The Strand Magazine, Vol. 01, Issue 02, February 1891

By Various

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February 1891, by Various

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Title: The Strand Magazine, Volume I, Issue 2, February 1891
       An Illustrated Monthly

Author: Various

Editor: George Newnes

Release Date: May 3, 2013 [EBook #42633]

Language: English


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THE

STRAND MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1891.




CONTENTS


  The Pistol Shot.
  A Night with the Thames Police.
  The Maid of Treppi.
  Our Money Manufactory.
  Slap-Bang.
  Portraits of Celebrities at different times of their Lives.
  Letters from Artists on Ladies' Dress.
  How the Redoubt was Taken.
  Actors' Dressing Rooms.
  The Minister's Crime.
  At the Children's Hospital.
  Fac-simile of the Notes of a Speech by John Bright.
  A Passion in the Desert.
  Barak Hageb and His Wives.




[Illustration: "SILVIO! _YOU_ KNEW SILVIO?"]




_The Pistol Shot._

FROM THE RUSSIAN OF ALEXANDER PUSHKIN.


We were stationed at the little village of Z. The life of an officer in
the army is well known. Drill and the riding school in the morning;
dinner with the colonel or at the Jewish restaurant; and in the evening
punch and cards.

At Z. nobody kept open house, and there was no girl that anyone could
think of marrying. We used to meet at each other's rooms, where we never
saw anything but one another's uniforms. There was only one man among us
who did not belong to the regiment. He was about thirty-five, and, of
course, we looked upon him as an old fellow. He had the advantage of
experience, and his habitual gloom, stern features, and his sharp tongue
gave him great influence over his juniors. He was surrounded by a
certain mystery. His looks were Russian, but his name was foreign. He
had served in the Hussars, and with credit. No one knew what had induced
him to retire and settle in this out of the way little village, where he
lived in mingled poverty and extravagance. He always went on foot, and
wore a shabby black coat. But he was always ready to receive any of our
officers; and, though his dinners, cooked by a retired soldier, never
consisted of more than two or three dishes, champagne flowed at them
like water. His income or how he got it no one knew; and no one ventured
to ask. He had a few books on military subjects and a few novels, which
he willingly lent and never asked to have returned. But, on the other
hand, he never returned the books he himself borrowed.

His principal recreation was pistol-shooting. The walls of his room were
riddled with bullets--a perfect honeycomb. A rich collection of pistols
was the only thing luxurious in his modestly furnished villa. His skill
as a shot was quite prodigious. If he had undertaken to shoot a pear off
some one's cap, not a man in our regiment would have hesitated to act as
target. Our conversation often turned on duelling. Silvio--so I will
call him--never joined in it. When asked if he had ever fought, he
answered curtly, "Yes." But he gave no particulars, and it was evident
that he disliked such questions. We concluded that the memory of some
unhappy victim of his terrible skill preyed heavily upon his conscience.
None of us could ever have suspected him of cowardice. There are men
whose look alone is enough to repel such a suspicion.

[Illustration: "THE OFFICER SEIZED A BRASS CANDLESTICK."]

An unexpected incident fairly astonished us. One afternoon about ten
officers were dining with Silvio. They drank as usual; that is to say, a
great deal. After dinner we asked our host to make a pool. For a long
time he refused on the ground that he seldom played. At last he ordered
cards to be brought in. With half a hundred gold pieces on the table we
sat round him, and the game began. It was Silvio's habit not to speak
when playing. He never disputed or explained. If an adversary made a
mistake Silvio without a word chalked it down against him. Knowing his
way, we always let him have it.

But among us on this occasion was an officer who had but lately joined.
While playing he absent-mindedly scored a point too much. Silvio took
the chalk and corrected the score in his own fashion. The officer,
supposing him to have made a mistake, began to explain. Silvio went on
dealing in silence. The officer, losing patience, took the brush and
rubbed out what he thought was wrong. Silvio took the chalk and
recorrected it. The officer, heated with wine and play, and irritated by
the laughter of the company, thought himself aggrieved, and, in a fit of
passion, seized a brass candlestick and threw it at Silvio, who only
just managed to avoid the missile. Great was our confusion. Silvio got
up, white with rage, and said, with sparkling eyes--

"Sir! have the goodness to withdraw, and you may thank God that this has
happened in my own house."

We could have no doubt as to the consequences, and we already looked
upon our new comrade as a dead man. He withdrew saying that he was ready
to give satisfaction for his offence in any way desired.

The game went on for a few minutes. But feeling that our host was upset
we gradually left off playing and dispersed, each to his own quarters.
At the riding school next day, we were already asking one another
whether the young lieutenant was still alive, when he appeared among us.
We asked him the same question, and were told that he had not yet heard
from Silvio. We were astonished. We went to Silvio's and found him in
the court-yard popping bullet after bullet into an ace which he had
gummed to the gate. He received us as usual, but made no allusion to
what had happened on the previous evening.

Three days passed, and the lieutenant was still alive. "Can it be
possible," we asked one another in astonishment, "that Silvio will not
fight?"

Silvio did not fight. He accepted a flimsy apology, and became
reconciled to the man who had insulted him. This lowered him greatly in
the opinion of the young men, who, placing bravery above all the other
human virtues and regarding it as an excuse for every imaginable vice,
were ready to overlook anything sooner than a lack of courage. However,
little by little all was forgotten, and Silvio regained his former
influence. I alone could not renew my friendship with him. Being
naturally romantic I had surpassed the rest in my attachment to the man
whose life was an enigma, and who seemed to me a hero of some mysterious
story. He liked me; and with me alone did he drop his sarcastic tone and
converse simply and most agreeably on many subjects. But after this
unlucky evening the thought that his honour was tarnished, and that it
remained so by his own choice, never left me; and this prevented any
renewal of our former intimacy. I was ashamed to look at him. Silvio was
too sharp and experienced not to notice this and guess the reason. It
seemed to vex him, for I observed that once or twice he hinted at an
explanation. But I wanted none; and Silvio gave me up. Thenceforth I
only met him in the presence of other friends, and our confidential
talks were at an end.

The busy occupants of the capital have no idea of the emotions so
frequently experienced by residents in the country and in country towns;
as, for instance, in awaiting the arrival of the post. On Tuesdays and
Fridays the bureau of the regimental staff was crammed with officers.
Some were expecting money, others letters or newspapers. The letters
were mostly opened on the spot, and the news freely interchanged, the
office meanwhile presenting a most lively appearance.

Silvio's letters used to be addressed to our regiment, and he usually
called for them himself. On one occasion, a letter having been handed to
him, I saw him break the seal and, with a look of great impatience, read
the contents. His eyes sparkled. The other officers, each engaged with
his own letters, did not notice anything.

"Gentlemen," said Silvio, "circumstances demand my immediate departure.
I leave to-night, and I hope you will not refuse to dine with me for the
last time. I shall expect you, too," he added, turning towards me,
"without fail." With these words he hurriedly left, and we agreed to
meet at Silvio's.

I went to Silvio's at the appointed time, and found nearly the whole
regiment with him. His things were already packed. Nothing remained but
the bare shot-marked walls. We sat down to table. The host was in
excellent spirits, and his liveliness communicated itself to the rest of
the company. Corks popped every moment. Bottles fizzed, and tumblers
foamed incessantly, and we, with much warmth, wished our departing
friend a pleasant journey and every happiness. The evening was far
advanced when we rose from table. During the search for hats, Silvio
wished everybody good-bye. Then, taking me by the hand, as I was on the
point of leaving, he said in a low voice,

"I want to speak to you."

I stopped behind.

The guests had gone and we were left alone.

Sitting down opposite one another, we lighted our pipes. Silvio was much
agitated; no traces of his former gaiety remained. Deadly pale, with
sparkling eyes, and a thick smoke issuing from his mouth, he looked like
a demon. Several minutes passed before he broke silence.

"Perhaps we shall never meet again," he said. "Before saying good-bye I
want to have a few words with you. You may have remarked that I care
little for the opinions of others. But I like you, and should be sorry
to leave you under a wrong impression."

He paused, and began refilling his pipe. I looked down and was silent.

"You thought it odd," he continued, "that I did not require satisfaction
from that drunken maniac. You will grant, however, that being entitled
to the choice of weapons I had his life more or less in my hands. I
might attribute my tolerance to generosity, but I will not deceive you.
If I could have chastised him without the least risk to myself, without
the slightest danger to my own life, then I would on no account have
forgiven him."

I looked at Silvio with surprise. Such a confession completely upset me.
Silvio continued:--

"Precisely so: I had no right to endanger my life. Six years ago I
received a slap in the face, and my enemy still lives."

My curiosity was greatly excited.

"Did you not fight him?" I inquired. "Circumstances probably separated
you?"

"I did fight him," replied Silvio, "and here is a memento of our duel."

[Illustration: "HERE IS A MEMENTO OF OUR DUEL."]

He rose and took from a cardboard box a red cap with a gold tassel and
gold braid.

"My disposition is well known to you. I have been accustomed to be first
in everything. From my youth this has been my passion. In my time
dissipation was the fashion, and I was the most dissipated man in the
army. We used to boast of our drunkenness. I beat at drinking the
celebrated Bourtsoff, of whom Davidoff has sung in his poems. Duels in
our regiment were of daily occurrence. I took part in all of them,
either as second or as principal. My comrades adored me, while the
commanders of the regiment, who were constantly being changed, looked
upon me as an incurable evil.

