20, 1886 ***





[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. 112.—VOL. III.      SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1886.      PRICE 1½_d._]




THE INFLUENCE OF HABIT IN PLANT-LIFE.


The old maxim regarding the power of habit is usually and rightly
regarded as exhibiting a thorough application to the regulation of
animal life. Not merely in human affairs is habit allowed to be ‘a
second nature;’ but in lower life as well, the influence of use and
wont is plainly perceptible. A dog or cat equally with a human being is
under the sway of the accustomed. That which may be at first unusual,
soon becomes the normal way of life. Even, as the physiologist can
prove, in a very large part of ordinary human existence, we are the
creatures of habit quite as much as we are the children of impulse. It
is easily provable, for example, that such common acts as are involved
in reading, writing, and speaking, are merely perpetuated habits. At
first, these acquirements present difficulties to the youthful mind.
A slow educative process is demanded, and then, by repetition and
training, the lower centres of the brain acquire the power of doing
the work of higher parts and centres. We fall into the habit, in other
words, of writing and speaking, just as our muscles fall into the way
of guiding our movements. No doubt, a large part of the difficulty is
smoothed away for us by the fact that we inherit the aptitude for the
performance of these common actions. But they fall, nevertheless, into
the category of repeated and inherited habits; and equally with the
newer or fresh ideas and tasks we set ourselves, the actions of common
life may be regarded as merely illustrating the curious and useful
effect of repeated and fixed habit on our organisation.

Recent researches in the field of plant-life, however, it is
interesting to note, show that habit does not reign paramount in the
animal world alone. The plant-world, it has been well remarked, too
often presents to the ordinary observer the aspect of a sphere of dull
pulseless life, wherein activity is unrepresented, and wherein the
familiar actions of animal existence are unknown. Nothing is farther
from the truth than such an idea. The merest tyro in botany is nowadays
led to study actions in plants which are often indistinguishable
from those of animal life. Instead of the plant-world being a huge
living domain which never evinces a sign of sensation or activity, the
botanist can point to numerous cases in which not only are the signs of
sensibility as fully developed in the plant as in the animal, but in
which also many other phases of animal life are exactly imitated. We
thus know of plants which droop their leaves on the slightest touch,
and exhibit as delicate a sensitiveness as many high animals, and a
much finer degree of sensibility than most low animals. Then, again,
when, with the microscope, we inspect that inner plant-life which is
altogether hidden from the outer world, we see that the tissues of
plants exist in a state of high activity. Currents of protoplasm are
seen to run hither and thither through the plant-cells, and active
movements to pervade the whole organisation of the living organism.
Vital activity is the rule, and inertness the exception, in plant-life;
and the discovery of this fact simply serves to impress anew upon us
the danger and error of that form of argument which would assume the
non-existence of higher traits of life in plants, simply because they
are invisible to the unassisted sight.

The effects of habit on plant-life are nowhere better seen than in the
curious differences which exist between the food and feeding of certain
plants and the practices of their more familiar plant-neighbours.
The food of an ordinary green plant, as is well known, consists of
inorganic matters. Water, minerals in solution, ammonia, and carbonic
acid gas, constitute the materials from which an ordinary plant derives
its sustenance. It is curious to reflect that all the beauty of flower
and foliage merely represents so much carbonic acid gas, water, and
minerals, fashioned by the wondrous vital powers of the plant into
living tissues. Yet such is undoubtedly the case. Between the food of
animals and green plants, we perceive this great difference—namely,
that whilst the animal demands water, oxygen gas, and minerals—all
three being inorganic materials—it also requires ready-made living
matter to supply the wants of its frame. This ready-made living matter
the animal can only obtain from other animals or from plants; and as
a matter of fact, animals demand and require such materials to feed
upon. In one sense, the plant, then, exhibits higher powers than the
animal, for it is more constructive. It can build up its frame from
non-living matter entirely; whilst the animal, less constructive,
requires a proportion of already living matter in its food. What has
just been said of the food of plants applies to those which possess
green colouring-matter associated with the plant-tissues. This green
colour, so universally diffused throughout the plant kingdom, is called
_chlorophyll_ by the botanist. It exists in the cells of plants in the
form of granules, and is intimately associated with the living matter
or ‘protoplasm’ of the cells. The presence or absence of green colour
in a plant makes all the difference in the world to its habits. The
want of this chlorophyll, in fact, converts the habits of the plant
into that of the animal.

If we select a plant which possesses no green colour, we may be
prepared for some startling revelations respecting the mode of life
of such a plant. Examples of a total want of chlorophyll are seen in
the _fungi_, that large group of plants which harbours our mushrooms,
toad-stools, and like organisms as its familiar representatives. If we
inquire how the non-green fungus lives, we shall discover, firstly,
that it is like an animal in respect, firstly, of the gas on which it
feeds. The green plant, we saw to feed on carbonic acid gas; but the
fungus, like the animal, inhales oxygen. Furthermore, a still more
remarkable fact must be detailed respecting the difference between
the habit of the green plants and their non-green neighbours. When
an ordinary green plant takes in the carbonic acid gas which it has
obtained from the atmosphere—whither it has come from the lungs of
animals and elsewhere—it performs a remarkable chemical operation.
The green colour enables it, in the presence of light, to decompose
the carbonic acid gas (which consists of carbon and oxygen) into
its elements. The carbon is retained by the plant, and goes to form
the starch and other compounds manufactured by the organism. But
the oxygen, which is not required, at least in any quantity, in the
living operations of the green plant, is allowed to escape back to the
atmosphere, where it becomes useful for animal respiration. Thus, what
the animal exhales (carbonic acid), the green plant inhales; and what
the green plant exhales (oxygen), the animal inhales. We have here a
remarkable cycle of natural operations, which suggests how beautifully
the equilibrium of nature is maintained. It may be added that the want
of light converts even the green plant to somewhat animal habits. In
the dark, the decomposition of carbonic acid is suspended, chlorophyll
alone being insufficient for the analysis. Then, the green plant seems
to inhale oxygen and to emit carbonic acid, like the animal and its
non-green relative; to return, however, to its normal habit with the
returning light. At the same time, the plain difference of habit in
respect of the want of green colour in the fungi and other plants, is
in itself a remarkable fact of plant-life.

Other differences in habit may also be noted between the plants which
possess green colour and those that want it. We have already alluded
to the fact that green plants feed on inorganic or lifeless matters,
and that they build up these matters into their living tissues. On the
other hand, the habits of the fungi and non-green plants lead them to
resemble animals in that they feed upon organic materials; that is, on
matter which is derived from other plants or animals. As a matter of
fact, most fungi are found growing in places where decaying organic
matters exist. The gardener, in growing edible fungi, supplies them
with such materials in the form of manure. Again, those fungi which
cause skin-diseases in man (for example, ringworm) feed on the tissues
in which they are parasitic, and in so doing absorb organic matter.
The plants which are not green, in this way appear to prefer organic
matters, like animals. In habits, therefore, they present a striking
contrast to their green neighbours.

The habit of _parasitism_, however, which has just been alluded to
is a powerful means of inaugurating and maintaining change of life
and living in plants. A parasitic being is one which lives in or upon
some other living organism. There are degrees of parasitism, however:
some parasites are mere ‘lodgers,’ so to speak; others both board and
lodge at the expense of their host, and these latter are of course
the more typical parasites of the two. But there are even degrees and
differences to be seen in the behaviour of plant-lodgers and boarders.
For example, mistletoe is a plant of peculiar habits, in respect that
whilst its roots enter the substance of the tree-host to which it is
attached, and drink up so much of the sap that host is elaborating for
its own use, it also can make food-products for itself. For the green
leaves of mistletoe, like the leaves of other plants, take in carbonic
acid gas, and decompose it, as already described, retaining the carbon,
and setting the oxygen free. On the other hand, a parasitic fungus
will not elaborate any food-products for itself; and hence it is, if
anything, a more complete and typical ‘boarder’ even than mistletoe.
The effects of habit in plant-life are here seen in a double sense and
aspect. Not only is it through the exercise of ‘habit’ that a plant
becomes a parasite; but it is a variation in the parasitic and acquired
habit for a parasitic plant to develop its own special ways of feeding.
Habit within habit is thus seen to operate powerfully in bringing about
the existent phases of the life of plants.

Plants without green colour are, however, not the only members of
the vegetable world in which the habit of feeding like animals has
been inaugurated. Some of the most remarkable chapters in botany
have been recently written on the habits of so-called carnivorous
or insectivorous plants—that is, plants which subsist on insects in
other forms of animal life, and which lay traps designed to capture
their unwary prey. The Common Sundew (_Drosera_) of our bogs and
marshes catches flies and other insects by means of an ingenious
arrangement of sensitive tentacles which beset its leaf, aided by the
gummy secretion of the leaf itself. The Venus’ Flytrap (_Dionæa_)
captures insects by converting its leaf into a closing trap; the alarm
to close being conveyed to the sensitive parts of the plant by the
insect touching one or more of the six sensitive hairs which are seen
on the surface of the leaf. The Side-saddle plants (_Sarracenia_) of
the New World and the Pitcher plants (_Nepenthes_) of the Old World
likewise capture insects. Their leaves form receptacles, in which, as
is well known, flies and other insects are literally drowned. Within
the Sarracenia’s hollow leaf, a honey-secretion is found, together with
a limpid fluid found at the bottom of the pitcher. There seems little
doubt that flies and other insects, attracted by the honey-secretion,
pass into the pitcher, and are then suffocated by the fluid found
below. This much has been proved—namely, that the fluid has an
intoxicating effect on insects, and that, once entrapped, the insects
ultimately perish in the pitchers. It is equally notable that their
retreat is cut off by the presence of pointed hairs, which, on the
_facilis descensus_ principle, and by pointing downwards, allow the
insect easy admittance, but present an array of bayonet-points on its
attempt to escape. In the Nepenthes or Pitcher plants of the Old World,
insects are similarly captured, and are prevented from escaping by
various contrivances, such as a series of incurved hairs or hooks, or
allied apparatus.

