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LEVI COFFIN.


The Coffyns or Coffins are a Devonshire family, said to have been
founded by one of the followers of the Conqueror. In 1642 Tristram
Coffyn, a son of this old house, sailed from Plymouth for New England,
taking with him his wife and five children, his mother and two
sisters. He settled at Salisbury, in the colony of Massachusetts, and
his descendants are now to be found in many of the States. Several
of them have won themselves a name of note in the service of their
country; but none has a higher claim to the remembrance, not only of
their fellow-citizens but of all who honour worth wherever it is to be
found, than Levi Coffin, whose memoirs lie before us under the title of
_Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President of the Underground
Railroad, being a brief History of the Labours of a Lifetime on behalf
of the Slave_ (London: Sampson Low, 1876). His tale, told in plain
homely language, is a stirring one, and shews us a phase of American
life which is happily a thing of the past; for now that slavery is
abolished there is no longer any need for the devoted labours of the
true-hearted men who by means of the once famous ‘Underground Railroad’
helped the fugitive slave on his way to the land of freedom—over the
Canadian border and into British territory, where, and where only, he
was safe from kidnappers and hunters.

Levi Coffin was born in 1798. His father was a member of a colony of
the Society of Friends, settled at New Garden in North Carolina; and he
himself has always belonged to that religious profession. One day when
he was about seven years old he was standing beside his father, who was
chopping up some wood at a little distance from the house. Along the
road came a coffle or gang of slaves, chained in couples on each side
of a long chain which extended between them. At some distance behind
came the slave-dealer with a wagon-load of supplies. Levi’s father
spoke pleasantly to the slaves. ‘Well boys,’ he said, ‘why do they
chain you?’ One of them replied for the rest: ‘They have taken us away
from our wives and children, and they chain us lest we should make our
escape and go back to them.’ The gang tramped off along the dusty road;
and in answer to the child’s eager questions, his father told him what
slavery was; and little Levi endeavoured to realise the troubles of the
poor men he had just seen, by thinking—‘How terribly we should feel if
father were taken away from us!’

This was the first outbreak of a feeling which influenced his whole
life. He began his work early. At fifteen years of age he was the means
of enabling a slave—who had been kidnapped near Baltimore and brought
into North Carolina—to escape from the slave-dealer’s gang. He was also
often of service to runaway slaves, who used to conceal themselves in
the daytime in the woods and thickets near his father’s house at New
Garden, by going out to them with a small store of provisions, which he
distributed to those he found there.

In 1826 Levi Coffin removed to Newport, Indiana, where he took a shop
and began business. He was soon a prosperous man; and ten years after
he was able to set up a large oil-factory. His place in Newport soon
became one of the ‘stations’ of the Underground Railroad. This was a
secret organisation for facilitating the escape of slaves from the
Southern States to Canada. It was neither planned nor organised by
any one man; it had grown up gradually, to supply a want felt by the
Abolitionist party. A slave escaped from a plantation would without
it have no means of travelling rapidly, of obtaining relief, or of
finding friends to conceal him, and his hope of safety would depend
only upon a series of lucky chances and accidents. Gradually, however,
along the routes by which the slaves usually escaped certain houses
came to be known as those to which the fugitives could safely apply
for assistance. These routes were in the secret language of the U.
G. R. R. (Underground Railroad) known as lines, and the houses were
called ‘stations.’ In course of time the lines were so well organised
that in every town along the route there was a director who had at his
command a number of hiding-places for slaves, funds collected for
their relief, wagons for passing them on by night to the next station,
and means of acquiring information as to any pursuit that might be
attempted.

‘I kept,’ says Levi Coffin, ‘a team and wagon always at command, to
convey the fugitive slaves on their journey. These journeys had to be
made at night, often through deep and bad roads, and along by-ways
that were seldom travelled. Every precaution to evade pursuit had to
be used, as the hunters were often on the track, and sometimes ahead
of the slaves. We had different routes for sending the slaves to
depôts ten, fifteen, or twenty miles distant; and when we heard of
slave-hunters having passed on one road, we forwarded our passengers
by another. Sometimes we learned that the pursuers were ahead of them;
and we sent a messenger and had the fugitives brought back to my house,
to lie in concealment till they had lost the trail.... Three principal
lines from the south converged at my house—one from Cincinnati, one
from Madison, and one from Jeffersonville, Indiana. There was no lack
of passengers. Seldom a week passed without our receiving them. We
knew not what night or what hour of the night we would be roused from
slumber by a gentle rap at the door; that was the signal announcing the
arrival of a train of the U. G. R. R. I have often been awaked by this
signal, and sprung out of bed in the dark and opened the door. Outside
in the cold or rain there would be a two-horse wagon loaded with
fugitives, perhaps the greater part of them women and children. When
they were all safely inside and the door fastened, I would cover the
windows, strike a light, and build a good fire. By this time my wife
would be up and preparing victuals for them; and in a short time the
cold and hungry fugitives would be made comfortable. I would accompany
the conductor of the train’ [that is, the driver of the wagon; in
America the guard of a railway train is always called the conductor]
‘to the stable, and care for the horses, that had perhaps been driven
twenty-five or thirty miles that night through the cold and rain.
The fugitives would rest on pallets before the fire the rest of the
night. The companies varied in number from two or three to seventeen
fugitives.’

Such was the work which for twenty years this good man carried on
in Newport. He had often to set his wits hard at work to foil the
slave-hunters, and more than once ran serious personal risk. The whole
undertaking must have cost him a heavy expenditure of time, labour,
and money. But he was not content with this. He organised in Newport a
store where cotton goods were sold that had been manufactured entirely
by free labour; and for this purpose took a journey to the South to
establish relations with planters who employed only freemen. He and his
friends then formed a league, each member of which bound himself to
purchase no goods on the production of which slaves had been employed.

In 1847 he removed to Cincinnati, and took charge of one of the most
important points in the system of the U. G. R. R. Cincinnati is built
on the northern bank of the Ohio River, and thus stood on the very
frontier of the slave-land, the opposite shore belonging to the slave
state of Kentucky. Here his work went on for about fifteen years, till
the war put an end to slavery in the United States. He tells in his
_Reminiscences_ many a stirring story of the escape of fugitives that
he passed on to Canada. For these we must refer our readers to the book
itself. He was so active, enterprising, and successful that he received
the name of ‘President of the Underground Railroad.’ Everywhere he
had the fullest confidence reposed in him by the coloured people; and
often those who had escaped to Canada would send him their savings, to
be employed in buying their relatives and friends out of captivity in
the South by a fair bargain with the planters. It may be safely said
that his whole life was passed in the cause of promoting the freedom
of the slave; and he always found willing helpers and allies, mostly
men of his own religious persuasion. He always confined his operations
to concealing the slaves that came or were brought to him, and helping
them upon their way to Canada or to some free state. He would never
actually lure a slave from a plantation; and he condemned any active
or forcible resistance to the law, even when it was exercised upon the
side of slavery.

A man of quite a different stamp was John Fairfield, another agent of
the Underground Railroad, but whom Levi Coffin with his Quaker peace
principles could never forgive for making the revolver an auxiliary
in his work. ‘With all his faults,’ he says, ‘and misguided impulses
and wicked ways, Fairfield was a brave man; he never betrayed a trust
that was reposed in him, and he was a true friend to the oppressed and
suffering slave.’ Fairfield was a Virginian; and his earliest exploit
had been to run away to Canada from his uncle’s plantation taking
one of the slaves with him. From that time till he died he passed
an adventurous life, visiting once or twice in the year Virginia or
Kentucky, establishing relations with the slaves upon a plantation, and
then leading them to Canada. He was soon known to many of the refugees
settled there, and they would ask him to bring them their relatives
from the Southern plantations, sometimes offering him money they had
saved as payment for his exertions.

‘Fairfield,’ says Levi Coffin, ‘was a young man without family, and
was fond of adventure and excitement. He wanted employment, and
agreed to take the money offered by the fugitives and engage in the
undertaking. He obtained the names of masters and slaves, and an exact
knowledge of the different localities to be visited, then acted as his
shrewd judgment dictated under different circumstances. He would go
South, into the neighbourhood where the slaves were whom he intended
to conduct away, and under an assumed name and a false pretence of
business, would board perhaps at the house of the master whose stock of
valuable property he intended to decrease. He would proclaim himself
to be a Virginian, and profess to be strongly pro-slavery in his
sentiments, thus lulling the suspicions of the slaveholders, while
he established a secret understanding with the slaves, gaining their
confidence, and making arrangements for their escape. Then he would
suddenly disappear from the neighbourhood, and several slaves would be
missing at the same time. Fairfield was always ready to take money for
his services from the slaves if they had it to offer; but if they had
not he helped them all the same. He was equally ready to spend it in
the same cause, and if necessary would part with his last dollar to
effect his object.’

Often he would bring a negro or two with him, who would act as his
slaves, and whom he would pretend to treat very roughly. These would
act as his intermediaries with the men he hoped to rescue. On one
occasion he rescued a large number of men from the salt-works on the
Kanawha River in Virginia. He assumed the character of a salt-dealer,
and had two large boats built on the river for his business. When the
boats were finished, a crowd of negroes escaped in them down the river
towards the Ohio. As soon as the alarm was given, he pretended to be
very anxious to aid in recapturing his boats and the escaped slaves.
He rode off at the head of the pursuers, directed the chase, and when
they found the abandoned boats on the river-bank, he suggested that
they should scatter in various directions, and meet in a few hours to
report if they had got any traces of the fugitives. He never appeared
at the rendezvous; he had joined the slaves at a previously appointed
spot, and was conducting them to one of the stations on the Underground
Railroad _en route_ for Canada. He generally marched at night, and
rested in concealment in the daytime.

Often on these journeys he had to fight his way through patrols
of slave-hunters. One moonlight night he had a narrow escape. The
patrollers had found his track, and gathered a body of armed men,
and lay in ambush waiting for him at both ends of a bridge which his
party of fugitives had to cross. Fairfield always armed his men with
revolvers, and told them that he would shoot down any one who would
not fight for his freedom. On this occasion he was taken by surprise.
As the party gained the centre of the bridge they were fired upon from
both ends of it. ‘They thought, no doubt,’ said Fairfield, ‘that this
sudden attack would intimidate us, and that we would surrender; but in
this they were mistaken. I ordered my men to charge to the front, and
they did charge. We fired as we went, and the men in ambush scattered
and ran like scared sheep.’ Fairfield’s clothes were torn by balls, and
he and one of his party were slightly wounded. Levi reproved him for
trying to kill any one, and told him that we should love our enemies.
Fairfield’s reply was characteristic. ‘Love our enemies, indeed! I do
not intend to hurt people if they keep out of the way; but if they
step in between me and liberty they must take the consequences.’ Levi
naïvely adds: ‘I saw it was useless to preach peace principles to
Fairfield.’ Such a man could only have one end. There is reason to
believe that shortly before the outbreak of the war in 1861 he was
detected arming the negroes in Tennessee, and was lynched by a Southern
mob. He had been twelve years engaged in his daring work among the
plantations.