"I was calmly, or rather boisterously, enjoying my reputation, when a
certain young man joined our regiment. He was rich, and came of a
distinguished family--I will not name him. Never in my life did I meet
with so brilliant, so fortunate a fellow!--young, clever, handsome, with
the wildest spirits, the most reckless bravery, bearing a celebrated
name, possessing funds of which he did not know the amount, but which
were inexhaustible. You may imagine the effect he was sure to produce
among us. My leadership was shaken. Dazzled by my reputation, he began
by seeking my friendship. But I received him coldly; at which, without
the least sign of regret, he kept aloof from me.

"I took a dislike to him. His success in the regiment and in the society
of women brought me to despair. I tried to pick a quarrel with him. To
my epigrams he replied with epigrams which always seemed to me more
pointed and more piercing than my own, and which were certainly much
livelier; for while he joked, I was raving.

"Finally, at a ball at the house of a Polish landed proprietor, seeing
him receive marked attention from all the ladies, and especially from
the lady of the house, who had formerly been on very friendly terms with
me, I whispered some low insult in his ear. He flew into a passion, and
gave me a slap on the cheek. We clutched our swords; the ladies fainted;
we were separated; and the same night we drove out to fight.

"It was nearly daybreak. I was standing at the appointed spot with my
three seconds. How impatiently I awaited my opponent! The spring sun had
risen, and it was growing hot. At last I saw him in the distance. He was
on foot, accompanied by only one second. We advanced to meet him. He
approached, holding in his hand his regimental cap, filled full of black
cherries.

"The seconds measured twelve paces. It was for me to fire first. But my
excitement was so great that I could not depend upon the certainty of my
hand; and, in order to give myself time to get calm, I ceded the first
shot to my adversary. He would not accept it, and we decided to cast
lots.

"The number fell to him; constant favourite of fortune that he was! He
aimed, and put a bullet through my cap.

"It was now my turn. His life at last was in my hands; I looked at him
eagerly, trying to detect if only some faint shadow of uneasiness. But
he stood beneath my pistol, picking out ripe cherries from his cap and
spitting out the stones, some of which fell near me. His indifference
enraged me. 'What is the use,' thought I, 'of depriving him of life,
when he sets no value upon it.' As this savage thought flitted through
my brain I lowered the pistol.

"'You don't seem to be ready for death,' I said; 'you are eating your
breakfast, and I don't want to interfere with you.'

"'You don't interfere with me in the least,' he replied. 'Be good enough
to fire. Or don't fire if you prefer it; the shot remains with you, and
I shall be at your service at any moment.'

[Illustration: "WE CLUTCHED OUR SWORDS."]

"I turned to the seconds, informing them that I had no intention of
firing that day; and with this the duel ended. I resigned my commission
and retired to this little place. Since then not a single day has passed
that I have not thought of my revenge; and now the hour has arrived."

Silvio took from his pocket the letter he had received that morning, and
handed it to me to read. Someone (it seemed to be his business agent)
wrote to him from Moscow, that a certain individual was soon to be
married to a young and beautiful girl.

"You guess," said Silvio, "who the certain individual is. I am starting
for Moscow. We shall see whether he will be as indifferent now as he was
some time ago, when in presence of death he ate cherries!"

[Illustration: "HIS LIFE AT LAST WAS IN MY HANDS."]

With these words Silvio rose, threw his cap upon the floor, and began
pacing up and down the room like a tiger in his cage. I remained silent.
Strange contending feelings agitated me.

The servant entered and announced that the horses were ready. Silvio
grasped my hand tightly. He got into the _telega_, in which lay two
trunks--one containing his pistols, the other some personal effects. We
wished good-bye a second time, and the horses galloped off.


II.

Many years passed, and family circumstances obliged me to settle in the
poor little village of N. Engaged in farming, I sighed in secret for my
former merry, careless existence. Most difficult of all I found it to
pass in solitude the spring and winter evenings. Until the dinner hour I
somehow occupied the time, talking to the _starosta_, driving round to
see how the work went on, or visiting the new buildings. But as soon as
evening began to draw in, I was at a loss what to do with myself. My
books in various bookcases, cupboards, and storerooms I knew by heart.
The housekeeper, Kurilovna, related to me all the stories she could
remember. The songs of the peasant women made me melancholy. I tried
cherry brandy, but that gave me the headache. I must confess, however,
that I had some fear of becoming a drunkard from _ennui_, the saddest
kind of drunkenness imaginable, of which I had seen many examples in our
district.

I had no near neighbours with the exception of two or three melancholy
ones, whose conversation consisted mostly of hiccups and sighs. Solitude
was preferable to that. Finally I decided to go to bed as early as
possible, and to dine as late as possible, thus shortening the evening
and lengthening the day; and I found this plan a good one.

Four versts from my place was a large estate belonging to Count B.; but
the steward alone lived there. The Countess had visited her domain once
only, just after her marriage; and she then only lived there about a
month. However, in the second spring of my retirement, there was a
report that the Countess, with her husband, would come to spend the
summer on her estate; and they arrived at the beginning of June.

The advent of a rich neighbour is an important event for residents in
the country. The landowners and the people of their household talk of it
for a couple of months beforehand, and for three years afterwards. As
far as I was concerned, I must confess, the expected arrival of a young
and beautiful neighbour affected me strongly. I burned with impatience
to see her; and the first Sunday after her arrival I started for the
village, in order to present myself to the Count and Countess as their
near neighbour and humble servant.

The footman showed me into the Count's study, while he went to inform
him of my arrival. The spacious room was furnished in a most luxurious
manner. Against the walls stood enclosed bookshelves well furnished with
books, and surmounted by bronze busts. Over the marble mantelpiece was a
large mirror. The floor was covered with green cloth, over which were
spread rugs and carpets.

Having got unaccustomed to luxury in my own poor little corner, and not
having beheld the wealth of other people for a long while, I was awed;
and I awaited the Count with a sort of fear, just as a petitioner from
the provinces awaits in an ante-room the arrival of the minister. The
doors opened, and a man, about thirty-two, and very handsome, entered
the apartment. The Count approached me with a frank and friendly look. I
tried to be self-possessed, and began to introduce myself, but he
forestalled me.

We sat down. His easy and agreeable conversation soon dissipated my
nervous timidity. I was already passing into my usual manner, when
suddenly the Countess entered, and I became more confused than ever. She
was, indeed, beautiful. The Count presented me. I was anxious to appear
at ease, but the more I tried to assume an air of unrestraint, the more
awkward I felt myself becoming. They, in order to give me time to
recover myself and get accustomed to my new acquaintances, conversed
with one another, treating me in good neighbourly fashion without
ceremony. Meanwhile, I walked about the room, examining the books and
pictures. In pictures I am no _connaisseur_; but one of the Count's
attracted my particular notice. It represented a view in Switzerland. I
was not, however, struck by the painting, but by the fact that it was
shot through by two bullets, one planted just on the top of the other.

"A good shot," I remarked, turning to the Count.

"Yes," he replied, "a very remarkable shot."

"Do you shoot well?" he added.

"Tolerably," I answered, rejoicing that the conversation had turned at
last on a subject which interested me. "At a distance of thirty paces I
do not miss a card; I mean, of course, with a pistol that I am
accustomed to."

"Really?" said the Countess, with a look of great interest. "And you, my
dear, could you hit a card at thirty paces?"

"Some day," replied the Count, "we will try. In my own time I did not
shoot badly. But it is four years now since I held a pistol in my hand."

"Oh," I replied, "in that case, I bet, Count, that you will not hit a
card even at twenty paces. The pistol demands daily practice. I know
that from experience. In our regiment I was reckoned one of the best
shots. Once I happened not to take a pistol in hand for a whole month: I
had sent my own to the gunsmith's. Well, what do you think, Count? The
first time I began again to shoot I four times running missed a bottle
at twenty paces. The captain of our company, who was a wit, happened to
be present, and he said to me: 'Your hand, my friend, refuses to raise
itself against the bottle!' No, Count, you must not neglect to practise,
or you will soon lose all skill. The best shot I ever knew used to shoot
every day, and at least three times every day before dinner. This was as
much his habit as the preliminary glass of vodka."

The Count and Countess seemed pleased that I had begun to talk.

"And what sort of a shot was he?" asked the Count.

"This sort, Count: if he saw a fly settle on the wall----You smile,
Countess, but I assure you it is a fact. When he saw the fly, he would
call out, 'Kouska, my pistol!' Kouska brought him the loaded pistol. A
crack, and the fly was crushed into the wall!"

"That is astonishing!" said the Count. "And what was his name?"

"Silvio was his name."

"Silvio!" exclaimed the Count, starting from his seat. "_You_ knew
Silvio?"

"How could I fail to know him?--we were comrades; he was received at our
mess like a brother-officer. It is now about five years since I last had
tidings of him. Then you, Count, also knew him?"

"I knew him very well. Did he never tell you of one very extraordinary
incident in his life?"

"Do you mean the slap in the face, Count, that he received from a
blackguard at a ball?"

"He did not tell you the name of this blackguard?"

"No, Count, he did not. Forgive me," I added, guessing the truth,
"forgive me--I did not--could it really have been you?"

"It was myself," replied the Count, greatly agitated; "and the shots in
the picture are a memento of our last meeting."

[Illustration: "I FIRED AND HIT THAT PICTURE."]

"Oh, my dear," said the Countess, "for God's sake, do not relate it! It
frightens me to think of it."

