1884 ***





[Illustration:

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 19.—VOL. I.      SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1884.       PRICE 1½_d._]




‘CORNERS.’


The modern ‘Corner’ is unlike that into which the historical John
Horner, Esq., retired, in this respect, that those who venture into
one seldom succeed in bringing out a plum or anything else but
discomfiture. They may plunge not only their thumbs but their whole
hands and arms into the ‘pie’ they essay to monopolise; but as a rule,
with almost no exceptions, they have to draw back empty-handed.

The word ‘Corner’ in its commercial application is of American origin,
and along with that other mysterious word ‘Syndicate,’ is doubtless
sufficiently perplexing to non-commercial readers. The prominence
and the frequency of the appearance of both words in the newspapers
indicate a strange commercial tendency of the day. That tendency is to
amalgamate the hazardous element of speculation with the legitimate
fabric of steady industry. Once upon a time, speculators formed a
distinct class, apart from sober merchants and plodding manufacturers.
They had their uses; for none but shallow thinkers will dismiss
speculation in one general sweep as immoral and evil; but they were a
distinctly marked class by themselves; not distinctly marked, perhaps,
to the outer world, but clearly enough defined for those engaged in
commercial pursuits. But now there exists no such definite line of
demarcation. The speculative element enters into every branch of trade
industry; and by the speculative element we do not mean the perfectly
legitimate exercise of foresight or experience which enables a business
man to anticipate events which raise or depress the market values of
the commodities in which he is interested, but the desire and attempt
to be the motor, or one of the motors, in such movements. It is one
thing to buy heavily of a commodity because your instinct or your
information or your experience teaches you that a comparative scarcity,
and consequent dearness, of the commodity will shortly occur. It is
quite another thing to buy up a commodity for the purpose of creating
a scarcity for your own benefit. It is one thing, again, to sell out
as quickly as you can such stocks as you hold of a commodity which you
see reason to think will be depressed in value later on. It is another
thing to sell in advance a commodity which you do not possess, in the
hope of buying it cheaper; or to sell out heavily what you do possess,
in order to frighten others to sell also, that you may buy back again
at a still lower price than you sold.

There must always be some amount of speculation in every department
of commerce and industry. The shipbuilder, for instance, must to some
extent speculate on a continuance or otherwise of the level of wages,
or of the prices of iron, at the time he makes a contract for a vessel.
The manufacturer who buys a quantity of raw cotton must speculate on
the chances of the market enabling him to sell the products of the
cotton when manufactured. The merchant must speculate on the solvency
of his buyers, and his sellers even, when he concurrently buys and
sells a cargo of goods. And so on all through the gamut of commerce.
But these are the ordinary daily risks of trade, which it is the
business of a trader to estimate and provide for. Quite other is the
form of a speculation of modern development. We do not say it is of
modern origin, for men have not varied very much either in character or
in practice since commerce began; but its development is modern, and
its application is modern.

This modern phase has made current two curious words—‘Corner’ and
‘Syndicate.’ The latter is of Latin origin, and was not unknown in
old-world commerce. Then it meant the combination of a number of
merchants for the consummation of a venture beyond the means or the
inclinations of any one of them. The Dutch merchants were fond of
forming syndicates for large trading purposes; and the East India
Company, Hudson’s Bay Company, and many other concerns of our own
time which have now attained the dimensions and the dignity of public
corporations, had a similar origin. The syndicate system had in it
the germ of the joint-stock Company system; but although each member
subscribed a certain amount, which he would advance, or for which he
would be liable, his liability could not always be restricted thereto.
The uncertainty in this respect evolved the limited liability principle
now so common. But the syndicates of to-day are of somewhat different
character; they are usually combinations of capitalists to bring
about changes in the markets for commodities or stocks for a specific
purpose. In this manner they are the parents of ‘Corners.’

The word Corner is probably also of Latin origin. It suggests _cornu_,
a horn—a thing which terminates in an angle, where is a secret and
retired place. The phrase ‘To make a Corner,’ however, is one of
purely American origin, and it is suggestive enough. It implies the
concentrating of some object into a limited area, from which there
shall be but one egress, of which the Cornerers hold the key. It
suggests something like the gathering of a Highland sheep-farm, where
the animals are irresistibly driven in from widely distributed spots
to one small ‘fank.’ It suggests the bag or drawer of the thrifty
housewife, into which is gathered all actually or potentially useful
articles. It suggests the commonplace book of the wide-reading and
much-writing journalist. It suggests also the old teapot, the lucky
stocking, and the Savings-bank. But it is different from all these.

For there are two kinds of Corners, in the commercial sense. There
is the Corner into which you may drive others, and the Corner into
which you may retire yourself. Of the former, the best illustration
we can recall is that of the operation in the Stock of the Hannibal
and St Joseph Railroad, which took place in New York a year or so
ago. Certain astute and light-principled men in Wall Street became
aware that another habitué of the same circle was selling this Stock
rather heavily, in the belief that it was too high, and would soon
be lower. In short, he was doing what in the lingo of the mart is
called ‘bearing.’ The railroad is a small one, and the amount of Stock
comparatively small. It was easy enough, therefore, for a few of his
competitors to form a ‘syndicate’ to buy up all the stock in existence,
so that when the period came for the seller to implement his sales, the
wherewithal was unobtainable except from them. We need scarcely say
that the operators in the Stock markets daily buy and sell securities
which they intend neither to take nor to give; they merely propose to
take or to pay the difference in price which may exist at a certain
future day of settlement. But it is always in the option of a buyer to
insist on the delivery of the actual stock, if he really wants it; and
then the seller must provide it, at whatever cost. The cunning buyers
of the Hannibal stock did not want it, and indeed they paid for much of
it far beyond its real value, because every purchase they made raised
its price in the market. What they wanted was to place the original
seller, or ‘bear,’ in a Corner; and this they effectually did. They
forced up the price to, let us say, three hundred dollars—we forget the
exact figures, but they are immaterial—of what the seller had sold at,
say, ninety dollars. And worse than that, when the day of settlement
came, the seller could not obtain stock at any price whatever. He was
completely ‘cornered,’ and had eventually to pay the difference which
the keen ‘bulls’ chose to exact. But with the sequel comes the moral.
Having exacted all they could out of the unfortunate seller, they found
_themselves_ in a Corner. They were possessed of a quantity of Stock
which they did not want, and which nobody else wanted at anything like
the prices they had paid for it. They had to sell, and with every sale
the price came tumbling down, so that ultimately, we believe, their
loss upon their own purchases exceeded considerably what they had
extracted from the poor man they put in ‘a Corner.’

Then there is the Corner into which you go yourself. Messrs John
Horner and Company of Chicago form the impression that, let us say,
pigs’ bristles might, could, would, or should advance in price. They
determine that bristles shall; and set to work to buy all they can
lay their hands on, and to contract for future delivery of as much
as they can get any one to sell. Of course, the price advances, and
this the more rapidly in proportion as their purchases extend; but the
unfortunate thing—for them—is, that they are themselves the principal,
if not the sole, purchasers at the enhanced rates. By-and-by they
become the masters of all, or nearly all, the available supply of pigs’
bristles; they have ‘made a Corner,’ and in the American phraseology,
they ‘control’ the market. But markets are rather unmanageable affairs,
after all, as Messrs John Horner and Company find when they have to
realise in order to pay for their later purchases; or when, if they
have been rich enough to pay and lie out of the money, they want to
realise their profit.

The effect is still more pronounced when the Corner is attempted
in one of the staples of commerce, such as wheat or cotton, the
supplies of which are not confined to one spot, and are practically
illimitable. For such huge Corners as these, combinations of several
firms are needed in order to provide the money; and the reverse, when
it comes, is therefore more widespread and disastrous. The Wheat
Corner in Chicago, at the beginning of 1882, was a remarkable instance
of audacity and also of recklessness in this species of speculation;
and the effects of the tremendous collapse have not yet worn off.
A still more recent example was the Lard Corner in the same city,
which collapsed in June of last year, and the sweeping out of which
brought down several firms in other parts of the States. But we must
not conclude that operations of this kind are confined to America;
we have them in this country also; and not very long ago, a bold and
very nearly successful Corner was made in Liverpool in cotton, which
produced a good deal of moralising and very heavy losses.

It is often a delicate matter to define what is legitimate and what is
illegitimate speculation; but of the moral aspect of Corners there can
be little doubt. They are bold and entirely selfish attempts to produce
artificial scarcity, to the prejudice of the many, and for the benefit
of the few. They essay to overset the operation of the inevitable and
just law of supply and demand. They are therefore wrong in morals,
and false in economics. They are not examples of trading, in the
proper meaning of the term; they are merely specimens of inordinate
gambling. They disorganise commerce, because they divert streams of
commodities from ordinary channels, which it has taken the labour
of years to create; and they disorganise finance, by deranging the
exchanges between countries, through the concentration of commodities
and money which should be circulating. Their immediate effect is to
inflict a large loss upon the commercial centres, not only directly
of the countries in which they occur, but also indirectly upon other
countries. This is readily capable of demonstration, but is too
technical a question to enter upon here.

In the old days of British commerce, the practice called ‘forestalling’
was a penal offence. Forestalling is defined by M’Culloch as ‘the
buying or contracting for any cattle, provision, or merchandise on
its way to the market, or dissuading persons from sending their goods
there, or persuading them to raise the price, or spreading any false
rumour with intent to enhance the value of any article.’ The penalties
enacted by various statutes were very severe; but they were repealed
in 1772. There was also a practice described in the old statutes as
‘engrossing,’ which meant simply the buying up of corn and other
provisions in order to raise the prices thereof. Although the Acts
referring to this practice were repealed, we believe that ‘engrossing’
is still an indictable offence at common law. As a matter of fact,
however, no indictment is ever made, and if made, no conviction would
ever follow. In his exhaustive article on the Corn-laws, Mr M’Culloch
showed very ably how the speculations of merchants who buy up corn in
times of abundance react to the benefit of the community in times of
scarcity; and how in times of scarcity similar speculations operate to
prevent waste and to induce economy. But there is some considerable
difference between the operations referred to by M’Culloch and those
which we have under review just now.

