[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. 139.—VOL. III.       SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 1886.       PRICE 1½_d._]




OUR WAYS AND THEIRS.


To do at Rome as the Romans do is sage advice, not always nor often
followed by those of us who wander afield. Voluntarily placing
ourselves among people whose ways and habits are different from our
own, and whose principles of action are as sacred to them as ours are
to us, we ‘fling our five fingers’ in the face of rules and regulations
which are to them the very sign and substance of social decorum.
Principles which are stricter than our own we call prejudices; and
pooh-pooh as valueless those virtues in which we are wanting, while
condemning as unpardonably immoral everything whatever which is of
laxer fibre and looser holding than the corresponding circumstance at
home. Thus, we fall foul of the southern nations for their want of
straightforwardness, their sweet deceptive flatteries, their small
short-sighted dishonesties; yet we count it but a little matter that
they should be sober, abstemious, kind-hearted, and charitable; that
they should not beat their children nor kick their wives to death;
nor spend on one gross meal of beef and beer half the earnings of the
week. We forget, too, that if we are ‘done’ in the vineyards and the
orange groves, others are as much ‘done’ in the hop gardens and the
hay-fields; and that: ‘Here is a stranger—come, let us rob him,’ is
the rule of life all the world over. We deride the costly political
efforts made by young nations struggling to obtain a place in European
councils; but we have not a word of praise for the patience with which
the people bear their heavy burden of taxation, that their country may
be great with the great, and strong with the strong. In short, we find
more barren land than fertile, all the way from Dan to Beersheba; and,
once across the silver streak, very few points, if any, attract our
admiration, while fewer still compel our adhesion.

One of the most striking acts of unconformity lies in the charter of
liberty given to our girls, compared with the close guard enforced
among the bold wooers and jealous possessors of the fervid south. An
amount of freedom, which is both innocent and recognised here, is held
as dangerous and improper there; but few English girls will submit to
more personal restraint in Palermo or Madrid than that to which they
have been accustomed in Cornwall or Cumberland. And indeed, they often
launch out into strange license, and do things in foreign cities which
they would not dare to do in their own native towns. They think they
are not known; and what does it signify what people say of them?—the
honour of the English name not counting. If you reason with them, and
tell them that such and such things are ill thought of by the natives,
they look at you blankly and answer: ‘What does it matter to us? Their
ways are not ours, thank goodness! and we prefer our own. Besides, they
must be very horrid people to think evil when there is none.’ Mothers
and chaperons are no more sensitive, no more conformable, than their
charges, and quite as resolute to reject any new view and trample under
foot any rule of life to which they have not been accustomed. Tell
one of them that, in a purely foreign hotel, the girl must not be let
to sleep in another corridor—on another floor—or away from her own
immediate vicinity, and she asks: ‘Why? My daughter is not a baby; she
can take care of herself. And what harm should happen to her?’ Tell her
that the girl must not wander unaccompanied about the passages, the
gardens, the public rooms of the hotel, nor sit apart in corners of
the salon talking in whispers with the men, nor lounge on the benches
with one favoured individual alone—and she scouts all these precautions
as foolish if not insulting. Say that it is not considered correct
for the young lady to come to table-d’hôte by herself at any time of
the meal it may suit her to appear—perhaps dashing into dinner in her
hat, breathless, heated, excited—and again the advice is rejected.
Her daughter has been accustomed to be mistress of her own time as
well as actions, and lawn-tennis is a game which cannot be interrupted
nor determined by one person only. She did just the same last year
at Scarborough, and no one made unpleasant observations; so, why
should she be under more control now? Yes, she did all these things
at home, where they are compatible with ‘well-and-wise-walking.’ But
in a foreign hotel, tenanted by men who respect young women only in
proportion to the care that is taken of them, they are not well nor
wise; nay, more, they are looked on as criminal acts of neglect in
those who have the guidance of things.

Manners are special to countries as to classes, and are accepted as
so much current coin, which passes here, but would not run out of the
limits of the realm. Jermimer, down at Margate, giggles back to ’Arry,
making lollipop eyes at her over the old boat, while sucking the knob
of his sixpenny cane. From giggling and making lollipop eyes, the pair
soon come to speech; from speech to association; from association to
love-making in earnest, and mayhap to marriage. In any case, no harm
is done; and Jermimer and ’Arry are as little out of the right course,
judged from their own stand-point, when they make acquaintance in this
primitive manner, as is Lady Clara Vere de Vere when she is whirled
away in Lord Verisopht’s arms on a first introduction. The coin is good
where it is minted. But Lady Clara Vere de Vere would be but base metal
at Tangier and Tunis; and Jermimer is not understood, say at Palermo,
when she comes there in force, trailing her Margate manners at her
heels. Consequently, when three pretty girls alight at that fair city,
and ‘carry on’ as if they were in ’appy ’Ampton, they naturally excite
some attention, not of a flattering kind, among people to whom girlhood
is at once brittle ware and a sacred deposit. A showy triad, dressed
in the fluttering fashion dear to the tribe of Jermimer—bows here,
ends there—colours which dazzle, and shapes not to be overlooked—they
make themselves still more conspicuous by their millinery than nature
has already made them by her gift of milkwhite skins and flaxen hair.
They make themselves more conspicuous by their manners than by either
millinery or colour. They care nothing for sight-seeing, and all
for flirting, or what in their vernacular is ‘larking.’ Like their
prototype giggling back to ’Arry over the old boat, they look back and
laugh and beckon and nod to the young officers who follow them through
the streets, thinking that here is sport made to their hand, and that
to reject the roasted larks which fall from the sky would be a folly
unworthy a rational human being. From looking they pass into speech;
and, by aid of a dictionary and their fingers, make appointments and
go off on expeditions, unchaperoned, with these young men, to whom
they have no more clue than is given by their uniform and the number
of their regiment. When warned by experienced compatriots, they treat
the warning as envy of their enjoyment. When advised by the handsome
general who takes his own share of the cake, liberally, they treat his
advice as jealousy of the younger men; and so, following their own
course, they become the town’s talk, the shame of the English colony,
the indignation of their hotel companions, and the standing marvel of
the whole native population. They put, too, a stone in the hand of the
reactionary and exclusive; and: ‘See to what your dangerous liberties
lead your girls!’ is a reproach which no one can ward off. This is an
instance of unconformity known to the writer of these lines as having
taken place last winter in Palermo.

English and American girls flirt in a way which the fervid south
neither permits nor understands. So far that fervid south is more real
and more intense than we, who yet pride ourselves on both our sincerity
and our depth. A painful little drama took place not long ago, founded
on these cross lines of violated custom. Down on the Gulf of Naples a
quite young girl, precocious in character and appearance and given up
by her mother to the care of her maid, flirted with a young Italian
as a foolish child would, given the chance, and only a venal servant
to accept bribes for not looking after her. The young fellow took her
seriously. When the trying moment came, she opened her large blue eyes
and said with the candid air of a cherub: ‘I meant nothing but fun. I
do not love you, and I am too young to marry.’ The youth shot himself
as his commentary on her answer.

Again, no kind of warning as to the untrustworthiness of certain
plausible scoundrels, known to be mere _cacciatori_ or fortune-hunters,
will do any good to certain women determined to ruin themselves. A
girl not long ago fell in love with a Sicilian scamp of handsome
presence and desperate character. In vain her friends warned her of
his reputation, and besought her to conquer her suicidal passion—in
vain! in vain! She would not, and she did not; but, like the poor
foolish moth, flew right up to the candle, and proved too fatally what
the flame was like. She married; and then learnt what a torturer and
a tyrant could do when put to it. Before the year was out she had to
escape by stealth from a man who starved her and beat her; who slept
with a revolver under his pillow, with which he threatened her at
dead of night—waking her from her sleep to terrify her into almost
madness—and who made her regret too bitterly that she had not taken
advice when it was given her, and believed in the truer knowledge of
the more experienced.

In health it is the same story. We, who go on a visit of a few weeks,
know so much better what is good for us than the natives of the place,
who have had the experience of a lifetime and the traditions of
centuries to guide them! We laugh at their precautions, and refuse to
be ‘coddled.’ Hence, we go straight into the jaws of danger, and then
wonder that we are bitten. We hang over the malarial waters stagnating
in the Colosseum, when we go there to ‘enthuse’ by moonlight. We lie
on the rank grass in the Campagna, cooling our flushed faces on the
earth which teems with the germs that slay and the emanations that
destroy. We whip our blood to fever-heat by violent exertion under
the burning sun, then get chilled to the marrow when the great orb
sinks to darkness and the cold damps rise like malignant spirits from
the tomb; and we think the inhabitants lazy because they take their
exercise doucely, and effeminate because they avoid the half-hour of
sundown as they would avoid a tiger crouching in the jungle. We eat and
drink in feverish Italy and exciting Spain as we eat and drink in damp,
depressing England; and we refuse to do at Rome as the Romans do, to
the damage of our liver and the ruin of our nerves. We know best—are
we not free-born Britons?—and our flag of unconformity is the sign of
our superiority. We despise the religion of the countries we visit,
and will not believe that the worshippers of the saints have more
respect than have we ourselves for the faith into which they have been
born and bred. A friend of our own carries this feeling to its last
development, not being able to understand, nor to believe, that the
old Greeks and Romans had any respect for Zeus or worship for Minerva.
The grandeur and multiplicity of their temples, the magnificence and
frequency of their processions, say nothing to him. Their ways are not
his, and he cannot accept them as true for them if not for him. All
people who have been abroad, and who respect the habits and feelings of
those among whom they have placed themselves, know how painful it is
to meet certain of their countrymen and women in the churches during
service. These nonconformists pay no more respect to the place than if
it were a barn cleared out for a play-night. They walk about making
comments in audible voices, and stepping over the obstructive feet of
the kneeling worshippers as unconcernedly as if they were picking their
way among so many bales of cotton and wool. Why should they not? When
faith and habits clash, are not our own those which we must consider?
At a funeral service in St Roch, when the nave was draped in black and
occupied by the mourners gathered round the coffin, there came up the
side aisle, arm-in-arm, a young Englishman and, perhaps, his bride,
joyous, happy, talking, laughing. What to them, in the flush of their
youthful bliss, was the sorrow of the widow, the grief of the children,
the loss of a good man and a useful life? They were on one plane,
and all these weeping mourners were on another; and their own was
predominant.