"No," replied the Count; "I must tell him all. He knows how I insulted
his friend. He shall also know how Silvio revenged himself." The Count
pushed a chair towards me, and with the liveliest interest I listened to
the following story:--

"Five years ago," began the Count, "I got married. The honeymoon I spent
here, in this village. To this house I am indebted for the happiest
moments of my life, and for one of its saddest remembrances.

"One afternoon we went out riding together. My wife's horse became
restive. She was frightened, got off the horse, handed the reins over to
me, and walked home. I rode on before her. In the yard I saw a
travelling carriage, and I was told that in my study sat a man who would
not give his name, but simply said that he wanted to see me on business.
I entered the study, and saw in the darkness a man, dusty and unshaven.
He stood there, by the fireplace. I approached him trying to recollect
his face.

"'You don't remember me, Count?' he said, in a tremulous voice.

"'Silvio!' I cried, and I confess, I felt that my hair was standing on
end.

"'Exactly so,' he added. 'You owe me a shot; I have come to claim it.
Are you ready?' A pistol protruded from his side pocket.

[Illustration: "MASHA THREW HERSELF AT HIS FEET."]

"I measured twelve paces, and stood there in that corner, begging him to
fire quickly, before my wife came in.

"He hesitated, and asked for a light. Candles were brought in. I locked
the doors, gave orders that no one should enter, and again called upon
him to fire. He took out his pistol and aimed.

"I counted the seconds.... I thought of her.... A terrible moment
passed! Then Silvio lowered his hand.

"'I only regret,' he said, 'that the pistol is not loaded with
cherry-stones. My bullet is heavy; and it always seems to me that an
affair of this kind is not a duel, but a murder. I am not accustomed to
aim at unarmed men. Let us begin again from the beginning. Let us cast
lots as to who shall fire first.'

"My head went round. I think I objected. Finally, however, we loaded
another pistol and rolled up two pieces of paper. These he placed inside
his cap; the one through which, at our first meeting, I had put the
bullet. I again drew the lucky number.

"'Count, you have the devil's luck,' he said, with a smile which I shall
never forget.

"I don't know what I was about, or how it happened that he succeeded in
inducing me. But I fired and hit that picture."

The Count pointed with his finger to the picture with the shot-marks.
His face had become red with agitation. The Countess was whiter than her
own handkerchief: and I could not restrain an exclamation.

"I fired," continued the Count, "and, thank heaven, missed. Then
Silvio--at this moment he was really terrible--then Silvio raised his
pistol to take aim at me.

"Suddenly the door flew open, Masha rushed into the room. She threw
herself upon my neck with a loud shriek. Her presence restored to me all
my courage.

"'My dear,' I said to her, 'don't you see that we are only joking? How
frightened you look! Go and drink a glass of water and then come back; I
will introduce you to an old friend and comrade.'

"Masha was still in doubt.

"'Tell me, is my husband speaking the truth?' she asked, turning to the
terrible Silvio; 'is it true that you are only joking?'

"'He is always joking, Countess,' Silvio replied. 'He once in a joke
gave me a slap in the face; in joke he put a bullet through this cap
while I was wearing it; and in joke, too, he missed me when he fired
just now. And now _I_ have a fancy for a joke.' With these words he
raised his pistol as if to shoot me down before her eyes!

"Masha threw herself at his feet.

"'Rise, Masha! For shame!' I cried in my passion; 'and you, sir, cease
to amuse yourself at the expense of an unhappy woman. Will you fire or
not?'

"'I will not,' replied Silvio. 'I am satisfied. I have witnessed your
agitation; your terror. I forced you to fire at me. That is enough; you
will remember me. I leave you to your conscience.'

"He was now about to go. But he stopped at the door, looked round at the
picture which my shot had passed through, fired at it almost without
taking aim, and disappeared.

"My wife had sunk down fainting. The servants had not ventured to stop
Silvio, whom they looked upon with terror. He passed out to the steps,
called his coachman, and before I could collect myself drove off."

The Count was silent. I had now heard the end of the story of which the
beginning had long before surprised me. The hero of it I never saw
again. I heard, however, that Silvio, during the rising of Alexander
Ipsilanti, commanded a detachment of insurgents and was killed in
action.

[Illustration]




_A Night with the Thames Police._


[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS AT WAPPING.]

There was a time when the owners of craft on the Thames practically left
their back-doors open and invited the river-thieves to enter, help
themselves, and leave unmolested and content. The barges lay in the
river holding everything most coveted, from precious cargoes of silk to
comfortable-looking bales of tobacco, protected only from wind, weather,
and wicked fingers by a layer of tarpaulin--everything ready and
inviting to those who devoted their peculiar talents and irrepressible
instincts to the water. Goods to the value of a million sterling were
being neatly appropriated every year. The City merchants were at their
wits' end. Some of the more courageous and determined of them ventured
out themselves at night; but the thieves--never at a loss in conceiving
an ingenious and ready means of escape--slipped, so to speak, out of
their would-be captors' hands by going semi-clothed about their work,
greasing their flesh and garments until they were as difficult to catch
as eels.

So the merchants held solemn conclave, the result of which was the
formation, in 1792, of "The Preventative Service," a title which clung
to the members thereof until 1839, when they were embodied with the
Metropolitan Police with the special privilege of posing as City
constables. Now they are a body of two hundred and two strong,
possessing twenty-eight police galleys and a trio of steam launches.
From a million pounds' worth of property stolen yearly a hundred years
ago, they have, by a persistent traversing of a watery beat, reduced it
to one hundred pounds. Smuggling is in reality played out, though foggy
nights are still fascinating to those so inclined; but now they have to
be content with a coil or two of old rope, an ingot of lead, or a few
fish. Still the river-policeman's eye and the light of his lantern are
always searching for suspicious characters and guilty-looking craft.

[Illustration: IN THE CELLS.]

In High-street, Wapping, famous for its river romances, and within five
hundred yards of the Old Stairs, the principal station of the Thames
Police is to be found. The traditional blue lamp projects over a
somewhat gloomy passage leading down to the river-side landing stage. To
us, on the night appointed for our expedition, it is a welcome beacon as
to the whereabouts of law and order, for only a few minutes previously
half a dozen worthy gentlemen standing at the top of some neighbouring
steps, wearing slouched hats and anything but a comforting expression on
their faces gruffly demanded, "Do you want a boat?" Fortunately we did
not. These estimable individuals had only just left the dock of the
police station, where they had been charged on suspicion, but eventually
discharged.

[Illustration: INSPECTOR FLETCHER.]

It is a quarter to six o'clock. At six we are to start for our journey
up the river as far as Waterloo and back again to Greenwich; but there
is time to take a hasty survey of the interior of the station, where
accommodation is provided for sixteen single men, with a library,
reading-room, and billiard-room at their disposal.

"Fine night, sir; rather cold, though," says a hardy-looking fellow
dressed in a reefer and a brightly glazed old-time man-o'-war's hat. He
is one of the two oldest men in the force, and could tell how he lost
his wife and all his family, save one lad, when the _Princess Alice_
went down in 1878. He searched for ten days and ten nights, but they
were lost to him. Another of these river guardians has a
never-to-be-forgotten reminiscence of that terrible disaster, when the
men of the Thames police were on duty for four or five nights at a
stretch. He was just too late to catch the ill-fated vessel! He was left
behind on the pier at Sheerness, and with regret watched it leave, full
of merrymakers. What must have been his thoughts when he heard the news?

[Illustration: A NIGHT CHARGE.]

You may pick out any of these thick-set fellows standing about. They
have one and all roamed the seas over. Many are old colonials, others
middle-aged veterans from the navy and merchant service--every one of
them as hard as a rock, capable of rowing for six or eight hours at a
stretch without resting on the oar.

"Don't be long inside, sir," shouts a strapping fellow, buttoning up his
coat to his neck.

"Aye, aye, skipper," we shout, becoming for the moment quite nautical.

Inside the station-house you turn sharply to the right, and there is the
charge-room. Portraits of Sir Charles Warren and other police
authorities are picturesquely arranged on the walls. In front of the
desk, with its innumerable little wooden rails, where sits the inspector
in charge, is the prisoners' dock, from the ground of which rises the
military measurement in inches against which the culprit testifies as to
his height. The hands of the clock above are slowly going their rounds.
In a corner, near the stout steel rails of the dock, lie a couple of
bargemen's peak caps. They are labelled with a half-sheet of notepaper.
Their history? They have been picked up in the river, but the poor
fellows who owned them are--missing! It will be part of our duties to
assist in the search for them to-night.

Just in a crevice by the window are the telegraph instruments. A
clicking noise is heard, and the inspector hurriedly takes down on a
slate a strange but suggestive message.

"Information received of a prize-fight for £2 a side, supposed to take
place between Highgate and Hampstead."

What has Highgate or Hampstead to do with the neighbourhood of Wapping,
or how does a prize-fight affect the members of the Thames police, who
are anything but pugilistically inclined? In our innocence we learn that
it is customary to telegraph such information to all the principal
stations throughout London. The steady routine of the force is to be
admired.

[Illustration: GOING ON DUTY.]

There are countless coats, capes, and caps hanging in a room through
which we pass on our way to the cells--cosy, clean, and convenient
apartments, and decidedly cheap to the temporary tenant. There are two
of them, one being specially retained for women. They are painted
yellow, provided with a wash-basin, towel, a supply of soap, and a
drinking cup. Heat is supplied through hot-water pipes; a pillow and rug
are provided for the women; and, like "desirable villa residences," the
apartments are fitted with electric bells.