The unwholesome effects of Corners, and the dangerous features they
lend to commerce, are so powerfully felt in the United States, that
the legislative bodies of the States of Illinois and New York—States
where the evil is most prevalent—have been seriously considering how
to counteract them. Each assembly had before it a Bill for rendering
these operations illegal, and punishable by heavy penalties. It is
exceedingly doubtful, however, if either of the Bills will ever
become law; and it is not by any means manifest that legislation on
the subject is desirable. The hand of the law is rarely interposed
to stay the stream of commerce without producing more evils than it
seeks to prevent. That stream often gets into muddy and unhealthy,
even dangerous channels; but it has a recuperative power within
itself greater than any which can be applied extraneously. The moral
effects of Corners are bad upon all engaged in them, and they inflict
hardship and loss upon many innocent people, as a consequence of the
solidarity of all social affairs. The commercial effects also are bad,
as we have shown; and herein lies the chief hope of reform. We cannot
recall a single instance of a Corner—and we have been acquainted with
the inner history of a good many of the species—which did not result
in overthrow and disaster, sooner or later, to those in it. Either
the operation attempted is too gigantic for the means at command; or
success in the first steps feeds the appetite for gain, and blinds
the operators to the attendant risks, so that they go too far; or
they become timid, and do not go far enough. In the glow of extensive
buying, the effects of the ultimate sales are always under-estimated.
The object of a Corner is to buy in order to sell at some future time;
and when the selling begins, the downfall of prices is always more
rapid than the advance, and then the Corner is swept clean not only
of the commodities, but also of those who put them in. And as there
is about almost every evil some germ of good, we must not forget that
the effect of a Corner is often to stimulate supplies of the commodity
‘cornered,’ in other regions, and the world is benefited by the
increase of productive wealth. This, however, is an accident, and in
no way justifies the creation of Corners, which are dark, malodorous,
unhealthy, and altogether detestable features in the commercial
structure. Public opinion, and the conviction that not only will he
not bring out a plum, but that also he may possibly have to leave his
skin behind him, will ultimately, we hope, have more effect in keeping
the modern John Horner out of a Corner, than legislative enactment is
likely to do.




BY MEAD AND STREAM.


CHAPTER XXVII.—WHY IS SHE SO?

There never was a man who felt more buoyant on learning that his name
had been set down in a will for a handsome legacy than Philip felt
on learning that he had been cut out of one. First, it was the right
thing to do: he was sure of that, the circumstances considered; next,
it had helped to render this interview, which he had expected to be so
painful, a pleasant one. Thus he was enabled to speed with a gay heart
to Madge, carrying the happy tidings, that in spite of the awkward
position he occupied between his uncle and father, he seemed to be more
in accord with the latter, and certainly much more in his confidence,
than he had been at any previous time.

He took a short-cut through the Forest—the way was too well known to
him for him to lose it; and besides, the evening was not dark to his
young eyes, although some black flying clouds helped the skeleton trees
to make curious silhouettes across his path. Then swiftly down by the
river-side, catching glimpses of stars flickering in the rippling
water, and his steps keeping time to its patter, as it broke upon the
stones or bulging sedges.

As he was crossing the stile at the foot of the meadow, he caught the
sound of whispering voices from the direction of the ‘dancing beeches.’
A lovers’ tryst, no doubt, and the voices were very earnest. He smiled,
and quickened his pace without looking back. He, too, was a lover.

At the house he found Aunt Hessy alone in the oak parlour, where
the customary substantial tea was laid, instead of in the ordinary
living-room. That was suggestive of company. Aunt Hessy had on her
Sunday cap and gown. That also was suggestive of company.

‘Going to have some friends with you to-night?’ he said gaily.

‘Thou art a friend, and here,’ she answered, with her quiet welcoming
smile; ‘but I do expect another—that is, Mr Beecham.’

‘What! you have persuaded the shy gentleman to become your guest at
last? Do you know how I account for his shyness?—he saw you at church,
and fell in love with you. That’s how it is, and he won’t come here
because he was afraid of you. Lovers are always shy—at first.’

‘Thou art a foolish lad, Philip, and yet no shining example of the
shyness of lovers. Were they all like thee, no maiden would lose a
sweetheart for lack of boldness on his part. Art not ashamed?’

‘I am, Aunt Hessy,’ he answered with his boyish laugh, ‘ashamed that
you cannot understand how we are all your lovers—and ought to be.’

‘That will do.’ But although she spoke with much decision in her tone,
there was no displeasure in her comely face. She understood him.

‘I won’t say another word, except to ask you how you have conquered Mr
Beecham?’

‘Ah, but we are not sure that we have conquered him yet. He was with
Dick this morning, and gave him some help with the cattle. Dick is in
the barn with them now, for he is afraid there’s trouble coming to
them.’

‘And I suppose he is angrier than ever about the live-stock brought
into the market from abroad?’

‘It is making him anxious, and with reason. Well, he wanted his friend
to come and take dinner; but Mr Beecham said he would rather come in
some evening soon and take tea with us. So, in the afternoon I sent
Madge off to the village, and bade her _make_ him come this evening. I
don’t know what’s come of her. She’s been away more than three hours,
and she is not one to loiter on the road.’

‘Which way do you think they’ll come?’ asked Philip, rising quickly
from his seat.

‘By the meadows, of course. She never comes round by the road except
when driving.’

‘I’ll go and meet them.’

But before he could move, they heard the front-door open.

‘That’s her,’ said the dame, gladly expectant.

Madge entered the parlour alone; and Philip was surprised to note that
she seemed to be a little startled by something—his presence perhaps.
Next, he was surprised to note that she looked pale and excited.

‘Thou hast not persuaded our friend to come to us, then,’ said the
dame, disappointed, and not observing Madge so closely as Philip.

‘Has anything happened Madge?—What has frightened you?’ he said
quickly, taking her hands and gazing into her eyes.

‘Nothing has frightened me, Philip,’ she answered hurriedly, and with a
remote sign of irritability at her present condition being noticed. ‘I
have been running up the meadows, and I daresay I am flushed a little.’

‘Flushed!—Why, you are as white as if you had seen a ghost.’

‘Well, perhaps I have seen a ghost. Would you like to go and look for
it?’

She withdrew her hands and went to her aunt.

Philip stood still, surprised and puzzled, and a little distressed.
It was such a new experience to see Madge nervous and irritable—she
who was always so calm and clear-sighted when other people lost their
heads—that he did not know what to make of it. And then there was such
impatience in the way she had snapped up what he considered a very
natural remark for any one who looked at her steadily for a moment. Her
eyes had not met his in the usual clear, trustful way: they seemed to
avoid his gaze, and she had turned from him as if he annoyed her! Why
was she so?

‘I had to wait some time for Mr Beecham, aunt,’ Madge said. Her voice
was husky, and unlike any sound Philip had heard her produce before.
‘Then we were talking a long time together, and that is what has made
me so late. He says he cannot come this evening. I told him how much
you wished him to come, and he said he would have liked very much to
do so, but could not.... I am afraid I have caught a cold.... I did my
best to get him to come, but he would not.... My head is aching, aunt;
I think I shall go up-stairs.’

The dame was now as much surprised as Philip by the curious manner of
her niece; but she did not show it. She lifted off the girl’s hat,
passed her hand gently over the hot brow, and said soothingly: ‘Yes,
child, you had better go up-stairs; and I will come to you in a few
minutes. I don’t believe you have changed your boots since the morning.
Go up-stairs at once.’

‘I will try and come down again, Philip,’ she said, tenderly touching
his arm as she passed, to console him for that little irritability.

‘All right, Madge; I’ll wait,’ he answered cheerfully.

She passed out, and there was a yelping of dogs heard at the same time.
In rushed Dash and Rover and Tip, followed by their master.

‘I am as hungry as a hawk, mother, and so are the dogs,’ exclaimed
Uncle Dick, after saluting Philip. ‘I can’t wait for anybody.—Sit down,
lad, and eat.’

The dame served them, and then quietly left the room.

Philip ate, and heard Uncle Dick speaking as if from a far distance;
but all the time he was perpetually asking himself—‘Why is she so?’




SUICIDE.


The term ‘suicide’ is almost universally applied to all acts of
self-destruction, and equally indiscriminately to all perpetrators
thereof, no distinction being made as to their state of mind at the
time of killing themselves. It is in this popularly understood sense
that we have used the word throughout this article. From a legal point
of view, however, the term can only be correctly employed to denote
the self-murder (_felonia de se_) of a sane and legally responsible
person. A lunatic cannot in a legal sense commit suicide, though he may
destroy himself. A suicide, or _felo de se_, is in the eye of the law
a criminal, and was formerly ‘punished’ by being buried at midnight at
the meeting of four cross-roads, a stake being driven through the body.
Since 1823, this _post mortem_ punishment has been limited to simple
interment at night in unconsecrated ground without any of the rites of
Christian burial; and even this has but seldom to be carried out, owing
to the charity, and perhaps also to the want of knowledge, of coroners’
juries, who generally find that the act has been committed during a fit
of temporary insanity.

Among the ancients, suicide was very frequently resorted to, sometimes
for the most trivial reasons, and was considered part of their code of
religion and honour. By the Romans especially, it was regarded quite in
the light of a national custom, and by their laws a man was justified
in killing himself when worn out by lasting pain or lingering disease,
or burdened with a load of debt, or even from sheer weariness of life
(_tædium vitæ_). His will was valid; and if intestate, his heirs
succeeded him. Among the illustrious individuals of former times who
quitted this world voluntarily and prematurely, we find the names of
Demosthenes, Antony and Cleopatra, Cato, Hannibal, Cassius and Brutus,
and many others. Suicide was looked upon as a cardinal virtue by the
Stoics, whose founder, Zeno, hanged himself at the ripe old age of
ninety-eight. The custom was also highly commended by Lucretius and
the Epicureans. The philosophers of old spoke of it as ‘a justifiable
escape from the miseries of life;’ and as ‘the greatest indulgence
given to man;’ Diogenes even going so far as to declare that ‘the
nearer to suicide the nearest to virtue.’

