initial commit of ebook 1435HEADmain

2 files changed, 2682 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/mspcd10.txt b/old/mspcd10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..61fb033
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/mspcd10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2682 @@
+Project Gutenberg Etext Miscellaneous Papers by Charles Dickens
+#47 in our series by Charles Dickens
+
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+Miscellaneous Papers
+
+by Charles Dickens
+
+August, 1998  [Etext #1435]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext Miscellaneous Papers by Charles Dickens
+*****This file should be named mspcd10.txt or mspcd10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, mspcd11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mspcd10a.txt
+
+
+This etext was prepared from the 1912 Gresham Publishing Company
+edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we do NOT keep these books
+in compliance with any particular paper edition, usually otherwise.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text
+files per month, or 384 more Etexts in 1998 for a total of 1500+
+If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
+total should reach over 150 billion Etexts given away.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only 10% of the present number of computer users.  2001
+should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it
+will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001.
+
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.  (CMU = Carnegie-
+Mellon University).
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails try our Executive Director:
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email
+(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
+
+******
+If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
+FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
+[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
+
+ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu
+login:  anonymous
+password:  your@login
+cd etext/etext90 through /etext96
+or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET INDEX?00.GUT
+for a list of books
+and
+GET NEW GUT for general information
+and
+MGET GUT* for newsletters.
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
+     University" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
+
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+This etext was prepared from the 1912 Gresham Publishing Company
+edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS BY CHARLES DICKENS
+
+
+
+
+Contents:
+
+The Agricultural Interest
+Threatening Letter to Thomas Hood from an Ancient Gentleman
+Crime and Education
+Capital Punishment
+The Spirit of Chivalry in Westminster Hall
+In Memoriam--W. M. Thackeray
+Adelaide Anne Procter
+Chauncey Hare Townshend
+On Mr. Fechter's Acting
+
+
+
+
+THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST
+
+
+
+The present Government, having shown itself to be particularly
+clever in its management of Indictments for Conspiracy, cannot do
+better, we think (keeping in its administrative eye the pacification
+of some of its most influential and most unruly supporters), than
+indict the whole manufacturing interest of the country for a
+conspiracy against the agricultural interest.  As the jury ought to
+be beyond impeachment, the panel might be chosen among the Duke of
+Buckingham's tenants, with the Duke of Buckingham himself as
+foreman; and, to the end that the country might be quite satisfied
+with the judge, and have ample security beforehand for his
+moderation and impartiality, it would be desirable, perhaps, to make
+such a slight change in the working of the law (a mere nothing to a
+Conservative Government, bent upon its end), as would enable the
+question to be tried before an Ecclesiastical Court, with the Bishop
+of Exeter presiding.  The Attorney-General for Ireland, turning his
+sword into a ploughshare, might conduct the prosecution; and Mr.
+Cobden and the other traversers might adopt any ground of defence
+they chose, or prove or disprove anything they pleased, without
+being embarrassed by the least anxiety or doubt in reference to the
+verdict.
+
+That the country in general is in a conspiracy against this sacred
+but unhappy agricultural interest, there can be no doubt.  It is not
+alone within the walls of Covent Garden Theatre, or the Free Trade
+Hall at Manchester, or the Town Hall at Birmingham, that the cry
+"Repeal the Corn-laws!" is raised.  It may be heard, moaning at
+night, through the straw-littered wards of Refuges for the
+Destitute; it may be read in the gaunt and famished faces which make
+our streets terrible; it is muttered in the thankful grace
+pronounced by haggard wretches over their felon fare in gaols; it is
+inscribed in dreadful characters upon the walls of Fever Hospitals;
+and may be plainly traced in every record of mortality.  All of
+which proves, that there is a vast conspiracy afoot, against the
+unfortunate agricultural interest.
+
+They who run, even upon railroads, may read of this conspiracy.  The
+old stage-coachman was a farmer's friend.  He wore top-boots,
+understood cattle, fed his horses upon corn, and had a lively
+personal interest in malt.  The engine-driver's garb, and
+sympathies, and tastes belong to the factory.  His fustian dress,
+besmeared with coal-dust and begrimed with soot; his oily hands, his
+dirty face, his knowledge of machinery; all point him out as one
+devoted to the manufacturing interest.  Fire and smoke, and red-hot
+cinders follow in his wake.  He has no attachment to the soil, but
+travels on a road of iron, furnace wrought.  His warning is not
+conveyed in the fine old Saxon dialect of our glorious forefathers,
+but in a fiendish yell.  He never cries "ya-hip", with agricultural
+lungs; but jerks forth a manufactured shriek from a brazen throat.
+
+Where is the agricultural interest represented?  From what phase of
+our social life has it not been driven, to the undue setting up of
+its false rival?
+
+Are the police agricultural?  The watchmen were.  They wore woollen
+nightcaps to a man; they encouraged the growth of timber, by
+patriotically adhering to staves and rattles of immense size; they
+slept every night in boxes, which were but another form of the
+celebrated wooden walls of Old England; they never woke up till it
+was too late--in which respect you might have thought them very
+farmers.  How is it with the police?  Their buttons are made at
+Birmingham; a dozen of their truncheons would poorly furnish forth a
+watchman's staff; they have no wooden walls to repose between; and
+the crowns of their hats are plated with cast-iron.
+
+Are the doctors agricultural?  Let Messrs. Morison and Moat, of the
+Hygeian establishment at King's Cross, London, reply.  Is it not,
+upon the constant showing of those gentlemen, an ascertained fact
+that the whole medical profession have united to depreciate the
+worth of the Universal Vegetable Medicines?  And is this opposition
+to vegetables, and exaltation of steel and iron instead, on the part
+of the regular practitioners, capable of any interpretation but one?
+Is it not a distinct renouncement of the agricultural interest, and
+a setting up of the manufacturing interest instead?
+
+Do the professors of the law at all fail in their truth to the
+beautiful maid whom they ought to adore?  Inquire of the Attorney-
+General for Ireland.  Inquire of that honourable and learned
+gentleman, whose last public act was to cast aside the grey goose-
+quill, an article of agricultural produce, and take up the pistol,
+which, under the system of percussion locks, has not even a flint to
+connect it with farming.  Or put the question to a still higher
+legal functionary, who, on the same occasion, when he should have
+been a reed, inclining here and there, as adverse gales of evidence
+disposed him, was seen to be a manufactured image on the seat of
+Justice, cast by Power, in most impenetrable brass.
+
+The world is too much with us in this manufacturing interest, early
+and late; that is the great complaint and the great truth.  It is
+not so with the agricultural interest, or what passes by that name.
+It never thinks of the suffering world, or sees it, or cares to
+extend its knowledge of it; or, so long as it remains a world, cares
+anything about it.  All those whom Dante placed in the first pit or
+circle of the doleful regions, might have represented the
+agricultural interest in the present Parliament, or at quarter
+sessions, or at meetings of the farmers' friends, or anywhere else.
+
+But that is not the question now.  It is conspired against; and we
+have given a few proofs of the conspiracy, as they shine out of
+various classes engaged in it.  An indictment against the whole
+manufacturing interest need not be longer, surely, than the
+indictment in the case of the Crown against O'Connell and others.
+Mr. Cobden may be taken as its representative--as indeed he is, by
+one consent already.  There may be no evidence; but that is not
+required.  A judge and jury are all that is needed.  And the
+Government know where to find them, or they gain experience to
+little purpose.
+
+
+
+THREATENING LETTER
+TO THOMAS HOOD
+FROM AN ANCIENT GENTLEMAN
+
+
+
+MR. HOOD.  SIR,--The Constitution is going at last!  You needn't
+laugh, Mr. Hood.  I am aware that it has been going, two or three
+times before; perhaps four times; but it is on the move now, sir,
+and no mistake.
+
+I beg to say, that I use those last expressions advisedly, sir, and
+not in the sense in which they are now used by Jackanapeses.  There
+were no Jackanapeses when I was a boy, Mr. Hood.  England was Old
+England when I was young.  I little thought it would ever come to be
+Young England when I was old.  But everything is going backward.
+
+Ah! governments were governments, and judges were judges, in my day,
+Mr. Hood.  There was no nonsense then.  Any of your seditious
+complainings, and we were ready with the military on the shortest
+notice.  We should have charged Covent Garden Theatre, sir, on a
+Wednesday night:  at the point of the bayonet.  Then, the judges
+were full of dignity and firmness, and knew how to administer the
+law.  There is only one judge who knows how to do his duty, now.  He
+tried that revolutionary female the other day, who, though she was
+in full work (making shirts at three-halfpence a piece), had no
+pride in her country, but treasonably took it in her head, in the
+distraction of having been robbed of her easy earnings, to attempt
+to drown herself and her young child; and the glorious man went out
+of his way, sir--out of his way--to call her up for instant sentence
+of Death; and to tell her she had no hope of mercy in this world--as
+you may see yourself if you look in the papers of Wednesday the 17th
+of April.  He won't be supported, sir, I know he won't; but it is
+worth remembering that his words were carried into every
+manufacturing town of this kingdom, and read aloud to crowds in
+every political parlour, beer-shop, news-room, and secret or open
+place of assembly, frequented by the discontented working-men; and
+that no milk-and-water weakness on the part of the executive can
+ever blot them out.  Great things like that, are caught up, and
+stored up, in these times, and are not forgotten, Mr. Hood.  The
+public at large (especially those who wish for peace and
+conciliation) are universally obliged to him.  If it is reserved for
+any man to set the Thames on fire, it is reserved for him; and
+indeed I am told he very nearly did it, once.
+
+But even he won't save the constitution, sir:  it is mauled beyond
+the power of preservation.  Do you know in what foul weather it will
+be sacrificed and shipwrecked, Mr. Hood?  Do you know on what rock
+it will strike, sir?  You don't, I am certain; for nobody does know
+as yet but myself.  I will tell you.
+
+The constitution will go down, sir (nautically speaking), in the
+degeneration of the human species in England, and its reduction into
+a mingled race of savages and pigmies.
+
+That is my proposition.  That is my prediction.  That is the event
+of which I give you warning.  I am now going to prove it, sir.
+
+You are a literary man, Mr. Hood, and have written, I am told, some
+things worth reading.  I say I am told, because I never read what is
+written in these days.  You'll excuse me; but my principle is, that
+no man ought to know anything about his own time, except that it is
+the worst time that ever was, or is ever likely to be.  That is the
+only way, sir, to be truly wise and happy.
+
+In your station, as a literary man, Mr. Hood, you are frequently at
+the Court of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen.  God bless her!  You
+have reason to know that the three great keys to the royal palace
+(after rank and politics) are Science, Literature, Art.  I don't
+approve of this myself.  I think it ungenteel and barbarous, and
+quite un-English; the custom having been a foreign one, ever since
+the reigns of the uncivilised sultans in the Arabian Nights, who
+always called the wise men of their time about them.  But so it is.
+And when you don't dine at the royal table, there is always a knife
+and fork for you at the equerries' table:  where, I understand, all
+gifted men are made particularly welcome.
+
+But all men can't be gifted, Mr. Hood.  Neither scientific,
+literary, nor artistical powers are any more to be inherited than
+the property arising from scientific, literary, or artistic
+productions, which the law, with a beautiful imitation of nature,
+declines to protect in the second generation.  Very good, sir.
+Then, people are naturally very prone to cast about in their minds
+for other means of getting at Court Favour; and, watching the signs
+of the times, to hew out for themselves, or their descendants, the
+likeliest roads to that distinguished goal.
+
+Mr. Hood, it is pretty clear, from recent records in the Court
+Circular, that if a father wish to train up his son in the way he
+should go, to go to Court:  and cannot indenture him to be a
+scientific man, an author, or an artist, three courses are open to
+him.  He must endeavour by artificial means to make him a dwarf, a
+wild man, or a Boy Jones.
+
+Now, sir, this is the shoal and quicksand on which the constitution
+will go to pieces.
+
+I have made inquiry, Mr. Hood, and find that in my neighbourhood two
+families and a fraction out of every four, in the lower and middle
+classes of society, are studying and practising all conceivable arts
+to keep their infant children down.  Understand me.  I do not mean
+down in their numbers, or down in their precocity, but down in their
+growth, sir.  A destructive and subduing drink, compounded of gin
+and milk in equal quantities, such as is given to puppies to retard
+their growth:  not something short, but something shortening:  is
+administered to these young creatures many times a day.  An
+unnatural and artificial thirst is first awakened in these infants
+by meals of salt beef, bacon, anchovies, sardines, red herrings,
+shrimps, olives, pea-soup, and that description of diet; and when
+they screech for drink, in accents that might melt a heart of stone,
+which they do constantly (I allude to screeching, not to melting),
+this liquid is introduced into their too confiding stomachs.  At
+such an early age, and to so great an extent, is this custom of
+provoking thirst, then quenching it with a stunting drink, observed,
+that brine pap has already superseded the use of tops-and-bottoms;
+and wet-nurses, previously free from any kind of reproach, have been
+seen to stagger in the streets:  owing, sir, to the quantity of gin
+introduced into their systems, with a view to its gradual and
+natural conversion into the fluid I have already mentioned.
+
+Upon the best calculation I can make, this is going on, as I have
+said, in the proportion of about two families and a fraction in
+four.  In one more family and a fraction out of the same number,
+efforts are being made to reduce the children to a state of nature;
+and to inculcate, at a tender age, the love of raw flesh, train oil,
+new rum, and the acquisition of scalps.  Wild and outlandish dances
+are also in vogue (you will have observed the prevailing rage for
+the Polka); and savage cries and whoops are much indulged in (as you
+may discover, if you doubt it, in the House of Commons any night).
+Nay, some persons, Mr. Hood; and persons of some figure and
+distinction too; have already succeeded in breeding wild sons; who
+have been publicly shown in the Courts of Bankruptcy, and in police-
+offices, and in other commodious exhibition-rooms, with great
+effect, but who have not yet found favour at court; in consequence,
+as I infer, of the impression made by Mr. Rankin's wild men being
+too fresh and recent, to say nothing of Mr. Rankin's wild men being
+foreigners.
+
+I need not refer you, sir, to the late instance of the Ojibbeway
+Bride.  But I am credibly informed, that she is on the eve of
+retiring into a savage fastness, where she may bring forth and
+educate a wild family, who shall in course of time, by the dexterous
+use of the popularity they are certain to acquire at Windsor and St.
+James's, divide with dwarfs the principal offices of state, of
+patronage, and power, in the United Kingdom.
+
+Consider the deplorable consequences, Mr. Hood, which must result
+from these proceedings, and the encouragement they receive in the
+highest quarters.