At first sight, there seems a plain reason for classifying together
all these insect-capturing plants, especially when it is discovered
that they utilise the insects they capture for food. Botanists did
not realise till recently that the capture of insects by plants was a
strictly utilitarian and purposive act—namely, that its intent was to
feed and nourish the plant. Once awaking to this truth, much that was
formerly mysterious in the life and ways of these plants became clear.
They captured the insects and fed upon them; in these words were found
the clue to and explanation of a seeming anomaly in plant-life. These
plants might thus be supposed simply to differ from other green plants,
and to resemble the fungi in their preference for an animal dietary,
in part at least. For, with their roots in the soil, and possessing
green leaves, they appear to subsist partly upon the matters on which
ordinary green plants live, and partly upon organic matters, like
mistletoe. But a further study of these curious plants shows that the
whole facts of the case are hardly to be comprised within this somewhat
narrow compass. Habit within habit again appears as the principle which
has wrought out important differences between the various kinds of
insect-eating plants. Taking the case of the Sundew first, we discover
that this plant actually digests its insect-food. From glands with
which the leaf is provided, fluids are poured out which resemble the
gastric juice of our own stomachs in their digestive properties. The
matter of the insect-body is thus absorbed into the substance and
tissues of the plant, just as the substance of our own food passes,
through digestion, to become part and parcel of our own tissues. Of
the Venus’ Flytrap, the same remarks hold good. This plant will digest
fragments of raw beef as readily as its own insect-prey. The closed
leaf is converted into a kind of temporary stomach, within which the
imprisoned insect is killed, digested, and its tissues absorbed, to
nourish the plant. In the Pitcher plants, a similar result happens to
the insect-prey. Digestion and absorption of the nutrient parts of the
prey are the duties performed by the modified leaves.

The foregoing facts would therefore seem to present a remarkable
uniformity in the life of the plants just mentioned. Similarity of
habits would seem to reign supreme, under variations in the method of
capturing the insect-prey. Turning now to the case of the Side-saddle
plants and their allies, we discover how remarkably the habits of these
plants have come to differ. Investigation has shown that the flies,
which are apparently drowned in the pitchers of Sarracenia in a manner
exactly similar to that in which they fall victims to the artifice of
the Pitcher plants, in reality are subjected to a widely different
action. The Pitcher plant digests its flies, as we have seen; but in
the Side-saddle plants no digestion takes place. What happens in the
latter appears to consist of a simple process of decay. The insects are
allowed to putrefy and decompose amid the watery fluid which drowns
them; and in due time, the pitcher becomes filled with a fluid which
has been compared to ‘liquid manure.’ It is this decomposing solution,
then, which is duly absorbed by the Sarracenia. Rejecting this idea,
there can be no other explanation given of the use of the elaborate
fly-catching ‘pitchers.’ And, moreover, analogy would force us to
conclude that the explanation just given is correct. If fungi feed on
decomposing organic matters, why should not a Sarracenia exhibit like
habits? No reasonable reply can be given save that which sees in the
Sarracenia a curious difference of habit from the apparently similar
Pitcher plants. The latter, in other words, eat their meal fresh; the
Sarracenias, like humanity with its game, eat their meat in a ‘high’
state.

The ordinary feeding of plants may, lastly, be cited, by way of showing
how marvellously intricate must be the conditions which operate to
produce differences in habits, sometimes amounting almost to special
likings on the part of vegetable units for one kind of food, and
equally special dislikes to other foods. The farmer knowing the
preference for certain food-elements by certain plants, requires to
‘rotate’ his crops, to avoid injurious exhaustion of his soils. For
instance, buckwheat will not flourish unless potassium is supplied to
it. The chloride of potassium, and next to it the nitrate, are the
minerals preferred by this plant. Still more extraordinary is the
preference exhibited by one of the violet tribe (_Viola calaminaria_),
which will only grow in soils that contain zinc. Here, the effects of
habit are seen in a singularly clear fashion; for there seems every
reason to assume that the partiality for a by no means common element
in soils, has been an acquired, and not an original taste of the plants
which exhibit it. The botanist thus becomes aware of the existence of
a ‘taste,’ or ‘selective power’ as it is termed, in the plant-world,
influencing their food, and, as a matter of logic, affecting also their
structure, functions, and entire existence. It has been found that
the pea and bean tribe (_Leguminosæ_) specially desire lime, amongst
their requirements. Potatoes exhibit a special partiality for potash;
and turnips share this taste. Plants in which the seed assumes a high
importance, as in most of our cereals, on the other hand, demand
phosphoric acid; and certain plants, such as wheat, will withdraw
large quantities of silica or flint from the soil. Iodine is found
characteristically in seaweeds, and the element in question is obtained
from the _kelp_ produced by burning marine plants.

No better commentary on the life and habits of plants in respect
of their food-tastes can be given than in the words of an eminent
physiologist, who, speaking of the food of the corn-plant, says:
‘Without siliceous (or flinty) earth, that plant cannot acquire
sufficient strength to sustain itself erect, but forms a creeping stem,
feeble and pale; without calcareous earth (or lime), it dies even
before the appearance of the second leaf; without soda and without
potash, it never attains a greater height than between four and five
inches; without phosphorus, though growing straight and regularly
formed, it remains feeble and does not bear fruit; when iron is present
in the soil, it gives that deep green tint so familiar to us and grows
rapidly robust; without manganese, it develops in a stunted manner and
produces few flowers.’ After the revelations of chemistry concerning
the habits and tastes of plants and the bearing of proper food on
their growth, it is not to be wondered at that scientific agriculture
should be regarded as the only solution of many of the present-day
difficulties of the farmer.




IN ALL SHADES.


CHAPTER X.

For a second, nobody answered a word; this quiet declaration of an
honest self-sacrifice took them all, even Nora, so utterly by surprise.
Then Edward murmured musingly: ‘And it was for this that you gave
up the prospect of living at Cambridge, and composing symphonies in
Trinity gardens!’

The mulatto smiled a deprecating smile. ‘Oh,’ he cried timidly, ‘you
mustn’t say that. I didn’t want to make out I was going to do anything
so very grand or so very heroic. Of course, a man _must_ satisfy
himself he’s doing something to justify his existence in the world;
and much as I love music, I hardly feel as though playing the violin
were in itself a sufficient end for a man to live for. Though I must
confess I should very much like to stop in England and be a composer.
I’ve composed one or two little pieces already for the violin, that
have been played with some success at public concerts. Sarasate played
a small thing of mine last winter at a festival in Vienna. But then,
besides, my father and friends live in Trinidad, and I feel that that’s
the place where my work in life is really cut out for me.’

‘And your second great passion?’ Marian inquired. ‘You said you had a
second great passion. What is it, I wonder?—Oh, of course, I see—your
profession.’

(‘How could she be so stupid!’ Nora thought to herself. ‘What a silly
girl! I’m afraid of my life now, the wretched man’ll try to say
something pretty.’)

‘O no; not my profession,’ Dr Whitaker answered, smiling. ‘It’s a noble
profession, of course—the noblest and grandest, almost, of all the
professions—assuaging and alleviating human suffering; but one looks
upon it, for all that, rather as a duty than as a passion. Besides,
there’s one thing greater even than the alleviation of human suffering,
greater than art with all its allurements, greater than anything else
that a man can interest himself in—though I know most people don’t
think so—and that’s science—the knowledge of our relations with the
universe, and still more of the universe’s relations with its various
parts.—No, Mrs Hawthorn; my second absorbing passion, next to music,
and higher than music, is one that I’m sure ladies won’t sympathise
with—it’s only botany.’

‘Goodness gracious!’ Nora cried, surprised into speech. ‘I thought
botany was nothing but the most dreadfully hard words, all about
nothing on earth that anybody cared for!’

The mulatto looked at her open-eyed with a sort of mild astonishment.
‘What?’ he said. ‘All the glorious lilies and cactuses and palms and
orchids of our beautiful Trinidad nothing but hard words that nobody
cares for! All the slender lianas that trail and droop from the huge
buttresses of the wild cotton-trees; all the gorgeous trumpet-creepers
that drape the gnarled branches of the mountain star-apples with
their scarlet blossoms; all the huge cecropias, that rise aloft with
their silvery stems and fan-shaped leaves, towering into the air
like gigantic candelabra; all the graceful tree-ferns and feathery
bamboos and glossy-leaved magnolias and majestic bananas and luxuriant
ginger-worts and clustering arums: all the breadth and depth of
tropical foliage, with the rugged and knotted creepers, festooned in
veritable cables of vivid green, from branch to branch among the dim
mysterious forest shades—stretched in tight cordage like the rigging
yonder from mast to mast, for miles together—oh, Miss Dupuy, is that
nothing? Do you call that nothing, for a man to fix his loving regard
upon? Our own Trinidad is wonderfully rich still in such natural
glories; and it’s the hope of doing a little in my spare hours to
explore and disentomb them, like hidden treasures, that partly urges me
to go back again where manifest destiny calls me to the land I was born
in.’

The mulatto is always fluent, even when uneducated; but Dr Whitaker,
learned in all the learning of the schools, and pouring forth his
full heart enthusiastically on the subjects nearest and dearest to
him, spoke with such a ready, easy eloquence, common enough, indeed,
among south Europeans, and among Celtic Scots and Irish as well, but
rare and almost unknown in our colder and more phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon
constitutions—that Nora listened to him, quite taken aback by the flood
of his native rhetoric, and whispered to herself in her own soul:
‘Really, he talks very well after all—for a coloured person!’

‘Yes, of course, all those things are very lovely, Dr Whitaker,’
Marian put in, more for the sake of drawing him out—for he was so
interesting—than because she really wanted to disagree with him upon
the subject. ‘But then, that isn’t botany. I always thought botany was
a mere matter of stamens and petals, and all sorts of other dreadful
technicalities.’

‘Stamens and petals!’ the mulatto echoed half contemptuously—‘stamens
and petals! You might as well say art was all a matter of pigments
and perspective, or music all a matter of crotchets and quavers, as
botany all a matter of stamens and petals. Those are only the beggarly
elements: the beautiful pictures, the glorious oratorios, the lovely
flowers, are the real things to which in the end they all minister.
It’s the trees and the plants themselves that interest me, not the mere
lifeless jargon of technical phrases.’