The ideas of the ancients concerning this practice underwent a great
change after the time of Constantine the Great, with the advancement
of the Christian religion, which has always discouraged suicide, and
regarded it as one of the degrees of murder. During the middle ages,
when religious sentiment was predominant, instances of self-destruction
were few and far between, these few being mostly caused by the monotony
of monastic life; but with the Renaissance was revived a modified
form of Stoicism, with, of course, a return of suicide. In More’s
_Utopia_, the inhabitants of the happy republic, when, from sickness
or old age, they are become a burden to themselves and to all about
them, are exhorted—but in nowise compelled—by their priests to deliver
themselves voluntarily from their ‘prison and torture,’ or to allow
others to effect their deliverance. To the somewhat melancholy tendency
of the Elizabethan period and the psychological studies of Shakspeare,
succeeded a long period of calm; but towards the end of the eighteenth
century began, with _Werther_—who has been called ‘Hamlet’s posthumous
child’—the era of modern suicidal melancholy. This differs essentially
from the suicidal era of the ancients, being psychical rather than
physical. Whereas theirs was born of sheer exhaustion and satiety, with
want of belief in a future state of existence, that of the present
day is the melancholy of a restless and unceasingly analysing soul,
eternally brooding over the insoluble problems ‘Whence?’ and ‘Whither?’
which disordered state not unfrequently leads to incapacity for action,
and finally to inability to live.

It is a very prevalent but erroneous belief that suicide is invariably
preceded by insanity. Self-destruction is always an _unnatural_
act, and a violation of the laws of nature, but is not, therefore,
necessarily an _insane_ act. On the contrary, a large minority—some
authorities say the majority—of suicidal acts are perpetrated by
persons who cannot be called other than sane, though their mental
state is indisputably more or less abnormal at the time, and the
organic action of the brain and nervous system sometimes in a state
of excitement bordering on real pathological irritation. Dr Wynter
affirms the suicidal impulse to be ‘an inexplicable phenomenon on the
borderlands of insanity;’ the power of the will to conquer any impulse
is the sole difference between a healthy and an unsound mind. But
self-destruction is not, as a rule, the outcome of a mere impulse,
but an act of longer or shorter deliberation, and brought about by
some cause, which may be either real or imaginary; and here we have
the simple test for distinguishing between sane and insane suicides,
namely, the absence or presence of delusions. Outside of insanity,
the passions and emotions are generally at the root of self-murder;
remorse, dread of exposure and punishment, long wearing sorrow or
disease, or hopeless poverty, are the usual causes for an act which
is generally regarded with far too great equanimity, and occasionally
even with commiseration, being looked upon as ‘a catastrophe rather
than a crime,’ although condemned by the religion and laws of the land.
With lunatics, the causes inciting to the act are mainly if not wholly
imaginary, or delusional; they often fancy they hear voices perpetually
urging them to destroy themselves, and these supposed supernatural
commands they generally obey sooner or later. Men in prosperous
circumstances have frequently been known to make away with themselves
from _fear_ of poverty and want; others have perhaps committed some
trifling act of delinquency, which they magnify into an unpardonable
offence, only to be expiated by death. Some insane persons will kill
those dear to them, especially their own children, before destroying
themselves, probably with the view of preserving them from so wretched
a lot as they conceive their own to be. There is usually previous ill
health and depression, with great desire for solitude, in these cases
of suicide by the insane, many of which could be prevented by the
timely exercise of proper care and supervision, as is clearly shown by
their mostly occurring among those lunatics who are not under proper
restraint.

_Melancholia_ is the name given to that form of delusional insanity,
or partial moral mania, which chiefly manifests itself in a desire for
self-destruction. Hypochondriacs may be said to be in the first stage
of this, and in the first stage very fortunately most of them remain.
They feel death would be a blessing, and are constantly talking about
killing themselves; but they are very irresolute, and if they do summon
up courage enough to make the attempt, it is generally abortive, and is
not repeated.

Equally devoid of foundation is the assertion so persistently made
by foreigners, and at last almost believed in by ourselves, that
England is the land of suicide. Frenchmen especially seem seriously to
entertain the idea that we are always ready to blow out our brains in
a fit of the spleen, caused by our much-maligned climate, and general
dullness and lack of amusement! In point of fact, Paris itself is the
headquarters of self-destruction, and its Morgue one of the principal
and most frequented show-places of the city. The cases there are much
more numerous in proportion to the number of the population than in
this country, and have been variously estimated at from three to five
times as many; but there is not the publicity afforded them in the
Parisian press that is given them by our own widely circulated daily
and weekly papers. As a proof that climate has but little connection
with the tendency to commit suicide, it may be pointed out that the
inhabitants of damp and foggy Holland, a ‘country that draws fifty foot
of water,’ are by no means addicted to self-slaughter. The buoyant,
light-hearted Irish are, with the exception perhaps of the Neapolitans,
the least suicidal people in Europe.

In what may be designated, as compared with European countries,
the topsy-turvy nations of China and Japan, suicide is quite an
institution, and is apparently looked upon as a fine art; so much so,
that in the latter country the sons of people of quality exercise
themselves in their youth for five or six years, in order that they
may kill themselves, in case of need, with grace and elegance. If a
functionary of the Japanese government has incurred disgrace, he is
allowed to put an end to his own life, which spares him the ignominy
of punishment at the hands of others, and secures the reversion of his
place to his son. All government officials are provided with a habit
of ceremony, made of hempen cloth, necessary for such an occasion;
the sight of this garment must serve, we should think, as a perpetual
_memento mori_, and as a warning not to stray from the right path.
As soon as the order commanding suicide has been communicated to a
culprit, he invites his friends to a feast, and takes formal leave of
them; then, the order of the court having been read over to him, he
makes his ‘last dying speech and confession,’ draws his sabre, and
cuts himself across the body or rips himself up, when a confidential
servant at once strikes off his head. In China also, the regulations
for self-destruction are rigorously defined and carried out; a mandarin
who can boast of the peacock’s feather is graciously allowed to choke
himself by swallowing gold-leaf; while one of less lofty rank, who
is only able to sport a red button on his cap, is obliged to rest
content with the permission to strangle himself with a silken cord.
In India, the voluntary self-immolation of widows on their deceased
husbands’ funeral pyres was, until recently, a universal practice,
and still takes place occasionally in secret, though very properly
discouraged by the government. In some parts of the East Indies the
natives vow suicide in return for boons solicited from their idols;
and in fulfilment of this vow, fling themselves from lofty precipices,
and are dashed to pieces. Or they will destroy themselves after having
had a quarrel with any one, in order that their blood may lie at their
adversary’s door.

Contrary to the generally received opinion, the spring and summer
are the seasons when suicides most abound. The months of March,
June, and July are those chiefly affected by males for this purpose;
while females seem to prefer September, the much-abused November,
and January. The time of day chosen for the deed is usually either
early morning or early evening. The tendency to suicide varies with
the occupation, and is said to be twice as great among artisans as
it is among labourers; it is certainly much greater in cities than
in rural districts, and increases with the increase of civilisation
and education. The fact that married people are much less prone to
self-destruction than the unmarried may be accounted for by the theory
of natural selection, as it is usually, and especially with women,
only the more healthy both in mind and body who enter the married
state; while the fact of suicides among males being always so much
more numerous than among females is perhaps to a certain extent to
be explained by the former having a wider choice of means at their
disposal, and ready at hand. Women, as a rule, prefer to put an end to
their lives by drowning; and as they may have to travel a long distance
before being able to accomplish their design, it is not unlikely
that they may sometimes repent and alter their minds before their
journey’s end. Again, people who throw themselves into the water are
not unfrequently rescued before life is extinct, and restored. Unless
insane, they are probably cured by the attempt, and will not renew it,
the mind having regained its self-control. Suicide is but rarely met
with in old people, and is also very uncommon in children, although
instances are recorded of quite young children hanging or drowning
themselves on being reproved or punished for some venial fault.

An ill-directed education and certain objectionable descriptions of
literature favour the disposition to self-destruction. The propensity
is most strongly marked in those persons who are of a bilious or of a
nervous temperament.

Some would-be suicides resolve to kill themselves in a particular way,
and may have to wait years for an opportunity; others will make use of
the first mode of destruction that presents itself. Taylor says: ‘The
sight of a weapon or of a particular spot where a previous suicide
has been committed, will often induce a person, who may hitherto have
been unsuspected of any such disposition, at once to destroy himself.’
Individuals conscious of their liability to commit self-murder would do
well, therefore, to avoid that ‘sight of means to do ill deeds’ which
might lead to the ‘ill deed’ being ‘done’ in a sudden fit of depression
or frenzy.

The publicity afforded by newspapers to any remarkable case of suicide,
with full description of details, has unquestionably a pernicious
effect, not only by suggesting a means to those already predisposed
to the act, but also by its tending to lessen the natural horror of
self-murder inherent in the human mind. Example has avowedly a great
influence in exciting the propensity to suicide; and a man who cannot
justify the rash act to his own conscience, will find excuses for it
in the examples of others. This imitative propensity may even amount
to an epidemic, as at Versailles in 1793, when no fewer than thirteen
hundred persons destroyed themselves. Some years ago, the Hôtel des
Invalides, Paris, was the scene of one of these outbreaks; one of the
invalids hanged himself on a crossbar of the institution; and in the
ensuing fortnight, six or seven others followed his example on the same
bar, the epidemic being only stopped by the governor having the passage
closed.

Insane people will sometimes display great ingenuity and perseverance
in the means by which they choose to put an end to themselves. They are
very determined; and if frustrated in one attempt, will make others,
perhaps all in different ways; and unless very strictly guarded, will
generally succeed at last in effecting their purpose. An instance of
almost incredible determination to die is that of a French gentleman
who dug a trench in a wood and lay in it sixteen days, writing down
in a journal each day the state of his feelings. From this journal it
appeared that he suffered greatly, at first from hunger, and afterwards
from thirst and cold. He left his trench, and got a little water from
the pump of an inn near the wood on the sixth night; and this he
continued to do until the tenth day, when he was too weak to stir.
He ceased to write on the fifteenth day; and on the sixteenth he was
discovered by a countryman, who tried—but in vain—to restore him. He
died on the eighteenth day.

The heredity of suicide, though not universally conceded, is
admitted by most authorities, and according to some, the tendency to
self-destruction is more disposed to be hereditary than any other
form of insanity. Certainly a great number of those who put an end to
their own lives are members of families in which instances of suicide
or insanity have previously occurred, and the propensity is usually
most strong at some particular age. Dr Gall mentions the case of a
Frenchman of property who killed himself, leaving a large sum of money
to be divided among his seven children. None of these met with any real
misfortunes in life, but all succumbed, before attaining their fortieth
year, to the mania for suicide.

