comparatively
irreproachable course, keeping mainly in view a faithful and
painstaking _account_ of every book submitted to its notice, and
neither trading upon the smiles nor the groans of authors. Of a warm
and cordial nature, and with an intense love of literature, he seems
to have known how to encourage genius, even while pointing to its
errors; and, if we may judge by the internal evidence of the work
itself, he has succeeded in rallying round him many of the high and
generous spirits of the time. The _Critic_ is distinguished by a more
than usual proportion of thought, and by very little of the small
superficial cant of criticism.

It will excite some surprise that Mr Cox has found time, amidst his
numberless duties, to prepare a professional work of considerable
magnitude, and of solid merit and utility. Such, we take leave to say,
is the _Advocate_, of which the first volume is now before us.[2] It
is a book which, though intended primarily for young legal aspirants,
will also instruct, and indeed entertain the public. It is more than
this for those who can pursue the spirit of a work through its
details, and see the character of an individual or a class rising
palpably out of reasonings, maxims, and material circumstances. Such
readers will give a hero to the pages before us, and follow him in his
career with more than the interest that waits upon romance. They will
observe, in the first place, his natural advantages: 'Has he a healthy
frame, capable of enduring long-continued exertion of mind and body,
the confinement of the study, the excitement of practice, the crowded
court by day, the vigil of thought by night? Can he subsist with a
sleep of five hours? Can he, without dyspepsy, endure irregular
meals--hasty eatings and long fastings? If he be not blessed by nature
with the vigorous constitution that will bear all this, and more, let
him not dream of adventuring into the arena of advocacy.' Good lungs
and a strong voice are indispensable: strong rather than
agreeable--let him even scream or squeak, as some of his brethren do,
but scream or squeak with _power_. His mental qualifications are--keen
and rapid perception, sound judgment, power of concentration, and that
imagination which paints in words. Of these, the first is the
cornerstone of the mental character of the advocate. Of the moral
qualities, courage and self-confidence must be combined with caution,
and the whole elevated by honesty and truthfulness of nature. At this
point the philosophical reader will perhaps demur, and inquire whether
those clients who are in the wrong find any difficulty in obtaining
the most talented defenders--for a con-si-der-ation. But we will
postpone that issue.

In addition to his natural qualifications, the advocate must possess
what is called a small pecuniary independence: 'The practical
conclusion we would deduce from the review we have taken of the
expenses unavoidably attendant upon the profession of advocate, and
which amount at the least to L.650 previous to his call, and to L.250
per annum afterwards, is this:--Let no man who values his happiness,
or his ultimate success in life, make the bar his profession, unless
he has resources, other than his profession, upon which he can rely
for a clear income of L.150 per annum at the least. This will still
leave L.100 to be provided for by that profession; but that is a risk
he may not unreasonably run, if conscious that, in all other respects,
he is qualified for ultimate success. With less than that, it would be
unwise to incur the hazard. With no resources, as is sometimes seen,
it is madness.'

The aspirant to the bar must methodise his time. 'In mapping out the
day, make ample allowance for rest and for refreshment. Nothing is
gained in the end by unduly abbreviating these. Provided you work
without wasting a moment in your working-hours, you can afford to be
liberal in your apportionment of time to exercises of the body and
relaxations of the mind. Above all, and at whatever sacrifice, begin
your allotment by devoting two hours at the least in each day to
active bodily exercise, and give one of these to the early morning,
and the other to the evening. So with your meals. First consult
health, without which your studies will be unproductive, and your
hopes of future success blighted. Thus, then, would stand the account
for the day:--Exercise, two hours; meals and rest, three; sleep,
seven; for study, twelve.' Twelve hours for study would be too long,
if he did not make study itself a recreation by means of variety. 'The
profound should be exchanged for the more superficial; the grave for
the gay; such as engage the reasoning powers for those which appeal
rather to the perception or the memory. Natural science should take
its turn with law; languages with logic; rhetoric with mathematics,
and such like--an entire change in the faculties employed being in
fact a more perfect relief than entire rest.' An hour to the more
difficult law-books is enough at a time, but that hour should
alternate frequently with lighter studies. Educational and
professional studies--physical training--and exercise in the art of
speaking, are all of high importance; and it will be found that our
author's advice on the subject is worth attending to. The education of
the aspirant must be completed in the chambers--first, of a
conveyancer; second, of a special pleader (or, if aiming at the equity
bar, of an equity draughtsman); and third, of a general practitioner.
As for his formal and nominal studentship in the Inns of Court, that
merely serves prescriptively to qualify him for his call to the bar.
'If he purposes to practise as a conveyancer, or at the equity bar, he
should enter himself at Lincoln's Inn; but if he designs to practise
the common law, either as a special pleader, or immediately as an
advocate, his choice lies between the Inner and Middle Temple and
Gray's Inn,' The Inner Temple is the most select; the Middle Temple
the most varied in its society; and Gray's Inn the most liberal in its
table. Having chosen his Inn, 'he must obtain the certificate of two
barristers, members of the society, together with that of a bencher,
that he is a fit person to be received into it;' and he is admitted,
as a matter of course.

Many of our readers, on entering the City, through Temple Bar, have
seen a small open gateway on the right hand. It is a quiet,
retired-looking place, grave, and somewhat gloomy; and in contrast
with Fleet Street, and its torrent of population, is rather striking
and remarkable. Yet, hurried away by the living stream, they have
doubtless passed on, and perhaps have forgotten to inquire to what
that solemn avenue leads. Let them enter, the next opportunity they
have, and make use of their own eyes. 'A few paces, and you are beyond
the roar of wheels and the tramp of feet. Tall, gloomy,
smoke-embrowned buildings, whose uniformity of dulness is not
disturbed by windows incrusted with the accumulated dust of a century,
hem you in on either side, and oppress your breathing as with the
mildewy atmosphere of a vault. The dingy ranks of brick are broken by
very narrow alleys; and here and there, peeping under archways, you
may espy little paved court-yards, with great pumps scattering
continual damp in the midst of them, and enclosed with just such dusky
walls and dirty windows as you have already noticed. You are amazed at
the silence that prevails in these retreats, so near the living world,
and yet so entirely secluded from it. But not less will you be
interested by the peculiar appearance of the persons you meet in this
place. The majority of them carry packets of written papers tied about
with red tape, and folded after a fashion here invariably observed....
First, and most abundant, are certain short, thin-visaged,
spare-limbed, keen-featured, dapper-looking men, who appear as if they
had never been young and would never be old, clothed in habiliments of
sober hue, seemingly as unchangeable as themselves. They walk with a
hurried step, and a somewhat important swing of the unoccupied arm. A
smaller packet of the aforesaid tape-tied paper peeps from either
pocket; they look right on, and hasten forward as if the fortunes of
half the world rested upon their shoulders, and the wisdom in the
briefs at their elbow had all been distilled from the skull covered by
that napless hat. If you do not move out of the way, you will probably
be knocked down and trodden upon by them--unconsciously of course.
They are _attorneys' clerks_.

'The second species found in this region are more youthful in aspect,
carry themselves with more swagger, wear their hats jantily, with
greasy curls coaxed to project beyond the brim. They affect a sort of
secondhand gentility, cultivate great brooches, silver guard-chains,
and whiskers, and have the air of persons claiming vice-royalty in the
dominions in which they live and move and have their being. They are
_barristers' clerks_.

'The third class are gentlemanly but very shabbily dressed men, who
look as if they were thinking of something beside themselves. They are
of all ages, and statures, and complexions; of feature of all degrees
of ugliness _in form_ and beauty of _expression_. You cannot mistake
them; there is a family-likeness running through all of them. They are
_barristers_.

'The fourth species are composed of men of busy, bustling aspect,
arrayed for the most part in garments of formal cut, and of the
fashion of a bygone day. They _always_ look as ordinary men do when
told on some pressing emergency to "look sharp." Their countenances,
motions, and gait express thought and anxiety. They hurry onward,
noticing nothing and nobody. They are _attorneys_.

'Lastly, you discern a few wasted forms and haggard faces, on which
lines are traced by the icy finger of Disappointment, and garments,
growing ragged, ill protect from the keen draughts that play through
these passages hearts aching with the sickness of hope deferred. The
pockets, though tightly buttoned, are lank and light. They step
briskly and eagerly onward, if entering; they creep slowly, if passing
out toward the street. They are _clients._'

This is the Temple, and these are its denizens; but in pursuing your
way, as you emerge suddenly from the huge masses of building in which
you have been swallowed up, you see with new surprise an open area of
green turf, with beds of flowers, rows of trees, and leafy walks, and
shady seats; and hear the fit and natural accompaniments of such a
scene--the shrill voices of children, and the silvery laugh of ladies
as they stroll through the Temple Gardens. Groups of law-students,
too, 'are lounging there, laughing and talking; and a few solitary
youths, with pale faces and earnest eyes, are poring upon great books
in professional bindings, heedless of the attractions of tree or
flower, or child or woman.'

Beyond the garden is the great water highway of the metropolis, the
princely Thames, with its crowding barges, its flashing skiffs, and
sweeping steamers. Among the gloomy buildings there is _yet_ another
garden-plot, with a fountain in constant play; and yet another, a
smooth-shaven lawn, with paths and flower-beds, on the brink of the
river. 'Here, in this garden of the Middle Temple, there is no human
presence to disturb the profound quiet of the place, as in the more
spacious garden of the Inner Temple which you have lately quitted.
Seats are scattered about, and pretty summer-houses invite to study or
contemplation, but they are unoccupied by any visible presence. One is
inclined to imagine that the Benchers have dedicated this garden to
the exclusive occupation of the dead luminaries of the law, as the
garden on the other side is devoted to its living oracles. With such a
fancy, we always feel disposed to take off our hat to the invisibles,
as we pass the tranquil spot where we suppose them to be "doomed for a
certain time to walk."'

A red building on the right is the magnificent hall of the Middle
Temple, with the carved screen of oak taken from the Spanish Armada.
This is the hall in which the Templar eats his way to the bar; but if
he should have no appetite for such dinners, it is not necessary that
he should devour more than three, provided he pays for the whole
fourteen. 'Shortly before the hand on the dial over the doorway points
to five, crowds of gentlemen may be seen hurrying through the
labyrinthine paths that intersect the Temple in all directions, and
concentrating at the yard before the hall, for dinner there waits for
no man, and, better still, no man waits for dinner. Gowns are provided
for the student in the robing-room, for the use of which a small
term-fee is paid, and, thus habited, he is introduced into the Hall.
But it is now no longer hushed and sombre, but a scene of brightness
and bustle. The tables are spread for dinner in close and orderly
array; wax-lights in profusion blaze upon them; a multitude of gowned
men are lounging on the seats, or talking in groups, or busily looking
out for the most agreeable places, which are secured by simply placing
the spoon in the plate. Suddenly a single loud thump is heard at the
door. All rush to their seats: it is opened wide; the servants range
themselves on either side, and between their bowing ranks behold the
benchers enter in procession, and march to the dais allotted to them.
The steward strikes the table three times with his hammer to command
silence, says a grace before meat, and the feast begins.' Gradations
of rank are closely observed. 'The benchers' tables are ranged upon
the dais, across the hall. The tables in the body of the hall are
placed lengthwise, the barristers occupying those nearest to the dais,
and the students taking the others indiscriminately. They are laid so
as to form messes for four, each mess being provided with distinct
dishes, and making a party of itself. The persons who chance to be
seated at the same mess need no other introduction; he who sits at the
head is called "the captain;" he first carves for himself, and then
passes the dishes to the others in due order. The society presents
each mess with a bottle of wine--always port--a custom which might be
most advantageously violated.'

