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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78061-0.txt b/78061-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f029839 --- /dev/null +++ b/78061-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2032 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78061 *** + + + “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”--SHAKESPEARE. + + HOUSEHOLD WORDS. + + A WEEKLY JOURNAL. + + CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. + + N^o. 26.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._ + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + FOREIGNERS’ PORTRAITS OF ENGLISHMEN. 2 + THE STEAM PLOUGH. 8 + A SACRED GROVE. 15 + “CAPE” SKETCHES. 15 + “BATTLE WITH LIFE!” 22 + SPY POLICE. 22 + CHIPS. 28 + TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE FORGERIES. 31 + + + + + FOREIGNERS’ PORTRAITS OF ENGLISHMEN. + + +The extraordinary being, conjured up in the minds of most foreigners +under the generic term Englishman, seems to be something more uncommon +than the veracious Gulliver ever encountered, and more heterogeneous +than John Bulwer in his _Artificiall Changeling_ pourtrayed. As +a Spanish _olla podrida_ and a Devonshire squab-pie are said to +be made up of all the contradictory edibles that can be conceivably +assembled in one dish; so is the hash, cooked up by the French or +German novelist and dramatist to represent a true born Briton, an +incarnation of every unlikely extravagance it is possible to assemble +in one character. + +The true expression of what is popularly believed of us abroad is +not to be found so distinctly set forth in novels, as in plays. The +novelist is restricted in a measure within the not narrow bounds of +probability; but the dramatist may first revel at will in the rankest +breadths of impossible absurdity; and then the actor may intensify +the enormity by dress, gait, and unmeasured foolery. The amount of +instruction on the manners, habits, feelings, modes of expression, +gesture, dress, and general demeanour of his compatriots which +an Englishman may glean in some of the foreign Theatres, when an +Englishman is being represented on the stage, is perfectly astounding. +We have in this way become acquainted with English characteristics of +which the most comically inclined maniac could never dream after the +most dyspeptic of suppers. + +It is not long since the mirror held up to Nature--that is, English +nature reflected by the French--revealed to us, at the Ambigû Comique +and at the Théâtre des Variétés, in Paris, “that of ourselves which +yet we knew not of”--dreamt not of. One gentleman who supported not +only the character of a Prefect, but an enormous cocked-hat, assured +us that when we were at home, we groaned under the tyranny of a feudal +government, which ground us to the dust; that our Commonality was +overridden and harrowed by tax-exacting aristocrats; that they died of +starvation in heaps; that if they dared to call their souls their own, +the latter were summarily released from their bodies by a perambulating +police disguised as members of the Royal Humane Society. In another +scene the same public instructor told us, that all Englishmen (of +course including the starved Commonality) possess enormous wealth, +which they usually employ in the purchase of “_Le titre de +Lord_;”--an unnecessary outlay, as every person not a tradesman +receives the title as a matter of course. Yet this avails them little, +as the different orders of our nobility hold no communication with +persons of higher or lower rank; our national pride preventing the +one, and the best of all reasons--“because they can’t--” the other. +Our patricians ride abroad followed by armed retainers; nor is any +vulgar person allowed to come between the wind and their nobility: the +streets being expressly cleared for them by constables. When at home, +however, seated in a golden chair in company with the Spleen, the +“jeune Miss,” his wife, and a “boulle-dog,” a native of our kingdom +passes his time chiefly in drinking tea with lemon in it, and saying, +“Hoh!--Hah!--Yeeas!--Gottam!--and ver gut!” + +Our ladies are a little too much given to fighting, and a little too +lightly won. We sell our wives. This is a very common mercantile +transaction indeed. A “pen” of no mean dimensions is appropriated +in Smithfield for the interesting periodical auction. Our Queen +makes away with many millions a year, and cuts off the heads of +any persons to whom she may take a dislike, or hangs them, without +the intervention of judge, jury, or any other functionary than the +executioner, who--another Tristan the Hermit--is a regular member of +the Royal Household. We are, however, for the most part, a harmless +and ridiculous race, affording excellent sport to innkeepers and +adventurers. We eat prodigiously. Indeed so great is our love for +good cheer, that we name our children after our favourite dishes. If +a person in good society is not called Sir Rosbif, he will probably +answer to the name of Lord Bifstek--in honor of the two great national +dishes, which we have spelt in that manner from time immemorial. + +In a pretty piece at the Gymnase in Paris, where the Prime Minister of +England unfortunately ruined himself by speculating in Railway shares, +a thorough-going English servant appeared under that thorough-going +English name Tom Bob--the honest fellow having been christened Tom, +and born the lawful son of Mr. and Mrs. Bob. In an Italian adaptation +of Dumas’ preposterous play of “KEAN,” which we once saw at +the great Theatre of Genoa, the curtain rose upon that celebrated +Tragedian, drunk and fast asleep in a chair, attired in a dark blouse +fastened round the waist with a broad belt and a most prodigious +buckle, and wearing a dark red hat of the sugar-loaf shape, nearly +three feet high. He bore in his hand a champagne-bottle, with the label +RHUM, in large capital letters, carefully turned towards the +audience; and two or three dozen of the same popular liquor which we +are nationally accustomed to drink neat as imported by the half-gallon, +ornamented the floor of the apartment. Every frequenter of the Coal +Hole Tavern in the Strand, on that occasion, wore a sword and a beard. + +Every English lady presented on the stage in Italy, wears a green veil; +and almost every such specimen of our fair countrywomen carries a +bright red reticule, made in the form of a monstrous heart. We do not +remember to have ever seen an Englishman on the Italian stage, or in +the Italian Circus, without a stomach like Daniel Lambert, an immense +shirt-frill, and a bunch of watch-seals, each several times larger +than his watch, though the watch itself was an impossible engine. And +we have rarely beheld this mimic Englishman, without seeing present, +then and there, a score of real Englishmen, sufficiently characteristic +and unlike the rest of the audience, to whom he bore no shadow of +resemblance. + +These edifying pictures of the English are not complete without the +finishing touches of grotesque absurdity vouchsafed by the actors. A +few winters ago we were enticed into the little theatre of Coblentz +by the information paraded in large placards on the doors that it +was “very well warmed;” that Auber’s opera of Fra Diavolo was to +be played; and that the part of Lord Allcash was to be personated +by a distinguished comic actor. Even while we write, his lordship +is before our mind’s eye, blazingly costumed in a green coat, blue +inexpressibles, top-boots, a brace of yellow handkerchiefs sticking out +of either pocket, a couple of watches, and a hat with a feather in it! +Yet, if they do not know something of the ordinary appearance of an +English traveller in Coblentz, where should they? He must be at least +as well known there, as in Devonshire or the Isle of Wight. + +So, in Brussels, where the English almost outnumber the native +population, the audiences relish a curious amount of ignorance +respecting England and the English; as the dramatis personæ of a piece +exhibited so recently as last May at the Théâtre St Hubert, will +show. It was called “_La Lectrice, ou une folie de jeune homme. +Comédie Vaudeville en 2 actes_, par M. Bazard.” It must have had +a considerable run; for the play-bill states that M. Ferville had +created a great sensation in the character of “Sir Cobridge,” at +Paris. We have some idea that “Sir Cobridge” must be intended for +the Sleeping Partner in a Porter-Brewery, and that the name is a +dreamy reminiscence of the popular individual Sir Co, made easy of +remembrance by sign-boards. But the first personage we have occasion +to mention is, “Sir Arthur” (jeune officier), who has no other name, +and who has no occasion for one, everybody calling him “my lord,” +according (as he observed) to the usual form of address in England. +Sir Arthur considers it the first duty of a British officer to insult +a respectable blind old gentleman--who is moreover his guest--because +the blind old gentleman ventures to insinuate something against one of +the officers of Sir Arthur’s regiment, through whom he has suffered +severely. This chivalrous young nobleman, disdaining all inquiry into +the circumstances, at once constitutes himself champion of every +individual belonging to the entire British army. The next personage is +a young gentleman possessing (as _he_ observed) a name extremely +common in Britain, to wit, “Clac-Own.” The actor of this part was +fitted up with a wig of violently red hair, like a carriage-rug, and +was dressed in a kind of fusion of an English jockey with a French +Field-Marshal. Expecting to inherit the vast possession of his uncle, +Sir Cobridge, Clac-Own passed his time, according to the custom of +Anglican nephews in such cases, in giving his uncle to understand how +extremely inconvenient he finds his society, and in informing him +that “Shak-es-pair”--who, being Sir Cobridge’s favourite author, is +naturally the avowed bugbear of Clac-Own,--is an insufferable bore. +This is going too far; and the wealthy old gentleman (who has quietly +submitted to every other species of personal insult from his intended +heir,) is so shocked by this contempt for “Shak-es-pair,” that he +feels himself compelled to sing a song; wherein he demonstrates, in +the most lucid tira-lal-a-la logic, that Clac-Own is very decidedly in +the wrong. The scena concludes by Sir Cobridge ordering Clac-Own off, +in some very deep bass notes, to “Le Lincoln!”--an idiomatic place +of banishment, that would appear to be very popular among us, though +whether it stands for Coventry, Bath, Jericho, Halifax, or any other +such place, we are unable to report. Clac-Own, Sir Arthur, and several +others having assembled at a later stage of the proceedings to go out +hunting, the Belgian public perceive that our usual equipment for that +sport is a white tailed coat, light blue breeches, patent leather +hessian boots with brass spurs, a red neckerchief--such as one may +see whispering to the gale in Field Lane or Wapping,--a turned-down +shirt-collar, a gun, a cutlas, and an enormous game pouch. Thus arrayed +and mounted on the “chevaux fougueux” of our island, we pursue and +capture the crafty fox.--When we add that Monsieur Bazard, who is the +author of this singular production, is of the opinion of Boiardo, that +the English have an especial talent for falling off their horses--and +no wonder, riding across the country in such trim!--we have described +the leading points of this accurate picture. + +Most of these distorted views of English life originate with the French +with whom we have had most intercourse, and who ought to know us best; +but our German and Austrian friends, the dramatic caricaturists, have a +very hard hit at us now and then. Only last month we were attracted to +the Carl Theatre, in Vienna, by one little line in a play-bill, which +announced a new piece, the English title of which is, “The Benefit +Night.” Here is the line:-- + + ~=Lord Pudding, ein reisender Englander Hr. Heese.=~ + Lord Pudding, a Travelling Englishman Mr. Heese. + +In rigid obedience to the law, which has impressed the names of +eatables upon the eaters thereof, the author had christened his +“pock-pudding-Englisher” (to borrow a pleasant periphrasis from +Scotland), out of the pot. Nevertheless “The Benefit Night”--in which +we think we descry some reflection of a very good French vaudeville--is +written with considerable cleverness and wit. The plot was chiefly +evolved from the endeavours of a manager to obtain the assistance of +certain eminent “stars” of the profession for his benefit. He first +presented himself to a great singer, who was, of course, afflicted with +a cold, but who was at length frightened into voice by hearing that a +rival had already agreed to sing his part, and by an assurance from +the manager that the new singer had already taken everybody by storm +at the rehearsal. A great tragedian the manager won by flattery; “the +food of gods” being the only thing worthy the acceptance of so august +a personage; and a dancer he bribed by assuring her that the wealthy +Englishman, “Lord Pudding,” would be in the house, especially to fall +in love with her. He also promised a troop of experienced claqueurs to +applaud her new “pas.” + +We were introduced to Lord Pudding, as he appeared while indulging +in the singular fancy of taking a lesson in Elocution from a German +actor! His personal appearance was wonderful to behold. He was much +stuffed out with wadding to increase his natural proportions, and his +dress was such as the tailors--not only of Pall-Mall and St. James’s +Street, but of any English extraction or habitation whatsoever--would +see with amaze. It was composed of a blue dress coat, with white +buttons, a red waistcoat, nankeen tights, shoes of polished leather, +and long brass spurs. His neck-kerchief was a bright blue, carrying +the eye pleasantly up to a very white hat with an imperceptible brim. +The author appeared to have studied the manners of our aristocracy +with exceeding diligence; for, to the usual peculiarities which may +be considered the “stock” of Foreign theatricals, he added some +strikingly original features. Lord Pudding was, of course, a lover, +and of course an unsuccessful one: he was jilted by the French dancer. +When he danced he was made to tumble; when he saluted a lady he gave +his lips a loud smack. He entered a room like a whirlwind, and between +his paroxysms of “fuss” our usual friendly salutation “_Gottam_” +was repeated many times; to the enthusiastic delight of the audience, +who believed it to be a polished sort of “How-d’ ye-do?” He was +quite the Clown to the Ring; and had the long pockets--in which that +gentleman usually searches for the chalk when it is required for the +tight-rope--well-filled. Nor was Pudding stingy with his money. Despite +his hard usage by the ballet-lady, he was liberal to the manager. +Though wrathful, he was of easy faith; being readily imposed upon, +and peculiarly sensible to flattery, by which means he was induced to +take three boxes for the benefit, viz., one for himself; one for the +policeman who had been in constant attendance on him since his arrival, +to restrain his inveterate propensity for knocking down the lieges +of the city (so intense was his love for “the boaks;”) the third for +the exclusive occupation of ----, his boulle-dog! One or two little +touches, which distinguished his lordship, showed that the actor was, +at least, an observer. Such were, the hat pushed back from the crimson +forehead, the heavy rolling walk, and a strenuous objection to be +kissed--all particularly English. + +Other specimens of the genus we had previously seen, however, showed +that Lord Pudding was a very fair example of an English gentleman on +the German stage. + +We cannot but believe that though amusing, these caricatures--exhibited +as they are to ignorant and prejudiced minds--tend to confound the just +relations between one people and another. Perhaps friendly Excursions +on both sides of the channel may do much to lessen these absurdities. +Unfortunately--as recent publications too well prove--the mistaken +estimate of the English is by no means corrected by the graver works +now and then put forth by distinguished men. Highly as we esteem M. +Guizot and some Frenchmen of real attainments, who have written upon +England, we have never taken up a book on the subject without painful +disappointment, or without seeing in it errors almost equal to M. Ledru +Rollin’s more recent incongruities. + +To the honour of our modern English authors be it spoken, they have +been zealous to avoid such ridiculous mistakes. It is true that +the harmless old legends respecting Foreigners--that nine-tenths +of them are Frenchmen; that all are of very slender proportions in +figure; that their staple diet is frogs; and that, despite Alison’s +and every other History of Europe, they very much prefer to dance +than to fight; together with other popular delusions--still linger +in the minds of some of our bold peasantry and milder cockneys; but +it is to be hoped, after many years of peace and better sense, that +we may now claim for the majority of even an under-educated British +public, a more correct knowledge of the personnel and manners of our +Continental neighbours, than our Continental neighbours manifestly +have of us. The very foible of Lord Pudding himself--that of being a +_travelling_ Englishman--would defend him from such blunders +as the literary Frankenstein who gave life to the monster, has fallen +into. Travelling Englishmen are common abroad, who speak foreign +languages, and understand foreign customs, extremely well. There are +many of our travellers whom we should be very glad to improve: and +thanks to railways, and to our possession of some--though not very +much--of the wealth which the foreign dramatic and fictionist artists +so liberally attribute to us, we are rapidly polishing off the rust +of national prejudice, and ignorance of our brethren abroad. Should +an English author or actor be guilty of such laughable mistakes about +foreigners as those we have pointed out, woe unutterable would alight +on his ignorant head. + +Every sort of attraction which brings people of different nations, +and even of different counties, together--whether it be a German wool +fair, a music meeting, or a Swiss shooting-match--smooths away the +acerbities of caste, and strengthens the sympathies of individuals. +Let us, therefore, hope that the myriads of exotics which will be +attracted next year to the Great Industrial Conservatory in Hyde Park, +will receive new vigour and fresh intelligence from their temporary +transplantation; that they will learn that Englishmen and English women +are not quite the monstrosities they at present appear to believe them. +Foreigners will then have the advantage of seeing us at home, and in +a mass; and will thenceforth cease to judge us by those follies which +they observe in a few idle tourists from these islands. They will see +us as we are, reciprocating what we believe to be the general desire +here, in reference to them. + + + + + THE STEAM PLOUGH. + + +When the first experiments were being made with the Hay-making Machine, +now commonly used in some parts of the country, it happened that +Shelley, Mrs. Shelley, and Peacock, the author of “Crotchet Castle,” +“Headlong Hall,” and other works of pungent erudition, were walking +through a field where this strange-looking machine was in operation. +Instead of the pleasant sight of the rustic men and women with their +forks and rakes--a scene so full of indelible associations, from +childhood upwards--they saw this quaint monster rolling round the +field over the long swathes of hay, its rotatory forks, or rather +fingers on wheels, flinging up the hay on all sides as it went spinning +onwards. Meditating on the effect, if successful, this would, some +day, have on the vast numbers of poor people in England, to say +nothing of the summer invasions of Irish--whose sole dependence for +the year is the money they make in the English hay-season--Shelley and +the others walked onwards, and left the field. Presently they met a +clownish fellow, who was looking intently at the whirling and whisking +performance of the round-about machine in the hay-field. Shelley, +having no objection to find, in the then adjusted state of society +with regard to the labouring classes, that this machine was a failure, +said to the clown, in a sort of half contemptuous tone--“Now, tell +me,--does that thing answer at all?” The fellow looked Shelley full in +the face--“It answers a deuced deal too well,” said he; “I wish it was +working in the inside of him that made it!” + +In this very unsophisticated reply, how vast a question is comprised! +But into it we cannot now enter; our present business is how to +plough by steam; and the smoke from the “nostrils” of a variety of +elegant ploughs, of various horse-and-man powers, is already inviting +our attention. Truly, it requires one to take one’s breath before +commencing the examination! + +Old Hesiod, in the second book of his “Works and Days,” after giving +particular directions for the selection of the wood, as to its natural +qualities and form, and also its suitability to an artificial curve, +gravely shakes his venerable head, and says-- + + “To make a plough, great is the expense and care.” + +Virgil, following his great progenitor, enters with still more minute +precision into the details of the selection of the wood and its +manufacture into a plough, adding, that he can “recite to you many +precepts of the ancients--unless you decline them.” + +Well, then, to be frank with antiquity, and all its great poets and +philosophers, the present age fairly announces by its practices, that +it _does_ decline, not only the precepts but the example of the +ancients, especially in agricultural matters. + +The last and not the least important innovation on agricultural +labour has yet to be consummated; and it would seem from two large +plates, with explanatory remarks, which have been recently published +by Lord Willoughby de Eresby, that a monster innovation is not very +distant;--no less than “Ploughing by Steam.” All great inventions are +the result of gradual improvement on a first idea; and an examination +of these plates naturally induces us to take a cursory view of what has +previously been attempted, and done, in this way. + +Not wishing to go back to the “dawning idea” of a steam-plough, (for +the problem was started some fifty years ago), we will begin with +taking a look at Mr. Etzler’s “Iron Slave.” This was invented by a +German, and constructed by an Oxfordshire engineer. A public trial of +the Iron Slave was made in October 1845. A few signal shots were fired +at day-break, the church-bells were set to ring a merry peal, and +all the inhabitants of Bicester and Blackthorn came pouring out into +the fields to witness the steam-performance of the newly discovered +agricultural serf. Booths were erected, and the spectators made a long +morning’s holiday while the Slave did his ploughing; and hoped that +his success would lead, as it ought, to many other morning holidays. +The most important result of this first trial was the establishment of +a new mechanical principle, _viz_., “the transmission of power +from a fixed point to a moving point, going in arbitrary directions +at the will of one man at the steering wheel.” This, it seems, had +been thought impossible by many scientific engineers. The engine was +intended to move and do its work at the rate of three miles an hour; +but whether the Iron Slave had not had his proper breakfast of coals, +nor time enough to digest them into steam, or some part of his inside +was a little out of order, was not accurately discovered; but certain +it is that he could not plough fast enough. In other respects everybody +was satisfied that steam-ploughing was a practicable thing. + +In 1847, Mr. John T. Osborne, of Demerara, took out a patent for a +steam-plough, the chief improvement (or distinguishing peculiarity--we +must be cautious in the use of the word improvement,) on all previous +attempts, being the employment of two engines and two ploughs, for one +course of ploughing. While one plough was working in a given direction, +and laying down the chain or rope by which it is to be worked back +to the side from which it started--the other plough was performing a +similar course in the reverse direction. When both had each traversed +the ground once, the engines were removed forward the breadth of one +furrow, by means of a chain or rope; one end of which was attached to +an anchor fixed in the ground a-head. + +Another Mr. Osborn, in 1848, tried some experiments near Stratford, in +Essex, with a locomotive steam-engine, constructed for agricultural +works in general, and for ploughing more especially. He appears to +have taken out his patent in conjunction with Mr. Andrew Smith’s +wire-rope--a manufacture of extraordinary strength. In the first trial, +a pair of these peculiarly constructed locomotives was placed opposite +each other--about one hundred and twenty yards apart--with a sufficient +length of wire-rope between them. Although not successful, it +demonstrated a novel fact as between the comparative draught by horses, +and by a long rope, showing that the condition of the modes differ in +a very marked way; the horse draught being upwards, and exercising a +direct control by its proximity to the plough; whereas, the draught by +steam-power and a rope was downwards, distant, and exercised no direct +control over the plough. Hence this experiment, though unsuccessful, +was instructive, and therefore to be valued as a good contribution to +knowledge. Other trials were subsequently made by Mr. Osborn with a +locomotive engine of ten horse power, and the ploughing was well done; +fully settling the question of practicability, but leaving doubts in +the minds of many on the important question of economy. + +“These engines,” says a writer in the Mechanics’ Magazine, “possess +great advantages in being applicable to thrashing, and other +agricultural purposes, and can be moved from farm to farm, and from +field to field, with the greatest facility.” No doubt of it. We see +what will soon happen. Thrashing, and _many other_ agricultural +purposes! The great farmers, once in possession of the talisman of a +steam-plough, will never rest till they make it applicable to all sorts +of operations. Already almost every farmer in Scotland is provided +with a stationary steam-engine; a locomotive that can turn--not its +hands--but its wheels to anything, is now his only other thing needful. +In the specification of the very first of these ploughs--Etzler’s Iron +Slave--it is distinctly stated that, although the machine is intended +for ploughing, yet the Slave will be ready at all times to devote his +energies and skill to “sowing, and reaping; and also to making canals, +roads, tunnels,” &c. Exactly so! After we have ploughed, sowed, reaped, +and thrashed by steam, we shall soon find turnips hoed, carrots drawn, +beans plucked up, dried, carted, and stacked; sheep sheared, cows +milked, butter churned, cheese pressed, pigs transformed into pork, +and pork into gammons, by the same omnipotent agency. Hatching eggs by +steam is already an old story. + +A patent for a new steam-plough was taken out in January of the +present year by Mr. James Usher of Edinburgh; and another in June, +by Messrs. Calloway and Purkiss. The peculiarity of the former +consists in mounting “a series of ploughs in the same plane round an +axis, so that the ploughs shall successively come into action;” and +secondly, in applying power to give a rotary motion to the series, +“so that the resistance of the earth to the ploughs, as they enter +and travel through the earth, shall _cause the machine_ +to be _propelled_”--instead of motion being communicated +to the machine from the wheels which run on the land. The other +invention--that of Messrs. Calloway and Purkiss--mainly consists of a +number of chains working round a wheel, and fitted on the outside with +ploughshares. Rotary motion is communicated by a locomotive. + +“I consider,” says Sir Abel Handy, in the comedy of Speed the Plough, +“that a healthy young man between the handles of a plough, is one of +the noblest illustrations of the prosperity of Britain.” But shortly +after saying this, Sir Abel invents a splendid curricle plough drawn +by high-bred Leicestershire horses; who set off at full gallop with +the plough at their heels over hill and dale, and instead of doing +the allotted work a-field, they rush about at random, ploughing up +Salisbury Plain. What would Sir Abel have said to Sir Willoughby de +Eresby’s snorting steam-horse, perfectly under control? + +His machinery consists of a locomotive engine, weighing only +three-and-a-half tons, and of a twenty-six horse power. It was designed +by Mr. Gooch. It has a double capstan attached, “removable, when the +engine is required for other purposes.” His lordship does not indicate +any of these; but we may fairly imagine that his farm-engine will +possess the same versatile genius as the inventions which have preceded +it. His description of this machinery is very brief, clear, and without +the use of any technical terms. + + “The engine moves across the centre of the field on a light, portable + railway. The ploughs advance and recede on either side of the railway, + at right angles to it. + + “The ploughs employed consist of four ordinary, and four subsoil + ploughs, fixed in a frame. It is directed by a person standing upon a + small platform. + + “Two such ploughs, one on either side the railway, alternately advance + and recede; the advancing plough working, the other idle until it + regains its proper position for ploughing the next