Intemperance, the root of half the idiocy and a considerable percentage
of the insanity of the country, is also largely contributory to the
rapidly increasing number of cases of self-murder. In the French
classification, which is ‘generally admitted to be pretty true of all
countries,’ fifteen per cent. are put down to drink; while thirty-four
per cent. are attributed to insanity, twenty-three per cent. to grief,
and twenty-eight per cent. to various other causes.

Suicide, whether regarded as a crime or a disease, is in all cases a
rash, ill-advised act of impatience. Napoleon—who, when his misfortunes
reached a climax, declared he had not ‘enough of the Roman in him’ for
suicide—described it as an act of cowardice, a running away from the
enemy before being defeated. Perhaps the best safeguards against it
are domestic ties and the sense of responsibility and accountability.
Very few instances of self-destruction occur among prudent hard-working
heads of families who have insured their lives.




CHEWTON-ABBOT.


IN THREE CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER II.

Mrs Abbot drove home in her stately carriage thinking deeply. Her mind
was tolerably easy. She knew there was little chance of a young man’s
love living through years of absence and silence. Frank would go into
the great world, and gaze on many a fair face during that time; till
the beautiful face of Millicent Keene—for even Mrs Abbot could not
gainsay the girl’s beauty—would gradually fade from his thoughts. He
would taste the cup of ambition; he would see what power and station
meant in the world, and would soon laugh to scorn his boyish dream. He
would very quickly realise the difference between Abbot of Chewton Hall
and plain Frank Abbot, who had to earn the bread to keep a wife, be she
ever so charming. In fact, the thoughts of Mrs Abbot in her carriage
and Miss Keene on her sofa were almost identical, although the words
which expressed them differed.

Save for one thing, Mrs Abbot’s reflections were very comforting. The
drawback was that she felt lowered in her own eyes. She had made a
mistake, and had been treated with contumely. The victory was hers, but
she had not won it herself. It was not her cleverness, but the girl’s
right-mindedness which would bring about the separation. She blamed
herself for having misread the girl’s character, and found her honest
indignation at the imputation that her love for Frank was influenced by
his possessions, mortifying to think of. Still, matters had turned out
well. She would have the satisfaction of telling her husband that all
was, or would be, at an end—that the hope of the Abbots would not marry
nobody’s daughter. So busy was she with these thoughts, that she did
not notice, when some three miles outside the smoky town of Bristol,
a horseman approaching. Upon seeing him, her coachman gathered up the
reins preparatory to stopping his horses; but, as the rider made a
negative gesture, he simply touched his hat and drove on; whilst Frank
Abbot and his mother passed, neither apparently noticing the other.

He was a handsome young fellow, and without a cent to his name might
have given many a wealthy competitor long odds in the race for a girl’s
heart. Tall and broad-shouldered—clever face, with deep-set eyes, large
chin, and firm lips. He sat his horse gracefully, looking every inch
a gentleman and an Englishman. Not, one would say, the man to win a
woman’s love, and throw it aside at the bidding of father or mother.
Not the man to do a thing hastily and repent the deed at his leisure.
Rather, a man who, when once engaged in a pursuit, would follow it
steadfastly to the end, whatever that end might be. It was scarcely
right that Millicent Keene should allow fear to mingle with her grief
at the approaching long separation from her lover. She should have
looked into that handsome powerful face and understood that years
would only mould the boy’s intention into the man’s determination.

Naturally, he was at the present moment rather down-hearted. His
mother, having learned his secret, had refused him sympathy or aid. Too
well he knew she was to be swayed neither by entreaty nor argument. He
was now riding over to Clifton to reiterate his love to Millicent, and
to consult as to future steps. As he passed the carriage, he wondered
what had brought his mother in that direction. She had not mentioned
her intention of going to the town, nor had she asked for his escort
as usual. Could it be possible that she had driven over to visit
Millicent? If so, he knew it boded ill; so, pricking on as fast as he
could, he reached Clifton just as the girl had grown more calm and had
washed away the traces of her recent tears.

Frank was terribly upset by her recital of the events of the morning.
Although she did not repeat the whole conversation, he knew his
mother well enough to be able to supply what Millicent passed lightly
over. The proposed separation was a thunderstroke to him. In vain he
entreated the girl to reconsider her determination. The promise was
made, and her pride alone would insure her keeping it. Of course Frank
vowed, after the usual manner of lovers, that love would grow stronger
in absence; and as he thoroughly believed what he vowed, his vows were
very consoling to the girl. He declared he also would go to Australia;
marry Millicent, and take to sheep-farming, leaving the paternal acres
to shift for themselves. All this and many other wild things the
young fellow said; but the end was a sorrowful acquiescence in the
separation, tempered by the firm resolve of claiming her in four years’
time in spite of any home opposition. Having settled this, the heir of
the Abbots rode home in a state of open rebellion against his parents.

This they were quite prepared for, and had, like sensible people, made
up their minds to endure his onslaught passively. His mother made no
reply to his reproaches; his father took no notice of his implied
threats; but both longed for the time to come when Miss Keene would
sail to distant shores and the work of supplanting her might begin.

About one thing Frank was firm, and Millicent, perhaps, did not try
to dissuade him from it. Until they were bound to part, he would see
her every day. Mr and Mrs Abbot knew why his horse was ordered every
morning, and whence that horse bore him at eve; but they said nothing.

The fatal day came soon enough. Frank went down to Plymouth to see the
very last of his love; and the mighty steamship _Chimborazo_ bore away
across the deep seas one of the sweetest and truest girls that ever
won a man’s heart. A week after she sailed, Frank Abbot started on his
continental tour.

‘I don’t care much about it,’ he said to himself, dolefully enough;
‘but it may help to make some of the time pass quicker. Four years, my
darling! How long it seems!’

‘He will see the world,’ said Mrs Abbot, ‘and learn that a pretty face
is not everything.’

‘He will fall in and out of love with a dozen girls before he
returns,’ said Mr Abbot cynically.

It has been before stated that for many years there had been little
change in either the possessions or the position of the Abbots of
Chewton-Abbot; but, like other people, they had occasional windfalls.
Some years after Mr Abbot succeeded to the estate, a new branch of
a large railway passed through an outlying part of his land, and he
who made it a boast of never selling or mortgaging a single acre, was
compelled, by the demands of public convenience and commerce, to part
with what the railway wanted. Of course he obtained a good round sum as
compensation. This lay for a long time at his banker’s, waiting for any
contiguous land which might come into the market. After a while, as no
fields which he wished to add to his own were open to buyers, at his
wife’s suggestion he sought for another and more profitable investment,
and in an evil hour became the proprietor of fifty shares in a bank,
whose failure has now become historical. He bought these shares at a
premium; whilst he held them, they went to a much higher premium, but
no doubt the same tenacity which led him to cling to his acres made him
keep to the same investment. The high rate of interest also was very
useful, and kept another horse or two in the stables.

We can all remember the astonishment we felt that black day when the
news of the stoppage of that particular bank was flashed from end to
end of the kingdom, and how, afterwards, the exposure of the reckless
conduct of its directors, and of the rotten state in which the concern
had been for years, sent a cold shudder down the back of every holder
of bank stock.

Mr Abbot was not a man of business. He did not at once realise what
being the registered owner of these fifty shares meant. He denounced
the roguery of the directors, and vowed that if ever again he had money
to spare, into land it should go, nowhere else. He had an idea that
no more than the money which he had invested would be lost; but when,
after a few days, he gathered from the newspapers the true meaning of
unlimited liability, his heart grew sick within him. The rental of his
estate was about six thousand a year; so, when call after call was made
on the shareholders, William Abbot knew that he was a ruined man, and
lamented his folly for not having entailed the estates. Lands, house,
furniture, plate, all came to the hammer; and so far as county people
and landed gentry, the Abbots were extinct. Mrs Abbot had a jointure
of some five hundred a year, on which the unfortunate couple were fain
to live as best they could. They took a house at Weymouth, and in that
retired watering-place mourned their woes in genteel obscurity.

So Frank Abbot came back from Switzerland to begin the world on his own
account, with nothing but a college degree, a perfect constitution,
and a few hundred pounds scraped together by the sale of his personal
effects. How should he earn his living? He was sorely tempted to
emigrate. He had the frame and muscles for hard work, and outdoor life
would suit him. Yet he shrank from the idea of giving up as beaten in
his native land. Other men had made their way; why should not he? He
felt a consciousness of a certain ability which necessity might force
into full play. His mother suggested the church. ‘A clergyman of good
family can always marry a rich wife, and that you are bound to do now.’
Frank shrugged his broad shoulders, and thought sadly of his promised
wife, so many thousands of miles away. Eventually, he decided to read
for the bar. He knew it would be slow and dreary work to win success
there—that for many years he must be prepared to endure penury; but a
career might be made. If a hundred fail, one succeeds—why should he not
be that one?

Millicent must be told the bad news. He had no right to keep a girl’s
love during all the years which must elapse before he could offer
her a home. He must at least release her from her vows. If—and as he
believed it would be—she refused to be released, they must wait and
hope. Now that the reality of marrying on nothing came home to him, he
saw what it meant—what misery it must entail. Now that the earning his
own living, of which he had spoken so bravely when there was no need
of his doing so, was forced upon him, he became quite aware of the
sacrifices he must make. He was no desponding coward, and indeed had
little doubt as to his ultimate success. He felt that he could bear
hardship himself; but he could not bear it if Millicent must also share
it. At anyrate it was right she should know the change in his fortunes.
So he wrote a few words: ‘MY DARLING—We are all ruined. I am going to
try and make a living as a barrister. Of course I must now release you
from every promise.’ He signed his name; but before sealing the letter,
could not help adding: ‘But I love you more than ever.’ Then he sent
the letter to Millicent’s aunt, and begged that it might be forwarded
to her niece.

That letter never reached its destination. Whether it was mislaid or
misdirected—whether a mail-bag was lost either on the voyage or on
the long land journey—whether Miss Keene’s aunt, who had learned what
reverses had befallen the Abbots, simply threw it on the fire, will
never be known. All that can be said is, Millicent never received it;
and after months had passed, Frank, who was looking eagerly for the
overdue answer, grew very miserable, and began to doubt the love of
woman.