The abolition of slavery by the war did not put an end to Levi Coffin’s
labours for the negroes; it only gave them another form. It became
necessary to provide for the thousands to whom a sweeping measure of
emancipation had given their freedom and nothing more, in many cases
casting them adrift upon the world without any resource, for at the
end of the war trade was bad and employment scarce. Relief societies
for the freedmen were formed throughout the States. Levi Coffin took
a leading part in this work; and when it was decided to send a
delegate to ask for aid from England, he was chosen for this important
post. In the summer of 1864 he arrived in London with credentials
and introductions to various public men. At his first meeting held
in London for the freedmen he was supported by Messrs John Bright,
W. E. Forster, Samuel Gurney, and other members of parliament. A
second meeting followed at Mr Gurney’s house. Levi Coffin notes with
satisfaction that ‘it was quite aristocratic in character, being
largely composed of lords, dukes, bishops, and members of parliament.’
A London Freedmen’s Aid Society was organised with several prominent
men upon its committee. Branches were established and meetings held
throughout England and Ireland. Levi Coffin spoke at all these
meetings. Perhaps many of our readers will remember having heard him.

Having finished his work in England, he went over to France and
continued it there; and when, after having been more than twelve months
in Europe, he returned to Cincinnati in 1865, he had the satisfaction
of knowing that his journey had borne rich fruit for the freedmen. He
paid another visit to Europe in 1867 as a delegate to an Anti-slavery
Congress in Paris. With the account of this journey his book of
interesting _Reminiscences_ concludes. We heartily recommend it to
our readers. If nothing else, it shews how much one earnest man can
accomplish in a lifetime for a cause that he has thoroughly at heart.




HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.


CHAPTER XXIX.—FOUND.

By some seeming irony of Fate, it is when our fortunes have ebbed to
their lowest, and all seems cold, bleak, and dreary in the threatening
horizon before us, that light begins to break in upon the oppressive
darkness. That we are never so likely to fall as when we deem ourselves
to stand in boastful security, proud of our seeming strength, is a
truth which the historical student will not be slow to recognise. Down
comes the thunderbolt from a clear sky, toppling over to shameful
ruin the gilded image propped on feet of sorry clay. But there is a
substratum of fact whereon is reared the homely proverb which declares
that when things are at the worst they will mend.

For all that, we cannot wrap ourselves in a comfortable mantle of
indolent fatalism, assured that our shortcomings will be compensated
by some extraordinary turn of Fortune’s wheel. It so happens that we
are often too dull of vision to know the heavenly messenger when we
see him. Our deaf ears fail to catch the strain of hope. We miss the
tide that offered to bear our argosy to port. The grass grows, but the
steed, all unwitting of the green meadow hard by, starves within a
stone’s throw of plenty. Chatterton was not the only one who, goaded
by despair, has taken the leap in the dark at the very moment when
kind hands were held out to lead the truant into the goodly fellowship
of honest men. A great hush and stillness had fallen upon those who
were shut up in the Hunger Hole. There was that in the situation
which forbade useless words. It was getting late. There was every
probability of spending the night and the morrow in that dismal place.
That amount of imprisonment entailed cold and misery, perhaps an
attack of marsh-fever, since the air from Bitternley Swamp was likely
to be fraught with the seeds of ague. But twenty-four hours—thirty-six
hours—might not see the end of the captivity of Ethel and Lady Alice,
and in that case——

How strange that any one should run the risk of being starved to death,
in this blatant nineteenth century of ours, when road and rail, gas and
press, have opened up so many an old-world nook, and dragged so many an
abuse into the killing light of day. Yet Dartmoor remains Dartmoor, and
it is quite possible to be smothered in its snows, sunk in its swamps,
or to wander among its blinding mists until the deadly chill of fatigue
benumbs the wearied limbs, for there are wildernesses yet where Nature
is more than a match for man.

The fickle beauty of the day had not lasted. Clouds went driving by;
that much could be distinguished by gazing up through the narrow
space which weeds and leaves left free. And presently it began to
rain, and the moaning wind grew shrill, and rushed with strange and
mournful dissonance through the recesses of the cavern. ‘It is all my
fault—mine!’ sobbed Lady Alice, nestling at Ethel’s side. ‘I would not
say a word, before starting, about the Hunger Hole, for fear the elders
should object; and now I am caught in my own trap. It’s very hard on
you though, Miss Gray.’

Ethel bore up bravely, but she was far from feeling the calm that
she affected. Perhaps Lady Alice was too positive in her conviction
of the hopelessness of their condition; but if the attention of the
seekers was diverted into false channels, who could tell what might
result before a happy accident should bring aid? It was for her pupil
that she feared, not for herself. In the event of long detention in
that wretched place, a large-eyed, excitable slip of a girl, of high
spirit but delicate temperament, could scarcely be expected to endure
hardships which Ethel, in the bloom of perfect health, might be able to
support. It was growing late, and perceptibly colder. Night would be
upon them soon, and then——

And then the morrow would dawn laggingly, and hope would leap up a
little at the sight of welcome daylight, and flag and droop as the
hours went by and relief came not. That Lady Alice could live through
a second night in that chill atmosphere of the cave, and without
sustenance, Ethel did not believe.

‘How cold it strikes!’ said the young girl almost peevishly, as she
shivered and pressed closer to Ethel. ‘I am afraid though,’ she added,
more gently after a while, ‘that we shall be colder yet before the end
of this.’

As the moaning wind swept by, and the patter of the rain that lashed
the outer walls of the grotto grew louder, Ethel listened, with a
sense of hearing which her anxiety had sharpened, for any sound that
might indicate that help was near. But no! There was nothing to be
distinguished save the beating of the rain, the mournful cadence of the
wind, and the dull regular drip of the water that trickled from the
spring, and fell deep down, to the hidden waters at the bottom of the
abyss.

Was that the tread of a horse? Fancy plays strange tricks with those
who watch, but surely that sound resembled nothing so much as the quick
beat of hoofs upon grass or heather. Then the sound ceased, and a long
tantalising pause succeeded. Ethel began to imagine that her senses
must have played her false. No; for the rattling of loose stones,
disturbed by a human foot, at the outer portal of the Hunger Hole, came
at last to confirm the first impression that a horse’s tramp had really
sounded near, and then a man’s form darkened the doorway between the
two caves.

‘Alice, look up! We are found!’ cried Ethel, starting from the rocky
bench; and almost at the same instant a voice, the very sound of which
sent the blood madly coursing through her veins, exclaimed: ‘There
_is_ some one here then. Alice—Miss Gray, can it be you? Ah! I see how
it is,’ added the speaker, as his further progress was barred by the
gaping chasm, while his foot struck against a fragment of the broken
bridge, yet clinging to its rusted holdfast in the rock. The voice was
Lord Harrogate’s.

‘What good angel sent you to our help, brother?’ said young Lady
Alice, laughing and crying all at once, now that the tension of her
overstrained nerves had slackened.

‘She is a moorland angel, and here she is to answer for herself,’
returned the young man, as Betty Mudge, hot and panting, appeared
beside him in the entrance of the cavern. ‘This good girl must have
wings, I think, as well as a sharp pair of eyes. She almost kept
up with my horse as we crossed the moorland, avoiding Bitternley
Swamp, where _Bay Middleton_ could never have made his way over the
treacherous peat-hags. I can guess now how this awkward business
happened.’

‘But how to get at you, now I have found you!’ added Lord Harrogate in
some perplexity, after a pause. It was provoking, to be baffled by the
eleven feet of sheer black emptiness that lay between the wet outer
grotto and the dry inner compartment of the cave.

‘Some one will perhaps arrive before long. A plank put across the gap
would set us free,’ said Ethel, advancing to the edge of the chasm.

‘I wanted to jump it, but Miss Gray would not let me try,’ called out
Lady Alice.

‘And Miss Gray was quite right, Miss Madcap,’ answered her brother,
scanning the width of the abyss. ‘An uglier jump, or a less inviting, I
never saw—at all events for a young lady to venture on. The worst of it
is, that nobody excepting myself and this excellent Betty Mudge here,
is in the secret of the Hunger Hole; so nobody is coming with ropes
or planks or civilised contrivances of any sort. I have tied my horse
to a bush below, just by the dead alder-tree; but I can’t well make a
suspension-bridge out of reins and saddle-girths, after all.’

‘Please ye, my lord,’ put in Betty, who had by this time recovered her
breath—‘please ye, I might run across to Farmer Fletcher’s town, and
ask him to get chaise ready for the ladies, and send some of his men
with things ’cross Swamp.’

This was a very sensible proposition, for Mr Fletcher was the farmer
who dwelt on the ridge, and at whose ‘town’ or farm-house, clustered
round by cottages for the labourers who tilled the fields of that
little oasis in the desert, the pony and wagonette had been left. The
pony and wagonette had long since returned to High Tor in charge of the
lad in the Earl’s livery, who had sounded the first note of alarm as
to the probable fate of the missing ones; but the farmer possessed a
green chaise and a serviceable cob to draw it, and would of course send
over all that was needed.

‘Better ask him then, from me, to send his chaise to the Crossroads,
at the north end of the Heronmere. Bitternley Swamp will not be dry
walking after the rain,’ said Lord Harrogate.

Betty vanished on her errand like a fog-wreath at sunrise.

‘Now let me see what I can do single-handed towards the good work,’
said Lord Harrogate. ‘It strikes me that the withered tree I spoke of,
close to which my nag is tethered, might do good service now. There is
something ignominious in being balked by a ditch like that.’

He went, and shortly returned, dragging after him the torn-up trunk of
the alder of which he had spoken. Lady Alice clapped her hands. ‘I like
a man to be strong!’ she said applaudingly. Ethel said nothing, but her
colour heightened and her eyes grew bright. All women do admire the
manly virtues in a man, and strength, like courage and truth and wit,
takes rank among them.