In a smaller matter than this, we show the same want of conformity.
We go to a theatre in full dress where the ladies of the place go in
bonnets, and to the opera in ulsters and travel-worn hats where the
élite are in their diamonds and plumes. But so it is all through.
We are British, and may do as we like, not being slaves nor wearing
wooden shoes like those others, and Britannia ruling the seas—a cross
between Neptune and Minerva. We eat and drink and dress and flirt and
live independent of the rules by which the people of the country are
guided and checked. But if any one does not conform to our ways, he is
anathematised, and we wonder how such bad taste is possible with a
well-conditioned person! It is the stiff Anglo-Saxon neck, which, were
it to bend, would not lose in power, but would gain in grace.




IN ALL SHADES.


CHAPTER XLII.

Marian was behind in the dining-room and bedrooms with Aunt Clemmy,
helping to nurse and tend the sick and wounded as well as she could, in
the midst of so much turmoil and danger. When she and Edward had been
roused by the sudden glare of the burning cane-houses, reddening the
horizon by Orange Grove, and casting weird and fitful shadows from all
the mango-trees in front of their little tangled garden, she had been
afraid to remain behind alone at Mulberry, and had preferred facing
the maddened rioters by her husband’s side, to stopping by herself
under such circumstances among the unfamiliar black servants in her own
house. So they had ridden across hurriedly to the Dupuys’ together,
especially as Marian was no less timid on Nora’s account than on her
own; and when they reached the little garden gate that led in by the
back path, she had slipped up alone, unperceived by the mob, while
Edward went round openly to the front door and tried to appease the
angry negroes.

The shouts and yells when she first arrived had proved indeed very
frightening and distracting; but after a time, she could guess, from
the comparative silence which ensued, that Edward had succeeded in
gaining a hearing: and then she and Aunt Clemmy turned with fast
beating hearts to look after the bleeding victims, one of whom at least
they gave up from the first as quite dead beyond the reach of hope or
recovery.

Nora was naturally the first to come to. She had fainted only; and
though, in the crush and press, she had been trampled upon and very
roughly handled by the barefooted negroes, she had got off, thanks to
their shoeless condition, with little worse than a few ugly cuts and
bruises. They laid her tenderly on her own bed, and bathed her brows
over and over again with Cologne water; till, after a few minutes, she
sat up again, pale and deathly to look at, but proud and haughty and
defiant as ever, with her eyes burning very brightly, and an angry
quiver playing unchecked about her bloodless lips.

‘Is he dead?’ she asked calmly—as calmly as if it were the most
ordinary question on earth, but yet with a curious tone of suppressed
emotion, that even in that terrible moment did not wholly escape
Marian’s quick womanly observation.

‘Your father?’ Marian answered, in a low voice.—‘Dear, dear, you
mustn’t excite yourself now. You must be quite quiet, perfectly quiet.
You’re not well enough to stand any talking or excitement yet. You must
wait to hear about it all, darling, until you’re a little better.’

Nora’s lip curled a trifle as she answered almost disdainfully: ‘I’m
not going to lie here and let myself be made an invalid of, while those
murderers are out yonder still on the piazza. Let me get up and see
what has happened.—No; I didn’t mean papa, Marian; I know he’s dead;
I saw him lying hacked all to pieces outside on the sofa. I meant Mr
Noel. Have they killed him? Have they killed him? He’s a brave man.
Have the wretches killed him?’

‘We think not,’ Marian answered dubiously. ‘He’s in the next room, and
two of the servants are there taking care of him.’

Nora rose from the bed with a sudden bound, and stood, pale and white,
all trembling before them. ‘What are you stopping here wasting your
care upon me for, then?’ she asked half angrily. ‘You think not—think
not, indeed! Is this a time to be thinking and hesitating! Why are
you looking after women who go into fainting-fits, like fools, at the
wrong moment? I’m ashamed of myself, almost, for giving way visibly
before the wretches—for letting them see I was half afraid of them.
But I wasn’t afraid of them for myself, though—not a bit of it,
Marian: it was only for—for Mr Noel.’ She said it after a moment’s
brief hesitation, but without the faintest touch of girlish timidity
or ill-timed reserve. Then she swept queen-like past Marian and Aunt
Clemmy, in her white dinner dress—the same dress that she had worn when
she was Marian’s bridesmaid—and walked quickly but composedly, as if
nothing had happened, into the next bedroom.

The two negresses had already taken off Harry’s coat and waistcoat,
and laid him on the bed with his shirt front all saturated with blood,
and his forehead still bleeding violently, in spite of their unskilful
efforts to stanch it with a wet towel. When Nora entered, he was lying
there, stretched out at full length, speechless and senseless, the
blood even then oozing slowly, by intermittent gurgling throbs, from
the open gash across his right temple. There was another deeper and
even worse wound gurgling similarly upon his left elbow.

‘They should have been here,’ Nora cried; ‘Marian and Clemmy should
have been here, instead of looking after me in yonder.—Is he dead,
Nita, is he dead? Tell me!’

‘No, missy,’ the girl answered, passively handing her the soaked towel.
‘Him doan’t dead yet; but him dyin’, him dyin’. De blood comin’ out
ob him, spurt, spurt, spurt, so him can’t lib long, not anyway. Him
bledded to death already, I tinkin’, a’most.’

Nora looked at the white face, and a few tears began at last to form
slowly in her brimming eyelids. But she brushed them away quickly,
before they had time to trickle down her blanched cheek, for her proud
West Indian blood was up now, as much as the negroes’ had been a few
minutes earlier; and she twisted her handkerchief round a pocket pencil
so as to form a hasty extemporised tourniquet, which she fastened
bravely and resolutely with intuitive skill above the open wound on the
left elbow. She had no idea that the little jets in which the blood
spurted out so rhythmically were indicative of that most dangerous
wound, a severed artery; but she felt instinctively, somehow, that this
was the right thing to do, and she did it without flinching, as if she
had been used to dealing familiarly with dangerous wounds for half her
lifetime. Then she twisted the hasty instrument tightly round till the
artery was securely stopped, and the little jets ceased entirely at
each pulsation of the now feeble and weakened heart.

‘Run for the doctor, somebody!’ she cried eagerly; ‘run for the doctor,
or he’ll die outright before we can get help for him!’

But Nita and Rose, on their knees beside the wounded man, only cowered
closer to the bedside, and shook with terror as another cry rose on
a sudden from outside from the excited negroes. It was the cry they
raised when they found Delgado was really struck dead before their very
eyes by the visible and immediate judgment of the Almighty.

Nora looked down at them with profound contempt, and merely said, in
her resolute, scornful voice: ‘What! afraid even of your own people?
Why, I’m not afraid of them; I, who am a white woman, and whom they’d
murder now and hack to pieces, as soon as they’d look at me, if once
they could catch me, when their blood’s up!—Marian, Marian! you’re a
white woman; will you come with me?’

Marian trembled a little—she wasn’t upheld through that terrible
scene by the ingrained hereditary pride of a superior race before the
blind wrath of the inferior, bequeathed to Nora by her slave-owning
ancestors; but she answered with hardly a moment’s hesitation: ‘Yes,
Nora. If you wish it, I’ll go with you.’

There is something in these conflicts of race with race which raises
the women of the higher blood for the time being into something braver
and stronger than women. In England, Marian would never have dared
to go out alone in the face of such a raging tumultuous mob, even of
white people; but in Trinidad, under the influence of that terrible
excitement, she found heart to put on her hat once more, and step
forth with Nora under the profound shade of the spreading mango-trees,
now hardly lighted up at all at fitful intervals by the dying glow
from the burnt-out embers of the smoking cane-houses. They went down
groping their way by the garden path, and came out at last upon the
main bridle-road at the foot of the garden. There Marian drew back Nora
timidly with a hand placed in quick warning upon her white shoulder.
‘Stand aside, dear,’ she whispered at her ear, pulling her back hastily
within the garden gate and under the dark shadow of the big star-apple
tree. ‘They’re coming down—they’re coming down! I hear them, I hear
them! O God, O God, I shouldn’t have come away! They’ve killed Edward!
My darling, my darling! They’ve killed him—they’ve killed him!’

‘I wouldn’t stand aside for myself,’ Nora answered half aloud, her eyes
flashing proudly even in the shadowy gloom of the garden. ‘But to save
Mr Noel’s life, to save his life, I’ll stand aside if you wish, Marian.’

As they drew back into the dark shadow, even Nora trembling and
shivering a little at the tramp of so many naked feet, some of the
negroes passed close beside them outside the fence on their way down
from the piazza, where they had just been electrified into sudden
quietness by the awful sight of Louis Delgado’s dead body. They were
talking earnestly and low among themselves, not, as before, shrieking
and yelling and gesticulating wildly, but conversing half below their
breath in a solemn, mysterious, awe-struck fashion.

‘De Lard be praise for Mr Hawtorn!’ one of them said as he passed
unseen close beside them. ‘Him de black man fren’. We got nobody like
him. I no’ would hurt Mr Hawtorn, de blessed man, not for de life ob
me.’

Marian’s heart beat fast within her, but she said never a word, and
only pressed Nora’s hand, which she held convulsively within her own,
harder and tighter than ever, in her mute suspense and agony.

Presently another group passed close by, and another voice said
tremulously: ‘Louis Delgado dead—Louis Delgado dead! Mr Hawtorn is
wonderful man for true! Who’d have tought it, me brudder, who’d have
tought it?’