       *       *       *       *       *

Five long years have passed by. Frank Abbot is now a barrister of
nearly three years’ standing. He works hard, is frequently on circuit,
and if, as yet, he has not achieved any brilliant forensic triumph,
he is neither briefless nor without hope. Some small cases have been
intrusted to him, and he finds the number of these slowly but surely
increasing, and knows that if the opportunity comes, and if, when it
does come, he may be able to seize it and make the most of it, success
may soon be his. Even now he makes enough to supply the modest wants
to which he has tutored himself. But for some time after the last of
his little capital had vanished, he had been hardly pressed. Indeed,
in order to live at all, he had been compelled to accept some aid from
his parents’ reduced means. They gave this readily enough, as, with all
their faults, they loved their son. Even to this day, Frank looks back
with a shudder upon one or two years of his life.

The five years have changed him from a boy to a man. He is handsome
as ever, but his look is more serious; his features express even more
character. He has given up all dreams of the woolsack; but is conscious
of possessing fair abilities, a good address, a commanding presence,
and a great deal of ready self-confidence. He feels that in a few
years’ time he may have a home to share, if the woman he loves is still
willing to share it. He has not again written to her. He has heard
nothing from her, although the time by which he promised to claim her
has long passed. He is, however, resolved that as soon as he sees the
future fairly promising, he will seek her, and learn whether she is
still true to him; or whether the sweetest episode of his life must
be linked with the memory of a woman’s faithlessness and inconstancy.
He sighs as he thinks of the time which has elapsed since she waved
him that last farewell at Plymouth. ‘She may be married, years ago,’
he says, ‘and have three or four children by now.’ Then he thinks of
her steadfast eyes, and knows that he wrongs her—blames himself for
his mistrust. To sum up, Frank Abbot’s constancy remains firm; but he
is obliged to do what thousands of other men must do, hope for better
days, working, meanwhile, with might and main to bring the dawn of
those better days near.

Does he regret the loss of his fortune much? Of course he does, being
neither a fool nor of a superhuman nature. Many a day, as he sits in
wig and gown in the stifling court, listening to learned arguments on
cases in which he has not the remotest interest, his soul longs for a
day with the pheasants, a run with the Duke’s hounds, or a ride round
the home-farm; and he anathematises all joint-stock banks as roundly as
his father may be supposed to have done. But, nevertheless, Frank is
not a soured man. He is somewhat grave and self-contained, but pleasant
company enough to the few men whom he chooses to call his friends.

He has not been near Chewton Hall since the family downfall. It had
been bought, with a great part of the furniture, by a rich London
merchant, whose name, although he had heard it at the time of the sale,
had slipped from his mind. Frank cared little who held it. He knew it
is only in romances that a ruined family regains possession of its
kingdom. Some day he intended to run down and have a look at the old
place which he had loved so well; although he feared the sight would
not improve the tenor of his mind, or make him less inclined to rail at
Fortune.

Just about this time Frank made a new acquaintance. It was long
vacation. The Lord Chief-justice was yachting; his brother-judges,
Queen’s Counsel, and learned leaders, were recruiting their jaded
energies as it best pleased them; gay juniors had thrown their wigs
into their boxes, and were away on various holiday pursuits. Frank,
however, who had recently succeeded in getting some occasional work
on a journal, and who hoped to get more, was still in London. One
morning, a gentleman, who wished to see Mr Abbot, was shown into his
chambers. The visitor was a tall middle-aged man, strongly built, well
dressed, and with pleasant features. He looked like one who had led
a hard life, and lines on his brow told of trouble. His hands were
large and brown—it was evident they had not been idle in their day.
Not, perhaps, quite a gentleman, as we conventionally use, or abuse,
that word, but a noticeable, out-of-the-common man. He gave Frank a
sharp quick glance, as if trying to gauge his intellect and powers.
Apparently satisfied, he took the chair offered him, and explained
his errand. He had a lawsuit pending, and wished Mr Abbot to conduct
the case. Frank interposed smilingly, and told his new client that it
was etiquette for his instructions to come through a solicitor. He
explained that a barrister and the man whose cause he pleaded must
communicate through a third party. His visitor apologised for his
ignorance about such matters, and said he would see his solicitor.
However, after the apology was accepted, instead of bowing himself out,
Mr John Jones—for by that name he called himself—entered into a general
kind of conversation with Frank. He spoke easily and pleasantly on a
variety of topics, and when at last he left the room, shook hands most
cordially with the young man, and hoped he should meet him again soon.

‘Wonder who he is?’ said Frank, laughing over the sudden friendliness
this stranger had exhibited. ‘Anyway, I hope he’ll make his solicitors
send me that brief.’

However, no brief came; but for the next few days Frank Abbot was
always tumbling across Mr John Jones. He met him in the street as he
went to and from his chambers. Mr Jones always stopped him, shook
hands, and as often as not, turned and walked beside him. Frank began
to like the man. He was very amusing, and seemed to know every country
under the sun. Indeed, he declared he was a greater stranger to London
than to any other capital. He was a great smoker; and as soon as he
found that Frank did not object to the smell of good tobacco in his
chambers, scarcely a day went by without his paying him a visit and
having a long chat over a cigar. Frank was bound to think that Mr
John Jones had taken a great liking to him. Perhaps, the man wanted a
friend. As he said, he knew no one in London, and no one knew him.

So young Abbot drifted into intimacy with this lonely man, and soon
quite looked forward to the sound of his cheerful voice and the
fragrance of those particularly good cigars he smoked. He even, at Mr
Jones’ urgent request, ran down to the seaside for a couple of days
with him, and found the time pass very pleasantly in his society.

Although the young man was very reticent on the subject of his family’s
misfortune, Mr Jones had somehow arrived at the conclusion that he was
not rolling in wealth. He made no secret of the fact that he himself
was absurdly rich. ‘I say, Abbot,’ he remarked one day, ‘if you want
any money to push yourself up with, let me know.’ Perhaps Mr Jones
fancied that judgeships were to be bought.

‘I don’t want any,’ said Frank shortly.

‘Don’t take offence. I said, if you do. Your pride—the worst part of
you. It’s very hard a man can only help a fellow like you by dying and
leaving him money. I don’t want to die just yet.’

Frank laughed. ‘I want no money left me. I shouldn’t take yours if you
left it to me.’

‘Well, you’ll have to some day, you see.’ Then Mr John Jones lit
another cigar from the stump of the old one, and went his way; leaving
Frank more puzzled than ever with his new friend.

But the next day an event occurred which drove Mr John Jones, money,
and everything save one thing, out of his head: Millicent Keene was in
England—in London!

When he saw her letter lying on his table, Frank Abbot feared it could
not be real. It would fade away like a fairy bank-note. No; before him
lay a few lines in her handwriting: ‘MY DEAR FRANK—I have returned at
last. I am at No. 4 Caxton Place.—Yours, MILLICENT KEENE.’

Early as it was, he rushed out of his office, jumped into a cab, and
sped away to the address she gave him.

We may pass over the raptures, the embraces, the renewed vows, the
general delicious character of that long-deferred meeting. We may
suppose the explanation of the lost letter accounting for the girl’s
silence; and we may picture her sympathy with her lover’s misfortunes,
and her approval of the manly way in which he had gone to work to
retrieve them, in some degree. Let us imagine them very very happy,
sitting hand in hand in a room at No. 4 Caxton Place; Millicent,
by-the-by, looking more beautiful than ever, her charms not lessened by
the look of joy in her dark eyes.

Their first transports are over. They have descended to mundane things.
In fact, Frank is now telling her that he believes he can count on so
many hundreds a year. What does his darling think?

Miss Keene purses up her pretty mouth and knits her brows. To judge by
appearances, she might be the most mercenary young woman. Frank waits
her reply anxiously.

‘I think we may manage,’ she says. ‘I have been accustomed to poverty
all my life, you know.’

Frank would have vowed to work his fingers to the bones before she
should want anything; but remembering just in time that his profession
worked with the tongue instead of the hands, checked himself. He
thanked her with a kiss.

‘When shall we be married?’ he said.

She looked up at him shyly. ‘Would you think it very dreadful if I said
the sooner the better? In fact, Frank, I have come from Australia to
marry you. If you had forgotten me, I should have gone straight back.’

‘Next week?’ asked Frank, scarcely believing his own happiness. ‘Will
next week be too soon? One advantage of being poor and living in
lodgings is, that we can be married without any bother “about a house.”’

Millicent gave him to understand that next week would do. She was
staying with some distant relative. No one’s consent had to be asked.
She had told her father all. The day Frank chose, she would be his wife.

‘How is your father? I forgot to ask,’ said Frank.

‘Much the same as ever,’ answered Millicent in a way which inferred
that Mr Keene’s struggles to redeem fortune were as great as before.

Then she dismissed Frank until to-morrow. He went home walking on air,
and, like a dutiful son, wrote to Mrs Abbot, telling her that Millicent
had returned, and next week would marry him. Mrs Abbot’s reply may be
given here:

‘MY DEAR FRANK—I _say_ nothing. I am too much _horrified_. If any
young man was ever called upon to marry money and build up the fallen
fortunes of a family, it is you. My last hope is gone. The obstinacy of
your character I know too well. If I thought I could turn you from your
purpose, I would come and _kneel at your feet_. If I knew Miss Keene’s
address, I would make one last appeal to her. She, I believe, was a
sensible young woman.—Your affectionate MOTHER.’




COMMON ERRORS IN DOMESTIC MEDICINE.

BY AN OLD PRACTITIONER.


Among the various passions which are inherent in the human breast, none
is stronger or more evident than the desire which every one manifests
to practise the healing art in some form or other, either on himself
or—more frequently—on his fellow-creatures; a propensity which betrays
itself in the gratuitous administration of physic, the infliction of
minor surgery, or, if these suggestions be not favourably received
by the patient, in copious advice of a hygienic nature. This is
particularly the case with the gentler sex. Every woman is a physician
at heart, and nothing is more refreshing than to sit and listen to
two ladies in confidential medical conversation respecting the merits
of their favourite nostrums. It is to them that homœopathy especially
appeals. What more delightful spectacle can be found than that of a
fair amateur ‘doctress’ with her book, her case of phials and little
gold spoon, dispensing globules to her family, to her servants, to
her neighbours, to any one and every one; and to enjoy at the same
time the sweet reflection that she is not doing a particle of harm!
Nevertheless, there are some not unfrequent mistakes in the application
of so-called household remedies, excellent in themselves; and to call
attention to these, and to a few popular fallacies on the subject of
health and disease, is the object of the present paper.