The uprooted alder-tree bridged the chasm, with some two feet to spare
on each bank, and Lord Harrogate tested it with his foot, and assured
himself that it would bear a considerable weight. With his handkerchief
he tied one end of it tightly to the iron holdfast belonging to the
broken bridge, and crossing with a light and elastic step to the other
side, with no trifling difficulty persuaded the two girls to follow his
example.

‘I am afraid we were sad cowards,’ said Ethel, when at last the dreaded
passage had been effected, not very promptly or easily, for the narrow
tree afforded but a sorry and unsteady foothold, and there was that in
the recollection of the ghastly depth below, and the remembrance of the
narrowness and slippery roundness of the crackling tree-trunk beneath
the feet, that was not unlikely to affect feminine nerves. Yet, propped
by Lord Harrogate’s arm, and encouraged by Lord Harrogate’s voice, with
shut eyes and scarcely throbbing hearts, the two girls did manage to
get across.

Then came the hasty traversing of the damp outer cave, the emerging
into the fresh free air from what had seemed a grave closing its hungry
jaws upon the living, and then the long walk through the brooding
twilight to the north end of Heronmere, where, thanks to the trusty
Betty’s winged feet, Farmer Fletcher’s green chaise was in readiness
to receive the two half-fainting girls, and where at length Lord
Harrogate, who had hitherto led _Bay Middleton_ by the bridle, as he
walked beside the rescued prisoners of the Hunger Hole, was able to
spring again into the saddle.

To Betty Mudge, as Lord Harrogate laughingly declared when he had
escorted his sister and her governess safely back to High Tor, where
the warmest welcome awaited those for whom the neighbourhood was
already in full search, the whole credit of the rescue was due. Betty
it was who, mushroom-gathering on the moor, had espied the signal of
distress, Ethel’s handkerchief, fluttering from the slender top of the
hazel-tree that rose like a thin flagstaff above the rocks. Betty it
was who, divining mischief where duller eyes might have seen nothing
but a hazard or a frolicsome prank, had been making her way towards the
Hunger Hole, when she caught sight of Lord Harrogate spurring across
the moor in aimless quest of the missing ones. And if there could be
faith put in the word of as worthy an Earl and as estimable a Countess
as any in the peerage, the wind of adversity should never more be
suffered to blow too bitingly, for Betty’s sake, on any of the Mudge
family.

‘I shall ask Morford, as a particular favour, not to repair that
bridge,’ said Lord Harrogate jestingly. ‘No chance then that the Hunger
Hole should turn again into a trap for catching young ladies.’


CHAPTER XXX.—MAN PROPOSES.

‘Harrogate is going, you know, to leave us so very soon,’ Lady Maud
De Vere had said, in her kindly matter-of-fact way, in the course
of conversation with Ethel Gray; and Ethel had turned away her face
instinctively, lest the burning blush which rose there unbidden should
betray her secret to her pupil’s sister and her own friend. Poor Ethel
had communed with her heart in the still hours of more than one night
since the evening that had witnessed her release from the Hunger Hole,
and she could not but acknowledge to herself that she loved Lord
Harrogate.

It was not a welcome conviction that forced itself gradually upon
Ethel Gray. The attachment, hopeless as it perforce was, was a thing
to be deplored, a misfortune; not a source of joy. Lord Harrogate
could be nothing to her. He was almost as remote from her humble
sphere of life as a Prince of the blood-royal would have been. There
are girls who know, where their own personal vanity is at stake, no
distinction of ranks, and would set their caps without compunction at
an Emperor. Ethel was none of these. To fall in love, even with an
object as hopelessly out of reach as one of the fixed stars would be,
is a forlorn privilege which has been claimed in every age by very
humble persons of either sex. But to Ethel’s proud, maidenly heart
it was pain, not pleasure, to know that the future Earl, the future
master of High Tor, had grown to be dearer to her than was well for her
peace of mind. That she was in his eyes merely Miss Gray, his sister’s
governess, was to her thinking a certainty. And she did not even wish
that it were otherwise. Why should there be two persons unhappy, on
such a subject, instead of one? It was much better as it was. She had
begun to love him before, in that desolate cavern on the moor, he
had appeared as the harbinger of safety. But she had not admitted to
herself that this was so, until the whirl of strong feelings consequent
on the danger and the deliverance had taught her to read her own heart,
and to learn that his image was garnered in its innermost core. And
now he was going away, going very soon. Well, it was better so. A
young man such as he was could not always be expected to linger in a
country-house. He was going, and she should see him no more. Doubtless
it was for the best.

She was in the garden, and alone. A governess is seldom alone. But
lessons were over for the day; and Lady Alice her pupil was up-stairs
finishing a sketch, and Ethel had strayed out into what, from some
household tradition of a foreign florist who had been invoked, when
Anne was Queen, to shape and stock the flower-beds and to trim the
luxuriant holly-hedge into Netherlandish neatness, was called the
Dutch garden. A pleasant spot it was, with its wealth of fragrant
old-fashioned roses and gorgeous display of variegated tulips, screened
by the immemorial holly-hedge from the rude north-east wind.

Quite suddenly, as she reached the other end of the holly-hedge, Ethel
looked up at the rustle of the crisp green leaves, against which some
one or something had brushed in passing, and her eyes met those of Lord
Harrogate. The latter lifted his hat, but did not immediately speak,
while Ethel neither spoke nor stirred. When the thoughts have been busy
in conjuring up the image of a particular person, and the original of
the air-drawn portrait appears, a kind of dreamy appreciativeness,
which is of all sensations the most unlike to surprise, is apt to
result. It was so in this case; and for a few brief instants Ethel
looked at Lord Harrogate as she would have looked at his picture on the
wall.

‘I thought I might find you here,’ said Lord Harrogate, dissolving
the spell by the sound of his voice. ‘I hoped I should,’ he added, in
a lower and more meaning tone. Ethel murmured something, stooping as
she did so to lift the drooping tendril of a standard rose-tree beaten
down by the heavy rain of yesterday. ‘Can you guess at all, Miss Gray,’
continued the young man, with an evident effort to speak carelessly and
confidently, ‘why I wanted to find you here—and alone?’

It was not quite a fair question. Ethel, in her simple honesty, not
caring to enter on a course of that verbal fencing which comes so
naturally to a woman whose heart has not yet learned to speak, made no
reply. Her colour deepened, and she became very intent indeed upon the
bruised trail of the rose-tree.

‘I am going away, as you know, and that very soon. My plans for the
winter are quite undecided. I may not be back at High Tor for a good
while,’ said the heir to that mansion.

Now there were to be certain autumn manœuvres in the open country
near Aldershot Camp, in which that regiment of militia in which Lord
Harrogate was a captain, and towards the perfection of whose drill and
discipline he was thought to have contributed more than most militia
officers find it convenient to do, had been selected to figure among
the auxiliary forces on that occasion.

‘Some friends want me,’ explained Lord Harrogate, ‘when our amateur
soldiering is over, to go with them on a yacht-cruise in the
Mediterranean, and so on to Egypt, and perhaps farther. What I choose
will very much depend on you, Miss Gray.’

‘On me!’ She could not avoid answering this time, and her tone was one
of genuine surprise. ‘On me, Lord Harrogate!’

‘On you. I should like all my plans to have some reference to
you—Ethel!’ said the young man, trying to get a full view of the
beautiful blushing face that was half averted. ‘I say again, can you
guess why?’

‘Do not ask me to guess,’ returned Ethel, with a trembling lip. She was
very much frightened. She had not the least experience in that science
of flirtation in which the modern young lady graduates so early. But
she divined that words had been said which rendered it necessary
that other words should be spoken, and with what result! Could it
be that the end of the interview would be the dashing down of the
half-idolised image that her fancy had set up as the emblem of pure
chivalry?

‘Only because I love you—love you very dearly, Ethel!’ said the heir of
High Tor; and as he spoke he took her unresisting hand in his and drew
her towards him. For a moment Ethel was spellbound, her whole faculties
absorbed in the one fact that he had told her that he loved her. Come
what might, those words—those dear delicious words had sunk into her
ear, and the memory of them must remain to the end of what would very
likely be a lonely, loveless life; a treasure, her very own, of which
none could rob her! But in the next minute Ethel drew her hand away
from the hand that held it, and the crimson of indignant anger mounted
to her cheek.

‘My lord,’ she said, in a voice that all her wish to speak and act
calmly could not render quite steady, ‘you should not have done this. I
could not have believed it of you. It is not generous. It is not like
yourself.’

‘Why not?’ Lord Harrogate blundered out the words awkwardly enough; but
Ethel misunderstood him.

‘Because,’ she said firmly, ‘my position beneath your mother’s roof,
in its very lowliness, ought to have been my protection from insult,
which’——

‘Insult!’ flashed out Lord Harrogate, reddening too, and breaking
almost roughly in on the girl’s half-uttered speech. ‘Can you deem
that I mean to insult you when I tell you of my love—that I speak
insolently, Miss Gray, when I ask you to be my wife?’

Ethel quivered from head to foot as her half-incredulous ears drank in
the words. ‘You meant—that is’—— she faltered out feebly.

‘I meant this,’ said Lord Harrogate earnestly. ‘Miss Gray—Ethel,
darling, I have learned during the time that I have known you, to love
you with a true and honest love. I am a clumsy wooer, I daresay, but
surely you cannot have deemed that I had any other thought than that of
asking you, for weal and woe, to share my fortunes?’

He tried to take her hand; but she eluded his grasp, and covering her
face, sobbed aloud.

‘Come, Ethel, come, my love! Let it be mine to dry those tears!’ said
the young man, passing his arm round her waist; but gently and firmly
she released herself.

‘You have made me very happy and very miserable all at once, my lord,’
she said, turning round and facing him; ‘but believe me, there must
be no more of this. I thank you from my heart for the very great
compliment of your preference for a girl so humbly born, without
fortune or kindred. But I am your sister’s governess; and it shall
never be said that Ethel Gray brought disunion and sorrow upon the
noble family that had received her with so kindly a welcome. I have my
own ideas of right and wrong, Lord Harrogate, and I know that I should
be mean and base, even in my own eyes, were I to avail myself of—your
great goodness.’

He was taken by surprise. He had made up his mind, and reckoned the
difficulties of the step which he proposed to take. That he would meet
with some opposition on the part of his family, he was of course aware.
It might take much time and much persuasion to bring his parents, and
especially the Countess, to consent to a match so little calculated
to advance his worldly prospects. But he was no shallow boy to cry for
his toy, and then forget the bauble that had been withheld from him.
His offer of marriage would no doubt render Ethel’s position at High
Tor for a time untenable. He had thought the matter over. There were
relatives of the De Veres who, without being partisans of the match,
would willingly offer a temporary home to such a girl as Ethel Gray,
while his mother and Lady Gladys were in process of being converted to
see the matter as he saw it.