+
+The dwarf being the favourite, sir, it is certain that the public
+mind will run in a great and eminent degree upon the production of
+dwarfs.  Perhaps the failures only will be brought up, wild.  The
+imagination goes a long way in these cases; and all that the
+imagination can do, will be done, and is doing.  You may convince
+yourself of this, by observing the condition of those ladies who
+take particular notice of General Tom Thumb at the Egyptian Hall,
+during his hours of performance.
+
+The rapid increase of dwarfs, will be first felt in her Majesty's
+recruiting department.  The standard will, of necessity, be lowered;
+the dwarfs will grow smaller and smaller; the vulgar expression "a
+man of his inches" will become a figure of fact, instead of a figure
+of speech; crack regiments, household-troops especially, will pick
+the smallest men from all parts of the country; and in the two
+little porticoes at the Horse Guards, two Tom Thumbs will be daily
+seen, doing duty, mounted on a pair of Shetland ponies.  Each of
+them will be relieved (as Tom Thumb is at this moment, in the
+intervals of his performance) by a wild man; and a British Grenadier
+will either go into a quart pot, or be an Old Boy, or Blue Gull, or
+Flying Bull, or some other savage chief of that nature.
+
+I will not expatiate upon the number of dwarfs who will be found
+representing Grecian statues in all parts of the metropolis; because
+I am inclined to think that this will be a change for the better;
+and that the engagement of two or three in Trafalgar Square will
+tend to the improvement of the public taste.
+
+The various genteel employments at Court being held by dwarfs, sir,
+it will be necessary to alter, in some respects, the present
+regulations.  It is quite clear that not even General Tom Thumb
+himself could preserve a becoming dignity on state occasions, if
+required to walk about with a scaffolding-pole under his arm;
+therefore the gold and silver sticks at present used, must be cut
+down into skewers of those precious metals; a twig of the black rod
+will be quite as much as can be conveniently preserved; the coral
+and bells of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, will be used in
+lieu of the mace at present in existence; and that bauble (as Oliver
+Cromwell called it, Mr. Hood), its value being first calculated by
+Mr. Finlayson, the government actuary, will be placed to the credit
+of the National Debt.
+
+All this, sir, will be the death of the constitution.  But this is
+not all.  The constitution dies hard, perhaps; but there is enough
+disease impending, Mr. Hood, to kill it three times over.
+
+Wild men will get into the House of Commons.  Imagine that, sir!
+Imagine Strong Wind in the House of Commons!  It is not an easy
+matter to get through a debate now; but I say, imagine Strong Wind,
+speaking for the benefit of his constituents, upon the floor of the
+House of Commons! or imagine (which is pregnant with more awful
+consequences still) the ministry having an interpreter in the House
+of Commons, to tell the country, in English, what it really means!
+
+Why, sir, that in itself would be blowing the constitution out of
+the mortar in St. James's Park, and leaving nothing of it to be seen
+but smoke.
+
+But this, I repeat it, is the state of things to which we are fast
+tending, Mr. Hood; and I enclose my card for your private eye, that
+you may be quite certain of it.  What the condition of this country
+will be, when its standing army is composed of dwarfs, with here and
+there a wild man to throw its ranks into confusion, like the
+elephants employed in war in former times, I leave you to imagine,
+sir.  It may be objected by some hopeful jackanapeses, that the
+number of impressments in the navy, consequent upon the seizure of
+the Boy-Joneses, or remaining portion of the population ambitious of
+Court Favour, will be in itself sufficient to defend our Island from
+foreign invasion.  But I tell those jackanapeses, sir, that while I
+admit the wisdom of the Boy Jones precedent, of kidnapping such
+youths after the expiration of their several terms of imprisonment
+as vagabonds; hurrying them on board ship; and packing them off to
+sea again whenever they venture to take the air on shore; I deny the
+justice of the inference; inasmuch as it appears to me, that the
+inquiring minds of those young outlaws must naturally lead to their
+being hanged by the enemy as spies, early in their career; and
+before they shall have been rated on the books of our fleet as able
+seamen.
+
+Such, Mr. Hood, sir, is the prospect before us!  And unless you, and
+some of your friends who have influence at Court, can get up a giant
+as a forlorn hope, it is all over with this ill-fated land.
+
+In reference to your own affairs, sir, you will take whatever course
+may seem to you most prudent and advisable after this warning.  It
+is not a warning to be slighted:  that I happen to know.  I am
+informed by the gentleman who favours this, that you have recently
+been making some changes and improvements in your Magazine, and are,
+in point of fact, starting afresh.  If I be well informed, and this
+be really so, rely upon it that you cannot start too small, sir.
+Come down to the duodecimo size instantly, Mr. Hood.  Take time by
+the forelock; and, reducing the stature of your Magazine every
+month, bring it at last to the dimensions of the little almanack no
+longer issued, I regret to say, by the ingenious Mr. Schloss:  which
+was invisible to the naked eye until examined through a little eye-
+glass.
+
+You project, I am told, the publication of a new novel, by yourself,
+in the pages of your Magazine.  A word in your ear.  I am not a
+young man, sir, and have had some experience.  Don't put your own
+name on the title-page; it would be suicide and madness.  Treat with
+General Tom Thumb, Mr. Hood, for the use of his name on any terms.
+If the gallant general should decline to treat with you, get Mr.
+Barnum's name, which is the next best in the market.  And when,
+through this politic course, you shall have received, in presents, a
+richly jewelled set of tablets from Buckingham Palace, and a gold
+watch and appendages from Marlborough House; and when those valuable
+trinkets shall be left under a glass case at your publisher's for
+inspection by your friends and the public in general;--then, sir,
+you will do me the justice of remembering this communication.
+
+It is unnecessary for me to add, after what I have observed in the
+course of this letter, that I am not,--sir, ever your
+
+CONSTANT READER.
+
+TUESDAY, 23rd April 1844.
+
+P.S.--Impress it upon your contributors that they cannot be too
+short; and that if not dwarfish, they must be wild--or at all events
+not tame.
+
+
+
+CRIME AND EDUCATION
+
+
+
+I offer no apology for entreating the attention of the readers of
+The Daily News to an effort which has been making for some three
+years and a half, and which is making now, to introduce among the
+most miserable and neglected outcasts in London, some knowledge of
+the commonest principles of morality and religion; to commence their
+recognition as immortal human creatures, before the Gaol Chaplain
+becomes their only schoolmaster; to suggest to Society that its duty
+to this wretched throng, foredoomed to crime and punishment,
+rightfully begins at some distance from the police office; and that
+the careless maintenance from year to year, in this, the capital
+city of the world, of a vast hopeless nursery of ignorance, misery
+and vice; a breeding place for the hulks and jails:  is horrible to
+contemplate.
+
+This attempt is being made in certain of the most obscure and
+squalid parts of the Metropolis, where rooms are opened, at night,
+for the gratuitous instruction of all comers, children or adults,
+under the title of RAGGED SCHOOLS.  The name implies the purpose.
+They who are too ragged, wretched, filthy, and forlorn, to enter any
+other place:  who could gain admission into no charity school, and
+who would be driven from any church door; are invited to come in
+here, and find some people not depraved, willing to teach them
+something, and show them some sympathy, and stretch a hand out,
+which is not the iron hand of Law, for their correction.
+
+Before I describe a visit of my own to a Ragged School, and urge the
+readers of this letter for God's sake to visit one themselves, and
+think of it (which is my main object), let me say, that I know the
+prisons of London well; that I have visited the largest of them more
+times than I could count; and that the children in them are enough
+to break the heart and hope of any man.  I have never taken a
+foreigner or a stranger of any kind to one of these establishments
+but I have seen him so moved at sight of the child offenders, and so
+affected by the contemplation of their utter renouncement and
+desolation outside the prison walls, that he has been as little able
+to disguise his emotion, as if some great grief had suddenly burst
+upon him.  Mr. Chesterton and Lieutenant Tracey (than whom more
+intelligent and humane Governors of Prisons it would be hard, if not
+impossible, to find) know perfectly well that these children pass
+and repass through the prisons all their lives; that they are never
+taught; that the first distinctions between right and wrong are,
+from their cradles, perfectly confounded and perverted in their
+minds; that they come of untaught parents, and will give birth to
+another untaught generation; that in exact proportion to their
+natural abilities, is the extent and scope of their depravity; and
+that there is no escape or chance for them in any ordinary
+revolution of human affairs.  Happily, there are schools in these
+prisons now.  If any readers doubt how ignorant the children are,
+let them visit those schools and see them at their tasks, and hear
+how much they knew when they were sent there.  If they would know
+the produce of this seed, let them see a class of men and boys
+together, at their books (as I have seen them in the House of
+Correction for this county of Middlesex), and mark how painfully the
+full grown felons toil at the very shape and form of letters; their
+ignorance being so confirmed and solid.  The contrast of this labour
+in the men, with the less blunted quickness of the boys; the latent
+shame and sense of degradation struggling through their dull
+attempts at infant lessons; and the universal eagerness to learn,
+impress me, in this passing retrospect, more painfully than I can
+tell.
+
+For the instruction, and as a first step in the reformation, of such
+unhappy beings, the Ragged Schools were founded.  I was first
+attracted to the subject, and indeed was first made conscious of
+their existence, about two years ago, or more, by seeing an
+advertisement in the papers dated from West Street, Saffron Hill,
+stating "That a room had been opened and supported in that wretched
+neighbourhood for upwards of twelve months, where religious
+instruction had been imparted to the poor", and explaining in a few
+words what was meant by Ragged Schools as a generic term, including,
+then, four or five similar places of instruction.  I wrote to the
+masters of this particular school to make some further inquiries,
+and went myself soon afterwards.
+
+It was a hot summer night; and the air of Field Lane and Saffron
+Hill was not improved by such weather, nor were the people in those
+streets very sober or honest company.  Being unacquainted with the
+exact locality of the school, I was fain to make some inquiries
+about it.  These were very jocosely received in general; but
+everybody knew where it was, and gave the right direction to it.
+The prevailing idea among the loungers (the greater part of them the
+very sweepings of the streets and station houses) seemed to be, that
+the teachers were quixotic, and the school upon the whole "a lark".
+But there was certainly a kind of rough respect for the intention,
+and (as I have said) nobody denied the school or its whereabouts, or
+refused assistance in directing to it.
+
+It consisted at that time of either two or three--I forget which--
+miserable rooms, upstairs in a miserable house.  In the best of
+these, the pupils in the female school were being taught to read and
+write; and though there were among the number, many wretched
+creatures steeped in degradation to the lips, they were tolerably
+quiet, and listened with apparent earnestness and patience to their
+instructors.  The appearance of this room was sad and melancholy, of
+course--how could it be otherwise!--but, on the whole, encouraging.
+
+The close, low chamber at the back, in which the boys were crowded,
+was so foul and stifling as to be, at first, almost insupportable.
+But its moral aspect was so far worse than its physical, that this
+was soon forgotten.  Huddled together on a bench about the room, and
+shown out by some flaring candles stuck against the walls, were a
+crowd of boys, varying from mere infants to young men; sellers of
+fruit, herbs, lucifer-matches, flints; sleepers under the dry arches
+of bridges; young thieves and beggars--with nothing natural to youth
+about them:  with nothing frank, ingenuous, or pleasant in their
+faces; low-browed, vicious, cunning, wicked; abandoned of all help
+but this; speeding downward to destruction; and UNUTTERABLY
+IGNORANT.
+
+This, Reader, was one room as full as it could hold; but these were
+only grains in sample of a Multitude that are perpetually sifting
+through these schools; in sample of a Multitude who had within them
+once, and perhaps have now, the elements of men as good as you or I,
+and maybe infinitely better; in sample of a Multitude among whose
+doomed and sinful ranks (oh, think of this, and think of them!) the
+child of any man upon this earth, however lofty his degree, must, as
+by Destiny and Fate, be found, if, at its birth, it were consigned
+to such an infancy and nurture, as these fallen creatures had!
+
+This was the Class I saw at the Ragged School.  They could not be
+trusted with books; they could only be instructed orally; they were
+difficult of reduction to anything like attention, obedience, or
+decent behaviour; their benighted ignorance in reference to the
+Deity, or to any social duty (how could they guess at any social
+duty, being so discarded by all social teachers but the gaoler and
+the hangman!) was terrible to see.  Yet, even here, and among these,
+something had been done already.  The Ragged School was of recent
+date and very poor; but he had inculcated some association with the
+name of the Almighty, which was not an oath, and had taught them to
+look forward in a hymn (they sang it) to another life, which would
+correct the miseries and woes of this.
+
+The new exposition I found in this Ragged School, of the frightful
+neglect by the State of those whom it punishes so constantly, and
+whom it might, as easily and less expensively, instruct and save;
+together with the sight I had seen there, in the heart of London;
+haunted me, and finally impelled me to an endeavour to bring these
+Institutions under the notice of the Government; with some faint
+hope that the vastness of the question would supersede the Theology
+of the schools, and that the Bench of Bishops might adjust the
+latter question, after some small grant had been conceded.  I made
+the attempt; and have heard no more of the subject from that hour.
+
+The perusal of an advertisement in yesterday's paper, announcing a
+lecture on the Ragged Schools last night, has led me into these
+remarks.  I might easily have given them another form; but I address
+this letter to you, in the hope that some few readers in whom I have
+awakened an interest, as a writer of fiction, may be, by that means,
+attracted to the subject, who might otherwise, unintentionally, pass
+it over.
+
+I have no desire to praise the system pursued in the Ragged Schools;
+which is necessarily very imperfect, if indeed there be one.  So far
+as I have any means of judging of what is taught there, I should
+individually object to it, as not being sufficiently secular, and as
+presenting too many religious mysteries and difficulties, to minds
+not sufficiently prepared for their reception.  But I should very
+imperfectly discharge in myself the duty I wish to urge and impress
+on others, if I allowed any such doubt of mine to interfere with my
+appreciation of the efforts of these teachers, or my true wish to
+promote them by any slight means in my power.  Irritating topics, of
+all kinds, are equally far removed from my purpose and intention.
+But, I adjure those excellent persons who aid, munificently, in the
+building of New Churches, to think of these Ragged Schools; to
+reflect whether some portion of their rich endowments might not be
+spared for such a purpose; to contemplate, calmly, the necessity of
+beginning at the beginning; to consider for themselves where the
+Christian Religion most needs and most suggests immediate help and
+illustration; and not to decide on any theory or hearsay, but to go
+themselves into the Prisons and the Ragged Schools, and form their
+own conclusions.  They will be shocked, pained, and repelled, by
+much that they learn there; but nothing they can learn will be one-
+thousandth part so shocking, painful, and repulsive, as the
+continuance for one year more of these things as they have been for
+too many years already.