Let us commence with that finest of domestic institutions, the
poultice—bread, linseed, or mustard—soothing, fomenting, or
stimulating, according to circumstances. There are few remedies in the
pharmacopœia of wider beneficial application in surgery and medicine
than this; yet terrible mischief often follows its injudicious use. A
man has a cough, or his child wheezes with a ‘tightness on the chest,’
and on goes a poultice straightway. So far, so good; in all probability
they wake up next morning greatly relieved. But the father is off
to his daily business, and the child runs about and plays as usual,
while—since they feel so much better—neither takes any precaution, by
extra clothing or otherwise, to guard against the consequences of the
poultice itself. The skin and subjacent tissues have been rendered
lax by the heat and moisture, the blood-vessels are dilated, and the
circulation of the part increased; to use a common expression, the
‘pores’ are open, and there is thus a tenfold liability to catch cold,
especially in winter-time, when these things most frequently happen.
Ordinary colds which are said to have ‘run’ into congestion of the
lungs, bronchitis, or pneumonia, may often be traced to their serious
or fatal termination through the _undefended_ use of a poultice.

It should be borne in mind that a common poultice—such as is made of
linseed meal or bread—is merely a vehicle for the application of damp
heat—a continuous fomentation, in fact—and has no specific curative
action. A muslin bag filled with bran, or flannels dipped in hot water,
have precisely the same effect, but are not so conveniently employed,
as they have to be more frequently renewed. A poultice should always be
thoroughly mixed and homogeneous in consistence throughout; just so wet
as to permit of its retaining the mould of the cup when turned out, but
not wet enough to exude water by its own weight when lightly applied.
A _hot_ poultice should never be allowed to remain on after its outer
part is less than the temperature of the blood, nor must it get dry
and caked. As a general rule, it may be said that bread makes a better
cataplasm than linseed meal, but requires to be changed oftener. There
are, of course, special medical reasons in occasional cases for the
preference of one or the other, but such instances scarcely come within
the scope of this article. Well-mashed carrots make a capital soothing
application, and a poultice composed of tea-leaves is, owing to its
slight astringent action, generally suitable when one is required about
the region of the eye. An abominable mixture of soap and sugar is very
popular as a local remedy in some parts of England, and is credited
with great ‘drawing’ properties. On the other hand, it is good to know
that the old-fashioned liniment of hartshorn and oil is one of the
best embrocations ever invented under ordinary circumstances, and that
therapeutical research amongst all the drugs that the vegetable and
mineral kingdoms afford has never discovered an improvement on salt and
water as a gargle for simple sore throat.

What British home would _be_ a home without its little roll of sticking
or court plaster? How often is it that little tearful eyes look mistily
down on a poor scratched finger, held carefully out in the other hand,
as if there were some danger of its coming off, while mamma cuts a thin
yellow strip and wraps it round the injured member with comforting
words, all lamentation being temporarily reduced to an occasional sob
in the interest of the operation. That the sticking-plaster exercises
a fine moral effect in such a case, there can be no doubt; but I fear
there is as little doubt that it often does more harm than good from a
physical point of view, and this arises from the fallacious belief in
it as a healing agent. The only real service that sticking-plaster does
is to hold two cut surfaces together while Nature’s process necessary
for their union is being completed, acting for a slight wound as
stitches do in a deep one. But to cover an abrasion or raw surface with
it is worse than useless, as it only irritates it. The plea is often
advanced that it serves to keep dust and dirt off. A bit of wet linen
rag, however, would be far better for that purpose.

Most of the ordinary household cures for chilblains are well enough in
their way, but an unfortunate mistake is often committed in applying
certain of them, which are fit only for the chilblains in their
early stage, to broken ones, setting up thereby great inflammation
and producing very painful sores. A broken chilblain is a little
ulcer, and must be treated as such. As for the thousand-and-one
remedies in vogue for corns, it is wonderful that they should exist
at all, since nine people out of ten could cure their own without any
application whatever, by wearing properly fitting boots and shoes. It
is irregularity of pressure which creates corns; boots which are too
big being as productive of the tiny torments as tight ones. A wet rag
covered with oiled silk—to retain the moisture—and bound round the
corn, is one of the best cures.

A very common but reprehensible practice is that of holding a burn as
close to the grate as possible, ‘to draw the fire out’—not out of the
fireplace—but from the injured part. It is quite feasible to conceive
that such a proceeding may give ease by deadening sensation in some
instances; but it by no means follows that it does good or expedites
recovery—indeed, we shall see that in such a case the loss of sensation
really proves further damage to the tissues. Burns have been divided
by surgeons into six classes: (1) Simple scorching, sufficient only
to redden the surface. (2) Blistering; the cuticle raised and forming
little bladders of water. (3) The skin denuded of its cuticle. This is
the most painful stage of all, as it leaves the nerve-ends exposed. (4)
Destruction of the entire thickness of the skin; painless or nearly
so, because the sensitive nerve-bulbs are destroyed. (5) Destruction
of all the soft parts; and (6) charring of the bone—two conditions
very difficult to imagine as co-existent with any remnant of life.
It can thus be readily understood how a burn of the third order of
magnitude can be converted by additional heat into the fourth, and
temporary relief from pain purchased by transforming a trifling injury
into a serious one, liable to be followed by severe illness and
permanent deformity. A most mysterious cause of death after burns is
the ulceration and bursting of a certain blood-vessel in the stomach.
The connection between the two has never been discovered. People talk
about this or that being good for a burn, but not for a scald, or _vice
versâ_; but practically no distinction is to be drawn between the two,
further than that, as we know the highest temperature of water, we
know the utmost limit of injury in a scald, whereas there is no limit
to the possibilities of a burn. To keep the air from both is the main
object in treatment. Cook, who generally appears on the scene of the
disaster with her flour-dredge, is a very efficient surgeon for burns
and scalds of the first degree—this little scientific technicality will
comfort the sufferer marvellously; but where the skin is raised or
broken, something of an oily nature—Carron oil, for instance—should be
substituted. Cover it up with lots of cotton-wool, as though you wished
to keep it as warm as possible; and, mind, no soap and sugar on any
account!

What is the origin of the popular idea that the finger-nails are
poisonous to a wound? It does not do a wound much good to scratch
it, or indeed touch it, but that is no reason why those useful
little shields of our finger-ends should be so libelled. Whence
comes the notion that to pierce a girl’s ears and compel her to wear
earrings improves her eyesight? Possibly this may have arisen from
the fact that medical men sometimes put blisters behind the ears as
counter-irritants, to relieve some chronic ophthalmic disorders. Why
is a glass of hot rum-and-water with a lump of butter in it not only
familiarly prescribed for but familiarly swallowed by catarrh-afflicted
mankind? Speaking of colds generally, we may remark in passing that
treacle posset, hot gruel, putting the feet in mustard-and-water, &c.,
are all capital things, but that they effect only the one object of
inducing perspiration. There is nothing specifically curative about
any of them. It is a mistake, however, to give spirits, negus, or any
alcoholic fluids in influenza colds where there is much congestion of
the mucous membranes, as it increases the incidental headache.

Some people fancy that a magnet will draw out a needle, broken off
short in the hand, even when it has passed in altogether out of sight.
When a medical practitioner is called upon to extract a broken needle,
he usually finds that it has been driven beyond reach by injudicious
squeezing and other futile home-attempts at extraction, for the
lightest touch makes a needle travel. A very troublesome class of
case this is, owing to the uncertainty of its exact situation, of the
direction of its long axis, and of its even being there at all—each
sufficient to create the disagreeable possibility of cutting into the
flesh without finding it. In such a state of affairs, one might as
well put a magnet in the mouth to draw one’s boots on, as to expect
to extract the needle by its influence. But a celebrated surgeon, Mr
Marshall, has devised an ingenious application of this force for the
purpose of detection. A powerful magnet is held upon the part which
contains the suspected needle for some time, so as to influence it.
Then a finely-hung polarised needle is suspended over it, and is
immediately deflected, if any metal be concealed beneath. Never press
or squeeze the flesh about a broken needle or bit of glass. If you
cannot lay hold of it with the fingers or scissors, or, still better,
a pair of tweezers, and pull it right out at once, keep quite still
until a doctor has seen it. By so doing, you may save yourself weeks or
months of pain, and even possible amputation of a limb.

Tea if taken in excess is indigestible and nerve-destroying; but in
sickness this delightful fluid gives a temporary stimulus to the brain,
and though possessing no feeding qualities in itself, it prevents or
retards the waste of tissue—a property of considerable importance in
illness where but little food is taken. Above all, the fact of being
allowed one favourite beverage, albeit greatly diluted, when everything
else that pertains to the routine of daily life seems interdicted or
upset, has a beneficial effect on the patient, who welcomes his cup of
weak tea with something of the anticipation of that refreshment and
social enjoyment he derives from it under brighter circumstances.

‘Is the bone broken, or only fractured, doctor?’ is an anxious
question often asked apropos of an injured limb. Broken and fractured
are synonymous terms in surgery, my dear madam—it is always a lady
who asks this—but I think I know what you mean. A fully developed
bone is rarely cracked—nearly always it snaps in two pieces—but
the soft cartilaginous bones of children sometimes sustain what is
called a ‘green-stick fracture,’ a name which almost explains itself,
meaning that the bone is broken through part of its thickness, but not
separated, as happens with the green bough of a tree. Many people have
a totally erroneous idea, when an arm or leg is badly bruised only,
that it would be better if it were broken. ‘Right across the muscle,
too!’ implies that an injury has been received across the upper arm
in the region of the biceps, that being the only ‘muscle’ which is
honoured by general public recognition. How many people know that
what they call their flesh, and the lean part of meat, is nothing but
muscles, the pulleys by which every action of the body is performed?
Common mistakes lie in trying to ‘walk off’ rheumatism, sprains, and
other things which should be kept entirely at rest; and in squeezing
collections of matter which have burst or been lanced, with a view to
hasten their healing by the more speedy emptying of their contents.