four furrows. On + the completion of the four furrows both ways, the engine and side + frames advance each three feet. + + “The ploughs are attached to an endless chain, one hundred and fifty + yards in length. They can be detached at pleasure, or shifted from one + side of the chain to the other. They travel at the rate of _five + miles an hour_. Provision is made in case they strike against any + impediment.” + +Arrangements are also made to suit irregularly shaped fields. The full +power of the engine is not exerted with the ploughs, as thus described; +and the number of blades can be increased if desirable. And now for the +next statement, which brings us to a most important consideration. + + “In the present state of things, it is difficult to form a correct + estimate of the value of the invention in a commercial point of view. + I will only say that a machine of the power, and with the arrangement + described, would perform the work usually done by _sixteen_ + ploughs, driven by as many men, and drawn by thirty-two horses. + Requiring itself the attendance of eight men, and a horse to draw the + water for the engine, it would thus save the labour of thirty-one + horses and eight men. Against this must be set an expense of five + shillings a day for coals.” + +In examining the question of economy in the use of steam-power instead +of horses, we shall obtain valuable assistance from a paper addressed +to Mr. J. T. Osborne, of Demerara, by the Council of the Highland +Society. This paper sets the period of the productive labour of a horse +against the unproductive period necessary for its rest, and exhibits +results of a startling kind. Horses are fed and tended three hundred +and sixty-five days of twenty-four hours, or eight thousand seven +hundred and sixty hours in the year. But they work only three hundred +days, of about eight hours, taking the average, or two thousand four +hundred hours a year. Thus we have a clear loss of six thousand three +hundred and sixty hours of unproductive feeding and tending. It may +be argued, that they are not fed and tended throughout the night, +and therefore there is no such loss as the figures displayed by the +Highland Society; but they are fed and tended enough to suffice them +during the night, for which no compensating work is performed, so that +it comes, we think, to nearly the same thing. + +According to McCulloch, there are about one million two hundred +thousand agricultural horses employed in Great Britain, which, at +twenty-five pounds per head for maintenance, amounts to thirty millions +sterling per annum for their keep. The unproductive portion, therefore, +he finds amounting to the enormous sum of twenty-one millions seven +hundred and eighty-five thousand three hundred and six pounds. It +will be seen that this estimate is founded on the previous figures +displaying the number of hours of feeding and tendence, compared with +the number of hours’ work, and the consequent loss of six thousand +three hundred and sixty hours. The only compensation for this loss of +hours, represented by the above sum of upwards of twenty-one millions +sterling, is in the value of the manure, which is thus produced at too +great a cost. + +“There are insuperable difficulties,” writes the Council of the +Highland Society, “attending the employment of vital power; but +mechanical power puts forth its energy when called for--it can be +regulated, and, at pleasure, stopped. If it is desired to occupy the +entire hours of daylight--to extend the field of operations--to work +up more raw material--the energy of the animal ceases after a time; +but not so that of the machine. The longest hours of summer may be +advantageously employed.” And why not in the shortest nights of winter +also? Could not steam-ploughs be made to carry their own lights with +Hale Thomson’s patent silvered-glass reflectors, like other locomotives? + +The next sentence brings us full-butt against the corner-stone of our +social edifice, and moots the question as to the effect of machinery +in increasing the demand for human labour:--“Were the whole period of +daylight industriously employed in the most effective manner--that is, +by the employment of machinery--the demand for human labour would be +augmented in the exact ratio of the increased time, multiplied by the +augmented force of the machinery.” + +“Be fruitful and multiply,” said the God of Nature;--“You must be +starved, if you do!” say the beldame economists. Meantime, an immense +proportion of the habitable and fertile earth lies quite uncultivated, +the vast seas are full of prolific food, and the land which _is_ +cultivated, is not made the most of. The art of tilling has not kept +pace with other improvements. Before the wonders of steam appeared +in the world there was occasionally a random attempt to introduce +some improvement in tillage, but the experiments originated in a wish +rather than in any definite plan, and were of course a failure and an +absurdity. Dean Swift brought his pungent satire to bear upon these +attempts, in his account of the grand Academy of Lagado, Mr. Lemuel +Gulliver says he was highly pleased with a projector who had discovered +a plan for turning up the ground with hogs, to save the charge of +ploughs, cattle, and labour. The method was beautifully simple. In a +given field you bury at six inches distance, and eight inches deep, a +quantity of acorns in long rows. You then drive six hundred hogs into +the field, who, in search of the food they most love, will root or +plough up the whole into furrows, with their snouts. The absurdities +committed soon led to a cessation of all mere experiments, until at +length came steam-engines, and thence, in due course, the dream of a +steam-plough. This dream we are peradventure about to see realised in +a few months; and then, though our million of agricultural horses will +be diminished, our fine breed of Yorkshire and Lancashire ploughmen +will not be thinned; any more than spinning and weaving machinery +exterminated--as was awfully predicted it would--our army of spinners +and weavers. + +“I was bred to the plough,” said Robert Burns, when addressing a letter +to the wealthy gentlemen of the Ayrshire Hunt:--“I am independent;” +but it may turn out that the plough of old will soon be a sorry thing +to depend upon. We are rather reminded of the Prologue to Chaucer’s +“Ploughman Tale,” though he could have had no anticipation that his +cessation from this labour would be final. + + “The Ploughman pluckéd up his plough, + When Midsomer moon was comen in, + And saied his beasts should eat ynowe, + And lye in the grasse up to the chin. + He shook off shere, and coulter off drowe, + And hongéd his harnis on a pin.” + +“Our strongest hope for the improvement of our social condition,” says +Miss Martineau, “lies in the directing of intelligence full upon the +cultivation of the soil.” The more the powers of science are brought to +bear upon the tillage of the earth, and the production and manufacture +of food, the greater will be the number benefited, and the more +speedily will Miss Martineau’s axiom be verified. Cordially coinciding +with that lady, we wish all success to the important undertaking of +Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and shall be glad to find he accomplishes +and establishes what has hitherto been confined to experimental trials. + + + + + A SACRED GROVE. + + + Here Silence is the queen of time; her hand + Is raised--and the tide trembles to a pause. + Beauty, too awful to be loved, awakes + And spell-binds Man’s repose. The sunken sun, + Whose mantle’s gold is melted in the tint + Of evening’s purple sadness, near the west + Lingers awhile, as loth to quit the scene. + Yet ’tis not sadness all; for though the trees, + Heavy with cumbrous melancholy, sweep + Their sombre-foliaged boughs close to the grass, + And solemn twilight peers between the trunks, + Tinging the dome of yonder vacant fane-- + O’er all a spirit of subdued emotion + Breathes in pathetic sweetness, deep diffused. + + In this dim palace of grey Solitude, + Where not a sigh wafts o’er the lily’s urn, + And nought, save marble forms of tenderest grace, + With pensive attitude stand in lone bowers-- + The heart, upheaving into the fresh air, + Itself abandons to the scene, and claims + Kindred with placid Death, and those lost hopes + That lived around the loved ones, now no more. + Their tombs smile pale beneath these cypress boughs, + Heavy with memory of all the past. + + Moveless I stand before these moveless trees-- + Breathless as those broad boughs; and gazing thus, + At the dark foliage imaged in the pools, + Which deepen, as the brooding mind surveys + Their trance and awful beauty; ’tis a scene + That lures us backward to an elder time, + Through ages dim--and, thence, into a realm + Whose secret influence fills us with its soul-- + Shadows of things which are not of the world, + And hopes that burn, yet find no vent save tears. + + + + + “CAPE” SKETCHES. + + +Cape Wants are neither peculiar nor numerous. Captain Smoke, in +Jerrold’s comedy of “Bubbles of the Day,” confides to his friend, Lord +Skindeep, that he is “terribly in want of a thousand pounds.” The reply +is “You may take it as a general rule, Captain Smoke, that _every +man_ wants a thousand pounds.” As with men so with Colonies. The +sun never sets upon one of the dependencies of Great Britain, young or +old, which would not be the better for a thousand pounds. Our Colonies +feel, however, another want;--it is for something to which the Smokes +of the old country show a very marked aversion; and that is labour. +“Capital and labour!” is a cry which reaches us from every quarter of +the earth. The demand does not resound so loudly perhaps from the Cape +as from other and newer Colonies; but the want of the first necessities +of enterprise, civilisation, and progress is not the less felt. Any +sort of European labour (except convict labour), any kind of capital, +is welcome in our South African dependencies; and in the long run +“pays.” + +As to Capital; men with from two thousand pounds to ten thousand +pounds will find plenty of most profitable employment for their money. +The Colony has innumerable resources--amongst them I may mention her +fisheries and her mineral treasures. The former produce a large revenue +even now, though carried on, from want of enterprise and capital, +in the most unsystematic and slovenly manner. Of minerals there is +abundance; ore in many places actually lying on the surface. The +assegais (or spears) of the Kafirs are all made of iron, smelted and +welded by themselves; while recent travellers from the northernmost +extremity of the Colony bring accounts of innumerable implements in use +among the savage tribes there, formed of iron of their own manufacture. +Copper and lead have been discovered within fifteen miles of Algoa Bay. + +But such riches remain utterly unproductive without facile means of +transport, and a great want in the Colony is good roads. Of course, +want of labour is the cause of this deficiency, which is, however, +being slowly remedied by the local government. Whether the Cape +Colonists were wise in rejecting the convicts, so kindly proffered +to them by Lord Grey, I shall not presume to opine, because I have a +notion that everybody knows their own business best; but we must not +forget that New South Wales owes the blessing of her good roads to what +was, it must be admitted, in other respects, a great curse to her--the +bands of convicts the Colonial Office were so obliging as to send her. + +Before I dilate on the greatest of all colonial wants, I will mention +what the Cape of Good Hope does _not_ want; namely, young +gentlemen with white hands and empty pockets, of no profession, and +with very extensive notions of refinement. She does not require +martinet “half-pays,” who know more of pipe-clay than of soils, and +more of killing than of breeding and fattening. Fine ladies, who are +proficient pianistes, and do not understand poultry, she is much +better without. What she _does_ require, are:--In the towns, +mechanics and artisans of all kinds; in the country, good farmers and +sturdy dames, shepherds and agricultural labourers; in both, domestic +servants, male and female. For all these the Cape is open, and it +offers them first-rate livelihoods, abundance of food of the best +description, and a climate which the returns taken of the mortality +among the troops prove to be amongst the healthiest in all Her +Majesty’s world-wide dominions. The Colony has also one great advantage +over Australia--it is ten thousand miles nearer to England. + +Want the third in point of importance is a change in the present system +of selecting Colonial Governors. Were we to choose Generals to lead +our armies--not from soldiers trained to arms and distinguished in the +field--but from decayed statesmen, who had “never set a squadron in the +field,” nor even handled a sword; would not our enemies not only beat +us, but laugh at us? Yet conversely we commit precisely this absurdity: +we “reward” meritorious Generals by appointing them Governors; of whose +duties they are, as a rule, as ignorant as a Lord of the Treasury is of +fortification. The Governor of a Colony, as the representative of the +highest power in the Empire, is required to fulfil the highest civil +functions; to conduct the most difficult and delicate negotiations; +and we select a brave old General, who hardly knows the geography of +his government; is profoundly ignorant of the habits and requirements +of its people; who never even pretended to statesmanship, and either +commits himself to something so rash that it makes everybody angry, or +to something so silly that it makes everybody laugh. + + * * * * * + +In Education, England might take a lesson from her South African +dependency--it is in the education of the people. Government schools +are established in every town, and almost every village of the +Colony, open to children of all classes and all creeds, and free of +all expense. They are presided over by intelligent teachers, chiefly +selected from the Scotch Universities, and truly their pupils do +these gentlemen infinite credit. I do not hesitate to say, that the +rising generation of the Cape Colony will be the best educated men +of their class in all the British Empire. It is to Dr. Jones, the +former President of the South African College, in Cape Town, that +the colony is indebted for this invaluable boon. Even the population +in the far interior are better off in this respect than the children +of our English peasantry. Thanks to the energy of Campbell, Latrobe, +Moffat, and other energetic, common-sense, as well as pious, members +of the Missionary Society; the children of the Hottentots, Griquas, +and even of some of the Bechuanas, are fast being brought into the +pale of civilisation by attendance at the schools established by those +gentlemen. Some of the offspring of English parents in the “interior” +of England, have no such schools to attend. + + * * * * * + +Sheep Farming is, perhaps, the best and most profitable occupation at +the Cape. It is far better than agriculture, and better than cattle +farming, for the following reasons. The great deficiency of the colony +is the want of sufficient water for irrigation. Wherever this want is +not felt, all kinds of grain may be raised with profit, and Cape wheat +is universally pronounced to be the finest in the world. But the farms, +or portions of farms, on which it can be grown are few and far between. +Nor is this the only drawback to agriculture; the farmer has two other +dire enemies to contend with. The one is the blight or “smut,” which is +very common; and frequently destroys whole crops. Two young friends of +mine hired a farm in partnership, and, in spite of the warnings of more +experienced persons, determined to turn their principal attention to +agriculture. They went to great expense in the purchase of agricultural +implements, paid the highest wages for labourers, and worked with +their own hands as hard as any ploughman in England. They raised a +magnificent crop, and began to indulge a sweet reverie on the “Dollars” +it was to bring them. Alas, the “smut” came, and the beautiful crop +was destroyed, while not one solitary dollar found its way into the +young farmers’ pockets. Disappointed, but not disheartened, they set +to work again, and next year with precisely the same result. Luckily +they were prudent fellows, and had neither been personally extravagant, +nor sunk all their money in one enterprise. They, therefore, purchased +some sheep, cattle, and horses, and only cultivated a very _small +portion_ of their farm; and now they are among the most prosperous +farmers in the Colony. + +Another enemy of the agriculturist at the Cape, not less destructive +than the former, though less frequent in his attacks, is the locust. +Till I went to the Cape, I never had a clear conception of the mischief +that could be done by this one of the “Plagues of Egypt.” They came +always in clouds, and fly _with_ the wind. I am almost afraid to +describe their numbers. I have seen the air as full of these creatures +as of the flakes of snow in a heavy snow-storm--in fact, literally +“raining locusts.” I have been obliged to turn back on a journey from +the impossibility of getting my horse to face them when driven against +us by the wind. I have seen immense plains one day covered with grass, +corn, and gardens; and the next day left, after a visit of locusts, +without one solitary blade of verdure on any part of them. I have seen +millions of these insects driven by the wind into the sea at Algoa +Bay, and washed on shore in such heaps, that their bodies decaying +have become so offensive as to oblige the authorities of the town to +employ all the Coolies in the place in burying them. Think of all +this, grumbling farmers of England. What corn-laws could afford you +“protection” against such an importation? Still, I must add that during +my five years’ residence at the Cape, I can only recall three visits of +these pests; nor must it be supposed that they at any time spread over +the whole Colony. When they visit a sheep or cattle farm, the owner +has, of course, no other alternative than to move his stock to some +place which they have not visited. + +Cattle are profitable stock at the Cape; but no Englishman seems to +like them so well as sheep. Besides, it occasionally happens that, in +a fit of caprice, every Hottentot labourer on your farm will leave +you in a day, and you will have to be your own herdsman. This is +comparatively nothing with sheep; but if you had a couple of hundred +cows that wanted milking you would be rather in a “fix.” + +Horses are also a profitable stock, and far more suited to English +taste. But the “returns” are necessarily slow; and few men can afford +to wait three years for their profits. + +Sheep are the best. Here is one example, by no means extraordinary, but +forming an average sample of the fruits of sheep-farming:--A gentleman +who was reading for the Church, at Cambridge, found that his health +would not allow him to continue his studies; he emigrated to Algoa Bay, +with a capital of about two thousand five hundred pounds. He wisely +listened to good advice in the selection of a farm and the purchase of +his stock of sheep. At the end of three years I visited him, and we +talked about sheep-farming, which was then in a bad condition. I was +expressing my wonder that so many sheep-farmers had lately been “sold +up;” and this was his reply, “What else could you expect? Half of them +come out here without one farthing of capital. They hire a farm; buy +stock on credit (for two or three years), live on the sale of the wool +and also on credit--for they live ‘like fighting-cocks’--and then when +pay-day comes at last, they, of course, have not a sixpence. But, look +at my own case: I have been here three years; my wool fetches double +the price that it did the first year; my stock is just doubled in +number and vastly improved in quality; I have lived in as much comfort +as I require in the meantime; and I don’t owe a sixpence.” + +The life of a Cape farmer is necessarily solitary. His nearest +neighbour is probably seven miles off, and his only daily companions +are his stock and his labourers. A visitor (especially if he come from +one of the Towns) is a veritable Godsend; and is safe to be welcome as +long as he chooses to remain. He may ride his host’s horses and shoot +or hunt his game, smoke his pipes, and drink his “Cape Smoke,”[A] as +long as he pleases. But he must be contented with very rough fare. +Mutton and goats’ flesh, meal-cakes (very similar, I fancy, to those +which King Alfred burnt), Indian corn, and badly-made coffee, will form +the staple articles of his food. He will sleep on a home-made sofa with +goatskins for blankets, in a room with a mud floor, and very probably +no ceiling but the thatch roof. The house will most likely be built of +lath and plaster, and look far more like the stable of a third-rate +country inn than a gentleman’s residence. Yet the host is often a +highly educated and sensible man, fighting his way to competence, +living a comparatively easy life, and, if unblessed with luxuries, at +least unharassed by cares, save when an occasional wolf (or rather +hyæna) makes a night assault on his homestead. + +[A] Cape Brandy. + +Of the Cape Trade, the most peculiar and profitable branch is that with +the native tribes. At present it is carried on in the most primitive +style. A trader will load a couple of waggons with such goods as are +likely to sell among savages. Coarse cloth, smart Manchester printed +calicoes, blankets, beads, brass curtain-rings (worn by the natives +as ornaments on their arms), soldiers’ jackets, wide-awake hats, +&c. With this load he will proceed across the colonial boundary, +and penetrate as far as he pleases into the interior, calling where +experience has shown him he is likely to find customers, and selling +his goods like a hawker, or “Cheap Jack,” in England. But he seldom +obtains _money_ for his goods,--nor does he wish for it. He gets +ivory, ostrich feathers, wild-beast skins, horns, and, in fact, all the +rarest trophies of the chase. With these he reloads his waggons for +his return home, and reaches the Colony after, perhaps, six or eight +months’ absence, with a load which fetches him at once, seven or eight +hundred--sometimes a thousand--pounds in exchange for his outlay of one +hundred and fifty pounds. + +It seems clear that the establishment of trading stations in the +interior of Southern Africa would be most profitable to the projectors, +and most advantageous to the native tribes, by accustoming them to the +sights and habits of a civilised life. + +The shopkeepers are rather jealous of the merchants at the Cape. +The latter are very often so undignified as to sell a dozen pair of +stockings or a single hat, to the exceeding disgust of retailers. + +A Cape shop is a curiosity. It strikes a man as odd, to buy his boots +and his cheese, or his hat and his sugar, at the same shop,--still more +odd to purchase his wife a Chinese shawl and his child a peg-top in the +same establishment. + + * * * * * + +The Wild Sports of South Africa have been celebrated by many a writer, +from Major Cornwallis Harris down to Mr. Gordon Cumming. For large game +the country is perhaps the finest sporting ground in the world. People +come even from India to hunt the lion and the buffalo, the rhinoceros +and the hippopotamus, the elephant, the giraffe, and the innumerable +varieties of wild deer, from the delicate and graceful springbok to the +heavy and powerful gnu. Some of the most dreaded amongst them are not +nearly so terrible as travellers’ tales would persuade “the gentlemen +of England who sit at home at ease.” + +On one occasion I was riding through a wood, with a single companion; +we were on a journey, and quite unarmed. At a little open space in the +woods we dismounted and knee-haltered our horses to let them feed, +while we lazily stretched ourselves under a tree, and “took a pull” +at our pocket-pistols, loaded with Cognac. A slight rustling sound +was heard above our heads, and down came something to the ground in +front of us. It was a fine, full-grown, handsome leopard, who coolly +turned round and stared us in the face. I very much doubt whether +two respectable young gentlemen ever felt in a greater fright than +my friend and myself at that moment. The unwelcome visitor, however, +merely wagged his tail, and having apparently satisfied his curiosity +as to our personal appearance, trotted quietly off into the woods. +Without uttering a word we each drew a long breath, took another pull +at the _eau-de-vie_, caught our horses, and put as many miles as +we could in a few minutes between ourselves and that same wood. + +The lion can even be companionable. Major Nicholson occupies a farm +near the north-east boundary of the Colony. He is a great sportsman, +and goes out alone to look after a lion with as much unconcern as a +Regent Street lounger seeks out a Skye-terrier as a present for his +lady-love. In one of his afternoon rambles the Major fell in with a +lion; they were both going the same way and jogged along for some +distance silent, though excellent friends. At length the lion stopped, +turned round, faced the Major, and sat on his haunches like a great +tom-cat. The Major, not knowing how soon his majesty’s tacit treaty +of peace might be broken with him, levelled his piece, taking aim +between the eyes. He was just about to fire, when a sound caused him +to turn round; he then at once understood that, the lion having been +out for a walk, his lady had come, like a dutiful wife, to meet him. +The Major drew back and calculated the odds--two to one in favour of +the quadrupeds--and reserved his fire; deciding that it would be little +satisfaction to kill the husband and be eaten by the wife, or _vice +versâ_. The respectable couple then continued their walk alone, +treating the Major with the most sovereign contempt, and allowing him, +like Young Norval, to “mark the course they took,” and to follow them +to their abode. This he next day visited, with men, dogs, and guns; and +a week afterwards I was sleeping soundly, in the Major’s house, on the +skin of that same king of the forest, while his consort’s hide served +me for a coverlid. + +Although the keener sportsman prefers to go beyond the colonial +boundary for prey, yet it is customary in the towns for a number of +friends to make up a shooting party, who sally forth with waggons and +a tent, which they pitch on some agreeable spot, and stay for several +days, living _al fresco_,--enjoying good sport by day and good +fare at the end of it, with merry songs, toasts, and stories. Others +prefer hunting, mount their active little horses, and, followed by a +whole host of curs, whose pedigrees would puzzle the most ingenious +zoologist, sally forth in search of wild bucks; and many a good run +they enjoy, and much do they contribute to the stock of good things +which grace the table on the greensward at night. + + + + + “BATTLE WITH LIFE!” + + + Bear thee up bravely, + Strong heart and true! + Meet thy woes gravely, + Strive with them too! + Let them not win from thee + Tear of regret, + Such were a sin from thee, + Hope for good yet! + + Rouse thee from drooping, + Care-laden soul; + Mournfully stooping + ’Neath grief’s control! + Far o’er the gloom that lies, + Shrouding the earth, + Light from eternal skies + Shows us thy worth. + + Nerve thee yet stronger, + Resolute mind! + Let care no longer + Heavily bind. + Rise on thy eagle wings + Gloriously free! + Till from material things + Pure thou shalt be! + + Bear ye up bravely, + Soul and mind too! + Droop not so gravely, + Bold heart and true! + Clear rays of streaming light + Shine through the gloom, + God’s love is beaming bright + E’en round the tomb! + + + + + SPY POLICE. + + +We have already given some insight into the workings of the Detective +Police system of London, and have found that it is solely employed +in bringing crime to justice. We have no political police, no police +over opinion. The most rabid demagogue can _say_ in this free +country what he chooses, provided it does not tend to incite others to +_do_ what is annoying to the lieges. He speaks not under the +terror of an organised spy system. He dreads not to discuss the affairs +of the nation at a tavern, lest the waiter should be a policeman in +disguise; he can converse familiarly with his guests at his own table +without suspecting that the interior of his own liveries consists of +a spy; when travelling, he has not the slightest fear of perpetual +imprisonment for declaring himself freely on the conduct of the powers +that be, because he knows that even if his fellow-passenger be a +Sergeant Myth or an Inspector Wield, no harm will come to him. + +It is not so across the Channel. There, while the criminal police is +very defective, the police of politics is all powerful. In March last, +thirty thousand political malcontents were swept beyond the gates of +Paris in a single morning, before the rest of the people were up; and +nobody was any the wiser till the masterly feat had been performed; but +during the same month several single individuals were knocked down and +robbed--some in broad day, others at dusk--yet neither of the robbers +were taken. In Austria, in some of the German states, and in Italy, +political _espionage_ is carried to a point of refined ingenuity +of which no Englishman can form an idea. Mr. Tomkins goes, for +instance, to Naples; and--as the Emperor of Russia might have enlarged +on the happiness and prosperity of that city after his recent visit to +it, because the streets were cleared of beggars, the cabmen compelled +to dress in their