+
+Anticipating that some of the more prominent facts connected with
+the history of the Ragged Schools, may become known to the readers
+of The Daily News through your account of the lecture in question, I
+abstain (though in possession of some such information) from
+pursuing the question further, at this time.  But if I should see
+occasion, I will take leave to return to it.
+
+
+
+CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
+
+
+
+I will take for the subject of this letter, the effect of Capital
+Punishment on the commission of crime, or rather of murder; the only
+crime with one exception (and that a rare one) to which it is now
+applied.  Its effect in preventing crime, I will reserve for another
+letter:  and a few of the more striking illustrations of each aspect
+of the subject, for a concluding one.
+
+The effect of Capital Punishment on the commission of Murder.
+
+Some murders are committed in hot blood and furious rage; some, in
+deliberate revenge; some, in terrible despair; some (but not many)
+for mere gain; some, for the removal of an object dangerous to the
+murderer's peace or good name; some, to win a monstrous notoriety.
+
+On murders committed in rage, in the despair of strong affection (as
+when a starving child is murdered by its parent) or for gain, I
+believe the punishment of death to have no effect in the least.  In
+the two first cases, the impulse is a blind and wild one, infinitely
+beyond the reach of any reference to the punishment.  In the last,
+there is little calculation beyond the absorbing greed of the money
+to be got.  Courvoisier, for example, might have robbed his master
+with greater safety, and with fewer chances of detection, if he had
+not murdered him.  But, his calculations going to the gain and not
+to the loss, he had no balance for the consequences of what he did.
+So, it would have been more safe and prudent in the woman who was
+hanged a few weeks since, for the murder in Westminster, to have
+simply robbed her old companion in an unguarded moment, as in her
+sleep.  But, her calculation going to the gain of what she took to
+be a Bank note; and the poor old woman living between her and the
+gain; she murdered her.
+
+On murders committed in deliberate revenge, or to remove a stumbling
+block in the murderer's path, or in an insatiate craving for
+notoriety, is there reason to suppose that the punishment of death
+has the direct effect of an incentive and an impulse?
+
+A murder is committed in deliberate revenge.  The murderer is at no
+trouble to prepare his train of circumstances, takes little or no
+pains to escape, is quite cool and collected, perfectly content to
+deliver himself up to the Police, makes no secret of his guilt, but
+boldly says, "I killed him.  I'm glad of it.  I meant to do it.  I
+am ready to die."  There was such a case the other day.  There was
+such another case not long ago.  There are such cases frequently.
+It is the commonest first exclamation on being seized.  Now, what is
+this but a false arguing of the question, announcing a foregone
+conclusion, expressly leading to the crime, and inseparably arising
+out of the Punishment of Death?  "I took his life.  I give up mine
+to pay for it.  Life for life; blood for blood.  I have done the
+crime.  I am ready with the atonement.  I know all about it; it's a
+fair bargain between me and the law.  Here am I to execute my part
+of it; and what more is to be said or done?"  It is the very essence
+of the maintenance of this punishment for murder, that it does set
+life against life.  It is in the essence of a stupid, weak, or
+otherwise ill-regulated mind (of such a murderer's mind, in short),
+to recognise in this set off, a something that diminishes the base
+and coward character of murder.  "In a pitched battle, I, a common
+man, may kill my adversary, but he may kill me.  In a duel, a
+gentleman may shoot his opponent through the head, but the opponent
+may shoot him too, and this makes it fair.  Very well.  I take this
+man's life for a reason I have, or choose to think I have, and the
+law takes mine.  The law says, and the clergyman says, there must be
+blood for blood and life for life.  Here it is.  I pay the penalty."
+
+A mind incapable, or confounded in its perceptions--and you must
+argue with reference to such a mind, or you could not have such a
+murder--may not only establish on these grounds an idea of strict
+justice and fair reparation, but a stubborn and dogged fortitude and
+foresight that satisfy it hugely.  Whether the fact be really so, or
+not, is a question I would be content to rest, alone, on the number
+of cases of revengeful murder in which this is well known, without
+dispute, to have been the prevailing demeanour of the criminal:  and
+in which such speeches and such absurd reasoning have been
+constantly uppermost with him.  "Blood for blood", and "life for
+life", and such like balanced jingles, have passed current in
+people's mouths, from legislators downwards, until they have been
+corrupted into "tit for tat", and acted on.
+
+Next, come the murders done, to sweep out of the way a dreaded or
+detested object.  At the bottom of this class of crimes, there is a
+slow, corroding, growing hate.  Violent quarrels are commonly found
+to have taken place between the murdered person and the murderer:
+usually of opposite sexes.  There are witnesses to old scenes of
+reproach and recrimination, in which they were the actors; and the
+murderer has been heard to say, in this or that coarse phrase, "that
+he wouldn't mind killing her, though he should be hanged for it"--in
+these cases, the commonest avowal.
+
+It seems to me, that in this well-known scrap of evidence, there is
+a deeper meaning than is usually attached to it.  I do not know, but
+it may be--I have a strong suspicion that it is--a clue to the slow
+growth of the crime, and its gradual development in the mind.  More
+than this; a clue to the mental connection of the deed, with the
+punishment to which the doer of that deed is liable, until the two,
+conjoined, give birth to monstrous and misshapen Murder.
+
+The idea of murder, in such a case, like that of self-destruction in
+the great majority of instances, is not a new one.  It may have
+presented itself to the disturbed mind in a dim shape and afar off;
+but it has been there.  After a quarrel, or with some strong sense
+upon him of irritation or discomfort arising out of the continuance
+of this life in his path, the man has brooded over the unformed
+desire to take it.  "Though he should be hanged for it."  With the
+entrance of the Punishment into his thoughts, the shadow of the
+fatal beam begins to attend--not on himself, but on the object of
+his hate.  At every new temptation, it is there, stronger and
+blacker yet, trying to terrify him.  When she defies or threatens
+him, the scaffold seems to be her strength and "vantage ground".
+Let her not be too sure of that; "though he should be hanged for
+it".
+
+Thus, he begins to raise up, in the contemplation of this death by
+hanging, a new and violent enemy to brave.  The prospect of a slow
+and solitary expiation would have no congeniality with his wicked
+thoughts, but this throttling and strangling has.  There is always
+before him, an ugly, bloody, scarecrow phantom, that champions her,
+as it were, and yet shows him, in a ghastly way, the example of
+murder.  Is she very weak, or very trustful in him, or infirm, or
+old?  It gives a hideous courage to what would be mere slaughter
+otherwise; for there it is, a presence always about her, darkly
+menacing him with that penalty whose murky secret has a fascination
+for all secret and unwholesome thoughts.  And when he struggles with
+his victim at the last, "though he should be hanged for it", it is a
+merciless wrestle, not with one weak life only, but with that ever-
+haunting, ever-beckoning shadow of the gallows, too; and with a
+fierce defiance to it, after their long survey of each other, to
+come on and do its worst.
+
+Present this black idea of violence to a bad mind contemplating
+violence; hold up before a man remotely compassing the death of
+another person, the spectacle of his own ghastly and untimely death
+by man's hands; and out of the depths of his own nature you shall
+assuredly raise up that which lures and tempts him on.  The laws
+which regulate those mysteries have not been studied or cared for,
+by the maintainers of this law; but they are paramount and will
+always assert their power.
+
+Out of one hundred and sixty-seven persons under sentence of Death
+in England, questioned at different times, in the course of years,
+by an English clergyman in the performance of his duty, there were
+only three who had not been spectators of executions.
+
+We come, now, to the consideration of those murders which are
+committed, or attempted, with no other object than the attainment of
+an infamous notoriety.  That this class of crimes has its origin in
+the Punishment of Death, we cannot question; because (as we have
+already seen, and shall presently establish by another proof) great
+notoriety and interest attach, and are generally understood to
+attach, only to those criminals who are in danger of being executed.
+
+One of the most remarkable instances of murder originating in mad
+self-conceit; and of the murderer's part in the repulsive drama, in
+which the law appears at such great disadvantage to itself and to
+society, being acted almost to the last with a self-complacency that
+would be horribly ludicrous if it were not utterly revolting; is
+presented in the case of Hocker.
+
+Here is an insolent, flippant, dissolute youth:  aping the man of
+intrigue and levity:  over-dressed, over-confident, inordinately
+vain of his personal appearance:  distinguished as to his hair,
+cane, snuff-box, and singing-voice:  and unhappily the son of a
+working shoemaker.  Bent on loftier flights than such a poor house-
+swallow as a teacher in a Sunday-school can take; and having no
+truth, industry, perseverance, or other dull work-a-day quality, to
+plume his wings withal; he casts about him, in his jaunty way, for
+some mode of distinguishing himself--some means of getting that head
+of hair into the print-shops; of having something like justice done
+to his singing-voice and fine intellect; of making the life and
+adventures of Thomas Hocker remarkable; and of getting up some
+excitement in connection with that slighted piece of biography.  The
+Stage?  No.  Not feasible.  There has always been a conspiracy
+against the Thomas Hockers, in that kind of effort.  It has been the
+same with Authorship in prose and poetry.  Is there nothing else?  A
+Murder, now, would make a noise in the papers!  There is the gallows
+to be sure; but without that, it would be nothing.  Short of that,
+it wouldn't be fame.  Well!  We must all die at one time or other;
+and to die game, and have it in print, is just the thing for a man
+of spirit.  They always die game at the Minor Theatres and the
+Saloons, and the people like it very much.  Thurtell, too, died very
+game, and made a capital speech when he was tried.  There's all
+about it in a book at the cigar-shop now.  Come, Tom, get your name
+up!  Let it be a dashing murder that shall keep the wood-engravers
+at it for the next two months.  You are the boy to go through with
+it, and interest the town!
+
+The miserable wretch, inflated by this lunatic conceit, arranges his
+whole plan for publication and effect.  It is quite an epitome of
+his experience of the domestic melodrama or penny novel.  There is
+the Victim Friend; the mysterious letter of the injured Female to
+the Victim Friend; the romantic spot for the Death-Struggle by
+night; the unexpected appearance of Thomas Hocker to the Policeman;
+the parlour of the Public House, with Thomas Hocker reading the
+paper to a strange gentleman; the Family Apartment, with a song by
+Thomas Hocker; the Inquest Room, with Thomas Hocker boldly looking
+on; the interior of the Marylebone Theatre, with Thomas Hocker taken
+into custody; the Police Office with Thomas Hocker "affable" to the
+spectators; the interior of Newgate, with Thomas Hocker preparing
+his defence; the Court, where Thomas Hocker, with his dancing-master
+airs, is put upon his trial, and complimented by the Judge; the
+Prosecution, the Defence, the Verdict, the Black Cap, the Sentence--
+each of them a line in any Playbill, and how bold a line in Thomas
+Hocker's life!
+
+It is worthy of remark, that the nearer he approaches to the
+gallows--the great last scene to which the whole of these effects
+have been working up--the more the overweening conceit of the poor
+wretch shows itself; the more he feels that he is the hero of the
+hour; the more audaciously and recklessly he lies, in supporting the
+character.  In public--at the condemned sermon--he deports himself
+as becomes the man whose autographs are precious, whose portraits
+are innumerable; in memory of whom, whole fences and gates have been
+borne away, in splinters, from the scene of murder.  He knows that
+the eyes of Europe are upon him; but he is not proud--only graceful.
+He bows, like the first gentleman in Europe, to the turnkey who
+brings him a glass of water; and composes his clothes and hassock as
+carefully, as good Madame Blaize could do.  In private--within the
+walls of the condemned cell--every word and action of his waning
+life, is a lie.  His whole time is divided between telling lies and
+writing them.  If he ever have another thought, it is for his
+genteel appearance on the scaffold; as when he begs the barber "not
+to cut his hair too short, or they won't know him when he comes
+out".  His last proceeding but one is to write two romantic love
+letters to women who have no existence.  His last proceeding of all
+(but less characteristic, though the only true one) is to swoon
+away, miserably, in the arms of the attendants, and be hanged up
+like a craven dog.
+
+Is not such a history, from first to last, a most revolting and
+disgraceful one; and can the student of it bring himself to believe
+that it ever could have place in any record of facts, or that the
+miserable chief-actor in it could have ever had a motive for his
+arrogant wickedness, but for the comment and the explanation which
+the Punishment of Death supplies!
+
+It is not a solitary case, nor is it a prodigy, but a mere specimen
+of a class.  The case of Oxford, who fired at Her Majesty in the
+Park, will be found, on examination, to resemble it very nearly, in
+the essential feature.  There is no proved pretence whatever for
+regarding him as mad; other than that he was like this malefactor,
+brimful of conceit, and a desire to become, even at the cost of the
+gallows (the only cost within his reach) the talk of the town.  He
+had less invention than Hocker, and perhaps was not so deliberately
+bad; but his attempt was a branch of the same tree, and it has its
+root in the ground where the scaffold is erected.
+
+Oxford had his imitators.  Let it never be forgotten in the
+consideration of this part of the subject, how they were stopped.
+So long as attempts invested them with the distinction of being in
+danger of death at the hangman's hands, so long did they spring up.
+When the penalty of death was removed, and a mean and humiliating
+punishment substituted in its place, the race was at an end, and
+ceased to be.
+
+
+II
+
+
+We come, now, to consider the effect of Capital Punishment in the
+prevention of crime.
+
+Does it prevent crime in those who attend executions?
+
+There never is (and there never was) an execution at the Old Bailey
+in London, but the spectators include two large classes of thieves--
+one class who go there as they would go to a dog-fight, or any other
+brutal sport, for the attraction and excitement of the spectacle;
+the other who make it a dry matter of business, and mix with the
+crowd solely to pick pockets.  Add to these, the dissolute, the
+drunken, the most idle, profligate, and abandoned of both sexes--
+some moody ill-conditioned minds, drawn thither by a fearful
+interest--and some impelled by curiosity; of whom the greater part
+are of an age and temperament rendering the gratification of that
+curiosity highly dangerous to themselves and to society--and the
+great elements of the concourse are stated.
+
+Nor is this assemblage peculiar to London.  It is the same in
+country towns, allowing for the different statistics of the
+population.  It is the same in America.  I was present at an
+execution in Rome, for a most treacherous and wicked murder, and not
+only saw the same kind of assemblage there, but, wearing what is
+called a shooting-coat, with a great many pockets in it, felt
+innumerable hands busy in every one of them, close to the scaffold.
+
+I have already mentioned that out of one hundred and sixty-seven
+convicts under sentence of death, questioned at different times in
+the performance of his duty by an English clergyman, there were only
+three who had not been spectators of executions.  Mr. Wakefield, in
+his Facts relating to the Punishment of Death, goes into the
+working, as it were, of this sum.  His testimony is extremely
+valuable, because it is the evidence of an educated and observing
+man, who, before having personal knowledge of the subject and of
+Newgate, was quite satisfied that the Punishment of Death should
+continue, but who, when he gained that experience, exerted himself
+to the utmost for its abolition, even at the pain of constant public
+reference in his own person to his own imprisonment.  "It cannot be
+egotism", he reasonably observes, "that prompts a man to speak of
+himself in connection with Newgate."