They sat there late into the night, discussing things musical and West
Indian and otherwise, without any desire to move away or cut short
the conversation; and Dr Whitaker, his reserve now broken, talked on
to them hour after hour, doing the lion’s share of the conversation,
and delighting them with his transparent easy talk and open-hearted
simplicity. He was frankly egotistical, of course—all persons of
African blood always are; but his egotism, such as it was, took the
pleasing form of an enthusiasm about his own pet ideas and pursuits—a
love of music, a love of flowers, a love of his profession, and a
love of Trinidad. To these favourite notes he recurred fondly again
and again, vigorously defending the violin as an exponent of human
emotion against Edward’s half-insincere expression of preference for
wind instruments; going into raptures to Nora over the wonderful beauty
of their common home; and describing to Marian in vivid language the
grandeur of those marvellous tropical forests whose strange loveliness
she had never yet with her own eyes beheld.

‘Picture to yourself,’ he said, looking out vaguely beyond the ship
on to the star-lit Atlantic, ‘a great Gothic cathedral or Egyptian
temple—Ely or Karnak, wrought, not in freestone or marble, but in
living trees—with huge cylindrical columns strengthened below by
projecting buttresses, and supporting overhead, a hundred feet on high,
an unbroken canopy of interlacing foliage. Dense—so dense that only
an indistinct glimmer of the sky can be seen here and there through
the great canopy, just as you see Orion’s belt over yonder through the
fringe of clouds upon the gray horizon; and even the intense tropical
sunlight only reaches the ground at long intervals in little broken
patches of subdued paleness. Then there’s the solemn silence, weird and
gloomy, that produces in one an almost painful sense of the vast, the
primeval, the mystical, the infinite. Only the low hum of the insects
in the forest shade, the endless multitudinous whisper of the wind
among the foliage, the faint sound begotten by the tropical growth
itself, breaks the immemorial stillness in our West Indian woodland.
It’s a world in which man seems to be a noisy intruder, and where
he stands awestruck before the intense loveliness of nature, in the
immediate presence of her unceasing forces.’

He stopped a moment, not for breath, for it seemed as if he could
pour out language without an effort, in the profound enthusiasm of
youth, but to take his violin once more tenderly from its case and
hold it out, hesitating, before him. ‘Will you let me play you just
one more little piece?’ he asked apologetically. ‘It’s a piece of my
own, into which I’ve tried to put some of the feelings about these
tropical forests that I never could possibly express in words. I call
it “Souvenirs des Lianes.” Will you let me play it to you?—I shan’t be
boring you?—Thank you—thank you.’

He stood up before them in the pale light of that summer evening,
tall and erect, violin on breast and bow in hand, and began pouring
forth from his responsive instrument a slow flood of low, plaintive,
mysterious music. It was not difficult to see what had inspired his
brain and hand in that strangely weird and expressive piece. The
profound shade and gloom of the forest, the great roof of overarching
foliage, the flutter of the endless leaves before the breeze, the
confused murmur of the myriad wings and voices of the insects, nay,
even the very stillness and silence itself of which he had spoken, all
seemed to breathe forth deeply and solemnly on his quivering strings.
It was a triumph of art over its own resources. On the organ or the
flute, one would have said beforehand, such effects as these might
indeed be obtained, but surely never, never on the violin. Yet in Dr
Whitaker’s hand that scraping bow seemed capable of expressing even
what he himself had called the sense of the vast, the primeval, and
the infinite. They listened all in hushed silence, and scarcely so
much as dared to breathe while the soft pensive cadences still floated
out solemnly across the calm ocean. And when he had finished, they
sat for a few minutes in perfect silence, rendering the performer
that instinctive homage of mute applause which is so far more really
eloquent than any mere formal and conventional expression of thanks
‘for your charming playing.’

As they sat so, each musing quietly over the various emotions aroused
within them by the mulatto’s forest echoes, one of the white gentlemen
in the stern, a young English officer on his way out to join a West
Indian regiment, came up suddenly behind them, clapped his hand
familiarly on Edward’s back, and said in a loud and cheerful tone:
‘Come along, Hawthorn; we’ve had enough of this music now—thank you
very much, Dr Thingummy—let’s all go down to the saloon, I say, and
have a game of nap or a quiet rubber.’

Even Nora felt in her heart as though she had suddenly been recalled by
that untimely voice from some higher world to this vulgar, commonplace
little planet of ours, the young officer had broken in so rudely on
her silent reverie. She drew her dainty white lamb’s-wool wrapper
closer around her shoulders with a faint sigh, slipped her hand gently
through Marian’s arm, and moved away, slowly and thoughtfully, toward
the companion-ladder. As she reached the doorway, she turned round, as
if half ashamed of her own graciousness, and said in a low and genuine
voice: ‘Thank you, Dr Whitaker—thank you very much indeed. We’ve so
greatly enjoyed the treat you’ve given us.’

The mulatto bowed and said nothing; but instead of retiring to the
saloon with the others, he put his violin case quietly under his arm,
and walking alone to the stern of the vessel, leant upon the gunwale
long and mutely, looking over with all his eyes deep and far into the
silent, heaving, moonlit water. The sound of Nora’s voice thanking him
reverberated long through all the echoing chambers of his memory.




COLONIAL FARM-PUPILS.


It would be a matter of considerable interest if statistics could be
obtained showing the number of parents who at the present time find
themselves under the necessity of answering that much-debated question,
‘What shall I do with my sons?’ The comparatively narrow paths which
lead to fame and prosperity are now so densely crowded by youths of
good breeding and education, that but few parents are able to decide,
without much anxious consideration, which is the best one for their
sons to start life’s journey upon. Some parents choose the learned
professions; others select a commercial career; while not a few decide
upon a colonial life for their sons. The wisdom, or otherwise, of this
last decision we do not here propose to discuss. We accept the plain
fact that many well-bred and carefully nurtured young men annually
leave these shores as emigrants, bound for the British colonies or the
United States. The object of our remarks is to present to the fathers
of these young emigrants what the writer—who has seen much, both of
emigrants and emigration, on both sides of the Atlantic—regards as a
piece of sorely needed advice upon one point of the great question
of emigration, as it affects the sons of English gentlemen and
‘blue-blooded boys’ in general.

The average British parent is, as a rule, very ignorant of everything
connected with life and labour in the colonies. He is perhaps a fairly
successful man of business, or has risen in his profession; but in
attaining this success, he has probably been so engrossed with his own
occupations, that he has found but little opportunity of turning his
attention to matters concerning him less closely. It is not indeed
to be expected that any one man should be intimately acquainted with
many different subjects. In these days of competition, the division of
knowledge is as necessary as the division of labour; and it is the duty
of those who are practically acquainted with emigration or any other
subject to advise those who are not so well informed. This is what
we now propose to do. We desire that our remarks upon the farm-pupil
system in the British colonies be understood to apply equally to the
Western States of America, which, so far as this article is concerned,
are to all intents and purposes British colonies.

To the youth who has been brought up in a comfortable English home,
under the care of watchful parents, emigration to any of the colonies
brings a very rude and abrupt change of life. Thenceforth, parental
oversight will be no longer obtainable, and the young emigrant will
have to seek his own living among strangers in a strange land, where
evil influences are generally numerous, where the ordinary mode of
life is often very rough, and where no one need hope for success unless
he is willing and able actually to perform hard manual labour. Under
these circumstances, it naturally appears desirable to most parents
to do all that lies within their power to obtain for their sons some
training to fit them for their future life. This desire has called
into existence the system under which many moderately well-to-do young
emigrants, on first leaving England, agree to pay a premium to some
colonist who is already established on a farm of his own, in order that
they may be taught colonial farming.

The system is not in any way essentially a bad one; but it is open to
great abuses, and in too many cases leads to fraud. No detailed rules
for the guidance of the parents of young emigrants in this matter can
be laid down. The necessities vary according to the circumstances of
each particular case. But, in a general way, it may be stated that,
when the parents of a youth can afford to pay a premium for his
instruction, and have ascertained that the settler with whom they are
placing their son is in a position faithfully to exercise that amount
of oversight which they desire for him, there cannot be any very great
abuse of the system. At the same time, it must be admitted that there
is seldom any necessity why a premium should be paid. If the young
emigrant be steady and of average push and intelligence, there is
certainly little or nothing to prevent him obtaining all the experience
he requires without paying any premium. Nevertheless, a youth of weak
character, easily led away, and of indolent habits, may of course be
benefited by a certain amount of care and oversight.

Farming, as practised in the colonies and in the Western States of
America, is of the most elementary kind. A person of limited abilities
may very easily acquire a knowledge of all its details. Moreover, in
these thinly peopled countries, labourers are in great demand. It may
be safely asserted that, in those colonies and in those portions of
the west of America to which emigration is now chiefly directed, any
young man, willing and able to perform ordinary farm-work, will find
little difficulty in obtaining employment, at least during the summer
months, in spite of the large number of men who are almost always in
want of work in large cities. A perfect novice may find it necessary
to work for a time for his board and lodging merely; but after a
while, he will probably find himself in a position to demand at least
sufficient wages, in addition to his board and keep, to maintain
himself respectably. If the young emigrant follows the course thus
suggested, he may not find his path quite so smooth as that of the
young man who has paid his premium; but he will have a better chance of
obtaining practical experience of farming. He will live in his master’s
house, board at his table, and be treated very much as a member of the
family—indeed, the premiumed pupil could hardly be better off; but he
will be compelled to learn in a way which he who pays a premium can
hardly be, and he will actually be paid for gaining the experience he
requires, instead of paying for it!

The eagerness on the part of colonial farmers to obtain farm-pupils is
capable of a very simple explanation. In most cases, these men know
well enough that there is no real need for the system to be followed;
but if they can succeed in obtaining a pupil, they are hardly to be
blamed for so doing, as it is no slight advantage to themselves. In
the colonies, the harvest usually is plentiful, while the labourers
are few, and labour, consequently, is expensive. Obviously, therefore,
a pupil who will pay to work and who will not be constantly wanting
to leave, is a very great boon to any settler. It should be clearly
recognised that, in most cases, if the pupil works in such a way as
he must do if he is to obtain a useful practical knowledge of his
occupation, his labour alone will amply remunerate the farmer, even
if the latter has to find both board and lodging. Clearly, therefore,
if a substantial premium be added, the advantage to the settler is
considerable. The pupil-system often affords a good deal of amusement
to keen-sighted Americans who are in a position to see its weak points.
Not unfrequently the writer has had said to him on the other side of
the Atlantic: ‘How uncommonly stupid you English people must be to be
willing to pay to work!’ This expression not inaptly sums up the whole
case.