Here the occupier is lodged for the time being, allowed food at each
meal to the value of fourpence, and eventually tried at the Thames
Police-court. Look at the doors. They bear countless dents from the
boot-tips of young men endeavouring to perform the clever acrobatic feat
of kicking out the iron grating over the door through which the gas-jet
gives them light. Those of a musical nature ring the electric bell for
half an hour at a time, imagining that they are disturbing the peace of
the officer in a distant room. But our smart constable, after satisfying
himself that all is well, disconnects the current, and sits smiling at
his ease. Some of the inmates, too, amuse themselves by manufacturing
streamers out of the blankets. They never do it a second time.

Now we are on our way to the riverside. We descend the wooden steps,
soaked through with the water which only a few hours previously has been
washing the stairs. Our boat is in waiting, manned by three sturdy
fellows, under the charge of an inspector. It is a glorious night; the
moon seems to have come out just to throw a light upon our artist's
note-book, and to provide a picture of the station standing out in
strong relief. The carpenter--for they repair their own boats
here--looks out from his shop door, and shouts a cheery "Good-night."
Our galley receives a gentle push into the water, and we start on a long
beat of seven and a half miles.

[Illustration: POLICE LAUNCH "ALERT."]

Save for the warning of a passing tug, the river is as a place of the
dead. How still and solemn! But a sudden "Yo-ho" from the inspector
breaks the quietude.

It is the method of greeting as one police galley passes another.

"Yo-ho!" replies the man in charge of the other boat.

"All right. Good-night."

These river police know every man who has any business on the water at
night. If the occupant of a boat was questioned, and his "Yo-ho" did not
sound familiar, he would be "towed" to the station.

A simple "Yo-ho" once brought about a smart capture. The rower was
mystified at the magic word, got mixed in his replies, and accordingly
was accommodated with a private room at the station for the night. It
transpired that this river purloiner had stolen the boat, and, being of
a communicative disposition, was in the habit of getting on friendly
terms with the watchmen of the steamers, and so contrived to gain an
entrance to the cabins, from which money and watches disappeared. This
piece of ingenuity was rewarded with ten years' penal servitude.

Our little craft has a lively time amongst the fire-floats--for fires
are just as likely to occur on the river as on the land, and accordingly
small launches are dotted about here and there, fulfilling the same
duties as the more formidable-looking engines on _terra firma_. A red
light signifies their whereabouts, and they usually lie alongside the
piers, so as to be able to telephone quickly should a fire occur. If the
police saw flames, they would act exactly as their comrades do on land,
and hurry to the nearest float to give the alarm.

It blows cold as we spin past Traitor's Gate at the Tower, but our men
become weather-beaten on the Thames, and their hands never lose the grip
of the oar. They need a hardy frame, a robust constitution, for no
matter what the weather, blinding snow or driving rain, these water
guardians come out--the foggiest night detains them not; they have to
get through the fog and their allotted six hours. At the time of the
Fenian scare at the House of Correction, thirty-six hours at a stretch
was considered nothing out of the way.

Now the lights of Billingsgate shine out, and we experience a good deal
of dodging outside the Custom House. The wind is getting up, and the
diminutive sprat-boats are taking advantage of the breeze to return
home. Some are being towed along. And as the oars of our little craft
touch the water, every man's eyes are fixed in order to catch sight of
anything like the appearance of a missing person. A record of the
missing, as well as the found, is kept at the station we have just left
a mile or two down the river. Ten poor creatures remain yet to be
discovered. What stories, thrilling and heartrending, we have to listen
to! Yet even in such pitiful occurrences as these, much that is grimly
humorous often surrounds them. Many are the sad recognitions on the part
of those "found drowned." Experience has taught the police to stand
quietly behind those who must needs go through such a terrible ordeal,
and who often swoon at the first sight. Where is a more touching story
than that of the little girl who tramped all the way from Camden Town to
Wapping, for the purpose of identifying her father, who had been picked
up near the Old Stairs? She was a brave little lass, and looked up into
the policeman's face as he took her by the hand and walked with her
towards the mortuary. As they reached the door and opened it, the
bravery of the child went to the man's heart. He was used to this sort
of thing, but, when he thought of the orphan, the tears came to his
eyes; he turned away for a moment, lest his charge should see them and
lose what strength her tiny frame possessed. He hesitated before he let
her go in.

"You're not frightened, are you, policeman?" she asked innocently.

He could not move, and she went in alone. When the constable followed,
he found the child with her arms round her dead father's neck, covering
his face with tears and kisses.

We shoot beneath London Bridge, and the commotion brought about by a
passing tug causes our men to rest their oars as we are lifted like a
cork by the disturbed waves. And as the great dome of St. Paul's appears
in sight, standing out solemnly against the black night, we pull our
wraps around us, as a little preliminary to a story volunteered by the
captain of our crew. The river police could tell of many a remarkable
clue to identification--a piece of lace, or the button of a man's
trousers. But the inspector has a curious story of a watch to
relate--true every word of it.

"Easy!" he cries to his men--"look to it--now get along," and to the
steady swing of the oars he commences.

[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.]

"It all turned on the inscription engraved on a watch," he says. "When I
came to search the clothing of the poor fellow picked up, the timekeeper
was found in his pocket. It was a gold one, and on the case was engraved
an inscription, setting forth that it had been given to a sergeant in
the Marines. Here was the clue sought after--the drowned man had
evidently been in the army. The following morning I was on my way to
Spring Gardens, when in passing down the Strand I saw a marine, whom I
was half inclined to question. I did not, however, do so, but hurried on
my sorrowful mission.

[Illustration: RESCUED!]

"On my arrival, I asked if they knew anything of Sergeant ----. Yes,
they did. I must have passed him in the Strand, for he had gone to
Coutts' Bank! I was perfectly bewildered. Here was the very man found
drowned, still alive!

"I could only wait until his return. Then the mystery was soon
explained. It seemed that the sergeant had sold his gold watch in order
to get a more substantial silver one, on condition that the purchaser
should take the inscription off. This he failed to do, and he in his
turn parted with the timekeeper to another buyer, who had finally
committed suicide with the watch still in his pocket."

Our police galley is now alongside the station, just below Waterloo
Bridge. It is not far to seek why it has been found necessary to
establish a depôt here. We look up at the great bridge which spans the
river at this point, named alas! with only too much truth, "The Bridge
of Sighs." The dark water looks inviting to those burdened with trial
and trouble, a place to receive those longing for rest and yearning for
one word of sympathy. More suicides occur at this spot than at any other
along the whole length of the river, though Whitehall Stairs and Adelphi
Stairs are both notorious places, where such poor creatures end their
existence. Some twenty-one suicides have been attempted at this point
during the past year, and twenty-five bodies found.

As we step on the timber station the sensation is extremely curious to
those used to the firm footing of the pavement. But Inspector Gibbons--a
genial member of the river force--assures us that one soon becomes
accustomed to the incessant rocking. Waterloo Police Station--familiar
to all river pedestrians during the summer months, owing to the
picturesque appearance it presents with its pots of geraniums and
climbing fuchsias--is a highly interesting corner.

Just peep into the Inspector's room, and make friends with "Dick," the
cat, upon whose shoulders rests the weight of four years and a round
dozen pounds. Dick is a capital swimmer, and has been in the water
scores of times. Moreover, he is a veritable feline policeman, and woe
betide any trespassers of his own race and breed. When a cat ventures
within the sacred precincts of the station, Dick makes friends with the
intruder for the moment, and, in order to enjoy the breeze, quietly
edges him to the extreme end of the platform, and suddenly pushes him
overboard. "Another cat last night," is a common expression amongst the
men here.

The Waterloo Police Station on occasion becomes a temporary hospital and
a home together.

Only half an hour previous to our arrival there had been an attempted
suicide, and in a little room, at the far end of the pier, there was
every sign that efforts had only recently been successfully made to
restore animation to a young fellow who had thrown himself off
Blackfriars Bridge. He had been picked up by a passing skiff, and his
head held above water until a steamboat passed by and took him on board.

Here is a bed in the corner, with comfortable-looking pillow and thick,
warm blankets, where the unfortunate one is put to bed for a period,
previous to being sent to the Infirmary, and afterwards charged. Close
at hand is a little medicine chest, containing numerous medicine phials,
a flask of stimulants, and a smelling-bottle. A dozen or so of tins, of
all shapes and sizes, are handy. These are filled with hot water and
placed in contact with the body of the person rescued from the river.

It is often an hour before anything approaching animation makes itself
visible, and even four hours have elapsed before any sign has been
apparent. The rescued one is laid upon a wooden board, below which is a
bath, and rubbed by ready hands according to Dr. Sylvester's method,
whose instructions are prominently displayed upon the wall, and are
understood by all the police.

[Illustration: AN UNRULY PRISONER.]

It will be noticed in the picture that two men are apparently about to
undress the hapless creature who has attempted her own life. The first
thought that will occur to the reader on looking at the illustration is,
that a member of her own sex ought to to do this work. It must be
remembered, however, that weeks may elapse without any such event, and
there is no place at Waterloo Bridge where a woman could be kept
constantly in waiting. Still, it is clearly not right that the men
should do this duty, and we think they might be enabled to go to some
house in the neighbourhood, in which arrangements had been made for the
services of a woman in cases of emergency. We do not forget that great
promptness is required at such times in order to resuscitate the body.
But, when we remember that every branch in the police system on the
Thames is so perfect, it seems a pity that some means cannot be devised.