Of late years, the Latin or other scientific equivalents for diseases
have crept into general use, with the curious result that in many cases
they are taken to mean different things. Scarlatina, for instance, not
only sounds much nicer than scarlet fever, but is often considered
to be that disease in a milder form; and the identity of pneumonia
with inflammation of the lungs, or of gastric with typhoid fever, or
of the various terms ending in ‘itis’ with the inflammation they are
intended to specify, is far from being universally recognised. Abscess
is a better word than ‘gathering;’ and though, on the other hand,
‘tumour’ seems very dreadful, we may find consolation in remembering
that after all it only means a swelling, whatever the nature may be,
from a gum-boil to a cancer. There is much in a name. Dipsomania sounds
much better than the other thing; and kleptomania by any other name
would not smell so sweet. Much in a name? I should think so. Read what
follows, if you doubt it. When a ship arrives in an English port from
abroad, before those on board are allowed to have any communication
with the shore, the ship must be declared healthy by the sanitary
authorities, who accordingly board her at once, inspect her bills of
health, and especially the list of those who have been ill during
the voyage. If any of these are entered on the sick-list as having
suffered from intermittent fever, printed forms have to be filled up,
declarations made and signed, certificates written out, all sorts of
questions answered about whether their bedding or clothing has been
destroyed; and the men themselves paraded on deck for inspection.
But if it is stated, instead, that they have suffered from ague—only
another word for intermittent fever—then no notice is taken of it!

After all, there is very little rationale in any amateur system of
medicine; all its treatment is purely empirical, and has its root in
that love of mysticism which prevails in everything. Medicine, like
every other science, is built up of hard, unromantic facts, amenable
to the laws of logic and common-sense. The popular idea runs always on
specifics. Every bottle in a druggist’s shop is supposed to contain
a definite remedy for a definite disease; and the patient weaving of
link with link in a chain of logical inferences, of the correlation
of causes and effects, which constitutes medical science, is unknown.
‘What’s good for so-and-so?’ is a query constantly put to a doctor; and
if he answers honestly, he must confess that in nine cases out of ten
he can give no absolute reply, but must preface his words with, ‘That
depends!’ Take two very frequent illustrations by way of conclusion.
What is ‘good for’ indigestion? and what for a headache? But what is
indigestion? Not a disease, but a generic name for fifty different
diseases, all attended with the same symptoms in some measure, but
proceeding from not only different but often entirely opposite causes.
Thus, the pain may be produced by a deficiency or by an excess of the
gastric juice; and by any derangement, from a simple error in diet
to a cancer; and it requires the practised eye, ear, and hand of the
physician to detect and appreciate those minute differences which point
to the root of the evil. As for a headache, such a complaint hardly
exists _per se_, but is almost invariably a symptom only of some other
disorder; and we all know how many varying states of the body will give
us headache. Nevertheless, may the practice of domestic medicine and
the virtues which go with it long continue in our midst, and let no man
be so ill-advised as to banish the harmless little medicine-chest with
its associations from his hearth.




OUTWARD AND HOMEWARD BOUND.


Many a long journey by sea and land, in fair weather and in foul, has
fallen to my lot; but to none can I look back with such vivid delight
as to the first which found me turning from wintry England to seek a
perpetual summer beneath Eastern skies.

I fancy every one’s first voyage by one of the P. and O. steam-packets
must be a matter of considerable amusement, from the novelty of
everything. Perhaps one of the most curious sights is the coming on
board of the Indian and Colonial mails. It seems scarcely possible
that such a multitude of boxes and sacks as those which lie heaped up
in such solid masses can really be all postal matter. A very great man
on board is the guardian of Her Majesty’s mails. A man of wondrous
authority—occasionally a thorn in the side of the captain, as being
the possessor of certain powers of interference or of counsel, rarely,
however, brought into action. Then as to fellow-passengers, there is no
type of man, woman, or child who is not here represented. Happily, when
outward bound, the proportion of children is very small. The return
voyage is very different. Perhaps ninety or a hundred children of all
sizes and ages, flying from oriental climates, in which young English
life cannot flourish, and all more or less spoilt by the care of ayahs
and native servants, whose sole idea of training is to give a child
whatever it cries for. Imagine the torture which must be inflicted
by such an army of babies on the older passengers, probably never,
at the best, much addicted to babiolatry, but now rendered doubly
irritable by long battles with sun and liver; for on a voyage homeward
there are generally a sad proportion of sickly folk; men conscious
of possessing a liver, and all manner of other complaints, or, worse
still, unconscious alike of life’s cares or pleasures. On our return to
England, there were no less than twelve lunatics on board, victims of
the combined influence of the sun and the system of incessant ‘pegs,’
alias brandy and soda-water.

Outward bound, we find abundant studies of character in ship-life,
where business is laid aside, and in general every one tries to make
the best of his neighbours. From the grave old Indian official,
returning to his high post in some distant corner of the empire,
down to the beardless Competition Wallah, still breathless from the
educational high-pressure to which he has been subjected, all minds
are naturally more or less tinged with thoughts of the land for which
they are bound; and we hear more of Indian and Colonial manners and
customs than we should do in a year in Britain. A considerable number
of the more energetic set to work at once to learn Hindustani or some
other oriental language—generally a fruitless struggle, as only an
exceptional few, with wondrous powers of abstraction, can find leisure
for any settled work.

Among the small novelties which catch the unaccustomed eye, is the
setting of a great dinner-table in stormy weather. The table from
end to end is covered with skeleton frames of mahogany, laid over
the tablecloth. These are called ‘fiddles,’ and keep your plate from
rolling too far. As to your cup or wine-glass, it stands on a swinging
table opposite your nose, and preserves so perfect an equilibrium, that
in the wildest storm, not one drop of the contents is spilt. How the
stewards manage to wait, and the cooks to cook, for such a multitude,
in such a rolling and turmoil, and in such limited space, is a matter
for perpetual wonder and admiration. If you go for’ard, you will find
a regular town—butcher’s shop and baker’s shop, carpenter’s shop and
engineer’s shop, tailors and laundrymen—that is, sailors doing amateur
work; and as to the live-stock, there are sheep and pigs, and cows and
oxen, and poultry of every description; in short, a regular farmyard;
and I think some of the big children find as much amusement as the
little ones in that corner of the ship.

One thing startling to a new traveller is the rapidity with which
time changes. He finds his watch going very wrong, and perhaps, for
the first day or two, is weak enough to alter it, till he finds it
simpler to count ‘bells’ after the manner of the sea. Speaking of
hours, one of the many small gambling devices to relieve the tedium
of the voyage is a system of sweepstakes as to the exact moment when
the vessel will drop anchor at any given port, tickets being issued
for every five or ten minutes of the expected forenoon or afternoon,
and the winnings being sometimes presented to a Sailors’ Orphan Fund.
Some of my fellow-travellers have told me that in long weary voyages
they had been driven to institute races for short distances, the steeds
being cheese-mites, or maggots carefully extracted from the nuts. These
races at last became positively exciting; and the same creatures being
preserved from day to day, were, if of approved speed, worth small
fortunes to their owners. A very swift maggot would sell for a large
sum! Fly loo was another favourite game, but happily, we have never had
occasion to try such singular amusements. There are games at Bull for
those who want exercise; and sedentary games and books, and singing
and chatting, for sociable folk. For my part, being an unsocial sort
of animal, I think that ‘to be talked to all day’ is the sum of human
misery, as much on board ship as on land. So, on my memorable first
voyage, when all was new and delightful, I soon discovered a quiet
nook on the top of the deck cabin, right astern, where, with infinite
satisfaction, I established myself, and there read in peace, no one
venturing to invade that haven of refuge save under a solemn vow of
silence. But when the light began to wane, the silence was no more;
for the sons and daughters of music there assembled, and as there were
several good voices and a first-rate leader, the glees and choruses
were sometimes very effective.

Thus pleasantly day and night slipped by in quick succession. Casual
acquaintanceships ripened into lifelong friendships; and when at length
we reached our journey’s end, the joy of arrival was tempered by true
regret for the break-up of a pleasant party, and the dispersion of many
friends, of whom the majority in all probability might never meet again.

       *       *       *       *       *

A brief year passed away—a year of ever-changing delight in the
wondrous Indian land, and ere we realised that our allotted twelve
months were over, we found ourselves numbered with _The Homeward
Bound_. Very different was our return journey from the last. Instead of
finding ourselves surrounded by a superabundance of bright energetic
life, our companions were almost all on the sick-list, as few people
who were not driven home by illness, would exchange an Indian winter
for the chilly frosts and snows of England. Instead of the continuous
sunshine of our outward journey, we had bitter winds and sharp storms,
and though we were too good sailors to be thereby affected, some of our
neighbours were wretched enough.

But the saddest change of all was the long list of funerals, which,
commencing ere we left the deep-blue Indian Ocean, only ended as we
neared the English shores. Sometimes we heard the beautiful words of
the solemn funeral service read in the quiet moonlight, and sometimes
when we could scarcely distinguish a word for the howling of the storm
and roar of waters, and only knew by the sad, earnest faces of sailors
and soldiers crowding round, that the uncoffined clay, which lay so
still beneath the outspread Union-jack, was about to be committed to
the deep. The first who thus ‘fell asleep’ was a little child, on whom
the tropical sun had laid its fiery finger. Not all the ice of Himla
could cool the burning of that fevered, throbbing brow; and the wistful
baby-eyes looked vainly up, in piteous mute appeal, to those who knew
too bitterly how utterly powerless they were to help. But when the
red glowing sun sank below the mellow waters, that tender spirit rose
to its Home, far beyond the stars; and loving hands laid the tiny
marble form in a pure white shell, meet for so fair a pearl. Then kind,
warm-hearted British tars covered that little coffin with England’s
flag, and laid it down gently and reverently, standing round bareheaded
in the warm southern moonlight, while holy words were uttered as the
little white coffin sank down into the quiet depths of that wondrously
blue sea.