The abuses to which the system is open are many. In the first place,
an exorbitant sum—sometimes as much as one hundred pounds—is asked.
Considering that the pupil could in most cases obtain the necessary
experience without paying any premium, and that he actually remunerates
the settler by working for him, we consider that, under all ordinary
circumstances, ten pounds paid to the settler is ample. In the next
place, an agent of some kind is necessary to mediate between the
parents of a youth and the colonial settler; and either this agent
or the settler, or both, may be dishonest, and fail to fulfil their
contracts; indeed, the difficulty which a parent would meet with in
attempting to compel a defaulting settler to carry out his agreement,
is a great incentive to fraud. Only a short time ago it was reported
in the daily papers that a number of youths who had paid premiums to
an agent in England to be placed with farmers in California, found, on
their arrival there, that no arrangements whatever had been made for
their reception—in short, that they had been swindled. Similar cases
have been heard of before. At the same time, we do not wish to say that
there are not honest agencies.

Those who have seen most of the hap-hazard way in which emigration,
not only of the poorer, but also of the better classes, is carried on
from this country, often express amazement at the injudicious acts
which are constantly being committed by ill-advised young emigrants
and their blind though well-meaning parents. The needless paying of
premiums by parents who can ill afford to spare the money is but one
of these indiscretions. Passing over without comment the practice of
shipping ‘ne’er-do-wells’ off to the colonies in the vain hope that
they will do better there than at home, we cannot help remarking that
numbers of promising young men, who are utterly unfitted for the life
of an emigrant, are constantly being sent out, and either they, or the
country to which they are sent, subsequently get blamed for an almost
inevitable failure. Nothing, too, could be more injudicious than the
placing of capital in the hands of inexperienced young emigrants at the
outset of their career. In a large number of cases it is wholly lost;
indeed, it is a common saying in America that but few young Englishmen
commence to make headway in their new home until they have either lost
or spent all they originally brought out with them and have had to
buckle-to in sober earnest. As recommended in a late number (No. 95) of
this _Journal_, those who are intended for a colonial career should go
through a course of school-training especially intended to fit them for
it.




A GOLDEN ARGOSY.

_A NOVELETTE._


CHAPTER XIII.

With the exception of her eyes and her teeth, Miss Wakefield was an
ordinary, nay, almost a benevolent, woman. About sixty years of age,
with a figure perfectly straight and supple, and wearing her own hair,
which was purple black, she might have passed for forty, save for the
innumerable lines and wrinkles on her face. Her eyes were full of a
furtive evil light, and never failed to cast a baleful influence over
the spectator; her teeth were large and white, but gapped here and
there in the front like a saw. Mr Slimm mentally compared her with some
choice assortments of womankind he had encountered in the mines and
kindred places, and they did not suffer in the comparison.

‘Your business?’ she said coldly.

‘Madam, you will do me the favour to sit down,’ he replied. ‘What I
have to say will take a considerable time.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, with the same frigid air; ‘I prefer to stand.’
Some subtle instinct told her this visit boded no good, and she knew in
dealing with an adversary what an advantage a standing position gives
one.

By way of answer, Mr Slimm continued standing also.

‘Madam,’ he commenced, ‘what I have to say to you concerns the affairs
of the late Mr Morton of Eastwood. He was an old friend of mine. Very
recently, I heard of his death. I am determined to have justice done.’

Was it fancy, or did these thin feline lips grow white? He could have
sworn he saw them quiver. Anyway, fancy or not, if the worst came to
the worst, he had a great card to play.

Mr Slimm continued: ‘He died, as you are aware, after a curious
illness, and rather suddenly at the last. If I am correct, there was no
inquest.’

It was not fancy, then! Mr Slimm’s keen eyes detected a sudden shiver
agitate her frame, and his ear caught a quick painful respiration. Why
did no one think of this? he said to himself.

‘However, for the present we will pass that over. Mr Morton was known
to have been a rich man. All he had was left, I understand, to you?’

‘In that, sir, you are perfectly right. Pray, continue.’

‘Now, at one time, I understand, poor Morton intended to leave
everything to his niece. Was that so?’

Miss Wakefield inclined her head coldly.

‘And since his death, not the slightest trace of the bulk of the money
has been discovered. Is that not so?’

Miss Wakefield inclined her head once more.

‘Well, we have now discovered where the money is.’

‘Discovered where the money is! where _my_ money is!’ the woman cried
with a grating laugh. ‘And I presume you came to bring it to me. After
all this long while, fancy getting my own at last!’

‘I suppose you will do something for Mrs Seaton?’ inquired Slimm.

‘Do something for them—of course I will,’ she laughed hardly. ‘I’ll go
and call on them. I will let them see me ride in my carriage, while
they are begging in the gutter. I will give them a sixpence when they
come to ask alms at my house.—Oh, tell me, are they starving?—are they
starving, I say?’ she gasped in her passionate utterance, clutching the
American by the arm. ‘Are they living on charity? Oh, I hope so—I hope
so, for I hate them—hate them!’ The last words hissed lingeringly and
spitefully through her teeth.

‘Well, not quite,’ Slimm replied cheerfully. ‘It must be consoling to
your womanly feelings to know they are getting on first-rate—in fact,
they are as happy and comfortable as two people can be.’

‘I am sorry for that,’ she said, with a little pant between each word.
‘I hoped they were starving. What right have they to be happy, when I
am so miserable?’

‘Really, madam, it is no pleasure to bring you news, you take it so
uncomfortably,’ Slimm replied. ‘These histrionics, I know, are intended
merely to disguise your delicate and tender feelings. Now, we admit
this money belongs to you. What will you stand for the information?
‘Forty thousand pounds is a lot of money.’

‘Not one farthing,’ replied the woman—‘not one single farthing. The
money is mine, and mine it shall remain.’

‘In that case,’ said Slimm cheerfully, ‘my mission is at an end.—I wish
you a very good-morning.’

‘Stop! Do you mean to say you intend to hold the secret unless I agree
to some terms?’

‘Your powers of penetration do you credit, madam. That is precisely
what I do mean.’

‘And what, pray, is the price placed upon your secret?’

‘Half!’

‘Half!’ she echoed, with a bitter laugh. ‘You are joking. Twenty
thousand pounds! Oh, you have made a mistake. You should go to a
millionaire, not come to me.’

‘Do I understand you to decline?’

‘Decline!’ she exclaimed in a fury. ‘Rather than pay that money to
them, I would starve and rot! Rather than pay that, the money shall
remain in its secret hiding-place till it is forgotten!—Do you take me
for an idiot, a drivelling old woman with one foot in the grave? No,
no, no! You do not know Selina Wakefield yet. Twenty thousand pounds.
Ah, ah, ah! The fools, the fools, the miserable fools, to come and ask
me this!’

‘Perhaps you will be good enough to name a sum you consider to be
equivalent to the service rendered,’ said the American, totally unmoved
by this torrent of invective.

‘Now you talk like a man of sense,’ she replied. ‘You are quite
determined, I see, not to part with your secret until you have a
return. Well, let me see. What do you say to a thousand pounds, or, to
stretch a point, fifteen hundred?’

‘Appalling generosity!’ replied Slimm, regarding the ceiling in
rapture—‘wasteful extravagance! I cannot accept it. My principals are
so grasping, you know. Now, as a personal favour, and to settle this
little difficulty, could not you add, say, another five pounds?’

‘Not another farthing.’

‘Then I am afraid our interview is at an end,’ he said regretfully.—‘Now,
look here. My friends are in no need of money, and are a long way from
the state you charitably hoped to find them in. You are getting on
in life, and we can afford to wait. When you are no more—not to put
too fine a point upon it—we shall lay hands on the treasure, and live
happily ever after—yes, madam.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ she said sulkily.

‘Let me put it another way. Suppose we come to an agreement. It is
highly probable that where the money is, a will is concealed. Now, it
is very certain that this will is made in Mrs Seaton’s favour. If we
make an arrangement to divide the spoil, and that turns out to be so,
what a good thing it will be for you! On the other hand, if there is no
will, you still have a handsome sum of money, which without our aid you
can never enjoy; and do not mistake me when I say that aid will never
be accorded without some benefit to the parties I have the honour to
represent.’

‘And suppose I refuse?’

‘So much the worse for you. Then we have another course open, and one I
decidedly advocate. We will at our own risk recover the money, trusting
to our good fortune to find the will. If not, we will throw the money
in Chancery, and fight you for it on the ground of undue influence and
fraud.’

‘Fraud, sir! What do you mean?’ exclaimed the lady, trembling with
indignation and hatred.

Mr Slimm approached her more closely, and looking sternly into her
eyes, said: ‘Mark me, madam!—the Seatons are not unfriended. I am by
no means a poor man myself, and I will not leave a stone unturned to
unravel this mystery. Do you think I am fool enough to believe that
my old friend hid his money away in this strange manner unless he had
some fear? and if I mistake not, you are the cause of that fear. Had
he intended his wealth for you, he would have left it openly. Nothing
shall be left undone to fathom the matter; and if necessary’—here he
lowered his voice to an impressive whisper—‘the body shall be exhumed.
Do you understand, madam?—exhumed?’

The pallor on the woman’s face deepened to a ghastly ashen gray. ‘What
would you have me do?’ she exclaimed faintly.

‘Come to our terms, and all will be well,’ Slimm said, pursuing the
advantage he had gained; ‘otherwise’—here he paused—‘however, we will
say nothing about that. What I propose is this: that an agreement be
drawn up and entered into upon the terms, that in case no will is found
with the money, the property is divided; and if a will is found leaving
the property to Mrs Seaton, you take five thousand pounds. That is my
final offer.’

‘I—I consent,’ she faltered humbly, at the same time longing, in her
passionate madness, to do her antagonist some deadly mischief, as he
stood before her so calmly triumphant.

‘Very good,’ he said quietly—‘very good. Then I presume our intercourse
is at an end. You will be good enough to be at Mr Carver’s office in
Bedford Row at three o’clock to-morrow afternoon.’

‘One moment. Are you in the secret?’

‘Madam, I have that felicity. But why?’

‘Perhaps now we have come to terms, you may be good enough to tell me
where it is.’

‘Curiosity, thy name is woman,’ said Slimm sententiously. ‘I am sorry I
cannot gratify that little wish; but as you will doubtless be present
at the opening ceremony, you will not object to restrain your curiosity
for the present—Good-morning.’