best, and the fishermen to wear shoes--so in the +“Travels in Italy,” which Mr. Tomkins would undoubtedly publish, there +would be not a word about the police spy system; because he, innocent +man, was unable to detect in his table companions, in his courier, or +in his laundress, an agent of police. It is now our purpose to supply +from the authentic information of a resident in Naples, the hiatus to +be found in all the books of all the Mr. Tomkinses who have written +“Travels.” + +The chief agent is the Commissary, who, says our friend, has a certain +district put under his care, and is thus made responsible for its +order and fidelity; he is a kind of nursing father, in short, to the +unhappy inhabitants, with power to ruin or destroy; for though he +nominally receives his orders from the Minister of Police, yet, as the +cant phrase is, his office is eminently “suggestive;” and whether a +suspicion is to be cleared up, an act of vengeance to be perpetrated, +or some object of interest or licentiousness to be attained, the +report of the Commissary supplies all the data for the operations at +head-quarters. + +Immediately under his orders this General of Division has both regular +and irregular troops, the former being the Policemen of the City; the +latter simply Spies. When any long course of inquiry is to be carried +out, he employs deputies, who bring in their intelligence from time to +time; but if any immediate or important information is desired, the +Commissary undertakes that little bit of business himself--it is a +delicate _morçeau_ which this gourmand cannot resist, and away he +posts to enjoy the banquet. + +Some years ago, there resided in the neighbourhood of Naples a +foreigner, whose health compelled him to seek a southern climate. +His tastes and occupations were literary, and his habits quiet; but +whether he had some secret enemy who had denounced him, or whether +the Government were afraid of him, because he read and wrote, I +know not; but one fine morning the little town was much agitated +by the appearance of a Commissary of Police and his attendant +“Sbirri.” Many were the conjectures--as is always the case under such +circumstances--as to what could be the object of this visitation. No +one took it to himself; but as in a church each good Christian lolls in +his corner and admires the applicability of the sermon to his neighbour +in the next pew; so every little townsman knew precisely the person who +merited the inspection of the Police. Don Roberto was sure that the +visit was meant for his mortal enemy, Don Giuseppe; whereas the master +of the favourite “Cantino” was equally sure that it must be for his +rival who sold such acid wine, and permitted scenes in his shop enough +to awaken the anger of the Saints. He always thought he was a Carbonaro! + +The Commissary, on his arrival, sent for the Syndic. + +“Pray, Signor Syndic,” he said, “is there a foreigner residing here, +called Don Ferdinand?” (every one is Don, in Naples.) + +“Yes!” was the reply. + +“And pray, Sir, what is the object of his residence here?” + +“I understand, Signor Commissario, that he is in search of health and +amusement.” + +“Ah! very good: health and amusement. And what may be his occupations?” + +“They do say, Sir, that he is engaged much in reading and writing.” + +“Reading and writing! Yet in search of health and amusement,” said the +official, opening his eyes. “That’s a curious combination; but tell me, +has Don Ferdinand any intercourse with the inhabitants? does he ever +invite any of them to dinner?” + +“I must confess,” said the Syndic, “that he does.” + +“Then it is true, that Don Ferdinand proposes toasts after dinner?” + +“Well,” replied the Syndic, as if such an admission would be fraught +with danger. “I cannot deny it--he _does_ propose toasts.” + +“What are they?” asked the great official, sharply. + +“His usual practice is, first, to propose the health of our Sovereign +Lord the King, and then the health of _his_ Sovereign Lady, the +Queen.” + +Not without disappointment at having made out nothing serious against +Don Ferdinand, our Commissary dismissed the Syndic, merely observing +that he had taken note of all his answers, and should draw up his +report therefrom, and present it to the Minister of Police. + +After that, the Commissary of the Police came twice to my friend’s +residence, and put a number of searching questions to his porter. +Nothing, however, came of these investigations; first, because there +was nothing really alarming in the fact of a man reading and writing, +and giving toasts; and, secondly, and perhaps more strongly, because +Don Ferdinand was an Englishman; for there is a prestige attaching +to the very name of an Englishman which attracts to him the respect +of the people and a cautious deferential treatment on the part of +the Governments. It is felt, that, however distant he may be from +his native land, he is not beyond its protective power, and that +any injustice done to him will be resented as an injustice done +to the nation. It is this conviction which has been his security +in circumstances where I have known the subjects of other States +arrested, imprisoned, or sent out of the country, without receiving the +protection of their Governments. + +The Commissary is eminently a night-bird; sometimes you see him +with “measured step and slow,” followed by his Myrmidons, stealing +along under the dark shadows of the houses, like a cat treading; +or, perchance, you are returning home through the silent streets, +carelessly and thoughtlessly, when, at some dark corner, you find +yourself confronted by this spectre. He listens for and pauses at every +foot-fall, waits about in entries, stops at doors, watches the lights +in houses, and, like a true inductive philosopher, from such simple +facts--as seeing two or three lights, more or less, or a larger group +of heads than usual, infers conspiracies most dreadful and dangerous +to the State. Presently a Commissary is seen bustling along with his +attendants, with a quick and eager step. He is not on a mission of +inspection--oh, no--that cheerful promptitude indicates that game’s +a-foot, and that something is to be done. And now he stops before a +house and knocks aloud--“Who is there?”--demands some one from within. +“Open in the name of the law!” is the reply. What consternation do +these words create; lights are gleaming and people are hurrying +backwards and forwards, but the knocking continues and becomes louder, +and the door is opened, and the unfortunate master of the house is +dragged from his bed to be plunged into the dungeons of the Vicaria. +His neighbour, luckier than he, had timely notice of the honour +intended him by the Commissary; and, escaping over the roof of his +house, was enabled to get on board some friendly vessel. Their crime +you ask? That of hundreds of others who are eating the bread of penury +in exile, or pining in loathsome dungeons--they had taken part in the +movements which preceded the publication of the “Constitution” (yet an +article of that “Constitution” says, that “a veil of oblivion shall +rest upon the past”). They had, in short, assisted in the development +of a Constitution which I saw the Majesty of Naples swear on the +Gospels to observe. + +I know no better type than certain noxious insects for the myrmidons +of the Commissary--the Police Spies of the South of Italy. Their +multitude, their ubiquity, their unwearied perseverance, their +sharp sting, make them worse than the whole insect tribe united, +and infinitely more dangerous. You may crush the wasp, or smoke the +mosquito, or brush away the ant, and get some intervals of repose +in spite of renewed attacks; they give you, too, some warning +signs of their approach--but the Police Spy is invisible and never +out of hearing; whether you are relaxing in frank and thoughtless +merriment, or abandoning yourself to the sweet and delicious dreams +of friendship; in the market or the street--the drawing-room--the +café--or the church--there he is: “A chiel’s amang ye taking notes, +and ’faith he’ll prent it!” They reconnoitre the ground in various +detachments for the Commissary, and report the movements, words, and +almost thoughts, of the “suspected,” or of whomsoever they please to +place upon that fatal list. They assume no distinctive dress--make no +sign; they walk in darkness, and move like the pestilence, yet they +are as real existences, and follow as precise a trade, as the vendor +of maccaroni. These spies are not sent forth at random, like gleaners +in a wheat-field, to pick up whatever they can; but they are selected +with caution, and assigned a position for which their talents or rank +best fit them. Thus it happens that every grade of society has its +appropriate and peculiar spies. Some are appointed to watch over the +upper classes; some over the _canaglia_; some over the clergy; +all watch each other. Enter a drawing-room, and rustling in satin, and +distributing the courtesies and refinements of the _galleria_ +(drawing-room), you may behold a Government Spy. Beauty and refinement +unite to lament the fate of the poor Marchese Maroni, who was arrested +yesterday; nay, two crystal drops confirm the grief of the sympathising +syren--“It was so hard a case. There was really nothing that could be +proved against his Eccellenza. Alas! who is safe under the existing +order of things--is there no hope--will there never be any change?” +But beware--fall not into the meshes, though they may be woven of +silk; be silent or indifferent; the very lips which pronounced these +commiserations, are those which a few hours ago denounced the subject +of them to the Government. You adjourn, at the close of the Opera, +to a café; you are accompanied by several friends, and feel disposed +to relax over a glass of iced punch--’tis so hot--and then from one +topic of conversation you range to another, as if you were breathing +the air of liberty. But who is that sleek old gentleman opposite, +whose keen and cunning eye glances occasionally at you from above his +paper? He has been seated there, I know not how long, spelling rather +than reading yesterday’s paper; yet he has a benevolent expression of +countenance; perhaps he is infirm, poor fellow, or is looking for an +advertisement; perhaps some article has deeply interested him. Phaugh! +waste not your compassion or your speculation upon him--he is a Spy! he +has been taking notes, and woe be to you if you have been betrayed into +any thoughtless expression of opinion; for every word is registered. +What corner of the city, or the country, what class of society is +free from this pest! Nor is all this merely imaginary. I paint from +the life, and could adduce instances of betrayal in the belle of high +society, or in the shopman at the counter, in the caburan who takes +your paltry _buonamancia_, or the friend you have cherished in +your bosom. + +For even private friendship is not held sacred. There was living in +Naples, upwards of a year since, a Count Montinona, who appeared to +have no particular object in view except the pursuit of pleasure. For +many years he had lavished his bounty and his friendship on another, +who was at length discovered to have made somewhat free with the +Count’s property; accusations ensued, and, though compassion and a +certain lingering recollection of the past did not permit the Count to +cast the villain entirely off; yet he so far restricted his intimacy as +to put it out of his power to rob him--“he was poor, and the temptation +had been too great!” But what ensued?--This man denounced his friend as +having concealed arms, and as entertaining free and dangerous opinions. +Straightway the Count was arrested--his house and papers were examined, +though nothing could be found to implicate him or to prove the charge; +yet for many, many months he pined away in prison. I never heard when +he was released, or if he is yet at liberty. All that time the informer +ranged about at his own sweet will, to entrap as many new jail victims +as he could make. + +The effect of the Spy System on the national character is exceedingly +demoralising. There is no country in Europe where the low, secret +vices, as opposed to those of a bolder, opener, and more ferocious +character, exist so strongly as in the South of Italy. There, the +result of that timidity and want of faith in what is good, and just, +and true, which has been engendered by intrigue, is practised in its +most comprehensive sense. The Secret Police system is one of the very +many causes of this. To appreciate this thoroughly, you must regard +it as being not merely a political institution, but as having now +become national; people have followed the example which has been set +them, and have all become spies--spies on each other’s actions, words, +and thoughts. Sometimes this habit is pursued to the extent only of +simple curiosity, watching, investigating, and reporting the commonest +trifles. Sometimes it is a little more malignant, and engages, almost +as a pastime, in embroiling individuals or families. Sometimes it +pushes further, and furnishes denunciations to the Priest, the Bishop, +the Intendente, or the Minister. I have seen it under all its phases, +and the effect has been to produce a want of faith in all that is high, +generous and noble, and to form a low national character. + +It is more ridiculous and annoying than can well be imagined, to get +behind the scenes of Italian life, and listen to the daily gossip:--How +such an one “_ha fatto un’ ricorso_” against this or that person. +How Don So and So has written certain letters to the Intendente, +containing charges against another Don, and has forged two signatures. +How So and So has been to the bishop and laid a long list of crimes at +the door of some luckless priest. Then watch the tempest of official +papers which fly through the air; some contain inquiries into the +truth of the statements, addressed to the judge or the syndic; some +are orders to a dozen unfortunate wights to present themselves at the +Intendenza; while others contain ghostly reproofs from the bishop, or +orders to suspend a priest at his reverence’s will and pleasure, and +rusticate him in some monastery. Every denunciation is received and +inquired into. + +I remember an instance of two men who kept a whole district in +inquietude during one winter. Both had received some private +offence, and straightway each shrank into a corner and wove his +envenomed meshes; charges were devised and letters written to the +Intendente, accusing some score of their friends of Carbonarism or +constitutionalism; then came the usual dispatches to the judge and +other authorities to inquire into the truth of the statements. The +judge, it happened, was friendly with the unfortunate denounced, and +drew up therefore a favourable report, but had he been less honest or +less amicable, these poor fellows might have swelled the number of +those who now pine in the prisons of the Vicaria. + +Indeed, the influence of the Police Spy System (united with other +causes), has been such as to convert the whole nation into spies upon +each other. As suspicion and want of confidence universally prevail, +so there is a deficiency of truthfulness. This cannot be more strongly +proved than by the admission of the Italians themselves who, when +wishing to conciliate your belief, tell you that they speak “_la +parola Inglese_,”--on the word of an Englishman. + + + + + CHIPS. + + + THE INDIVIDUALITY OF LOCOMOTIVES. + +It is a remarkable truth, and, well applied, it might be profitable to +us, in helping us to make fair allowance for the differences between +the temperaments of different men--that every Locomotive Engine running +on a Railway, has a distinct individuality and character of its own. + +It is perfectly well known to experienced practical engineers, that if +a dozen different Locomotive Engines were made, at the same time, of +the same power, for the same purpose, of like materials, in the same +Factory--each of those Locomotive Engines would come out with its own +peculiar whims and ways, only ascertainable by experience. One engine +will take a great meal of coke and water at once; another will not hear +of such a thing, but will insist on being coaxed by spades-full and +buckets-full. One is disposed to start off, when required, at the top +of his speed; another must have a little time to warm at his work, and +to get well into it. These peculiarities are so accurately mastered +by skilful drivers, that only particular men can persuade particular +engines to do their best. It would seem as if some of these “excellent +monsters” declared, on being brought out of the stable, “If it’s +Smith who is to drive me, I won’t go. If it’s my friend Stokes, I am +agreeable to anything!” + +All Locomotive Engines are low-spirited in damp and foggy weather. +They have a great satisfaction in their work when the air is crisp +and frosty. At such a time they are very cheerful and brisk; but +they strongly object to haze and Scotch mists. These are points of +character on which they are all united. It is in their peculiarities +and varieties of character that they are most remarkable. + +The Railway Company who should consign all their Locomotives to one +uniform standard of treatment, without any allowance for varying shades +of character and opinion, would soon fall as much behind-hand in the +world as those greater Governments are, and ever will be, who pursue +the same course with the finer piece of work called Man. + + + THE OLDEST INHABITANT OF THE PLACE DE GRÈVE. + +The Police Courts of London have often displayed many a curious +character, many a strange scene, many an exquisite bit of dialogue; so +have the Police Courts in Ireland, especially at the Petty Sessions in +Kilrush; but we are not so well aware of how often a scene of rich and +peculiar humour occurs in the Police _tribuneaux_ of Paris. We +will proceed to give the reader a “taste of their quality.” + +An extremely old woman, all in rags, was continually found begging in +the streets, and the Police having goodnaturedly let her off several +times, were at last obliged to take her in charge, and bring her into +the Court. Several magistrates were sitting. The following dialogue +took place between the President and the old woman. + +_President._ Now, my good woman, what have you to say for +yourself? You have been frequently warned by the Police, but you have +persisted in troubling people with begging. + +_Old Woman_ (_in a humble quavering tone_). Ah, Monsieur le +President, it is not so much trouble to other people as it is to me. I +am a very old woman. + +_Pres._ Come, come, you must leave off begging, or I shall be +obliged to punish you. + +_Old W._ But, Monsieur le President, I cannot live without--I must +beg--pardon me, Monsieur--I am obliged to beg. + +_Pres._ But I say you must not. Can you do no work? + +_Old W._ Ah, no, Monsieur; I am too old. + +_Pres._ Can’t you sell something--little cakes--bonbons?-- + +_Old W._ No, Monsieur, I can’t get any little stock to begin with; +and, if I could, I should be robbed by the _gamins_, or the little +girls, for I’m not very quick, and can’t see well. + +_Pres._ Your relations must support you, then. You cannot be +allowed to beg. Have you no son--no daughter--no grandchildren? + +_Old W._ No, Monsieur; none--none--all my relations are dead. + +_Pres._ Well then, your friends must give you assistance. + +_Old W._ Ah, Monsieur, I have no friends; and, indeed, I never had +but one, in my life; but he too is gone. + +_Pres._ And who was he? + +_Old W._ Monsieur de Robespierre--_le pauvre cher homme!_ +(The poor, dear man!) + +_Pres._ Robespierre!--why what did you know of him? + +_Old W._ Oh, Monsieur, my mother was one of the _tricoteurs_ +(knitting-women) who used to sit round the foot of the guillotine, and +I always stood beside her. When Monsieur de Robespierre was passing by, +in attending his duties, he used to touch my cheek, and call me (here +the old woman shed tears) _la belle Marguerite_:--_le pauvre, +cher homme!_ + +We must here pause to remind the reader that these women, the +_tricoteurs_, who used to sit round the foot of the guillotine on +the mornings when it was at its hideous work, were sometimes called the +“Furies;” but only as a grim jest. It is well known, that, although +there were occasionally some sanguinary hags amongst them, yet, for +the most part, they were merely idle, gossiping women, who came there +dressed in neat white caps, and with their knitting materials, out of +sheer love of excitement, and to enjoy the _spectacle_. + +_Pres._ Well, Goody; finish your history. + +_Old W._ I was married soon after this, and then I used to +take my seat as a _tricoteur_ among the others; and on the +days when Monsieur de Robespierre passed, he used always to notice +me--_le pauvre cher homme_. I used then to be called _la belle +tricoteuse_, but now--now, I am called _la vielle radoteuse_ +(the old dotardess). Ah, Monsieur le President, it is what we must all +come to! + +The old woman accompanied this reflection with an inimitable look at +the President, which completely involved him in the _we_, thus +presenting him with the prospect of becoming an old dotardess; not in +the least meant offensively, but said in the innocence of her aged +heart. + +_Pres._ Ahem!--silence! You seem to have a very tender +recollection of Monsieur Robespierre. I suppose you had reason to be +grateful to him? + +_Old W._ No, Monsieur, no reason in particular; for he guillotined +my husband. + +_Pres._ Certainly this ought to be no reason for loving his memory. + +_Old W._ Ah, Monsieur, but it happened quite by accident. Monsieur +de Robespierre did not intend to guillotine my husband--he had him +executed by mistake for somebody else--_le pauvre cher homme!_ + +Thus leaving it an exquisite matter of doubt, as to whether the “poor +dear man” referred to her husband, or to Monsieur de Robespierre; or +whether the tender epithet was equally divided between them. + + + + + TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE FORGERIES. + + + CHAPTER II. + +In the history of crime, as in all other histories, there is one great +epoch by which minor dates are arranged and defined. In a list of +remarkable events, one remarkable event more remarkable than the last, +is the standard around which all smaller circumstances are grouped. +Whatever happens in Mohammedan annals, is set down as having occurred +so many years after the flight of the Prophet; in the records of London +commerce a great fraud or a great failure is mentioned as having +come to light so many months after the flight of Rowland Stephenson. +Sporting men date from remarkable struggles for the Derby prize; and +refer to 1840 as “Bloomsbury’s year.” The highwayman of old dated from +Dick Turpin’s last appearance on the fatal stage at Tyburn turnpike. In +like manner, the standard epoch in the annals of Bank Note Forgery, is +the year 1797, when (on the 25th of February) one pound notes were put +into circulation instead of golden guineas; or, to use the City idiom, +“cash payments were suspended.” + +At that time the Bank of England note was no better in appearance--had +not improved as a work of art--since the days of Vaughan, Mathieson, +and Old Patch; it was just as easily imitated, and the chances of the +successful circulation of counterfeits were increased a thousand-fold. + +Up to 1793 no notes had been issued even for sums so small as five +pounds. Consequently all the Bank paper then in use, passed through the +hands and under the eyes of the affluent and educated, who could more +readily distinguish the false from the true. Hence, during the fourteen +years which preceded the non-golden and small-note era, there were only +three capital convictions for the crime. When, however, the Bank of +England notes became “common and popular,” a prodigious quantity--to +complete the quotation--was also made “base,” and many persons were +hanged for concocting them. + +To a vast number of the humbler orders, Bank Notes were a rarity and a +“sight.” Many had never seen such a thing before they were called upon +to take one or two pound notes in exchange for small merchandise, or +their own labour. How were they to judge? How were they to tell a good +from a spurious note?--especially when it happened that the officers +of the Bank themselves, were occasionally mistaken, so complete +and perfect were the imitations then afloat. There cannot be much +doubt that where one graphic rascal was found out, ten escaped. They +snapped their fingers at the executioner, and went on enjoying their +beefsteaks and porter; their winter treats to the play; their summer +excursions to the suburban tea-gardens; their fashionable lounges at +Tunbridge Wells, Bath, Margate, and Ramsgate; doing business with +wonderful unconcern and “face” all along their journeys. These usually +expensive, but to them profitable enjoyments, were continually coming +to light at the trials of the lesser rogues who undertook the issue +department; for, from the ease with which close imitation was effected, +the manufacture was more readily completed than the uttering. The +fraternity and sisterhood of utterers played many parts, and were +banded in strict compact with the forgers. Some were turned loose into +fairs and markets, in all sorts of appropriate disguises. Farmers, who +could hardly distinguish a field of standing wheat from a field of +barley: Butchers who never wielded more deadly weapons than two-prong +forks: Country boys with Cockney accents, bought gingerbread, and +treated their so-called sweethearts with ribbons and muslins, all by +the interchange of false “flimseys.” The better mannered disguised +themselves as ladies and gentlemen, paid their losings at cards or +hazard, or their tavern bills, their milliners, and coachmakers, in +motley money composed of part real and part base bank paper. Some +went about in the cloak of the Samaritan, and generously subscribed +to charities wherever they saw a chance of changing a bad “five” for +three or four good “ones.” Ladies of sweet disposition went about doing +good among the poor; personally inquired into distress, relieved it +by sending out a daughter or a son to a neighbouring shop for change; +and left five shillings for present necessities, walking off with +fifteen. So openly--in spite of the gallows--was forgery carried on, +that whoever chose to turn utterer found no difficulty in getting a +stock-in-trade to commence with. Indeed, in the days of highwaymen, +no travelling gentleman’s pocket or valise was considered properly +furnished without a few forged notes wherewith to satisfy the demands +of the members of the “High Toby.” This offence against the laws of the +road, however, soon became too common, and wayfarers who were stopped +and rifled had to pledge their sacred words of honour that their notes +were the genuine promises of Abraham Newland; and that their watches +were not of the factory of Mr. Pinchbeck. + +With temptations so strong, it is no wonder that the forgers’ trade +flourished, with only an occasional check from the strong arm of the +law. It followed, therefore, that from the issue of small notes in +February 1797, to the end of 1817--twenty years--there were no fewer +than eight hundred and seventy prosecutions connected with Bank Note +Forgery, in which there were only one hundred and sixty acquittals, and +upwards of three hundred executions! 