A few more days went by, and again the Angel of Death was among us.
This time he came to call away a poor fellow with the frame of a
young giant, who but a few months before had left the Emerald Isle in
glowing health and strength, but who now wearily dragged himself along
sun-stricken, utterly unconscious that the shadow of the angel’s wing
already darkened over him; only craving once more to reach the old
home, where mother and sisters would welcome him. But when the sun
rose, one cold, bleak morning, we were told he had passed away in the
night. We were on the Red Sea; but it was bitterly cold and stormy, and
the dull, drear, wintry winds were echoing over bleak bare shores, and
sighing among the masts and rigging. Even the sea was leaden-hued; and
when the funeral service was read, and the body lowered into the sullen
waves, the pale sunrise was overclouded by a heavy drifting shower. It
was the saddest, dreariest funeral at which I was ever present. In the
cabin next to his was another victim of the sun—a handsome young bride,
with mind, alas! all unstrung. Of course she could not have known what
was passing so near, yet, through all those sad hours she kept on
crooning a low plaintive song, telling how

    Somebody’s darling, so young, and so fair,
    Somebody’s darling lay dying there.

An hour later we lay-to, off the wreck of the ill-fated _Carnatic_, the
property of the same Company as the ship in which we sailed; which,
but a few weeks previously, had, one Sunday night, in calmest weather,
diverged but a little from her course, and struck upon a hidden coral
reef. There she lay all the long day in the sunshine. So little was
danger suspected, that not even Her Majesty’s mails, or the precious
human lives on board, were landed on the island of Shadwan, which lay
at a distance of about three miles; and where all might have found a
safe refuge. Meals continued to be served with the usual wonderful
regularity; and between whiles, the passengers amused themselves with
angling for fish of dazzling colours, which swarmed all round the coral
rock. In short, the affair seems to have been treated in the light of
a summer picnic, till the dread moment when, at midnight, the vessel
suddenly parted mid-ships and went down. Thus, like another _Royal
George_, the good ship suddenly foundered in a calm sea, carrying with
her many a brave British heart. Some good swimmers, though carried down
with the swirl, struggled to the surface, and after many a hard blow
from floating spars and luggage, escaped with their lives; and a few
boats likewise got beyond the reach of the whirlpool. It was Tuesday
night before the survivors were all safe on the isle of Shadwan; and
of their goods, only one dressing-bag and one dry box of matches had
escaped. Some huge bales of dry cotton had, however, been cast ashore,
so tightly packed that the centre was still quite dry. This they heaped
up as material for a bonfire, wherewith to greet the first sail that
hove in sight; and while some stood by, ready to kindle the blaze,
others rowed out to sea again, taking with them their only rocket.
They had not long to wait. Soon a great steamer belonging to the same
Company drew near, and the Homeward-bound rescued the survivors of the
Outward-bound, whose journey sunward had been thus sadly damped at the
outset. All we saw of the wreck were the extreme tips of the masts
appearing above the waters, to mark where the divers were even then at
work, seeking to rescue property of all sorts. The mails had previously
been rescued, and many half-legible letters had reached India before we
had sailed thence.

Strangely, in truth, fell our Christmas Eve, as we landed, on the dull
shore of Suez, where, on a little sandy island, so many of England’s
sons, ‘homeward-bound,’ sleep their last sleep beneath the burning sun;
and as we stood in the starlight, watching the last of our companions
hurrying on to Alexandria, it was hard indeed to realise that festive
Yule had found us in such dreary quarters. Nor—for it was before the
Suez Canal days—did it mend matters much to spend our Christmas Day
whirling across the Desert in an Egyptian railway. But when evening
brought us to the green banks of the Nile, we were content.




OCCASIONAL NOTES.


WHY DO WE NOW DRINK LESS COFFEE?

For many years past it has been plainly apparent that there has been
a decline in the consumption of coffee; and while the use of spirits,
wine, tobacco, tea, and cocoa has considerably increased, that of
coffee has fallen off to a considerable extent. Dr Wallace, F.R.S.E.,
in a paper read before the Society of Public Analysts, is of opinion
that the people of this country are losing their taste for coffee
because of the difficulty of obtaining it in a pure state. About the
time when the consumption per head was highest, coffee began to be
adulterated with chicory, and now this is done so universally, that
many people prefer the mixture to pure coffee, and few know the taste
of the genuine article.

When travelling on the continent, the tourist enjoys the fragrant cup;
but the beverage supplied at the best hotels and restaurants in this
country is not coffee, but a mixture of that substance with chicory,
in the proportion of three-fourths to one-third of the whole, and
sometimes more. As Dr Wallace correctly says, this substance may be
described as chicory flavoured with coffee. Chicory being bitter, with
three times the colouring power of coffee, gives it the appearance of
great strength; but it should always be remembered that it contains no
caffeine, and wants the exhilarating qualities for which good coffee is
partaken. The sooner the public awakens to a sense of this fact, the
better.

Pure coffee can be had; but it is only sold with a grudge, for
the grocer has his chief profit in the chicory with which it is
adulterated. To show where the profit lies, take the case of a
particular coffee sold in tins, which contains one part of coffee
to three parts of chicory, and is sold at one-and-fourpence per
pound. The coffee in a pound of it costs, retail, say sevenpence, the
chicory, say fourpence, tins, say threepence, profit twopence—total,
one-and-fourpence. But the purchaser gets no value except the
sevenpenceworth of coffee, the chicory only adding colour, bitterness,
and body, so that he pays one-and-fourpence for sevenpenceworth of
coffee.

Amongst the other substances used to adulterate coffee in order to
yield a higher profit to the dealer, are burnt sugar or caramel,
dried and roasted figs, dried dates, date-stones, decayed ships’
biscuits, beans, peas, acorns, malt, dandelion root, turnips, carrots,
parsnips, and mangold-wurzel, all of which are roasted in imitation of
coffee. There is little wonder, therefore, that coffee, which lends
itself so easily to unprincipled adulteration, is becoming unpopular.
According to Dr Wallace, the quantity used per head in 1843 was 1.1 lb.,
increasing up to 1848, when it was 1.37 lb. It has since slowly but
steadily declined, especially since 1853, and is now only .89 lb.; a
decrease since 1843 of nineteen per cent., and since 1853 of fifty-four
per cent. About five pounds of tea per head are consumed to one of
coffee. In France, with a heavier duty, the consumption of coffee is
3.23 lbs. a head; Germany and Holland, 5.3 lbs.; Switzerland, 6.68
lbs.; Italy, only 1.05 lb.; while Belgium is largest of all, being 9
lbs. a head. The total consumption in Europe is about four hundred
thousand tons, of which Great Britain used fourteen thousand tons
in 1880. In the same year, about six thousand tons of chicory were
retained for home consumption, which is an index to the extent of the
adulteration. When the public taste ceases to lend itself to coffee
adulterated with chicory and other rubbish, and when folks have
acquired the art of making it properly, then the beverage might take
the high place in general estimation to which it is justly entitled.


ABNORMAL HUMANITY.

A new phenomenon has lately appeared in Paris in the shape of a
man with a head resembling that of a calf. The similarity is said
to be wonderful. For his own sake, it is to be hoped that this
eccentric-looking person will prove as great a financial success as
his three recent celebrated predecessors—the Man-frog, the man with a
goose’s head, and the Man-dog, who have all retired into private life,
having made a nice little fortune. The Man-frog was first exhibited
in 1866, at a French country fête. He had a stout ill-shapen body,
covered with a skin like a leather bottle, and a face exactly like a
frog’s, large eyes, an enormous mouth, and the skin cold and clammy. He
attracted a good deal of attention from the Academy of Medicine, and a
delegate was deputed to make him an object of study. He went all over
France; and at the end of a few years, retired to his native place,
Puyre, in Gers.

The man with the goose’s head was first shown at the Gingerbread Fair
in 1872. He was twenty years of age, had round eyes, a long and flat
nose the shape and size of a goose’s bill, an immensely long neck,
and was without a single hair on his head. He only wanted feathers to
make him complete. The effect of his interminably long neck twisting
about was extremely ludicrous, and was so much appreciated, that his
receipts were very large. He now passes under his proper name of Jean
Rondier, and is established at Dijon as a photographer. He is married;
and, thanks to enormously high collars and a wig, is now tolerably
presentable.

The Man-dog came from Russia, and was for a long time exhibited in
Paris. He is now settled at Pesth, having established a bird-fancier’s
business there, which is decidedly flourishing.




THE SOLITARY SINGER.


    Sweet singer!—sweet to hear when only one
    Among the thousand voices of the spring
    Thou carollest—how sweeter far, alone
    And all unrivalled, art thou wont to fling
    The spell of music o’er the list’ning air
    From yon drear spray by winter’s blight left bare.

    Say what the burden of that patient strain
    Which answer seeketh none, but ever forth
    Is poured, and by itself its own refrain,
    Still echo’d, findeth—save that from the North
    Responsive plainings through the leafless tree
    Mingle, methinks, with thine in sympathy.

    It cannot but be sad—a low-tuned sigh
    For lost delights thy callow youth once knew,
    When all the grove was blossom, all the sky
    A smile above thee, and the glad hours flew
    Unmarred from when thy notes brought in the day,
    Till evening’s hush was mellowed by thy lay.

    It cannot all be sad—some sweet alloy
    Of Hope would seem to tremble through thy song,
    And serve, when all thy mates are mute, to buoy
    Thy heart, though clouds across thy heaven throng,
    Though strewn all blossom, and the rude winds’ brawl
    Sound the sad dirge of twilight’s sombre fall.

    Whate’er it be, clear-throated, soft, and low,
    It woos the stern hour with a lulling tone,
    According well with streams that whispering flow
    Ice-muffled, with the sound of sere leaves blown
    In rustling eddies ’neath their parent shade,
    Where Autumn’s glory by the wind is laid.

       *       *       *       *       *

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CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice:

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    High Street, Edinburgh.’

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    should accompany every manuscript.

_3d._ MANUSCRIPTS should bear the author’s full _Christian_ name,
    Surname, and Address, legibly written; and should be written on
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_4th._ Offerings of Verse should invariably be accompanied by a
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_If the above rules are complied with, the Editor will do his best to
insure the safe return of ineligible papers._

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Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

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[Transcriber’s Note—the following changes have been made to this text.

Page 294: generelly to generally—“generally abortive”.]