Miss Wakefield watched our ambassador’s cab leave the door, and then
threw herself, in the abandonment of her passion, upon the floor. In
the impotence of her rage and despair, she lay there, rolling like a
mad dog, tearing at her long nails with the strong uneven teeth. ‘What
does he know?’ she hissed. ‘What can he know? Beaten, beaten at last!’

‘What a woman!’ soliloquised Slimm as he rolled back Londonwards. ‘I
must have a cigar, to get the flavour out of my mouth.’

When he arrived at Mr Carver’s, he found Eleanor and her husband
awaiting him with great impatience.

‘What cheer, my comrade?’ Edgar asked with assumed cheerfulness.

‘Considering the circumstances of the case and the imminent risk I ran,
you might at least have expressed a desire to weep upon this rugged
bosom,’ Slimm answered reproachfully. ‘I found the evil, like most
evils, not half so bad when it is properly faced.’

‘And Miss Wakefield?’ asked Mr Carver anxiously.

‘Gentle as a sucking-dove—only too anxious to meet our views. In fact,
I so far tamed her that she has made an appointment to come here
to-morrow to settle preliminaries.’

‘But what sort of terms did you come to?’ Eleanor asked.

Slimm briefly related the result of his mission, and its unexpected and
desirable consummation, to the mutual astonishment of his listeners;
indeed, when he came to review the circumstances of the case, he was
somewhat astonished at his own success.

‘Wonderful!’ exclaimed Mr Carver, gazing with intense admiration at his
enemy. ‘I could not have believed it possible for one man single-handed
to have accomplished so much.—My good friend, do I really understand
that in any case we get half the money; and in one case, all but five
thousand pounds?’

‘Precisely; and you get the agreement drawn up, and we will get away
to Eastwood the day after to-morrow. I declare I feel as pleased as a
schoolboy who has found the apple at hide-and-seek. I feel as if I was
getting young again.’

‘Then you think it is really settled?’ Edgar asked, with a sigh of
pleasure and relief.

‘Not the slightest doubt of it,’ said the American promptly. ‘And I
think I may be allowed to observe, that of all the strange things I
ever came across throughout my long and checkered career, this is about
the strangest.’

‘It certainly beats anything I ever remember,’ said Mr Carver with a
buoyant air.—‘What do you say, Bates?’

‘Well, sir,’ Mr Bates admitted, ‘there certainly are some points about
it one does not generally encounter in the ordinary run of business.’


CHAPTER XIV.

When the poet, in the pursuit of his fancy, eulogised the stately
homes of England, he must have forgotten or totally ignored a class
of dwelling dearer to my mind than all the marble halls the taste or
vanity of man ever designed. The Duke of Stilton doubtless prefers
his ancestral home, with its towers and turrets, its capacious
stables—which, by-the-bye, seem the first consideration in the
Brobdingnagian erections of the hour; he may wander with an air of
pride through the Raphael hall and the Teniers gallery or the Cuyp
drawing-room. For me, he can have his art treasures, his Carrara
marbles, his priceless Wedgwood, his Dresden. He may enjoy his
drawing-rooms—blue, red, and every colour in the universe. He may dine
in the bosom of his family on every delicacy a _cordon bleu_ can devise
to tickle the palate and stimulate the appetite, with its accompaniment
of rose-patterned silver and dainty china. Let him luxuriate in it all,
if he will.

I have in my mind’s eye a house far different from His Grace’s,
but which, nevertheless, if not rich in costly bric-à-brac, has an
appearance of harmony and refinement refreshing beyond belief. It is
the house, or, if you will, the villa of Eastwood. Against the main
road is a rugged stone wall, moss-incrusted and lichen-strewn, and
surmounted by dense laurel. Opening the old-fashioned wooden gate, a
broad path leads to the door, which is some forty yards away, at the
side of the house. It is a low, gray stone house, clustered with ivy
and clematis, and climbing roses twisting round the long double row of
windows. In front is the lawn, quite half an acre in extent, and shut
off from a garden by a brick wall, covered with apricot and nectarine.
On the right, leading towards the house, is a sloping bank, all white
and fragrant in spring with violets; and above this bank, approached
by an ancient horse-block, is the old-world garden. It is a large
garden, with broad green paths, sheltered by bowers of apple-trees,
and the borders gay with wall-flowers, mignonette, stocks, pansies,
London-pride, Tom-Thumb, and here and there great bushes of lavender
and old-man. Far down is a walk of filbert trees, where the wily
squirrel makes merry in the harvest-time, and the cherry-trees all
melodious with the song of the blackbird. There is a balmy smell here
of thyme and sage and endive, and the variety of sweet herbs which our
grandmothers were wont to cull in autumn, and suspend in muslin bags
from the kitchen rafters.

Opening the heavy hall door with the licensed freedom of the novelist,
we find ourselves in the hall, whence we reach the drawing-room. Here
we find our friends, awaiting the arrival of Miss Wakefield. They
have been talking and chatting gaily; but as the time for that lady’s
arrival draws near, conversation becomes flat, and there is an air of
expectation and suppressed excitement about them, which would at once
convince the observer that something important was on hand.

Mr Carver rose from his seat, and, for about the fiftieth time, walked
to the window and looked out. It was amusing to note his easy air
and debonair appearance, which was palpably assumed to impress the
spectators with the idea that he was by no means anxious. The only
member of the party who really could be said to be at ease was Mr
Bates. He wore his best clothes, and had an air of resigned settled
melancholy, evidently expecting the worst, and prepared to have his cup
of joy—representing in his case his partnership—dashed from his lips at
the last moment.

Felix was discussing the affair with Edgar in a low voice, and Eleanor
sat white and still, only showing her impatience ever and anon by a
gentle tap upon the floor with her heel. Mr Slimm was whistling softly
in a low key, and industriously engaged in whittling a stick in his
hand. Mr Carver returned from his post of observation and threw himself
back in his chair with an involuntary sigh. Slimm put up his knife.

‘I vote we begin,’ said Edgar at length.

‘No, no; it would not do—it really would not do,’ interposed Mr Carver,
seeing the company generally inclined to this view. ‘The lady whom we
await is capable of anything. If we found a will in her absence, she
would not be above saying we put it there.’

‘Judging from my limited experience of the lady, I calculate you are
about right, sir,’ said Mr Slimm. ‘No; after so many years’ patience,
it would certainly be unwise to do anything rash now.’

‘It is the last few moments which seem so hard,’ Eleanor said.
‘Suppose, after all, we should find nothing!’

‘For goodness’ sake, don’t think of such a thing!’ Edgar exclaimed.
‘Fancy, after all this bother and anxiety!’

The party lapsed into silence again, and once more Mr Carver strolled
towards the window. It is strange, when one is anxiously waiting for
anything, how slowly time goes. Edgar took his watch out of his pocket
every other minute, like a schoolboy who wears one for the first time.

‘I think I will walk down the road and see if she is coming,’ Slimm
observed. ‘It would look a little polite, I think.’

Edgar murmured something touching love’s young dream, and asked the
American if the fascination was so strong.

‘Well, no,’ he replied. ‘I don’t deny she is fascinating; but it is not
the sort of glamour that generally thrills the young bosom. One thing
we all agree upon, I think, and that is, that we shall be all extremely
pleased to see the lady.’

‘That is a strange thing in itself,’ Edgar replied drily. ‘The damsel
is evidently coy. She is at present, doubtless, struggling with her
emotion. I fancy she does not intend to come.’

At this moment there was a sound of wheels, and a coach pulled up at
the gate. After a moment, a tall black figure was seen approaching the
house. A few seconds later, Miss Wakefield entered the room.




INVESTORS AND THE STOCK EXCHANGE.

SECOND ARTICLE.


In a former article we endeavoured to explain the _modus operandi_
of Stock Exchange transactions; and our object now is to make a few
remarks upon the rights and duties of investors and members of the
Stock Exchange respectively. As formerly explained, when any business
is transacted on the Stock Exchange, the broker always renders to his
client a contract containing the particulars of the transaction, which
is understood to be carried through in accordance with the rules and
regulations of the Stock Exchange. These rules have been compiled with
the strictest regard to the rights and duties of both parties, and are
altered from time to time as circumstances may require. They are in
complete accordance with the law of the land; and when any question
has arisen in regard to Stock Exchange affairs, the courts of law
have invariably allowed that those rules have been framed on the most
equitable principles.

When a contract has been rendered, broker and client are equally bound
to fulfil their part of it: the broker, in the case of a purchase, to
deliver to, his client an authentic certificate of the stock, and in
the case of a sale, to pay for the stock on delivery of a properly
executed transfer; the client to pay the consideration-money, &c.,
when the stock is purchased for him, and to deliver the transfer duly
executed, with the certificate, when the stock is sold. Many investors,
while looking very sharply after their rights, entirely lose sight of
their duties, and altogether forget that there must be two parties to
every contract. When a man sells stock, he is entitled to a cheque for
the proceeds the moment he hands the executed transfer to his broker,
and no sooner; and when stock is purchased, the broker is entitled to
receive the purchase-money when he delivers the transfer to his client
for signature, and no sooner. Many persons, however, imagine that if
they send their broker a cheque for stock bought a day or two after
the account-day, it will be time enough, being ignorant of the fact
that the latter is obliged by the rules to pay for the stock when it
is delivered to him, either on the account-day or any subsequent day.
Those living at a distance from London should therefore be careful to
let the money be in the hands of their broker on the morning of the
account-day at the very latest; or if they object to pay for stock
before receiving it, should instruct a banker in the City to pay for
the stock, or proportionately for any part, on delivery, so that the
broker may not be out of the money. Of course, brokers are not supposed
to have unlimited balances at their bankers, and it is frequently a
real hardship for them to be obliged to find the money as best they
can. The Stock Exchange rules admit of no delay whatever, and must be
acted up to by the members, without any regard to the negligence or
inattention of the investor.

When stock payable to bearer is not delivered to the buying-broker on
the account-day, he has the power, on the following day, of ordering
it to be purchased, or ‘bought in’ as it is called, in the market for
immediate delivery, and any loss consequent upon the buying-in must
be paid by the seller. In the case of registered stocks, however, ten
days after the account-day are allowed for delivery. This is only
reasonable, as a deed of transfer frequently requires the signature of
several sellers, or the seller may reside at a distance, and thus delay
cannot be avoided. On the expiry of the time named, the broker can ‘buy
in,’ as in the case of stock to bearer. If the buyer of stock to bearer
does not receive the stock from his broker within a day or two after
the account-day, or registered stock within about ten days after the
account-day, he has a perfect right to know the reason of the delay,
and failing any proper excuse, should give instructions to ‘buy in,’ as
explained above.