Ethel’s unlooked-for opposition disconcerted all these projects. She
was very grateful, gentle, and almost submissive in her bearing; but
she was as steadfast as adamant on the point that it behoved her to
return a respectful refusal to Lord Harrogate’s proposals.

‘Do not tempt me,’ she said more than once; ‘do not urge me to forfeit
my self-respect, or be false to those who have put trust in me. I am
no fit match for the future master of High Tor, the future Earl of
Wolverhampton. Would the kind Countess have received me here, would
Lady Maud have given me her friendship, had they dreamed of this?’

She was very firm. She let him infer, if he chose, that he was not
indifferent to her; but to none of his instances would she yield her
steady conviction that duty forbade her to say ‘Yes’ to his entreaties.
He became—small blame to him for being so—almost angry, and tried
if reproach would succeed where prayer and argument had failed. In
vain. His reproaches brought the tears to Ethel’s eyes, but she never
faltered in her resolve.

If he pressed her unduly on this point, she said simply that she must
go away. Let him forget her, or learn, as she hoped he would, to regard
her as a friend, and then she need not leave High Tor. And then——

And then Lady Alice, Ethel’s pupil, made her appearance, and there was
no more opportunity for private conversation; and two days later, Lord
Harrogate started for Aldershot.

(_To be continued._)




STRANGE SEA ANIMALS.


By the term sea-squirts, the naturalist denominates some of the most
remarkable animals which it is his province to study. In more polite
phraseology the sea-squirts are termed ‘Ascidians,’ this appellation
being derived from the Greek _askos_, meaning a wine-skin or Eastern
leather-bottle, to which, in outward shape and form the sea-squirts
bear a very close resemblance. And as a final designation, the animals
under discussion may be known as ‘Tunicates,’ since their bodies are
inclosed within a tough bag or ‘tunic,’ the chemical composition of
which forms, as we shall presently shew, one of the notable points of
their structure. The sea-squirts present themselves to the zoologist as
a group of beings exhibiting many exceptions to the ordinary rules of
animal organisation; and it may also be noted that they have attained
a degree of scientific fame almost exceeding that which their most
ardent admirers could have expected. The young sea-squirt has thus
been credited in certain scientific speculations with presenting the
naturalist and mankind at large with a _fac-simile_ of the early
progenitor and far-back ancestor of the whole vertebrate group of
animals, including man himself—in other words, it is maintained that
the young sea-squirt, through some peculiar process of modification
and elevation, has given origin to the highest group of living beings.
With the promise before us of obtaining information regarding a most
interesting group of animals, which are thus held by some _savants_ to
possess relations of no ordinary kind to man himself, the reader will
require little incentive to follow out the steps of a brief inquiry
into their life-history and relations.

The fame of the sea-squirts is by no means of modern date. Aristotle
gives us a succinct description of them in his _History of Animals_
under the designation ‘Tethea;’ and by the same name Pliny has made
the sea-squirts of classic reputation, since we learn from this latter
author that they were included as articles of importance in the
pharmacopœia of the Romans. In their commonest phases, the sea-squirts
appear as little leathery bags of clear aspect, through the somewhat
transparent wall of which the internal organs can be discerned. The
resemblance of the animals to the ancient wine-skin has already been
remarked. The wine-skin, as every one knows, was made of the stomach
of some animal, or of the skin so arranged as to present two orifices
or necks. Thus when we look at a common sea-squirt we see a veritable
little ‘leather-bottel,’ measuring from half an inch to an inch or
more in length, attached by one extremity to the rock at low-water
mark, or to the shell we have dredged, and bearing on its upper surface
two prominent openings, each supported on a short neck. The origin
of the common name of ‘sea-squirt’ is by no means hard to trace.
The incautious observer who picks up a sea-squirt which has through
unpropitious fate been cast up on the sea-beach after a storm, after a
short survey of the sac-like body, may possibly be tempted to squeeze
it as a preliminary to further investigation. On being thus irritated,
the animal will most likely retaliate by forcibly ejecting jets of
water from the two orifices of the ‘bottel;’ this procedure possibly
resulting in the relinquishment of the sea-squirt as altogether an
unlikely and unfavourable object for further study. But the observation
of this unpolite habit on the part of the animal, will be found to
assist our further comprehension of its physiology, and of the manner
in which the functions of its life are carried on.

A highly curious item of sea-squirt history is furnished at the outset
by the consideration of the rough bag or ‘test’ in which its organs are
inclosed. When the chemist analyses this part of the animal, he finds
it to be composed in greater part of a substance known as _cellulose_.
It so happens that cellulose is a most important constituent of plants,
being almost as common in vegetables as starch. Hence zoologists
accounted it a strange and unwonted proceeding on the part of an
animal, that it should manufacture in a seemingly natural manner a
substance proper and peculiar to the plant-world. The multiplication
of cases of like kind in animals has destroyed the novelty and unique
nature of the sea-squirt’s case; but none the less curious must the
fact be accounted, that the animal should mimic the plant in the mode
and results of its life. When the tough outer sac is cut open, we come
upon a much more delicate and softer structure, known as the _mantle_.
This latter forms an inner lining to the test, and is the structure
upon the presence of which the sea-squirt’s power of ejecting water
depends. The mantle is a highly muscular layer, and lies next the
organs and internal belongings of the animal.

The clearest mode of describing the structure of the sea-squirt is
that of beginning with that neck of the bottle-shaped body on which
the mouth opens. The mouth leads, curiously enough, not into a throat,
but into a large chamber, named the breathing-sac. The walls of this
chamber may be simply described as composed of a network of fine
blood-vessels; the meshes of this network being provided with those
delicate vibratile filaments, named cilia, the function of which is
to keep up, by their movements, a constant circulation of the water
admitted to the breathing-chamber. Just within the mouth-opening a few
small tentacles or feelers exist, these organs serving to guard the
entrance to the body. On the floor of the breathing-sac an opening
may be perceived; this aperture leading into the throat, and being,
therefore, by many naturalists termed the true mouth. And in the way
of digestive apparatus, we find the sea-squirt to possess a stomach,
intestine, and other organs.

It is highly interesting to note the manner in which the sea-squirt
obtains its food. The nutritive wherewithal consists of sedimentary
matters, such as minute animals and plants, these substances being
drawn into the breathing-sac along with the currents of water which
are continually being taken into the body. The nutritive sediment is
collected together by certain folds of the lining membrane of the
breathing-chamber, and is thus transferred to the mouth-opening below.
The breathing-chambers of the sea-squirts, it may be noted in passing,
frequently afford lodgment to tiny dwellers in the shape of little
pea-crabs. The writer has noticed these little lodgers to issue forth
at night from the mouth of the sea-squirts, when the latter have been
kept in an aquarium, in order to pick up particles of food on the floor
of their abode. The crabs retreated to their shelter on the slightest
alarm; and this case of companionship presents one of those curious
instances of animal association which at present we are wholly unable
to explain.

The food being converted into blood in the digestive system, we may
next inquire as to the means which the sea-squirt possesses for
circulating the blood through the body. In higher animals, the heart
and blood-vessels perform this important task; and in the sea-squirt we
find these structures to be represented; the sea-squirt’s heart indeed,
in respect of its peculiarity of action, being without a parallel in
the whole animal world. The heart consists of a simple tube, from
each end of which blood-vessels pass, some being distributed to the
breathing-chamber, and others to the body generally. In the highest
animals the heart has the double function of driving pure blood through
the body, and of circulating impure blood through the breathing organs
for purification. It is noteworthy to observe, that by a curious and,
as already remarked, altogether unparalleled contrivance, Nature
has succeeded in causing the simple tube-heart of the sea-squirt to
perform the work done by the complex organ of higher animals. When
we observe the movements of the sea-squirt’s heart, we may see it to
propel the blood by its pulsations at first to the breathing-chamber
for purification. Then a pause succeeds, and the heart is observed
to pulsate in the reverse direction, and to drive the blood from the
breathing-chamber through the body. Probably no better illustration of
the manner in which, by a modification of function, Nature compensates
for simplicity of structure, could be had, than that afforded by the
sea-squirt’s heart.

The breathing-chamber, as we have seen, receives fresh sea-water
from the outside world, this water containing the vivifying oxygen
required for the purification and renewal of the blood. Having given
up its oxygen to the blood contained in the fine blood-vessels of the
breathing-chamber, and its sediment to serve for food, the great bulk
of water contained in the breathing-sac has now to be got rid of, to
make room for a fresh supply. This process is effected in the most
admirable manner through the currents created by the little filaments
or cilia, which cause a constant flow of water to pass through the
network walls of the breathing-chamber into a second sac or bag which
lies parallel with it. This latter sac receives the name of the
_atrium_, and communicates with the outer world by the second neck or
orifice of the body. Hence the water which enters by the mouth-opening,
after passing through the breathing-chamber, is ejected by the
second aperture of the body, and affords the material wherewith the
sea-squirt vents its indignation on prying humanity in the shape of the
_jets d’eau_ which have procured for it its popular designation. The
sea-squirt regarded in relation to its sedentary habits, would seem to
require no great exercise of nervous powers. Accordingly we find its
nervous system to be represented by a single mass of nervous matter,
placed near the mouth, and from which nerves pass to the other parts
of the body. The acts of a sea-squirt may thus be regarded as purely
of the character we are accustomed to name ‘automatic.’ It is provided
with instincts enabling it to carry on the acts of its life and to
exhibit a certain degree of irritability, without at the same time
knowing the ‘reason why’ of its own actions.