The Temple is not exactly a part of the United Kingdom: it is rather a
tributary state. It preserves its own peace, collects its own taxes,
and laughs at the City, with whose municipal burthens it has nothing
to do. The inhabitants may live in town or country, as they please,
for both are within the domain. They may occupy an attic, a first
floor, a parlour, an area, just as they like. The Templar seems in
constant sanctuary, where no one dares intrude upon him but his
laundress and his clerk. Both these, as figured by our author, are
admirable specimens of the natural history of the Temple; but we have
no room to give them entire, and must not spoil them by abridgment.
Besides, the aspirant waits: he is not yet called.

The call consists in his proposal by a bencher, the posting of his
name in the hall, his arraying himself in a gown and wig, his taking
the oath of abjuration, supremacy, and allegiance, his being bowed to
by the bench of benchers, and his treating his friends after dinner to
as much dessert and wine as they can hold. He is now an Advocate, and
selects his circuit. 'To every circuit there belongs a band of
gentlemen who were never known to hold a brief, to whom nobody ever
dreamed of offering a brief, and who, if it had been offered, would
probably have declined it. Yet they travel the entire circuit, are
punctual in bowing to the judge at the opening of the court in the
morning, sit there with heroic patience all the day through, nor leave
until his lordship announces that he will "take no other case after
_that_," when they look delighted, rise like school-boys released, and
rush from the court to enjoy half an hour's holiday before dinner.'
This is a sad companionship to get into; yet regularity in attending
even an unproductive circuit is necessary to eventual success. The Bar
must enter the assize town on the same day, that they may all start
fair; they must not live in a hotel, but take lodgings; and they must
not, while on the circuit--that is, in their professional
character--shake hands with an attorney.

We have now started our hero fairly in his profession, and we must
refer to the book itself for his adventures in practice. No less than
eleven chapters are devoted to this part of his life, and yet the
volume before us, although separately published, is only the _first_
volume. We have said and quoted enough to shew that Mr Cox possesses
in an eminent degree the versatility of talent so necessary in a
literary man of the present day; and we lay down the _Advocate_ with
the conviction, that it possesses much that is new, suggestive,
wholesome, and instructive, as well as much that is interesting and
entertaining.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The _Somerset County Gazette_.

[2] _The Advocate, his Training, Practice, Rights, and Duties._ By
Edward W. Cox, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. London: Law Times Office. 1852.




A NIGHT ADVENTURE.


I will tell you all about an affair--important as it proved to me; but
you must not hurry me. I have never been in a hurry since then, and
never will. Up till that time inclusive, I was always in a hurry; my
actions always preceded my thoughts; experience was of no use; and
anybody would have supposed me destined to carry a young head upon old
shoulders to the grave. However, I was brought up at last 'with a
round turn.' I was allowed a certain space for reflection, and plenty
of materials; and if it did not do me good, it's a pity!

My father and mother both died when I was still a great awkward boy;
and I, being the only thing they had to bequeath, became the property
of a distant relation. I do not know how it happened, but I had no
near relations. I was a kind of waif upon the world from the
beginning; and I suppose it was owing to my having no family anchorage
that I acquired the habit of swaying to and fro, and drifting hither
and thither, at the pleasure of wind and tide. Not that my guardian
was inattentive or unkind--quite the reverse; but he was indolent and
careless, contenting himself with providing abundantly for my
schooling and my pocket, and leaving everything else to chance. He
would have done the same thing to his own son if he had had one, and
he did the same thing to his own daughter. But girls somehow cling
wherever they are cast--anything is an anchorage for them; and as
Laura grew up, she gave the care she had never found, and was the
little mother of the whole house. As for the titular mother, she had
not an atom of character of any kind. She might have been a picture,
or a vase, or anything else that is useless except to the taste or the
affections. But mamma was indispensable. It is a vulgar error to
suppose that people who have nothing in them are nobody in a house.
Our mamma was the very centre and point of our home feelings; and it
was strange to observe the devout care we took of a personage, who had
not two ideas in her head.

It is no wonder that I was always in a hurry, for I must have had an
instinctive idea that I had my fortune to look for. The governor had
nothing more than a genteel independence, and this would be a good
deal lessened after his death by the lapse of an annuity. But sister
Laura was thus provided for well enough, while I had not a shilling in
actual money, although plenty of hypothetical thousands and sundry
castles in the air. It was the consciousness of the latter kind of
property, no doubt, that gave me so free-and-easy an air, and made me
so completely the master of my own actions. How I did worry that
blessed old woman! how Laura lectured and scolded! how the governor
stormed! and how I was forgiven the next minute, and we were all as
happy again as the day was long! But at length the time of separation
came. I had grown a great hulking fellow, strong enough to make my
bread as a porter if that had been needed; and so a situation was
found for me in a counting-house at Barcelona, and after a lecture and
a hearty cry from sister Laura, a blessing and a kiss from mamma, and
a great sob kept down by a hurricane laugh from the governor, I went
adrift.

Four years passed rapidly away. I had attained my full height, and
more than my just share of inches. I already enjoyed a fair modicum of
whisker, and had even made some progress in the cultivation of a pair
of moustaches, when suddenly the house I was connected with failed.
What to do? The governor insisted upon my return to England, where his
interest among the mercantile class was considerable; Laura hinted
mysteriously that my presence in the house would soon be a matter of
great importance to her father; and mamma let out the secret, by
writing to me that Laura was going to 'change her condition.' I was
glad to hear this, for I knew he would be a model of a fellow who was
Laura's husband; and, gulping down my pride, which would fain have
persuaded me that it was unmanly to go back again like the ill
sixpence, I set out on my return home.

The family, I knew, had moved to another house; but being well
acquainted with the town, I had no difficulty in finding the place. It
was a range of handsome buildings which had sprung up in the
fashionable outskirt during my absence; and although it was far on in
the evening, my accustomed eyes soon descried through the gloom the
governor's old-fashioned door-plate. I was just about to knock, really
agitated with delight and struggling memories, when a temptation came
in my way. One of the area-windows was open, gaping as if for my
reception. A quantity of plate lay upon a table close by. Why should I
not enter, and appear unannounced in the drawing-room, a sunburnt
phantom of five feet eleven? Why should I not present the precise and
careful Laura with a handful of her own spoons and forks, left so
conveniently at the service of any area-sneak who might chance to pass
by? Why? That is only a figure of speech. I asked no question about
the matter; the idea was hardly well across my brain when my legs were
across the rails. In another moment, I had crept in by the window; and
chuckling at my own cleverness, and the great moral lesson I was about
to teach, I was stuffing my pockets with the plate.

While thus engaged, the opening of a door in the hall above alarmed
me; and afraid of the failure of my plan, I stepped lightly up the
stair, which was partially lighted by the hall-lamp. As I was about to
emerge at the top, a serving-girl was coming out of a room on the
opposite side. She instantly retreated, shut the door with a bang, and
I could hear a half-suppressed hysterical cry. I bounded on, sprang up
the drawing-room stair, and entered the first door at a venture. All
was dark, and I stopped for a moment to listen. Lights were hurrying
across the hall; and I heard the rough voice of a man as if scolding
and taunting some person. The girl had doubtless given the alarm,
although her information must have been very indistinct; for when she
saw me I was in the shadow of the stair, and she could have had little
more than a vague impression that she beheld a human figure. However
this may be, the man's voice appeared to descend the stair to the
area-room, and presently I heard a crashing noise, not as if he was
counting the plate, but rather thrusting it aside _en masse_. Then I
heard the window closed, the shutters bolted, and an alarm-bell hung
upon them, and the man reascended the stair, half scolding, half
laughing at the girl's superstition. He took care notwithstanding to
examine the fastenings of the street-door, and even to lock it, and
put the key in his pocket. He then retired into a room, and all was
silence.

I began to feel pretty considerably queer. The governor kept no male
servant that I knew of, and had never done so. It was impossible he
could have introduced this change into his household without my being
informed of it by sister Laura, whose letters were an exact chronicle
of everything, down to the health of the cat. This was puzzling. And
now that I had time to think, the house was much too large for a
family requiring only three sleeping-rooms even when I was at home. It
was what is called a double house, with rooms on both sides of the
hall; and the apartment on the threshold of which I was still
lingering appeared, from the dim light of the windows, to be of very
considerable size. I now recollected that the quantity of plate I had
seen--a portion of which at this moment felt preternaturally heavy in
my pockets--must have been three times greater than any the governor
ever possessed, and that various pieces were of a size and massiveness
I had never before seen in the establishment. In vain I bethought
myself that I had seen and recognised the well-known door-plate, and
that the area from which I entered was immediately under; in vain I
argued that since Laura was about to be married, the extra quantity of
plate might be intended to form a part of her _trousseau_: I could not
convince myself. But the course of my thoughts suggested an idea, and
pulling hastily from my pocket a tablespoon, I felt, for I could not
see, the legend which contained my fate. But my fingers were
tremulous: they seemed to have lost sensation--only I fancied I did
feel something more than the governor's plain initials. There was
still a light in the hall. If I could but bring that spoon within its
illumination! All was silent; and I ventured to descend step after
step--not as I had bounded up, but with the stealthy pace of a thief,
and the plate growing heavier and heavier in my pocket. At length I
was near enough to see, in spite of a dimness that had gathered over
my eyes; and, with a sensation of absolute faintness, I beheld upon
the spoon an engraved crest--the red right hand of a baronet!

I crept back again, holding by the banisters, fancying every now and
then that I heard a door open behind me, and yet my feet no more
consenting to quicken their motion than if I had been pursued by a
murderer in the nightmare. I at length got into the room, groped for a
chair, and sat down. No more hurry now. O no! There was plenty of
time; and plenty to do in it, for I had to wipe away the perspiration
that ran down my face in streams. What was to be done? What _had_ I
done? Oh, a trifle, a mere trifle. I had only sneaked into a
gentleman's house by the area-window, and pocketed his tablespoons;
and here I was, locked and barred and belled in, sitting very
comfortably, in the dark and alone, in his drawing-room. Very
particularly comfortable. What a capital fellow, to be sure! What an
amusing personage! Wouldn't the baronet laugh in the morning? Wouldn't
he ask me to stay breakfast? And wouldn't I eat heartily out of the
spoons I had stolen? But what name is that? Who calls me a
housebreaker? Who gives me in charge? Who lugs me off by the neck? I
will not stand it. I am innocent, except of breaking into a baronet's
house. I am a gentleman, with another gentleman's spoons in my pocket.
I claim the protection of the law. Police! police!