1818 was the culminating point +of the crime. In the first three months there were no fewer than one +hundred and twenty-eight prosecutions by the Bank; and by the end of +that year, two-and-thirty individuals had been hanged for Note Forgery. +So far from this appalling series of examples having any effect in +checking the progress of the crime, it is proved that at, and after +that very time, base notes were poured into the Bank at the rate of +_a hundred a day_! + +The enormous number of undetected forgeries afloat, may be estimated +by the fact, that from the 1st of January 1812, to the 10th April +1818, one hundred and thirty-one thousand three hundred and thirty-one +pieces of paper were ornamented by the Bank officers with the word +“Forged”--upwards of one hundred and seven thousand of them were +one-pound counterfeits. + +Intrinsically, it would appear from an Hibernian view of the case, +then, that bad notes were nearly as good, (except not merely having +been manufactured at the Bank), as good ones. So thoroughly and +completely did some of them resemble the authorised engraving of the +Bank, that it was next to impossible to distinguish the false from the +true. Countless instances, showing rather the skill of the forger than +the want of vigilance in Bank officials, could be brought forward. +Respectable persons were constantly taken into custody on a charge of +uttering forgeries, imprisoned for days and then liberated. A close +scrutiny, proving that the accusations were made upon genuine paper. In +September, 1818, Mr. A. Burnett, of Portsmouth, had the satisfaction +of having a note which had passed through his hands returned to him +from the Bank of England with the base mark upon it. Satisfied of +its genuineness, he re-inclosed it to the cashier, and demanded its +payment. By return of post he received the following letter: + + “_Bank of England, 16 Sept., 1818._ + + “Sir,--I have to acknowledge your letter to Mr. Hase, of the 13th + inst. inclosing a one pound note, and, in answer thereto, I beg leave + to acquaint you, that, on inspection it appears to be a genuine Note + of the Bank of England; I therefore, agreeably to your request, + inclose you one of the like value, No. 26,276, dated 22nd August, 1818. + + “I am exceedingly sorry, Sir, that such an unusual oversight should + have occurred to give you so much trouble, which I trust your candour + will induce you to excuse when I assure you that the unfortunate + mistake has arisen entirely out of the hurry and multiplicity of + business. + + “I am, Sir, + Your most obedient servant, + A. BURNETT, ESQ. J. RIPPON. + 7 Belle Vue Terrace. + Southsea, near Portsmouth.” + +A more extraordinary case is on record. A note was traced to the +possession of a tradesman, which had been pronounced by the Bank +Inspectors to have been forged. The man would not give it up and +was taken before a magistrate, charged with “having a note in his +possession, well knowing it to be forged.” He was committed to prison +on evidence of the Bank Inspector; but was afterwards released on +bail to appear when called on. He was _not_ called on; and, at +the expiration of twelvemonths (having kept the note all that time), +he brought an action against the Bank for false imprisonment. On the +trial the note was proved to be genuine! and the plaintiff was awarded +damages of one hundred pounds. + +It is a fact sufficiently dreadful that three hundred and thirty +human lives should have been sacrificed in twenty-one years; but when +we relate a circumstance which admits the merest probability that +some--even one--of those lives may have been sacrificed in innocence +of the offence for which they suffered, the consideration becomes +appalling. + +Some time after the frequency of the crime had, in other respects +subsided, there was a sort of bloody assize at Haverfordwest, in Wales; +several prisoners were tried for forging and uttering, and thirteen +were convicted; chiefly on the evidence of Mr. Christmas, a Bank +Inspector, who swore positively, in one case, that the document named +in the indictment “was not an impression from a Bank of England plate; +was not printed on the paper with the ink or water-mark of the Bank; +neither was it in the handwriting of the signing clerk.” Upon this +testimony the prisoner, together with twelve participators in similar +crimes, were condemned to be hanged! + +The morning after the trial, Mr. Christmas was leaving his lodging, +when an acquaintance stepped up and asked him, as a friend, to give +his opinion on a note he had that morning received. It was a bright +day; Mr. Christmas put on his spectacles, and carefully scrutinised +the document in a business-like and leisurely manner. He pronounced it +to be forged. The gentleman, a little chagrined, brought it away with +him to town. It is not a little singular that he happened to know Mr. +Burnett, of Portsmouth, whom he accidentally met, and to whom he showed +the note. Mr. Burnett was evidently a capital judge of Bank paper. He +said nothing, but slipping his hand into one pocket, handed to the +astonished gentleman full change, and put the note into another. “It +cannot be a good note,” exclaimed the latter, “for my friend Christmas +told me at Haverfordwest that it is a forgery!” But as Mr. Burnett +had backed his opinion to the amount of twenty shillings he declined +to retract it; and lost no time in writing to Mr. Henry Hase (Abraham +Newland’s successor) to test its accuracy. + +It was lucky that he did so; for this little circumstance saved +thirteen lives! + +Mr. Christmas’s co-inspectors at the Bank of England actually +reversed his non-official judgment that the note was a forgery. It +was officially pronounced to be a good note; yet upon the evidence +of Mr. Christmas as regards other notes, the thirteen human beings +at Haverfordwest were trembling at the foot of the gallows. It was +promptly and cogently argued that as Mr. Christmas’s judgment had +failed him in the deliberate examination of one note, it might also err +as to others, and the convicts were respited. + +The converse of this sort of mistake often happened. Bad notes were +pronounced to be genuine by the Bank. Early in January, 1818, a +well-dressed woman entered the shop of Mr. James Hammond, of 40, +Bishopsgate Street Without, and having purchased three pounds worth +of goods, tendered in payment a ten-pound note. There was something +hesitating and odd in her manner; and, although Mr. Hammond could +see nothing the matter with the note, yet he was ungallant enough to +suspect--from the uncomfortable demeanour of his customer--that all was +not right. He hoped she was not in a hurry, for he had no change; he +must send to a neighbour for it. He immediately dispatched his shopman +to the most affluent of all his neighbours--to her of Threadneedle +Street. The delay occasioned the lady to remark, “I suppose he is gone +to the Bank?” Mr. Hammond having answered in the affirmative, engaged +his customer in conversation, and they freely discussed the current +topics of the day; till the young man returned with ten one pound Bank +of England Notes. Mr. Hammond felt a little remorse at having suspected +his patroness; who departed with the purchases with the utmost +despatch. She had not been gone half an hour before two gentlemen +rushed into the shop in a state of grievous chagrin; one was the Bank +clerk who had changed the note. He begged Mr. Hammond would be good +enough to give him another for it. “Why?” asked the puzzled shopkeeper. +“Why, Sir,” replied the distressed clerk, “it is forged!” Of course his +request was not complied with. The clerk declared that his dismissal +was highly probable; but Mr. Hammond was inexorable. + +The arguments in favour of death punishments never fail so signally +as when brought to the test of the scaffold and its effect on Bank +Forgeries. When these were most numerous, although from twenty +to thirty persons were put to death in one year, the gallows was +never deprived of an equal share of prey during the next. As long +as simulated notes could be passed with ease, and detected with +difficulty, the Old Bailey had no terrors for clever engravers and +dexterous imitators of the hieroglyphic autographs of the Bank of +England signers. + +At length public alarm at the prevalence of forgeries, and the +difficulty of knowing them as such, arose to the height of demanding +some sort of relief. In 1819 a committee was appointed by the +Government to enquire into the best means of prevention. One hundred +and eighty projects were submitted. They mostly consisted of intricate +designs such as rendered great expense necessary to imitate. But none +were adopted, for the obvious reason that ever so indifferent and +easily executed imitation of an elaborate note is quite sufficient +to deceive an uneducated eye; as had been abundantly proved in the +instance of the Irish “black note.” The Bank had not been indifferent +or idle on the subject, for it had spent some hundred thousand +pounds in projects for inimitable notes. At last--not long before +the Commission was appointed--they were on the eve of adopting an +ingenious and costly mechanism for printing a note so precisely alike +on both sides as to appear as one impression, when one of the Bank +printers imitated it exactly by the simple contrivance of two plates +and a hinge. This may serve as a sample of the other one hundred and +seventy-nine projects. + +Neither the gallows, nor expensive and elaborate works of art, having +been found effectual in preventing forgery, the true expedient for at +least lessening the crime was adopted in 1821:--the issue of small +notes was wholly discontinued, and sovereigns were brought into +circulation. The forger’s trade was nearly annihilated. Criminal +returns inform us that during the nine years after the resumption of +gold currency the number of convictions for offences having reference +to the Bank of England notes were less than one hundred, and the +executions only eight. This clinches the argument against the efficacy +of the gallows. In 1830 death punishments were repealed for all minor +offences, and, although the cases of Bank Note Forgeries slightly +increased for a time, yet there is no reason to suppose that they are +greater now than they were between 1821 and 1830. + +At present, Bank paper forgeries are not numerous. One of the latest +was that of the twenty pound note, of which about sixty specimens found +their way into the Bank. It was well executed in Belgium by foreigners, +and the impressions were passed among the Change-agents in various +towns in France and the Netherlands. The speculation did not succeed; +for the notes got into, and were detected at, the Bank, a little too +soon to profit the schemers much. + +The most considerable frauds now perpetrated are not forgeries; but are +done upon the plan of the highwayman mentioned in our first chapter. +In order to give currency to stolen or lost notes which have been +stopped at the Bank (lists of which are supplied to every banker in the +country), the numbers and dates are fraudulently altered. Some years +since, a gentleman, who had been receiving a large sum of money at the +Bank, was robbed of it in an omnibus. The notes gradually came in, but +all were altered. The last was one for five hundred pounds, dated the +12th March, 1846, and numbered 32109. On the Monday (3rd June) after +the last “Derby Day,” amid the _twenty-five thousand pieces_ of +paper that were examined by the Bank Inspectors, there was one note +for five hundred pounds, dated 12th March, 1848, and numbered 32409. +At that note an inspector suddenly arrested his rapid examination of +the pile of which it was one. He scrutinised it for a minute, and +pronounced it “altered.” On the next day, that same note, with a +perfect one for five hundred pounds, is shown to us with an intimation +of the fact. We look at every letter; we trace every line; follow +every flourish: we hold both up to the light; we undulate our visuals +with the waves of the water-mark. We confess that we cannot pronounce +decisively; but we have an opinion derived from a slight “goutiness” +in the fine stroke of the figure 4 that No. 32409 is the forgery! +so indeed it was. Yet the Bank Inspector had picked it out from the +hundred genuine notes as instantaneously--pounced upon it as rapidly, +as if it had been printed with green ink upon card-board. + +This then, O gentlemen forgers and sporting note alterers, is the +kind of odds which is against you. A minute investigation of the note +assured us of your exceeding skill and ingenuity; but it also convinced +us of the superiority of the detective ordeal which you have to blind +and to pass. In this instance you had followed the highwayman’s plan, +and had put with great cunning, the additional marks to the 1 in 32109 +to make it into a 4. To hide the scraping out of the top or serif of +the figure 1--to make the angle from which to draw the fine line of the +4--you had artfully inserted with a pen the figures “£16 16” as if that +sum had been received from a person bearing a name that you had written +above. You had with extraordinary neatness cut out the “6” from 1846, +and filled up the hole with an 8 abstracted from some note of lesser +value. You had fitted it with remarkable precision; only you had not +got the 8 quite upright enough to pass the shrewd glance of the Bank +Inspector. + +We have seen a one-pound note made up of refuse pieces of a hundred +other Bank notes, and pasted on a piece of paper (like a note +that had been accidentally torn), so as to present an entire and +_passable_ whole. + +To alter with a pen a 1 into a 4 is an easy task--to cut out the +numeral from the _date_ in one note and insert it into another, +needs only a tyro in paper-cutting; but to change the special +_number_ by which each note is distinguished, is a feat only +second in impossibility to trumping every court-card of every suit +six times running in a rubber of whist. Yet we have seen a note so +cleverly altered by this expedient, that it was actually paid by the +Bank cashiers. If the reader will take a Bank note out of his purse, +and examine its “number,” he will at once appreciate the combination +of chances required to find, on any other note, any other figure that +shall displace any one of the numerals so as to avoid detection. The +“number” of every Bank note is printed twice on one line--first, on +the words “I promise,” secondly, on the words, “or bearer.” Sometimes +the figures cover the whole of those words; sometimes they only partly +obscure them. No. 99066 now lies before us. Suppose we wished to +substitute the “0” of another note for the first “9” of the one now +under our eye; we see that the “9” covers a little bit of the “P,” +and intersects in three places the “r,” in “Promise.” Now, to give +this alteration the smallest chance, we must look through hundreds of +other notes till we find an “0” which not only covers a part of the +“P” and intersects the “r” in three places, but in precisely _the +same_ places as the “9” on our note does; else the strokes of those +letters would not meet when the “0” was let in, and instant detection +would ensue. But even then the job would only be half done. The second +initial “9” stands upon the “or” in “or bearer,” and we should have to +investigate several hundred more notes, to find an “0” that intersected +that little word exactly in the same manner, and then let it in with +such mathematical nicety, that not the hundredth part of a hair’s +breadth of the transferred paper should fail to range with the rest of +the letters and figures on the altered note; to say nothing of hiding +the joins in the paper. This is the triumph of ambidexterity; it is a +species of patch-work far beyond the most sublime achievements of “Old +Patch” himself. + +Time has proved that the steady perseverance of the Bank--despite +the most furious clamour--in gradually improving their original note +and thus preserving those most essential qualities, simplicity and +uniformity--has been a better preventive to forgery than any one of the +hundreds of plans, pictures, complications, chemicals, and colours, +which have been forced upon the Directors’ notice. Whole-note forgery +is nearly extinct. The lives of Eminent Forgers need only wait for a +single addendum; for only one man is left who can claim superiority +over Mathieson, and he was, unfortunately for the Bank of England, +born a little too late, to trip up his heels, or those of the late Mr. +Charles Price. He can do everything with a note that the patchers, +and alterers, and simulators, can do, and a great deal more. Flimsy +as a Bank note is to a proverb, he can split it into three perfect +continuous, flat, and even leaves. He has forged more than one design +sent into the Bank as an infallible preventive to forgery. You may, if +you like, lend him a hundred pound note: he will undertake to discharge +every trace of ink from it, and return it to you perfectly uninjured +and a perfect blank. We are not quite sure that if you were to burn +a Bank note and hand him the black cinders, that he would not bleach +it, and join it, and conjure it back again into a very good-looking, +payable piece of currency. But we _are_ sure of the truth of the +following story, which we have from our friend the transcendant forger +referred to; and who is no other than the chief of the Engraving and +Engineering department of the Bank of England: + +Some years ago--in the days of the thirty-shilling notes--a certain +Irishman saved up the sum of eighty-seven pounds ten, in notes of the +Bank of Ireland. As a sure means of securing this valuable property, +he put it in the foot of an old stocking, and buried it in his garden, +where Bank note paper couldn’t fail to keep dry, and to come out, when +wanted, in the best preservation. + +After leaving his treasure in this excellent place of deposit for some +months, it occurred to the depositor to take a look at it, and see how +it was getting on. He found the stocking-foot apparently full of the +fragments of mildewed and broken mushrooms. No other shadow of a shade +of eighty-seven pounds ten. + +In the midst of his despair, the man had the sense not to disturb the +ashes of his property. He took the stocking-foot in his hand, posted +off to the Bank in Dublin, entered it one morning as soon as it was +opened, and, staring at the clerk with a most extraordinary absence of +all expression in his face, said: + +“Ah, look at that, Sir! Can ye do anything for me?” + +“What do you call this?” said the clerk. + +“Eighty-sivin pound ten, praise the Lord, as I’m a sinner! Ohone! There +was a twenty as was paid to me by Mr. Phalim O’Dowd, Sir, and a ten +as was changed by Pat Reilly, and a five as was owen by Tim; and Ted +Connor, ses he to ould Phillips--” + +“Well! Never mind old Phillips. You have done it, my friend!” + +“Oh Lord, Sir, and it’s done it I have, most com-plate! Oh, good luck +to you, Sir, can you do nothing for me?” + +“I don’t know what’s to be done with such a mess as this. Tell me, +first of all, what you put in the stocking, you unfortunate blunderer?” + +“Oh yes, Sir, and tell you true as if it was the last word I had to +spake entirely, and the Lord be good to you, and Ted Connor ses he to +ould Phillips, regarden the five as was owen by Tim, and not includen +of the ten which was changed by Pat Reilly--” + +“You didn’t put Pat Reilly, or ould Phillips into the stocking, did +you?” + +“Is it Pat or ould Phillips as was ever the valy of eighty-sivin pound +ten, lost and gone, and includen the five as was owen by Tim, and Ted +Connor--” + +“Then tell me what you _did_ put in the stocking, and let me +take it down. And then hold your tongue, if you can, and go your way, +and come back to-morrow.” + +The particulars of the notes were taken, without any reference to ould +Phillips: who could not, however, by any means be kept out of the +story; and the man departed. + +When he was gone, the stocking-foot was shown to the then Chief +Engraver of the notes, who said that if anybody could settle the +business, his son could. And he proposed that the particulars of the +notes should not be communicated to his son, who was then employed in +his department of the Bank, but should be put away under lock and key; +and that if his son’s ingenuity should enable him to discover from +these ashes what notes had really been put in the stocking, and the two +lists should tally, the man should be paid the lost amount. To this +prudent proposal the Bank of Ireland readily assented; being extremely +anxious that the man should not be a loser; but, of course, deeming it +essential to be protected from imposition. + +The son readily undertook the delicate commission proposed to him. +He detached the fragments from the stocking with the utmost care, on +the fine point of a penknife; laid the whole gently in a basin of +warm water; and presently saw them, to his delight, begin to unfold +and expand like flowers. By and by, he began to “teaze them” with +very light touches of the ends of a camel’s-hair pencil, and so, by +little and little, and by the most delicate use of the warm water, the +camel’s-hair pencil, and the penknife, got the various morsels separate +before him, and began to piece them together. The first piece laid down +was faintly recognisable by a practised eye as a bit of the left-hand +bottom corner of a twenty pound note; then came a bit of a five; then +of a ten; then more bits of a twenty; then more bits of a five and ten; +then, another left-hand bottom corner of a twenty--so there were two +twenties!--and so on, until, to the admiration and astonishment of the +whole Bank, he noted down the exact amount deposited in the stocking, +and the exact notes of which it had been composed. Upon this--as +he wished to see and divert himself with the man on his return--he +provided himself with a bundle of corresponding new, clean, rustling +notes, and awaited his arrival. + +He came exactly as before, with the same blank staring face, and the +same inquiry, “Can you do anything for me, Sir!” + +“Well,” said our friend, “I don’t know. Maybe I _can_ do +something. But I have taken a great deal of pains, and lost a great +deal of time, and I want to know what you mean to give me!” + +“Is it give, Sir? Thin, is there anything I wouldn’t give for my +eighty-sivin pound tin, Sir; and it’s murdered I am by ould Phillips.” + +“Never mind him; there were two twenties, were there not?” + +“Oh, holy mother, Sir, there was! Two most illigant twenties! and Ted +Conner--and Phalim--which Reilly--” + +He faltered, and stopped as our friend, with much ostentatious +rustling of the crisp paper, produced a new twenty, and then the other +twenty, and then a ten, and then a five, and so forth. Meanwhile, +the man, occasionally murmuring an exclamation of surprise, or a +protestation of gratitude, but gradually becoming vague and remote in +the latter as the notes re-appeared, looked on, staring, evidently +inclined to believe that they were the real lost notes, reproduced in +that state by some chemical process. At last they were all told out, +and in his pocket, and he still stood staring and muttering, “Oh holy +Mother, only to think of it! Sir, it’s bound to you for ever that I +am!”--but more vaguely and remotely now than ever. + +“Well,” said our friend, “what do you propose to give me for this?” + +After staring and rubbing his chin for some time longer, he replied +with the unexpected question: + +“Do you like bacon?” + +“Very much,” said our friend. + +“Thin it’s a side as I’ll bring your honor to-morrow morning, and a +bucket of new milk--and ould Phillips--” + +“Come,” said our friend, glancing at a notable shillelah the man had +under his arm, “let me undeceive you. I don’t want anything of you, and +I am very glad you have got your money back. But I suppose you’d stand +by me, now, if I wanted a boy to help me in any little skirmish?” + +They were standing by a window on the top storey of the Bank, +commanding a courtyard, where a sentry was on duty. To our friend’s +amazement, the man dashed out of the room without speaking one word, +suddenly appeared in the courtyard, performed a war-dance round this +astonished soldier--who was a modest young recruit--made the shillelah +flutter, like a wooden butterfly, round his musket, round his bayonet, +round his head, round his body, round his arms, inside and outside his +legs, advanced and retired, rattled it all round him like a firework, +looked up at the window, cried out with a high leap in the air, +“Whooroo! Thry me!”--vanished--and never was beheld at the Bank again +from that time forth. + + + + + _This day is Published, Price 5s. 6d., neatly Bound in Cloth_, + + THE FIRST VOLUME + OF + HOUSEHOLD WORDS. + + _Publishing Monthly, Price 2d., Stamped, 3d._, + + THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE + OF + CURRENT EVENTS. + + _This Monthly Supplement of Household Words, containing a history of +the previous month, is issued regularly with the Magazines._ + + + END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. + + Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. + Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London. + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + +This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. + +Lines marked with ~= ... =~ were in German Fraktur. + +New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the +public domain. + +Itemized changes from the original text: + + On page 32, changed “where-ever” to “wherever”, + near “generously subscribed to charities” + On page 34, changed “watermark” to “water-mark”, + near “paper with the ink or” + On page 38, changed “have,” to “have”, + near “chemicals, and colours, which have” + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78061 *** diff --git a/78061-h/78061-h.htm b/78061-h/78061-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bbd287c --- /dev/null +++ b/78061-h/78061-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3159 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Household Words, No. 26 | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +hr.double1 { + width: 94%; margin-left: 3%; margin-right: 3%; + height: 4px; + border-top: 2px solid black; + border-bottom: 2px solid black; +} +hr.double2 { + width: 40%; margin-left: 30%; margin-right: 30%; + height: 4px; + border-top: 2px solid black; + border-bottom: 2px solid black; +} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +/* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} +.left {text-align: left;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Images */ + + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +/* .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} */ +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2em;} +/* Added by Ed: */ +.pre-heading { + text-align: center; + font-size: 150%; +} +.float-right { + float: right + } +.float-left { + float: left + } +.x-ebookmaker .float-right { + float: right + } +.x-ebookmaker .float-left { + float: left + } +.height { + height: 4em +} + +.serif-font { font-family: serif; font-size: 1.2em; } + + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78061 ***</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + + +<div class="pre-heading"> +“<i>Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS.</i>”—<span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span>. +</div> + +<h1>HOUSEHOLD WORDS.</h1> +<p class="center">A WEEKLY JOURNAL.</p> +<p class="center"><b>CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.</b></p> + +<div class="height"> +<p class="float-left"><span class="float-left">N<sup>o.</sup> 26.]</span></p> +<p class="float-right"><span class="float-left">{<span class="smcap">Price</span> 2<i>d.</i></span><br> +<span class="float-left">{<span class="smcap">Stamped</span> 3<i>d.</i></span></p> + +<p class="center">SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1850.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS">TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> + +<div class="verse indent0"><a href="#FOREIGNERS_PORTRAITS">FOREIGNERS’ PORTRAITS OF ENGLISHMEN.</a></div> +<div class="verse indent0"><a href="#THE_STEAM_PLOUGH">THE STEAM PLOUGH.</a></div> +<div class="verse indent0"><a href="#A_SACRED_GROVE">A SACRED GROVE.</a></div> +<div class="verse indent0"><a href="#CAPE_SKETCHES">“CAPE” SKETCHES.</a></div> +<div class="verse indent0"><a href="#BATTLE_WITH_LIFE">“BATTLE WITH LIFE!”</a></div> +<div class="verse indent0"><a href="#SPY_POLICE">SPY POLICE.</a></div> +<div class="verse indent0"><a href="#CHIPS">CHIPS.</a></div> +<div class="verse indent0"><a href="#TWO_CHAPTERS_ON_BANK_NOTE">TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE FORGERIES.</a></div> + +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOREIGNERS_PORTRAITS">FOREIGNERS’ PORTRAITS +OF ENGLISHMEN.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The extraordinary being, conjured up in the +minds of most foreigners under the generic +term Englishman, seems to be something more +uncommon than the veracious Gulliver ever +encountered, and more heterogeneous than +John Bulwer in his <i>Artificiall Changeling</i> +pourtrayed. As a Spanish <i>olla podrida</i> and +a Devonshire squab-pie are said to be made +up of all the contradictory edibles that can +be conceivably assembled in one dish; so is +the hash, cooked up by the French or +German novelist and dramatist to represent +a true born Briton, an incarnation of every +unlikely extravagance it is possible to assemble +in one character.</p> + +<p>The true expression of what is popularly +believed of us abroad is not to be found so +distinctly set forth in novels, as in plays. +The novelist is restricted in a measure within +the not narrow bounds of probability; but +the dramatist may first revel at will in the +rankest breadths of impossible absurdity; and +then the actor may intensify the enormity +by dress, gait, and unmeasured foolery. The +amount of instruction on the manners, habits, +feelings, modes of expression, gesture, dress, +and general demeanour of his compatriots +which an Englishman may glean in some of +the foreign Theatres, when an Englishman is +being represented on the stage, is perfectly +astounding. We have in this way become acquainted +with English characteristics of which +the most comically inclined maniac could never +dream after the most dyspeptic of suppers.</p> + +<p>It is not long since the mirror held up to +Nature—that is, English nature reflected by +the French—revealed to us, at the Ambigû +Comique and at the Théâtre des Variétés, in +Paris, “that of ourselves which yet we knew +not of”—dreamt not of. One gentleman who +supported not only the character of a Prefect, +but an enormous cocked-hat, assured us that +when we were at home, we groaned under the +tyranny of a feudal government, which ground +us to the dust; that our Commonality was +overridden and harrowed by tax-exacting aristocrats; +that they died of starvation in heaps; +that if they dared to call their souls their own, +the latter were summarily released from their +bodies by a perambulating police disguised as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> +members of the Royal Humane Society. In +another scene the same public instructor told +us, that all Englishmen (of course including +the starved Commonality) possess enormous +wealth, which they usually employ in the +purchase of “<i>Le titre de Lord</i>;”—an unnecessary +outlay, as every person not a tradesman +receives the title as a matter of course. +Yet this avails them little, as the different +orders of our nobility hold no communication +with persons of higher or lower rank; our +national pride preventing the one, and the +best of all reasons—“because they can’t—” +the other. Our patricians ride abroad followed +by armed retainers; nor is any vulgar +person allowed to come between the wind +and their nobility: the streets being expressly +cleared for them by constables. When +at home, however, seated in a golden chair in +company with the Spleen, the “jeune Miss,” +his wife, and a “boulle-dog,” a native of our +kingdom passes his time chiefly in drinking +tea with lemon in it, and saying, “Hoh!