Many remarkable things might be told about people who have been in this
room. One poor fellow was once an inmate who was humorous to the last.
When he was brought in, a pair of dumb-bells were found in his pocket,
and a piece of paper on which was scrawled in charcoal the following:--

"Dear Bob,--I am going to drown myself. You will find me somewhere near
Somerset House. I can't part with my old friends, Bob, so I'm going to
take them with me. Good-bye."

The man was evidently an athlete, and the "old friends" referred to were
the weighty dumb-bells.

Many have been picked up with their pockets full of granite stones or a
piece of lead. One was found with the hands tied together with a silk
handkerchief--a love-token which the forsaken one had used so
pitifully. A woman, too, was discovered with a summons in her pocket,
which was put down as the cause of her untimely end.

Remarkable are the escapes of would-be suicides. In one instance a woman
threw herself off one of the bridges, and instead of falling into the
water, jumped into a passing barge. She had a child in her arms. The
little one died at Guy's Hospital, but the mother recovered. Some time
ago a woman jumped off Westminster Bridge, and floated safely down to
the Temple Stairs, where she was picked up. She had gone off the bridge
feet first, the wind had caught her clothes, and by this means her head
was kept up, and she was saved.

Perhaps, however, the strangest case and one of the most romantic, was
that of Alice Blanche Oswald. Previous to committing suicide she wrote
letters to herself, purporting to come from wealthy people in America,
and setting forth a most heartrending history. Her death aroused a vast
amount of public sympathy. A monument to her memory was suggested, and
subscriptions were already coming in, when inquiries proved that her
supposed friends in America did not exist, and that the story contained
in the missives was a far from truthful one. She was nothing more than
an adventuress.

As we glance in at the solitary cell, built on exactly the same
principle as those at Wapping, in which eleven enterprising individuals
have been accommodated at one time, we learn of the thousand and one
odds and ends that are washed up--revolvers and rifles, housebreaking
instruments which thoughtful burglars have got rid of; the plant of a
process for manufacturing counterfeit bank-notes, with some of the
flimsy pieces of paper still intact. A plated cup was once picked up at
Waterloo, which turned out to be the proceeds of a burglary at Eton
College; it is probable the cup floated all the way from the Thames at
Windsor to Waterloo.

Forty-eight men are always on duty at this station, including four
single men, whose quarters are both novel and decidedly cosy. This
quartet of bachelors sleep in bunks, two above the others. The watch of
one of the occupants is ticking away in one berth, whilst a clock is
vieing with it next door. These men have each a separate locker for
their clothes, boot-brushes, tea-pot, coffee-pot, food, &c. The men do
all their own cleaning and cooking; if you will, you may look into a
kitchen in the corner, in which every pot and pan is as bright as a new
pin.

But our time is up; the chiming of "Big Ben" causes the genial inspector
gently to remind us that we must be off, and once more we are seated in
the boat, and, cutting right across the river, move slowly on our way to
Greenwich, where the old _Royalist_ is transformed into a station, a
familiar institution some sixteen or seventeen years ago at Waterloo.

The whole scene is wonderfully impressive--not a sound is to be heard
but the distant rumbling of the vehicles over London Bridge. Our men
pause for a moment and rest their oars. The great wharves are deserted,
the steamers and barges appear immovable as they lie alongside--there is
no life anywhere or any sign of it. Again we get along, halting for a
moment to look up at the old man-o'-war, the famous _Discovery_, which
ventured out to the Arctic regions under Captain Nares. The old
three-mast schooner--for the vessel is nothing more now, being used as a
river carrier of the stores from the Victualling Yard at Deptford to the
various dockyards--had on board when she went to colder regions a future
member of the Thames Police: hence he was called "Arctic Jack" by his
companions, a near relation to "Father Neptune," a cognomen bestowed
upon another representative of the force, owing to the wealth of white
beard which he possessed.

Past Deptford Cattle Market, the red lamps on the jetties light up the
water; a good pull and we are at Greenwich Steps, near to which is "The
Ship," ever associated with the name of "whitebait." Our beat is ended,
and a hearty "Good-night" is re-echoed by the men as we stand watching
them on the river steps whilst they pull the first few strokes on their
way home to Wapping.

[Illustration]




_The Maid of Treppi._

FROM THE GERMAN OF PAUL HEYSE.

(_Continued from page 69._)


He had not gone very far from her before he found himself between rocks
and bushes and without a path; for however much he might deny it to
himself, the words of this extraordinary girl had made him anxious at
heart, and all his thoughts were centred on himself. However, he still
saw the shepherd's fire on the opposite meadow, and worked his way
through manfully, trying to get down to the plain below. He reckoned by
looking at the sun that it must be about ten o'clock. But when he had
climbed down the steep mountain side, he came upon a shady road, and
then to a wooden bridge across a fresh stream. This seemed to lead up
the other side, and out on to the meadow. He followed it, and at first
the path was a very steep one, but then went winding along the mountain
side. He soon saw that it would not bring him very quickly to his
destination; but large overhanging rocks above prevented his taking a
straighter direction, and he was obliged to trust himself to his path,
unless he turned back altogether. He walked on rapidly, and at first as
though loosed from bonds, glancing now and then up at the hut, which did
not seem to draw near. By and by, when his blood began to cool, he
recalled all the details of the scene he had just gone through. He saw
the lovely girl's face bodily before him, and not as before through the
mist of his anger. He could not help feeling full of pity for her.
"There she sits," he said to himself, "poor crazy thing, and trusts to
her magic arts. That was why she left the hut by moonlight, to pluck who
knows what harmless plant. Why, yes; my brave contrabandists showed me
the strange white flowers growing between the rocks, and told me they
were sure always to evoke mutual love. Innocent flowers, what things are
imputed to you! And that, too, was why the wine was so bitter on my
tongue. How everything child-like, the older it is, becomes the stronger
and more honoured! She stood before me like a sibyl, stronger and surer
in her faith than any of those Roman ones who cast their books into the
flames. Poor heart of woman, how lovely, yet how wretched in delusion!"

The further he went on his way, the more he felt the touching grandeur
of her love, and the power of her beauty enhanced by the separation. "I
ought not to have made her suffer for wishing in all good faith to save
me by freeing me from inevitable duties. I ought to have taken her hand
and to have said: 'I love you Fenice, and, if I live, I will come back
to you and take you home.' How blind of me not to think of that
suggestion! a disgrace for any lawyer! I ought to have taken leave of
her with a lover's kisses, and then she would never have suspected I was
deceiving her. Instead of which I tried to be straightforward where she
was defiant, and I only made things worse."

Then he buried himself in thoughts of such a leave-taking, and seemed to
feel her breath and the pressure of her red lips on his own. It was as
though he heard his name called. "Fenice!" he answered eagerly, and
stood still with beating heart. The stream flowed on below him, the
branches of the fir trees hung motionless; far and near was a vast,
shady wilderness.

Once again her name rose to his lips, but shame in time sealed his
mouth--shame and a sort of terror as well. He struck his forehead with
his hand. "Am I already so far gone that waking I dream of her?" he
exclaimed. "Is she right, and can no man under the sun resist her charm?
Then I were no better than she would make me out to be, worthy only to
be called a woman's man all my life long. No, away with you, you lovely,
treacherous fiend!"

He had regained his composure for the time being, but he now perceived
that he had utterly and entirely strayed from the path. He could not go
back without running into the arms of danger. So he decided at all
hazards to climb to some high point from which he could look about him
for the shepherd's hut. Where he was walking, the one bank of the
rushing stream below was too steep and precipitous. So he fastened his
coat round his neck, chose a safe spot, and at one bound had leapt
across to the other side of the chasm, the walls of which at that place
nearly met. With fresh courage he climbed the precipice on the other
side and soon stood out in the sun.

It scorched his head, and his tongue was dry, as he worked his way
upward with great exertion. Then, suddenly, he was seized with the fear
that, after all his trouble, he would not be able to reach his
destination. The blood went to his head more and more; he abused the
infernal wine that he had swallowed in the morning, and was forced to
think of the white blossoms that had been pointed out to him the day
before. They grew here too. He shuddered. What if it were true, he
thought, that there were powers which enthrall our heart and senses, and
bend a man's will to a girl's whim? better any extremity than such a
disgrace! rather death than slavery! "But no, no! a lie can only conquer
one who believes in it. Be a man, Filippo; forward, the summit is before
you; but a short while, and this cursed haunted mountain will be left
behind for ever!"

And yet he could not calm the fever in his veins. Each stone, each
slippery place, every bare pine-branch hanging before him, were
obstacles which he surmounted only by an almost superhuman effort of
will. When he at last arrived at the top, and still holding to the last
bush, swung himself on to the summit, he could not look about him for
the rapid coursing of the blood to his head, and the blinding, dazzling
light of the sun on the yellow rocks around. Furiously he rubbed his
forehead, and passed his fingers through his tangled hair as he lifted
his hat. But then he heard his name again in real earnest, and gazed
horror-struck in the direction from which came the sound. And there, a
few paces from him, Fenice sat on a rock just as he had left her, gazing
at him with intensely happy eyes.

"At last you have come, Filippo!" she said, earnestly. "I expected you
sooner."

"Spirit of evil," he shrieked, beside himself, and inwardly torn in two
by horror and attraction, "do you still mock me who have been wandering
distressed in these forsaken places, and with the sun beating down into
my very brain? Is it any triumph for you that I am forced to see you,
only to curse you once again? By heaven, though I have found you, I have
not sought you, and you will lose me yet."