The sea-squirts present no exceptions to the universal rule of Harvey,
_omne animal ex ovo_—this philosopher believing in the universal
development of the animal-form from an ovum or egg. But unlike most
higher animals, the young sea-squirt does not come from the egg in the
likeness of the parent. It first appears as a tadpole-like body, this
creature—the larva as it is named—being produced in some thirty hours
after the development of the egg begins. The head of the tadpole is
provided with pigment spots or rudimentary eyes, and with three little
suckers, by means of which it ultimately attaches itself to fixed
bodies, prior to assuming the form of the adult and perfect Ascidian.
The tail of the tadpole-larva next becomes retracted within its body,
and therein disappears, whilst after fixing itself, the well-known
features of the sea-squirt become duly developed. A Russian zoologist
has remarked that in the tail of the sea-squirt a long rod-like body
is to be seen. Now in the lowest fishes, the spine exists in a similar
and rod-like condition; and hence, by a certain school of naturalists,
it is urged that the vertebrates may have originated in the past
from some form resembling the sea-squirt larva, in whose tail we are
therefore invited to behold the first stage of the vertebrate backbone
or spine. It is noteworthy to observe, however, that the opinions of
these naturalists are by no means accepted by the scientific world at
large; and one eminent German observer declared that the rod-like body
in the sea-squirt larva’s tail was not situated in the back, but in
the opposite region of the body, and that therefore it could not be
regarded as corresponding to the ‘back’-bone of higher animals.

Certain near relations of the sea-squirt become of exceeding interest
from their departure from the more usual and staid type of Ascidian
structure. Amongst these errant members of the sea-squirt tribe the
most remarkable perhaps are the _Salpæ_—clear, gelatinous animals,
met with swimming in long connected chains on the surface of the sea
in tropical regions. The celebrated novelist Chamisso, author of
the charming story, _Peter Schlemil or the Shadowless Man_, who to
his literary tastes united a striking aptitude for natural history
research, discovered that the young of these chain-salpæ invariably
appears as a _single_ form; whilst each single salpa has the power of
producing a connected chain. Thus the salpa sea-squirts exist in two
distinct forms—chain-salpas and single salpas, and to use Chamisso’s
own words: ‘A salpa mother is not like its daughter or its own mother,
but resembles its grand-daughter and its grand-mother.’

Another curious group of the sea-squirts is that known by the name of
the _Pyrosomæ_, a name literally meaning ‘fiery-bodies.’ These latter
forms exist as connected masses of sea-squirts aggregated together,
so as to form a hollow cylinder or tube, closed at one end; this
animal-colony swimming on the surface of the sea, by the admission
and forcible ejection of water from the interior of the tube. Such a
means of locomotion reminds us of a veritable hydraulic engine, and
is decidedly a useful modification of the common sea-squirt’s habit.
The pyrosomas exhibit a strange phosphorescent light, seen also in
such animals as the jelly-fishes. These luminous sea-squirts when seen
in shoals, have well been described as ‘miniature pillars of fire,
gleaming out of the dark sea, with an ever-waning, ever-brightening,
soft, bluish light, as far as the eye could reach on every side.’
Side by side with this description from the pen of a distinguished
naturalist, may be placed the poetic realisation of a similar scene by
Sir Walter Scott, who in the _Lord of the Isles_ has happily noted the
luminosity of the sea when,

    Awaked before the rushing prow
    The mimic fires of ocean glow,
      Those lightnings of the wave;
    Wild sparkles crest the broken tides,
    And flashing round the vessel’s sides,
      With elfish lustre lave;
    While far behind, their livid light
    To the dark billows of the night
      A gloomy splendour gave.




THE POINT OF HONOUR.

A STORY OF THE PAST.


Shortly after Waterloo had been fought, one of our English regiments
(which had taken a distinguished part in that great victory) stationed
in a Mediterranean garrison, gained an unenviable notoriety there
by a sudden mania for duelling that broke out amongst its officers,
and which threatened to become so chronic in its character as
seriously to interfere with the discipline of the corps. Quarrels
were literally ‘made to order’ at mess-time for the most trifling
affairs, and scarcely a day passed without a hostile meeting taking
place, which the colonel—a weak-minded man—expressed himself powerless
to prevent. Indeed he had already been sent to ‘Coventry’ by his
subordinates, which, as our readers doubtless know, is a kind of
social excommunication that, when acted upon in an English regiment,
generally ends in the retirement from the corps of the individual on
whom it falls. It was so in this instance, for the colonel saw that
the vendetta-like conduct of his officers towards him was gradually
divesting him of all authority in the eyes of his men; and as he had
none but his social inferiors to whom he could turn for counsel and
advice, he was compelled to relinquish his command and return to
England. On arrival in this country he lost no time in proceeding to
the Horse Guards, where he sought and gained an interview with the
Duke of Wellington, to whom he gave a graphic account of the state of
affairs which existed in the regiment he had just left.

The Iron Duke listened attentively to the narration, and knitted his
brow in anger as the colonel related the story of the duelling; and
when the latter had finished speaking, he exclaimed in an unmistakably
stern and uncompromising tone: ‘It is _your_ fault, sir! You should
have brought some of the ringleaders to a court-martial, and cashiered
them on the spot. You have sadly neglected your duty, and that is a
thing which I never pardon.’

The colonel left the Horse Guards in a very crest-fallen state, and he
was hardly surprised when he saw in the next _Gazette_ the announcement
that ‘His Majesty had no further need of his services.’

In the meantime the Duke had obtained a special audience of the Prince
Regent, to whom he explained the condition of affairs in connection
with the regiment in question. The result of the interview was that
Colonel A——, a well-known martinet, then on half-pay, was sent for,
and the circumstances explained to him; the Prince offering him the
command of the regiment on condition that he would undertake to cure
the duelling propensities of its officers. Colonel A—— was delighted
at the prospect of active service, and he willingly accepted the task
assigned to him, it being understood that he was to be granted a royal
indemnity for anything serious which might happen to anybody else in
his endeavours to put a stop to the duelling. He was a man of high
reputation, and had previously held other difficult commands, being
known throughout the army as a good soldier but a stern disciplinarian.

Such was the old soldier’s feelings at the special honour conferred on
him that on leaving St James’s Palace he actually forgot to return the
salute of the sentinels posted at the gates, to the great astonishment
of the latter, who knew his punctilious habits.

On his arrival at the garrison he lost no time in making himself
acquainted with his brother-officers. He had already laid out his plan
of action in his own mind, and was fully determined to allow nothing to
swerve him a hair’s-breadth from the path of duty. At the mess-table
he behaved with studied politeness and amiability of manner; and his
subordinates indicated that they were greatly pleased with their new
commander. He chatted pleasantly with all, from the senior major down
to the youngest ensign, and when the cloth was removed, regaled them
with the latest gossip and doings of London society. Before they
separated for the night, however, he took the opportunity of informing
them in a very quiet manner, that he had heard of the frequent duels
which had lately taken place in the corps, and that it seemed a matter
of regret to him that they could not manage to live in peace and amity.
‘However,’ he said, ‘if it be your wish, gentlemen, to fight out your
quarrels in this way, I shall interpose no obstacle to your doing so.
But this can only be by your pledging your word of honour _now_, to the
effect that in future no duel shall take place without my permission
having been first obtained. As I am your colonel, it is necessary that
my authority should be acknowledged in all that relates to the honour
of the regiment.’

The officers looked at each other and then at the colonel, and a
somewhat embarrassing silence ensued; but it was broken by Colonel A——,
who said: ‘Don’t be afraid that I shall refuse your request; on the
contrary, I shall only be too pleased to grant my permission if, on
examining the facts of the case, I find sufficient reason to think that
the applicant’s _amour propre_ has been wounded, and that a hostile
meeting is indispensable.’

At these reassuring words the young fire-eaters were satisfied, and at
once gave the promise demanded; and Colonel A—— then retired to his
chamber, where, overcome with the fatigue of a rough voyage, he soon
found himself snugly ensconced in the arms of Morpheus.

On the following morning he was rather rudely awakened from a
refreshing slumber by a loud rapping at his chamber-door; and on
challenging his early visitors, he was informed that it was Captain
Lord Vellum and Ensign Warbottle who wished to speak to him on a matter
of the gravest importance.

‘You might have chosen a more convenient hour for your visit,
gentlemen,’ said the colonel, who was naturally loath to rise from his
bed at five o’clock on the first morning after his voyage.

‘It is an “affair of honour,” colonel,’ was the significant reply, ‘and
cannot be delayed. We beg you will admit us instantly.’

The colonel rose and opened the door to the early comers. They were two
handsome young men, who had on the previous evening already attracted
Colonel A——’s attention by the extreme friendliness which they
exhibited for each other. They respectfully saluted their commanding
officer as they entered the room, and the latter broke an awkward
silence by demanding of them the object of their visit.

Ensign Warbottle again raised his hand in salute as he replied: ‘We
have come to ask your permission to fight, colonel.’

‘Indeed!’ exclaimed Colonel A——. ‘I thought you were great friends.’

‘Yes, colonel, we have been most intimate friends from our youth
upward,’ said Lord Vellum, ‘and we respect each other very sincerely;
but we have had a dispute, and our wounded honour must be satisfied.’

‘Then I presume that something very serious must have occurred,
gentlemen, to make the only remedy for it a recourse to the pistol?’

‘It is indeed a very serious matter, colonel,’ replied Ensign
Warbottle; ‘and it is this. After you had left the table last night,
we chatted over what you told us about the doings in London lately;
and in the enthusiasm of the moment, I remarked that I should like to
be there, riding at the head of a troop of Life Guards, and escorting
the Prince Regent, with my silver helmet glittering in the sun and my
drawn sword in my hand. Whereupon Lord Vellum said with a sneer that I
was a feather-bed soldier, and that a leathern helmet would be quite
good enough for such as I. I took no notice of this remark; but I was
annoyed and excited; and when he further asserted that the officers
of the Life Guards wore brass helmets, human nature could stand it no
longer, and I gave him the lie. He retaliated by striking me on the
face; an insult, Colonel A——, which justifies me, I think, in demanding
a hostile meeting.’ The last words were said in a manner which admitted
of only one meaning, and the two young officers exchanged glances of
mutual hatred and defiance.

‘It is indeed grave, gentlemen,’ sententiously remarked the colonel:
‘the helmets worn by the officers of His Majesty’s Life Guards are
neither silver nor brass, but white metal lacquered with silver-gilt;
but this information will not, I presume, alter the position of
affairs. Do you still wish to fight the question out?’

‘Certainly, sir!’ exclaimed the two officers.

‘Very well,’ replied the colonel gravely, ‘far be it from me to
interpose any obstacle to your meeting, gentlemen; but this duel must
be a serious one, as befits so important a question as the Life Guards’
helmets, and not an affair resulting in a mere scratch, as I am given
to understand is generally the case in these mess quarrels. Remember
that you are British officers and not Spanish bravoes, and that the
honour of a British officer can only be vindicated by the death of
his opponent. Go, gentlemen, and fight your duel; and I will meet the
survivor on his return.’

The two young men saluted the colonel and retired. A few minutes
afterwards, they and their seconds were seen hurrying off to the place
of meeting—a spot which is known in the garrison to this day as ‘Duel
Avenue.’