—Hah!—Yeeas!—Gottam!—and +ver gut!”</p> + +<p>Our ladies are a little too much given +to fighting, and a little too lightly won. We +sell our wives. This is a very common mercantile +transaction indeed. A “pen” of no +mean dimensions is appropriated in Smithfield +for the interesting periodical auction. +Our Queen makes away with many millions a +year, and cuts off the heads of any persons to +whom she may take a dislike, or hangs them, +without the intervention of judge, jury, or +any other functionary than the executioner, +who—another Tristan the Hermit—is a +regular member of the Royal Household. +We are, however, for the most part, a harmless +and ridiculous race, affording excellent +sport to innkeepers and adventurers. We +eat prodigiously. Indeed so great is our love +for good cheer, that we name our children +after our favourite dishes. If a person in +good society is not called Sir Rosbif, he will +probably answer to the name of Lord Bifstek—in +honor of the two great national dishes, +which we have spelt in that manner from +time immemorial.</p> + +<p>In a pretty piece at the Gymnase in Paris, +where the Prime Minister of England unfortunately +ruined himself by speculating in +Railway shares, a thorough-going English +servant appeared under that thorough-going<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> +English name Tom Bob—the honest fellow +having been christened Tom, and born the +lawful son of Mr. and Mrs. Bob. In an Italian +adaptation of Dumas’ preposterous play of +“<span class="smcap">Kean</span>,” which we once saw at the great Theatre +of Genoa, the curtain rose upon that celebrated +Tragedian, drunk and fast asleep in a +chair, attired in a dark blouse fastened round +the waist with a broad belt and a most prodigious +buckle, and wearing a dark red hat of the +sugar-loaf shape, nearly three feet high. He +bore in his hand a champagne-bottle, with +the label <span class="smcap">Rhum</span>, in large capital letters, carefully +turned towards the audience; and two +or three dozen of the same popular liquor +which we are nationally accustomed to drink +neat as imported by the half-gallon, ornamented +the floor of the apartment. Every frequenter +of the Coal Hole Tavern in the Strand, +on that occasion, wore a sword and a beard.</p> + +<p>Every English lady presented on the stage +in Italy, wears a green veil; and almost every +such specimen of our fair countrywomen +carries a bright red reticule, made in the form +of a monstrous heart. We do not remember to +have ever seen an Englishman on the Italian +stage, or in the Italian Circus, without a +stomach like Daniel Lambert, an immense +shirt-frill, and a bunch of watch-seals, each +several times larger than his watch, though +the watch itself was an impossible engine. +And we have rarely beheld this mimic Englishman, +without seeing present, then and there, +a score of real Englishmen, sufficiently characteristic +and unlike the rest of the audience, +to whom he bore no shadow of resemblance.</p> + +<p>These edifying pictures of the English are +not complete without the finishing touches of +grotesque absurdity vouchsafed by the actors. +A few winters ago we were enticed into the +little theatre of Coblentz by the information +paraded in large placards on the doors that it +was “very well warmed;” that Auber’s opera +of Fra Diavolo was to be played; and that +the part of Lord Allcash was to be personated +by a distinguished comic actor. Even while +we write, his lordship is before our mind’s +eye, blazingly costumed in a green coat, +blue inexpressibles, top-boots, a brace of +yellow handkerchiefs sticking out of either +pocket, a couple of watches, and a hat with +a feather in it! Yet, if they do not know +something of the ordinary appearance of an +English traveller in Coblentz, where should +they? He must be at least as well known +there, as in Devonshire or the Isle of +Wight.</p> + +<p>So, in Brussels, where the English almost +outnumber the native population, the audiences +relish a curious amount of ignorance +respecting England and the English; as +the dramatis personæ of a piece exhibited +so recently as last May at the Théâtre St +Hubert, will show. It was called “<i>La Lectrice, +ou une folie de jeune homme. Comédie Vaudeville +en 2 actes</i>, par M. Bazard.” It must have +had a considerable run; for the play-bill<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> +states that M. Ferville had created a great +sensation in the character of “Sir Cobridge,” +at Paris. We have some idea that “Sir +Cobridge” must be intended for the Sleeping +Partner in a Porter-Brewery, and that the +name is a dreamy reminiscence of the popular +individual Sir Co, made easy of remembrance +by sign-boards. But the first personage we have +occasion to mention is, “Sir Arthur” (jeune +officier), who has no other name, and who has +no occasion for one, everybody calling him +“my lord,” according (as he observed) to the +usual form of address in England. Sir +Arthur considers it the first duty of a British +officer to insult a respectable blind old +gentleman—who is moreover his guest—because +the blind old gentleman ventures to +insinuate something against one of the officers +of Sir Arthur’s regiment, through whom +he has suffered severely. This chivalrous +young nobleman, disdaining all inquiry into +the circumstances, at once constitutes himself +champion of every individual belonging +to the entire British army. The next personage +is a young gentleman possessing (as +<em>he</em> observed) a name extremely common in +Britain, to wit, “Clac-Own.” The actor of +this part was fitted up with a wig of violently +red hair, like a carriage-rug, and was dressed +in a kind of fusion of an English jockey with +a French Field-Marshal. Expecting to inherit +the vast possession of his uncle, Sir +Cobridge, Clac-Own passed his time, according +to the custom of Anglican nephews in such +cases, in giving his uncle to understand how +extremely inconvenient he finds his society, +and in informing him that “Shak-es-pair”—who, +being Sir Cobridge’s favourite author, is +naturally the avowed bugbear of Clac-Own,—is +an insufferable bore. This is going too far; +and the wealthy old gentleman (who has +quietly submitted to every other species of +personal insult from his intended heir,) is +so shocked by this contempt for “Shak-es-pair,” +that he feels himself compelled to +sing a song; wherein he demonstrates, in +the most lucid tira-lal-a-la logic, that Clac-Own +is very decidedly in the wrong. The +scena concludes by Sir Cobridge ordering +Clac-Own off, in some very deep bass notes, to +“Le Lincoln!”—an idiomatic place of banishment, +that would appear to be very popular +among us, though whether it stands for Coventry, +Bath, Jericho, Halifax, or any other +such place, we are unable to report. Clac-Own, +Sir Arthur, and several others having +assembled at a later stage of the proceedings +to go out hunting, the Belgian public perceive +that our usual equipment for that sport is a +white tailed coat, light blue breeches, patent +leather hessian boots with brass spurs, a red +neckerchief—such as one may see whispering +to the gale in Field Lane or Wapping,—a +turned-down shirt-collar, a gun, a cutlas, and +an enormous game pouch. Thus arrayed and +mounted on the “chevaux fougueux” of our +island, we pursue and capture the crafty fox.—When<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +we add that Monsieur Bazard, who +is the author of this singular production, is +of the opinion of Boiardo, that the English +have an especial talent for falling off their +horses—and no wonder, riding across the +country in such trim!—we have described the +leading points of this accurate picture.</p> + +<p>Most of these distorted views of English life +originate with the French with whom we have +had most intercourse, and who ought to know us +best; but our German and Austrian friends, +the dramatic caricaturists, have a very hard +hit at us now and then. Only last month we +were attracted to the Carl Theatre, in Vienna, +by one little line in a play-bill, which announced +a new piece, the English title of +which is, “The Benefit Night.” Here is the +line:—</p> + +<table> +<tr><td><span class="serif-font">~=Lord Pudding, ein reisender Englander</span></td> + <td><span class="serif-font">Hr. Heese.=~</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>Lord Pudding, a Travelling Englishman</td><td>Mr. Heese.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>In rigid obedience to the law, which has +impressed the names of eatables upon the +eaters thereof, the author had christened his +“pock-pudding-Englisher” (to borrow a pleasant +periphrasis from Scotland), out of the +pot. Nevertheless “The Benefit Night”—in +which we think we descry some reflection of +a very good French vaudeville—is written +with considerable cleverness and wit. The +plot was chiefly evolved from the endeavours +of a manager to obtain the assistance of certain +eminent “stars” of the profession for +his benefit. He first presented himself to a +great singer, who was, of course, afflicted with +a cold, but who was at length frightened into +voice by hearing that a rival had already +agreed to sing his part, and by an assurance +from the manager that the new singer had +already taken everybody by storm at the +rehearsal. A great tragedian the manager +won by flattery; “the food of gods” being the +only thing worthy the acceptance of so august +a personage; and a dancer he bribed by assuring +her that the wealthy Englishman, +“Lord Pudding,” would be in the house, +especially to fall in love with her. He also +promised a troop of experienced claqueurs to +applaud her new “pas.”</p> + +<p>We were introduced to Lord Pudding, as +he appeared while indulging in the singular +fancy of taking a lesson in Elocution from +a German actor! His personal appearance +was wonderful to behold. He was much +stuffed out with wadding to increase his +natural proportions, and his dress was such +as the tailors—not only of Pall-Mall and +St. James’s Street, but of any English +extraction or habitation whatsoever—would +see with amaze. It was composed of a +blue dress coat, with white buttons, a red +waistcoat, nankeen tights, shoes of polished +leather, and long brass spurs. His neck-kerchief +was a bright blue, carrying the eye +pleasantly up to a very white hat with an +imperceptible brim. The author appeared +to have studied the manners of our aristocracy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> +with exceeding diligence; for, to the +usual peculiarities which may be considered +the “stock” of Foreign theatricals, he added +some strikingly original features. Lord Pudding +was, of course, a lover, and of course an +unsuccessful one: he was jilted by the French +dancer. When he danced he was made to +tumble; when he saluted a lady he gave his +lips a loud smack. He entered a room like +a whirlwind, and between his paroxysms of +“fuss” our usual friendly salutation “<i>Gottam</i>” +was repeated many times; to the enthusiastic +delight of the audience, who believed it to be +a polished sort of “How-d’ ye-do?” He was +quite the Clown to the Ring; and had the long +pockets—in which that gentleman usually +searches for the chalk when it is required for +the tight-rope—well-filled. Nor was Pudding +stingy with his money. Despite his hard +usage by the ballet-lady, he was liberal to the +manager. Though wrathful, he was of easy +faith; being readily imposed upon, and peculiarly +sensible to flattery, by which means he +was induced to take three boxes for the +benefit, viz., one for himself; one for the +policeman who had been in constant attendance +on him since his arrival, to restrain his +inveterate propensity for knocking down the +lieges of the city (so intense was his love for +“the boaks;”) the third for the exclusive occupation +of ——, his boulle-dog! One or two +little touches, which distinguished his lordship, +showed that the actor was, at least, an +observer. Such were, the hat pushed back +from the crimson forehead, the heavy rolling +walk, and a strenuous objection to be kissed—all +particularly English.</p> + +<p>Other specimens of the genus we had previously +seen, however, showed that Lord +Pudding was a very fair example of an +English gentleman on the German stage.</p> + +<p>We cannot but believe that though +amusing, these caricatures—exhibited as they +are to ignorant and prejudiced minds—tend +to confound the just relations between one +people and another. Perhaps friendly Excursions +on both sides of the channel may do +much to lessen these absurdities. Unfortunately—as +recent publications too well +prove—the mistaken estimate of the English +is by no means corrected by the graver +works now and then put forth by distinguished +men. Highly as we esteem M. Guizot +and some Frenchmen of real attainments, who +have written upon England, we have never +taken up a book on the subject without painful +disappointment, or without seeing in it +errors almost equal to M. Ledru Rollin’s more +recent incongruities.</p> + +<p>To the honour of our modern English authors +be it spoken, they have been zealous to avoid +such ridiculous mistakes. It is true that the +harmless old legends respecting Foreigners—that +nine-tenths of them are Frenchmen; that +all are of very slender proportions in figure; +that their staple diet is frogs; and that, despite +Alison’s and every other History of Europe,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +they very much prefer to dance than to +fight; together with other popular delusions—still +linger in the minds of some of our +bold peasantry and milder cockneys; but it +is to be hoped, after many years of peace and +better sense, that we may now claim for +the majority of even an under-educated British +public, a more correct knowledge of the +personnel and manners of our Continental +neighbours, than our Continental neighbours +manifestly have of us. The very foible of +Lord Pudding himself—that of being a <em>travelling</em> +Englishman—would defend him from +such blunders as the literary Frankenstein +who gave life to the monster, has fallen into. +Travelling Englishmen are common abroad, +who speak foreign languages, and understand +foreign customs, extremely well. There are +many of our travellers whom we should be +very glad to improve: and thanks to railways, +and to our possession of some—though not +very much—of the wealth which the foreign +dramatic and fictionist artists so liberally +attribute to us, we are rapidly polishing off +the rust of national prejudice, and ignorance +of our brethren abroad. Should an English +author or actor be guilty of such laughable +mistakes about foreigners as those we have +pointed out, woe unutterable would alight on +his ignorant head.</p> + +<p>Every sort of attraction which brings people +of different nations, and even of different +counties, together—whether it be a German +wool fair, a music meeting, or a Swiss shooting-match—smooths +away the acerbities of caste, +and strengthens the sympathies of individuals. +Let us, therefore, hope that the myriads of +exotics which will be attracted next year to +the Great Industrial Conservatory in Hyde +Park, will receive new vigour and fresh intelligence +from their temporary transplantation; +that they will learn that Englishmen and +English women are not quite the monstrosities +they at present appear to believe them. +Foreigners will then have the advantage of +seeing us at home, and in a mass; and will +thenceforth cease to judge us by those follies +which they observe in a few idle tourists +from these islands. They will see us as we +are, reciprocating what we believe to be the +general desire here, in reference to them.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_STEAM_PLOUGH">THE STEAM PLOUGH.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>When the first experiments were being +made with the Hay-making Machine, now +commonly used in some parts of the country, +it happened that Shelley, Mrs. Shelley, and +Peacock, the author of “Crotchet Castle,” +“Headlong Hall,” and other works of pungent +erudition, were walking through a field +where this strange-looking machine was in +operation. Instead of the pleasant sight of +the rustic men and women with their +forks and rakes—a scene so full of indelible +associations, from childhood upwards—they +saw this quaint monster rolling round the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> +field over the long swathes of hay, its rotatory +forks, or rather fingers on wheels, +flinging up the hay on all sides as it went +spinning onwards. Meditating on the effect, +if successful, this would, some day, have +on the vast numbers of poor people in +England, to say nothing of the summer +invasions of Irish—whose sole dependence +for the year is the money they make in the +English hay-season—Shelley and the others +walked onwards, and left the field. Presently +they met a clownish fellow, who was looking +intently at the whirling and whisking performance +of the round-about machine in the +hay-field. Shelley, having no objection to +find, in the then adjusted state of society +with regard to the labouring classes, that +this machine was a failure, said to the clown, +in a sort of half contemptuous tone—“Now, +tell me,—does that thing answer at all?” +The fellow looked Shelley full in the face—“It +answers a deuced deal too well,” said +he; “I wish it was working in the inside of +him that made it!”</p> + +<p>In this very unsophisticated reply, how +vast a question is comprised! But into it +we cannot now enter; our present business is +how to plough by steam; and the smoke +from the “nostrils” of a variety of elegant +ploughs, of various horse-and-man powers, is +already inviting our attention. Truly, it requires +one to take one’s breath before commencing +the examination!</p> + +<p>Old Hesiod, in the second book of his +“Works and Days,” after giving particular +directions for the selection of the wood, as to +its natural qualities and form, and also its +suitability to an artificial curve, gravely +shakes his venerable head, and says—</p> + +<p> +“To make a plough, great is the expense and care.”<br> +</p> + +<p>Virgil, following his great progenitor, enters +with still more minute precision into the details +of the selection of the wood and its +manufacture into a plough, adding, that he +can “recite to you many precepts of the +ancients—unless you decline them.”</p> + +<p>Well, then, to be frank with antiquity, and +all its great poets and philosophers, the present +age fairly announces by its practices, that +it <em>does</em> decline, not only the precepts but the +example of the ancients, especially in agricultural +matters.</p> + +<p>The last and not the least important innovation +on agricultural labour has yet to be +consummated; and it would seem from two +large plates, with explanatory remarks, which +have been recently published by Lord Willoughby +de Eresby, that a monster innovation +is not very distant;—no less than +“Ploughing by Steam.” All great inventions +are the result of gradual improvement on a +first idea; and an examination of these plates +naturally induces us to take a cursory view +of what has previously been attempted, and +done, in this way.</p> + +<p>Not wishing to go back to the “dawning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> +idea” of a steam-plough, (for the problem was +started some fifty years ago), we will begin +with taking a look at Mr. Etzler’s “Iron +Slave.” This was invented by a German, and +constructed by an Oxfordshire engineer. A +public trial of the Iron Slave was made +in October 1845. A few signal shots were +fired at day-break, the church-bells were set +to ring a merry peal, and all the inhabitants +of Bicester and Blackthorn came pouring out +into the fields to witness the steam-performance +of the newly discovered agricultural serf. +Booths were erected, and the spectators made +a long morning’s holiday while the Slave did +his ploughing; and hoped that his success +would lead, as it ought, to many other +morning holidays. The most important result +of this first trial was the establishment +of a new mechanical principle, <i>viz</i>., +“the transmission of power from a fixed +point to a moving point, going in arbitrary +directions at the will of one man at the +steering wheel.” This, it seems, had been +thought impossible by many scientific engineers. +The engine was intended to move +and do its work at the rate of three miles an +hour; but whether the Iron Slave had not +had his proper breakfast of coals, nor time +enough to digest them into steam, or some +part of his inside was a little out of order, was +not accurately discovered; but certain it is +that he could not plough fast enough. In +other respects everybody was satisfied that +steam-ploughing was a practicable thing.</p> + +<p>In 1847, Mr. John T. Osborne, of Demerara, +took out a patent for a steam-plough, +the chief improvement (or distinguishing +peculiarity—we must be cautious in the +use of the word improvement,) on all previous +attempts, being the employment of two +engines and two ploughs, for one course of +ploughing. While one plough was working +in a given direction, and laying down the +chain or rope by which it is to be worked +back to the side from which it started—the +other plough was performing a similar course +in the reverse direction. When both had +each traversed the ground once, the engines +were removed forward the breadth of one +furrow, by means of a chain or rope; one end +of which was attached to an anchor fixed in +the ground a-head.</p> + +<p>Another Mr. Osborn, in 1848, tried some +experiments near Stratford, in Essex, with a +locomotive steam-engine, constructed for agricultural +works in general, and for ploughing +more especially. He appears to have taken +out his patent in conjunction with Mr. Andrew +Smith’s wire-rope—a manufacture of extraordinary +strength. In the first trial, a pair of these +peculiarly constructed locomotives was placed +opposite each other—about one hundred and +twenty yards apart—with a sufficient length of +wire-rope between them. Although not successful, +it demonstrated a novel fact as between +the comparative draught by horses, and by +a long rope, showing that the condition of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> +modes differ in a very marked way; the +horse draught being upwards, and exercising +a direct control by its proximity to the plough; +whereas, the draught by steam-power and a +rope was downwards, distant, and exercised +no direct control over the plough. Hence +this experiment, though unsuccessful, was instructive, +and therefore to be valued as a +good contribution to knowledge. Other trials +were subsequently made by Mr. Osborn with +a locomotive engine of ten horse power, and +the ploughing was well done; fully settling +the question of practicability, but leaving +doubts in the minds of many on the important +question of economy.</p> + +<p>“These engines,” says a writer in the +Mechanics’ Magazine, “possess great advantages +in being applicable to thrashing, and +other agricultural purposes, and can be moved +from farm to farm, and from field to field, +with the greatest facility.” No doubt of it. +We see what will soon happen. Thrashing, +and <em>many other</em> agricultural purposes! The +great farmers, once in possession of the talisman +of a steam-plough, will never rest till they +make it applicable to all sorts of operations. +Already almost every farmer in Scotland is +provided with a stationary steam-engine; a +locomotive that can turn—not its hands—but +its wheels to anything, is now his only +other thing needful. In the specification of +the very first of these ploughs—Etzler’s Iron +Slave—it is distinctly stated that, although +the machine is intended for ploughing, yet +the Slave will be ready at all times to devote +his energies and skill to “sowing, and +reaping; and also to making canals, roads, +tunnels,” &c. Exactly so! After we have +ploughed, sowed, reaped, and thrashed by +steam, we shall soon find turnips hoed, carrots +drawn, beans plucked up, dried, carted, and +stacked; sheep sheared, cows milked, butter +churned, cheese pressed, pigs transformed into +pork, and pork into gammons, by the same +omnipotent agency. Hatching eggs by steam +is already an old story.</p> + +<p>A patent for a new steam-plough was +taken out in January of the present year by +Mr. James Usher of Edinburgh; and another +in June, by Messrs. Calloway and Purkiss. +The peculiarity of the former consists in +mounting “a series of ploughs in the same +plane round an axis, so that the ploughs shall +successively come into action;” and secondly, +in applying power to give a rotary motion +to the series, “so that the resistance of the +earth to the ploughs, as they enter and travel +through the earth, shall <em>cause the machine</em> +to be <em>propelled</em>”—instead of motion being +communicated to the machine from the +wheels which run on the land. The other +invention—that of Messrs. Calloway and +Purkiss—mainly consists of a number of +chains working round a wheel, and fitted on +the outside with ploughshares. Rotary motion +is communicated by a locomotive.</p> + +<p>“I consider,” says Sir Abel Handy, in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +comedy of Speed the Plough, “that a healthy +young man between the handles of a plough, +is one of the noblest illustrations of the prosperity +of Britain.” But shortly after saying +this, Sir Abel invents a splendid curricle +plough drawn by high-bred Leicestershire +horses; who set off at full gallop with the +plough at their heels over hill and dale, and +instead of doing the allotted work a-field, they +rush about at random, ploughing up Salisbury +Plain. What would Sir Abel have said to +Sir Willoughby de Eresby’s snorting steam-horse, +perfectly under control?</p> + +<p>His machinery consists of a locomotive +engine, weighing only three-and-a-half tons, +and of a twenty-six horse power. It was +designed by Mr. Gooch. It has a double +capstan attached, “removable, when the engine +is required for other purposes.” His lordship +does not indicate any of these; but we may +fairly imagine that his farm-engine will possess +the same versatile genius as the inventions +which have preceded it. His description +of this machinery is very brief, clear, +and without the use of any technical terms.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“The engine moves across the centre of the field +on a light, portable railway. The ploughs +advance and recede on either side of the railway, +at right angles to it.</p> + +<p>“The ploughs employed consist of four ordinary, +and four subsoil ploughs, fixed in a frame. +It is directed by a person standing upon a small +platform.</p> + +<p>“Two such ploughs, one on either side the +railway, alternately advance and recede; the advancing +plough working, the other idle until it +regains its proper position for ploughing the next +four furrows. On the completion of the four +furrows both ways, the engine and side frames +advance each three feet.</p> + +<p>“The ploughs are attached to an endless chain, +one hundred and fifty yards in length. They can +be detached at pleasure, or shifted from one side +of the chain to the other. They travel at the +rate of <em>five miles an hour</em>. Provision is made in +case they strike against any impediment.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Arrangements are also made to suit irregularly +shaped fields. The full power of the +engine is not exerted with the ploughs, as +thus described; and the number of blades +can be increased if desirable. And now for +the next statement, which brings us to a most +important consideration.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“In the present state of things, it is difficult to +form a correct estimate of the value of the invention +in a commercial point of view. I will only +say that a machine of the power, and with the +arrangement described, would perform the work +usually done by <em>sixteen</em> ploughs, driven by as many +men, and drawn by thirty-two horses. Requiring +itself the attendance of eight men, and a horse to +draw the water for the engine, it would thus save +the labour of thirty-one horses and eight men. +Against this must be set an expense of five shillings +a day for coals.”</p> +</div> + +<p>In examining the question of economy in +the use of steam-power instead of horses, we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +shall obtain valuable assistance from a paper +addressed to Mr. J. T. Osborne, of Demerara, +by the Council of the Highland Society. This +paper sets the period of the productive labour +of a horse against the unproductive period +necessary for its rest, and exhibits results of +a startling kind. Horses are fed and tended +three hundred and sixty-five days of twenty-four +hours, or eight thousand seven hundred +and sixty hours in the year. But they work +only three hundred days, of about eight hours, +taking the average, or two thousand four +hundred hours a year. Thus we have a clear +loss of six thousand three hundred and sixty +hours of unproductive feeding and tending. +It may be argued, that they are not fed and +tended throughout the night, and therefore +there is no such loss as the figures displayed +by the Highland Society; but they are fed +and tended enough to suffice them during the +night, for which no compensating work is +performed, so that it comes, we think, to +nearly the same thing.