She shook her head with a strange smile. "Something attracts you without
your knowledge," she said. "You would find me though all the mountains
in the world were between us, for I mixed with your wine seven drops of
the dog's heart-blood. Poor Fuoco! He loved me and hated you. Thus will
you hate the Filippo who so lately cast me off, and will find peace only
if you love me. Do you see now, Filippo, that I have conquered you at
last? Come, now I will again show you the way to Genoa, my darling, my
beloved, my husband!"

[Illustration: "HE FELL BACK INTO THE RAVINE."]

And she stood up and would have embraced him; but the sight of his face
suddenly startled her. He turned all at once pale as death, only the
white of the eyes was red; his lips moved, but no sound came; his hat
had fallen from his head, and with his hands he violently waved off her
approach.

"A dog! a dog!" were the first words he with difficulty ejaculated. "No,
no, no! you shall not conquer--demon that you are. Better a dead man
than a living dog!" Thereupon he burst into a peal of terrible laughter,
and slowly, as though he fought hard for each step, his eyes fixed and
staring at the girl, he staggered and fell back into the ravine behind
him.

For an instant her head swam, and all seemed dark around her. She
pressed her hands to her heart, and when she saw the tall form disappear
over the edge of the rock, she gave a scream which resounded through the
ravine like the cry of a falcon. She tottered forward a few steps, and
then stood straight and upright, her hands still pressed to her heart.
"Madonna!" she exclaimed mechanically.

Still looking before her she rapidly drew near the edge, and began to
climb down the stony wall between the fir trees. Words without sense or
meaning broke from her trembling lips. One hand she pressed against her
heart, while with the other she helped herself down by branches and
stones. Thus she reached the foot of the trees.

[Illustration: "THERE HE LAY."]

There he lay, his eyes closed, his hair and forehead covered with blood,
his back against the foot of an old tree. His coat was torn, and his
right leg seemed hurt. She could not tell whether he was still alive.
She took him in her arms, and then felt that he still moved. "Praised be
the Lord!" she said, and breathed more freely. She seemed to be endowed
with a giant's strength as she began to climb the steep ascent, carrying
the helpless man in her arms. But it was a weary way. Four times she
laid him down on the mossy rocks. He was still unconscious.

When at last she gained the summit with her hapless burden, she too sank
down, and lay for a moment fainting and oblivious. Then she got up and
went in the direction of the shepherd's hut. As soon as she was near
enough, she gave a shrill cry across the valley. She was answered first
by echo only, then by a man's voice. She repeated her cry and then
turned back without waiting for the answer. When she stood again beside
the senseless man, she groaned aloud, and lifting him, carried him into
the shade of the rock, where she herself had been sitting waiting for
him.

When he awoke to consciousness, and slowly opened his eyes again, he
found himself still there. He saw two shepherds beside him, an old man
and a lad of about seventeen. They were throwing water in his face and
rubbing his temples. His head was pillowed softly. He little knew that
it was in the girl's lap. He seemed altogether to have forgotten her. He
drew a long breath, which made his whole frame quiver, and again closed
his eyes. At last he said in trembling tones, "Will one of you good
people go down--quickly, to Pistoja. I am expected there. May God, in
His mercy, reward whoever will tell the landlord of the Fortuna--what
has happened to me. My name is----" but here his voice failed him. He
had fainted again.

"I will go," said the girl. "Meanwhile, you two must carry the gentleman
to Treppi and lay him in the bed which Nina will show you. She must send
for the _chiaruccia_, the old woman, and let her attend to the gentleman
and dress his wounds. Lift him up; you take the shoulders, Tommaso; you,
Bippo, take the legs. When you go uphill, you must go first, Tommaso.
Now, raise him gently, gently! and, stay--dip this in water and lay it
on his forehead, and wet it again at every spring. Do you understand?"

She tore off a great piece of the linen kerchief on her head, dipped it
in water and laid it on Filippo's bleeding brow. Then they lifted him,
and the men started to carry him to Treppi. Fenice, after watching them
some time with anxious, straining eyes, gathered up her skirts and went
rapidly down the rough and stony mountain path.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was nearly three in the afternoon when she reached Pistoja. The
Fortuna Inn was some hundred paces outside the town, and at this hour of
siesta there was not much life about the place. Carriages, with the
horses taken out, stood in the shade under the overhanging roof, the
drivers fast asleep on the cushions; opposite, too, at the great smithy,
work had stopped; and not a breath of air penetrated through the dusty
trees along the high road. Fenice went up to the fountain before the
house, the busy jet of water flowing ceaselessly down into the great
stone trough, and there refreshed her hands and face. Then she took a
long slow drink to satisfy both thirst and hunger, and went into the
inn.

The landlord got up sleepily from the bench at the bar, but sat down
again when he saw that it was only a girl from the hills who thus
disturbed his rest.

"What do you want?" he said to her sharply. "If you want anything to
eat, or wine to drink, go to the kitchen."

"Are you the landlord?" she asked quietly.

"I should think so; I should think everyone knew _me_--Baldassare Tizzi,
of the Fortuna. What do you bring me, my good girl?"

"A message from the lawyer, Signor Filippo Mannini."

"Eh, what? Indeed? That's another matter," and he got up hurriedly. "Is
he not coming himself, child? There are some gentlemen here waiting for
him."

"Then take me to them."

"What, secrets? May I not know what message he sends to these
gentlemen?"

"No."

"Well, well, my child, well, well. Each one has his own secrets--your
pretty little obstinate head as well as old Baldassare's hard pate. So
he is not coming? The gentlemen will not be pleased at that; they
evidently have important business with him."

He stopped and looked at the girl with a sidelong glance. But as she did
not show any signs of taking him further into her confidence, and went
to open the door, he put on his straw hat and went with her, shaking his
head all the time.

[Illustration: AT THE FORTUNA INN.]

There was a small vineyard at the back of the inn, which they walked
through, the old man keeping up a continued flow of questions and
exclamations, to which the girl did not deign to reply. At the further
end of the middle walk stood a poor-looking summerhouse; the shutters
were closed, and inside a thick curtain hung behind the glass door. The
landlord made Fenice stop a little way from this pavilion, and went up
to the door, which was opened when he knocked. Fenice noticed how the
curtain was then drawn on one side, and a pair of eyes looked out at
her. Then the old man came back to her and said that the gentlemen would
speak to her.

As Fenice entered the pavilion, a man, who had been sitting at the table
with his back to the door, rose from his seat and gave a sharp and
penetrating look at her. Two other men remained seated. On the table she
saw bottles of wine and glasses.

"Is Signor Filippo, the lawyer, not coming according to promise?" asked
the man before whom she stood. "Who are you, and what verification have
you of your message?"

"I am Fenice Cattaneo, sir; a maiden from Treppi. Verification? I have
none, except that I am speaking the truth."

"Why is he not coming? We thought he was a man of honour."

"And he is so still; but he has fallen from a rock and hurt his head and
legs, and is unconscious."

Her interlocutor exchanged looks with the other man, and then said:

"You betray the truth at all events, Fenice Cattaneo, because you do not
understand how to lie. If he had lost consciousness, how could he send
you here to tell us of it?"

[Illustration: "IS SIGNOR FILIPPO NOT COMING?"]

"Speech came back to him at intervals. And he then said that he was
expected here at the inn; I was to let you know what had happened to
him."

One of the other men gave a short, dry laugh. "You see," said the
speaker, "these gentlemen do not believe much of your tale either.
Certainly it is easier to play the poet than the man of honour."

"If, Signor, you mean by that that Signor Filippo has not come here out
of cowardice, then it is an abominable falsehood, and may heaven reckon
it to you!" She said this fiercely, and looked at them all three in
succession.

"You wax warm, little one," scoffed the man. "You are doubtless Signor
Filippo's sweetheart, eh?"

"No, the Madonna knows I am not!" replied she in her deepest voice. The
men whispered together, and she heard one of them say: "That nest up
there is Tuscan still."--"You don't seriously believe in this dodge?"
asked the third. "He is no more at Treppi than----"

Their whispering was interrupted by Fenice: "Come and see for
yourselves! But you must not carry arms if I am to be your guide."

"Foolish child," said the first speaker, "do you think that we would
take the life of so pretty a creature as you?"

"No, but his life; I feel sure you would."

"Have you any other conditions to make, Fenice Cattaneo?"

"Yes, that you take a surgeon with you. Perhaps you already have one
with you, signors?"

No one answered her. But the three men put their heads together in eager
talk. "When we arrived I saw him by chance in the front part of the
house," said one of them; "I hope he has not yet gone back to the town,"
and then he left the pavilion. He came back shortly with a fourth
individual, who did not seem to know the rest of the party.

"Will you do us the favour to go up to Treppi with us?" asked the first
speaker. "You have probably been told what it is all about."

The other bowed in silence, and they all left the pavilion. As they
passed the kitchen, Fenice asked for some bread, and ate a few
mouthfuls. Then she went on in front of the party, and took the road to
the mountains. She paid no heed to her companions, who were talking
eagerly together, but hurried on as fast as she could; sometimes they
had to call to her, or she would have been lost to sight. Then she stood
still, and gazed into space in a hopeless, dreamy way, her hand firmly
pressed to her heart. The evening had closed in before they reached the
heights.

[Illustration: "SHE WENT ON IN FRONT OF THE PARTY."]