My brain was wandering. I pressed my hand upon my wet forehead, to
keep down the thick-coming fancies, and determined, for the first time
in my life, to hold a deliberate consultation with myself. I was in an
awkward predicament--it was impossible to deny the fact; but was there
anything really serious in the case? I had unquestionably descended
into the wrong area, the right-hand one instead of the left-hand one;
but was I not as unquestionably the relation--the distant
relation--the very distant relation--of the next-door neighbour? I had
been four years absent from his house, and was there anything more
natural than that I should desire to pay my next visit through a
subterranean window? I had appropriated, it is true, a quantity of
silver-plate I had found; but with what other intention could I have
done this than to present it to my very distant relation's daughter,
and reproach her with her carelessness in leaving it next door?
Finally, I was snared, caged, trapped--door and window had been bolted
upon me without any remonstrance on my part--and I was now some
considerable time in the house, unsuspected, yet a prisoner. The
position was serious; but come, suppose the worst, that I was actually
laid hold of as a malefactor, and commanded to give an account of
myself. Well: I was, as aforesaid, a distant relation of the
individual next door. I belonged to nobody in the world, if not to
him; I bore but an indifferent reputation in regard to steadiness; and
after four years' absence in a foreign country, I had returned idle,
penniless, and objectless--just in time to find an area-window open in
the dusk of the evening, and a heap of plate lying behind it, within
view of the street.

This self-examination was not encouraging; the case was decidedly
queer; and as I sat thus pondering in the dark, with the spoon in my
hand, I am quite sure that no malefactor in a dungeon could have
envied my reflections. In fact, the evidence was so dead against me,
that I began to doubt my own innocence. What was I here for if my
intentions had really been honest? Why should I desire to come into
any individual's area-window instead of the door? And how came it that
all this silver-plate had found its way into my pockets? I was angry
as well as terrified: I was judge and criminal in one; but the
instincts of nature got the better of my sense of justice, and I rose
suddenly up, to ascertain whether it was not possible to get from the
window into the street.

As I moved, however, the horrible booty I had in my pockets moved
likewise, appearing to me to shriek, like a score of fiends, 'Police!
police!' and the next instant I heard a quick footstep ascending the
stair. Now was the fateful moment come! I was on my feet; my eyes
glared upon the door; my hands were clenched; the perspiration had
dried suddenly upon my skin; and my tongue clave to the roof of my
mouth. But the footstep, accompanied by a gleam of light,
passed--passed; and from very weakness I sat down again, with a
dreadful indifference to the screams of the plate in my pockets.
Presently there were more footsteps along the hall; then voices; then
drawing of bolts and creaking of locks; then utter darkness, then
silence--lasting, terrible, profound. The house had gone to bed; the
house would quickly be asleep; it was time to be up and doing. But
first and foremost, I must get rid of the plate. Without that hideous
_corpus delicti_, I should have some chance. I must, at all hazards,
creep down into the hall, find my way to the lower regions, and
replace the accursed thing where I found it. It required nerve to
attempt this; but I was thoroughly wound up; and after allowing a
reasonable time to elapse, to give my enemies a fair opportunity of
falling asleep, I set out upon the adventure. The door creaked as I
went out; the plate grated against my very soul as I descended the
steps; but slowly, stealthily, I crept along the wall; and at length
found myself on the level floor. There was but one door on that side
of the hall, the door which led to the area-room--I recollect the fact
distinctly--and it was with inexpressible relief I reached it in
safety, and grasped the knob in my hand. The knob turned--but the door
did not open: it was locked; it was my fate to be a thief; and after a
moment of new dismay, I turned again doggedly, reached the stair, and
re-entered the apartment I had left.

It was like getting home. It was snug and private. I had a chair there
waiting me. I thought to myself, that many a man would take a deal of
trouble to break into such a house. I had only sneaked. I wondered how
Jack Shepherd felt on such occasions. I had seen him at the Adelphi in
the person of Mrs Keeley, and a daring little dog he was. He would
make nothing of getting down into the street from the window, spoons
and all. I tried this: the shutters were not even closed, and the sash
moving noiselessly, I had no difficulty in raising it. I stepped out
into the balcony, and looked over. Nothing was to be seen but a black
and yawning gulf beneath, guarded by the imaginary spikes of an
invisible railing. Jack would have laughed at this difficulty; but
then he had more experience in the craft than I, and was provided with
all necessary appliances. As for me, I had stupidly forgotten even my
coil of rope. The governor's house, I found, had either no balcony at
all, or it was too far apart to be reached. Presently I heard a
footstep on the _trottoir_, a little way off. It was approaching with
slow and measured pace: the person was walking as calmly and gravely
in the night as if it had been broad day. Suppose I hailed this
philosophical stranger, and confided to him, in a friendly way, the
fact that the baronet, without the slightest provocation, had locked
me up in his house, with his silver spoons in my pocket? Perhaps he
would advise me what to do in the predicament. Perhaps he would take
the trouble of knocking at the door, or crying fire, and when the
servants opened, I might rush out, and so make my escape. But while I
was looking wistfully down to see if I could not discern the walking
figure, which was now under the windows, a sudden glare from the spot
dazzled my sight. It was the bull's-eye of a policeman; and with the
instinct of a predatory character, I shrunk back trembling, crept into
the room, and shut the window.

By this time I was sensible that there was a little confusion in my
thoughts, and by way of employing them on practical and useful
objects, I determined to make a tour of the room. But first it was
necessary to get rid, somehow or other, of my plunder--to plant the
property, as we call it; and with that view I laid it carefully, piece
by piece, in the corner of a sofa, and concealed it with the cover.
This was a great relief. I almost began to feel like the injured
party--more like a captive than a robber; and I groped my way through
the room, with a sort of vague idea that I might perhaps stumble upon
some trap-door, or sliding-panel, which would lead into the open air,
or, at worst, into a secret chamber, where I should be safe for any
given number of years from my persecutors. But there was nothing of
the kind in this stern, prosaic place: nothing but a few cabinets and
tables, and couches, and arm-chairs, and common-chairs, and
devotional-chairs; and footstools, and lamps, and statuettes, and
glass-shades, and knick-knacks; and one elaborate girandole hung round
with crystal prisms, which played such an interminable tune against
each other when I chanced to move them, that I stumbled away as fast
as I could, and subsided into a _fauteuil_ so rich, so deep, that I
felt myself swallowed up, as it were, in its billows of swan's down.

How long I had been in the house by this time, I cannot tell. It
seemed to me, when I looked back, to form a considerable portion of a
lifetime. Indeed, I did not very well remember the more distant events
of the night; although every now and then the fact occurred to me with
startling distinctness, that all I had gone through was only
preliminary to something still to happen; that the morning was to
come, the family to be astir, and the housebreaker to be apprehended.
My reflections were not continuous. It may be that I dozed between
whiles. How else can I account for my feeling myself grasped by the
throat, to the very brink of suffocation, by a hand without a body?
How else can I account for sister Laura standing over me where I
reclined, pointing to the stolen plate on the sofa, and lecturing me
on my horrible propensities till she grew black in the face, and her
voice rose to a wild unearthly scream which pierced through my brain?

When this fancy occurred, I started from my recumbent posture. A voice
was actually in my ears, and a living form before my eyes: a lady
stood contemplating me, with a half-scream on her lips, and the colour
fading from her cheek; and as I moved, she would have fallen to the
ground, had I not sprung up and caught her in my arms. I laid her
softly down in the _fauteuil_. It was the morning twilight. The
silence was profound. The boundaries of the room were still dim and
indistinct. Is it any wonder that I was in some considerable degree of
perplexity as to whether I was not still in the land of dreams?

'Madam,' said I, 'if you are a vision, it is of no consequence; but if
not, I want particularly to get out.'

'Offer no injury,' she replied, in a tremulous voice, 'and no one will
molest you. Take what you have come for, and begone.'

'That is sooner said than done. The doors and windows below are locked
and bolted; and beneath those of this room the area is deep, and the
spikes sharp. I assure you, I have been in very considerable
perplexity the whole of last night;' and drawing a chair, I sat down
in front of her. Whether it was owing to this action, or to my
complaining voice, or to the mere fact of her finding herself in a
quiet tête-à-tête with a housebreaker, I cannot tell; but the lady
broke into a low hysterical laugh.

'How did you break in?' said she.

'I did not break: it is far from being my character, I assure you. But
the area-window was open, and so I just thought I would come in.'

'You were attracted by the plate! Take it, for Heaven's sake,
desperate man, and go away!'

'I did take some of it, but with no evil intention--only by way of
amusement. Here it is;' and going to the sofa, I drew off the cover,
and shewed her the plant.

'You have been generous,' said she, her voice getting quaverous again;
'for the whole must have been in your power. I will let you out so
softly that no one will know. Put up in your pockets what you have
risked so much to possess, and follow me.'

'I will follow you with pleasure,' said I, 'were it all the world
over;' for the increasing light shewed me as lovely a creature as the
morning sun ever shone upon; 'but as for the plunder, you must excuse
me there: I never stole anything before, and, please Heaven, I never
will again!'

'Surely you are a most extraordinary person,' said the young lady
suddenly, for the light seemed to have made a revelation to her
likewise: 'you neither look nor talk like a robber.'

'Nor am I. I am not even a robber--I am nothing; and have not property
in the world to the value of these articles of plate.'

'Then if you are not a robber, why are you here?--why creep in at the
area-window, appropriate other people's spoons, and get locked up all
night in their house?'

'For no other reason, than that I was in a hurry. I had come home from
Barcelona, and was going in to my guardian's, next door, when your
unfortunate area-window caught my eye, with the plate on the table
inside. In an instant, I was over the rails and in through the window
like a harlequin, with the intention of giving the family a pleasing
surprise, and my old monitress, sister Laura, a great moral lesson on
the impropriety of her leaving plate about in so careless a way.'

'Then you are Gerald, my dear Laura's cousin, so longingly
expected--so beloved by them all--so'----Here the young lady blushed
celestial rosy red, and cast down her eyes. What these two girls could
have been saying to each other about me, I never found out; but there
was a secret, I will go to death upon it.

She let me out so quietly, that neither her father nor the servants
ever knew a syllable about the matter. I need not say how I was
received next door. The governor swept down another sob with another
guffaw; mamma bestowed upon me another blessing and another kiss; and
Laura was so rejoiced, that she gave me another hearty cry, and forgot
to give me another lecture. My next four years were spent to more
purpose than the last. Being less in a hurry, I took time to build up
a flourishing business in partnership with Laura's husband. As for the
baronet's daughter--for we must get everybody into the concluding
tableau--why there she is--that lady cutting bread and butter for the
children, with as matronly an air as Werter's Charlotte: she is my
wife; and we laugh to this day at the oddity of that First Interview
which led to so happy a _dénouement_.