The Committee of the Stock Exchange have always done everything in
their power to insure the strict fulfilment of all bargains entered
into by the members; and if any investor feels aggrieved or thinks he
has been unfairly dealt with, a letter addressed to the Committee will
at once bring the culprit to book. Accounts are settled fortnightly,
about the middle and end of each month; and every member of the House
prepares, or ought to prepare, a balance-sheet, showing exactly how he
stands on these occasions. If a member finds that he is unable to meet
his engagements, he should at once notify the fact to the Committee,
when he will instantly be declared a defaulter. This disagreeable duty
is performed by an official of the Stock Exchange, who, after three
knocks with a hammer, which resound through the House, intimates that
‘Mr —— begs to inform the House that he is unable to comply with his
bargains.’ If, as frequently happens, the defaulter has issued cheques
on the account-day which have been returned by his banker, the formula
is: ‘Mr —— has not complied with his bargains.’ After such declaration,
the defaulting member is precluded from any further dealings with his
fellow-members, and his affairs are placed in the hands of the official
assignee, who proceeds to wind up the estate and distribute whatever
dividend it will realise. The sound of the dreaded ‘hammer’ produces
universal stillness and apprehension, and where a few seconds before
was heard the hum of many voices and the sound of hurrying feet, now
every ear is on the alert to hear the name of the proscribed member. As
soon as the name is announced, it is posted up in a conspicuous part
of the House, exposed to the gaze and subject to the derogatory remarks
of the members for the rest of the day. As may well be imagined, the
fact of having been ‘hammered,’ whatever a man’s future life may be,
casts a dark shadow which cannot be got rid of; and investors may be
quite certain that the members of the Stock Exchange will strain every
nerve to avoid the disgrace. The rules of the House are, however,
inexorable, and the fatal hammer must sound if engagements are not
strictly and promptly met. In no trade, business, or profession does
the punishment follow so quickly upon the offence, and it would be well
if all commercial and financial default were as promptly declared to
the world.

As will be seen from what we have said, the rights and duties of
investors and members are clearly defined, and both parties have a
right to expect them to be carried out with punctuality. Promptitude is
praiseworthy under all circumstances, but on the Stock Exchange it is
essential for the sake both of members and investors. No slovenliness
or easy slipshod habits of doing business should be permitted on either
side; and investors, while insisting on their rights, should bear in
mind that their contracts with their brokers ought to be carried out
with exactitude on their part, to enable the latter to fulfil their
duties towards their fellow-members.

One other point we would urge investors to bear in mind, and that is,
that stockbrokers are not prophets. Many investors, especially ladies,
think the reverse. We have frequently heard very hard words indeed used
towards brokers who have been unfortunate enough to advise a purchase
which has turned out badly; but a moment’s thought must demonstrate
the folly of such expressions of feeling. If a broker knows positively
what course the market is to take in any particular stock, he has only
to buy or sell it to the amount required for producing the profit he
desires. Many investors, however, when smarting under losses, are apt
to rush to conclusions which reflection proves to be utterly unjust.
It is true that stockbrokers ought to be better acquainted with stocks
and everything pertaining thereto than the large majority of investors;
but it is absurd to suppose that their views should never be wrong. Let
investors be satisfied with a reasonable rate of interest, never buy
stock without the advice of a stockbroker, never buy what they cannot
pay for, or sell what they are not prepared to deliver, and we are
certain there would be fewer sleepless pillows and more money in the
coffers.

Speculation, we fear, is inherent in the human constitution, and all
that we can say on the subject is not likely to put a stop to it. It
is natural to the human animal to desire to make money without working
for it, and no doubt such a state of affairs will exist to the end.
But experience teaches. We once heard an old man, who had been a large
speculator in his early days, say that if he had put his money into
consols when he first began to save, and continued doing so, instead of
running after high rates of interest, he would have been a very much
richer man in his old age. In the furious race for riches, we feel
certain that the steady investor has the best of it; and the man who is
not even able to do more than make both ends meet is infinitely happier
than he who spends restless days and sleepless nights in the pursuit
of that sudden wealth, which he, in all probability, goes down to his
grave without acquiring.




THE ‘LADY GODIVA.’

AN AUSTRALIAN STORY.


It happened that one summer, a few years ago, I found myself travelling
up the Barwon River, just where it commences to form the boundary
between Queensland and New South Wales. The weather was terribly hot,
and feed for horses scarce, so that I was only too glad to accept the
invitation of a hospitable settler, an old acquaintance in digging days
gone by, to stay and ‘spell’ for a week or two, whilst my horses put
on a little condition in his well-grassed paddocks. The country round
about at that time, even on the river frontages, was very sparsely
settled, and comparatively young people could remember when the
blacks were ‘bad.’ Dingoes, kangaroos, wild-cattle, and ‘brombees’ or
wild-horses, roamed the great scrubs in thousands; and with respect to
broken-in and branded individuals of the two latter species, the laws
of _meum_ and _tuum_ seemed to be very lightly regarded amongst the
pioneers of the border; and for a settler to put in an appearance at
his neighbour’s killing-yard whilst the operation of converting bullock
into beef was going on, was deemed the very height of bad manners,
inexcusable, indeed, unless perhaps in the newest of new-chums, at
least till the hide was off and the brand cut out.

My friend had only recently taken up ground on the river; but his next
and nearest neighbour, old Tom Dwyer, who resided about five-and-twenty
miles away, was a settler of many years’ standing; and it was from him
that, towards the end of my stay with the Brays, came an invitation to
the wedding festivities of his only daughter, who was to be married to
a young cousin, also a Dwyer, who followed the occupation of a drover.

As Bray and myself rode along in the cool of the early morning—the
womenkind and children having set out by moonlight the night before in
a spring-cart—he gave me a slight sketch of the people whose hearty
invitation we were accepting.

‘A rum lot,’ said my old friend—a fine specimen of the bushman-digger
type of Australian-born colonist, hardy, brave, and intelligent, who
had, after many years of a roving, eventful life, at last settled down
to make himself a home in the wilderness—‘a rum lot, these Dwyers.
Not bad neighbours by no means, at least not to me. I speak as I
find; but people do say that they come it rather too strong sometimes
with the squatters’ stock, and that young Jim—him as is goin’ to get
switched—and old Tom his uncle do work the oracle atween ’em. I mind,
not so long ago, young Jim he starts up north somewhere with about a
score head o’ milkers and their calves; and when he comes back again
in about six months, he fetched along with him over three hundred head
o’ cattle! “Increase,” he called ’em—ha, ha! A very smart lad is Jim
Dwyer; but the squatters are getting carefuller now; and I’m afraid, if
he don’t mind, that he’ll find himself in the logs some o’ these fine
days. He’s got a nice bit o’ a place over the river, on the New South
Wales side, has Jim, just in front o’ Fort Dwyer, as they call the old
man’s camp. You could a’most chuck a stone from one house to the other.’

So conversing, after about three hours’ steady-riding through open box
forest country, flat and monotonous, we arrived at ‘Fort Dwyer’—or
Dee-wyer, as invariably pronounced thereabouts—a long, low building,
constructed of huge, roughly squared logs of nearly fireproof red
coolabah, or swamp-gum, and situated right on the verge of the steep
clay bank, twenty feet below which glided sullenly along the sluggish
Barwon, then nearly half a ‘banker.’

A hearty welcome greeted us; and the inevitable ‘square-face’ of
spirits was at once produced, to which my companion did justice whilst
pledging the health of the company with a brief, ‘Well, here’s luck,
lads!’ For my own part, not daring to tackle the half-pannikinful of
fiery Mackay rum so pressingly offered, with the assurance that it was
‘the finest thing out after a warm ride,’ I paid my respects to an
immense cask of honey-beer which stood under a canopy of green boughs,
thus running some risk of losing caste as a bushman by appropriating
‘the women’s swankey,’ as old Dwyer contemptuously termed it, whilst
insisting on ‘tempering’ my drink with ‘just the least taste in life,
sir,’ of Port Mackay, of about 45 o. p. strength.

There must have been fully one hundred people assembled; and the
open space just in front of the house was crowded with buggies,
spring-carts, wagonettes, and even drays; but the great centre of
attraction was the stockyard, where Jim Dwyer was breaking-in to the
side-saddle a mare, bought in one of his recent trips ‘up north,’ and
intended as a present for his bride, of whom I caught a glimpse as
she sat on an empty kerosene tin, with her sleeves rolled up, busily
engaged in plucking poultry; a fair type of the bush-maiden, tall and
slender, with good, though sharply cut features, deeply browned by
the sun, laughing dark eyes, perfect teeth—a rare gift amongst young
Australians—and as much at home—so old Bray assured me—on horseback
cutting out ‘scrubbers’ or ‘brombees,’ as was her husband-elect himself.

The rails of the great stockyard were crowded with tall,
cabbage-tree-hatted, booted and spurred ‘Cornstalks’ and ‘Banana-men’
(natives of New South Wales and Queensland respectively); and loud
were their cries of admiration, as young Dwyer, on the beautiful and,
to my eyes, nearly thoroughbred black mare, cantered round and round,
whilst flourishing an old riding-skirt about her flanks.

‘She’ll do, Jim—quiet as a sheep’—‘My word! she’ll carry Annie
flying’—‘What did yer give for her, Jim?’—‘A reg’lar star, an’ no
mistake!’ greeted the young man, as, lightly jumping off, he unbuckled
the girths and put the saddle on the slip-rails.

Jim Dwyer differed little from the ordinary style of young bush
‘native’—tall, thin, brown, quick-eyed, narrow in the flanks; but with
good breadth of chest, and feet which, from their size and shape, might
have satisfied even that captious critic the Lady Hester Stanhope,
under whose instep ‘a kitten could walk,’ that the Australians of a
future nation would not be as the British, ‘a flat-soled generation, of
whom no great or noble achievement could ever be expected.’

I fancied that, as the young fellow came forward to shake hands with
Bray, he looked uneasily and rather suspiciously at me out of the
corner of one of his black eyes. My companion evidently observed it
also, for he said laughingly: ‘What’s the matter, Jim? Only a friend of
mine. Is the mare “on the cross?” And did you think he was a “trap?”’