The little village of Treppi looked no livelier than usual. A few
children's faces peered curiously out at the open windows, and one or
two women came out to their doors, as Fenice went past with her
companions. She spoke to no one as she drew near her home, returning the
neighbours' greeting with a hasty wave of the hand. A group of men stood
talking before the door, others were busy with some heavily-laden
horses, and contrabandists hurried to and fro. A sudden silence came
over the people, as they saw the strangers approaching. They stepped on
one side, and allowed them to pass. Fenice exchanged a few words with
Nina in the big room, and then opened her own chamber door.

The wounded man lay stretched on the bed in the dimly-lighted room. An
old, old woman, from the village, sat on the floor beside him.

"How goes it, _chiaruccia_?" asked Fenice.

"Not so badly, praised be the Madonna!" answered the old woman,
measuring with rapid glances the gentlemen who followed the girl into
the room.

Filippo started suddenly out of his sleep, his pale face glowing. "Is it
you?" he asked.

"Yes; I have brought with me the gentleman with whom you were to fight,
that he may see for himself that you could not go. And there is a
surgeon here, too."

The dull eye of the wounded man slowly surveyed the four strange faces.
"He is not one of them," he said. "I know none of these gentlemen."

When he had said this, and was about to close his eyes again, the chief
spokesman stepped forward: "It is sufficient that we know _you_," he
said, "Signor Filippo Mannini. We had orders to await you and arrest
you. Letters of yours have been found, from which it appears that it is
not only to fight a duel that you have come back to Tuscany, but to
renew certain connections through which your party will receive
advances. You see before you the commissary of police, and here are my
orders." He took a paper out of his pocket, and held it out to Filippo.
But he only stared at it as if he had not understood a word, and fell
back again into a half-stunned state.

"Examine his wounds, doctor," said the commissary, turning to the
surgeon. "If his state in any way permits, we must have this gentleman
transported down without delay. I saw horses outside. We shall be
enforcing the law in two ways if we take possession of them, for they
are laden with smuggled goods. It is a good thing to know what kind of
people visit Treppi, if one really wishes for the information."

As he said this, and the surgeon approached the bed, Fenice disappeared
out of the room. The old _chiaruccia_ sat on quietly where she was,
muttering to herself. Voices were heard outside, and a great bustle of
people coming and going, faces looked in at the hole in the wall, but
disappeared again quickly.

"It is just possible," said the surgeon, "that we can get him conveyed
down, if his wounds are well and firmly bandaged. Of course, he would
get well much quicker if he were left here quietly in the care of this
old witch, whose herbs and balsams would put to shame the most learned
physician. His life might be endangered by wound-fever on the way, and I
will on no account take any responsibility."

"It is not necessary--not at all," returned the commissary. "The _way_
we get rid of him need not be taken into consideration. Put your
bandages on him as tightly as you can, that nothing be wanting, and then
forward! It is moonlight, and we will take a guide. Go you outside,
Molza, and make sure of the horses."

[Illustration: "THE CONSTABLE STOOD PETRIFIED."]

The constable to whom this order was addressed opened the door quickly,
and would have gone out, but stood petrified at the unexpected sight
that met his view. The adjoining room was filled by a band of villagers,
with two contrabandists at their head. Fenice was still talking to them
as the door opened. She now advanced to her own chamber door, and said
with ringing tones:--

"Gentlemen, you must leave this room immediately, and without the
wounded man, or you will never see Pistoja again. No blood has ever been
shed in this house as long as Fenice Cattaneo has been mistress of it,
and may the Madonna ever preserve us from such horrors. Nor must you
attempt to come back again with a stronger force. Remember the place
where the rocky steps wind up between the cliffs. A child could defend
that pass, if the stones that lie on the top were rolled over the edge.
We will keep a watch posted there until this gentleman is in safety. Now
you can go, and boast of your heroic deed, that you deceived a girl, and
would have murdered a wounded man."

The faces of the constables grew paler and paler, and a pause ensued
after her last words. Then all three of them drew pistols out of their
pockets, and the commissary said calmly: "We come in the name of the
law. If you do not respect it yourselves, would you prevent others from
enforcing it? It may cost the lives of six of you, if you oblige us to
carry out the law by force."

A murmur ran through the group.

"Silence, friends!" exclaimed the determined girl. "They dare not do it.
They know that for each one they shoot down, his murderer would die a
six-fold death. You speak like a fool," she went on, turning to the
commissary. "The fear depicted on your faces is a more sensible
spokesman. Do as it suggests to you. The way is open to you, gentlemen!"

[Illustration: "THEY MARCHED THROUGH THE EXCITED BAND OF VILLAGERS."]

She stepped back, pointing with her left hand to the door of the house.
The men in the bedroom whispered together a little; then, with tolerable
composure, they marched through the excited band of villagers, whose
parting curses waxed louder and louder as the strangers left the house.
The surgeon seemed uncertain whether to go too, but, on an authoritative
sign from the girl, he hastily joined his companions.

The wounded man in bed had followed the entire scene with wide-open
eyes. The old woman now went to him and settled his pillows. "Lie still,
my son!" she said. "There is no danger. The old _chiaruccia_ keeps
watch, and our Fenice, blessed child, will see that you are safe. Sleep,
sleep!"

She hushed him to slumber like a child, singing monotonously until he
slept. But the face of Fenice was with him in his dreams.

       *       *       *       *       *

For ten days Filippo had been up in the mountains, nursed by the old
woman. He slept soundly at night, and in the daytime he sat at the open
door enjoying the fresh air and the solitude. As soon as he was able to
write once more, he sent a messenger to Bologna with a letter, to which
he received an answer the next day; but his pale countenance did not
show whether it was satisfactory or not. He spoke to no one except his
old nurse and the children from the village. Fenice he saw only in the
evening, when she was busy at her fireside, for she left the house with
the rising sun and remained away the whole day in the mountains. He
gathered from chance remarks that this was not her usual custom. But
even when she was in the house there was no opportunity of talking to
her. Altogether, she seemed not to notice his presence in the very
least, and her life went on as before. But her face had become like
stone, and the light had faded from her eyes.

One day, enticed on by the lovely weather, Filippo had gone further than
usual from the house, and for the first time, conscious of returning
strength, was climbing up a gentle slope, when, turning a corner of a
rock, he was startled to see Fenice sitting on the moss beside a spring.
She had a distaff and a spindle in her hands, and as she spun was lost
in thought. She looked up when she heard Filippo's footsteps, but did
not utter a word, nor did the expression of her face alter. She rose up
quickly and began to collect her things. She went away, too, without
heeding that he called her, and was soon lost to sight.

The morning after this meeting he had just risen, and his thoughts had
flown to her again, when the door of his room was opened and Fenice
walked in quietly. She remained standing at the door, and waved him back
haughtily when he would have hurried up to her.

"You are now quite cured," she said, coldly. "I have spoken to the old
woman. She thinks that you are strong enough to travel, in short stages
and on horseback. You will, therefore, leave Treppi to-morrow morning
early, and never again return. I demand this promise from you."

"I will give you the promise, Fenice, but on one condition only."

She was silent.

"That you will go with me, Fenice!" he exclaimed in unrestrained
emotion.

Her brows knit in anger. But she controlled herself, and, holding the
door-handle, said: "How have I merited your mockery? You must make the
promise without a condition; I exact it from your sense of honour,
Signor."

[Illustration: "A DISTAFF AND SPINDLE IN HER HANDS."]

"Would you thus cast me off after causing your love-potion to enter my
very marrow, and make me yours for ever, Fenice?"

[Illustration: "HE FLUNG HIMSELF ON THE STONES AT HER FEET."]

She quietly shook her head. "From henceforth there is no more magic
between us," she said, gloomily. "You had lost blood before the potion
had had time to take effect; the spell is broken. And it is well, for I
see that I did wrong. Let us speak no more about it, and say only that
you will go. A horse will be ready and a guide for wherever you wish to
go."

"And if it be no longer the same magic which binds me to you, it must be
some other which you know not of, Fenice. As sure as God is over us."

"Silence!" she interrupted, and curled her lip scornfully. "I am deaf to
any speeches you can make. If you think you owe me anything and would
take pity on me--then leave me, and that will settle our account. You
shall not think that this poor head of mine can learn nothing. I know
now that one can buy a man no more by humble services than by seven long
years of waiting, which are also, in the sight of God, a matter of no
moment. You must not think that you have made me miserable--you have
cured me! Go! and my thanks go with you!"

"Answer me, in God's name!" he exclaimed, beside himself as he drew
nearer, "have I cured you, also, of your love?"

"No," she said, firmly. "Why do you ask about it? It belongs to me; you
have neither power nor right over it. Go!"

Thereupon she stepped back across the threshold. The next moment he had
flung himself on the stones at her feet, and clasped her knees.

"If what you say be true," he cried, overcome with grief, "then save me,
take me to yourself, or this head of mine, saved by a miracle, will go
to pieces like my heart, which you reject and spurn. My world is a void,
my life a prey to hatred and revenge, my old and my new homes banish
me--what is there left for me to live for if I must lose you, too?"

Then he raised his eyes to her and saw the tears streaming down her
cheeks. Her face was still immovable; she drew a long breath and opened
her eyes; her lips moved, but no sound came; the life in her seemed to
awaken with one burst. She bent down and raised him with her powerful
arms. "You are mine," she said, with trembling voice. "Then I, too, will
be yours!"