       *       *       *       *       *

Three hours later, Colonel A—— went down into the parade-ground to
inspect the regiment, and he was surprised to see both Lord Vellum and
Ensign Warbottle amongst the officers who approached him to give their
morning salute. The latter had his arm in a sling; and to the stern
inquiry of Colonel A—— as to whether the duel had yet taken place, he
replied, with a forced smile lighting up his face: ‘Yes, colonel; his
lordship has given me a nasty scratch in the arm.’

‘A scratch in the arm!’ exclaimed the colonel contemptuously. ‘And
do you call _that_ fighting, gentlemen—do you call _that_ fighting?
And for so important a question as the helmets of His Majesty’s Life
Guards! Bah! it is nothing! This matter must be fought over again,
under pain of instant dismissal from the service if my order be
disobeyed!’

‘But’—— began Lord Vellum, attempting to express his satisfaction at
the reparation his wounded honour had received.

‘But me no _buts_, gentlemen!’ exclaimed the colonel angrily. ‘I
have the Prince’s instructions on this point, and it is for _you_ to
vindicate your own honour in a proper manner, or retire disgraced from
His Majesty’s service.’

This alternative was one not to be thought of; and it need scarcely be
said that the young fire-eaters chose rather to fight again than be
cashiered. The duel was fought again, and this time Lord Vellum was
shot through the body—a wound which laid him on a sick-bed for two
months.

During this long period many quarrels had taken place at the
mess-table, some of which had been settled by the colonel acting as
‘arbitrator;’ and others stood over for his permission to fight—a
permission which he refused to grant until the result of Lord
Vellum’s illness should become known. In the meantime Colonel A——
had communicated with the Duke of Wellington, from whom he received
explicit instructions to carry the matter out to the bitter end, as
the only means of putting a stop to a matter which was fast becoming a
world-wide scandal.

Lord Vellum was carefully attended to during his illness by his ‘friend
and enemy’ Ensign Warbottle, to whose efforts he not only owed his
life, but was enabled at the end of the two months to take a short walk
every morning. His recovery then proceeded rapidly, and he soon became
enabled to walk without any support whatever.

The two friends were walking together one morning, when they suddenly
found themselves face to face with Colonel A——.

‘Ah, gentlemen, good-morning!’ exclaimed the latter. ‘I am delighted
to see his lordship out again, especially as it will now enable you to
finish your _affaire d’honneur_ in a more satisfactory manner.’

The young officers, scarcely believing their own ears, were for a time
struck dumb with astonishment, and they gazed at each other and at the
colonel with looks of bewilderment and despair.

‘You see, gentlemen,’ said the colonel gravely, ‘that this question
of the Life Guards’ helmets is of such importance that I deemed it
advisable, since his lordship’s illness, to write to the Duke of
Wellington on the subject; and I have here His Grace’s orders that the
duel should be renewed again and again until the life of one of the
combatants has been forfeited.’ As he spoke, Colonel A—— drew from the
breast-pocket of his coatee a large letter, bearing on its envelope the
words ‘On His Majesty’s Service’ in large black letters, and in one
corner the notice in red ink, ‘Very Urgent.’

‘But,’ said the young ensign, ‘his lordship has not recovered yet;
besides’——

‘When one can walk,’ interrupted the colonel, ‘one can also fire off
a pistol; and it is not conducive to the interests and dignity of the
service that so important a question as the equipment of His Majesty’s
body-guard should any longer be left undecided.’

The two young officers, who had cemented their friendship anew during
the period of illness, here took each other’s hands and gazed long
and silently into each other’s face. Colonel A—— turned away to hide
his emotion; for being really possessed of a kindly disposition, he
began to regret the stern and unbending part he had been called upon
to perform. Brushing the signs of his weakness away from his eyes, he
turned once more towards the young officers and said: ‘Gentlemen, I
have orders from England to supersede you in the regiment to which we
all have the honour to belong; and I am only to waive the execution of
these orders on condition that the duel is renewed, as already stated.
Your honour is absolutely in your own hands, and you must choose your
own course. I leave you to decide, gentlemen, what that course shall
be, and bid you for the present adieu.’ So saying, the colonel left the
two friends to decide upon their own fate. They ultimately decided to
consult with their brother-officers on the subject, and to be guided
by the general opinion. This opinion turned out to be in favour of
another fight; and they once more proceeded to the place of meeting,
each mentally resolving not to injure the other, but each exchanging
portraits and letters for their friends. The fatal weapons were
discharged, and Ensign Warbottle fell to the earth with a shot buried
in his heart.

The grief of Lord Vellum knew no bounds, for he had been led to believe
that the balls had been withdrawn from the pistols. He threw himself on
the inanimate body of his friend, and could with great difficulty be
removed therefrom. At length he was conducted to the house of a married
officer; and from there he indited a letter to Colonel A——, tendering
his resignation, and reproaching the latter with the death of his
friend.

The same afternoon, Colonel A—— assembled the other officers, and
addressing himself especially to those whose applications to fight were
in suspension, declared himself ready to grant one more permission
on the same conditions as the other, namely that ‘for honour’s sake’
the combatants should fight to the death. In the pause which ensued,
one officer after another saluted the colonel respectfully, and then
retired as silently as they came, leaving him alone in the mess-room
and master of the situation.

It was a rude lesson which these officers had received, but it fully
accomplished its purpose, and from that day to this duelling has been
almost unknown in the British army.




‘SUPERS’ ON THE STAGE.


Supernumeraries on the stage, ordinarily called ‘supers,’ receive a
small pay, but are not reckoned within the rôle of actors. They make up
a crowd, when a crowd is wanted in the piece, and so on. Though viewed
as a kind of nobodies, they cannot be done without, and managers need
to take care not to give them offence.

These humble players have been aptly described as serfs of the stage,
for whom there is no manumission. Let them work as hard as they
will, play their parts as well as they may, their merits meet scant
recognition either before or behind the curtain. For the wage of some
threepence an hour, they have to submit to being bullied and badgered,
and put to all manner of personal discomfort. Still, with a sense of
inferiority, the super considers himself an actor. He treads but the
lowest rung; but his foot _is_ on the theatrical ladder. The climbers
above may superciliously ignore the connection; but he feels that
he too is an actor, and sometimes asserts his fellowship; like the
poverty-stricken fellow who publicly hailed David Garrick as his ‘dear
colleague,’ on the score that it was his crowing that made the ghost of
buried Denmark start like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons; and
the less obtrusive super who, when told of Macready’s death, exclaimed:
‘Ah! another of us gone!’

It is recorded that a French super playing an assistant-footman in a
popular _opéra-bouffe_ for the first time, fell down in a fit, brought
on by the excitement consequent upon his having to ‘create the rôle.’
Too much zeal is always inconvenient. At a performance not very long
since of _Richard III._, the armies contending at Bosworth were so
carried away by professional ardour that the mimic fray came very
near the real thing; and one gallant archer introduced himself to the
manager’s notice with an arrow through his nose, so astonishing that
gentleman that he salved the wound with half a sovereign. The next
evening the casualties rose to such alarming proportions, that a like
treatment would have well-nigh exhausted the treasury.

Such realistic combats would have delighted Forrest the American
tragedian, famous for his ‘powerful’ acting. Rehearsing the part of
a brave Roman warrior at the Albany Theatre, Forrest stormed at the
representatives of the minions of a tyrant for not attacking him with
sufficient spirit. At last the captain of the supers inquired if he
wanted to make ‘a bully-fight of it,’ and received an affirmative
answer. Evening came, and in due course the fighting scene was reached.
Forrest ‘took the stage,’ and the half-dozen myrmidons advanced against
him in skirmishing order. ‘Seize him!’ cried the tyrant. Striking a
pugilistic attitude, the first minion hit out from the shoulder, and
gave the Roman hero a fair ‘facer;’ the second minion following up with
a well-judged kick from behind; while the others rushed in for a bout
at close-quarters. The eyes of the astounded actor flashed fire; there
was a short scrimmage of seven, and then one super went head first into
the big drum and stopped there, four retired behind the scenes to have
their wounds dressed, and the last of the valiant crew finding himself
somehow up in the flies, rushed out upon the roof of the theatre
bawling ‘Fire!’ with all the energy left him; while the breathless
tragedian was bowing his acknowledgments of the enthusiastic plaudits
of the excited audience.

Considering how often the super changes his nationality, one would
expect him to be too thorough a cosmopolitan to cherish any insular or
continental prejudices. They nevertheless have their sympathies and
antipathies. ‘Shure, sir,’ said an Irishman who had for some nights
died a glorious death fighting for Fatherland, ‘it’s mighty onpleasant
to have to be a German; I’d rather play a Frenchman.’ He had to be
contented by receiving the manager’s assurance that if he continued to
work up his agony well, he might be permitted to change his uniform at
the end of the month. Greater success awaited a stalwart navvy, who
after crossing the Danube several times at Alexandra Park, declared he
must ‘chuck it up’ if he could not be a Turk. His desire was granted;
and the next afternoon he was pitching Russians into the water with a
will.

In the old days of the Paris Cirque, a rule is said to have obtained,
compelling supers who had incurred the management’s displeasure to
go on as ‘the enemy,’ destined to succumb to native valour, by which
means the difficulty of getting men to appear as the foes of France
was obviated. When the _Battle of Waterloo_ was first produced on the
English stage, in one of the battle-scenes the French troops drove
a British division across the mimic field. This was done for a few
nights. One morning, after rehearsal, the leader of the supernumerary
red-coat corps, gathering his followers around him, said: ‘Boys, we
mustn’t retreat before the Johnny Crapauds again, to be goosed by
the pit. It’s all very well at rehearsal, but when it comes to real
acting it won’t do. Let us turn upon the yelling demons and pitch them
into the pit!’ And they did it too, astonishing the ‘Frenchmen,’ to
say nothing of the audience; as greatly as Mr George Jones was once
astonished by certain theatrical pirates. He, as an American sailor,
had to rescue a fair captive from the clutches of the aforesaid
ruffians. Unfortunately he had contrived to mortally offend the four
supers concerned; and when he rushed to the lady’s aid with: ‘Come on,
ye villains! One Yankee tar is more than a match for four lubberly
sharks!’ instead of leading off in a broadsword fight, the pirate
captain shouted: ‘I guess not!’ and seizing Jones by the legs and arms,
the pirates carried him off the stage, deposited him in the property
closet, and then returning, bore off the damsel to their rocky
retreat; leaving the curtain to come down before a very much puzzled
audience, to whom no explanation was vouchsafed.