VISIT TO A CHOCOLATE MANUFACTORY.


Birmingham, so says the _Times_, is famous for 'lacquered shams;' and
any one who has sojourned for a while in the huge, smoky toy-shop will
add--for not a few genuine realities! To walk from factory to factory,
from workshop to workshop, and view the extraordinary mechanical
contrivances, the ingenious adaptations of means to ends, to say
nothing of the eager spirit of application manifested by the busy
population, produces an impression on the mind of no common character.
Besides which, the town itself, so ill-arranged and ugly, is a
spectacle; and in the people that inhabit the dismal streets, the
visitor may find studies in morality as well as manufactures.

We have something to say about one of the realities alluded to
above--not the making of pens, or tea-pots, or papier-maché; but of
something in which breakfasts are implicated all over the kingdom--the
making of cocoa and chocolate as carried on by Messrs Cadbury,
Brothers. These gentlemen having kindly invited us to a sight of their
establishment, we took the opportunity of witnessing their processes
for converting raw produce into an acceptable article of diet, aided
by the ample explanations of one of the partners. Such a manufacture
seems out of place among bronze and brass and hardware, but the
factory stands away from the fuliginous quarter, on the verge of
Edgbaston--that Belgravia of Birmingham--where sunshine and blue sky
are not perpetually hidden by smoke. What we saw there is worth the
telling, as we hope to shew.

Here, however, we must say a few words concerning the raw material. It
appears that the Spaniards were the first Europeans who tasted
chocolate; it was part of their spoil in the conquest of Mexico.
Bernardo de Castile, who accompanied Cortez, describing one of
Montezuma's banquets, says: 'They brought in among the dishes above
fifty great jars made of _good cacao_, with its froth, and drank it,
the women serving them with a great deal of respect;' and similar jars
were served to the guards and attendants 'to the number of two
thousand at least.' The Spaniards enjoyed the rare beverage, and with
a slight transformation of the native Mexican term _Chacoc-atl_, they
introduced chocolate, as they named it, into Spain, monopolising the
article for a time, and it was only by slow degrees that the knowledge
of it spread into other parts of Europe. Gage, an old traveller who
had visited the tropics, writing in 1630, remarks: 'Our English and
Hollanders make little use of it, when they take a prize at sea, as
not knowing the secret virtue and quality of it for the good of the
stomach.' In the reign of Charles II., it was so much esteemed in
England that Dr Stubbe published a book, entitled _The Indian Nectar,
or a Discourse concerning Chocolata_, &c., giving a history of the
article, and many curious notions respecting its 'secret virtue;' and
recommending his readers to buy it of one Mortimer, 'an honest, though
poor man,' who lived in East Smithfield, and sold the best kind at 6s.
6d. the pound, and commoner sorts for about half that price. Of
course, none but the wealthy could drink it; indeed, we find writers
of the past century alluding to it as an aristocratic beverage.

Linnæus was so fond of chocolate, that he called it _food for the
gods_ in the distinguishing name which he gave to the tree that
produces it--_Theobroma cacao_. The tree is a native of tropical
America, but is now largely cultivated in other parts of the world. It
grows from twelve to sixteen feet high, with evergreen leaves, and
fruit of a deep orange colour when ripe, resembling a cucumber in
shape, and containing from ten to thirty seeds. These seeds are the
cacao-nuts or cocoa-nibs of commerce; in the trade, they are commonly
spoken of as cocoa-nuts. The best kind are brought from Trinidad; and
such has been the effect of lowering the duty, which was formerly 4s.
per pound, to one penny, the present charge, that the quantity
imported in the year ending January 5, 1852, amounted to 6,773,960
pounds. Among the colonial produce shewn in the Great Exhibition,
cocoa-nuts held a conspicuous place; and it ought to be understood,
that from such as these cocoa and chocolate are made--both from the
same article.

To return to the factory. We first saw a storehouse filled with bags
of nuts or nibs, two hundredweight in each, the only kinds used on the
premises being those from Trinidad and Grenada. In an adjoining room,
imbedded in a huge mass of brickwork, are four cylindrical ovens
rotating slowly over a coke-fire, each containing a hundredweight of
nuts, which were undergoing a comfortable process of roasting, as
evidenced by an agreeable odour thrown off, and a loss of 10 per cent.
in weight at the close of the operation, which lasts half an hour.
Thus, in a day of ten hours, the four ovens will roast two tons of
nuts, the prime mover being a twenty-horse steam-engine. The sight was
one that would have gladdened Count Rumford's heart, for the cylinders
and their fittings comprised all the economical principles of his
roaster--certainty of effect without waste of fuel.

The next step is to crack or break the nuts in what is called the
'kibbling-mill.' The roasting has made them quite crisp, and with a
few turns of the whizzing apparatus, they are divested of their husk,
which is driven into a bin by a ceaseless blast from a furious fan;
while the kernels, broken into small pieces, fall, perfectly clean,
into a separate compartment, where their granulated form and rich
glossy colour give them a very tempting appearance. The husk is
repacked in the empty bags, and exported to Ireland, where it is sold
at a low price to the humbler classes, who extract from it a beverage
which has all the flavour of cocoa, if not all its virtues.

Thus prepared, the mass of broken nut is ready for more intimate
treatment, which is carried on in a large room where shafts, wheels,
and straps keep a number of strange-looking machines in busy movement.
Some of these are double-cylinders, highly heated by a flow of steam
between the inner and outer cases--an arrangement by which any degree
of temperature can be produced in the interior. Inside of cacti works
an armed iron-breaker, which, as soon as a quantity of the cracked
nuts is introduced, begins to rotate, and, by the combined influence
of heat and pressure, liberates the oil of the cocoa bean, and soon
reduces the mass to a liquid which flows, 'thick and slab,' into a pan
placed to receive it, leisurely as a stream of half-frozen treacle. In
this state it is ready for grinding between the millstones, to which
it is successively transferred, being poured into 'hoppers,' which,
like the cylinders, are heated by steam. The cocoa flows rapidly from
the stones in a fluid smooth as oil; but it is the best kinds only
that are favoured with the most trituration, the commoner sorts being
more summarily dismissed. At the time of our visit, a pair of new
stones were in course of erection, which of themselves will turn off a
ton of chocolate per day.

The process, so far, is that employed for all kinds of cocoa and
chocolate, the nuts, as before stated, being the basis of all: the
variety depends on subsequent admixture, the best kinds being, of
course, the purest and most delicately flavoured. Up to this point, we
have the cocoa in its native condition, merely altered in form; but
now it has come to the stage of sophistication.

A given portion of the cocoa liquid is poured into a pan, and weighed
with other ingredients, which consist, in the main, of arrow-root,
sago, and refined sugar--the latter reduced to an impalpable
powder--besides the flavouring substances. The quality depends
entirely on the proportions of these ingredients, and on their
unexceptionable character. The unpractised eye may not detect any
difference between a cake of genuine chocolate, and another two-thirds
composed of red earth and roasted beans. We have seen documentary
evidence laid before the Board of Excise, shewing that a certain
manufacturer of cocoa used every week a ton of a species of umber for
purposes of adulteration; and recent investigations have shewn, that
such practices are only too frequent. No wonder that muddy and
insoluble grounds are found at the bottom of breakfast-cups! No one
pretends that manufactured chocolate or cocoa is unmixed; but it is a
satisfaction to know, that the admixture is not only of good quality,
but nutritious.

The necessary quantities having been weighed and duly stirred together
with a large wooden spoon, are poured into a mould nearly three feet
in length, about nine inches wide, and from three to four inches deep;
and in from four to five hours the mass is sufficiently solid to bear
removal, when it is turned out as a large cake or block, which might
very well pass for a huge sun-baked brick from Nineveh. In this way
any number of cakes may be produced, those made on one day being
finally worked up on the next, by which time they have become somewhat
more hardened.

In this final process, the cakes are laid one at a time in what
resembles a chaff-cutting machine, except, instead of the ordinary
broad knife wielded by grooms, that a wheel, armed with four sharp
blades, whirls round at the open end. The block of cocoa, held by
machinery, advances with a slow continuous motion, until it touches
the blades on the wheel, when immediately a cloud of most delicate
slices or shavings is thrown off, as rapidly as sparks from a
knife-grinder's wheel. Cake after cake is thus comminuted, at the rate
of a ton per day from a single machine. The shavings are collected as
fast as they fall, and passed through a sieve, which reduces them to
that coarse powdery form so well known to all consumers of soluble
chocolate. It is then put into barrels, and despatched without delay
to the packing-room by means of a railway.

That there is something in a name, is as true of cocoa and chocolate
as of other things, and the difference of name implies, in most
instances, a difference of manufacture. Hence there is a variety of
processes going on within the building, the results of which are shewn
in 'Cocoa Paste,' 'Rock Cocoa,' 'Eating Vanilla Chocolate,' 'Penny
Chocolate,' 'French Bonbons,' 'Flaked Cocoa,' 'Homoeopathic,' &c. So
numerous are the sorts, that a purchaser is as much puzzled in his
choice as an untravelled Cockney with a Parisian bill of fare. The
making of the flaked cocoa is peculiarly interesting, and is, we were
informed, peculiar to this establishment. To see how the amorphous
mass comes from the mill in long curling ribbons, uniform in thickness
and texture, is a sight that provokes astonishment, as much by the
rapidity of the operation as by the ease with which it appears to be
accomplished, but which has only been arrived at by a persevering
circumvention of vexatious difficulties.

But however interesting the results, one grows tired at length of the
noise and clatter of machinery; and it was with a feeling of relief
that we mounted to the packing-room, where all was so light, cheerful,
and orderly, as to prove that the good management everywhere
perceptible had here put on its pleasantest expression. The most
perfect cleanliness prevails. The half-score or more of girls, who
work under the superintendence of a forewoman, are all dressed in
clean Holland pinafores--an industrial uniform. All were packing as
busily as hands could work: one weighed the cocoa; a second placed the
paper in the mould, and turned the cocoa into it; a third compressed
the contents by means of a machine-moved plunger; while a fourth
released the packet, pasted down the loose ends, and laid it aside.
This party, by their combined operations, weigh and pack a
hundredweight per hour. Some were wrapping the 'homoeopathic' in
bright envelopes of tinfoil; others boxing the 'bonbons;' others
coating the 'roll' with its distinctive paper; while others helped the
forewoman to count and sort the orders--all performing their duties
with that celerity which can only be attained by long practice.
Finally, the respective orders are packed away in boxes of various
sizes, from fourteen pounds to a hundredweight; and to give full
effect to the system of cleanliness, none but new boxes are used, so
that not the slightest ground is afforded for even a suspicion of
uncleanliness.