‘That’s Martin Luther,’ Nora cried almost aloud, unable any longer to
restrain her curiosity. ‘I know him by his voice. He wouldn’t hurt
me.—Martin, Martin! what’s that you’re saying? Has Mr Hawthorn shot
Delgado?’ As she spoke, with a fierce anticipatory triumph in her
voice, she stepped out from the shadow of the gate on to the main
bridle-path, in her white dress and with her pale face, clearly visible
under the faint moonlight.

Martin flung up his arms like one stabbed to the heart, and shouted
wildly: ‘De missy, de missy! Dem done killed her on de piazza yonder,
and her duppy comin’ now already to scare us and trouble us!’

Even in that moment of awe and alarm, Nora laughed a little laugh
of haughty contempt for the strong, big-built, hulking negro’s
superstitious terror. ‘Martin!’ she cried, darting after him quickly,
as he ran away awe-struck, and catching him by the shoulder with her
light but palpable human grasp, ‘don’t you know me? I’m no duppy. It’s
me myself, Missy Nora, calling you. Here, feel my hand; you see I’m
alive still; you see your people haven’t killed me yet, even if you’ve
killed your poor old master.—Martin, tell me, what’s this you’re all
saying about Mr Hawthorn having shot Delgado?’

Martin, shaking violently in every limb, turned round and reassured
himself slowly that it was really Nora and not her ghost that stood
bodily before him. ‘Ha, missy,’ he answered good-humouredly, showing
his great row of big white teeth, though still quaking visibly with
terror, ‘don’t you be ’fraid; we wouldn’t hurt you, not a man of us.
But it doan’t Mr Hawtorn dat shot Delgado! It God Almighty! De Lard hab
smitten him!’

‘What!’ Nora cried in surprise. ‘He fell dead! Apoplexy or something, I
suppose. The old villain! he deserved it, Martin.—And Mr Hawthorn? How
about Mr Hawthorn? Have they hurt him? Have they killed him?’

‘Mr Hawtorn up to de house, missy, an’ all de niggers pray de Lard for
true him lib for ebber, de blessed creature.’

‘Why are you all coming away now, then?’ Nora asked anxiously. ‘Where
are you going to?’

‘Mr Hawtorn send us home,’ Martin answered submissively; ‘an’ we all
’fraid, if we doan’t go straight when him tell us, we drop down dead
wit Kora, Datan, an’ Abiram, an’ lyin’ Ananias, same like Delgado.’

‘Marian,’ Nora said decisively, ‘go back to your husband. You ought
to be with him.—Martin, you come along with me, sir. Mr Noel’s dying.
You’ve killed him, you people, as you’ve killed my father. I’ve got to
go and fetch the doctor now to save him; and you’ve got to come with me
and take care of me.’

‘Oh, darling,’ Marian interrupted nervously, ‘you mustn’t go alone
amongst all these angry, excited negroes with nobody but him. Don’t,
don’t; I’ll gladly go with you!’

‘Do as I tell you!’ Nora cried in a tone of authority, with a firm
stamp of her petulant little foot. ‘You ought to be with him. You
mustn’t leave him.—That’s right, dear.—Now, then, Martin!’

‘I ’fraid, missy.’

‘Afraid! Nonsense. You’re a pack of cowards. Am _I_ afraid? and I’m a
woman! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Come along with me at once,
and do as I tell you.’

The terrified negro yielded grudgingly, and crept after her in the
true crouching African fashion, compelled against his will to follow
implicitly the mere bidding of the stronger and more imperious nature.

They wound down the zigzag path together, under the gaunt shadows
of the overhanging bamboo clumps, waving weirdly to and fro with
the breeze in the feeble moonlight—the strong man slouching along
timorously, shaking and starting with terror at every rustle of Nora’s
dress against the bracken and the tree ferns; the slight girl erect and
fearless, walking a pace or two in front of her faint-hearted escort
with proud self-reliance, and never pausing for a single second to cast
a cautious glance to right or left among the tangled brushwood. The
lights were now burning dimly in all the neighbouring negro cottages;
and far away down in the distance, the long rows of gas lamps at
Port-of-Spain gleamed double with elongated oblique reflections in the
calm water of the sleepy harbour.

They had got half-way down the lonely gully without meeting or passing
a single soul, when, at a turn of the road where the bridle-path swept
aside to avoid a rainy-season torrent, a horse came quickly upon them
from in front, and the rapid click of a cocked pistol warned Nora of
approaching danger.

‘Who goes there?’ cried a sharp voice with a marked Scotch accent from
the gloom before her. ‘Stop this minute, or I’ll fire at you, you
nigger!’

With a thrill of delight, Nora recognised the longed-for voice—the
very one she was seeking. It was Dr Macfarlane, from beyond the gully,
roused, like half the island, by the red glare from the Orange Grove
cane-houses, and spurring up as fast as his horse could carry him,
armed and on the alert, to the scene of the supposed insurrection.

‘Don’t shoot,’ Nora answered coolly, holding her hand up in
deprecation. ‘A friend!—It’s me, Dr Macfarlane—Nora Dupuy, coming to
meet you.’

‘Miss Dupuy!’ the doctor cried in astonishment. ‘Then they’ll not
have shot _you_, at anyrate, young leddy! But what are you doing out
here alone at this time of night, I’m wondering? Have you had to run
for your life from Orange Grove from these cowardly insurgent nigger
fellows?’

‘Run from _them_!’ Nora echoed contemptuously. ‘Dr Macfarlane, I’d like
to see it. No, no; I’m too much of a Dupuy ever to do that, I promise
you, doctor. They can murder me, but they can’t frighten me. I was
coming down to look for you, for poor Mr Noel, who’s lying dangerously
wounded up at our house, with a wound on the arm and a terrible cut
across the temple.’

‘Coming alone—just in the very midst of all this business—to fetch me
to look after a wounded fellow!’ the doctor ejaculated half to himself,
with mingled astonishment and admiration. He jumped down from his
horse with a quick movement, not ungallantly, and lifted Nora up in
his big arms without a word, seating her sideways, before she could
remonstrate, on the awkward saddle. ‘Sit you there, Miss Dupuy,’ he
said kindly. ‘You’re a brave lass, if ever there was one. I’ll hold his
head, and run alongside with you. We’ll be up at the house again in ten
minutes.’

‘They’ve killed my father,’ Nora said simply, beginning to break down
at last, after her unnatural exaltation of bravery and endurance, and
bursting into a sudden flood of tears. ‘He’s lying at home all hacked
to pieces with their dreadful cutlasses; and Mr Noel’s almost dead too;
perhaps he’ll be quite dead, doctor, before we can get there.’

(_To be continued._)




‘TELEGRAPHED.’


‘Have you seen the Purple Sandpiper at Mr Walton’s, telegraphed near
here?’ The above sentence in a friend’s letter, a keen ornithologist,
set me thinking. How many species of birds do I know of that have
been ‘telegraphed?’ or, in other words, killed by flying against the
telegraph wires? On looking up notes which extend over several years’
observations, I found the list not a long one, but somewhat varied. As
my own knowledge of this subject extends over only a small district,
yet one thickly set with wires, and taking into consideration the
destruction of birds by this peculiar means in this particular portion
of the kingdom, and the thousands of miles of wires which extend over
the rest of the British Islands, the thought crosses my mind that
there must be an immense death-rate among birds through this modern
invention, now a necessity of our present life.

But to return to our Purple Sandpiper (_Tringa maritima_). What
brought it so far inland?—above twenty miles from its usual haunts
by the shore, being purely a bird of the littoral. Was it merely a
straggler lost or blown out of its course? Or was it accompanied by
other Sandpipers, which escaped the fatal wires? on some line of
autumnal migration which is certainly new to us, or, rather, only
just suspected; and which will take some years of careful study and
note-taking before being fully established.

One of the birds most commonly ‘telegraphed’ with us, both in its
spring and autumn ‘flittings,’ is the Landrail (_Crex pratensis_), or
perhaps better known as the Corncrake; indeed, in the spring migration
I have known of its presence among us through this means, some time
before its well-known call-note was heard; although, occasionally,
individual birds stay all the winter with us. Lately, a new line of
wires has been put across a common near us, to join others on one of
the great north roads. These wires were put up to meet the increase
of work which was expected through the introduction of the sixpenny
telegrams. The first Sunday after these wires were stretched, I found
a Corncrake which had met its death by them. But it had suffered
considerably from the attentions, presumedly, paid to it by a pair of
Carrion Crows (_Corvus corone_), which flopped away from its immediate
neighbourhood on our approach. Shortly after, I picked up a fine cock
Blackbird (_Turdus merula_) alive, but in sore condition. The skin of
the breast, by the force of the blow, was rolled backward down to the
thighs, one of which was broken. The contrast between the blackness of
its plumage and the golden brown of the fallen beech-leaves on which
it lay was something startling. I stood looking at it some time before
attempting to lay hold of it, wondering what was the matter, as it lay
perfectly still, looking at me with its fearless black eyes. It made
no effort to get away when I laid hold of it, though it bit as well
as it could. Blackbirds are common victims to this form of death: I
have seen three in one week, and it is really difficult to explain
why. The habit they have, might account for it, of flying about and
alarming the neighbourhood by their warning note till nearly dark, long
after most light-loving birds have gone to roost. A rare stranger was
‘telegraphed’ among us, Leach’s or the Fork-tailed Petrel (_Procellaria
leucorrhoa_), just after the heavy gales near the end of last October.
Most of the British specimens of this bird have been obtained inland,
after heavy gales blown to us, I suppose, across the Atlantic, from the
Banks of Newfoundland. Snipes, both the Common and Jack, often come
into collision with the wires, thus showing that they also fly after
dark. A very beautiful specimen of the Common Snipe, in full breeding
plumage, was brought to a friend of mine on the last day of February
by a tramp, who had picked it up by the roadside, ‘telegraphed.’
That Owls should meet with this fate, seems very curious, as they
are so specially adapted for seeing in a dull light; but such is the
case. I know of several, both Barn (_Strix flammea_) and Wood (_Strix
stridula_) Owls, which have been picked up dead beneath the wires. One
can only account for it on the supposition that they are intent on
looking for prey beneath them, perhaps watching some particular mouse
or shrew at the moment the fatal contact takes place.