+
+"Whoever will undergo the pain," says Mr. Wakefield, "of witnessing
+the public destruction of a fellow-creature's life, in London, must
+be perfectly satisfied that in the great mass of spectators, the
+effect of the punishment is to excite sympathy for the criminal and
+hatred of the law. . . I am inclined to believe that the criminals
+of London, spoken of as a class and allowing for exceptions, take
+the same sort of delight in witnessing executions, as the sportsman
+and soldier find in the dangers of hunting and war. . . I am
+confident that few Old Bailey Sessions pass without the trial of a
+boy, whose first thought of crime occurred whilst he was witnessing
+an execution. . . And one grown man, of great mental powers and
+superior education, who was acquitted of a charge of forgery,
+assured me that the first idea of committing a forgery occurred to
+him at the moment when he was accidentally witnessing the execution
+of Fauntleroy.  To which it may be added, that Fauntleroy is said to
+have made precisely the same declaration in reference to the origin
+of his own criminality.
+
+But one convict "who was within an ace of being hanged", among the
+many with whom Mr. Wakefield conversed, seems to me to have
+unconsciously put a question which the advocates of Capital
+Punishment would find it very difficult indeed to answer.  "Have you
+often seen an execution?" asked Mr. Wakefield.  "Yes, often."  "Did
+it not frighten you?"  "No.  Why should it?"
+
+It is very easy and very natural to turn from this ruffian, shocked
+by the hardened retort; but answer his question, why should it?
+Should he be frightened by the sight of a dead man?  We are born to
+die, he says, with a careless triumph.  We are not born to the
+treadmill, or to servitude and slavery, or to banishment; but the
+executioner has done no more for that criminal than nature may do
+tomorrow for the judge, and will certainly do, in her own good time,
+for judge and jury, counsel and witnesses, turnkeys, hangman, and
+all.  Should he be frightened by the manner of the death?  It is
+horrible, truly, so horrible, that the law, afraid or ashamed of its
+own deed, hides the face of the struggling wretch it slays; but does
+this fact naturally awaken in such a man, terror--or defiance?  Let
+the same man speak.  "What did you think then?" asked Mr. Wakefield.
+"Think?  Why, I thought it was a--shame."
+
+Disgust and indignation, or recklessness and indifference, or a
+morbid tendency to brood over the sight until temptation is
+engendered by it, are the inevitable consequences of the spectacle,
+according to the difference of habit and disposition in those who
+behold it.  Why should it frighten or deter?  We know it does not.
+We know it from the police reports, and from the testimony of those
+who have experience of prisons and prisoners, and we may know it, on
+the occasion of an execution, by the evidence of our own senses; if
+we will be at the misery of using them for such a purpose.  But why
+should it?  Who would send his child or his apprentice, or what
+tutor would send his scholars, or what master would send his
+servants, to be deterred from vice by the spectacle of an execution?
+If it be an example to criminals, and to criminals only, why are not
+the prisoners in Newgate brought out to see the show before the
+debtors' door?  Why, while they are made parties to the condemned
+sermon, are they rigidly excluded from the improving postscript of
+the gallows?  Because an execution is well known to be an utterly
+useless, barbarous, and brutalising sight, and because the sympathy
+of all beholders, who have any sympathy at all, is certain to be
+always with the criminal, and never with the law.
+
+I learn from the newspaper accounts of every execution, how Mr. So-
+and-so, and Mr. Somebody else, and Mr. So-forth shook hands with the
+culprit, but I never find them shaking hands with the hangman.  All
+kinds of attention and consideration are lavished on the one; but
+the other is universally avoided, like a pestilence.  I want to know
+why so much sympathy is expended on the man who kills another in the
+vehemence of his own bad passions, and why the man who kills him in
+the name of the law is shunned and fled from?  Is it because the
+murderer is going to die?  Then by no means put him to death.  Is it
+because the hangman executes a law, which, when they once come near
+it face to face, all men instinctively revolt from?  Then by all
+means change it.  There is, there can be, no prevention in such a
+law.
+
+It may be urged that Public Executions are not intended for the
+benefit of those dregs of society who habitually attend them.  This
+is an absurdity, to which the obvious answer is, So much the worse.
+If they be not considered with reference to that class of persons,
+comprehending a great host of criminals in various stages of
+development, they ought to be, and must be.  To lose sight of that
+consideration is to be irrational, unjust, and cruel.  All other
+punishments are especially devised, with a reference to the rooted
+habits, propensities, and antipathies of criminals.  And shall it be
+said, out of Bedlam, that this last punishment of all is alone to be
+made an exception from the rule, even where it is shown to be a
+means of propagating vice and crime?
+
+But there may be people who do not attend executions, to whom the
+general fame and rumour of such scenes is an example, and a means of
+deterring from crime.
+
+Who are they?  We have seen that around Capital Punishment there
+lingers a fascination, urging weak and bad people towards it, and
+imparting an interest to details connected with it, and with
+malefactors awaiting it or suffering it, which even good and well-
+disposed people cannot withstand.  We know that last-dying speeches
+and Newgate calendars are the favourite literature of very low
+intellects.  The gallows is not appealed to as an example in the
+instruction of youth (unless they are training for it); nor are
+there condensed accounts of celebrated executions for the use of
+national schools.  There is a story in an old spelling-book of a
+certain Don't Care who was hanged at last, but it is not understood
+to have had any remarkable effect on crimes or executions in the
+generation to which it belonged, and with which it has passed away.
+Hogarth's idle apprentice is hanged; but the whole scene--with the
+unmistakable stout lady, drunk and pious, in the cast; the
+quarrelling, blasphemy, lewdness, and uproar; Tiddy Doll vending his
+gingerbread, and the boys picking his pocket--is a bitter satire on
+the great example; as efficient then, as now.
+
+Is it efficient to prevent crime?  The parliamentary returns
+demonstrate that it is not.  I was engaged in making some extracts
+from these documents, when I found them so well abstracted in one of
+the papers published by the committee on this subject established at
+Aylesbury last year, by the humane exertions of Lord Nugent, that I
+am glad to quote the general results from its pages:
+
+
+"In 1843 a return was laid on the table of the House of the
+commitments and executions for murder in England and Wales during
+the thirty years ending with December 1842, divided into five
+periods of six years each.  It shows that in the last six years,
+from 1836 to 1842, during which there were only 50 executions, the
+commitments for murder were fewer by 61 than in the six years
+preceding with 74 executions; fewer by 63 than in the six years
+ending 1830 with 75 executions; fewer by 56 than in the six years
+ending 1824 with 94 executions; and fewer by 93 than in the six
+years ending 1818 when there was no less a number of executions than
+122.  But it may be said, perhaps, that in the inference we draw
+from this return, we are substituting cause for effect, and that in
+each successive cycle, the number of murders decreased in
+consequence of the example of public executions in the cycle
+immediately preceding, and that it was for that reason there were
+fewer commitments.  This might be said with some colour of truth, if
+the example had been taken from two successive cycles only.  But
+when the comparative examples adduced are of no less than five
+successive cycles, and the result gradually and constantly
+progressive in the same direction, the relation of facts to each
+other is determined beyond all ground for dispute, namely, that the
+number of these crimes has diminished in consequence of the
+diminution of the number of executions.  More especially when it is
+also remembered that it was immediately after the first of these
+cycles of five years, when there had been the greatest number of
+executions and the greatest number of murders, that the greatest
+number of persons were suddenly cast loose upon the country, without
+employ, by the reduction of the Army and Navy; that then came
+periods of great distress and great disturbance in the agricultural
+and manufacturing districts; and above all, that it was during the
+subsequent cycles that the most important mitigations were effected
+in the law, and that the Punishment of Death was taken away not only
+for crimes of stealth, such as cattle and horse stealing and
+forgery, of which crimes corresponding statistics show likewise a
+corresponding decrease, but for the crimes of violence too, tending
+to murder, such as are many of the incendiary offences, and such as
+are highway robbery and burglary.  But another return, laid before
+the House at the same time, bears upon our argument, if possible,
+still more conclusively.  In table 11 we have only the years which
+have occurred since 1810, in which all persons convicted of murder
+suffered death; and, compared with these an equal number of years in
+which the smallest proportion of persons convicted were executed.
+In the first case there were 66 persons convicted, all of whom
+underwent the penalty of death; in the second 83 were convicted, of
+whom 31 only were executed.  Now see how these two very different
+methods of dealing with the crime of murder affected the commission
+of it in the years immediately following.  The number of commitments
+for murder, in the four years immediately following those in which
+all persons convicted were executed, was 270.
+
+"In the four years immediately following those in which little more
+than one-third of the persons convicted were executed, there were
+but 222, being 48 less.  If we compare the commitments in the
+following years with those in the first years, we shall find that,
+immediately after the examples of unsparing execution, the crime
+increased nearly 13 per cent., and that after commutation was the
+practice and capital punishment the exception, it decreased 17 per
+cent.
+
+"In the same parliamentary return is an account of the commitments
+and executions in London and Middlesex, spread over a space of 32
+years, ending in 1842, divided into two cycles of 16 years each.  In
+the first of these, 34 persons were convicted of murder, all of whom
+were executed.  In the second, 27 were convicted, and only 17
+executed.  The commitments for murder during the latter long period,
+with 17 executions, were more than one half fewer than they had been
+in the former long period with exactly double the number of
+executions.  This appears to us to be as conclusive upon our
+argument as any statistical illustration can be upon any argument
+professing to place successive events in the relation of cause and
+effect to each other.  How justly then is it said in that able and
+useful periodical work, now in the course of publication at Glasgow,
+under the name of the Magazine of Popular Information on Capital and
+Secondary Punishment, 'the greater the number of executions, the
+greater the number of murders; the smaller the number of executions,
+the smaller the number of murders.  The lives of her Majesty's
+subjects are less safe with a hundred executions a year than with
+fifty; less safe with fifty than with twenty-five.'"
+
+
+Similar results have followed from rendering public executions more
+and more infrequent, in Tuscany, in Prussia, in France, in Belgium.
+Wherever capital punishments are diminished in their number, there,
+crimes diminish in their number too.
+
+But the very same advocates of the punishment of Death who contend,
+in the teeth of all facts and figures, that it does prevent crime,
+contend in the same breath against its abolition because it does
+not!  "There are so many bad murders," say they, "and they follow in
+such quick succession, that the Punishment must not be repealed."
+Why, is not this a reason, among others, for repealing it?  Does it
+not go to show that it is ineffective as an example; that it fails
+to prevent crime; and that it is wholly inefficient to stay that
+imitation, or contagion, call it what you please, which brings one
+murder on the heels of another?
+
+One forgery came crowding on another's heels in the same way, when
+the same punishment attached to that crime.  Since it has been
+removed, forgeries have diminished in a most remarkable degree.  Yet
+within five and thirty years, Lord Eldon, with tearful solemnity,
+imagined in the House of Lords as a possibility for their Lordships
+to shudder at, that the time might come when some visionary and
+morbid person might even propose the abolition of the punishment of
+Death for forgery.  And when it was proposed, Lords Lyndhurst,
+Wynford, Tenterden, and Eldon--all Law Lords--opposed it.
+
+The same Lord Tenterden manfully said, on another occasion and
+another question, that he was glad the subject of the amendment of
+the laws had been taken up by Mr. Peel, "who had not been bred to
+the law; for those who were, were rendered dull, by habit, to many
+of its defects!"  I would respectfully submit, in extension of this
+text, that a criminal judge is an excellent witness against the
+Punishment of Death, but a bad witness in its favour; and I will
+reserve this point for a few remarks in the next, concluding,
+Letter.
+
+
+III
+
+
+The last English Judge, I believe, who gave expression to a public
+and judicial opinion in favour of the punishment of Death, is Mr.
+Justice Coleridge, who, in charging the Grand Jury at Hertford last
+year, took occasion to lament the presence of serious crimes in the
+calendar, and to say that he feared that they were referable to the
+comparative infrequency of Capital Punishment.
+
+It is not incompatible with the utmost deference and respect for an
+authority so eminent, to say that, in this, Mr. Justice Coleridge
+was not supported by facts, but quite the reverse.  He went out of
+his way to found a general assumption on certain very limited and
+partial grounds, and even on those grounds was wrong.  For among the
+few crimes which he instanced, murder stood prominently forth.  Now
+persons found guilty of murder are more certainly and unsparingly
+hanged at this time, as the Parliamentary Returns demonstrate, than
+such criminals ever were.  So how can the decline of public
+executions affect that class of crimes?  As to persons committing
+murder, and yet not found guilty of it by juries, they escape solely
+because there are many public executions--not because there are none
+or few.
+
+But when I submit that a criminal judge is an excellent witness
+against Capital Punishment, but a bad witness in its favour, I do so
+on more broad and general grounds than apply to this error in fact
+and deduction (so I presume to consider it) on the part of the
+distinguished judge in question.  And they are grounds which do not
+apply offensively to judges, as a class; than whom there are no
+authorities in England so deserving of general respect and
+confidence, or so possessed of it; but which apply alike to all men
+in their several degrees and pursuits.
+
+It is certain that men contract a general liking for those things
+which they have studied at great cost of time and intellect, and
+their proficiency in which has led to their becoming distinguished
+and successful.  It is certain that out of this feeling arises, not
+only that passive blindness to their defects of which the example
+given by my Lord Tenterden was quoted in the last letter, but an
+active disposition to advocate and defend them.  If it were
+otherwise; if it were not for this spirit of interest and
+partisanship; no single pursuit could have that attraction for its
+votaries which most pursuits in course of time establish.  Thus
+legal authorities are usually jealous of innovations on legal
+principles.  Thus it is described of the lawyer in the Introductory
+Discourse to the Description of Utopia, that he said of a proposal
+against Capital Punishment, "'this could never be so established in
+England but that it must needs bring the weal-public into great
+jeopardy and hazard', and as he was thus saying, he shaked his head,
+and made a wry mouth, and so he held his peace".  Thus the Recorder
+of London, in 1811, objected to "the capital part being taken off"
+from the offence of picking pockets.  Thus the Lord Chancellor, in
+1813, objected to the removal of the penalty of death from the
+offence of stealing to the amount of five shillings from a shop.
+Thus, Lord Ellenborough, in 1820, anticipated the worst effects from
+there being no punishment of death for stealing five shillings worth
+of wet linen from a bleaching ground.  Thus the Solicitor General,
+in 1830, advocated the punishment of death for forgery, and "the
+satisfaction of thinking" in the teeth of mountains of evidence from
+bankers and other injured parties (one thousand bankers alone!)