‘None o’ your business, Jack Bray,’ was the surly reply. ‘“Cross” or
“square,” she’s mine till some one comes along who can show a better
right to her, an’ that won’t happen in a hurry.’

‘Well, well,’ replied Bray, ‘you needn’t get crusty so confounded
quick. But she’s a pretty thing, sure enough. Let’s go and have a look
at her.’

Everybody now crowded round the mare, praising and admiring her. ‘Two
year old, just,’ exclaimed one, looking in her mouth.—‘Rising three,
I say,’ replied another.—‘And a cleanskin, and unbranded!’ ejaculated
Bray, at the same time passing his hand along the mare’s wither.

‘That’s a disease can soon be cured,’ said Dwyer with a laugh. ‘I’m
agoin’ to clap the J. D. on her now.—Shove her in the botte, boys,
while I go an’ fetch the irons up.’

‘That mare’s a thoroughbred, and a race-mare to boot, and she’s “on the
cross” right enough,’ whispered Bray, as we walked back towards the
house. ‘She’s been shook; and though she ain’t fire-branded, there’s a
half-sovereign let in under the skin just below the wither; I felt it
quite plain; and I wouldn’t wonder but there’s a lot more private marks
on her as we can’t see.’

‘Do you think, then,’ I asked, ‘that young Dwyer stole her?’

‘Likely enough, likely enough,’ was the reply. ‘But if he did, strikes
me as we’ll hear more about the matter yet.’

Just at this moment, shouts of, ‘Here’s the parson!’—‘Here’s old Ben!’
drew our attention to a horseman who was coming along the narrow track
at a slow canter.

A well-known character throughout the whole of that immense district
was the Rev. Benjamin Back, ‘bush missionary;’ and not less well
known was his old bald-faced horse Jerry. The pair bore a grotesque
resemblance to each other, both being long and ungainly, both thin
and gray, both always ready to eat and drink, and yet always looking
desolate and forlorn. As the Rev. Ben disengaged his long legs from the
stirrups, the irrepressible old Dwyer appeared with the greeting-cup—a
tin pint-pot half full of rum—which swallowing with scarcely a wink, to
the great admiration of the lookers-on, the parson, commending Jerry
to the care of his host, stalked inside, and was soon busy at the
long table, working away at a couple of roast-ducks, a ham, and other
trifles, washed down with copious draughts of hot tea, simply remarking
to ‘Annie,’ that she ‘had better make haste and clean herself, so that
he could put her and Jim through, as he had to go on to Bullarora that
evening to bury a child for the Lacies.’

Having at length finished his repast, all hands crowded into the long
room, where before ‘old Ben’ stood bride and bridegroom, the former
neatly dressed in dark merino—her own especial choice, as I was told,
in preference to anything gayer—with here and there a bright-coloured
ribbon, whilst in her luxuriant black hair and in the breast of her
dress were bunches of freshly plucked orange blossoms, that many a
belle of proud Mayfair might have envied. The bridegroom in spotless
white shirt, with handkerchief of crimson silk, confined loosely around
his neck by a massive gold ring, riding-trousers of Bedford cord, kept
up by a broad belt, worked in wools of many colours by his bride, and
shining top-boots and spurs, looked the very beau-idéal of a dashing
stockman, as he bore himself elate and proudly, without a trace of
that bucolic sheepishness so often witnessed in the principal party to
similar contracts.

The old parson, with the perspiration induced by recent gastronomic
efforts rolling in beads off his bald head, and dropping from the tip
of his nose on to the church-service in his hand, had taken off his
long coat of threadbare rusty black, and stood confessed in shirt of
hue almost akin to that of the long leggings that reached above his
knees. It was meltingly hot; and the thermometer—had there been such
an article—would have registered one hundred and ten or one hundred
and fifteen degrees in the shade at the least. But it was all over at
last. Solemnly ‘old Ben’ had kissed the darkly flushing bride, and
told her to be a good girl to Jim—solemnly the old man had disposed
of another ‘parting cup;’ and then, whilst the womenkind filled his
saddle-bags with cake, chicken, and ham, together with the generous
half of a ‘square-face’—or large square-sided bottle—containing his
favourite summer beverage, old Dwyer, emerging from one of the inner
rooms, produced a piece of well-worn bluish-tinted paper, known and
appreciated in those regions as a ‘bluey,’ at sight of which the
parson’s eye glistened, for seldom was it that he had the fortune to
come across such a liberal douceur as a five-pound note; but as old
Dwyer said: ‘We don’t often have a job like this one for you Ben, old
man. We’re pretty well in just now, an’ I mean you shall remember it.
An’ look here; Jerry’s getting pretty poor now, an’ I know myself he’s
no chicken; so you’d best leave him on the grass with us for the rest
o’ his days, an’ I’ll give you as game a bit o’ horse-flesh as ever
stepped; quiet, too, an’ a good pacer. See! the boys is a-saddlin’ him
up now.’

The old preacher’s life was hard, for the most part barren, and little
moistened by kind offers like the present; and his grim and wrinkled
face puckered up and worked curiously as he gratefully accepted the
gift for Jerry’s sake, his constant companion through twelve long years
of travel incessant through the wildest parts of Queensland; and with
a parting injunction to ‘the boys’ to look after the old horse, he,
mounting his new steed, started off on his thirty-mile ride to bury
Lacy’s little child.

The long tables, at which all hands had intermittently appeased their
hunger throughout the day, on fowls, geese, turkeys, sucking-pig, fish,
&c., were now cleared and removed; a couple of concertinas struck up,
and fifteen or twenty couples were soon dancing with might and main on
the pine-boarded floor. Old men and young, old women and maidens, boys
and girls, all went at it with a will, whirling, stamping, changing and
‘chaining’ till the substantial old house shook again, and fears were
audibly expressed that the whole building would topple over into the
river.

‘Not to-night, of all nights in the year,’ said old Dwyer; ‘although I
do believe I’ll have to shift afore long. Ye’ll hardly think it—would
ye?—that when I first put up the old shanty, it stood four chain, good,
away from the bank; it was, though, all that; an’ many a sneaking,
greasy black-fellow I’ve seen go slap into the water with a rifle
bullet through his ugly carcass out of that back-winder, though it is
plumb a’most with the river now.’

So, louder and louder screamed the concertinas, faster and faster
whirled the panting couples, till nearly midnight, when ‘supper’ was
announced by the sound of a great bullock bell, and out into the calm
night-air trooped the crowd. The tables this time had been set out
on the sward in front of the house, just without the long dark line
of forest which bordered the river, through the tops of whose giant
‘belars’ the full moon shone down on the merry feasters with a subdued
glory; whilst, in a quiet pause, you could hear the rush of the strong
Barwon current, broken, every now and again, by a deep-sounding ‘plop,’
as some fragment of the ever-receding clayey bank would fall into the
water. Four or five native bears, disturbed by the noise, crawled out
on the limbs of a great coolabar, and with unwinking, beady-black
eyes, gazed on the scene below, expressing their astonishment every
now and again in hoarse mutterings, now low and almost inarticulate,
then ‘thrum, thrumming’ through the bush till it rang again. From a
neighbouring swamp came the shrill scream of the curlew; whilst far
away in the low ranges of Cooyella, could be heard the dismal howl of a
solitary dingo coo-ee-ing to his mates.

Scarcely had the guests taken their seats and commenced, amidst jokes
and laughter, to attack a fresh and substantial meal, when a furious
barking, from a pack of about fifty dogs, announced the advent of
strangers; and in a minute more, three horsemen, in the uniform of
the Queensland mounted police, rode up to the tables. One, a sergeant
apparently, dismounted, and with his bridle over his arm, strode
forward, commanding every one to keep their seats; for several at
first sight of the ‘traps’ had risen, and apparently thought of
quietly slipping away. This order, however, enforced as it was by the
production of a revolver, together with an evident intention of using
it on any absconder, brought them to their seats again.

‘What’s all this about?’ exclaimed old Dwyer. ‘We’re all honest people
here, mister, so you can put up your pistol. Tell us civilly what it
is you’re wantin’, an’ we’ll try an’ help you; but don’t come it too
rough. You ought to be ’shamed o’ yourself. Don’t ye see the faymales?’

‘Can’t help the females,’ retorted the sergeant sharply. ‘I haven’t
ridden four hundred miles to play polite to a lot of women. I want
a man named James Dwyer; and by the description, yonder’s the man
himself’—pointing at the same time across the table to where sat the
newly-made husband, who had been one of the first to make a move at
sight of the police.

‘What’s the charge, sargent?’ asked old Dwyer coolly.

‘Horse-stealing,’ was the reply; ‘and here’s the warrant, signed by the
magistrate in Tambo, for his apprehension.’

I was sitting quite close to the object of these inquiries, and at
this moment I heard young Mrs Dwyer, whilst leaning across towards her
husband, whisper something about ‘the river’ and ‘New South Wales;’
and in another moment, head over heels down the steep bank rolled the
recently created benedict, into the curious and cool nuptial couch of
swiftly flowing, reddish water, which he breasted with ease, making
nearly a straight line for the other bank, distant perhaps a couple of
hundred yards.

The troopers, drawing their revolvers, dismounted, and running forward,
were about to follow the example set by their superior, who was
taking steady aim at the swimmer, perfectly discernible in the clear
moonlight, when suddenly half-a-dozen pair of soft but muscular arms
encircled the three representatives of law and order, as the women,
screaming like a lot of curlews after a thunderstorm, clasped them in a
tight embrace.

Young Mrs Dwyer herself tackled the sergeant, crying: ‘What! would you
shoot a man just for a bit of horse-sweating! Leave him go, can’t you.
He’s over the border now in New South Wales, mare and all; and you
can’t touch him, even if you was there.’

Just then a yell of triumph from the scrub on the other shore seemed
to vouch for the fact, and was answered by a dozen sympathetic whoops
and shouts from the afore-mentioned ‘Cornstalks’ and ‘Banana-men,’ who
crowded along our side of the river.

The sergeant struggled to free himself; and his fair antagonist unwound
her arms, saying: ‘Come now, sargent, sit down peaceably and eat your
supper, can’t you! What’s the good of making such a bother over an old
scrubber of a mare!’