The Peewit or Green Plover (_Vanellus cristatus_) is another common
victim to this form of death, sometimes in great numbers. Three winters
ago, large flocks of plovers used to frequent particular fields at
night-time, flying to and from the coast morning and night. In these
daily migrations they had to pass, at one particular place, a perfect
network of wires; and though odd birds had been got from time to time,
yet great was the astonishment of the signalman at a box near at hand,
when daylight broke one morning after a stormy night, to see the ground
near his box strewn with Peewits. I should not like to say how many
there were, but it took him at least twice to carry them to the nearest
gamedealer’s. Golden Plovers (_Charadrius pluvialis_) occasionally
fall victims to the same means; and I have seen a young bird of this
species killed, while on its way to the coast, as early as the 9th
of July, and many miles from the nearest breeding-ground. The Missel
Thrush (_Turdus viscivorus_) in its short autumnal migrations often
shares the same fate; and at the same period I once saw that hideling
bird, the Spotted Crake (_Porzana maruetta_). I know of no instance
of any of the hawks being done to death in this manner, though other
observers may have been more fortunate as regards these birds. Instead,
the Kestrel (_Falco tinnunculus_) often makes use of the wires as a
post of observation, mice being very plentiful as a rule along railway
sides; and in winter they often come out of their holes to feed on the
horse-refuse on the highways. Wild-ducks also escape, as far as my
knowledge goes, and we might naturally expect to see them occasionally;
but that may be accounted for by their flying too high in their passage
from coast to coast or to inland feeding-grounds.

Of the orthodox bird, as Sydney Smith called the Pheasant, it is in
some places a very common victim. I think I could pick out one stretch
of railway which at certain seasons of the year produces for the
surfaceman who goes along it in early morning a never-failing supply of
wounded and dead birds. On one side of the railway is a long belt of
plantation, where the birds are turned into after being hand-reared,
on the other side a river with cornfields stretching down to it; and
it is in the passage from the covers to the cornfields, when the grain
is ripe or standing in stook, that the accidents occur. Partridges
also often fall victims to the wires, as also did the Red Grouse where
the telegraph crossed their native heaths. In more than one instance
have the wires been laid underground, where crossing grouse-moors, to
prevent the birds killing themselves; but even when crossing these
moors in the usual style from post to post, grouse after a time get to
beware of them, and deaths through this cause get fewer and fewer. One
instance of this peculiar adaptation of themselves to new circumstances
came very forcibly under the writer’s notice. A wire-fence was put
across a very good grouse-moor in Cumberland, dividing the fell into
two allotments. For some time after this was done, dead or dying birds
were picked up daily, until it was well known that whoever was first
along the fence was sure of a grouse-pie. It was amusing to see the
different stratagems employed by the shepherds and others to get along
the fence without seeming to do so. Indeed, I have seen two farmers
meet at the ‘Townfoot,’ and after a short gossip, separate, going in
different directions and away from the fell; and an hour after, I have
heard of them meeting about the middle of the fence, both intent on
dead or wounded birds. While for some time this slaughter of grouse
went on, another fellow put in his appearance, this time with four
legs, and made a track by the side of the fence to replenish his
larder; and Mr Stoat had even the temerity to dispute the claim in one
instance with the two-legged hunter. But the grouse in time got to know
the dangers of the fence, and now the victims, like angels’ visits, are
few and far between.

The ‘vermin,’ as weasels and stoats are generally called, have often a
regular track beneath the wires, for the purpose of looking for dead
and wounded birds. The other day I found beneath the new wires I have
already mentioned a lot of scattered feathers belonging to a Redwing
(_Turdus iliacus_), but no bird. Thinking it might only be wounded, I
set to look for it, and after some patient hunting, found a few more
feathers farther on the common. These traces I followed diligently,
finding them every four or five yards apart, till in a hedge-bank fifty
yards from the wires I found them thick about a small hole—no doubt
the burrow of a weasel, not an uncommon animal in that same old hedge.
One would have liked to have seen the weasel carrying or dragging its
prey, whichever it was, the former more likely, from the traces of the
feathers being left at such regular intervals. A friend informs me that
he has seen the Carrion Crow regularly hunting along the wires in his
district.

Another victim has just come to hand in the shape of a young Guillemot
(_Uria troile_) in its first year’s dress; and in the month of May I
saw a Sanderling (_Calidris arenaria_) which had partially put on its
nuptial garb, and was no doubt making north to the arctic regions as
fast as wings could carry it, when arrested by the stretched wire.

If it were possible to get authentic statistics of all the different
species and numbers of birds ‘telegraphed,’ we should have a mass of
information which no doubt would greatly assist our ornithologists
in their study of the migration of the feathered tribes. This, I
am afraid, is impossible, as birds mostly fall during the hours
of darkness or semi-light; and there are others, both quadrupeds
and birds, which have the advantage of the genus _homo_ in hunting
propensities, and who are at work before he is out of bed. They are not
in search of information; their hunting is prompted by something keener
than even a search for knowledge. The cravings of an empty stomach must
be satisfied if possible, and who can tell how many a rare bird—which
an ornithologist would have tramped miles to see—has formed a breakfast
dish for a lot of hungry young weasels, or swelled out the crop of some
gaunt carrion crow!

Any one living near a line of wires will find something to interest
him, if he is an early riser, by searching underneath the wires in his
morning walk. And when a specimen is found, a note should be taken of
its name, the date, direction of wind during night, and weather; and
thus in time a quantity of information would be gathered which would
materially assist our migration committees. The death-rate through
being ‘telegraphed’ is generally greatest during the spring and autumn
migrations.




A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY.


CHAPTER IV.—THE BURGLARY.

The noise of the disturbance in the library had already attracted the
attention of the Squire and his guests, who had just then reached the
door of the drawing-room. When Parker announced that Major Dawkins was
arrested for burglary, there was a general exclamation of incredulity;
but the mention of the handcuffs elicited a little scream from Miss
Euphemia and an exclamation of indignation from the Squire.

‘This is too absurd. It is some rascal’s practical joke; but it is
one that I shall punish, for it is a disgrace to me that such a thing
should be perpetrated on a guest of mine.—Friends, come with me.’ He
led the way to the library; and the ladies, unable to restrain their
curiosity, followed the gentlemen. Perhaps they also felt some timidity
at the idea of being left alone; for the numerous burglaries committed
of late during the dinner hour at country-houses were trying the nerves
of everybody who had property to lose.

‘What is the meaning of this outrage in my house?’ exclaimed the
Squire. ‘Release this gentleman at once. He is my guest.’

‘I told you so,’ ejaculated the Major, still too angry to realise fully
the humiliating as well as ludicrous position in which he stood.

The detective answered the Squire respectfully and firmly: ‘This is my
card, sir; my name is Kidman. I am a police officer, and was sent down
here to watch the movements of a man known to the police under various
aliases. This is the person I have been seeking. He is pretty well
disguised with his dyed hair’ (the Major shuddered: the thunderbolt had
fallen at last!); ‘but his height and figure correspond precisely with
this photograph.’ He displayed the portrait of a man whose figure was
certainly like the Major’s, and, allowing for the effect of disguise,
there might even be discovered some resemblance in the features.

‘I tell you this is preposterous,’ the Squire said impatiently. ‘I will
be responsible to you for this gentleman.’

‘Well, sir, of course the affair must be disagreeable to you, only you
are not the first gentleman he has taken in.’

‘I say, release him at once. If you refuse, it will be at your peril. I
am a justice of the peace.’

‘So much the better, sir; and in that case you will permit me to tell
you the circumstances under which I arrest this—gentleman. I have been
on the lookout for him; and from information received that an attack
was to be made upon your house, I came here this evening to watch. I
posted myself in the shrubbery; and not half an hour ago, whilst you
were at dinner, I saw him look from that window to spy if the coast was
clear’——

‘I was looking for you, Squire,’ interrupted the Major.

‘I couldn’t guess how he had got in without me seeing him, but that is
explained by his being a guest of yours. I knew he was at work, and so
stepped quietly in after him. I found him so busy at one of the drawers
of this table that I managed to slip these ornaments on his wrists
before he could turn round.’

‘At the drawers of the table!’ ejaculated several voices, whilst all
looked in amazed horror at the culprit.

‘Yes,’ continued Mr Kidman complacently, finding that he had at
last made an impression; ‘and this sort of thing’ (holding up the
jemmy) ‘is not exactly what you would expect to find in a gentleman’s
dressing-case. I found it here on the table, and the middle drawer has
been forced open with it.’

‘The drawer forced open?’ muttered the Squire doubtingly.

‘You will find it so, and done by an experienced hand too. Will you
oblige me by examining the contents of the drawer and letting me know
what has been abstracted?’

‘This is horrible!’ said the Major, becoming calmer as the situation
became more serious.

It was indeed most horrible to every one present. Miss Euphemia
afterwards declared to Mrs John that she felt ready to sink through the
floor, and fervently wished that she could have done so.

‘The drawer has certainly been rummaged by some one,’ the Squire said
gravely.

‘Anything valuable missing?’ asked the detective, notebook in hand.

‘Yes—a considerable sum of money in notes and gold.’

‘Ah, I daresay our friend will be able to give us an account of the
notes and gold,’ was the playful comment of Mr Kidman.

‘This indignity is insufferable,’ said the Major stiffly; ‘and I cannot
understand, Elliott, why you should hesitate for a moment to release
me from this degrading position. You know me; you know how easily my
identity can be established. You know nothing of this man beyond his
own assertion. How can you tell that he is not a confederate of the
thieves, and his present action a ruse to give them time to escape?’

‘That’s not bad, captain,’ rejoined the detective with an admiring
smile. ‘But these letters—which you will excuse me taking from your
pocket—will show that one part of my statement is correct.—Do they
belong to you, sir?’

He handed the three fatal letters to the Squire, who hastily glanced
at them, whilst his wife stood on one side of him and Mrs John on the
other.