Somebody—we think Mr Dutton Cook—tells a good story of an _accessoire_
once attached to the Porte St-Martin Theatre. M. Fombonne had won
managerial praise for the adroitness with which he handed letters or
coffee-cups upon a salver and his excellent manner of announcing the
names of stage-guests and visitors. Naturally enough, he thought his
services might be more liberally rewarded, and made his thought known.

‘Monsieur Fombonne,’ said the manager, ‘I acknowledge the justice of
your application. I admire and esteem you. You are one of the most
useful members of my company. I well know your worth; no one better.’

Glowing with pleasure at this recognition of his merits, M. Fombonne,
with one of his best bows, said: ‘I may venture then to hope’——

‘By all means, Monsieur Fombonne,’ interrupted the manager. ‘Hope
sustains us under all our afflictions. Always hope. For my part, hope
is the only thing left me. Business is wretched. The treasury is
empty. I cannot possibly raise your salary. But you are an artist, and
therefore above pecuniary considerations. I do not, I cannot offer you
money; but I can gratify a laudable ambition. Hitherto you have ranked
only as an _accessoire_; from this time you are an actor. I give you
the right of entering the _grand foyer_. You are permitted to call
Monsieur Lemaitre _mon camarade_; to _tutoyer_ Mademoiselle Theodorine.
I am sure, Monsieur Fombonne, that you will thoroughly appreciate
the distinction I have conferred upon you.’ The manager read his man
rightly; the promoted _accessoire_ was more than satisfied.

Not so well pleased was the English super who asked for a rise,
pleading that he had been playing his part with the utmost care and
zeal for a hundred consecutive nights. The manager inquired what part
he played.

‘Why, sir,’ said he, ‘I am in the fourth act; I have to stake twenty
pounds in the gambling scene.’

‘Very well,’ quoth the manager; ‘from to-night you shall double the
stakes.’

Was it the same manager, we wonder, to whom Mr Sala’s small super
came crying for a redress of his grievance? He had been cast to play
‘double-four’ in a pantomimic game of animated dominoes; but the
dresser had allotted ‘double-four’ to his brother Jim, and insisted
upon his being contented with donning the tabard of ‘four and a blank.’
He had protested, he had howled, he had punched Jim’s head, without
effect.

‘What am I to do?’ the little pantomimist cried. ‘I’d sooner give up
the profession, than be took down so many pegs without never ’avin done
nuffin.’

‘Never mind, my boy,’ replied the amused stage-manager; ‘you shall play
double-four; and if you behave yourself properly till Boxing Night you
shall play double-six.’

That little fellow would never have made such a mess of his ‘business’
as did a street urchin who made his first appearance on any stage
under the auspices of Mr J. C. Williamson, when the latter was playing
_Struck Oil_ in a country town. Led on by the ear by Lizzie Stofel,
and asked: ‘What for you call me Dutchy?’ the debutant blurted out:
‘Cause you told me to!’—to the immense delight of the house. As soon as
the act was over, he was told he might go in front; and before any one
could stop him, he pulled back the curtain, climbed over the footlights
into the orchestra, and coolly left the theatre.

At a performance of _Norma_ at the Cork Theatre, in which Cruvelli
played the heroine, the little daughters of the carpenter were pressed
into service to represent the children of the priestess. As the curtain
drew up on the second act they were seen lying on Norma’s couch quiet
enough, for they were frightened nearly to death by the glare of light,
the noise in front, and their unaccustomed surroundings. Their fright
increased as Norma vented her jealous rage in recitative; and when,
dagger in hand, she rushed towards them, they gave a shriek, tumbled
off their couch, and ran off the stage as fast as their legs would take
them, while the theatre rang with laughter, and Norma herself was fain
to sit down until she had recovered from the effect of the unexpected
episode.

Boleno the clown never evoked heartier merriment than that caused by
his first appearance in public as one of the ‘principal waves’ in
the nautical piece _Paul Jones_. It was at Sadler’s Wells Theatre,
soon after the ‘real water,’ for which that house was long famous,
had given place to the conventional canvas sea with its wave-rolling
boys underneath. The last scene represented the ocean, bearing on its
expanse of waters two ships preparing for action. The waves rolled as
the boys bobbed up and down, and all would have gone well, had not
Master Harry discovered a small hole in the canvas above him. Into this
hole he put two fingers, intending to take a peep at the front of the
house. The rotten stuff gave way; the waters of the Atlantic divided,
and disclosed a small head besmeared with blue paint—the result of
friction against the painted cloth. Catching sight of this, young Joe
Grimaldi, who was the captain in command of one of the vessels, called
out: ‘Man overboard!’ while the stage-carpenter shook his fist at the
appalled offender, causing that luckless young rascal to disappear from
view, and bob with such vigour at a remote distance, that a sudden
storm seemed to have broken over the ocean far away.

An American critic, disgusted with the mob in _Julius Cæsar_, when
that play was acted lately at Booth’s Theatre, because they shewed no
discrimination, cheering the meanest soldier walking in procession,
while they let Cæsar and Antony go by unrecognised, insists upon the
supernumeraries being better taught. It is certainly the duty of the
stage-manager to see that they are properly instructed, but it is no
use to ask too much of them; like the actor-manager who called upon
his supers to assume an oily smile of truculent defiance; and the
author of _Jeanne d’Arc_, who in his stage directions requires the
representatives of the English spectators at the procession to the pyre
to give vent to a buzz and murmur of hatred and exultation; and the
representatives of the Amazon’s countrymen to express their feelings in
a buzz and murmur of love, pity, and sympathy. Such exacting gentlemen
remind one of the French manager who fined one of the supernumeraries
engaged in _Paul et Virginie_ for not making himself black enough, and
afterwards discovered that the man he had fined was a nigger born.




THE MONTH:

SCIENCE AND ARTS.


The paragraphs on the use of zinc as a preventive of scale in
steam-boilers, in the _Month_ for March last (_ante_ 207 [Transcriber’s
note: see Project Gutenberg eBook 62970.]), have brought
us many inquiries for further particulars. One correspondent wishes
to know what length of time the lump of zinc will last? to which
we answer, that on this point there is nothing more precise in the
original Report than that the zinc lasts the usual time of working the
boiler between the periods of cleaning. The zinc is more efficacious in
the form of an ingot or solid lump, than when small heaps of clippings
are employed; and we cannot imagine that it would be difficult for any
intelligent person to determine by observation the dissolution of the
zinc.

The theoretical explanation of the preservative action is, that in the
process of oxidation the zinc borrows oxygen from the air dissolved
in the feed-water only. The two metals, zinc and iron, surrounded by
water at a high temperature, form an electrical ‘pile’ with a single
liquid which slowly decomposes the water. The oxygen flies to the most
oxidisable metal, the zinc, while the hydrogen is set free on the
surface of the iron. This release of hydrogen goes on over the whole
extent of the iron in contact with the water, and the minute bubbles
of this gas isolate at each instant the sides of the boiler from the
incrusting substance. If the quantity of this substance is small, it
becomes so penetrated by the bubbles that it remains soft as mud; and
if in greater quantity, coherent incrustations are formed, but in such
a state of isolation as to be readily separated from the iron.

This remarkable action of zinc was first discovered in 1861, during the
repair of a steam-vessel at Havre; and since then it has with approval
been taken into use in some of the large manufacturing establishments
of France. Readers desirous of consulting the original Report will find
it in the _Bulletin de la Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie
Nationale_, No. 51, March 1878, which may be obtained through Messrs
Trübner, the well-known London publishers, or any foreign bookseller.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers have published their usual
yearly list of subjects on which they would be glad to have papers for
reading at their meetings. As may be supposed, their scheme includes
all branches of mechanical engineering; but we mention a few as likely
to occupy the attention of some of the many ingenious artificers who
are always inventing or improving. For example, there are hot-air
engines, engines worked by gas, and electro-magnetic engines.
Corn-mills, results of working with an air-blast and ring-stones. Flax,
lace, and knitting machinery. Wood-working machines, for morticing,
dovetailing, planing, rounding, surfacing and copying. Paper-making and
paper-cutting machines. Machines for printing from engraved surfaces,
and type-composing and distributing machines. Best plans for seasoning
timber and cordage. Ventilation of mines. Prevention of rust in iron
ships and tanks; and a way to diminish the dead-weight in railway
trains.

One of the subjects is improvements in lighthouses; by which we are
reminded that a new lighthouse at the Eddystone is talked of. The
present structure was built by Smeaton in 1756-59; and ever since,
as long before, as indicated by the name, the sea has been wearing
away the rock on which it stands, and now threatens to undermine the
foundations. The new tower would be built on an adjacent rock with, as
we may easily believe, all the best improvements in construction and
lighting.

Descriptions have been given at meetings of the Institution of machines
for pressing cotton in bales for shipment. Some machines will press
twice as much cotton into a bale of given size as others; which effects
an important economy as regards stowage and in cost of packing, for it
is estimated that the outlay for fuel for the pressing engine amounts
to only a penny a bale.

Messrs Siemens’ improvements in the dynamo-electric machine appear
likely to settle the question as regards transmission of mechanical
power to long distances. Given the power to work one machine, it can
be transmitted by wires to a second, from that to a third, and so on
continuously through many miles. A waterfall or steam-engine of one
hundred horse-power working the first machine in the series would
produce fifty horse-power at a distance of thirty miles. Hence it would
be possible to grind wheat, to shape iron in a lathe, to saw wood,
or weave cotton by machinery, in a district where all the coal was
exhausted. This consideration ought to be appreciated by the people who
imagine that our coal-fields will all too soon be dug completely out.
Another advantage of the dynamo-machine is that if thrown out of gear
for a few minutes or for a longer time there is no loss or waste of
power.

Considering that slag can be made into glass, and that slag is a
disagreeable encumbrance which many manufacturers would gladly get rid
of, a suggestion has been offered that, instead of being made of metal,
tanks and cisterns should be made of slag glass, in a single casting.
There would then be no leaky joints, no unpleasant taste from paint or
metal; cleaning would be easy; and if large dimensions were required,
a number of small tanks might be placed side by side, and connected
by slag-glass tubes. When this suggestion comes to be adopted, there
will be no need to inquire about prevention of rust in tanks, nor to be
timorous of lead-poisoning.