+"that he was deterring persons from the commission of crime, by the
+severity of the law".  Thus, Mr. Justice Coleridge delivered his
+charge at Hertford in 1845.  Thus there were in the criminal code of
+England, in 1790, one hundred and sixty crimes punishable with
+death.  Thus the lawyer has said, again and again, in his
+generation, that any change in such a state of things "must needs
+bring the weal-public into jeopardy and hazard".  And thus he has,
+all through the dismal history, "shaked his head, and made a wry
+mouth, and held his peace".  Except--a glorious exception!--when
+such lawyers as Bacon, More, Blackstone, Romilly, and--let us ever
+gratefully remember--in later times Mr. Basil Montagu, have striven,
+each in his day, within the utmost limits of the endurance of the
+mistaken feeling of the people or the legislature of the time, to
+champion and maintain the truth.
+
+There is another and a stronger reason still, why a criminal judge
+is a bad witness in favour of the punishment of Death.  He is a
+chief actor in the terrible drama of a trial, where the life or
+death of a fellow creature is at issue.  No one who has seen such a
+trial can fail to know, or can ever forget, its intense interest.  I
+care not how painful this interest is to the good, wise judge upon
+the bench.  I admit its painful nature, and the judge's goodness and
+wisdom to the fullest extent--but I submit that his prominent share
+in the excitement of such a trial, and the dread mystery involved,
+has a tendency to bewilder and confuse the judge upon the general
+subject of that penalty.  I know the solemn pause before the
+verdict, the bush and stifling of the fever in the court, the
+solitary figure brought back to the bar, and standing there,
+observed of all the outstretched heads and gleaming eyes, to be next
+minute stricken dead as one may say, among them.  I know the thrill
+that goes round when the black cap is put on, and how there will be
+shrieks among the women, and a taking out of some one in a swoon;
+and, when the judge's faltering voice delivers sentence, how awfully
+the prisoner and he confront each other; two mere men, destined one
+day, however far removed from one another at this time, to stand
+alike as suppliants at the bar of God.  I know all this, I can
+imagine what the office of the judge costs in this execution of it;
+but I say that in these strong sensations he is lost, and is unable
+to abstract the penalty as a preventive or example, from an
+experience of it, and from associations surrounding it, which are
+and can be, only his, and his alone.
+
+Not to contend that there is no amount of wig or ermine that can
+change the nature of the man inside; not to say that the nature of a
+judge may be, like the dyer's hand, subdued to what it works in, and
+may become too used to this punishment of death to consider it quite
+dispassionately; not to say that it may possibly be inconsistent to
+have, deciding as calm authorities in favour of death, judges who
+have been constantly sentencing to death;--I contend that for the
+reasons I have stated alone, a judge, and especially a criminal
+judge, is a bad witness for the punishment but an excellent witness
+against it, inasmuch as in the latter case his conviction of its
+inutility has been so strong and paramount as utterly to beat down
+and conquer these adverse incidents.  I have no scruple in stating
+this position, because, for anything I know, the majority of
+excellent judges now on the bench may have overcome them, and may be
+opposed to the punishment of Death under any circumstances.
+
+I mentioned that I would devote a portion of this letter to a few
+prominent illustrations of each head of objection to the punishment
+of Death.  Those on record are so very numerous that selection is
+extremely difficult; but in reference to the possibility of mistake,
+and the impossibility of reparation, one case is as good (I should
+rather say as bad) as a hundred; and if there were none but Eliza
+Fenning's, that would be sufficient.  Nay, if there were none at
+all, it would be enough to sustain this objection, that men of
+finite and limited judgment do inflict, on testimony which admits of
+doubt, an infinite and irreparable punishment.  But there are on
+record numerous instances of mistake; many of them very generally
+known and immediately recognisable in the following summary, which I
+copy from the New York Report already referred to.
+
+
+"There have been cases in which groans have been heard in the
+apartment of the crime, which have attracted the steps of those on
+whose testimony the case has turned--when, on proceeding to the
+spot, they have found a man bending over the murdered body, a
+lantern in the left hand, and the knife yet dripping with the warm
+current in the blood-stained right, with horror-stricken
+countenance, and lips which, in the presence of the dead, seem to
+refuse to deny the crime in the very act of which he is thus
+surprised--and yet the man has been, many years after, when his
+memory alone could be benefited by the discovery, ascertained not to
+have been the real murderer!  There have been cases in which, in a
+house in which were two persons alone, a murder has been committed
+on one of them--when many additional circumstances have fastened the
+imputation upon the other--and when, all apparent modes of access
+from without, being closed inward, the demonstration has seemed
+complete of the guilt for which that other has suffered the doom of
+the law--yet suffered innocently!  There have been cases in which a
+father has been found murdered in an outhouse, the only person at
+home being a son, sworn by a sister to have been dissolute and
+undutiful, and anxious for the death of the father, and succession
+to the family property--when the track of his shoes in the snow is
+found from the house to the spot of the murder, and the hammer with
+which it was committed (known as his own), found, on a search, in
+the corner of one of his private drawers, with the bloody evidence
+of the deed only imperfectly effaced from it--and yet the son has
+been innocent!--the sister, years after, on her death-bed,
+confessing herself the fratricide as well as the parricide.  There
+have been cases in which men have been hung on the most positive
+testimony to identity (aided by many suspicious circumstances), by
+persons familiar with their appearance, which have afterwards proved
+grievous mistakes, growing out of remarkable personal resemblance.
+There have been cases in which two men have been seen fighting in a
+field--an old enmity existing between them--the one found dead,
+killed by a stab from a pitchfork known as belonging to the other,
+and which that other had been carrying, the pitch-fork lying by the
+side of the murdered man--and yet its owner has been afterwards
+found not to have been the author of the murder of which it had been
+the instrument, the true murderer sitting on the jury that tried
+him.  There have been cases in which an innkeeper has been charged
+by one of his servants with the murder of a traveller, the servant
+deposing to having seen his master on the stranger's bed, strangling
+him, and afterwards rifling his pockets--another servant deposing
+that she saw him come down at that time at a very early hour in the
+morning, steal into the garden, take gold from his pocket, and
+carefully wrapping it up bury it in a designated spot--on the search
+of which the ground is found loose and freshly dug, and a sum of
+thirty pounds in gold found buried according to the description--the
+master, who confessed the burying of the money, with many evidences
+of guilt in his hesitation and confusion, has been hung of course,
+and proved innocent only too late.  There have been cases in which a
+traveller has been robbed on the highway of twenty guineas, which he
+had taken the precaution to mark--one of these is found to have been
+paid away or changed by one of the servants of the inn which the
+traveller reaches the same evening--the servant is about the height
+of the robber, who had been cloaked and disguised--his master
+deposes to his having been recently unaccountably extravagant and
+flush of gold--and on his trunk being searched the other nineteen
+marked guineas and the traveller's purse are found there, the
+servant being asleep at the time, half-drunk--he is of course
+convicted and hung, for the crime of which his master was the
+author!  There have been cases in which a father and daughter have
+been overheard in violent dispute--the words "barbarity", "cruelly",
+and "death", being heard frequently to proceed from the latter--the
+former goes out locking the door behind him--groans are overheard,
+and the words, "cruel father, thou art the cause of my death!"--on
+the room being opened she is found on the point of death from a
+wound in her side, and near her the knife with which it had been
+inflicted--and on being questioned as to her owing her death to her
+father, her last motion before expiring is an expression of assent--
+the father, on returning to the room, exhibits the usual evidences
+of guilt--he, too, is of course hung--and it is not till nearly a
+year afterwards that, on the discovery of conclusive evidence that
+it was a suicide, the vain reparation is made, to his memory by the
+public authorities, of--waving a pair of colours over his grave in
+token of the recognition of his innocence."
+
+
+More than a hundred such cases are known, it is said in this Report,
+in English criminal jurisprudence.  The same Report contains three
+striking cases of supposed criminals being unjustly hanged in
+America; and also five more in which people whose innocence was not
+afterwards established were put to death on evidence as purely
+circumstantial and as doubtful, to say the least of it, as any that
+was held to be sufficient in this general summary of legal murders.
+Mr. O'Connell defended, in Ireland, within five and twenty years,
+three brothers who were hanged for a murder of which they were
+afterwards shown to have been innocent.  I cannot find the reference
+at this moment, but I have seen it stated on good authority, that
+but for the exertions, I think of the present Lord Chief Baron, six
+or seven innocent men would certainly have been hanged.  Such are
+the instances of wrong judgment which are known to us.  How many
+more there may be in which the real murderers never disclosed their
+guilt, or were never discovered, and where the odium of great crimes
+still rests on guiltless people long since resolved to dust in their
+untimely graves, no human power can tell.
+
+The effect of public executions on those who witness them, requires
+no better illustration, and can have none, than the scene which any
+execution in itself presents, and the general Police-office
+knowledge of the offences arising out of them.  I have stated my
+belief that the study of rude scenes leads to the disregard of human
+life, and to murder.  Referring, since that expression of opinion,
+to the very last trial for murder in London, I have made inquiry,
+and am assured that the youth now under sentence of death in Newgate
+for the murder of his master in Drury Lane, was a vigilant spectator
+of the three last public executions in this City.  What effects a
+daily increasing familiarity with the scaffold, and with death upon
+it, wrought in France in the Great Revolution, everybody knows.  In
+reference to this very question of Capital Punishment, Robespierre
+himself, before he was
+
+
+"in blood stept in so far",
+
+
+warned the National Assembly that in taking human life, and in
+displaying before the eyes of the people scenes of cruelty and the
+bodies of murdered men, the law awakened ferocious prejudices, which
+gave birth to a long and growing train of their own kind.  With how
+much reason this was said, let his own detestable name bear witness!
+If we would know how callous and hardened society, even in a
+peaceful and settled state, becomes to public executions when they
+are frequent, let us recollect how few they were who made the last
+attempt to stay the dreadful Monday-morning spectacles of men and
+women strung up in a row for crimes as different in their degree as
+our whole social scheme is different in its component parts, which,
+within some fifteen years or so, made human shambles of the Old
+Bailey.
+
+There is no better way of testing the effect of public executions on
+those who do not actually behold them, but who read of them and know
+of them, than by inquiring into their efficiency in preventing
+crime.  In this respect they have always, and in all countries,
+failed.  According to all facts and figures, failed.  In Russia, in
+Spain, in France, in Italy, in Belgium, in Sweden, in England, there
+has been one result.  In Bombay, during the Recordership of Sir
+James Macintosh, there were fewer crimes in seven years without one
+execution, than in the preceding seven years with forty-seven
+executions; notwithstanding that in the seven years without capital
+punishment, the population had greatly increased, and there had been
+a large accession to the numbers of the ignorant and licentious
+soldiery, with whom the more violent offences originated.  During
+the four wickedest years of the Bank of England (from 1814 to 1817,
+inclusive), when the one-pound note capital prosecutions were most
+numerous and shocking, the number of forged one-pound notes
+discovered by the Bank steadily increased, from the gross amount in
+the first year of 10,342 pounds, to the gross amount in the last of
+28,412 pounds.  But in every branch of this part of the subject--the
+inefficiency of capital punishment to prevent crime, and its
+efficiency to produce it--the body of evidence (if there were space
+to quote or analyse it here) is overpowering and resistless.
+
+I have purposely deferred until now any reference to one objection
+which is urged against the abolition of capital punishment:  I mean
+that objection which claims to rest on Scriptural authority.
+
+It was excellently well said by Lord Melbourne, that no class of
+persons can be shown to be very miserable and oppressed, but some
+supporters of things as they are will immediately rise up and
+assert--not that those persons are moderately well to do, or that
+their lot in life has a reasonably bright side--but that they are,
+of all sorts and conditions of men, the happiest.  In like manner,
+when a certain proceeding or institution is shown to be very wrong
+indeed, there is a class of people who rush to the fountainhead at
+once, and will have no less an authority for it than the Bible, on
+any terms.
+
+So, we have the Bible appealed to in behalf of Capital Punishment.
+So, we have the Bible produced as a distinct authority for Slavery.
+So, American representatives find the title of their country to the
+Oregon territory distinctly laid down in the Book of Genesis.  So,
+in course of time, we shall find Repudiation, perhaps, expressly
+commanded in the Sacred Writings.
+
+It is enough for me to be satisfied, on calm inquiry and with
+reason, that an Institution or Custom is wrong and bad; and thence
+to feel assured that IT CANNOT BE a part of the law laid down by the
+Divinity who walked the earth.  Though every other man who wields a
+pen should turn himself into a commentator on the Scriptures--not
+all their united efforts, pursued through our united lives, could
+ever persuade me that Slavery is a Christian law; nor, with one of
+these objections to an execution in my certain knowledge, that
+Executions are a Christian law, my will is not concerned.  I could
+not, in my veneration for the life and lessons of Our Lord, believe
+it.  If any text appeared to justify the claim, I would reject that
+limited appeal, and rest upon the character of the Redeemer, and the
+great scheme of His Religion, where, in its broad spirit, made so
+plain--and not this or that disputed letter--we all put our trust.
+But, happily, such doubts do not exist.  The case is far too plain.
+The Rev. Henry Christmas, in a recent pamphlet on this subject,
+shows clearly that in five important versions of the Old Testament
+(to say nothing of versions of less note) the words, "by man", in
+the often-quoted text, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his
+blood be shed", do not appear at all.  We know that the law of Moses
+was delivered to certain wandering tribes in a peculiar and
+perfectly different social condition from that which prevails among
+us at this time.  We know that the Christian Dispensation did
+distinctly repeal and annul certain portions of that law.  We know
+that the doctrine of retributive justice or vengeance, was plainly
+disavowed by the Saviour.  We know that on the only occasion of an
+offender, liable by the law to death, being brought before Him for
+His judgment, it was not death.  We know that He said, "Thou shalt
+not kill".  And if we are still to inflict capital punishment
+because of the Mosaic law (under which it was not the consequence of
+a legal proceeding, but an act of vengeance from the next of kin,
+which would surely be discouraged by our later laws if it were
+revived among the Jews just now) it would be equally reasonable to
+establish the lawfulness of a plurality of wives on the same
+authority.
+
+Here I will leave this aspect of the question.  I should not have
+treated of it at all in the columns of a newspaper, but for the
+possibility of being unjustly supposed to have given it no
+consideration in my own mind.