In these professedly enlightened days, commercial progress cannot well
be considered apart from moral progress; we want to know not only how
work is done, but who and what they are who do it. Are they benefited
by the 'mighty developments of commercial enterprise?' We may
therefore very properly say a few words respecting the _employés_ in
the cocoa-factory. No girl is employed who is not of known good moral
character. Some at first are found to be good rather passively than
actively, but they have example daily before their eyes, and a spirit
of emulation gradually develops their better qualities. Their hours of
work are from nine A.M. to seven P.M., with an hour off for
dinner--tea is supplied to them on the premises. Their earnings range
from 5s. to 9s. per week. Once a week, during the summer season, they
have a half-holiday for a little excursion to the country, and twice a
week they leave work for evening school an hour before the usual time.
With few exceptions, these elevating influences are found to tell
favourably on their conduct; and besides the direct benefit to
themselves, we may be permitted to take into the account, the benefit
to the homes and families to which the girls belong. Accustomed to
order and cleanliness through the day, they can hardly fail to carry
these virtues with them to their dwellings. The men employed exhibit
the good effects of proper management not less than the girls. Some
have acquired a steady habit of saving, and with nearly all, from the
mere force of example, teetotalism is the rule. Instances of
misconduct are rare, and when reproof is called for, it is
administered by an appeal to the better feelings in preference to
angry demonstration. Factories conducted on such a system must be at
once schools of morality and industry.

There is one more point which we feel bound to notice in closing our
article. While going about the premises, we were asked to look to the
top of the tall engine-chimney, where, to our surprise, none but the
faintest whiff of vapour was visible. 'There is no need,' said our
conductor, 'that any chimney in Birmingham should smoke more than
that. I have told the people so over and over again, but to little
use, for they will persist in wasting fuel, and blackening the
atmosphere. This is Beddington's patent, and you shall see the effect
of it.' The fireman was then told to shut off the apparatus from the
flue; immediately a dense black smoke poured from the chimney-top, and
when at the murkiest, the order was given: 'Now turn on again.' In
five seconds, the smoke had vanished, and the almost imperceptible
vapour alone remained. Thus, of the coal consumed daily, not a
particle is wasted, and a considerable portion of the atmosphere is
saved from deterioration. So perfect an example of what can be done
towards the abatement of a nuisance, made us wish to be autocrat for a
week--our reign should be signalised by the extinction of smoke!




THE WORKING-CLASSES IN 'THE GOOD OLD TIMES.'


As it has become fashionable in some quarters to hold that the
working-classes are ever sinking in position, and that they have lost
the comforts, the pleasures, and the freedom of the 'good old times,'
it may serve a useful purpose to put together, from authentic sources,
some notices of their actual condition among our ancestors. To
associate our present working-classes with slavery would seem an
insult; and it would be said, that it is a condition to which they
could not, under any circumstances, be induced to submit. But although
this is true of their present condition, it is equally true, that not
only in the rest of Europe, but even in England and Scotland, those
who of old held the position of the working-classes, were slaves in
the strictest sense of the term. Among our Saxon ancestors, to whose
free institutions our historians so often proudly refer, two-thirds of
the people--that is, in short, the whole of the working-classes--are
computed to have been slaves. Sir Walter Scott, whose descriptions of
life and manners are as faithful as they are picturesque, gives an
admirable sketch of the slave or thrall of the Saxons in the faithful
Gurth, the follower of Ivanhoe. First, we have the account of his
close-fitting tunic, made of skin; after which follows that of a part
of his dress which, Sir Walter said, was too remarkable to be
overlooked. 'It was a brass ring resembling a dog's collar, but
without any opening, and soldered fast round his neck, so loose as to
form no impediment to his breathing, yet so tight as to be incapable
of being removed except by the use of the file. On this singular
gorget was engraved in Saxon characters--"Gurth, the son of Beowald,
the born thrall of Cedric the Saxon."'

For two or three centuries after the Conquest, there is no doubt that
the peasantry were liable to be bought and sold as slaves. Even in
Magna Charta, there is a prohibition that a guardian shall not 'waste
the men or cattle' in the estate of the ward: there is here no
consideration for the men who might be 'wasted;' it is all for the
property of the ward, which is not to be injured through the cupidity
or carelessness of his guardian. Sir Frederic Eden, the historian of
the poor-law, adduces many instances in which slaves had been
sold--thus in 1283, a slave and his family were sold by the Abbey of
Dunstable for 13s. 4d.

The distinguishing feature of Britain at the present day is, that she
is in advance of all the other nations of Europe in uniting order with
freedom. Our ancestors may be said to have led us on to this proud
position, by the gradual emancipation of the peasantry from slavery.
We soon find, in the contests with European powers, the great
distinction between the Briton even of the humblest rank and the
Frenchman or German. The great victories gained by the English over
the French--Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt--have been supposed almost
fabulous, from the inequality of the contending forces--the small
number on the victorious side, the vast host conquered by it. But we
cease to wonder when we examine the different qualities of the
combatants. At Agincourt, the English army, which was completely
victorious, amounted to only 9000 men; while that of France, which was
routed, amounted to 50,000: at Poitiers, the disproportion was nearly
as great: and at Crecy, the conquered force more than doubled that of
the conquerors. We have not lately seen, nor are we likely to see,
contests with such results in European warfare. But we see it in
Oriental conflicts; and the late battles of our troops with the
Afghans and Sikhs were somewhat of the same character, from the
immense superiority of European over Asiatic discipline. The reason of
the superiority of the English over the French in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, is plain enough to any one who has studied the
history of the people, though it may be incomprehensible to those who
have only studied the history of courts and armies. It arose from the
growing freedom of the British. Before the introduction of firearms,
the great dependence of an army was generally in the men-at-arms, as
they were called, or the knights and others who were sheathed in plate
armour, mounted on strong horses, and provided with costly weapons.
The knight and his horse were like a movable fortification; the
peasantry or serfs who went along with them to battle, half-naked and
half-fed, with rude and trifling arms, were looked upon as mere dross
in comparison with the men-at-arms. One man-at-arms was considered
equal to ten or even twenty of them; and when knights were not engaged
in encountering each other, it was deemed as a sort of amusement for a
few of them, with their heavy horses and armour, to ride down
multitudes of these abject serfs.

So it was in the rest of Europe, but not in England. The English
bowman, or billman, who carried a large axe or bill, was a strong,
healthy, well-fed man; and though he had not perfect freedom,
according to our modern acceptation of the term, he had an existence
worth struggling for, and not entirely at the command of an imperious
lord. Hence he was sometimes not much inferior, as a combatant, to the
mail-clad man-at-arms. Now, at the battle of Crecy, the French, though
the wretched serfs were so numerous, had only about 8000 men-at-arms;
and though the English had not a third of that number of the higher
kind of warriors, yet they had nearly 30,000 sturdy bowmen and
billmen. A characteristic illustration of the contempt with which the
poor slaves were viewed occurred in that very battle. A party of
cross-bowmen hesitated to advance--they felt tired, the fatigue of the
march being beyond their strength. On this, the Count of Alençon cried
out: 'Kill the lazy scoundrels!' A number of the men-at-arms rushed in
among them, to chastise them, and this produced a confusion which
assisted the English to their victory.

From these battles, and a multitude of other sources, we can see the
great superiority, in freedom and condition of living, of the humbler
class in England over that in France; and yet, at the same time, it is
difficult in the nineteenth century to believe in the extent of
tyranny exercised, down to a comparatively recent period, over the
working-classes in Britain. We may judge of the tyrannical
interference of the government with the freedom of labour by the
Statute of Labourers, passed in 1349. One of the frightful famines of
the middle ages had occurred, and labourers were scarce in comparison
with the means of employment. It is said that the same phenomenon has
now in some measure recurred in Ireland; but there is little chance of
our statesmen treating it as those of the fourteenth century did.
Justice says, that the labourer is entitled to obtain the value of his
labour, be it much or little. Parliament, however, fixed the amount
which it thought the reasonable price of labour--the rate at which the
members of the legislature desired to have it; and endeavoured, by
penalties and persecution, to obtain it at that rate. The statute
commences by abusing the labourers for taking advantage of the
scarcity of hands to demand high wages--as if there ever were human
beings, employed in the ordinary affairs of life, who would not take
what wages or profits they could obtain; and as if labourers were like
missionaries, and other devotees, who are not led by any mercenary
motive. The statute then enacts, that every person able in body, and
under the age of sixty, not having means of maintaining himself, is
bound to serve whoever shall be willing to employ him, at the wages
which were usually paid during the six years preceding the plague; and
if he refuses, and it is proved by two witnesses before the sheriff,
bailiff, lord, or constable of the village where the refusal is given,
he is to be committed to jail, and continue there till he finds surety
to enter into service in terms of the act.

It is always observable, that laws interfering with freedom of trade
go on increasing in strictness, because the confusion which the first
attempt creates is always attributed to the deficiency of the law
instead of its excess. The Statute of Labourers was of course
insufficient to put everything right between employers and employed;
and so, two years afterwards, another and stricter Statute of
Labourers was passed (23 Ed. III., ch. 1-8.) This statute not only
regulated the wages of husbandry, and the times when peasant-labourers
were to work, but fixed the precise amount which each kind of artisan
was bound to work for. The account given of it by Mr Daines
Barrington, in his observations on the statutes, may be quoted as
among the clearest and briefest. The reader will of course remember,
that the coins mentioned by him bore a much higher value than coins of
the same denomination at present. 'The common labourer in the
hay-harvest is only to have 1d. a day, except a mower, who, if he mow
by the acre, is to have 5d. per acre, or otherwise 5d. a day. A reaper
is to have in time of corn-harvest 2d., the first week in August, and
3d. till the end of the month; and they are likewise neither to ask
meat nor any other perquisite or indulgence. The law likewise requires
that they shall repair to the next town or village, carrying their
scythe or sickle openly in their hands, and shall there be hired in
some public place.... The second chapter directs that no man in
harvest--before settled to be in the month of August--shall leave the
village in which he lived during the winter, except the inhabitants of
Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Craven, and the marches of
Wales and Scotland--the occasion of which is, that there are large
tracts of mountain or moorland in all these counties and districts,
where nothing can be raised but oats, which are not usually ripe till
October; and, consequently, if they were not employed in more early
harvest, they would be without employment during the months of August
and September.'