Very tedious is the work of reducing tables of observations to their
true value, whatever their nature. Observations of tides are no
exception; and as their reduction is of great importance in working
out a true theory of the tides, attempts have been made to accomplish
the tedious task by machinery, and at length with success. Sir William
Thomson, of the University of Glasgow, has now constructed what he
calls an ‘harmonic analyser,’ with which he can work out the analyses
of a twenty-four-hour tide-curve in about a minute. It is usual in
taking tidal observations that the gauge records the rise and fall in
the twenty-four hours in the form of a curve on a sheet or roll of
paper; and the labour of analysing the sheets of a whole year may be
imagined. But, as Sir W. Thomson’s machine will clear sixty or more
sheets in an hour, a year’s work may be satisfactorily disposed of in
half a day. This will indeed be good news to the able investigators
who have for some years investigated the voluminous series of arctic
tides, and are still far from completion. Their work will be greatly
simplified; but the machine by which this happy result is achieved
involves some of the most refined principles in natural philosophy.

‘The Worshipful Company of Turners’ of the City of London have
published their list of prizes for the present year, stating the
conditions on which they will grant the freedom of the Company, and
of the City if the Court of Aldermen agree, and sums of money and
medals to successful competitors. Any one skilful in turning in wood,
throwing and turning in pottery, and in diamond cutting and polishing,
is qualified to compete, but will be expected to remember that ‘beauty
of design, symmetry of shape, utility, and general excellence of
workmanship,’ are qualities which will be considered in awarding the
prizes. The specimens are to be delivered at the Mansion House, London,
within the first week of October next.

Mr Du Moncel, in discoursing on the phonograph to a scientific Society
in Paris, suggested that by successive improvements the instrument
would be made capable of recording a speech with all the intonations
of the speaker; and that sheets of phonographic music might be kept
in a portfolio for the entertainment of amateurs many years after the
air was first played or sung. But while waiting for that result, there
might be contrived a clock which would speak, instead of striking
the hours. Such a clock would announce one o’clock, two o’clock, as
the hours passed by, and might be made to say _Time to get up_, at
any required moment. But this is a trifle in comparison with what is
reported from the United States—namely that steam has been applied
to the phonograph, and that a locomotive provided with the proper
apparatus can talk messages which would be heard at some miles’
distance. In the Crystal Palace at Sydenham we lately saw the cylinder
of the instrument made to revolve by clockwork. The result was that
words and songs were reproduced with much more regularity than by the
ordinary handle, as hitherto turned by the operator. As yet, however,
much remains to be done before a speech or a song, as spoken or warbled
into the instrument, shall be reproduced with faultless exactitude. As
with the telephone, so is it with the phonograph—there is still a lack
both of sound-volume, and quality.

Mr N. J. Holmes, well known as a scientific inventor and electrician,
has brought out a portable self-igniting beacon, which may be placed
on a wreck, a buoy, or in any position where a flashing signal is
required, and render good service. When in use, it lights itself at
any given moment; when once alight, cannot be put out by wind or
water, will keep burning from fifteen to twenty hours, and shew itself
by a flash every half-minute. Flashing signals are sometimes wanted
inland, far away from the sea; but along the coast an appliance that
can be carried from place to place with a certainty that it will act as
required, can hardly fail to be appreciated.

In a communication to the National Academy of Sciences, New York,
Mr Le Conte treats of the ‘glycogenic function of the liver and its
relation to vital force and vital heat,’ in a way which will perhaps be
interesting to many readers. In the ordinary process of nutrition much
sugar is formed in the body: if the health be good, the whole of the
sugar is arrested in the liver, changed into a less soluble substance
nearly related to sugar—namely glycogen, and is thus withdrawn from
circulation and stored in the liver. This store is slowly rechanged
into the oxidable form of liver-sugar, and is re-delivered, little
by little, to the blood by the hepatic vein, as the necessities of
combustion for animal heat and vital force require. The sole object
of the glycogenic function of the liver is to prepare food and waste
tissue for final elimination by lungs and kidneys; to prepare an easily
combustible fuel, liver-sugar, for the generation of vital force and
vital heat by combustion, and at the same time a residuum suitable
for elimination as urea. Glycogen-making is a true vital function;
sugar-making is a pure chemical process. The former is an ascensive,
the latter a descensive metamorphosis.

Mr Le Conte continues: In the well-known and usually fatal disease
diabetes, sugar is excreted in large quantities by the kidneys. But
the kidneys are not the organ in fault: they do all they can to
remedy the evil by getting rid of the sugar which, in the blood, is
extremely hurtful. In such cases the liver is in fault, and seems to
have lost its glycogen-making power. It has been proved that an excess
of sugar in the blood produces, among other hurtful effects, cataract
and blindness. The cataract so common among diabetic patients is
thus accounted for; and it is obvious that the physiologist who will
discover a way to keep going the glycogen-making function of the liver
will be a benefactor to the human race.

Well worth reading is Professor Boyd Dawkins’ _Preliminary Treatise
on the Relation of the Pleistocene Mammalia to those now living in
Europe_, published by the Palæontographical Society. It makes clear the
evidence by which the relationship has been established, and abounds
with interesting and remarkable facts in the history of the animals of
Europe. For example, the reindeer lingered in Caithness down to the
twelfth century, and, as Professor Dawkins observes, we see ‘that it
ranged still farther south in the Prehistoric age, and ultimately in
the Pleistocene, it reached the Alps and Pyrenees. It is surprising,’
he continues, ‘that the lion, the panther, and the urus are the only
three mammals which have been exterminated in Europe. The principal
interest centres in the domestic animals. The fact that the urus breed
was introduced into Britain by the English is most important for the
student of history. The distribution of the fallow-deer was due to the
direct influence of the Roman power; while the northward distribution
of the cat stands in direct relation to the intercourse which the
people of France, Germany, and Britain had with the south and east of
Europe.’

Mr Meldrum of the Royal Alfred Observatory, Mauritius, whose researches
we have from time to time noticed, reiterates the expression of his
opinion on the sunspot and rainfall question, and shews as the result
of observation that there is a rainfall cycle for Europe and America
as well as for India. ‘I long ago,’ he remarks, ‘obtained similar
results for India, Mauritius, the Cape, and Australia, as well as for
the depths of water in the Elbe, Rhine, Oder, Danube, and Vistula, and
have shewn that the mean rainfall curve for the mean sunspot cycle of
eleven years exhibits the characteristics of the mean sunspot curve.’
Mr Meldrum is satisfied that he has ‘evidence of a connection between
sunspots and rainfall nearly, if not fully as strong as the evidence
of a connection between sunspots and terrestrial magnetism.’ There
are many anomalies; but ‘underlying them all, and pervading them all,
a well-marked rainfall cycle is assuredly to be found, especially
for Europe, where the observations are most numerous.’ It would be
interesting to have a satisfactory proof that these theories are
correct.

In 1874 the difference of longitude between Greenwich and Suez was
determined under instructions from the Astronomer-royal. Since then,
as we learn from Colonel Walker’s Report on the Trigonometrical
Survey of India, the differences between Bombay, Aden, and Suez have
been determined, and the connection between England and India is now
complete. In these later observations, clocks were compared through the
telegraph cables, which effectually eliminated the ‘personal equation’
from the numerical result. ‘It is believed,’ says Colonel Walker, ‘that
this is the first instance of such perfection of method having been
attained.’

A Report on the Progress and Resources of New South Wales, by Mr
C. Robinson, published at Sydney, states that the estimated area
of Australia is three million square miles, of which the colony in
question occupies 323,437 square miles—that the population in 1871
was 501,579—that the clip of wool in 1876 amounted to 73,147,608
pounds—that the sugar-crop for 1875 was more than fifteen million
pounds—that one seam of coal will yield 84,208,298,667 tons—that a bed
of kerosene oil shale will turn out 2000 gallons of refined oil every
week for seventy-two years—that in all (up to 1874) 12,387,279 tons
of coal had been raised, and that the total weight of gold produced
was 8,205,232 ounces. Add to this the other minerals, and ships, corn,
wine, and cattle, and it will be seen that New South Wales may look
forward with confidence to the time when, should the population become
as dense as in England, it will contain within its borders a hundred
million souls.

From a recently published Report we learn that the population of
Tasmania is more than one hundred and four thousand, and that the total
area of the island is nearly seventeen million acres, great part of
which is suitable for the growth of wheat and other grain. Less hot and
dry than Australia, Tasmania (or Van Diemen’s Land, as it was formerly
called) has a very salubrious climate, and is, we are informed, ‘an
excellent breeding-station for stud stock for all the Australian
continent, especially as regards animals of large muscular development,
and of the hardy constitution so requisite in the ox, the mutton-sheep,
and the draught-horse.’ The best evidence that the Tasmanian climate
deserves all that has been said in its favour is to be found in the
fact, that the mortality of children, especially of infants under
twelve months, is very small.




THE TWO ROSES.


    Two roses once in my garden grew:
    The one was brilliant and rich of hue;
    Proud of her beauty and perfume rare,
    She spread her sweets to each passing air:
    The other, timid and chaste of mind,
    Shrank from the kiss of the fickle wind;
    Proud in the pride of her virtue meek,
    She veiled the blush on her modest cheek.

    Dazed with the glare of her gaudy bloom,
    Drunk with the breath of her rich perfume,
    I tended the one with ceaseless care;
    I marked the growth of each beauty rare,
    And dreamed that all on some future day
    Would own the power of her peerless sway.

    At length my flower, that I loved the best,
    I sought to take and wear on my breast,
    That won from her parent stem to part,
    She might rest awhile on my loving heart.
    But flown was the lure of her witching spell,
    As fluttering to earth her petals fell;
    Her heart was rotten and dead at the core—
    And I knew that my foolish dream was o’er.

    I saw how poor was the full-blown blaze
    That had charmed my senses and won my praise;
    And I thought at last of the timid flower
    Which had pined unheeded for cooling shower,
    But drought unslaked had her life-spring dried;
    So, fading and faded, she drooped and died.

    I saw too now, with awakening eyes,
    How near I had been to my longed-for prize;
    One half of the care I had spent in vain—
    Care that had brought me but grief and pain—
    If spent on the rose that had pined away,
    Would have reared a flower so chastely gay,
    That the joy of its countless charms untold
    My care had repaid a thousandfold.

    Ah! how oft in the toil and strife,
    The chances and changes which we call life,
    By slight and neglect in time of need,
    We kill the flower, and we rear the weed;
    Then when we see it, and know too late,
    We blame not ourselves, but curse our fate,
    For no solace have we on which to lean,
    When we know what we long for might have been.

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