‘An old scrubber of a mare!’ repeated the sergeant aghast ‘D’ye think
we’d ride this far over a scrubber of a mare? Why, it’s the Lady Godiva
he took; old Stanford’s race-mare, worth five hundred guineas, if
she’s worth a penny. Bother me! if he didn’t take her clean out of the
stable in Tambo, settling-night, after she’d won the big money! But
there, you all know as much about it as I can tell you, that’s plain
to be seen, for I never mentioned a mare; it was your own self, I do
believe; and I’ll have him, if I have to follow him to Melbourne.—Just
got married, has he? Well, I can’t help that; he shouldn’t go stealing
race-mares.—Well, perhaps you didn’t know _all_ about it,’ went on the
sergeant, in reply to the asseverations of the Dwyer family as regarded
their knowledge of the way the young man had become possessed of the
mare. ‘But,’ shaking his head sententiously, ‘I’m much mistaken if most
of this crowd hadn’t a pretty good idea that there was something cross
about her. However,’ he concluded philosophically, ‘it’s no use crying
over spilt milk. I’ll have to ride over to G—— at daylight—that’s
another forty miles—and get an extradition warrant out for him. He
might just as well have come quietly at first, for we’re bound to have
the two of them some time or other.’

It was now nearly daylight; and our party set out on their return home,
leaving the troopers comfortably seated at the supper, or rather by
this time, breakfast table; while just below the house, in a bend of
the river, we could see, as we passed along, a group of men busily
engaged in swimming a mob of horses—amongst which was doubtless the
Lady Godiva herself—over to the New South Wales shore, where, on the
bank, plainly to be discerned in the early dawn, stood the tall form of
her lawless owner.

‘How do you think it will all end?’ I asked Bray.

‘Oh,’ was the reply, ‘they’ll square it, most likely. I know something
of that Stanford; he’s a bookmaker; and if he gets back the mare and
a cheque for fifty or a hundred pounds, to cover expenses, he’ll not
trouble much after Jim.’

‘Yes. But the police?’ I asked.

‘Easier squared than Stanford,’ answered Bray dogmatically.

That this ‘squaring’ process was successfully put in force seemed
tolerably certain; for very shortly afterwards I read that at the
autumn meeting of the N. Q. J. C., the Lady Godiva had carried off the
lion’s share of the money; and I also had the pleasure of meeting Mr
and Mrs Dwyer in one of Cobb & Co.’s coaches, bound for the nearest
railway terminus, about three hundred miles distant, thence to spend
a month or so in Sydney; Jim, as his wife informed me, having done
uncommonly well out of a mob of cattle and horses which he had been
travelling for sale through the colonies; so had determined to treat
himself and the ‘missis,’ for the first time in their lives, to a look
at the ‘big smoke.’

‘That was a great shine at our wedding, wasn’t it?’ she asked, as the
coachman gathered up the reins preparatory to a fresh start. ‘But’—and
here she tapped her husband on the head with her parasol—‘I look out
now that he don’t go sticking-up to any more Lady Godivas.’

‘That’s so,’ laughed Jim. ‘I find, that I have my hands pretty full
with the one I collared the night you were there. I doubt sometimes
I’d done better to have stuck to the other one; and as for temp’——
Here Jim’s head disappeared suddenly into the interior of the coach;
crack went the long whip; the horses plunged, reared, and went through
the usual performance of attempting to tie themselves up into overhand
knots, then darted off at top-speed on their sixteen-mile stage, soon
disappearing in a cloud of dust along the ‘cleared line.’




OCCASIONAL NOTES.


ARTILLERY EXPERIMENTS.

The trials lately carried on at the Bill of Portland, supplement (says
the _Times_) those of Inchkeith in certain respects. At Inchkeith it
was sought to obtain a just idea of the effect of machine-gun and
shrapnel fire on the detachment serving a gun mounted _en barbette_
in an emplacement of tolerably recent design. Dummies were placed
round the gun in exposed positions, and Her Majesty’s ship _Sultan_,
under very favourable conditions of sea and weather, carried out some
careful practice at various ranges. The results, accurately recorded,
furnish data calculated to serve as a correction to mere conjecture.
At Portland, the objects sought to be attained were two. The merits
of the Moncrieff or ‘disappearing’ principle of mounting guns for
coast-defence have been much discussed, and great advantages have been
claimed for it with every show of reason; but no opportunity had ever
been given to the system to practically demonstrate its defensive
value. It was, therefore, sufficiently desirable that a practical
experiment should be arranged in which ‘service-conditions’ should
be observed as far as possible, so that there might be a something
definite to set against prejudice either in favour of or against the
system. It was proposed, at the same time, to seek to obtain data as to
the accuracy of howitzer-fire from a floating platform.... To sum up
the case with judicial fairness, the Portland experiments fully bear
out all that the champions of the disappearing system have asserted;
while its opponents—if there are any such—must perforce admit that at
least nothing whatever is proved against it. More than this, however,
appears to be indicated by these trials. There seems to be every reason
to believe that all direct fire, whether of heavy or machine guns,
against a disappearing gun when down, is thrown away; that in the short
time during which this gun need be visible, it will require a very
smart gun-captain on board ship merely to lay on it; that the more the
smoke obscures it, the better, provided a position-finder is used;
and finally, that to engage two or three dispersed disappearing guns
would be a heart-breaking task for a ship. Probably the best chance
of disabling guns mounted on this system is snap-shooting from the
six-pounder quick-firing gun, which can be bandied almost as readily as
a rifle. But, on the one hand, it does not necessarily follow that a
hit from the six-pounder would have any effect on the disappearing gun;
and, on the other hand, the latter would be able to get through a good
deal of shooting before the six-pounder was able to come into effective
action. Again, the six-pounder on board ship would presumably be met
by the six-pounder on shore, which would shoot rather more accurately;
while, even as opposed to these wonderfully handy little weapons, the
disappearing system must stand superior to all others. In a turret or
a cupola, more than half the length of the modern long guns must be
always exposed to fire. All considerations, therefore, seem to point
to the disappearing system as the most scientific method ever devised
for protecting shore-guns, and the advantages to be obtained being so
great, it becomes worth while to use every possible effort to bring
the disappearing gun to practical perfection. The main difficulty is
to render the larger guns independently automatic, and at present no
gun larger than the eight-inch—the gun exhibited in the Inventions
Exhibition—has been thus mounted in England.


SEA-GOING FISHING LIFEBOAT VESSELS.

Mr F. Johnson, the honorary managing secretary of the National Refuge
Harbours Society, 17 Parliament Street, London, has made it the one aim
of his life to devise such means as will conduce to diminish the large
total of lives annually reported as having been lost at sea. He is now
interesting himself in bringing to a practical application an invention
of Mr John White, of Cowes, described as a Sea-going Fishing Lifeboat
vessel, a model of which is now on public view at 72 New Bond Street,
London. Broad in the beam, she has a large air-chamber divided into
two compartments at the bow; another—of a smaller size—at the stern;
and one running along on either side. Thus, however much sea she may
‘ship,’ with these air-chambers in use, it is not possible for her to
sink. Except for the roofs of the fore and aft air-chambers, the vessel
has no deck, an arrangement which of course gives her considerable
buoyancy. The roofs of the side air-chambers are curved off, so that
any water which might wash over one bulwark would pass across the
vessel and wash out over the other. As a matter of fact, however, it
is confidently believed that, even in a high sea, the vessel will
be too buoyant to ship much water. It has naturally occurred to the
inventor that in fine weather the fore air-chamber might be utilised
as a cabin; he has therefore arranged that it may be unsealed and
access obtained to it by means of a hatchway. It will be fitted up with
cooking apparatus and beds, the latter articles also filling the rôle
of life-buoys.

Those who interest themselves in this invention propose that
vessels of the kind shall be launched around our coasts, equipped
with fishing-gear, and manned with smacksmen, so that they may be
‘self-supporting;’ while their primary object will be to afford
succour during stormy weather to any craft in distress. Thus, it is
felt that the Fishing Lifeboat vessels might ride in the different
fishing fleets, the smacks of which, being frequently far away from
any harbour of refuge, are often disabled or utterly wrecked during
a storm. Then, too, the vessels might fish in the neighbourhood of
dangerous reefs and shoals, where their presence would be especially
valuable. We believe that two or three years ago a fishing-smack was
constructed very much on the lines indicated, and that, after effecting
some rescues in the neighbourhood of the Goodwin Sands, she herself
was wrecked, owing to her having been improperly laden with stone. Mr
White has agreed to build Sea-going Fishing Lifeboat vessels of forty
tons—a size which is considered most suitable—at a cost each of five
hundred pounds. It is felt that a fair start might be made with twenty
vessels, to be placed at different points around our coasts. Thus ten
thousand pounds is required; and a public fund has been opened, and
part of the money already subscribed. Those who desire to contribute
should communicate with Mr Johnson, all cheques being crossed National
Provincial Bank.


SOME FACTS ABOUT MONTE CARLO.

The Report, says a contemporary, of the International Committee in
Nice upon the disgraceful gambling hell of Monte Carlo, which has
just been issued, is to be made the ground of a collective diplomatic
action against the protector of that institution, Prince Charles III.
of Monaco. This important pamphlet gives a documentary catalogue of
all the suicides which have taken place in Monte Carlo from 1877 to
1885. The total number of persons who have destroyed themselves in
consequence of their losses at his Princely Highness’s gambling-tables
is eighteen hundred and twenty—that is to say, there have been nearly
as many suicides as the Prince has subjects. The catalogue is very
complete, giving the name, the home, the age, and the date of death of
each suicide, and a collection of the letters in which the wretched
victims have commented upon their self-destruction. Nearly all of them
curse the hour in which their eyes first set sight upon Monte Carlo. It
is agreeable to learn from the table of nationality that the English
and Americans have supplied the smallest number of victims. A tenth
of the number are Germans and Austrians; but the largest contingent
by far has been provided by France, Italy, and Russia. The appalling
census was instituted by the Italian Consul-general in Nice, who found
ready support from patriotic citizens of other lands. The callous
brutality of the Monaco ‘government,’ if so honourable a name may be
given to this organised gambling Company, is shown in the treatment
of the suicides after their death. Scarcely one of them, except where
friends have appeared in time to claim the body, has received a decent
burial. After the poor wretch has lost all that he had, his corpse has
been hurriedly hidden in the poor quarter of the burial-ground without
funeral rites or mourners.

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

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_All Rights Reserved._