</p> + +<p>According to McCulloch, there are about +one million two hundred thousand agricultural +horses employed in Great Britain, which, at +twenty-five pounds per head for maintenance, +amounts to thirty millions sterling per annum +for their keep. The unproductive portion, +therefore, he finds amounting to the enormous +sum of twenty-one millions seven hundred +and eighty-five thousand three hundred and +six pounds. It will be seen that this estimate +is founded on the previous figures displaying +the number of hours of feeding and tendence, +compared with the number of hours’ work, +and the consequent loss of six thousand +three hundred and sixty hours. The only +compensation for this loss of hours, represented +by the above sum of upwards of +twenty-one millions sterling, is in the value +of the manure, which is thus produced at too +great a cost.</p> + +<p>“There are insuperable difficulties,” writes +the Council of the Highland Society, “attending +the employment of vital power; +but mechanical power puts forth its energy +when called for—it can be regulated, and, at +pleasure, stopped. If it is desired to occupy +the entire hours of daylight—to extend the +field of operations—to work up more raw +material—the energy of the animal ceases after +a time; but not so that of the machine. The +longest hours of summer may be advantageously +employed.” And why not in the +shortest nights of winter also? Could not +steam-ploughs be made to carry their own +lights with Hale Thomson’s patent silvered-glass +reflectors, like other locomotives?</p> + +<p>The next sentence brings us full-butt against +the corner-stone of our social edifice, and moots +the question as to the effect of machinery in +increasing the demand for human labour:—“Were +the whole period of daylight industriously +employed in the most effective manner—that +is, by the employment of machinery—the +demand for human labour would be augmented<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> +in the exact ratio of the increased time, +multiplied by the augmented force of the +machinery.”</p> + +<p>“Be fruitful and multiply,” said the God +of Nature;—“You must be starved, if you +do!” say the beldame economists. Meantime, +an immense proportion of the habitable +and fertile earth lies quite uncultivated, the +vast seas are full of prolific food, and the land +which <em>is</em> cultivated, is not made the most of. +The art of tilling has not kept pace with other +improvements. Before the wonders of steam +appeared in the world there was occasionally a +random attempt to introduce some improvement +in tillage, but the experiments originated +in a wish rather than in any definite plan, and +were of course a failure and an absurdity. Dean +Swift brought his pungent satire to bear upon +these attempts, in his account of the grand +Academy of Lagado, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver +says he was highly pleased with a projector +who had discovered a plan for turning up the +ground with hogs, to save the charge of +ploughs, cattle, and labour. The method was +beautifully simple. In a given field you bury +at six inches distance, and eight inches deep, +a quantity of acorns in long rows. You then +drive six hundred hogs into the field, who, in +search of the food they most love, will root +or plough up the whole into furrows, with +their snouts. The absurdities committed soon +led to a cessation of all mere experiments, +until at length came steam-engines, and +thence, in due course, the dream of a steam-plough. +This dream we are peradventure +about to see realised in a few months; and +then, though our million of agricultural +horses will be diminished, our fine breed of +Yorkshire and Lancashire ploughmen will +not be thinned; any more than spinning and +weaving machinery exterminated—as was +awfully predicted it would—our army of +spinners and weavers.</p> + +<p>“I was bred to the plough,” said Robert +Burns, when addressing a letter to the wealthy +gentlemen of the Ayrshire Hunt:—“I am independent;” +but it may turn out that the +plough of old will soon be a sorry thing to +depend upon. We are rather reminded of the +Prologue to Chaucer’s “Ploughman Tale,” +though he could have had no anticipation +that his cessation from this labour would be +final.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The Ploughman pluckéd up his plough,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">When Midsomer moon was comen in,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And saied his beasts should eat ynowe,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And lye in the grasse up to the chin.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He shook off shere, and coulter off drowe,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And hongéd his harnis on a pin.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>“Our strongest hope for the improvement +of our social condition,” says Miss Martineau, +“lies in the directing of intelligence full upon +the cultivation of the soil.” The more the +powers of science are brought to bear upon the +tillage of the earth, and the production and +manufacture of food, the greater will be the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> +number benefited, and the more speedily will +Miss Martineau’s axiom be verified. Cordially +coinciding with that lady, we wish all success +to the important undertaking of Lord Willoughby +de Eresby, and shall be glad to find +he accomplishes and establishes what has +hitherto been confined to experimental trials.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="A_SACRED_GROVE">A SACRED GROVE.</h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Here Silence is the queen of time; her hand</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is raised—and the tide trembles to a pause.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Beauty, too awful to be loved, awakes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And spell-binds Man’s repose. The sunken sun,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whose mantle’s gold is melted in the tint</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of evening’s purple sadness, near the west</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lingers awhile, as loth to quit the scene.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet ’tis not sadness all; for though the trees,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Heavy with cumbrous melancholy, sweep</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Their sombre-foliaged boughs close to the grass,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And solemn twilight peers between the trunks,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tinging the dome of yonder vacant fane—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">O’er all a spirit of subdued emotion</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Breathes in pathetic sweetness, deep diffused.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent2">In this dim palace of grey Solitude,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where not a sigh wafts o’er the lily’s urn,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And nought, save marble forms of tenderest grace,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With pensive attitude stand in lone bowers—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The heart, upheaving into the fresh air,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Itself abandons to the scene, and claims</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Kindred with placid Death, and those lost hopes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That lived around the loved ones, now no more.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Their tombs smile pale beneath these cypress boughs,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Heavy with memory of all the past.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent2">Moveless I stand before these moveless trees—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Breathless as those broad boughs; and gazing thus,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At the dark foliage imaged in the pools,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which deepen, as the brooding mind surveys</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Their trance and awful beauty; ’tis a scene</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That lures us backward to an elder time,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Through ages dim—and, thence, into a realm</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whose secret influence fills us with its soul—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shadows of things which are not of the world,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And hopes that burn, yet find no vent save tears.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CAPE_SKETCHES">“CAPE” SKETCHES.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Cape Wants are neither peculiar nor numerous. +Captain Smoke, in Jerrold’s comedy +of “Bubbles of the Day,” confides to his friend, +Lord Skindeep, that he is “terribly in want +of a thousand pounds.” The reply is “You +may take it as a general rule, Captain Smoke, +that <em>every man</em> wants a thousand pounds.” +As with men so with Colonies. The sun never +sets upon one of the dependencies of Great +Britain, young or old, which would not be the +better for a thousand pounds. Our Colonies +feel, however, another want;—it is for +something to which the Smokes of the old +country show a very marked aversion; and +that is labour. “Capital and labour!” is a +cry which reaches us from every quarter of +the earth. The demand does not resound so +loudly perhaps from the Cape as from other +and newer Colonies; but the want of the +first necessities of enterprise, civilisation, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> +progress is not the less felt. Any sort of +European labour (except convict labour), any +kind of capital, is welcome in our South African +dependencies; and in the long run “pays.”</p> + +<p>As to Capital; men with from two thousand +pounds to ten thousand pounds will +find plenty of most profitable employment for +their money. The Colony has innumerable +resources—amongst them I may mention her +fisheries and her mineral treasures. The +former produce a large revenue even now, +though carried on, from want of enterprise +and capital, in the most unsystematic and +slovenly manner. Of minerals there is +abundance; ore in many places actually lying +on the surface. The assegais (or spears) of +the Kafirs are all made of iron, smelted and +welded by themselves; while recent travellers +from the northernmost extremity of the +Colony bring accounts of innumerable implements +in use among the savage tribes there, +formed of iron of their own manufacture. +Copper and lead have been discovered within +fifteen miles of Algoa Bay.</p> + +<p>But such riches remain utterly unproductive +without facile means of transport, and a great +want in the Colony is good roads. Of course, +want of labour is the cause of this deficiency, +which is, however, being slowly remedied by +the local government. Whether the Cape +Colonists were wise in rejecting the convicts, +so kindly proffered to them by Lord Grey, +I shall not presume to opine, because I have a +notion that everybody knows their own business +best; but we must not forget that New +South Wales owes the blessing of her good +roads to what was, it must be admitted, in +other respects, a great curse to her—the +bands of convicts the Colonial Office were so +obliging as to send her.</p> + +<p>Before I dilate on the greatest of all colonial +wants, I will mention what the Cape of Good +Hope does <em>not</em> want; namely, young gentlemen +with white hands and empty pockets, +of no profession, and with very extensive notions +of refinement. She does not require +martinet “half-pays,” who know more of +pipe-clay than of soils, and more of killing +than of breeding and fattening. Fine ladies, +who are proficient pianistes, and do not understand +poultry, she is much better without. +What she <em>does</em> require, are:—In the towns, +mechanics and artisans of all kinds; in the +country, good farmers and sturdy dames, +shepherds and agricultural labourers; in both, +domestic servants, male and female. For all +these the Cape is open, and it offers them +first-rate livelihoods, abundance of food of +the best description, and a climate which the +returns taken of the mortality among the +troops prove to be amongst the healthiest in +all Her Majesty’s world-wide dominions. The +Colony has also one great advantage over +Australia—it is ten thousand miles nearer to +England.</p> + +<p>Want the third in point of importance is a +change in the present system of selecting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> +Colonial Governors. Were we to choose Generals +to lead our armies—not from soldiers +trained to arms and distinguished in the field—but +from decayed statesmen, who had “never +set a squadron in the field,” nor even handled +a sword; would not our enemies not only +beat us, but laugh at us? Yet conversely +we commit precisely this absurdity: we +“reward” meritorious Generals by appointing +them Governors; of whose duties they are, +as a rule, as ignorant as a Lord of the +Treasury is of fortification. The Governor of +a Colony, as the representative of the highest +power in the Empire, is required to fulfil the +highest civil functions; to conduct the most +difficult and delicate negotiations; and we +select a brave old General, who hardly knows +the geography of his government; is profoundly +ignorant of the habits and requirements +of its people; who never even pretended +to statesmanship, and either commits himself +to something so rash that it makes everybody +angry, or to something so silly that it makes +everybody laugh.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In Education, England might take a lesson +from her South African dependency—it is +in the education of the people. Government +schools are established in every town, +and almost every village of the Colony, open +to children of all classes and all creeds, and +free of all expense. They are presided over +by intelligent teachers, chiefly selected from +the Scotch Universities, and truly their +pupils do these gentlemen infinite credit. I +do not hesitate to say, that the rising generation +of the Cape Colony will be the best +educated men of their class in all the British +Empire. It is to Dr. Jones, the former +President of the South African College, in +Cape Town, that the colony is indebted for +this invaluable boon. Even the population +in the far interior are better off in this +respect than the children of our English +peasantry. Thanks to the energy of Campbell, +Latrobe, Moffat, and other energetic, +common-sense, as well as pious, members of +the Missionary Society; the children of the +Hottentots, Griquas, and even of some of the +Bechuanas, are fast being brought into the pale +of civilisation by attendance at the schools +established by those gentlemen. Some of the +offspring of English parents in the “interior” +of England, have no such schools to attend.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Sheep Farming is, perhaps, the best and +most profitable occupation at the Cape. It is +far better than agriculture, and better than +cattle farming, for the following reasons. The +great deficiency of the colony is the want of +sufficient water for irrigation. Wherever +this want is not felt, all kinds of grain may be +raised with profit, and Cape wheat is universally +pronounced to be the finest in the world. +But the farms, or portions of farms, on which +it can be grown are few and far between. +Nor is this the only drawback to agriculture;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> +the farmer has two other dire enemies to contend +with. The one is the blight or “smut,” +which is very common; and frequently destroys +whole crops. Two young friends of +mine hired a farm in partnership, and, in +spite of the warnings of more experienced +persons, determined to turn their principal +attention to agriculture. They went to great +expense in the purchase of agricultural implements, +paid the highest wages for labourers, +and worked with their own hands as hard as +any ploughman in England. They raised a +magnificent crop, and began to indulge a +sweet reverie on the “Dollars” it was to +bring them. Alas, the “smut” came, and +the beautiful crop was destroyed, while not +one solitary dollar found its way into the +young farmers’ pockets. Disappointed, but +not disheartened, they set to work again, and +next year with precisely the same result. +Luckily they were prudent fellows, and had +neither been personally extravagant, nor sunk +all their money in one enterprise. They, therefore, +purchased some sheep, cattle, and horses, +and only cultivated a very <em>small portion</em> of +their farm; and now they are among the +most prosperous farmers in the Colony.</p> + +<p>Another enemy of the agriculturist at the +Cape, not less destructive than the former, +though less frequent in his attacks, is the +locust. Till I went to the Cape, I never had +a clear conception of the mischief that could +be done by this one of the “Plagues of Egypt.” +They came always in clouds, and fly <em>with</em> the +wind. I am almost afraid to describe their +numbers. I have seen the air as full of these +creatures as of the flakes of snow in a heavy +snow-storm—in fact, literally “raining locusts.” +I have been obliged to turn back on a journey +from the impossibility of getting my horse to +face them when driven against us by the wind. +I have seen immense plains one day covered +with grass, corn, and gardens; and the next +day left, after a visit of locusts, without one +solitary blade of verdure on any part of them. +I have seen millions of these insects driven by +the wind into the sea at Algoa Bay, and +washed on shore in such heaps, that their +bodies decaying have become so offensive as +to oblige the authorities of the town to employ +all the Coolies in the place in burying them. +Think of all this, grumbling farmers of +England. What corn-laws could afford you +“protection” against such an importation? +Still, I must add that during my five years’ +residence at the Cape, I can only recall three +visits of these pests; nor must it be supposed +that they at any time spread over the whole +Colony. When they visit a sheep or cattle +farm, the owner has, of course, no other +alternative than to move his stock to some +place which they have not visited.</p> + +<p>Cattle are profitable stock at the Cape; +but no Englishman seems to like them so well +as sheep. Besides, it occasionally happens +that, in a fit of caprice, every Hottentot +labourer on your farm will leave you in a day,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> +and you will have to be your own herdsman. +This is comparatively nothing with sheep; +but if you had a couple of hundred cows that +wanted milking you would be rather in a “fix.”</p> + +<p>Horses are also a profitable stock, and far +more suited to English taste. But the “returns” +are necessarily slow; and few men +can afford to wait three years for their profits.</p> + +<p>Sheep are the best. Here is one example, +by no means extraordinary, but forming an +average sample of the fruits of sheep-farming:—A +gentleman who was reading for the +Church, at Cambridge, found that his health +would not allow him to continue his studies; +he emigrated to Algoa Bay, with a capital of +about two thousand five hundred pounds. He +wisely listened to good advice in the selection of +a farm and the purchase of his stock of sheep. +At the end of three years I visited him, and +we talked about sheep-farming, which was +then in a bad condition. I was expressing +my wonder that so many sheep-farmers had +lately been “sold up;” and this was his +reply, “What else could you expect? Half +of them come out here without one farthing +of capital. They hire a farm; buy stock on +credit (for two or three years), live on the +sale of the wool and also on credit—for they +live ‘like fighting-cocks’—and then when +pay-day comes at last, they, of course, have +not a sixpence. But, look at my own case: +I have been here three years; my wool +fetches double the price that it did the first +year; my stock is just doubled in number +and vastly improved in quality; I have lived +in as much comfort as I require in the meantime; +and I don’t owe a sixpence.”</p> + +<p>The life of a Cape farmer is necessarily +solitary. His nearest neighbour is probably +seven miles off, and his only daily companions +are his stock and his labourers. A visitor +(especially if he come from one of the Towns) +is a veritable Godsend; and is safe to be +welcome as long as he chooses to remain. +He may ride his host’s horses and shoot or +hunt his game, smoke his pipes, and drink his +“Cape Smoke,”<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> as long as he pleases. But +he must be contented with very rough fare. +Mutton and goats’ flesh, meal-cakes (very +similar, I fancy, to those which King Alfred +burnt), Indian corn, and badly-made coffee, +will form the staple articles of his food. He +will sleep on a home-made sofa with goatskins +for blankets, in a room with a mud +floor, and very probably no ceiling but the +thatch roof. The house will most likely be +built of lath and plaster, and look far more +like the stable of a third-rate country inn +than a gentleman’s residence. Yet the host is +often a highly educated and sensible man, +fighting his way to competence, living a comparatively +easy life, and, if unblessed with +luxuries, at least unharassed by cares, save +when an occasional wolf (or rather hyæna) +makes a night assault on his homestead.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[A]</a> Cape Brandy.</p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p> + +<p>Of the Cape Trade, the most peculiar and +profitable branch is that with the native +tribes. At present it is carried on in the +most primitive style. A trader will load a +couple of waggons with such goods as are +likely to sell among savages. Coarse cloth, +smart Manchester printed calicoes, blankets, +beads, brass curtain-rings (worn by the natives +as ornaments on their arms), soldiers’ jackets, +wide-awake hats, &c. With this load he will +proceed across the colonial boundary, and +penetrate as far as he pleases into the interior, +calling where experience has shown him he is +likely to find customers, and selling his goods +like a hawker, or “Cheap Jack,” in England. +But he seldom obtains <em>money</em> for his goods,—nor +does he wish for it. He gets ivory, +ostrich feathers, wild-beast skins, horns, and, +in fact, all the rarest trophies of the chase. +With these he reloads his waggons for his +return home, and reaches the Colony after, +perhaps, six or eight months’ absence, with a +load which fetches him at once, seven or eight +hundred—sometimes a thousand—pounds in +exchange for his outlay of one hundred and +fifty pounds.</p> + +<p>It seems clear that the establishment of +trading stations in the interior of Southern +Africa would be most profitable to the projectors, +and most advantageous to the native +tribes, by accustoming them to the sights and +habits of a civilised life.</p> + +<p>The shopkeepers are rather jealous of the +merchants at the Cape. The latter are very +often so undignified as to sell a dozen pair of +stockings or a single hat, to the exceeding +disgust of retailers.</p> + +<p>A Cape shop is a curiosity. It strikes a +man as odd, to buy his boots and his cheese, +or his hat and his sugar, at the same shop,—still +more odd to purchase his wife a Chinese +shawl and his child a peg-top in the same +establishment.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The Wild Sports of South Africa have +been celebrated by many a writer, from Major +Cornwallis Harris down to Mr. Gordon Cumming. +For large game the country is perhaps +the finest sporting ground in the world. +People come even from India to hunt the +lion and the buffalo, the rhinoceros and the +hippopotamus, the elephant, the giraffe, and +the innumerable varieties of wild deer, from +the delicate and graceful springbok to the +heavy and powerful gnu. Some of the most +dreaded amongst them are not nearly so terrible +as travellers’ tales would persuade “the +gentlemen of England who sit at home at ease.”</p> + +<p>On one occasion I was riding through a +wood, with a single companion; we were on +a journey, and quite unarmed. At a little +open space in the woods we dismounted and +knee-haltered our horses to let them feed, +while we lazily stretched ourselves under a +tree, and “took a pull” at our pocket-pistols, +loaded with Cognac. A slight rustling sound +was heard above our heads, and down came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> +something to the ground in front of us. It +was a fine, full-grown, handsome leopard, who +coolly turned round and stared us in the face. +I very much doubt whether two respectable +young gentlemen ever felt in a greater fright +than my friend and myself at that moment. +The unwelcome visitor, however, merely +wagged his tail, and having apparently satisfied +his curiosity as to our personal appearance, +trotted quietly off into the woods. +Without uttering a word we each drew a +long breath, took another pull at the <i>eau-de-vie</i>, +caught our horses, and put as many miles +as we could in a few minutes between ourselves +and that same wood.</p> + +<p>The lion can even be companionable. Major +Nicholson occupies a farm near the north-east +boundary of the Colony. He is a great +sportsman, and goes out alone to look after a +lion with as much unconcern as a Regent +Street lounger seeks out a Skye-terrier as a +present for his lady-love. In one of his afternoon +rambles the Major fell in with a lion; +they were both going the same way and +jogged along for some distance silent, though +excellent friends. At length the lion stopped, +turned round, faced the Major, and sat on his +haunches like a great tom-cat. The Major, +not knowing how soon his majesty’s tacit +treaty of peace might be broken with him, +levelled his piece, taking aim between the +eyes. He was just about to fire, when a sound +caused him to turn round; he then at once +understood that, the lion having been out for +a walk, his lady had come, like a dutiful wife, +to meet him. The Major drew back and calculated +the odds—two to one in favour of the +quadrupeds—and reserved his fire; deciding +that it would be little satisfaction to kill the +husband and be eaten by the wife, or <i>vice versâ</i>. +The respectable couple then continued their +walk alone, treating the Major with the most +sovereign contempt, and allowing him, like +Young Norval, to “mark the course they +took,” and to follow them to their abode. +This he next day visited, with men, dogs, and +guns; and a week afterwards I was sleeping +soundly, in the Major’s house, on the skin of +that same king of the forest, while his consort’s +hide served me for a coverlid.</p> + +<p>Although the keener sportsman prefers to +go beyond the colonial boundary for prey, yet +it is customary in the towns for a number of +friends to make up a shooting party, who sally +forth with waggons and a tent, which they +pitch on some agreeable spot, and stay for +several days, living <i>al fresco</i>,—enjoying good +sport by day and good fare at the end of it, +with merry songs, toasts, and stories. Others +prefer hunting, mount their active little +horses, and, followed by a whole host of curs, +whose pedigrees would puzzle the most ingenious +zoologist, sally forth in search of wild +bucks; and many a good run they enjoy, and +much do they contribute to the stock of good +things which grace the table on the greensward +at night.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="BATTLE_WITH_LIFE">“BATTLE WITH LIFE!”</h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Bear thee up bravely,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Strong heart and true!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Meet thy woes gravely,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Strive with them too!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let them not win from thee</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Tear of regret,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Such were a sin from thee,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Hope for good yet!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Rouse thee from drooping,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Care-laden soul;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mournfully stooping</div> + <div class="verse indent2">’Neath grief’s control!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Far o’er the gloom that lies,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Shrouding the earth,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Light from eternal skies</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Shows us thy worth.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Nerve thee yet stronger,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Resolute mind!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let care no longer</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Heavily bind.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rise on thy eagle wings</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Gloriously free!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Till from material things</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Pure thou shalt be!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Bear ye up bravely,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Soul and mind too!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Droop not so gravely,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Bold heart and true!