+
+In bringing to a close these letters on a subject, in connection
+with which there is happily very little that is new to be said or
+written, I beg to be understood as advocating the total abolition of
+the Punishment of Death, as a general principle, for the advantage
+of society, for the prevention of crime, and without the least
+reference to, or tenderness for any individual malefactor
+whomsoever.  Indeed, in most cases of murder, my feeling towards the
+culprit is very strongly and violently the reverse.  I am the more
+desirous to be so understood, after reading a speech made by Mr.
+Macaulay in the House of Commons last Tuesday night, in which that
+accomplished gentleman hardly seemed to recognise the possibility of
+anybody entertaining an honest conviction of the inutility and bad
+effects of Capital Punishment in the abstract, founded on inquiry
+and reflection, without being the victim of "a kind of effeminate
+feeling".  Without staying to inquire what there may be that is
+especially manly and heroic in the advocacy of the gallows, or to
+express my admiration of Mr. Calcraft, the hangman, as doubtless one
+of the most manly specimens now in existence, I would simply hint a
+doubt, in all good humour, whether this be the true Macaulay way of
+meeting a great question?  One of the instances of effeminacy of
+feeling quoted by Mr. Macaulay, I have reason to think was not quite
+fairly stated.  I allude to the petition in Tawell's case.  I had
+neither hand nor part in it myself; but, unless I am greatly
+mistaken, it did pretty clearly set forth that Tawell was a most
+abhorred villain, and that the House might conclude how strongly the
+petitioners were opposed to the Punishment of Death, when they
+prayed for its non-infliction even in such a case.
+
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY IN WESTMINSTER HALL
+
+
+
+"Of all the cants that are canted in this canting world," wrote
+Sterne, "kind Heaven defend me from the cant of Art!"  We have no
+intention of tapping our little cask of cant, soured by the thunder
+of great men's fame, for the refreshment of our readers:  its freest
+draught would be unreasonably dear at a shilling, when the same
+small liquor may be had for nothing, at innumerable ready pipes and
+conduits.
+
+But it is a main part of the design of this Magazine to sympathise
+with what is truly great and good; to scout the miserable
+discouragements that beset, especially in England, the upward path
+of men of high desert; and gladly to give honour where it is due, in
+right of Something achieved, tending to elevate the tastes and
+thoughts of all who contemplate it, and prove a lasting credit to
+the country of its birth.
+
+Upon the walls of Westminster Hall, there hangs, at this time, such
+a Something.  A composition of such marvellous beauty, of such
+infinite variety, of such masterly design, of such vigorous and
+skilful drawing, of such thought and fancy, of such surprising and
+delicate accuracy of detail, subserving one grand harmony, and one
+plain purpose, that it may be questioned whether the Fine Arts in
+any period of their history have known a more remarkable
+performance.
+
+It is the cartoon of Daniel Maclise, "executed by order of the
+Commissioners", and called The Spirit of Chivalry.  It may be left
+an open question, whether or no this allegorical order on the part
+of the Commissioners, displays any uncommon felicity of idea.  We
+rather think not; and are free to confess that we should like to
+have seen the Commissioners' notion of the Spirit of Chivalry stated
+by themselves, in the first instance, on a sheet of foolscap, as the
+ground-plan of a model cartoon, with all the commissioned
+proportions of height and breadth.  That the treatment of such an
+abstraction, for the purposes of Art, involves great and peculiar
+difficulties, no one who considers the subject for a moment can
+doubt.  That nothing is easier to render it absurd and monstrous, is
+a position as little capable of dispute by anybody who has beheld
+another cartoon on the same subject in the same Hall, representing a
+Ghoule in a state of raving madness, dancing on a Body in a very
+high wind, to the great astonishment of John the Baptist's head,
+which is looking on from a corner.
+
+Mr. Maclise's handling of the subject has by this time sunk into the
+hearts of thousands upon thousands of people.  It is familiar
+knowledge among all classes and conditions of men.  It is the great
+feature within the Hall, and the constant topic of discourse
+elsewhere.  It has awakened in the great body of society a new
+interest in, and a new perception and a new love of, Art.  Students
+of Art have sat before it, hour by hour, perusing in its many forms
+of Beauty, lessons to delight the world, and raise themselves, its
+future teachers, in its better estimation.  Eyes well accustomed to
+the glories of the Vatican, the galleries of Florence, all the
+mightiest works of art in Europe, have grown dim before it with the
+strong emotions it inspires; ignorant, unlettered, drudging men,
+mere hewers and drawers, have gathered in a knot about it (as at our
+back a week ago), and read it, in their homely language, as it were
+a Book.  In minds, the roughest and the most refined, it has alike
+found quick response; and will, and must, so long as it shall hold
+together.
+
+For how can it be otherwise?  Look up, upon the pressing throng who
+strive to win distinction from the Guardian Genius of all noble
+deeds and honourable renown,--a gentle Spirit, holding her fair
+state for their reward and recognition (do not be alarmed, my Lord
+Chamberlain; this is only in a picture); and say what young and
+ardent heart may not find one to beat in unison with it--beat high
+with generous aspiration like its own--in following their onward
+course, as it is traced by this great pencil!  Is it the Love of
+Woman, in its truth and deep devotion, that inspires you?  See it
+here!  Is it Glory, as the world has learned to call the pomp and
+circumstance of arms?  Behold it at the summit of its exaltation,
+with its mailed hand resting on the altar where the Spirit
+ministers.  The Poet's laurel-crown, which they who sit on thrones
+can neither twine or wither--is that the aim of thy ambition?  It is
+there, upon his brow; it wreathes his stately forehead, as he walks
+apart and holds communion with himself.  The Palmer and the Bard are
+there; no solitary wayfarers, now; but two of a great company of
+pilgrims, climbing up to honour by the different paths that lead to
+the great end.  And sure, amidst the gravity and beauty of them all-
+-unseen in his own form, but shining in his spirit, out of every
+gallant shape and earnest thought--the Painter goes triumphant!
+
+Or say that you who look upon this work, be old, and bring to it
+grey hairs, a head bowed down, a mind on which the day of life has
+spent itself, and the calm evening closes gently in.  Is its appeal
+to you confined to its presentment of the Past?  Have you no share
+in this, but while the grace of youth and the strong resolve of
+maturity are yours to aid you?  Look up again.  Look up where the
+spirit is enthroned, and see about her, reverend men, whose task is
+done; whose struggle is no more; who cluster round her as her train
+and council; who have lost no share or interest in that great rising
+up and progress, which bears upward with it every means of human
+happiness, but, true in Autumn to the purposes of Spring, are there
+to stimulate the race who follow in their steps; to contemplate,
+with hearts grown serious, not cold or sad, the striving in which
+they once had part; to die in that great Presence, which is Truth
+and Bravery, and Mercy to the Weak, beyond all power of separation.
+
+It would be idle to observe of this last group that, both in
+execution and idea, they are of the very highest order of Art, and
+wonderfully serve the purpose of the picture.  There is not one
+among its three-and-twenty heads of which the same remark might not
+be made.  Neither will we treat of great effects produced by means
+quite powerless in other hands for such an end, or of the prodigious
+force and colour which so separate this work from all the rest
+exhibited, that it would scarcely appear to be produced upon the
+same kind of surface by the same description of instrument.  The
+bricks and stones and timbers of the Hall itself are not facts more
+indisputable than these.
+
+It has been objected to this extraordinary work that it is too
+elaborately finished; too complete in its several parts.  And Heaven
+knows, if it be judged in this respect by any standard in the Hall
+about it, it will find no parallel, nor anything approaching to it.
+But it is a design, intended to be afterwards copied and painted in
+fresco; and certain finish must be had at last, if not at first.  It
+is very well to take it for granted in a Cartoon that a series of
+cross-lines, almost as rough and apart as the lattice-work of a
+garden summerhouse, represents the texture of a human face; but the
+face cannot be painted so.  A smear upon the paper may be
+understood, by virtue of the context gained from what surrounds it,
+to stand for a limb, or a body, or a cuirass, or a hat and feathers,
+or a flag, or a boot, or an angel.  But when the time arrives for
+rendering these things in colours on a wall, they must be grappled
+with, and cannot be slurred over in this wise.  Great
+misapprehension on this head seems to have been engendered in the
+minds of some observers by the famous cartoons of Raphael; but they
+forget that these were never intended as designs for fresco
+painting.  They were designs for tapestry-work, which is susceptible
+of only certain broad and general effects, as no one better knew
+than the Great Master.  Utterly detestable and vile as the tapestry
+is, compared with the immortal Cartoons from which it was worked, it
+is impossible for any man who casts his eyes upon it where it hangs
+at Rome, not to see immediately the special adaptation of the
+drawings to that end, and for that purpose.  The aim of these
+Cartoons being wholly different, Mr. Maclise's object, if we
+understand it, was to show precisely what he meant to do, and knew
+he could perform, in fresco, on a wall.  And here his meaning is;
+worked out; without a compromise of any difficulty; without the
+avoidance of any disconcerting truth; expressed in all its beauty,
+strength, and power.
+
+To what end?  To be perpetuated hereafter in the high place of the
+chief Senate-House of England?  To be wrought, as it were, into the
+very elements of which that Temple is composed; to co-endure with
+it, and still present, perhaps, some lingering traces of its ancient
+Beauty, when London shall have sunk into a grave of grass-grown
+ruin,--and the whole circle of the Arts, another revolution of the
+mighty wheel completed, shall be wrecked and broken?
+
+Let us hope so.  We will contemplate no other possibility--at
+present.
+
+
+
+IN MEMORIAM--W. M. THACKERAY
+
+
+
+It has been desired by some of the personal friends of the great
+English writer who established this magazine, {1} that its brief
+record of his having been stricken from among men should be written
+by the old comrade and brother in arms who pens these lines, and of
+whom he often wrote himself, and always with the warmest generosity.
+
+I saw him first nearly twenty-eight years ago, when he proposed to
+become the illustrator of my earliest book.  I saw him last, shortly
+before Christmas, at the Athenaeum Club, when he told me that he had
+been in bed three days--that, after these attacks, he was troubled
+with cold shiverings, "which quite took the power of work out of
+him"--and that he had it in his mind to try a new remedy which he
+laughingly described.  He was very cheerful, and looked very bright.
+In the night of that day week, he died.
+
+The long interval between those two periods is marked in my
+remembrance of him by many occasions when he was supremely humorous,
+when he was irresistibly extravagant, when he was softened and
+serious, when he was charming with children.  But, by none do I
+recall him more tenderly than by two or three that start out of the
+crowd, when he unexpectedly presented himself in my room, announcing
+how that some passage in a certain book had made him cry yesterday,
+and how that he had come to dinner, "because he couldn't help it",
+and must talk such passage over.  No one can ever have seen him more
+genial, natural, cordial, fresh, and honestly impulsive, than I have
+seen him at those times.  No one can be surer than I, of the
+greatness and the goodness of the heart that then disclosed itself.
+
+We had our differences of opinion.  I thought that he too much
+feigned a want of earnestness, and that he made a pretence of under-
+valuing his art, which was not good for the art that he held in
+trust.  But, when we fell upon these topics, it was never very
+gravely, and I have a lively image of him in my mind, twisting both
+his hands in his hair, and stamping about, laughing, to make an end
+of the discussion.
+
+When we were associated in remembrance of the late Mr. Douglas
+Jerrold, he delivered a public lecture in London, in the course of
+which, he read his very best contribution to Punch, describing the
+grown-up cares of a poor family of young children.  No one hearing
+him could have doubted his natural gentleness, or his thoroughly
+unaffected manly sympathy with the weak and lowly.  He read the
+paper most pathetically, and with a simplicity of tenderness that
+certainly moved one of his audience to tears.  This was presently
+after his standing for Oxford, from which place he had dispatched
+his agent to me, with a droll note (to which he afterwards added a
+verbal postscript), urging me to "come down and make a speech, and
+tell them who he was, for he doubted whether more than two of the
+electors had ever heard of him, and he thought there might be as
+many as six or eight who had heard of me".  He introduced the
+lecture just mentioned, with a reference to his late electioneering
+failure, which was full of good sense, good spirits, and good
+humour.
+
+He had a particular delight in boys, and an excellent way with them.
+I remember his once asking me with fantastic gravity, when he had
+been to Eton where my eldest son then was, whether I felt as he did
+in regard of never seeing a boy without wanting instantly to give
+him a sovereign?  I thought of this when I looked down into his
+grave, after he was laid there, for I looked down into it over the
+shoulder of a boy to whom he had been kind.
+
+These are slight remembrances; but it is to little familiar things
+suggestive of the voice, look, manner, never, never more to be
+encountered on this earth, that the mind first turns in a
+bereavement.  And greater things that are known of him, in the way
+of his warm affections, his quiet endurance, his unselfish
+thoughtfulness for others, and his munificent hand, may not be told.
+
+If, in the reckless vivacity of his youth, his satirical pen had
+ever gone astray or done amiss, he had caused it to prefer its own
+petition for forgiveness, long before:-
+
+
+I've writ the foolish fancy of his brain;
+The aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pain;
+The idle word that he'd wish back again.
+
+
+In no pages should I take it upon myself at this time to discourse
+of his books, of his refined knowledge of character, of his subtle
+acquaintance with the weaknesses of human nature, of his delightful
+playfulness as an essayist, of his quaint and touching ballads, of
+his mastery over the English language.  Least of all, in these
+pages, enriched by his brilliant qualities from the first of the
+series, and beforehand accepted by the Public through the strength
+of his great name.
+
+But, on the table before me, there lies all that he had written of
+his latest and last story.  That it would be very sad to any one--
+that it is inexpressibly so to a writer--in its evidences of matured
+designs never to be accomplished, of intentions begun to be executed
+and destined never to be completed, of careful preparation for long
+roads of thought that he was never to traverse, and for shining
+goals that he was never to reach, will be readily believed.  The
+pain, however, that I have felt in perusing it, has not been deeper
+than the conviction that he was in the healthiest vigour of his
+powers when he wrought on this last labour.  In respect of earnest
+feeling, far-seeing purpose, character, incident, and a certain
+loving picturesqueness blending the whole, I believe it to be much
+the best of all his works.  That he fully meant it to be so, that he
+had become strongly attached to it, and that he bestowed great pains
+upon it, I trace in almost every page.  It contains one picture
+which must have cost him extreme distress, and which is a
+masterpiece.  There are two children in it, touched with a hand as
+loving and tender as ever a father caressed his little child with.
+There is some young love as pure and innocent and pretty as the
+truth.  And it is very remarkable that, by reason of the singular
+construction of the story, more than one main incident usually
+belonging to the end of such a fiction is anticipated in the
+beginning, and thus there is an approach to completeness in the
+fragment, as to the satisfaction of the reader's mind concerning the
+most interesting persons, which could hardly have been better
+attained if the writer's breaking-off had been foreseen.