‘Why, that is the letter which I received!’ observed Mrs Joseph with
acerbity.

‘And that is mine; and the other is the one which has upset poor dear
Nellie so much!’ cried Mrs John.

‘It was to ask you again to allow me to destroy those confounded
letters, that I came to seek you, Squire, thinking that I might find
you here alone after dinner,’ the Major explained. ‘I heard some one
moving about the room, and, concluding that it was you, knocked two or
three times. Getting no answer, I entered, but found nobody here. As
the window was open, it occurred to me that you might have stepped out
on the terrace, and I looked for you. Of course you were not there, but
it must have been then that this man saw me.’

‘No doubt,’ answered the Squire slowly; ‘but he found you at my drawer.’

‘My anxiety to prevent a scandal to the family tempted me to take back
my letters—for they are mine—and burn them without your leave. I knew
that you would pardon me when you heard the explanation which you will
have to-morrow.’

Whilst the Major spoke, the Squire was frowning.

‘According to your own statement, Major Dawkins, your conduct has not
been creditable to you as an honourable man.’

‘I acted for the best, as you would see if you would give me leave to
speak to you in private.’

They were interrupted and startled by the report of two pistol-shots in
the grounds. Presently a footman rushed in with the information that
they had caught a man who had jumped out of one of the windows, and he
had fired upon them.

‘I see the whole thing,’ exclaimed the Major excitedly. ‘It was the
thief who was in here when I knocked; and whilst you, sir, _you_,
have been insulting me and making a fool of yourself—if you _are_ a
detective—you have given him the opportunity to ransack the house!’

Mr Kidman looked puzzled, but he acted promptly. He removed the
handcuffs, saying humbly: ‘I beg pardon, sir; but mistakes will happen.
I must catch that man—he is a desperate card, and uses his revolver
freely.’ He darted out to the terrace and disappeared.

The Squire and Maynard immediately followed. John Elliott was too
timid, and the Major too indignant at the treatment to which he had
been subjected, to take any part in the pursuit. After pulling himself
and his ruffled garments together, he addressed his hostess, Mrs
Joseph: ‘I presume, madam, I may now retire?’

The lady bowed a little awkwardly, feeling some compunction for his
sufferings. She hoped that a good night’s rest would enable him to
laugh at this painful incident, if not to forget it.

‘An affair of this sort does not readily become a subject of mirth to
the victim. But thanks for your kind wishes.’

He was about to retire, when Squire Elliott and Maynard returned.

‘It’s all right, Major. They have got the scoundrel fast bound, and he
has hurt no one but himself. There are my notes and gold, which we have
just taken from his pocket.’

‘How did it all happen?’ was the eager exclamation of the ladies.

‘I offer you my cordial congratulations,’ added the Major drily.

‘It happened exactly as the Major surmised; and we have to thank
Nellie’s headache, or whatever has kept her upstairs, for the timely
discovery of the burglar. She was going into her dressing-room, and
on opening the door, saw a man busy with her jewel-case. She knew
what that meant—closed the door and locked it. She ran to the window
and screamed out “Thieves!” The fellow took the alarm, and having the
window open in readiness for such an emergency, he flung out a bundle
which he had prepared. Then he slipped over the ledge, and let himself
drop to the ground; but he had miscalculated the distance, and broke
his leg in the fall. Two of our men, who had heard Nellie scream, were
upon him before he could attempt to rise. He fired, but they had got
his arms up in the air; so no harm was done; and he is safe for ten or
fifteen years.’

‘And the bundle—what was in it?’ anxiously inquired the Squire’s wife.

‘A lot of trinkets and things, which are scattered all over the place,
as the bundle in falling struck the branch of a hawthorn and was
torn open. I have sent Parker to look after them; but we must go out
ourselves.’

The ladies, whose looks of deep concern indicated how much they were
interested in the search, eagerly proposed to accompany the gentlemen.
Hats and shawls were quickly procured, and the whole party went forth.
Nellie stole shyly down from her room and joined her friends—much to
the delight of Maynard, although he endeavoured to appear cold and
indifferent. She, too, wore a mask of indifference. But both were
conscious that it was a mask, and that each was at heart earnestly
wishing that the other would say something which would lead to an
explanation. Without words, however, they somehow knew that the
reconciliation would come in the morning.

The Major’s presence was taken as a matter of course; for, in the
excitement of the moment, his banishment was forgotten by every one
except himself. He silently took his place as the special attendant
of Miss Euphemia, who received his attentions as graciously as if the
incident of the morning had not occurred. He was peculiarly fortunate
in being the finder of most of her stolen valuables, which won him
additional favour. Nearly everything was found, and a further search
was to be made in the morning. So, everybody retired to rest that night
with feelings of thankfulness for having had such a singular escape
from heavy loss.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the morning, there were general inquiries for the Major. His
misfortunes of the previous night had toned down the anger which had
been felt regarding him, and the idea now was that they had been
too hard upon the well-meaning little man. All—and especially the
Squire—would have been pleased to see him in his usual place at table.
But as he did not appear, the only inference that could be drawn was
that he felt too much hurt to make any advances.

They were rising from the table and preparing for the unpleasant
business of the day, when there was a sound of carriage-wheels,
followed by a loud ring at the hall-bell.

‘That’s Willis,’ said the Squire, moving to the window and looking
out, after casting a glance of satisfaction at his wife and at his
sister-in-law.

His assertion was immediately confirmed by the entrance of Parker to
announce the visitor, who, without ceremony, had closely followed the
butler.

After hurried greetings were over, Willis said abruptly: ‘I want to
get back to town to-night, and I have come down here in consequence
of a telegram from Dawkins, who tells me that you have all got into a
nonsensical squabble owing to his interference with the intention of
setting you right.’

‘I thoroughly agree with you, Willis—it is a nonsensical squabble, but
who the deuce is to blame for it?’ said the Squire with a good-natured
laugh.

‘Glad to hear you ask the question,’ rejoined Willis, who, being a
plain and practical person, came to the main point at once. ‘The first
thing you have got to understand is that Dawkins is not to blame; the
next thing you have got to understand is that I am the party you have
got to blow up. But before you begin with me, you had better take my
good-natured brother-in-law to task, and before you do that, I want to
have a few words with you, John Elliott.’

‘You had better speak out whatever you have to say here,’ muttered
Elliott of Arrowby with a painfully feeble assumption of haughtiness.

‘Would you like that, Sophy?’ said Willis, addressing his sister, Mrs
John.

‘I think I understand the whole position, Matt,’ she replied. ‘Indeed,
I think we all understand it now. The poor Major blundered about his
letters; we all got the wrong ones, and misinterpreted their meaning.
We need not go into the details, for, as you know, they would be
painful to me as well as to John. Take Joe away with you, and get him
to express to the Major the regret that we all feel for the annoyance
we have caused him.’

‘Come along,’ said the Squire promptly. ‘We’ll pacify him somehow.’ As
he was passing his wife, he whispered to her: ‘I hope you are satisfied
now, Kitty;’ and she gave an approving nod. ‘But I wish he had been
down with us to breakfast.’

The Squire and Matt Willis proceeded to the library; and there a very
few additional words satisfied the former that the unfortunate friend
of the family had been trying to discharge a disagreeable duty which he
thought himself bound to undertake.

The Major was hurt enough by the awkward position in which he was
placed; but that was not the reason why he kept to his chamber. He was
not thinking of breakfast or the misunderstanding with his friends.
Still, in his dressing-gown he was pacing the floor in a state of cruel
distress. His hair was tossed about wildly and—it was of a ghastly
gray-green colour! That wicked burglar had taken away the precious
Russian leather case—no doubt thinking it contained jewelry—and it had
not been amongst the articles found last night. Without it, the Major
could not perform his toilet. This was the cruellest blow of all to the
poor man. It was impossible for him to appear before any one in his
present guise; and he even avoided the mirrors, lest he should catch
sight of his own head. Hollis had been despatched to make diligent
search in every spot where the case might have fallen; and his master
was waiting in agony for the result. A knock at the door.—Ah, there he
is at last! No, it was only Parker to say that Mr Willis had arrived,
and was with the Squire in the library waiting for Major Dawkins.

‘Make my excuses, please, and say that I cannot go down yet, but will
be with them as soon as possible.’

A quarter of an hour elapsed, and another message came; then another
more urgent, and a fourth more urgent still. The Major wished he could
shave his head; it would be more presentable then than as it was now.
He was bemoaning the ill-luck or stupidity of Hollis, when the Squire
himself arrived at the door.

‘What is the matter, Dawkins? We are all waiting for you. Are you ill?’

‘Yes, yes; I am ill; but I will be with you as soon as I can.’

‘Then open the door and let me shake hands with you.’

‘Not just now, not just now. I’ll come and shake hands with you as much
as you like, in half an hour or so,’ was the agitated response.

‘Well, as you please; but I want to ask you to forget yesterday. Willis
has explained everything, and your letters are correctly understood
now. My wife is sorry that she did not take in the right meaning of
the one which fell into her hands; Nellie appreciates your desire to
forewarn her against any stupid gossip that fool Cousin John might
spread; Mrs John thinks it was kind of you to wish to put her husband
right, and he has got a lesson which he will not forget in a hurry. But
she regards the whole affair as a good joke. You see, all is well; so
come away at once and complete the party.’

‘I am delighted; but please do excuse me, Squire. I _can’t_ come at
once,’ groaned the Major, passing his hand shudderingly through the
besmirched hair.

‘Very well, then, as soon as you can; you will find us somewhere about
the lawn.’ And the Squire, wondering what the Major’s curious malady
could be, rejoined his friends.

At last Hollis did knock at the door, bringing the joyful tidings that
he had found the case—sticking between two branches of the hawthorn
which had wrecked the burglar’s bundle. He had been about to abandon
the search, when, happening to look up, he saw it where he never would
have thought of looking for it.