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Clear rays of streaming light</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Shine through the gloom,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">God’s love is beaming bright</div> + <div class="verse indent2">E’en round the tomb!</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SPY_POLICE">SPY POLICE.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>We have already given some insight into +the workings of the Detective Police system +of London, and have found that it is +solely employed in bringing crime to justice. +We have no political police, no police over +opinion. The most rabid demagogue can <em>say</em> +in this free country what he chooses, provided +it does not tend to incite others to <em>do</em> what is +annoying to the lieges. He speaks not under +the terror of an organised spy system. He +dreads not to discuss the affairs of the nation +at a tavern, lest the waiter should be a policeman +in disguise; he can converse familiarly +with his guests at his own table without suspecting +that the interior of his own liveries +consists of a spy; when travelling, he has not +the slightest fear of perpetual imprisonment +for declaring himself freely on the conduct of +the powers that be, because he knows that +even if his fellow-passenger be a Sergeant +Myth or an Inspector Wield, no harm will +come to him.</p> + +<p>It is not so across the Channel. There, +while the criminal police is very defective, the +police of politics is all powerful. In March last, +thirty thousand political malcontents were +swept beyond the gates of Paris in a single +morning, before the rest of the people were up; +and nobody was any the wiser till the masterly +feat had been performed; but during the same +month several single individuals were knocked +down and robbed—some in broad day, others<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> +at dusk—yet neither of the robbers were +taken. In Austria, in some of the German +states, and in Italy, political <i>espionage</i> is carried +to a point of refined ingenuity of which +no Englishman can form an idea. Mr. Tomkins +goes, for instance, to Naples; and—as +the Emperor of Russia might have enlarged +on the happiness and prosperity of that +city after his recent visit to it, because the +streets were cleared of beggars, the cabmen +compelled to dress in their best, and the +fishermen to wear shoes—so in the “Travels +in Italy,” which Mr. Tomkins would undoubtedly +publish, there would be not a word +about the police spy system; because he, innocent +man, was unable to detect in his table +companions, in his courier, or in his laundress, +an agent of police. It is now our purpose to +supply from the authentic information of a +resident in Naples, the hiatus to be found in +all the books of all the Mr. Tomkinses who +have written “Travels.”</p> + +<p>The chief agent is the Commissary, who, says +our friend, has a certain district put under +his care, and is thus made responsible for its +order and fidelity; he is a kind of nursing +father, in short, to the unhappy inhabitants, +with power to ruin or destroy; for though +he nominally receives his orders from the +Minister of Police, yet, as the cant phrase +is, his office is eminently “suggestive;” and +whether a suspicion is to be cleared up, an act +of vengeance to be perpetrated, or some object +of interest or licentiousness to be attained, +the report of the Commissary supplies all the +data for the operations at head-quarters.</p> + +<p>Immediately under his orders this General +of Division has both regular and irregular +troops, the former being the Policemen of the +City; the latter simply Spies. When any long +course of inquiry is to be carried out, he employs +deputies, who bring in their intelligence +from time to time; but if any immediate +or important information is desired, the +Commissary undertakes that little bit of +business himself—it is a delicate <i>morçeau</i> +which this gourmand cannot resist, and away +he posts to enjoy the banquet.</p> + +<p>Some years ago, there resided in the neighbourhood +of Naples a foreigner, whose health +compelled him to seek a southern climate. +His tastes and occupations were literary, and +his habits quiet; but whether he had some +secret enemy who had denounced him, or +whether the Government were afraid of him, +because he read and wrote, I know not; but +one fine morning the little town was much agitated +by the appearance of a Commissary of +Police and his attendant “Sbirri.” Many +were the conjectures—as is always the case +under such circumstances—as to what could +be the object of this visitation. No one took +it to himself; but as in a church each good +Christian lolls in his corner and admires the +applicability of the sermon to his neighbour +in the next pew; so every little townsman +knew precisely the person who merited the inspection<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> +of the Police. Don Roberto was sure +that the visit was meant for his mortal enemy, +Don Giuseppe; whereas the master of the +favourite “Cantino” was equally sure that it +must be for his rival who sold such acid wine, +and permitted scenes in his shop enough to +awaken the anger of the Saints. He always +thought he was a Carbonaro!</p> + +<p>The Commissary, on his arrival, sent for the +Syndic.</p> + +<p>“Pray, Signor Syndic,” he said, “is there a +foreigner residing here, called Don Ferdinand?” +(every one is Don, in Naples.)</p> + +<p>“Yes!” was the reply.</p> + +<p>“And pray, Sir, what is the object of his +residence here?”</p> + +<p>“I understand, Signor Commissario, that +he is in search of health and amusement.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! very good: health and amusement. +And what may be his occupations?”</p> + +<p>“They do say, Sir, that he is engaged much +in reading and writing.”</p> + +<p>“Reading and writing! Yet in search of +health and amusement,” said the official, +opening his eyes. “That’s a curious combination; +but tell me, has Don Ferdinand any +intercourse with the inhabitants? does he +ever invite any of them to dinner?”</p> + +<p>“I must confess,” said the Syndic, “that +he does.”</p> + +<p>“Then it is true, that Don Ferdinand proposes +toasts after dinner?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” replied the Syndic, as if such an +admission would be fraught with danger. +“I cannot deny it—he <em>does</em> propose toasts.”</p> + +<p>“What are they?” asked the great official, +sharply.</p> + +<p>“His usual practice is, first, to propose +the health of our Sovereign Lord the King, +and then the health of <em>his</em> Sovereign Lady, +the Queen.”</p> + +<p>Not without disappointment at having made +out nothing serious against Don Ferdinand, +our Commissary dismissed the Syndic, merely +observing that he had taken note of all his +answers, and should draw up his report therefrom, +and present it to the Minister of Police.</p> + +<p>After that, the Commissary of the Police +came twice to my friend’s residence, and put +a number of searching questions to his +porter. Nothing, however, came of these +investigations; first, because there was nothing +really alarming in the fact of a man +reading and writing, and giving toasts; and, +secondly, and perhaps more strongly, because +Don Ferdinand was an Englishman; for there +is a prestige attaching to the very name of +an Englishman which attracts to him the +respect of the people and a cautious deferential +treatment on the part of the Governments. +It is felt, that, however distant he may be +from his native land, he is not beyond its +protective power, and that any injustice done +to him will be resented as an injustice done to +the nation. It is this conviction which has +been his security in circumstances where I +have known the subjects of other States<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> +arrested, imprisoned, or sent out of the country, +without receiving the protection of their +Governments.</p> + +<p>The Commissary is eminently a night-bird; +sometimes you see him with “measured step +and slow,” followed by his Myrmidons, stealing +along under the dark shadows of the houses, +like a cat treading; or, perchance, you are returning +home through the silent streets, carelessly +and thoughtlessly, when, at some dark +corner, you find yourself confronted by this +spectre. He listens for and pauses at every +foot-fall, waits about in entries, stops at doors, +watches the lights in houses, and, like a true +inductive philosopher, from such simple facts—as +seeing two or three lights, more or less, +or a larger group of heads than usual, infers +conspiracies most dreadful and dangerous to +the State. Presently a Commissary is seen +bustling along with his attendants, with a +quick and eager step. He is not on a mission +of inspection—oh, no—that cheerful promptitude +indicates that game’s a-foot, and that +something is to be done. And now he +stops before a house and knocks aloud—“Who +is there?”—demands some one from +within. “Open in the name of the law!” +is the reply. What consternation do these +words create; lights are gleaming and people +are hurrying backwards and forwards, but the +knocking continues and becomes louder, and +the door is opened, and the unfortunate master +of the house is dragged from his bed to be +plunged into the dungeons of the Vicaria. +His neighbour, luckier than he, had timely +notice of the honour intended him by the Commissary; +and, escaping over the roof of his +house, was enabled to get on board some +friendly vessel. Their crime you ask? That of +hundreds of others who are eating the bread of +penury in exile, or pining in loathsome dungeons—they +had taken part in the movements +which preceded the publication of the “Constitution” +(yet an article of that “Constitution” +says, that “a veil of oblivion shall rest +upon the past”). They had, in short, assisted +in the development of a Constitution which I +saw the Majesty of Naples swear on the +Gospels to observe.</p> + +<p>I know no better type than certain noxious +insects for the myrmidons of the Commissary—the +Police Spies of the South of Italy. +Their multitude, their ubiquity, their unwearied +perseverance, their sharp sting, make +them worse than the whole insect tribe +united, and infinitely more dangerous. You +may crush the wasp, or smoke the mosquito, +or brush away the ant, and get some intervals +of repose in spite of renewed attacks; +they give you, too, some warning signs of +their approach—but the Police Spy is invisible +and never out of hearing; whether +you are relaxing in frank and thoughtless +merriment, or abandoning yourself to the +sweet and delicious dreams of friendship; +in the market or the street—the drawing-room—the +café—or the church—there he is:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> +“A chiel’s amang ye taking notes, and ’faith +he’ll prent it!” They reconnoitre the ground +in various detachments for the Commissary, +and report the movements, words, and almost +thoughts, of the “suspected,” or of whomsoever +they please to place upon that fatal list. +They assume no distinctive dress—make no +sign; they walk in darkness, and move like the +pestilence, yet they are as real existences, and +follow as precise a trade, as the vendor of +maccaroni. These spies are not sent forth at +random, like gleaners in a wheat-field, to pick +up whatever they can; but they are selected +with caution, and assigned a position for +which their talents or rank best fit them. +Thus it happens that every grade of society +has its appropriate and peculiar spies. Some +are appointed to watch over the upper classes; +some over the <i>canaglia</i>; some over the +clergy; all watch each other. Enter a drawing-room, +and rustling in satin, and distributing +the courtesies and refinements of the <i>galleria</i> +(drawing-room), you may behold a Government +Spy. Beauty and refinement unite to +lament the fate of the poor Marchese Maroni, +who was arrested yesterday; nay, two crystal +drops confirm the grief of the sympathising +syren—“It was so hard a case. There was +really nothing that could be proved against +his Eccellenza. Alas! who is safe under the +existing order of things—is there no hope—will +there never be any change?” But beware—fall +not into the meshes, though they +may be woven of silk; be silent or indifferent; +the very lips which pronounced these commiserations, +are those which a few hours ago +denounced the subject of them to the Government. +You adjourn, at the close of the Opera, +to a café; you are accompanied by several +friends, and feel disposed to relax over a glass +of iced punch—’tis so hot—and then from one +topic of conversation you range to another, +as if you were breathing the air of liberty. +But who is that sleek old gentleman opposite, +whose keen and cunning eye glances occasionally +at you from above his paper? He +has been seated there, I know not how long, +spelling rather than reading yesterday’s paper; +yet he has a benevolent expression of countenance; +perhaps he is infirm, poor fellow, or +is looking for an advertisement; perhaps some +article has deeply interested him. Phaugh! +waste not your compassion or your speculation +upon him—he is a Spy! he has been taking +notes, and woe be to you if you have been +betrayed into any thoughtless expression of +opinion; for every word is registered. What +corner of the city, or the country, what class +of society is free from this pest! Nor is all +this merely imaginary. I paint from the life, +and could adduce instances of betrayal in the +belle of high society, or in the shopman at +the counter, in the caburan who takes your +paltry <i>buonamancia</i>, or the friend you have +cherished in your bosom.</p> + +<p>For even private friendship is not held sacred. +There was living in Naples, upwards of a year<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> +since, a Count Montinona, who appeared to +have no particular object in view except the +pursuit of pleasure. For many years he had +lavished his bounty and his friendship on +another, who was at length discovered to +have made somewhat free with the Count’s +property; accusations ensued, and, though +compassion and a certain lingering recollection +of the past did not permit the Count +to cast the villain entirely off; yet he so far +restricted his intimacy as to put it out of his +power to rob him—“he was poor, and the +temptation had been too great!” But what +ensued?—This man denounced his friend as +having concealed arms, and as entertaining +free and dangerous opinions. Straightway +the Count was arrested—his house and papers +were examined, though nothing could be found +to implicate him or to prove the charge; yet +for many, many months he pined away in +prison. I never heard when he was released, +or if he is yet at liberty. All that time the +informer ranged about at his own sweet will, +to entrap as many new jail victims as he +could make.</p> + +<p>The effect of the Spy System on the national +character is exceedingly demoralising. There +is no country in Europe where the low, secret +vices, as opposed to those of a bolder, opener, +and more ferocious character, exist so strongly +as in the South of Italy. There, the result of +that timidity and want of faith in what is good, +and just, and true, which has been engendered +by intrigue, is practised in its most comprehensive +sense. The Secret Police system is one +of the very many causes of this. To appreciate +this thoroughly, you must regard it as being +not merely a political institution, but as +having now become national; people have +followed the example which has been set +them, and have all become spies—spies on +each other’s actions, words, and thoughts. +Sometimes this habit is pursued to the extent +only of simple curiosity, watching, investigating, +and reporting the commonest trifles. +Sometimes it is a little more malignant, and +engages, almost as a pastime, in embroiling individuals +or families. Sometimes it pushes +further, and furnishes denunciations to the +Priest, the Bishop, the Intendente, or the +Minister. I have seen it under all its phases, +and the effect has been to produce a want of +faith in all that is high, generous and noble, +and to form a low national character.</p> + +<p>It is more ridiculous and annoying than can +well be imagined, to get behind the scenes of +Italian life, and listen to the daily gossip:—How +such an one “<i>ha fatto un’ ricorso</i>” against +this or that person. How Don So and So has +written certain letters to the Intendente, containing +charges against another Don, and has +forged two signatures. How So and So has +been to the bishop and laid a long list of +crimes at the door of some luckless priest. +Then watch the tempest of official papers +which fly through the air; some contain inquiries +into the truth of the statements,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> +addressed to the judge or the syndic; some +are orders to a dozen unfortunate wights to +present themselves at the Intendenza; while +others contain ghostly reproofs from the +bishop, or orders to suspend a priest at his +reverence’s will and pleasure, and rusticate him +in some monastery. Every denunciation is +received and inquired into.</p> + +<p>I remember an instance of two men who +kept a whole district in inquietude during one +winter. Both had received some private +offence, and straightway each shrank into a +corner and wove his envenomed meshes; +charges were devised and letters written to +the Intendente, accusing some score of their +friends of Carbonarism or constitutionalism; +then came the usual dispatches to the judge +and other authorities to inquire into the truth +of the statements. The judge, it happened, was +friendly with the unfortunate denounced, and +drew up therefore a favourable report, but +had he been less honest or less amicable, these +poor fellows might have swelled the number +of those who now pine in the prisons of the +Vicaria.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the influence of the Police Spy +System (united with other causes), has been +such as to convert the whole nation into spies +upon each other. As suspicion and want of +confidence universally prevail, so there is a +deficiency of truthfulness. This cannot be +more strongly proved than by the admission +of the Italians themselves who, when wishing +to conciliate your belief, tell you that they +speak “<i>la parola Inglese</i>,”—on the word of an +Englishman.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHIPS">CHIPS.</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="center">THE INDIVIDUALITY OF LOCOMOTIVES.</p> + +<p>It is a remarkable truth, and, well applied, +it might be profitable to us, in helping us to +make fair allowance for the differences between +the temperaments of different men—that every +Locomotive Engine running on a Railway, has +a distinct individuality and character of its own.</p> + +<p>It is perfectly well known to experienced +practical engineers, that if a dozen different +Locomotive Engines were made, at the same +time, of the same power, for the same purpose, +of like materials, in the same Factory—each +of those Locomotive Engines would come out +with its own peculiar whims and ways, only +ascertainable by experience. One engine will +take a great meal of coke and water at once; +another will not hear of such a thing, but will +insist on being coaxed by spades-full and +buckets-full. One is disposed to start off, +when required, at the top of his speed; another +must have a little time to warm at his work, +and to get well into it. These peculiarities +are so accurately mastered by skilful drivers, +that only particular men can persuade particular +engines to do their best. It would +seem as if some of these “excellent monsters” +declared, on being brought out of the stable, +“If it’s Smith who is to drive me, I won’t go.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> +If it’s my friend Stokes, I am agreeable to +anything!”</p> + +<p>All Locomotive Engines are low-spirited in +damp and foggy weather. They have a great +satisfaction in their work when the air is +crisp and frosty. At such a time they are +very cheerful and brisk; but they strongly object +to haze and Scotch mists. These are points +of character on which they are all united. It +is in their peculiarities and varieties of character +that they are most remarkable.</p> + +<p>The Railway Company who should consign +all their Locomotives to one uniform standard +of treatment, without any allowance for varying +shades of character and opinion, would +soon fall as much behind-hand in the world +as those greater Governments are, and ever +will be, who pursue the same course with the +finer piece of work called Man.</p> + + +<p class="center">THE OLDEST INHABITANT OF THE PLACE +DE GRÈVE.</p> + +<p>The Police Courts of London have often +displayed many a curious character, many a +strange scene, many an exquisite bit of +dialogue; so have the Police Courts in +Ireland, especially at the Petty Sessions in +Kilrush; but we are not so well aware of +how often a scene of rich and peculiar humour +occurs in the Police <i>tribuneaux</i> of Paris. We +will proceed to give the reader a “taste of +their quality.”</p> + +<p>An extremely old woman, all in rags, was +continually found begging in the streets, and +the Police having goodnaturedly let her off +several times, were at last obliged to take her +in charge, and bring her into the Court. +Several magistrates were sitting. The following +dialogue took place between the President +and the old woman.</p> + +<p><i>President.</i> Now, my good woman, what +have you to say for yourself? You have +been frequently warned by the Police, but +you have persisted in troubling people with +begging.</p> + +<p><i>Old Woman</i> (<i>in a humble quavering tone</i>). +Ah, Monsieur le President, it is not so much +trouble to other people as it is to me. I am +a very old woman.</p> + +<p><i>Pres.</i> Come, come, you must leave off begging, +or I shall be obliged to punish you.</p> + +<p><i>Old W.</i> But, Monsieur le President, I cannot +live without—I must beg—pardon me, +Monsieur—I am obliged to beg.</p> + +<p><i>Pres.</i> But I say you must not. Can you do +no work?</p> + +<p><i>Old W.</i> Ah, no, Monsieur; I am too old.</p> + +<p><i>Pres.</i> Can’t you sell something—little cakes—bonbons?—</p> + +<p><i>Old W.</i> No, Monsieur, I can’t get any +little stock to begin with; and, if I could, I +should be robbed by the <i>gamins</i>, or the little +girls, for I’m not very quick, and can’t see well.</p> + +<p><i>Pres.</i> Your relations must support you, +then. You cannot be allowed to beg. Have +you no son—no daughter—no grandchildren?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span></p> + +<p><i>Old W.</i> No, Monsieur; none—none—all my +relations are dead.</p> + +<p><i>Pres.</i> Well then, your friends must give +you assistance.</p> + +<p><i>Old W.</i> Ah, Monsieur, I have no friends; +and, indeed, I never had but one, in my life; +but he too is gone.</p> + +<p><i>Pres.</i> And who was he?</p> + +<p><i>Old W.</i> Monsieur de Robespierre—<i>le pauvre +cher homme!</i> (The poor, dear man!)</p> + +<p><i>Pres.</i> Robespierre!—why what did you +know of him?</p> + +<p><i>Old W.</i> Oh, Monsieur, my mother was one +of the <i>tricoteurs</i> (knitting-women) who used +to sit round the foot of the guillotine, and I +always stood beside her. When Monsieur de +Robespierre was passing by, in attending his +duties, he used to touch my cheek, and call +me (here the old woman shed tears) <i>la belle +Marguerite</i>:—<i>le pauvre, cher homme!</i></p> + +<p>We must here pause to remind the reader +that these women, the <i>tricoteurs</i>, who used to +sit round the foot of the guillotine on the +mornings when it was at its hideous work, +were sometimes called the “Furies;” but only +as a grim jest. It is well known, that, although +there were occasionally some sanguinary hags +amongst them, yet, for the most part, they +were merely idle, gossiping women, who came +there dressed in neat white caps, and with +their knitting materials, out of sheer love of +excitement, and to enjoy the <i>spectacle</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Pres.</i> Well, Goody; finish your history.</p> + +<p><i>Old W.</i> I was married soon after this, and +then I used to take my seat as a <i>tricoteur</i> +among the others; and on the days when +Monsieur de Robespierre passed, he used +always to notice me—<i>le pauvre cher homme</i>. +I used then to be called <i>la belle tricoteuse</i>, but +now—now, I am called <i>la vielle radoteuse</i> +(the old dotardess). Ah, Monsieur le President, +it is what we must all come to!</p> + +<p>The old woman accompanied this reflection +with an inimitable look at the President, +which completely involved him in the <em>we</em>, thus +presenting him with the prospect of becoming +an old dotardess; not in the least meant +offensively, but said in the innocence of her +aged heart.</p> + +<p><i>Pres.</i> Ahem!—silence! You seem to have +a very tender recollection of Monsieur Robespierre. +I suppose you had reason to be grateful +to him?</p> + +<p><i>Old W.</i> No, Monsieur, no reason in particular; +for he guillotined my husband.</p> + +<p><i>Pres.</i> Certainly this ought to be no reason +for loving his memory.</p> + +<p><i>Old W.</i> Ah, Monsieur, but it happened +quite by accident. Monsieur de Robespierre +did not intend to guillotine my husband—he +had him executed by mistake for somebody +else—<i>le pauvre cher homme!</i></p> + +<p>Thus leaving it an exquisite matter of +doubt, as to whether the “poor dear man” +referred to her husband, or to Monsieur de +Robespierre; or whether the tender epithet +was equally divided between them.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="TWO_CHAPTERS_ON_BANK_NOTE">TWO CHAPTERS ON BANK NOTE +FORGERIES.</h2> +</div> + + +<p class="center">CHAPTER II.</p> + +<p>In the history of crime, as in all other +histories, there is one great epoch by which +minor dates are arranged and defined. In a +list of remarkable events, one remarkable +event more remarkable than the last, is the +standard around which all smaller circumstances +are grouped. Whatever happens in +Mohammedan annals, is set down as having +occurred so many years after the flight of the +Prophet; in the records of London commerce +a great fraud or a great failure is mentioned +as having come to light so many months after +the flight of Rowland Stephenson. Sporting +men date from remarkable struggles for the +Derby prize; and refer to 1840 as “Bloomsbury’s +year.” The highwayman of old dated +from Dick Turpin’s last appearance on the +fatal stage at Tyburn turnpike. In like +manner, the standard epoch in the annals of +Bank Note Forgery, is the year 1797, when +(on the 25th of February) one pound notes +were put into circulation instead of golden +guineas; or, to use the City idiom, “cash +payments were suspended.”</p> + +<p>At that time the Bank of England note +was no better in appearance—had not improved +as a work of art—since the days of +Vaughan, Mathieson, and Old Patch; it was +just as easily imitated, and the chances of the +successful circulation of counterfeits were increased +a thousand-fold.</p> + +<p>Up to 1793 no notes had been issued even +for sums so small as five pounds. Consequently +all the Bank paper then in use, +passed through the hands and under the +eyes of the affluent and educated, who could +more readily distinguish the false from the +true. Hence, during the fourteen years +which preceded the non-golden and small-note +era, there were only three capital convictions +for the crime. When, however, the +Bank of England notes became “common and +popular,” a prodigious quantity—to complete +the quotation—was also made “base,” and +many persons were hanged for concocting them.</p> + +<p>To a vast number of the humbler orders, +Bank Notes were a rarity and a “sight.” +Many had never seen such a thing before +they were called upon to take one or two +pound notes in exchange for small merchandise, +or their own labour. How were they +to judge? How were they to tell a good +from a spurious note?—especially when it +happened that the officers of the Bank themselves, +were occasionally mistaken, so complete +and perfect were the imitations then afloat. +There cannot be much doubt that where one +graphic rascal was found out, ten escaped. +They snapped their fingers at the executioner, +and went on enjoying their beefsteaks and +porter; their winter treats to the play; their +summer excursions to the suburban tea-gardens; +their fashionable lounges at Tunbridge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> +Wells, Bath, Margate, and Ramsgate; +doing business with wonderful unconcern +and “face” all along their journeys. These +usually expensive, but to them profitable enjoyments, +were continually coming to light at +the trials of the lesser rogues who undertook +the issue department; for, from the ease with +which close imitation was effected, the manufacture +was more readily completed than the +uttering. The fraternity and sisterhood of +utterers played many parts, and were banded +in strict compact with the forgers. Some +were turned loose into fairs and markets, +in all sorts of appropriate disguises. Farmers, +who could hardly distinguish a field of +standing wheat from a field of barley: +Butchers who never wielded more deadly +weapons than two-prong forks: Country boys +with Cockney accents, bought gingerbread, +and treated their so-called sweethearts with +ribbons and muslins, all by the interchange of +false “flimseys.” The better mannered disguised +themselves as ladies and gentlemen, +paid their losings at cards or hazard, or +their tavern bills, their milliners, and coachmakers, +in motley money composed of part +real and part base bank paper. Some went +about in the cloak of the Samaritan, and +generously subscribed to charities <a id="Change2"></a>wherever +they saw a chance of changing a bad +“five” for three or four good “ones.” Ladies +of sweet disposition went about doing good +among the poor; personally inquired into +distress, relieved it by sending out a daughter +or a son to a neighbouring shop for +change; and left five shillings for present +necessities, walking off with fifteen. So openly—in +spite of the gallows—was forgery carried +on, that whoever chose to turn utterer +found no difficulty in getting a stock-in-trade +to commence with. Indeed, in the days +of highwaymen, no travelling gentleman’s +pocket or valise was considered properly +furnished without a few forged notes wherewith +to satisfy the demands of the members +of the “High Toby.” This offence against +the laws of the road, however, soon became +too common, and wayfarers who were stopped +and rifled had to pledge their sacred words of +honour that their notes were the genuine +promises of Abraham Newland; and that +their watches were not of the factory of Mr. +Pinchbeck.