+
+The last line he wrote, and the last proof he corrected, are among
+these papers through which I have so sorrowfully made my way.  The
+condition of the little pages of manuscript where Death stopped his
+hand, shows that he had carried them about, and often taken them out
+of his pocket here and there, for patient revision and
+interlineation.  The last words he corrected in print were, "And my
+heart throbbed with an exquisite bliss".  GOD grant that on that
+Christmas Eve when he laid his head back on his pillow and threw up
+his arms as he had been wont to do when very weary, some
+consciousness of duty done and Christian hope throughout life humbly
+cherished, may have caused his own heart so to throb, when he passed
+away to his Redeemer's rest!
+
+He was found peacefully lying as above described, composed,
+undisturbed, and to all appearance asleep, on the twenty-fourth of
+December 1863.  He was only in his fifty-third year; so young a man
+that the mother who blessed him in his first sleep blessed him in
+his last.  Twenty years before, he had written, after being in a
+white squall:
+
+
+And when, its force expended,
+The harmless storm was ended,
+And, as the sunrise splendid
+Came blushing o'er the sea;
+I thought, as day was breaking,
+My little girls were waking,
+And smiling, and making
+A prayer at home for me.
+
+
+Those little girls had grown to be women when the mournful day broke
+that saw their father lying dead.  In those twenty years of
+companionship with him they had learned much from him; and one of
+them has a literary course before her, worthy of her famous name.
+
+On the bright wintry day, the last but one of the old year, he was
+laid in his grave at Kensal Green, there to mingle the dust to which
+the mortal part of him had returned, with that of a third child,
+lost in her infancy years ago.  The heads of a great concourse of
+his fellow-workers in the Arts were bowed around his tomb.
+
+
+
+ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER
+INTRODUCTION TO HER "LEGENDS AND LYRICS"
+
+
+
+In the spring of the year 1853, I observed, as conductor of the
+weekly journal Household Words, a short poem among the proffered
+contributions, very different, as I thought, from the shoal of
+verses perpetually setting through the office of such a periodical,
+and possessing much more merit.  Its authoress was quite unknown to
+me.  She was one Miss Mary Berwick, whom I had never heard of; and
+she was to be addressed by letter, if addressed at all, at a
+circulating library in the western district of London.  Through this
+channel, Miss Berwick was informed that her poem was accepted, and
+was invited to send another.  She complied, and became a regular and
+frequent contributor.  Many letters passed between the journal and
+Miss Berwick, but Miss Berwick herself was never seen.
+
+How we came gradually to establish, at the office of Household
+Words, that we knew all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered.
+But we settled somehow, to our complete satisfaction, that she was
+governess in a family; that she went to Italy in that capacity, and
+returned; and that she had long been in the same family.  We really
+knew nothing whatever of her, except that she was remarkably
+business-like, punctual, self-reliant, and reliable:  so I suppose
+we insensibly invented the rest.  For myself, my mother was not a
+more real personage to me, than Miss Berwick the governess became.
+
+This went on until December, 1854, when the Christmas number,
+entitled The Seven Poor Travellers, was sent to press.  Happening to
+be going to dine that day with an old and dear friend, distinguished
+in literature as Barry Cornwall, I took with me an early proof of
+that number, and remarked, as I laid it on the drawing-room table,
+that it contained a very pretty poem, written by a certain Miss
+Berwick.  Next day brought me the disclosure that I had so spoken of
+the poem to the mother of its writer, in its writer's presence; that
+I had no such correspondent in existence as Miss Berwick; and that
+the name had been assumed by Barry Cornwall's eldest daughter, Miss
+Adelaide Anne Procter.
+
+The anecdote I have here noted down, besides serving to explain why
+the parents of the late Miss Procter have looked to me for these
+poor words of remembrance of their lamented child, strikingly
+illustrates the honesty, independence, and quiet dignity, of the
+lady's character.  I had known her when she was very young; I had
+been honoured with her father's friendship when I was myself a young
+aspirant; and she had said at home, "If I send him, in my own name,
+verses that he does not honestly like, either it will be very
+painful to him to return them, or he will print them for papa's
+sake, and not for their own.  So I have made up my mind to take my
+chance fairly with the unknown volunteers."
+
+Perhaps it requires an editor's experience of the profoundly
+unreasonable grounds on which he is often urged to accept unsuitable
+articles--such as having been to school with the writer's husband's
+brother-in-law, or having lent an alpenstock in Switzerland to the
+writer's wife's nephew, when that interesting stranger had broken
+his own--fully to appreciate the delicacy and the self-respect of
+this resolution.
+
+Some verses by Miss Procter had been published in the Book of
+Beauty, ten years before she became Miss Berwick.  With the
+exception of two poems in the Cornhill Magazine, two in Good Words,
+and others in a little book called A Chaplet of Verses (issued in
+1862 for the benefit of a Night Refuge), her published writings
+first appeared in Household Words, or All the Year Round.  The
+present edition contains the whole of her Legends and Lyrics, and
+originates in the great favour with which they have been received by
+the public.
+
+Miss Procter was born in Bedford Square, London, on the 30th of
+October, 1825.  Her love of poetry was conspicuous at so early an
+age, that I have before me a tiny album made of small note-paper,
+into which her favourite passages were copied for her by her
+mother's hand before she herself could write.  It looks as if she
+had carried it about, as another little girl might have carried a
+doll.  She soon displayed a remarkable memory, and great quickness
+of apprehension.  When she was quite a young child, she learned with
+facility several of the problems of Euclid.  As she grew older, she
+acquired the French, Italian, and German languages; became a clever
+pianoforte player; and showed a true taste and sentiment in drawing.
+But, as soon as she had completely vanquished the difficulties of
+any one branch of study, it was her way to lose interest in it, and
+pass to another.  While her mental resources were being trained, it
+was not at all suspected in her family that she had any gift of
+authorship, or any ambition to become a writer.  Her father had no
+idea of her having ever attempted to turn a rhyme, until her first
+little poem saw the light in print.
+
+When she attained to womanhood, she had read an extraordinary number
+of books, and throughout her life she was always largely adding to
+the number.  In 1853 she went to Turin and its neighbourhood, on a
+visit to her aunt, a Roman Catholic lady.  As Miss Procter had
+herself professed the Roman Catholic Faith two years before, she
+entered with the greater ardour on the study of the Piedmontese
+dialect, and the observation of the habits and manners of the
+peasantry.  In the former, she soon became a proficient.  On the
+latter head, I extract from her familiar letters written home to
+England at the time, two pleasant pieces of description.
+
+
+A BETROTHAL
+
+
+"We have been to a ball, of which I must give you a description.
+Last Tuesday we had just done dinner at about seven, and stepped out
+into the balcony to look at the remains of the sunset behind the
+mountains, when we heard very distinctly a band of music, which
+rather excited my astonishment, as a solitary organ is the utmost
+that toils up here.  I went out of the room for a few minutes, and,
+on my returning, Emily said, 'Oh!  That band is playing at the
+farmer's near here.  The daughter is fiancee to-day, and they have a
+ball.'  I said, 'I wish I was going!'  'Well,' replied she, 'the
+farmer's wife did call to invite us.'  'Then I shall certainly go,'
+I exclaimed.  I applied to Madame B., who said she would like it
+very much, and we had better go, children and all.  Some of the
+servants were already gone.  We rushed away to put on some shawls,
+and put off any shred of black we might have about us (as the people
+would have been quite annoyed if we had appeared on such an occasion
+with any black), and we started.  When we reached the farmer's,
+which is a stone's throw above our house, we were received with
+great enthusiasm; the only drawback being, that no one spoke French,
+and we did not yet speak Piedmontese.  We were placed on a bench
+against the wall, and the people went on dancing.  The room was a
+large whitewashed kitchen (I suppose), with several large pictures
+in black frames, and very smoky.  I distinguished the Martyrdom of
+Saint Sebastian, and the others appeared equally lively and
+appropriate subjects.  Whether they were Old Masters or not, and if
+so, by whom, I could not ascertain.  The band were seated opposite
+us.  Five men, with wind instruments, part of the band of the
+National Guard, to which the farmer's sons belong.  They played
+really admirably, and I began to be afraid that some idea of our
+dignity would prevent me getting a partner; so, by Madame B.'s
+advice, I went up to the bride, and offered to dance with her.  Such
+a handsome young woman!  Like one of Uwins's pictures.  Very dark,
+with a quantity of black hair, and on an immense scale.  The
+children were already dancing, as well as the maids.  After we came
+to an end of our dance, which was what they called a Polka-Mazourka,
+I saw the bride trying to screw up the courage of her fiance to ask
+me to dance, which after a little hesitation he did.  And admirably
+he danced, as indeed they all did--in excellent time, and with a
+little more spirit than one sees in a ball-room.  In fact, they were
+very like one's ordinary partners, except that they wore earrings
+and were in their shirt-sleeves, and truth compels me to state that
+they decidedly smelt of garlic.  Some of them had been smoking, but
+threw away their cigars when we came in.  The only thing that did
+not look cheerful was, that the room was only lighted by two or
+three oil-lamps, and that there seemed to be no preparation for
+refreshments.  Madame B., seeing this, whispered to her maid, who
+disengaged herself from her partner, and ran off to the house; she
+and the kitchenmaid presently returning with a large tray covered
+with all kinds of cakes (of which we are great consumers and always
+have a stock), and a large hamper full of bottles of wine, with
+coffee and sugar.  This seemed all very acceptable.  The fiancee was
+requested to distribute the eatables, and a bucket of water being
+produced to wash the glasses in, the wine disappeared very quickly--
+as fast as they could open the bottles.  But, elated, I suppose, by
+this, the floor was sprinkled with water, and the musicians played a
+Monferrino, which is a Piedmontese dance.  Madame B. danced with the
+farmer's son, and Emily with another distinguished member of the
+company.  It was very fatiguing--something like a Scotch reel.  My
+partner was a little man, like Perrot, and very proud of his
+dancing.  He cut in the air and twisted about, until I was out of
+breath, though my attempts to imitate him were feeble in the
+extreme.  At last, after seven or eight dances, I was obliged to sit
+down.  We stayed till nine, and I was so dead beat with the heat
+that I could hardly crawl about the house, and in an agony with the
+cramp, it is so long since I have danced."
+
+
+A MARRIAGE
+
+
+The wedding of the farmer's daughter has taken place.  We had hoped
+it would have been in the little chapel of our house, but it seems
+some special permission was necessary, and they applied for it too
+late.  They all said, "This is the Constitution.  There would have
+been no difficulty before!" the lower classes making the poor
+Constitution the scapegoat for everything they don't like.  So as it
+was impossible for us to climb up to the church where the wedding
+was to be, we contented ourselves with seeing the procession pass.
+It was not a very large one, for, it requiring some activity to go
+up, all the old people remained at home.  It is not etiquette for
+the bride's mother to go, and no unmarried woman can go to a
+wedding--I suppose for fear of its making her discontented with her
+own position.  The procession stopped at our door, for the bride to
+receive our congratulations.  She was dressed in a shot silk, with a
+yellow handkerchief, and rows of a large gold chain.  In the
+afternoon they sent to request us to go there.  On our arrival we
+found them dancing out of doors, and a most melancholy affair it
+was.  All the bride's sisters were not to be recognised, they had
+cried so.  The mother sat in the house, and could not appear.  And
+the bride was sobbing so, she could hardly stand!  The most
+melancholy spectacle of all to my mind was, that the bridegroom was
+decidedly tipsy.  He seemed rather affronted at all the distress.
+We danced a Monferrino; I with the bridegroom; and the bride crying
+the whole time.  The company did their utmost to enliven her by
+firing pistols, but without success, and at last they began a series
+of yells, which reminded me of a set of savages.  But even this
+delicate method of consolation failed, and the wishing good-bye
+began.  It was altogether so melancholy an affair that Madame B.
+dropped a few tears, and I was very near it, particularly when the
+poor mother came out to see the last of her daughter, who was
+finally dragged off between her brother and uncle, with a last
+explosion of pistols.  As she lives quite near, makes an excellent
+match, and is one of nine children, it really was a most desirable
+marriage, in spite of all the show of distress.  Albert was so
+discomfited by it, that he forgot to kiss the bride as he had
+intended to do, and therefore went to call upon her yesterday, and
+found her very smiling in her new house, and supplied the omission.
+The cook came home from the wedding, declaring she was cured of any
+wish to marry--but I would not recommend any man to act upon that
+threat and make her an offer.  In a couple of days we had some rolls
+of the bride's first baking, which they call Madonnas.  The
+musicians, it seems, were in the same state as the bridegroom, for,
+in escorting her home, they all fell down in the mud.  My wrath
+against the bridegroom is somewhat calmed by finding that it is
+considered bad luck if he does not get tipsy at his wedding."
+
+
+Those readers of Miss Procter's poems who should suppose from their
+tone that her mind was of a gloomy or despondent cast, would be
+curiously mistaken.  She was exceedingly humorous, and had a great
+delight in humour.  Cheerfulness was habitual with her, she was very
+ready at a sally or a reply, and in her laugh (as I remember well)
+there was an unusual vivacity, enjoyment, and sense of drollery.
+She was perfectly unconstrained and unaffected:  as modestly silent
+about her productions, as she was generous with their pecuniary
+results.  She was a friend who inspired the strongest attachments;
+she was a finely sympathetic woman, with a great accordant heart and
+a sterling noble nature.  No claim can be set up for her, thank God,
+to the possession of any of the conventional poetical qualities.
+She never by any means held the opinion that she was among the
+greatest of human beings; she never suspected the existence of a
+conspiracy on the part of mankind against her; she never recognised
+in her best friends, her worst enemies; she never cultivated the
+luxury of being misunderstood and unappreciated; she would far
+rather have died without seeing a line of her composition in print,
+than that I should have maundered about her, here, as "the Poet", or
+"the Poetess".
+
+With the recollection of Miss Procter as a mere child and as a
+woman, fresh upon me, it is natural that I should linger on my way
+to the close of this brief record, avoiding its end.  But, even as
+the close came upon her, so must it come here.
+
+Always impelled by an intense conviction that her life must not be
+dreamed away, and that her indulgence in her favourite pursuits must
+be balanced by action in the real world around her, she was
+indefatigable in her endeavours to do some good.  Naturally
+enthusiastic, and conscientiously impressed with a deep sense of her
+Christian duty to her neighbour, she devoted herself to a variety of
+benevolent objects.  Now, it was the visitation of the sick, that
+had possession of her; now, it was the sheltering of the houseless;
+now, it was the elementary teaching of the densely ignorant; now, it
+was the raising up of those who had wandered and got trodden under
+foot; now, it was the wider employment of her own sex in the general
+business of life; now, it was all these things at once.  Perfectly
+unselfish, swift to sympathise and eager to relieve, she wrought at
+such designs with a flushed earnestness that disregarded season,
+weather, time of day or night, food, rest.  Under such a hurry of
+the spirits, and such incessant occupation, the strongest
+constitution will commonly go down.  Hers, neither of the strongest
+nor the weakest, yielded to the burden, and began to sink.