The Major dressed with more than usual care, gave Hollis orders to pack
up, as they were to leave that day; and then, holding himself as erect
as if on parade, he proceeded in the direction of the lawn with the
firm determination to bid his host and hostess good-bye. But on his way
he encountered Miss Euphemia, whose gold-rimmed _pince-nez_ glittered
with pleasure at sight of him. ‘I _am_ so delighted to see you, Major.
I—we were all afraid, that you were seriously ill.’

‘No; not seriously ill, but considerably bothered,’ he responded
uncomfortably.

‘Of course you must have been; but thank goodness it is all over now.
The Squire and all the others are most anxious to make amends to you
for the vexation you have endured so nobly. He wants you to stay, and
has sent me to persuade you not to say no.’

‘Stay!—It is impossible—quite impossible.’

‘Oh, but you really must not bear malice—they made a mistake, and
everybody does so sometimes.’ She was smiling coaxingly, and looked a
different being from the lady who had surveyed him through her glasses
so severely yesterday.

‘I respect the family as much as ever; but I cannot remain.’

‘Oh, do—to please me.’

He looked at her and fancied he saw a blush. ‘To please _you_, I would
stay for ever,’ he answered gallantly; ‘but’——

‘Then stay—for ever!’ she interrupted with emphasis.

He opened his eyes. Did he understand her? Could she be serious? Had
the time come for him to speak?

‘Do you mean that it would be a particular pleasure to you if I
remained—for _your_ sake?’

‘It would,’ she answered in a low voice.

‘Then I understand,’ he said, taking her hand, ‘_this_ is my
consolation for all the afflictions of yesterday?’ She did not say
no; and he, drawing her arm within his, continued: ‘I am a happy man,
although again a captive.’

The announcement of their engagement added much to the happiness which
everybody felt in the reconciliations effected that morning. There was
a merry twinkle in the Squire’s eyes. He was a cunning fellow when
prompted by his wife, and had guessed what would happen when he chose
Miss Euphemia as his ambassador to the Major. The only person who felt
in the least uncomfortable was John Elliott of Arrowby, who was now
confessedly the originator of all the mischief. The only reproach he
had to endure from his wife was the expression accompanied by a pitying
smile, ‘Poor John!’

There were festivities on a grand scale at Todhurst when Nellie and
Maynard were wedded; but the marriage of Euphemia Panton and Major
Dawkins was a very quiet affair—as the lady thought. She had only three
bridesmaids and about twenty other friends to witness the ceremony.
The Major was content to be supported by an old companion in arms and
Matthew Willis.

The happy couple disappeared for six months. On returning to England,
their first visit was to Todhurst. For a moment the Squire and his wife
found it difficult to recognise their old friends. The Major was now a
quiet elderly-looking gentleman with gray hair and moustache; and Mrs
Dawkins was a subdued-looking lady, whose hair suggested that she had
certainly arrived at years of discretion. They had both come to accept
with resignation the inevitable signs that time passes and old age
draws on; and they were happy. They had not been so in the days when
they vainly struggled to hide the progress of years. The Major could
never forget that morning of agony when the Russian leather case could
not be found. Probably his account of it, combined with the fact that
it was no longer possible to hide from each other their dabblings in
the fine arts, helped his wife to agree with him that it was best to
make no attempt to improve upon nature. The Major had given up all
his youthful ways, much to his own comfort; and he was firmly resolved
never again to play the part of the officious friend of the family.




THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.


One of the most important applications of photography is the production
of printing-blocks, which, under various names, are in great request
for book and newspaper illustration. It is not generally known that
some of the finest illustrations which adorn high-class magazines are
produced without the intervention of the engraver at any stage of the
process. They are photographed direct from drawings, in some cases
even from nature; and from the photograph a printing-block ready for
the press is produced automatically. Oil-paintings and water-colour
drawings can also be thus reproduced with the greatest fidelity. A few
years back, this was impossible, for the photograph did not translate
the colours in their true tone-relation to one another. Thus, yellow
and red would be reproduced as black, while blue would photograph
white. All this has been changed by the introduction of what is known
as the isochromatic process, by which colours are rendered as a skilful
artist working in Indian ink or blacklead pencil would render them.

As an outcome of this capacity of the photographic chemicals, the Royal
Academy of Arts has made a new departure in the issue of an Illustrated
Catalogue of the principal works exhibited at Burlington House. This is
a handsome folio volume, containing one hundred and fifty fac-similes
of pictures by Royal Academicians and outsiders. It is not only
precious as a work of art, for every touch of the painter’s brush is
recognised and reproduced, but it forms a valuable record for future
reference. The particular system adopted is that known as the Goupil
_photogravure_ process, which is worked by Messrs Boussod Valadon &
Company of Paris and London. This firm have published in a similar
manner selected pictures from the Paris Salons of the last two years;
and we are glad that our Academy authorities have followed such a good
example.

Four crematory furnaces are in course of erection at the far-famed
Parisian cemetery, Père Lachaise, and will be ready for operation in
a short time. These furnaces, which have the outward appearance of
ornamental ovens, are built on the model of those in use at Rome and
Milan. The cost of cremation will be fifteen francs only—to rich and
poor alike. It is said that already sculptors and metal-workers are
busy in designing and producing cinerary urns for the preservation of
the ashes from these furnaces. These vessels will, at the option of
the relatives of the dead, be removed to family vaults, or will be
deposited in a building which is to be erected by the city of Paris for
their reception.

The late discussion in the _Times_ as to the permanence of water-colour
drawings has led the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education
to appoint a Commission to inquire into the whole subject, under the
efficient chairmanship of Sir F. Leighton, the President of the Royal
Academy. With him will work several well-known artists. Captain Abney
and Dr Russell, who for some time have been engaged in testing the
action of light upon pigments, will act as scientific advisers to the
Commission.

It is reported that the recent revival of archæological research in
Italy is continually being hampered by the extortionate demands of
proprietors on whose lands excavations are desirable. It is also
alleged that a large trade has been organised in the manufacture of
sham antiquities. Senator Fiorelli, the head of the Archæological
Department, seeks to put a stop to these abuses by the passage of a law
which will place excavations under state supervision and by official
permission only. It is also suggested that the smaller antiquities
should only be admitted to be genuine after due examination and the
attachment of some form of official stamp or seal.

The London Chamber of Commerce have under their consideration the
establishment in the metropolis of Commercial Museums, or, as they
might be termed, permanent exhibitions, such as are found in Holland,
Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, and other countries. With this
view, they have deputed their secretary, Mr Kenrick Murray, to visit
the Museums of the chief commercial centres on the Continent. They have
instructed him to report to them upon the area of the buildings used
for the purpose, their financial organisation and annual expenditure,
the number of visitors they receive, and their presumed effect upon
the trades of the country in which they are situated. Mr Murray will
bear Foreign Office introductions to the Queen’s representatives in
the different countries which he will visit, and will, therefore, have
every facility for carrying out a most important commission.

The most fearful outbreak of volcanic force which the world has
experienced since the eruption of Krakatoa in the Straits of Sunda,
has recently laid waste many miles of the fairest part of New Zealand.
It is not yet known how many human lives have been sacrificed in this
terrible visitation, but it is certain that several Maori settlements
have been completely destroyed, and that the country for many miles
round the centre of disturbance has been literally devastated.
The outbreak commenced at midnight on the 9th of last June with a
succession of fearful earthquake shocks. Then, for the first time
within living memory, Mount Tarawera suddenly became an active volcano,
and belched forth torrents of stones and boiling mud mingled with fire
and smoke. The once fertile district is covered with a layer of mud
and ashes, so that those who have survived the terrible ordeal have
starvation and ruin before them. One minor effect of the disaster will
be regretted all the world over by those who have visited or have read
of the wondrous scenery of New Zealand. The far-famed pink and white
terraces have ceased to exist. These terraces were unique, and had they
been known in ancient times, must have been counted with the wonders of
the world. Boiling water heavily charged with silica issued from the
ground, and as it tumbled over the hillside and gradually cooled in
its descent, it deposited its silica as a glittering crystallisation.
Mr Froude, one of the last visitors who has written upon the subject,
says: ‘Stretched before us we saw the white terrace in all its
strangeness: a crystal staircase, glittering and stainless as if it
were ice, spreading out like an open fan from a point above us on
the hillside, and projecting at the bottom into a lake, where it was
perhaps two hundred yards wide.’

This hot-lake district was becoming a great sanatorium, and tourists
flocked to it from all countries, for the warm water was credited with
wonderful healing powers. From this circumstance alone, it was believed
that the district had a great future before it. The Maoris thought
not a little of the natural wonders of which they were the stewards,
and took care to levy blackmail on all their visitors. All this is
now at an end, for the wonders have gone, until possibly new ones are
gradually developed in their stead.

Much has been written on the subject of mysterious noises, which in
most cases, if intelligently inquired into, would be found to have
no mystery at all about them. A Professor at Philadelphia recently
recorded that at a certain hour each day one of the windows in his
house rattled in the most violent manner. On consulting the local
railway time-table, he could find no train running at the hour
specified. But on examining another table, which included a separate
line, he found that a heavy train passed at the time at a distance
of several miles from his house. He then referred to the geological
formation of the ground between the two points, and at once saw
that there was an outcropping ledge of rock which formed a link of
connection between the distant railway line and his home. It was the
vibration carried by this rock from the passing train that rattled the
window.

Dr Marter of Rome has discovered in many of the skulls in the different
Roman and Etruscan tombs, as well as in those deposited in the various
museums, interesting specimens of ancient dentistry and artificial
teeth. These latter are in most cases carved out of the teeth of some
large animal. In many instances, these teeth are fastened to the
natural ones by bands of gold. No cases of stopped teeth have been
discovered, although many cases of decay present themselves where
stopping would have been advantageous. The skulls examined date as far
back as the sixth century B.C., and prove that the art of dentistry and
the pains of toothache are by no means modern institutions.

The city of Hernosand, in Sweden, can boast of being the first place
in Europe where the streets are lighted entirely by electricity to the
exclusion of gas. It has the advantage of plenty of natural water-power
for driving the electric engines, so that the new lights can actually
be produced at a cheaper rate than the old ones.