But the English peasantry and artisans had now acquired too much real
independence to submit silently to these arbitrary regulations. The
celebrated insurrection of Wat Tyler, which took place thirty years
afterwards, was a concentrated embodiment of popular discontent.
However turbulent and dangerous might be the form in which the mob
demanded redress, the demands themselves were in many respects very
reasonable. Thus, the brief statement of them by Hume, the historian,
is, that they 'required a general pardon, _the abolition of slavery_,
freedom of commerce in market-towns without toll or impost, and a
fixed rent on lands, instead of the services due by villenage'--that
is to say, they desired that they should be tenants, paying rent in
money or services, and not serfs bound to remain on the soil. The
insurrection was crushed, and the insurgents obtained no immediate
redress. Parliament, however, considered the whole circumstances
before the conclusion of Richard II.'s reign. Wat Tyler's rebellion
was nearly contemporary with several other risings throughout Europe
of the enslaved working-classes against their tyrants. In France, they
formed the dreaded bands of the Jacquerie, who desolated the most
fruitful portions of that fine country. They committed great
cruelties; but in the end they were crushed by the chivalry of the
upper ranks. In the results of the two insurrections, however, there
was a marked difference between England and France. Advance and
improvement have ever, fortunately, characterised the legislation of
this country. In France, and other parts of the continent, the
insurgents were crushed with terrible slaughter, and then they were
subjected to stricter and sterner laws, to prevent them from breaking
out again--laws so strict and stern, that the French peasantry and
working-classes were kept in chain by them till the Revolution of
1788. In England, on the other hand, the parliament which met after
Tyler's insurrection was put down, took into consideration the state
of the country; and the tyrannical and oppressive laws against the
peasantry and working-classes were modified.

Still these classes remained for centuries in a condition so closely
bordering on actual slavery, that a close, practical contemplation of
it would certainly be sufficiently startling to the workmen of the
present day. The celebrated statute of Elizabeth for the relief of the
poor, passed in 1597, shews us, in sufficiently distinct terms, the
position of the workman at that period. Various kinds of vagrants or
impostors are, in the first place, enumerated, much resembling the
same class at the present day--such as persons pretending to be
shipwrecked sailors, fortune-tellers, players, bear-keepers,
musicians, &c. And then we have 'all wandering persons and common
labourers, being persons able in body, using loitering and refusing to
work for such reasonable wages as is taxed or commonly given in such
parts where such persons do or shall happen to dwell or abide, not
having living otherwise to maintain themselves.' Among the punishments
attached to this offence are, that the offender 'be stripped naked
from the middle upward, and shall be openly whipped until his or her
body be bloody.' In fact, the whole poor-law legislation which
followed this enactment, down to the act of 1834, treated the peasant
in a great measure as a slave. Doubtless the workhouse-test, which
requires that the able-bodied man who gets relief shall give labour
for it, involves slavery within the bounds of the workhouse. But this,
fortunately, now only applies to a few. The evil of the old system
was, that while it was less stringent in giving relief, and afforded
much more assistance to the able-bodied class of workmen, it
necessarily established a control over their motions, and this control
made an unpleasantly near approach to slavery. Instead of workmen
going with the eagerness of energy and hope to the employer who gave
them most wages, they too often went to the employer to whom the
parish sent them. The degrading spectacle of labourers set up to
auction in the parish pound was frequently exhibited. Apart from the
poor-law system, the actual feudal serfdom, which gave landowners
great powers over the peasantry on their estates, was not abolished
until the reign of Charles II.

We have a similar history of matters in Scotland. Thus, not to go
further back, an act passed immediately on the restoration of the
Stuarts, empowered justices of peace to fix the rate of wages to be
paid to labourers, workmen, or servants; and if they refused to work
at the legal wages so established, they might be imprisoned and
scourged. It was not an uncommon thing, at the commencement of the
last century, to see advertisements in the newspapers for the
apprehension of runaway servants. The power of the higher over the
working-classes was so great, that at one time, before the idea of a
traffic in negroes was suggested, young people were kidnapped even in
the streets of cities, and sent out as slaves to the plantations.
Instances have been given where their parents have seen them driven in
herds on board ship, yet dared not interfere. The power which the
landholders in Scotland possessed over their vassals, down to the
middle of the eighteenth century, was a condition of things necessary
to the two rebellions. The humble clansmen were not properly rebels;
they were paying obedience to their chiefs, who possessed power over
them almost unlimited. The notorious Lovat had managed to seduce an
English servant to the Highlands, and when once there, the poor fellow
found that he was a slave, and could not possibly escape. It was not
until the present century that two classes of workmen in Scotland were
emancipated from a species of slavery--colliers and saltmakers. It is
startling to read of them in the work which is still the principal law
authority in Scotland--_Erskine's Institute_. He speaks of them as
'necessary servants,' and says: 'In this class of necessary servants
may be reckoned colliers, coal-bearers, salters, and other workmen
necessary for carrying on of collieries and salt-works. These are by
law itself, without any paction, bound, merely by their entering upon
work, in a colliery or salt-manufactory, to the perpetual service
thereof; and if the owner sell or alienate the ground on which the
works stand, the right of the service of these colliers, salters, &c.,
passes over to the purchaser.' What was this but modified
slavery?--and the consideration that it actually existed within Great
Britain until a recent period, and excited no sort of compassion,
should temper any observations we might be inclined to make on the
subject of slavery in distant countries.

We cannot but rejoice that in the present day there exists not the
slightest relict of serfdom in any part of the United Kingdom. Every
man is now his own master, and has his own responsibilities. We say,
we are glad of this, because without such liberty of personal action,
there can be no social progress. At the same time, it appears
undeniable that the legislature, in emancipating the humbler classes,
has strangely neglected to go one step further--that is, to make sure
of their being educated, and so rendered capable of improving their
condition to some purpose. It is in this great shortcoming that a blot
rests on our institutions. When is that blot to be removed?




EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF A TRAVELLER IN CHILI.


So little is known of Chili, a country of considerable extent in South
America, with a frontage to the Pacific, that latterly a distinguished
man of science, Dr Ried of Ratisbon, went on an expedition to explore
its physical character. From the notes which were sent by this
enlightened traveller to the secretary of the Zoological-mineralogical
Society of the above-named city, we are enabled to draw the following
account of the wild interior of the Chilian territory:--

The land along the coast is unusually high, the mountains on the
sea-board rising about 3000 feet above the water, for the greater part
at an angle of 60 to 70 degrees. In their height, there is hardly any
perceptible difference; the summits form long tracts of table-land,
very uneven, however, and broken up in all directions by chasms, and
the dried-up beds of cataracts and rapid rivers. For 400 leagues along
the coast, all is one dreary waste. The entrance to this table-land is
by the dry bed of a mountain torrent. Such channels, in which not a
drop of moisture has been found within the memory of tradition, are
everywhere to be seen actually ground away, and polished like the
finest marble by the action of water. At the foot of the mountains,
traces of the sea are discernible 100 or 150 feet higher up than at
present. Huge masses of rock, too, bear traces of having been
violently rent, where now there is never a storm.

The best entrance to the desert is from Cobija, where the ascent at
once begins, and continues for a distance of about three leagues,
including the dried-up bed of a torrent, formed in the steep surface
of rock. About fifteen leagues from the coast, and parallel with it,
a chain of higher mountains rises to a height of between 7000 and 8000
feet. From the summit of these--and it is no easy task to climb so
far--one is enabled to form a slight idea of the desert of Atacama. To
the east, you see the majestic Cordilleras, their bright peaks
glittering in the distance through a golden mist; while on the north,
south, and west, there is an unrelieved expanse without sign of life
or hope, but everywhere silence: and what a silence! It is not the
stillness of a summer night in the country, nor of a church, nor of a
sickroom: it is the silence of death! As you gaze on the scene before
you, you are oppressed--almost overwhelmed by its dreary sadness. No
insect hum is heard; not even a bird is seen in the still air; the
earth, and the atmosphere above it, is one vast region of death. The
only link which connects the traveller with humanity, is a long row of
the skeletons of mules and horses, which have here left their bones
for a guide across the desert. The dead animals lie like mummies,
dried and shrivelled; hair, eyes, muscles, all are there. Their
appearance presents a remarkable peculiarity. One might suppose, that
having been overtaken by death under similar circumstances, the last
struggle over, their inanimate bodies would be marked by no
characteristic and distinctive difference. But the case is otherwise.
Both mule and horse have sunk from hunger, thirst, and exhaustion; yet
the position of the two animals in their lifeless state is invariably
unlike. The horse lies outstretched, the hoof in a straight line with
the knee, the teeth half-closed--a picture of exhaustion and
resignation. The mule, on the contrary, has always the limbs drawn up,
as if from cramp; the knees are bent, and the hoofs drawn inward
towards the body; the head is thrown back, the mouth awry, and the
teeth firmly clenched. As they often lie side by side, this difference
is striking. Whence it arises, it is difficult to say; but it would
seem to denote, that the sufferings of the mule are more intense, and
its tenacity of life greater, than those of the horse.

After traversing a distance of twenty-seven leagues, we arrive at the
river. Travellers who are inured to fatigue, always make the journey
in one ride. Dr Ried accomplished the whole distance without once
dismounting. The stream is called Loa, and has its source in the snows
of the mountain-tops. In the neighbourhood of a small Indian village
called Chiuchiu, it is fed by a little volcanic stream, which contains
a large quantity of salt in a state of dissolution, besides copper,
arsenic, sulphur, and other matters. The quantity of the water is
increased by this supply, but its quality by no means improved; yet
the abominable mixture tastes on that spot like the choicest
champagne! The stream is not perceived till you stand on the very
edge. Its bed is between 300 and 400 yards broad, and is about 200 or
300 feet below the average surface of the table-land. The body of
water which forms this river is very inconsiderable, and becomes more
and more so as it nears the sea. Here Dr Reid saw some mosquitoes, as
well as a small lizard; but the presence of the quick, bright-eyed
creature in that dreary waste, rather added to the sense of
loneliness. Its very name, too (_Musca domestica_), seemed a mockery,
dwelling as it did in that vast solitude. In the water, no trace of
life was to be found. 'From the stream, which has its source in the
clouds,' writes Dr Ried to his friend, 'I took a bottleful, which I
send you to analyse, and in order that you may say you have seen water
from Atacama. I advise you, however, not to drink it.'

In the desert, it _never_ rains. At the foot of the Cordilleras--and
only at the foot--rain falls to a distance of about ten leagues
westward, but _never_ further; in Atacama, to a distance of about ten
leagues from the mountains; in Chili, to far beyond the coast.
Perhaps, however, the most extraordinary phenomenon of this strange
land, is the sudden change of temperature which takes place over the
whole desert. The heat at noon is oppressive--from 96 to 120 degrees
Fahrenheit; and this continues till four P.M., when it begins to
diminish. From ten A.M. till about sunset, there is a strong westerly
wind, blowing from the sea towards the Cordilleras. It is always
fierce, but sometimes so powerful, that it is impossible to advance
against it. When the sun is down, the wind likewise subsides, and till
nine or ten o'clock in the evening there is a perfect calm.

Sunset in these regions is a magnificent spectacle. The play of
colours in the heavens is quite indescribable. When the moon rises,
the same thing occurs. Opposite the orb, a huge pile of vapour rises
in shadowy forms, on which the light is thrown, producing the most
wonderful effects. In these chromatic displays, red is the colour that
predominates. Towards midnight, the wind begins to blow from the east,
at first gently, but icy cold, for it comes from the regions of
perpetual frost and snow. The radiation of heat from such an extensive
and almost glowing surface is naturally very great and rapid, and
after midnight it begins to freeze. An hour before sunrise, all
stagnant water is frozen over; and the thermometer falls sometimes to
28 degrees Fahrenheit--on an average it is at 32 degrees--to rise
again at noon to 90 degrees.




THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.


                                             _October_ 1852.

The death of the great Duke has for a time kept other subjects of
conversation in abeyance; but by slow degrees the old hero slides into
the past, and the tongues and pens of thousands are busily recalling
the words, works, and exploits by which he won for himself
'imperishable renown.' His life presents itself to us in different
aspects, wherein the lowliest as well as the loftiest may find
something exemplary; and all may learn a lesson in that virtue of
virtues--persevering straightforwardness. By and by, we shall have a
magnificent funeral; and then, as new events follow, we shall find
whether new men are to come capable of meeting them; whether there are
to be heroes after Agamemnon as well as before.

The remains of the Great Exhibition building are fast disappearing
from Hyde Park, under the busy hands of the troops of workmen engaged
in the business of taking down and removal. Heavily-laden wagons are
continually departing from each entrance, and every hour the
prodigious mass of materials is diminished. The spectacle is a
striking one in many respects, and would be a melancholy one were it
not for the certainty of restoration. Already the grass is beginning
to grow on the ground, worn bare by millions of feet; and before many
months are over, the greensward will again cover the site of the
world's Temple of Industry.

Among the objects of most interest to be comprised in the new Palace,
are galleries of Classic and Mediæval Art, a Nineveh and Egyptian
Court, Etruscan Restorations, Hall of the Alhambra, Court of
Inventions, besides complete illustrations of the races of Man, to be
arranged by Dr Latham, which will afford valuable aid to the student
of ethnology; and of natural history and geology, all to be
superintended by able professors. Seeing that there is talk of
enlarging the British Museum, which is not half large enough for its
purpose, might not some of its long-hidden contents be transferred,
under proper regulations, to the Palace at Sydenham?

The present year has been as remarkable for storms as the last was for
fine weather, and in parts of the world widely separated--the
continent of Europe and the United States of America, as well as our
own country. Meteorologists say, that the frequent atmospheric
disturbances will furnish us with valuable facts for theoretical and
practical use. In many places, the storms have been followed by
destructive floods, particularly in France, the effects of which, it
is said, are greatly aggravated by the spirit of modern improvement,
leading to the cutting down of trees and forests; so that the more the
land is cleared, the fiercer become the floods. It would be
interesting to test this fact by what takes place under similar
circumstances in America, where forest is in excess. The subject has
been brought before the Geological Society by Mr Prestwich, as regards
the Holmfirth flood, with a view to collect data as to the power of
moving water, the height of the flood, the time in which the water ran
off, together with exact measurements of the fall of the ground, and
the amount of denudation. All these are questions of great scientific
value in geology, because arguing from the effects produced by so
small a body of water comparatively, we may arrive at satisfactory
conclusions concerning the great floods of other ages. In the instance
here referred to, from 40,000 to 50,000 tons were carried from the dam
by the sudden rush, the greater part of which was deposited within the
first 300 feet. Lower down, from one to two feet of deposit was laid
over the meadows; rocks, weighing from five to twenty tons, were
transported to a considerable distance; and at seven miles from the
outbreak, near Huddersfield, a stratum of sand was laid over the
fields. The mention of these facts may be of service to those who have
had opportunities for observation elsewhere.

The Society have also had their attention called to disturbances of
another sort--earthquakes; of which not a few have occurred of late in
many parts of the world, our own island among them. The shocks appear
to have been most severely felt in the south-west--Cornwall, for
instance, and the neighbourhood of Bristol, where they extended over
an area of more than thirty miles. The effects have now been
accurately described: one of the shocks lasted two seconds; the other,
from ten to twelve seconds, accompanied by a rumbling noise. The line
of disturbance was from north to south, striking the Mendips, and
traversing parts of the shires of Somerset and Gloucester. 'The chief
focus of oscillation was at Cheddar, where the hill is said to have
waved to and fro during several seconds; and in the alluvial flat or
marsh below Cheddar, some houses had the plaster of the ceilings
cracked; while in others, the clocks struck, doors slammed, bells
rung, &c.' With such commotions taking place in the solid earth,
geologists will not fail of sources of interest in their favourite
study. There is yet another geological fact worth mentioning--the
finding of footprints in what is called Potsdam sandstone, near
Montreal, in Canada. This sandstone is the 'lowest member of the
lowest Silurian rocks;' and the discovery is good evidence that there
were living creatures walking on the land at the very oldest periods
hitherto revealed by geology--thus carrying back the appearance of
organic life to a time more remote than had been supposed. Professor
Owen, who has examined the slabs and casts, says, that no idea of the
creature that made the tracks can be formed from any animal at present
existing, for instead of the prints being in successive pairs, an odd
one is found to intervene. He considers it to have had three legs on
each side, and to have been neither tortoise-like nor vertebrate; and
after naming it _Protichnites_, adds: 'I incline to adopt, as the most
probable hypothesis, that the creatures which have left their tracks
and impressions on the most ancient of known sea-shores, belonged to
an articulate and probably crustaceous genus.' The fact is an
important one in a scientific point of view, and presents a new
standpoint for inquirers.

There is advancement, too, in other quarters. Faraday has been
diligently pursuing his investigations into the phenomena of
electricity and magnetism through greater part of the dead season, and
will be prepared erelong to make the results public. And Professor
Stokes's researches and experiments on light, which have been laid
before the British Association and the Royal Society, are regarded by
competent judges as the most remarkable and fruitful that have been
made for many years. Another means of advance will perhaps be found in
the new process for 'illuminating' glass, by which lenses of all
sizes, from spectacles to telescopes, may be made so much brighter and
more transparent, as to increase their power and utility to an
extraordinary degree. We are shortly to have further particulars
concerning this improvement, which, if it be such as described, and
applicable to microscopes, will perhaps enable Ehrenberg to verify the
opinions he has lately formed concerning the atmosphere--namely, that
it is not less full of organic and inorganic life than the ocean, or
any other part of creation.

Mr Westwood has read a paper before the Zoological Society, 'On the
Destructive Species of certain Insects known in Africa,' in which he
shows the probability of their having been the insects of the fourth
plague recorded in the Pentateuch. Some of them are the _Oestridæ_;
and one kind known in Africa as _Tsetse_, is so fierce and venomous,
that a few of them are sufficient to sting a horse to death: they are
the same as the _Zimb_, of which Bruce gives such a striking account.
Their presence appears to be mainly determined by the nature of the
soil, for they are seldom found away from the black earth peculiar to
the Valley of the Nile. Among the carvings on the ancient tombs, this
insect is supposed to be represented. With regard to another species
of insect, Dr Macgowan states, that the insect-wax of China, of which
400,000 pounds are produced annually, is not, as has long been
believed, a 'saliva or excrement,' but 'that the insect undergoes what
may be styled a ceraceous degeneration, its whole body being permeated
by the peculiar produce in the same manner as the _Coccus cacti_ is by
carmine.'

The Agricultural Society have announced that they will give 'L.1000
and a gold medal for the discovery of a manure equal in fertilising
properties to the Peruvian guano, and of which an unlimited supply can
be furnished to the English farmer at a rate not exceeding L.5 per
ton.' Also, 'fifty sovereigns for the best account of the geographical
distribution of guano, with suggestions for the discovery of any new
source of supply, accompanied by specimens.' To be adjudged in 1854.
They offer, likewise, fifty sovereigns for the best essays on farming
in the counties of Hereford, Surrey, and Derby; and thirty sovereigns
for the best essays on the 'management of heavy lands;' 'of light
lands;' on 'beans and peas;' 'on hereditary diseases and defects in
pigs and sheep.' These to be decided in 1853. It is something to see
agriculture thus trying to stand on its own legs.

Among minor matters, the wire-lace recently invented at Nottingham has
been talked about, and is said to be as tasteful and rich as it is
novel, for it admits of being electroplated. Shall we wear metal
clothing by and by, as well as live in metal houses? Dr Payerne has
been making experiments in submarine steam navigation at Cherbourg,
and with such success as to be able to sink his vessel at any moment,
to live in it under water, and to propel it in any given direction.
Are we to be invaded by a fleet of these artful contrivances, or is it
a preparation for the escape of the future emperor from St Helena?
There are one or two interesting facts from Australia, although not
about gold: the bodies of Dr Leichardt and some of his exploring
party, are said to have been discovered near Moreton Bay, where they
had been murdered by the natives; and Sir Thomas Mitchell, the
well-known surveyor-general, has invented a steam-propeller on the
principle of the _boomerang_, which, when applied to a boat, answered
expectation. Further experiments are to be made; meanwhile, the
inventor says, 'that the weapon of the earliest inhabitants of
Australia has now led to the determination mathematically of the true
form by which alone, on the screw principle, high speed on water can
be obtained.' The _Ericsson_ caloric ship is launched; but if a new
projector is to be believed, the maker may save himself all further
trouble, for Mr Burn proposes to build square ships, with the bottoms
constructed as double inclined planes, which shall cross from England
to America in forty-eight hours! When this scheme is realised,
travelling and flying will become synonymous terms. We are to have
another electric telegraph across the Channel: it is underground as
well as submarine, the wires being laid in wooden tubes under the old
turnpike-road from London to Dover, independent of the railway, thus
reopening a shorter as well as a competing route. The possibility of
an electric telegraph from England to America is again talked about,
and will doubtless be talked about until it is accomplished, in the
same way that the French, by dint of trying, seem determined to
succeed at last in aërial navigation, the latest exploit of that kind
having been the turning round of a cylindrical balloon in the air at
Paris by means of a small steam-engine, carried up by the apparatus.
Meanwhile, Denmark is going to link her states together by wires,
which will stretch from Copenhagen to Elsinore and Hamburg, and
include Schleswig, Zealand, and Holstein. Loke would stand no chance
now in the old Scandinavian land against the thought-flasher. The
Swedish exploring expedition is making satisfactory progress in the
southern hemisphere, and Captain von Krusenstern is fitting out a
vessel at his own cost to explore the coast of Siberia--an enterprise
which the Russians have often attempted with but partial success. The
Americans, too, are thinking of another expedition, to make such
observations and discoveries as may be useful or possible round Java,
in the China Sea, as it is called, the Kurile Islands, and Behring
Strait. Their state of California is still resorted to by the Chinese,
who now number 50,000 in their new country, and conduct themselves as
orderly and industrious citizens. There is some talk of introducing
tea-culture, for the sake of giving them employment, as their presence
at the diggings is scarcely tolerated. We are soon to know more than
at present of the geography and people of Borneo, for Madame Ida
Pfeiffer has travelled further into that country than any other
European, and is preparing a narrative of her adventures. Nearer home,
Lieutenant Van de Velde, of the Dutch navy, has been exploring the
Holy Land, in a very complete manner, and in some parts heretofore
unvisited; and when our Geographical Society meets, we shall doubtless
be informed of the chief results of his twelvemonth's toilsome and at
times dangerous travel. If Captain Allen's scheme, as laid before the
British Association, could be carried out, we should be able to
approach the region by another sea as well as the Mediterranean; for
he proposes to cut a channel from the head of the Gulf of Akabah to
the Valley of the Dead Sea, and allow the water to pour through until
the vast basin be filled to the depth of some hundreds of feet, and of
course the hollows of the surrounding country, whereby, as the
projector states, we should get a new navigable route towards India.
He omits to say whether the Arabs would want compensation for loss of
territory.