</p> + +<p>With temptations so strong, it is no wonder +that the forgers’ trade flourished, with only +an occasional check from the strong arm of +the law. It followed, therefore, that from the +issue of small notes in February 1797, to the +end of 1817—twenty years—there were no +fewer than eight hundred and seventy prosecutions +connected with Bank Note Forgery, +in which there were only one hundred and +sixty acquittals, and upwards of three hundred +executions! 1818 was the culminating point +of the crime. In the first three months there +were no fewer than one hundred and twenty-eight +prosecutions by the Bank; and by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> +end of that year, two-and-thirty individuals +had been hanged for Note Forgery. So far +from this appalling series of examples having +any effect in checking the progress of the +crime, it is proved that at, and after that +very time, base notes were poured into the +Bank at the rate of <em>a hundred a day</em>!</p> + +<p>The enormous number of undetected forgeries +afloat, may be estimated by the fact, that +from the 1st of January 1812, to the 10th +April 1818, one hundred and thirty-one thousand +three hundred and thirty-one pieces of +paper were ornamented by the Bank officers +with the word “Forged”—upwards of one +hundred and seven thousand of them were +one-pound counterfeits.</p> + +<p>Intrinsically, it would appear from an Hibernian +view of the case, then, that bad notes +were nearly as good, (except not merely having +been manufactured at the Bank), as good ones. +So thoroughly and completely did some of +them resemble the authorised engraving of +the Bank, that it was next to impossible to +distinguish the false from the true. Countless +instances, showing rather the skill of the +forger than the want of vigilance in Bank +officials, could be brought forward. Respectable +persons were constantly taken into custody +on a charge of uttering forgeries, imprisoned +for days and then liberated. A close +scrutiny, proving that the accusations were +made upon genuine paper. In September, +1818, Mr. A. Burnett, of Portsmouth, had +the satisfaction of having a note which had +passed through his hands returned to him +from the Bank of England with the base +mark upon it. Satisfied of its genuineness, +he re-inclosed it to the cashier, and demanded +its payment. By return of post he received +the following letter:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p class="right"> +“<i>Bank of England, 16 Sept., 1818.</i><br> +</p> + +<p>“Sir,—I have to acknowledge your letter to +Mr. Hase, of the 13th inst. inclosing a one pound +note, and, in answer thereto, I beg leave to +acquaint you, that, on inspection it appears to be a +genuine Note of the Bank of England; I therefore, +agreeably to your request, inclose you one of the +like value, No. 26,276, dated 22nd August, 1818.</p> + +<p>“I am exceedingly sorry, Sir, that such an unusual +oversight should have occurred to give you +so much trouble, which I trust your candour will +induce you to excuse when I assure you that the +unfortunate mistake has arisen entirely out of the +hurry and multiplicity of business.</p> + +<p class="right">“I am, Sir,</p> +<p class="right">Your most obedient servant,</p> +<div class="height"> +<p class="float-left"><span class="smcap">A. Burnett</span>, Esq.</p> +<p class="float-right"><span class="smcap">J. Rippon</span>.</p> +</div> +<p class="left">7 Belle Vue Terrace.</p> +<p class="left">Southsea, near Portsmouth.”</p> +</div> + +<p>A more extraordinary case is on record. +A note was traced to the possession of a +tradesman, which had been pronounced by +the Bank Inspectors to have been forged. +The man would not give it up and was taken +before a magistrate, charged with “having a +note in his possession, well knowing it to be +forged.” He was committed to prison on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> +evidence of the Bank Inspector; but was +afterwards released on bail to appear when +called on. He was <em>not</em> called on; and, at the +expiration of twelvemonths (having kept the +note all that time), he brought an action +against the Bank for false imprisonment. On +the trial the note was proved to be genuine! +and the plaintiff was awarded damages of one +hundred pounds.</p> + +<p>It is a fact sufficiently dreadful that three +hundred and thirty human lives should have +been sacrificed in twenty-one years; but +when we relate a circumstance which admits +the merest probability that some—even one—of +those lives may have been sacrificed in +innocence of the offence for which they suffered, +the consideration becomes appalling.</p> + +<p>Some time after the frequency of the crime +had, in other respects subsided, there was a +sort of bloody assize at Haverfordwest, in +Wales; several prisoners were tried for +forging and uttering, and thirteen were convicted; +chiefly on the evidence of Mr. +Christmas, a Bank Inspector, who swore +positively, in one case, that the document +named in the indictment “was not an impression +from a Bank of England plate; was +not printed on the paper with the ink or +<a id="Change3"></a>water-mark of the Bank; neither was it in +the handwriting of the signing clerk.” Upon +this testimony the prisoner, together with +twelve participators in similar crimes, were +condemned to be hanged!</p> + +<p>The morning after the trial, Mr. Christmas +was leaving his lodging, when an acquaintance +stepped up and asked him, as a friend, to give +his opinion on a note he had that morning +received. It was a bright day; Mr. Christmas +put on his spectacles, and carefully scrutinised +the document in a business-like and leisurely +manner. He pronounced it to be forged. +The gentleman, a little chagrined, brought it +away with him to town. It is not a little +singular that he happened to know Mr. +Burnett, of Portsmouth, whom he accidentally +met, and to whom he showed the +note. Mr. Burnett was evidently a capital +judge of Bank paper. He said nothing, but +slipping his hand into one pocket, handed to +the astonished gentleman full change, and +put the note into another. “It cannot be a +good note,” exclaimed the latter, “for my +friend Christmas told me at Haverfordwest +that it is a forgery!” But as Mr. Burnett +had backed his opinion to the amount of +twenty shillings he declined to retract it; and +lost no time in writing to Mr. Henry Hase +(Abraham Newland’s successor) to test its +accuracy.</p> + +<p>It was lucky that he did so; for this little +circumstance saved thirteen lives!</p> + +<p>Mr. Christmas’s co-inspectors at the Bank +of England actually reversed his non-official +judgment that the note was a forgery. It +was officially pronounced to be a good note; +yet upon the evidence of Mr. Christmas as regards +other notes, the thirteen human beings<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +at Haverfordwest were trembling at the foot +of the gallows. It was promptly and cogently +argued that as Mr. Christmas’s judgment had +failed him in the deliberate examination of +one note, it might also err as to others, and +the convicts were respited.</p> + +<p>The converse of this sort of mistake often +happened. Bad notes were pronounced to be +genuine by the Bank. Early in January, 1818, +a well-dressed woman entered the shop of Mr. +James Hammond, of 40, Bishopsgate Street +Without, and having purchased three pounds +worth of goods, tendered in payment a ten-pound +note. There was something hesitating +and odd in her manner; and, although Mr. +Hammond could see nothing the matter +with the note, yet he was ungallant enough +to suspect—from the uncomfortable demeanour +of his customer—that all was not +right. He hoped she was not in a hurry, +for he had no change; he must send +to a neighbour for it. He immediately dispatched +his shopman to the most affluent of +all his neighbours—to her of Threadneedle +Street. The delay occasioned the lady to +remark, “I suppose he is gone to the Bank?” +Mr. Hammond having answered in the affirmative, +engaged his customer in conversation, +and they freely discussed the current topics of +the day; till the young man returned with +ten one pound Bank of England Notes. Mr. +Hammond felt a little remorse at having suspected +his patroness; who departed with the +purchases with the utmost despatch. She had +not been gone half an hour before two gentlemen +rushed into the shop in a state of grievous +chagrin; one was the Bank clerk who had +changed the note. He begged Mr. Hammond +would be good enough to give him another +for it. “Why?” asked the puzzled shopkeeper. +“Why, Sir,” replied the distressed +clerk, “it is forged!” Of course his request +was not complied with. The clerk declared +that his dismissal was highly probable; but +Mr. Hammond was inexorable.</p> + +<p>The arguments in favour of death punishments +never fail so signally as when brought +to the test of the scaffold and its effect on +Bank Forgeries. When these were most +numerous, although from twenty to thirty +persons were put to death in one year, the +gallows was never deprived of an equal share +of prey during the next. As long as simulated +notes could be passed with ease, and +detected with difficulty, the Old Bailey had +no terrors for clever engravers and dexterous +imitators of the hieroglyphic autographs of +the Bank of England signers.</p> + +<p>At length public alarm at the prevalence +of forgeries, and the difficulty of knowing +them as such, arose to the height of demanding +some sort of relief. In 1819 a committee +was appointed by the Government to enquire +into the best means of prevention. One hundred +and eighty projects were submitted. +They mostly consisted of intricate designs +such as rendered great expense necessary to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> +imitate. But none were adopted, for the +obvious reason that ever so indifferent and +easily executed imitation of an elaborate note +is quite sufficient to deceive an uneducated +eye; as had been abundantly proved in the +instance of the Irish “black note.” The Bank +had not been indifferent or idle on the subject, +for it had spent some hundred thousand +pounds in projects for inimitable notes. At +last—not long before the Commission was +appointed—they were on the eve of adopting +an ingenious and costly mechanism for +printing a note so precisely alike on both +sides as to appear as one impression, when +one of the Bank printers imitated it exactly +by the simple contrivance of two plates and a +hinge. This may serve as a sample of the +other one hundred and seventy-nine projects.</p> + +<p>Neither the gallows, nor expensive and +elaborate works of art, having been found +effectual in preventing forgery, the true +expedient for at least lessening the crime was +adopted in 1821:—the issue of small notes +was wholly discontinued, and sovereigns were +brought into circulation. The forger’s trade +was nearly annihilated. Criminal returns inform +us that during the nine years after the +resumption of gold currency the number of +convictions for offences having reference to +the Bank of England notes were less than +one hundred, and the executions only eight. +This clinches the argument against the +efficacy of the gallows. In 1830 death +punishments were repealed for all minor +offences, and, although the cases of Bank +Note Forgeries slightly increased for a time, +yet there is no reason to suppose that they +are greater now than they were between +1821 and 1830.</p> + +<p>At present, Bank paper forgeries are not +numerous. One of the latest was that of the +twenty pound note, of which about sixty specimens +found their way into the Bank. It +was well executed in Belgium by foreigners, +and the impressions were passed among the +Change-agents in various towns in France +and the Netherlands. The speculation did +not succeed; for the notes got into, and were +detected at, the Bank, a little too soon to +profit the schemers much.</p> + +<p>The most considerable frauds now perpetrated +are not forgeries; but are done upon +the plan of the highwayman mentioned in +our first chapter. In order to give currency +to stolen or lost notes which have been +stopped at the Bank (lists of which are supplied +to every banker in the country), the +numbers and dates are fraudulently altered. +Some years since, a gentleman, who had been +receiving a large sum of money at the Bank, +was robbed of it in an omnibus. The notes +gradually came in, but all were altered. +The last was one for five hundred pounds, +dated the 12th March, 1846, and numbered +32109. On the Monday (3rd June) after the +last “Derby Day,” amid the <em>twenty-five thousand +pieces</em> of paper that were examined by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> +the Bank Inspectors, there was one note +for five hundred pounds, dated 12th March, +1848, and numbered 32409. At that note an +inspector suddenly arrested his rapid examination +of the pile of which it was one. He +scrutinised it for a minute, and pronounced it +“altered.” On the next day, that same note, +with a perfect one for five hundred pounds, +is shown to us with an intimation of the fact. +We look at every letter; we trace every line; +follow every flourish: we hold both up to the +light; we undulate our visuals with the waves +of the water-mark. We confess that we +cannot pronounce decisively; but we have an +opinion derived from a slight “goutiness” in +the fine stroke of the figure 4 that No. 32409 +is the forgery! so indeed it was. Yet the +Bank Inspector had picked it out from the +hundred genuine notes as instantaneously—pounced +upon it as rapidly, as if it had been +printed with green ink upon card-board.</p> + +<p>This then, O gentlemen forgers and sporting +note alterers, is the kind of odds which is +against you. A minute investigation of the +note assured us of your exceeding skill and +ingenuity; but it also convinced us of the +superiority of the detective ordeal which you +have to blind and to pass. In this instance +you had followed the highwayman’s plan, +and had put with great cunning, the additional +marks to the 1 in 32109 to make it +into a 4. To hide the scraping out of the +top or serif of the figure 1—to make the +angle from which to draw the fine line of the +4—you had artfully inserted with a pen the +figures “£16 16” as if that sum had been +received from a person bearing a name that +you had written above. You had with extraordinary +neatness cut out the “6” from +1846, and filled up the hole with an 8 abstracted +from some note of lesser value. You +had fitted it with remarkable precision; only +you had not got the 8 quite upright enough to +pass the shrewd glance of the Bank Inspector.</p> + +<p>We have seen a one-pound note made up +of refuse pieces of a hundred other Bank +notes, and pasted on a piece of paper (like a +note that had been accidentally torn), so as +to present an entire and <em>passable</em> whole.</p> + +<p>To alter with a pen a 1 into a 4 is an easy +task—to cut out the numeral from the <em>date</em> in +one note and insert it into another, needs only +a tyro in paper-cutting; but to change the +special <em>number</em> by which each note is distinguished, +is a feat only second in impossibility +to trumping every court-card of every +suit six times running in a rubber of whist. +Yet we have seen a note so cleverly altered +by this expedient, that it was actually paid +by the Bank cashiers. If the reader will take +a Bank note out of his purse, and examine +its “number,” he will at once appreciate the +combination of chances required to find, on +any other note, any other figure that shall displace +any one of the numerals so as to avoid +detection. The “number” of every Bank note +is printed twice on one line—first, on the words<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> +“I promise,” secondly, on the words, “or +bearer.” Sometimes the figures cover the +whole of those words; sometimes they only +partly obscure them. No. 99066 now lies +before us. Suppose we wished to substitute +the “0” of another note for the first “9” of +the one now under our eye; we see that the +“9” covers a little bit of the “P,” and intersects +in three places the “r,” in “Promise.” +Now, to give this alteration the smallest +chance, we must look through hundreds of +other notes till we find an “0” which not +only covers a part of the “P” and intersects +the “r” in three places, but in precisely +<em>the same</em> places as the “9” on our +note does; else the strokes of those letters +would not meet when the “0” was let in, and +instant detection would ensue. But even then +the job would only be half done. The second +initial “9” stands upon the “or” in “or +bearer,” and we should have to investigate +several hundred more notes, to find an “0” +that intersected that little word exactly in +the same manner, and then let it in with +such mathematical nicety, that not the hundredth +part of a hair’s breadth of the transferred +paper should fail to range with the +rest of the letters and figures on the altered +note; to say nothing of hiding the joins in +the paper. This is the triumph of ambidexterity; +it is a species of patch-work far +beyond the most sublime achievements of +“Old Patch” himself.</p> + +<p>Time has proved that the steady perseverance +of the Bank—despite the most furious +clamour—in gradually improving their original +note and thus preserving those most essential +qualities, simplicity and uniformity—has been +a better preventive to forgery than any one +of the hundreds of plans, pictures, complications, +chemicals, and colours, which <a id="Change4"></a>have +been forced upon the Directors’ notice. +Whole-note forgery is nearly extinct. The +lives of Eminent Forgers need only wait for +a single addendum; for only one man is left +who can claim superiority over Mathieson, +and he was, unfortunately for the Bank of +England, born a little too late, to trip up his +heels, or those of the late Mr. Charles Price. +He can do everything with a note that the +patchers, and alterers, and simulators, can do, +and a great deal more. Flimsy as a Bank note +is to a proverb, he can split it into three perfect +continuous, flat, and even leaves. He has +forged more than one design sent into the +Bank as an infallible preventive to forgery. +You may, if you like, lend him a hundred +pound note: he will undertake to discharge +every trace of ink from it, and return it to +you perfectly uninjured and a perfect blank. +We are not quite sure that if you were to burn +a Bank note and hand him the black cinders, +that he would not bleach it, and join it, and +conjure it back again into a very good-looking, +payable piece of currency. But we <em>are</em> sure +of the truth of the following story, which we +have from our friend the transcendant forger<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> +referred to; and who is no other than the +chief of the Engraving and Engineering department +of the Bank of England:</p> + +<p>Some years ago—in the days of the thirty-shilling +notes—a certain Irishman saved up +the sum of eighty-seven pounds ten, in notes +of the Bank of Ireland. As a sure means of +securing this valuable property, he put it in +the foot of an old stocking, and buried it in his +garden, where Bank note paper couldn’t fail +to keep dry, and to come out, when wanted, +in the best preservation.</p> + +<p>After leaving his treasure in this excellent +place of deposit for some months, it occurred +to the depositor to take a look at it, and see +how it was getting on. He found the stocking-foot +apparently full of the fragments of +mildewed and broken mushrooms. No other +shadow of a shade of eighty-seven pounds ten.</p> + +<p>In the midst of his despair, the man had +the sense not to disturb the ashes of his property. +He took the stocking-foot in his hand, +posted off to the Bank in Dublin, entered it +one morning as soon as it was opened, and, +staring at the clerk with a most extraordinary +absence of all expression in his face, said:</p> + +<p>“Ah, look at that, Sir! Can ye do anything +for me?”</p> + +<p>“What do you call this?” said the clerk.</p> + +<p>“Eighty-sivin pound ten, praise the Lord, +as I’m a sinner! Ohone! There was a +twenty as was paid to me by Mr. Phalim +O’Dowd, Sir, and a ten as was changed by +Pat Reilly, and a five as was owen by Tim; +and Ted Connor, ses he to ould Phillips—”</p> + +<p>“Well! Never mind old Phillips. You +have done it, my friend!”</p> + +<p>“Oh Lord, Sir, and it’s done it I have, most +com-plate! Oh, good luck to you, Sir, can +you do nothing for me?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what’s to be done with such +a mess as this. Tell me, first of all, what you +put in the stocking, you unfortunate blunderer?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, Sir, and tell you true as if it was +the last word I had to spake entirely, and the +Lord be good to you, and Ted Connor ses he +to ould Phillips, regarden the five as was +owen by Tim, and not includen of the ten +which was changed by Pat Reilly—”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t put Pat Reilly, or ould +Phillips into the stocking, did you?”</p> + +<p>“Is it Pat or ould Phillips as was ever the +valy of eighty-sivin pound ten, lost and gone, +and includen the five as was owen by Tim, +and Ted Connor—”</p> + +<p>“Then tell me what you <em>did</em> put in the +stocking, and let me take it down. And then +hold your tongue, if you can, and go your +way, and come back to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>The particulars of the notes were taken, +without any reference to ould Phillips: who +could not, however, by any means be kept +out of the story; and the man departed.</p> + +<p>When he was gone, the stocking-foot was +shown to the then Chief Engraver of the notes, +who said that if anybody could settle the business,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> +his son could. And he proposed that the +particulars of the notes should not be communicated +to his son, who was then employed in +his department of the Bank, but should be +put away under lock and key; and that if +his son’s ingenuity should enable him to discover +from these ashes what notes had really +been put in the stocking, and the two lists +should tally, the man should be paid the lost +amount. To this prudent proposal the Bank +of Ireland readily assented; being extremely +anxious that the man should not be a loser; +but, of course, deeming it essential to be +protected from imposition.</p> + +<p>The son readily undertook the delicate commission +proposed to him. He detached the +fragments from the stocking with the utmost +care, on the fine point of a penknife; laid the +whole gently in a basin of warm water; and +presently saw them, to his delight, begin to +unfold and expand like flowers. By and by, +he began to “teaze them” with very light +touches of the ends of a camel’s-hair pencil, +and so, by little and little, and by the most +delicate use of the warm water, the camel’s-hair +pencil, and the penknife, got the various +morsels separate before him, and began to +piece them together. The first piece laid +down was faintly recognisable by a practised +eye as a bit of the left-hand bottom +corner of a twenty pound note; then came a +bit of a five; then of a ten; then more bits of +a twenty; then more bits of a five and ten; +then, another left-hand bottom corner of a +twenty—so there were two twenties!—and so +on, until, to the admiration and astonishment +of the whole Bank, he noted down the exact +amount deposited in the stocking, and the +exact notes of which it had been composed. +Upon this—as he wished to see and divert +himself with the man on his return—he provided +himself with a bundle of corresponding +new, clean, rustling notes, and awaited his +arrival.</p> + +<p>He came exactly as before, with the same +blank staring face, and the same inquiry, +“Can you do anything for me, Sir!”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said our friend, “I don’t know. +Maybe I <em>can</em> do something. But I have +taken a great deal of pains, and lost a great +deal of time, and I want to know what you +mean to give me!”</p> + +<p>“Is it give, Sir? Thin, is there anything +I wouldn’t give for my eighty-sivin pound +tin, Sir; and it’s murdered I am by ould +Phillips.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind him; there were two twenties, +were there not?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, holy mother, Sir, there was! Two +most illigant twenties! and Ted Conner—and +Phalim—which Reilly—”</p> + +<p>He faltered, and stopped as our friend, with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> +much ostentatious rustling of the crisp paper, +produced a new twenty, and then the other +twenty, and then a ten, and then a five, and +so forth. Meanwhile, the man, occasionally +murmuring an exclamation of surprise, or a +protestation of gratitude, but gradually becoming +vague and remote in the latter as +the notes re-appeared, looked on, staring, +evidently inclined to believe that they were +the real lost notes, reproduced in that state +by some chemical process. At last they +were all told out, and in his pocket, and he +still stood staring and muttering, “Oh holy +Mother, only to think of it! Sir, it’s bound +to you for ever that I am!”—but more +vaguely and remotely now than ever.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said our friend, “what do you +propose to give me for this?”</p> + +<p>After staring and rubbing his chin for +some time longer, he replied with the unexpected +question:</p> + +<p>“Do you like bacon?”</p> + +<p>“Very much,” said our friend.</p> + +<p>“Thin it’s a side as I’ll bring your honor +to-morrow morning, and a bucket of new +milk—and ould Phillips—”</p> + +<p>“Come,” said our friend, glancing at a +notable shillelah the man had under his +arm, “let me undeceive you. I don’t want +anything of you, and I am very glad you have +got your money back. But I suppose you’d +stand by me, now, if I wanted a boy to help +me in any little skirmish?”</p> + +<p>They were standing by a window on the +top storey of the Bank, commanding a courtyard, +where a sentry was on duty. To our +friend’s amazement, the man dashed out of +the room without speaking one word, suddenly +appeared in the courtyard, performed a war-dance +round this astonished soldier—who was +a modest young recruit—made the shillelah +flutter, like a wooden butterfly, round his +musket, round his bayonet, round his head, +round his body, round his arms, inside and +outside his legs, advanced and retired, rattled +it all round him like a firework, looked up at +the window, cried out with a high leap in the +air, “Whooroo! Thry me!”—vanished—and +never was beheld at the Bank again from +that time forth.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<hr class="double1"> +<div class="center"> +<i>This day is Published, Price 5s. 6d., neatly Bound in Cloth</i>, +</div> + +<p class="center"> +THE FIRST VOLUME<br> +OF<br> +HOUSEHOLD WORDS.<br> +</p> + +<hr class="double2"> +<p class="center"><i>Publishing Monthly, Price 2d., Stamped, 3d.</i>,</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE<br> +OF<br> +CURRENT EVENTS.<br> +</p> + +<p class="center"><i>This Monthly Supplement of Household Words, containing +a history of the previous month, is issued regularly with the +Magazines.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<p class="center">END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.</p> + +<p class="center">Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by <span class="smcap">Bradbury & Evans</span>, Whitefriars, London.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="transnote"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2> + +<p>Lines marked with ~= ... =~ were in German Fraktur.</p> +<p>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p> +<p>Itemized changes from the original text:</p> + <ul> + <li><a href="#Change2">On page 32</a>, changed “where-ever” to “wherever”, near “generously subscribed to charities” + </li> + <li><a href="#Change3">On page 34</a>, changed “watermark” to “water-mark”, near “paper with the ink or” + </li> + <li><a href="#Change4">On page 38</a>, changed “have,” to “have”, near “chemicals, and colours, which have” + </li> + </ul> + +</div> + + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78061 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78061-h/images/cover.jpg b/78061-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0014a86 --- /dev/null +++ b/78061-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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