Although many investors have burnt their fingers—metaphorically, we
mean—over the electric-lighting question in this country, it seems
to be becoming a profitable form of investment in America. A circular
addressed by the editor of one of the American papers to the general
managers of the lighting Companies has elicited the information that
many of them are earning good dividends—in one case as much as eighteen
per cent. for the year. As we have before had occasion to remind our
readers, the price of gas in this country averages about half what
it does in New York, and this fact alone would account for the more
flourishing state of transatlantic electric lighting Companies.

At a half-demolished Jesuit College at Vienna, a dog lately fell
through a fissure in the pavement. The efforts to rescue the poor
animal led to a curious archæological discovery. The dog had, it
was found, fallen into a large vault containing ninety coffins. The
existence of this underground burial-place had hitherto been quite
unsuspected. The inscriptions on the coffins date back to the reign of
Maria Theresa, and the bodies are of the monks of that period, and of
the nobles who helped to support the monastery.

In an interesting lecture lately delivered before the Royal Institution
on ‘Photography as an Aid to Astronomy,’ Mr A. A. Common, who is the
principal British labourer in this comparatively new field of research,
described his methods of working, and held out sanguine hopes of
future things possible by astronomical photography. Speaking of modern
dry-plate photography, he said: ‘At a bound, it has gone far beyond
anything that was expected of it, and bids fair to overturn a good
deal of the practice that has hitherto existed among astronomers. I
hope soon to see it recognised as the most potent agent of research
and record that has ever been within the reach of the astronomer; so
that the records which the future astronomer will use will not be
the written impression of dead men’s views, but veritable images of
the different objects of the heavens recorded by themselves as they
existed.’

Two remarkable and wonderful cases of recovery from bullet-wounds have
lately taken place in the metropolis. In one case, that of a girl who
was shot by her lover, the bullet is deeply imbedded in the head, too
deep to admit of any operation; yet the patient has been discharged
from the hospital convalescent. The other case was one of attempted
suicide, the sufferer having shot himself in the head with a revolver.
In this case, too, the bullet is still in the brain, and in such a
position as to prevent the operation of extraction. In spite of this,
the patient has been discharged from hospital care, and it is said that
he suffers no inconvenience from the consequences of his rash act. A
curious coincidence in connection with these cases is that both shots
were fired on the same day, the 19th of June, and that both cases were
treated at the London Hospital. ‘The times have been,’ says Shakspeare,
‘that, when the brains were out, the man would die.’ The poet puts
these words into the mouth of Macbeth, when that wicked king sees the
ghost of the murdered Banquo rise before him. In the cases just cited,
we have a reality which no poet could equal in romance. People walking
about in the flesh with bullets in their brains are certainly far more
wonderful things than spectres. These marvellous recoveries from what,
a few years ago, would have meant certain death, must be credited to
surgical skill and the modern antiseptic method of treating wounds.

Magistrates are continually deploring the use of the revolver among the
civil community, and hardly a week passes but some terrible accident
or crime is credited to the employment of that weapon. That it is a
most valuable arm when used in legitimate warfare, the paper lately
read before the Royal United Service Institution by Major Kitchener
amply proved. According to this paper, every nation but our own seems
to consider that the revolver is the most important weapon that
cavalry can be armed with. In Russia, for instance, all officers,
sergeant-majors, drummers, buglers, and even clerks, carry revolvers.
In Germany, again, there is a regular annual course of instruction in
the use of the weapon. In our army, however, the revolver seems to be
in a great measure ignored, excepting by officers on active foreign
service.

A new method of detecting the source of an offensive odour in a room is
given by _The Sanitarian_ newspaper. In the room in question, the smell
had become so unbearable that the carpet was taken up, and a carpenter
was about to rip up the flooring to discover, if possible, the cause.
By a happy inspiration, the services of some sanitary inspectors in
the shape of a couple of bluebottle flies were first called into
requisition. The flies buzzed about in their usual aggravating manner
for some minutes, but eventually they settled upon the crack between
two boards in the floor. The boards were thereupon taken up, and just
underneath them was found the decomposing body of a rat.

The extent to which the trade in frozen meat from distant countries
has grown since the introduction, only a few years back, of the system
of freezing by the compression and subsequent expansion of air, is
indicated by the constant arrival in this country of vast shiploads
of carcases from the antipodes. The largest cargo of dead-meat ever
received lately arrived in the Thames from the Falkland Islands on
board the steamship _Selembria_. This consisted of thirty thousand
frozen carcases of sheep. This ship possesses four engines for
preserving and freezing the meat, and the holds are lined with a
non-conducting packing of timber and charcoal.

A new system of coating iron or steel with a covering of lead, somewhat
similar in practice to the so-called galvanising process with zinc, has
been introduced by Messrs Justice & Co. of Chancery Lane, London, the
agents for the Ajax Metal Company of Philadelphia. Briefly described,
the process consists in charging molten lead with a flux composed of
sal ammoniac, arsenic, phosphorus, and borax; after which, properly
cleansed iron or steel plates will when dipped therein receive a
coating of the lead. The metal so protected will be valuable for
roofs, in place of sheet-lead or zinc, for gutters, and for numberless
purposes where far less durable materials are at present used with very
false economy.

It would seem, from the results of some experiments lately conducted
on the Dutch state railroads in order to discover the best method of
protecting iron from the action of the atmosphere, that red-lead paints
are far more durable than those which owe their body to iron oxide.
The test-plates showed also that the paint adhered to the metal with
far greater tenacity if the usual scraping and brushing were replaced
by pickling—that is, treatment with acid. The best results were
obtained when the metal plate was first pickled in spirits of salts
(hydrochloric acid) and water, then washed, and finally rubbed with oil
before applying the paint.

The latest advance in electric lighting is represented by the
introduction of Mr Upward’s primary battery, the novelty in which
consists in its being excited by a gas instead of a liquid. The gas
employed is chlorine, and the battery cells have to be hermetically
sealed, for chlorine is, as every dabbler in chemical experiments
knows, a most suffocating and corrosive gas. In practice, this primary
battery is connected with an accumulator or secondary battery, so
that the electricity generated by it is stored for subsequent use.
The invention represents a convenient means of producing the electric
light on a small scale for domestic use, where gas-engines and
dynamo-machines are not considered desirable additions to the household
arrangements. The battery is made by Messrs Woodhouse and Rawson, West
Kensington.

Mr Fryer’s Refuse Destructor has now been adopted in several of our
large towns. Newcastle is the latest which has taken up the system,
and in that town thirty tons of refuse are consumed in the furnaces
daily. The residue consists of between seven and eight tons of burnt
clinker and dry ashes, which are used for concrete and as a bedding
for pavement. There is no actual profit attached to the system, but it
affords a convenient method of dealing with some of that unmanageable
material which is a necessary product of large communities, and which
might otherwise form an accumulation most dangerous to health.

After three years of constant work, the signal station on Ailsa
Craig, in the Firth of Clyde, is announced, by the Northern Light
Commissioners, to be ready for action. In foggy or snowy weather,
the fog-horns which have been placed there will utter their warning
blasts to mariners, and will doubtless lead to the prevention of many
a shipwreck. The trumpets are of such a powerful description, that in
calm weather they will be audible at a distance of nearly twenty miles
from the station; and as the blasts are of a distinctive character, the
captain of a ship will be easily able to recognise them, and from them
to learn his whereabouts.

Mr Sinclair, the British consul at Foochow, reports that the
manufacture of brick tea of varieties of tea-dust by Russian merchants,
for export to Siberia, is acquiring considerable importance at Foochow.
The cheapness of the tea-dust, the cheapness of manufacture, the low
export duties upon it, together with the low import duties in Russia,
help to make this trade successful and profitable. The brick is said to
be beautifully made, and very portable. Mr Sinclair wonders that the
British government does not get its supplies from the port of Foochow,
as they would find it less expensive and more wholesome than what is
now given the army and the navy. He suggests that a government agent
should be employed on the spot to manufacture the brick tea in the same
way as adopted by the Russians there and at Hankow.




CYCLING AS A HEALTH-PRODUCT.


The advantages of a fine physical form are under-estimated by a
large class of people, who have a half-defined impression that any
considerable addition to the muscles and general physique must be at
the expense of the mental qualities. This mistaken impression is so
prevalent, that many professional literary people avoid any vigorous
exercise for fear that it will be a drain upon their whole system,
and thus upon their capacity for brain-work. The truth is that such
complete physical inertness has the effect of clogging the action of
the blood, of retaining the impurities of the system, and of eventually
bringing about a host of small nervous disorders that induce in turn
mental anxiety—the worst possible drain upon the nervous organisation.
When one of these people, after a year of sick-headache and dyspepsia,
comes to realise that healthy nerves cannot exist without general
physical health and activity, he joins a gymnasium, strains his
long-unused muscles on bars and ropes, or by lifting heavy weights. The
result usually is that the muscles, so long unaccustomed to use, cannot
withstand the sudden strain imposed upon them, and the would-be athlete
retires with some severe or perhaps fatal injury.

But occasionally he finds some especial gymnastic exercise suited
to him, and weathers the first ordeal. He persists bravely, and is
astonished to find that his digestion improves, his weight increases,
and his mind becomes clear and brighter. He exercises systematically,
and cultivates a few special muscles, perhaps those of the shoulder,
to the hindrance of the complex muscles of the neck and throat; or
perhaps those of the back and groin, as in rowing, to the detriment
of chest, muscle, and development; and although his condition is
greatly improved, he is apt to become wearied from a lack of physical
exhilaration, or a lack of that sweetening of mental enjoyment which
gives cycling such a lasting charm. If a man has no heart in his
exercise, he will not persist in it long enough to get its finest
benefits.