+
+To have saved her life, then, by taking action on the warning that
+shone in her eyes and sounded in her voice, would have been
+impossible, without changing her nature.  As long as the power of
+moving about in the old way was left to her, she must exercise it,
+or be killed by the restraint.  And so the time came when she could
+move about no longer, and took to her bed.
+
+All the restlessness gone then, and all the sweet patience of her
+natural disposition purified by the resignation of her soul, she lay
+upon her bed through the whole round of changes of the seasons.  She
+lay upon her bed through fifteen months.  In all that time, her old
+cheerfulness never quitted her.  In all that time, not an impatient
+or a querulous minute can be remembered.
+
+At length, at midnight on the second of February, 1864, she turned
+down a leaf of a little book she was reading, and shut it up.
+
+The ministering hand that had copied the verses into the tiny album
+was soon around her neck, and she quietly asked, as the clock was on
+the stroke of one:
+
+"Do you think I am dying, mamma?"
+
+"I think you are very, very ill to-night, my dear!"
+
+"Send for my sister.  My feet are so cold.  Lift me up?"
+
+Her sister entering as they raised her, she said:  "It has come at
+last!"  And with a bright and happy smile, looked upward, and
+departed.
+
+Well had she written:
+
+
+Why shouldst thou fear the beautiful angel, Death,
+Who waits thee at the portals of the skies,
+Ready to kiss away thy struggling breath,
+Ready with gentle hand to close thine eyes?
+
+Oh what were life, if life were all?  Thine eyes
+Are blinded by their tears, or thou wouldst see
+Thy treasures wait thee in the far-off skies,
+And Death, thy friend, will give them all to thee.
+
+
+
+CHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND
+EXPLANATORY INTRODUCTION TO "RELIGIOUS
+OPINIONS" BY THE LATE REVEREND
+CHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND
+
+
+
+Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend died in London, on the 25th of February
+1868.  His will contained the following passage:-
+
+
+"I appoint my friend Charles Dickens, of Gad's Hill Place, in the
+County of Kent, Esquire, my literary executor; and beg of him to
+publish without alteration as much of my notes and reflections as
+may make known my opinions on religious matters, they being such as
+I verily believe would be conducive to the happiness of mankind."
+
+
+In pursuance of the foregoing injunction, the Literary Executor so
+appointed (not previously aware that the publication of any
+Religious Opinions would be enjoined upon him), applied himself to
+the examination of the numerous papers left by his deceased friend.
+Some of these were in Lausanne, and some were in London.
+Considerable delay occurred before they could be got together,
+arising out of certain claims preferred, and formalities insisted on
+by the authorities of the Canton de Vaud.  When at length the whole
+of his late friend's papers passed into the Literary Executor's
+hands, it was found that Religious Opinions were scattered up and
+down through a variety of memoranda and note-books, the gradual
+accumulation of years and years.  Many of the following pages were
+carefully transcribed, numbered, connected, and prepared for the
+press; but many more were dispersed fragments, originally written in
+pencil, afterwards inked over, the intended sequence of which in the
+writer's mind, it was extremely difficult to follow.  These again
+were intermixed with journals of travel, fragments of poems,
+critical essays, voluminous correspondence, and old school-exercises
+and college themes, having no kind of connection with them.
+
+To publish such materials "without alteration", was simply
+impossible.  But finding everywhere internal evidence that Mr.
+Townshend's Religious Opinions had been constantly meditated and
+reconsidered with great pains and sincerity throughout his life, the
+Literary Executor carefully compiled them (always in the writer's
+exact words), and endeavoured in piecing them together to avoid
+needless repetition.  He does not doubt that Mr. Townshend held the
+clue to a precise plan, which could have greatly simplified the
+presentation of these views; and he has devoted the first section of
+this volume to Mr. Townshend's own notes of his comprehensive
+intentions.  Proofs of the devout spirit in which they were
+conceived, and of the sense of responsibility with which he worked
+at them, abound through the whole mass of papers.  Mr. Townshend's
+varied attainments, delicate tastes, and amiable and gentle nature,
+caused him to be beloved through life by the variously distinguished
+men who were his compeers at Cambridge long ago.  To his Literary
+Executor he was always a warmly-attached and sympathetic friend.  To
+the public, he has been a most generous benefactor, both in his
+munificent bequest of his collection of precious stones in the South
+Kensington Museum, and in the devotion of the bulk of his property
+to the education of poor children.
+
+
+
+ON MR. FECHTER'S ACTING
+
+
+
+The distinguished artist whose name is prefixed to these remarks
+purposes to leave England for a professional tour in the United
+States.  A few words from me, in reference to his merits as an
+actor, I hope may not be uninteresting to some readers, in advance
+of his publicly proving them before an American audience, and I know
+will not be unacceptable to my intimate friend.  I state at once
+that Mr. Fechter holds that relation towards me; not only because it
+is the fact, but also because our friendship originated in my public
+appreciation of him.  I had studied his acting closely, and had
+admired it highly, both in Paris and in London, years before we
+exchanged a word.  Consequently my appreciation is not the result of
+personal regard, but personal regard has sprung out of my
+appreciation.
+
+The first quality observable in Mr. Fechter's acting is, that it is
+in the highest degree romantic.  However elaborated in minute
+details, there is always a peculiar dash and vigour in it, like the
+fresh atmosphere of the story whereof it is a part.  When he is on
+the stage, it seems to me as though the story were transpiring
+before me for the first and last time.  Thus there is a fervour in
+his love-making--a suffusion of his whole being with the rapture of
+his passion--that sheds a glory on its object, and raises her,
+before the eyes of the audience, into the light in which he sees
+her.  It was this remarkable power that took Paris by storm when he
+became famous in the lover's part in the Dame aux Camelias.  It is a
+short part, really comprised in two scenes, but, as he acted it (he
+was its original representative), it left its poetic and exalting
+influence on the heroine throughout the play.  A woman who could be
+so loved--who could be so devotedly and romantically adored--had a
+hold upon the general sympathy with which nothing less absorbing and
+complete could have invested her.  When I first saw this play and
+this actor, I could not in forming my lenient judgment of the
+heroine, forget that she had been the inspiration of a passion of
+which I had beheld such profound and affecting marks.  I said to
+myself, as a child might have said:  "A bad woman could not have
+been the object of that wonderful tenderness, could not have so
+subdued that worshipping heart, could not have drawn such tears from
+such a lover".  I am persuaded that the same effect was wrought upon
+the Parisian audiences, both consciously and unconsciously, to a
+very great extent, and that what was morally disagreeable in the
+Dame aux Camelias first got lost in this brilliant halo of romance.
+I have seen the same play with the same part otherwise acted, and in
+exact degree as the love became dull and earthy, the heroine
+descended from her pedestal.
+
+In Ruy Blas, in the Master of Ravenswood, and in the Lady of Lyons--
+three dramas in which Mr. Fechter especially shines as a lover, but
+notably in the first--this remarkable power of surrounding the
+beloved creature, in the eyes of the audience, with the fascination
+that she has for him, is strikingly displayed.  That observer must
+be cold indeed who does not feel, when Ruy Blas stands in the
+presence of the young unwedded Queen of Spain, that the air is
+enchanted; or, when she bends over him, laying her tender touch upon
+his bloody breast, that it is better so to die than to live apart
+from her, and that she is worthy to be so died for.  When the Master
+of Ravenswood declares his love to Lucy Ashton, and she hers to him,
+and when in a burst of rapture, he kisses the skirt of her dress, we
+feel as though we touched it with our lips to stay our goddess from
+soaring away into the very heavens.  And when they plight their
+troth and break the piece of gold, it is we--not Edgar--who quickly
+exchange our half for the half she was about to hang about her neck,
+solely because the latter has for an instant touched the bosom we so
+dearly love.  Again, in the Lady of Lyons:  the picture on the easel
+in the poor cottage studio is not the unfinished portrait of a vain
+and arrogant girl, but becomes the sketch of a Soul's high ambition
+and aspiration here and hereafter.
+
+Picturesqueness is a quality above all others pervading Mr.
+Fechter's assumptions.  Himself a skilled painter and sculptor,
+learned in the history of costume, and informing those
+accomplishments and that knowledge with a similar infusion of
+romance (for romance is inseparable from the man), he is always a
+picture,--always a picture in its right place in the group, always
+in true composition with the background of the scene.  For
+picturesqueness of manner, note so trivial a thing as the turn of
+his hand in beckoning from a window, in Ruy Blas, to a personage
+down in an outer courtyard to come up; or his assumption of the
+Duke's livery in the same scene; or his writing a letter from
+dictation.  In the last scene of Victor Hugo's noble drama, his
+bearing becomes positively inspired; and his sudden assumption of
+the attitude of the headsman, in his denunciation of the Duke and
+threat to be his executioner, is, so far as I know, one of the most
+ferociously picturesque things conceivable on the stage.
+
+The foregoing use of the word "ferociously" reminds me to remark
+that this artist is a master of passionate vehemence; in which
+aspect he appears to me to represent, perhaps more than in any
+other, an interesting union of characteristics of two great
+nations,--the French and the Anglo-Saxon.  Born in London of a
+French mother, by a German father, but reared entirely in England
+and in France, there is, in his fury, a combination of French
+suddenness and impressibility with our more slowly demonstrative
+Anglo-Saxon way when we get, as we say, "our blood up", that
+produces an intensely fiery result.  The fusion of two races is in
+it, and one cannot decidedly say that it belongs to either; but one
+can most decidedly say that it belongs to a powerful concentration
+of human passion and emotion, and to human nature.
+
+Mr. Fechter has been in the main more accustomed to speak French
+than to speak English, and therefore he speaks our language with a
+French accent.  But whosoever should suppose that he does not speak
+English fluently, plainly, distinctly, and with a perfect
+understanding of the meaning, weight, and value of every word, would
+be greatly mistaken.  Not only is his knowledge of English--
+extending to the most subtle idiom, or the most recondite cant
+phrase--more extensive than that of many of us who have English for
+our mother-tongue, but his delivery of Shakespeare's blank verse is
+remarkably facile, musical, and intelligent.  To be in a sort of
+pain for him, as one sometimes is for a foreigner speaking English,
+or to be in any doubt of his having twenty synonymes at his tongue's
+end if he should want one, is out of the question after having been
+of his audience.
+
+A few words on two of his Shakespearian impersonations, and I shall
+have indicated enough, in advance of Mr. Fechter's presentation of
+himself.  That quality of picturesqueness, on which I have already
+laid stress, is strikingly developed in his Iago, and yet it is so
+judiciously governed that his Iago is not in the least picturesque
+according to the conventional ways of frowning, sneering,
+diabolically grinning, and elaborately doing everything else that
+would induce Othello to run him through the body very early in the
+play.  Mr. Fechter's is the Iago who could, and did, make friends,
+who could dissect his master's soul, without flourishing his scalpel
+as if it were a walking-stick, who could overpower Emilia by other
+arts than a sign-of-the-Saracen's-Head grimness; who could be a boon
+companion without ipso facto warning all beholders off by the
+portentous phenomenon; who could sing a song and clink a can
+naturally enough, and stab men really in the dark,--not in a
+transparent notification of himself as going about seeking whom to
+stab.  Mr. Fechter's Iago is no more in the conventional
+psychological mode than in the conventional hussar pantaloons and
+boots; and you shall see the picturesqueness of his wearing borne
+out in his bearing all through the tragedy down to the moment when
+he becomes invincibly and consistently dumb.
+
+Perhaps no innovation in Art was ever accepted with so much favour
+by so many intellectual persons pre-committed to, and preoccupied
+by, another system, as Mr. Fechter's Hamlet.  I take this to have
+been the case (as it unquestionably was in London), not because of
+its picturesqueness, not because of its novelty, not because of its
+many scattered beauties, but because of its perfect consistency with
+itself.  As the animal-painter said of his favourite picture of
+rabbits that there was more nature about those rabbits than you
+usually found in rabbits, so it may be said of Mr. Fechter's Hamlet,
+that there was more consistency about that Hamlet than you usually
+found in Hamlets.  Its great and satisfying originality was in its
+possessing the merit of a distinctly conceived and executed idea.
+From the first appearance of the broken glass of fashion and mould
+of form, pale and worn with weeping for his father's death, and
+remotely suspicious of its cause, to his final struggle with Horatio
+for the fatal cup, there were cohesion and coherence in Mr.
+Fechter's view of the character.  Devrient, the German actor, had,
+some years before in London, fluttered the theatrical doves
+considerably, by such changes as being seated when instructing the
+players, and like mild departures from established usage; but he had
+worn, in the main, the old nondescript dress, and had held forth, in
+the main, in the old way, hovering between sanity and madness.  I do
+not remember whether he wore his hair crisply curled short, as if he
+were going to an everlasting dancing-master's party at the Danish
+court; but I do remember that most other Hamlets since the great
+Kemble had been bound to do so.  Mr. Fechter's Hamlet, a pale,
+woebegone Norseman with long flaxen hair, wearing a strange garb
+never associated with the part upon the English stage (if ever seen
+there at all) and making a piratical swoop upon the whole fleet of
+little theatrical prescriptions without meaning, or, like Dr.
+Johnson's celebrated friend, with only one idea in them, and that a
+wrong one, never could have achieved its extraordinary success but
+for its animation by one pervading purpose, to which all changes
+were made intelligently subservient.  The bearing of this purpose on
+the treatment of Ophelia, on the death of Polonius, and on the old
+student fellowship between Hamlet and Horatio, was exceedingly
+striking; and the difference between picturesqueness of stage
+arrangement for mere stage effect, and for the elucidation of a
+meaning, was well displayed in there having been a gallery of
+musicians at the Play, and in one of them passing on his way out,
+with his instrument in his hand, when Hamlet, seeing it, took it
+from him, to point his talk with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
+
+This leads me to the observation with which I have all along desired
+to conclude:  that Mr. Fechter's romance and picturesqueness are
+always united to a true artist's intelligence, and a true artist's
+training in a true artist's spirit.  He became one of the company of
+the Theatre Francais when he was a very young man, and he has
+cultivated his natural gifts in the best schools.  I cannot wish my
+friend a better audience than he will have in the American people,
+and I cannot wish them a better actor than they will have in my
+friend.
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{1}  Cornhill Magazine
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext Miscellaneous Papers by Charles Dickens
+
diff --git a/old/mspcd10.zip b/old/mspcd10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e872c61
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/mspcd10.zip