The French consul at Mosul has been making further researches in the
Ninevitish ruins, and has discovered, among other curiosities, the
wine-cellar of the Assyrian kings, with large jars, in which the royal
beverage was once contained, ranged along the sides. They are now
filled with dust and rubbish, but on emptying them, a dried purple
deposit was found at the bottom of each, thus testifying to their
former use. If this deposit is in sufficient quantity to be submitted
to chemical analysis, we might learn something respecting the nature
of really old wine. Apropos of this matter, Dr Buist says, that while
we are digging up antiquities in Mesopotamia, we are neglecting those,
not less valuable, which we have at home, particularly the Runic
stones found in Scotland. Two hundred of these are known to exist
between Edinburgh and Caithness, but some have been used as gate-posts
to a church-yard, or, as near Glammis, rubbing-posts for cattle.
Sueno's pillar, in Morayshire, is the finest. The remarkable fact
concerning these stones, is the similarity, in numerous instances
complete, of the sculptures graven on them to those at Nineveh, as
though the hyperborean and the Oriental had a common origin. 'Surely,'
adds Dr Buist, 'coincidences such as these can neither be fanciful nor
accidental; they carry us far back beyond the ages of those we call
the aborigines of Britain, as the pyramids and sculptured stones of
Yucatan precede the days of the Red Men whom Cortes found peopling
America.'

The Dutch Society of Sciences at Haarlem have published their
prize-list, in which they offer 2000 florins for the most important
discovery in natural science which shall be made between the present
year and 1856; and they propose sixty-one questions, the successful
replies to obtain a gold medal worth 150 florins, and money to the
same amount. Among them are:--The best geological description of the
principal hot springs of Europe, their position, course, and quality,
so as to show if they have any relation in common, and what relation
exists between their changes and the changes caused by earthquakes,
volcanoes, &c.--Whether, in any part of the old continents, there are
dunes or sandbanks formed, at early geological periods, in the same
way as those now existing on the coast of Holland--Whether the
sea-level is higher or lower now than formerly with regard to the
land-level of the Low Countries--On the wearing of coasts in past and
present times, and the means of prevention--Whether a profitable
manufacture of iodine may not be attempted on the shores of the
Netherlands from certain marine plants and animals--Whether the
_cinchona_ can be profitably cultivated in the Dutch colonies--On
the influence of the nerves in the origin and progress of
inflammation--Whether electricity, either static or dynamic, has
anything to do with the production of Daguerreotype figures: and one
that will interest ethnologists--The Laplanders are said to be the
remains of a people who were once numerous over great part of the
north, as the Basques are and were in the south; required, a
description of the two, with peculiarities and craniological
examinations and explanations in full detail. These are important
questions, and well worth attention; the treatises may be written in
Dutch, French, Latin, German, Italian, or English, so that aspirants
to scientific honours in most parts of Europe have now the opportunity
to prove their merits.

The forthcoming publishing season promises to be a brisk one: we are
to have good books of history, travel, and science, besides something
from Carlyle and the Laureate; and in the matter of light literature
there will be no lack; Thackeray is again in the field, with three
volumes of the old-fashioned sort, so acceptable to novel readers; and
Sir Thomas Talfourd has found time for literary as well as legal work.
A learned Hindoo, after thirty-five years of labour, has just
completed a Sanscrit Encyclopædia--a desirable work for scholars; and
the United States' government have published a second volume of the
great work on the Indian tribes--a handsome book to look at, but less
valuable than it might have been had proper care been bestowed on its
contents. The Smithsonian Institution have brought out the third and
fourth volumes of their _Contributions to Knowledge_--one of the two
being a 'Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language,' the work of
missionaries who, eighteen years ago, settled in the Minnesota Valley,
to teach and reclaim the Sioux or Dakotas, who number about 25,000.
Among the reasons assigned for the publication of the handsome quarto,
they state: 'Our object was to preach the Gospel to the Dakotas in
their own language, and to teach them to read and write the same,
until their circumstances should be so changed as to enable them to
learn the English.' As the Smithsonian Institution distribute their
publications to most of the scientific societies of Europe, our
learned men will have ample means to avail themselves of their
contents, and thus help to promote their object--'the diffusion of
knowledge among men.'




THE POET'S POWER.


    Ay, scorn the Poet's Power,
    Darken with doubt his glory,
    Burst thou the spirit-spell he weaveth o'er thee,
    Till earthward bowed thine heart in youth's warm hour
    Grow hard as sinner hoary,
    Scorning the Poet's Power!

    Yet know the Poet's song
    Recks not thy spirit's spurning,
    But soars to Heaven's high throne, and thence returning,
    Gladdens the heart to which its strains belong,
    A rich reward still earning--
    The Poet's sainted song.

    Wo when the Poet's word
    No more man's soul awaketh,
    Nor on his clouded eye faith's vision breaketh!
    Wo when the world's cold heart no more is stirred,
    Though trumpet-tongued it speaketh--
    The Poet's prophet-word!

    Welcome the Poet's Power,
    Nor deem he idly dreameth:
    The light that on his heaven-borne spirit streameth,
    Is but a ray of truth from Eden's bower.
    When Love this earth redeemeth,
    How vast the Poet's Power!

                                        FRITZ.




IMPORTANCE OF THE CULTIVATION OF THE SENSES.


How our hearts bound to the spirited strains of martial music! how we
thrill to the shout of the multitude! and how many a David has charmed
away evil spirits by the melody of beautiful sounds! Neither is it a
passing emotion of little moment in our lives we receive from the
senses, for they are our perpetual body-guards, surrounding us
unceasingly; and these constantly repeated impressions become powerful
agents in life; they refine or beautify our souls, they ennoble or
degrade them, according to the beautiful or mean objects which
surround us. A dirty, slovenly dress will exert an evil moral
influence upon the child; it will aid in destroying its self-respect;
it will incline it to habits which correspond with such a garment. The
beautiful scenes through which a child wanders, playing by the
sea-shore, or on the mountain-side, will always be remembered; the
treasures of shell and seaweed, brought from wonderful ocean caverns,
the soft green moss, where the fairies have danced, and the flowers
that have sprung up under their footsteps, will leave a trace of
beauty, of mystery, and strange happiness wherever its later life may
be cast. The senses mingle powerfully in all the influences of
childhood. It is not merely the loving of parents, the purity and
truthfulness of the family relations, that make home so precious a
recollection; there are visions of winter evenings, with the curtains
drawn, the fire blazing, and gay voices or wonderful picture-books;
there are summer rambles in the cool evening, when the delicious
night-breeze fanned the cheek, and we gazed into the heavens to search
out the bright stars. It is, then, most important in educating
children to guard the senses from evil influences, to furnish them
with pure and beautiful objects. Each separate sense should preserve
its acuteness of faculty: the eye should not be injured by resting on
a vulgar confusion of colours, or clumsy, ill-proportioned forms; the
ear should not be falsified by discordant sounds, and harsh, unloving
voices; the nose should not be a receptacle for impure odours: each
sense should be preserved in its purity, and the objects supplied to
them should be filled with moral suggestion and true sentiment; the
house, the dress, the food, may preach to the child through its
senses, and aid its growth in quite another way from the protection
afforded, or the good blood which feeds its organs.--_Blackwell's Laws
of Life._




AN AMERICAN NOTION.


In this book-making age, every man rushes to the press with his small
morsel of imbecility, his little piece of favourite nonsense, and is
not easy till he sees his impertinence stitched in blue covers. Some
one possesses the vivacity of a harlequin--he is fuddled with animal
spirits, giddy with constitutional joy; in such a state, he must write
or burst: a discharge of ink is an evacuation absolutely necessary to
avoid fatal and plethoric congestion. A musty and limited pedant
yellows himself a little among rolls and records, plunders a few
libraries, and, lo! we have an entire new work by the learned Mr
Dunce, and that after an incubation of only one month. He is, perhaps,
a braggadocio of minuteness, a swaggering chronologer, a man bristling
up with small facts, prurient with dates, wantoning in obsolete
evidence. No matter; there are plenty of newspapers who are constantly
lavishing their praises upon small men and bad books. A mendacious
press will puff the book through a brief season, and then it will go
to feed the devouring maw of the past.--_New York Chronicle._




                        NEW PERIODICAL.

                          CHAMBERS'S
                          REPOSITORY
                             OF
               INSTRUCTIVE AND AMUSING TRACTS.

   _The First Tract to be issued on the First Saturday of November._

The success which has hitherto attended Messrs Chambers's exertions in
the preparation of a cheap and improving kind of literature, induces
them to announce a new literary periodical, under the title of
REPOSITORY OF INSTRUCTIVE AND AMUSING TRACTS. This Work, to resemble
in some respects the MISCELLANY OF TRACTS completed a few years ago,
will aim at a higher, though not less popular tone, and satisfy, it is
hoped, the new requirements of the day in regard to literary elegance.
In carrying on the undertaking, Messrs CHAMBERS will be assisted by
skilled writers in various departments; and as the whole of the Tracts
will be under their own editorial supervision, they can with
confidence offer the REPOSITORY as a fitting companion to the family
circle. Each of the Tracts will embrace a single subject, varied to
suit different ages and tastes. An important object will be to furnish
innocent entertainment, mingled with correct information and sound
instruction, under the control of good taste, and free, as far as
possible, from controversial matter. The Editors, therefore, trust
that the present Series of Tracts will take as prominent a part as the
former in that department of the great business of educating the
People which is committed to the untrammelled agency of the Press.

The REPOSITORY will consist of a series of Penny Sheets, issued
Weekly; Four to constitute a Monthly Part, at _Fivepence_, and Eight
to form a Two-Monthly Volume, neatly done up in coloured fancy boards,
at _One Shilling_. Where it appears desirable, Wood-engravings will be
introduced. Each Volume will possess a neat engraved Title-page.

       *       *       *       *       *

Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh.
Also sold by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London; D. N. CHAMBERS, 55 West
Nile Street, Glasgow; and J. M'GLASHAN, 50 Upper Sackville Street,
Dublin.--Advertisements for Monthly Parts are requested to be sent to
MAXWELL, & Co., 31 Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, London, to whom all
applications respecting their insertion must be made.





End of Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461, by Various