In the gentle swinging motion above the wheel, there is nothing to
disturb the muscular or nervous system once accustomed to it; indeed,
it is the experience of most cyclists that the motion is at first
tranquillising to the nerves, and eventually becomes a refreshing
stimulus. The man who goes through ten hours’ daily mental fret
and worry, will in an hour of pleasant road-riding, in the fresh
sweet-scented country, throw off all its ill effects, and prepare
himself for the effectual accomplishment of another day’s brain-work.
The steady and active employment of all the muscles, until they are
well heated and healthily tired, clears the blood from the brain,
sharpens the appetite, and insures a night’s refreshing sleep.

In propelling the wheel, all the flexor and extensor muscles of the
legs are in active motion; while in balancing, the smaller muscles
of the legs and feet and the prominent ones of the groin and thighs
are brought into play. The wrist and arms are employed in steering;
while the whole of the back, neck, and throat muscles are used in
pulling up on the handles in a spurt. Thus the exertion is distributed
more thoroughly over the whole body than in any other exercise. A
tired feeling in any one part of the body is generally occasioned by
a weakness caused by former disuse of the muscles located there, and
this disappears as the rider becomes habituated to the new motions of
the wheel. With an experienced cyclist, the sensation of fatigue does
not develop itself prominently in any one part of the body, but is so
evenly adjusted as to be hardly noticeable.

The wretched habit of cyclists riding with the body inclined forward
has produced an habitual bent attitude with several riders, and
gives rise to a prejudice against the sport as producing a ‘bicycle
back.’ Nearly all oarsmen have this form of back; it has not proved
detrimental, but it is ungainly, and the methods by which it is
acquired on a bicycle are entirely unnecessary. Erect riding is more
graceful, it develops the chest, and adds an exercise to the muscles of
the throat and chest that rowing does not.

The exposure to out-of-door air, the constant employment of the mind by
the delight of changing scenery or agreeable companionship, add their
contribution, and make cycling, to those who have tried practically
every other sport, the most enjoyable, healthful, useful exercise ever
known. Most cyclers become sound, well-made, evenly balanced, healthy
men, and bid fair to leave to their descendants some such heritage of
health and vigour as descended from the hardy old Fathers to the men
who have made this country what it is.




OCCASIONAL NOTES.


FLAX-CULTURE.

The depressed condition of agriculture, consequent on the low prices
obtainable for all kinds of produce, has led the British farmer to turn
his attention to the growth of crops hitherto neglected or unthought
of. This is exemplified by the interest now taken in the cultivation
of tobacco and the inquiries being made regarding it, with a view to
its wholesale production in England. It is doubtful, however, if in
this case the British farmer will be able to compete successfully with
his American rival, the latter being favoured by nature with soil and
climate specially suited for the growth of the ‘weed.’

There are other plants, however, which claim our attention, and amongst
these the flax plant. This is perfectly hardy and easily cultivated,
and is free from the bugbear of American competition. It is grown
largely in Ireland, especially in the north, and at the present time
is the best paying crop grown in the island. The following figures
show the quantity of fibre produced during the year 1885: Ireland,
20,909 tons; Great Britain, 444 tons. As far as the British Islands are
concerned, Ireland has practically a monopoly in the production of this
valuable article of commerce. It was formerly grown to a large extent
in Yorkshire and in some parts of Scotland; but of late years, was
given up in favour of other crops. It can now be produced to show much
better results than formerly, flax not having fallen in price so much
in proportion as other farm produce. Compared with the requirements
of the linen manufacturers, the quantity grown in the British Isles
is very small, and had to be supplemented by the import from foreign
countries, during 1885, of over eighty-three thousand tons, value
for three million and a half sterling. Two-thirds of this quantity
is imported from Russia, the remainder principally from Holland and
Belgium.

The manufacturer will give the preference to home-grown fibre provided
that it is equal in all respects to the foreign. We can scarcely hope
to compete successfully with Holland and Belgium, as flax-culture
has been brought to great perfection there; but we _can_ produce
a fibre much superior to Russian, and if we can produce it cheap
enough, can beat Russia out of the market. The average price of Irish
flax in 1885 was about fifty-two pounds per ton; the yield per acre,
where properly treated, would be from five to six hundredweight on
an average. In many cases the yield rose far above these figures,
reaching ten to twelve hundredweight, and in one instance which came
under the writer’s personal observation, to eighteen hundredweight. A
new scutching-machine—a French patent—is now being tested in Belfast,
and it is stated that by its use the yield of fibre is increased by
thirty per cent. Should this apparatus come into general use, it will
add greatly to the value of the flax plant as a crop. In continental
countries, the seed is saved, and its value contributes largely to the
profit of flax-culture there. Any difficulty that might exist in this
country with regard to the preparation of the fibre for market might be
met by farmers in a district banding together to provide the requisite
machines, which can now be had cheaper and better than before.

If flax-culture is profitable in Ireland, it can be made so in Britain;
and if only half of the eighty-three thousand tons annually imported
could be grown at home, a large sum would be kept in the country which
now goes to enrich the foreigner.


THE RIGHTS OF DESERTED WIVES.

A legal correspondent writes to us on this subject as follows:

‘It has long been felt to be a defect in the English law that if a man
deserted his wife without any cause or otherwise, she had no direct
remedy against him in respect of the expense of her maintenance and the
bringing up of the children (if any) of the marriage. In case the wife
so deserted could carry on any business, or in any other way acquire
the means of livelihood, she could obtain a protection order so early
as the year 1858, long before the passing of the first Married Women’s
Property Act. But if she were not so fortunately situated, and had
no near relatives to whom she could look for assistance, she must go
into the workhouse, and leave the poor-law officers to look after her
husband. This has often been productive of great hardship, for it is
no light thing for a woman delicately nurtured to become an inmate
of the refuge for the destitute. But by an Act passed in the recent
session, this defect has been remedied to a considerable extent in an
easy and practical way. Thus, if an innocent woman has been deserted by
her husband, she may have him summoned before any two justices of the
peace in petty sessions or any stipendiary magistrate; and thereupon,
if the justices or magistrate should be satisfied that the husband,
being able wholly or in part to maintain his wife, or his wife and
family, as the case may be, has wilfully refused or neglected so to
do, and that he has deserted his wife, they or he may order that the
husband pay to his wife such weekly sum not exceeding two pounds as
may be considered to be in accordance with his means, taking also into
account any means which the wife may have for the support of herself
and family, if any. Power is given for the alteration of the order
whenever it should appear to be necessary or just, in case of any
alteration in the circumstances of the husband or of the wife. And any
such order may be discharged on the application of the husband, if it
should appear just to do so. Writers in some of the legal journals have
expressed the opinion that this change in the law goes too far; but the
present writer has long advocated such a change, and it appears to be
altogether an improvement upon the previous state of the law in this
respect.’


THE GREAT SPHINX.

An interesting work has been going on, under the direction of M.
Maspéro, at the great Sphinx of Gizeh, which has been buried, all
but the head, for centuries. M. Maspéro, while we write, had got
down as far as the paws, on the right of which are a number of Greek
inscriptions. The paws appear to be cut out of the solid stone, and
afterwards built round with masonry, the surface of which is painted
red with yellow additions. Bryant is of opinion that the Sphinx was
originally a vast rock of different strata, which, from a shapeless
mass, the Egyptians fashioned into an object of beauty and veneration.
Although the excavators have now reached a lower level than Carglia
and others, yet much remains to be done before the whole of this
wondrous specimen of ancient art is entirely uncovered; for, if we are
to believe Pliny’s statements, the head of the Sphinx was one hundred
and two feet in circumference, and sixty-two feet high from the belly;
whilst the body was one hundred and forty-three feet long, and was,
moreover, supposed to be the sepulchre of King Amasis, who died 525
B.C. But, according to Herodotus, the body of this monarch was buried
in the Temple of Sais; and on the defeat and death of his son by the
Persians, it was taken from its tomb, brutally mangled, and then
publicly burnt, to the horror of the Egyptian people. If the Sphinx is
really found to be a solid rock, Pliny’s story of its having been a
tomb falls to the ground. M. Maspéro has been working in layers of hard
sand which has lain undisturbed for probably eighteen hundred years.
This is found to be so close and hard, that it is more like solid stone
than sand, and requires a great amount of labour to cut through. The
work is, however, progressing with energy and determination, and it is
to be hoped that it will not be suffered to stop abruptly for want of
funds.


NOVEL USE OF ELECTRICITY.

Electric power has been applied in a very novel manner of late on the
estate of the Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield, where it has been in
operation for some time past in various ways and works; but the last
is perhaps the most peculiar of all. On one of the farms, ensilage
has been stored in large quantities, a farm-building being turned
into a silo for this purpose; and it being decided that the green
food shall be ‘chaffed’ before placing it in the silo, a chaff-cutter
has been erected about twenty feet above the ground. This machine is
not only driven by electric power, but the same motor is employed to
elevate the grass to the level of the chaff-cutter. This is done so
effectually that about four tons of rough grass are raised and cut per
hour. A sixteen-light ‘Brush’ machine is the generator, driven by a
huge water-wheel, and both are on the banks of the river Lea, a mile
and a half distant. The power is transmitted to one of Siemens’ type,
specially constructed to work as a motor with the ‘Brush’ machine. Nor
is this all, for the same electric power is ingeniously applied to work
the ‘lifts’ in use at the many haystacks on the estate.




PICCIOLA.

[Count de Charney, when in prison, was led into a philosophical train
of reflections by the sight of a flower which grew up between the
flagstones of the prison court.]


    Of all the flowers that deck the verdant knoll,
    And lift their snowy petals to the air,
    One spray has risen in my dungeon bare
    That breaks the sceptic chain that bound my soul,
    And makes me feel the might of God’s control.
    O flower of sweetness! thy frail form so fair
    Swept from my brow the cankering lines of care,
    And safe will lead me to the eternal goal.
    What hand but One could guard thy tender leaves
    From the fierce fury of the summer sun,
    When noonday hovers o’er my prison dun?
    ’Tis He that for my hapless fortune grieves!
    Blest flower! that drew me to the arms of God,
    With grateful tears I bathe thy dewy sod.

            ROBERT W. CRYAN.

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