       *       *       *       *       *

When the sun rose the following day, the pair were on their way to
Genoa, whither Filippo had decided to retire from the persecutions of
his enemies. The pale, tall man rode on a steady horse, which his
betrothed led by the bridle. On either side the hills and valleys of the
beautiful Apennines lay bright in the clear autumnal air, the eagles
were circling overhead, and far in the distance shone the deep-blue sea.
And bright and tranquil like the far-off ocean the travellers' future
lay before their eyes.

[Illustration]




_Our Money Manufactory._


Numismatics is a science in which the vast majority of people probably
take but the faintest interest. Yet the history of coinage, its
developments, its ramifications, is bound up indissolubly with the
history of the human race. It is the history of money; and money, as
Carlyle said of his own time, is the one certain nexus as between man
and man. Money is the determining factor in four-fifths of our
relationships. It has made the world what it is; on the one hand it has
brutalised mankind, and on the other it has given man unrivalled
opportunities of winning popular esteem. Money has ruined and created
individuals, families, States. Equally often it has brought worldly
happiness and worldly misery; it has broken hearts, unhinged reasons,
undone great enterprises; it has shed light in dark places, secured
comfort for the weary and the suffering, and involved all that heart can
desire. Noble knees have bent before "Lucre's sordid charms"; the humble
and the struggling have exalted themselves to place and power by its
means. Pope gives us an idea not only of the use but of the abuse to
which riches may be put, from the hiring of the dark assassin to the
corruption of a friend, and the bribing of a Senate.

[Illustration: RUNNING SILVER INTO MOULDS.]

Money in the form of cash has been infinitely more to civilisation than
mere barter and exchange ever were to barbarous races content to accept
one article in payment for another. It is, in fact, only necessary to
let the mind dwell for a period on all that the possession or want of
coin means to a people, individually and collectively, to render any
inquiry into the working of our money manufactory one of considerable
fascination. The attractions of the Mint for the ordinary sightseer
have, it would seem, yearly become greater, and in 1889, according to
the Report of the Deputy Master, the number of visitors was larger than
in any previous year, no less than 7,912 persons--that is, an average of
twenty-five a day--having been shown over the establishment on Tower
Hill. Vivid an idea of the place as the illustrations which accompany
this article will convey to those who have never been to the Mint, it
may at once be said, that to thoroughly grasp the actual work done
there, a visit is essential. It is an institution round which centres so
much human energy and scientific achievement that a picture should
certainly make most people anxious to know something more about it.

The Mint, as one approaches it on Tower Hill, suggests that it may be a
barrack, and the sentry pacing up and down outside lends colour to this
view, until one finds one's passage through the entrance gate blocked by
a sturdy policeman. Unless you happen to be fully armed with
credentials, or orders, you will not easily run the gauntlet of the
keeper of the peace and the gate, affable gentleman though he is. To be
shown over the Mint you must get an order from the Deputy Master, and
then everything is clear.

Once within the precincts of the establishment, your education--if it is
a first visit, as this of ours is--begins. You have probably, when
pocketing your salary at the end of the week, never given a moment's
thought as to the process by which money comes into the world. The
pounds (if you have any), the shillings, and the pence which you carry
in your pockets are the result of a combination of experience and skill
which you, perhaps, little suspect.

When the bullion--the metal in its pure state--arrives at the Mint, it
is assayed--that is, tested. It is then passed on to the Melting-room,
and, together with the baser metal which forms the alloy necessary to
reduce it to the proper standard, placed in the crucible, or
melting-pot. Let us take the coining of silver as an example. The
crucible used is made of mixed clay and graphite, each vessel holding
about three thousand ounces. On two sides of the Melting-room are coke
furnaces, and into one of these the crucible is dropped.

[Illustration: IN THE ROLLING-ROOM.]

Here it remains until the metal is at a molten heat, when it is lifted
by means of a crane on to an apparatus shown in our illustration. This
forms a pretty sight. The crucible is red-hot, and the boiling metal, as
it is stirred vigorously by one of the men with an iron rod, emits a
lovely bluish flame. The apparatus tilts the pot, and the metal runs
into a series of moulds which move on a carriage underneath. These
moulds being well oiled, the metal has no chance of becoming part of
them. The bars formed in this way are twelve inches long and
three-eighths of an inch thick. When removed from the moulds their edges
are ragged, but a revolving file soon makes them smooth, and the bars
are ready to be again assayed. A piece is chipped from one of them, and
if the necessary standard of fineness has been secured, the bars pass to
the next department.

This is the Rolling-room. The metal, it must be understood, is far from
hard, and the reduction of the thickness and consequent increase in the
length, due to the rolling of the bars, are not so difficult a matter as
to the uninitiated they may seem. The bars are placed between adjustable
cylinders and rolled into strips, or "fillets" as they are called.

They pass several times through the machine, being reduced the
one-nineteenth part of an inch in each rolling at first, but, finally,
only the one-hundredth part of an inch. Naturally the process makes the
metal very hard, and it has to be annealed--that is, heated and
softened--constantly until it is the right thickness. We need only state
that the strips from which half-sovereigns are made must not vary more
than 1-20,000th part of an inch--in other words, they must be within
1-10,000th part of an inch of the nominal thickness--to give an idea of
the minute care with which every stage of the development of the coin
has to be watched. Two-tenths of a grain is the divergence allowed in
the weight of the sovereign, but even this margin may mean a difference
of more than £3,000 on a million sovereigns.

[Illustration: MARKING MACHINE.]

The strips, as they leave the Rolling-room, are about four feet long and
double the width of the shilling. They are taken to the Cutting-room,
and here for the first time we get something approaching a piece of
money. The "fillets" are placed in the cutting-machines, by a man who
feeds two at a time. No doubt many persons have formed the idea that the
coin is cut, cucumber-fashion, from a metal rod; we have, indeed, heard
people suggest as much. Well, the foregoing is sufficient to dispel any
such notion. The fillet passes beneath two punches, and over holes the
size of the coin. As the former descend with swift, sharp, irresistible
force, they punch the "blanks" of the coin out of the strip. The blanks
fall through a tube into a tray or pan, and what remains of the strips
is sent back to the Melting-room, to be turned again into bars. In the
case of shillings, two blanks are forced out at once. In the case of
copper, five disappear at a blow, but in the case of large silver coins,
only one blank is cut at a time. The blanks of the shilling are produced
at the rate of some 300 an hour.

[Illustration: CUTTING MACHINE.]

Having secured the blank, it might well be imagined that there was
nothing more to be done but to impress it with the proper device on its
obverse and reverse. But we are not yet more than half-way on the road
to the coin which can be sent to the Bank, there to be handed over the
counter to the public.

Close by the cutting-machine is what is called a marking-machine. The
special function of this is to raise the edge which all coins possess
for the protection of their face. The blank is run into a groove in a
rapidly revolving disc, and edges are produced at the rate of between
six and seven hundred an hour; in fact, almost as quickly as the man can
feed the machine.

We cannot help but listen pensively for a moment to the thud, thud, of
the cutting machine as the punches strike the fillet, and watch with
keen interest the express rate at which the marking is accomplished. To
see the blank being turned out at this pace is to make one's mouth
literally water, and one's heart and pocket wish that it were so easy
and so mechanical a business to "make money" in one's daily doings. And
then it strikes us: What do these men, with their usually grimy aprons
and often blackened faces, get for their work in turning out so much
coin of the realm? They seem to have a very good time of it on the
whole, and the conditions of light, warmth, and safety under which they
labour are certainly in striking contrast to the trials, the dangers,
and the dreariness of the lives of those who unearth the metal.

On an average, each workman in the operative department of the Mint
makes his £2 10s. a week. He enters the service of the department as a
boy, and remains there through his working life, if he cares to do so
and proves trustworthy. No one is accepted for employment after sixteen
years of age, and every precaution is taken by the authorities against
the weakness of human nature. Each room is under a separate official,
without whose assistance in the unlocking of doors no employé can leave.

There is no hardship in this daily imprisonment, every department being
fitted up with all conveniences for cooking, eating, &c.; and, judging
from what we have seen, we should say the lives of the operatives at the
Mint are not unenviable. Of one thing we can speak very positively, and
that is as to their natures: their geniality is a characteristic they
share in common with their chief superintendent. If one had seriously
contemplated becoming an operative, they could not have taken more pains
to initiate one into the mysteries of the coinage.

We now make our way to the Annealing-room. Here the scene changes
entirely. The buzz, the whirr, and bang of the all powerful machinery
give place to several furnaces. The blanks are brought in in bags, are
emptied into an iron tray, and shoved along an elongated sort of oven,
of which our illustration gives an excellent impression. It shows the
man standing with the iron rod and hook in hand ready to push the tray
to the farther end of the oven.

We venture modestly to suggest that the structure would do admirably for
the purposes of cremation.

"Quite right, sir, it would! I suppose you wouldn't like to try it?"

We frankly and honestly confess we should not.

[Illustration: ANNEALING FURNACE.]

After a few minutes the blanks are sufficiently baked. If one's own
valuable carcase had been in that red-hot oven for ever so short a time,
it would have come out charred and hardened. Not so the metal, which is
considerably softened.

The blanks are now tipped into a perforated sort of basin, which is
picked up by a man from another room and carried away.

We have during all this time been standing in a heat which would do
credit to a Turkish bath.

But now, again, the conditions change entirely, and we are in a room
filled with steam, and cold enough to refrigerate one. Here the blanks
are plunged into a tank of cold water, which hisses and spits like a
dozen angry snakes as the hot metal touches it. From the cooling bath
the blanks go to the acid bath. Into this latter they disappear black
with the oxide of copper clinging to them. Pears' Soap or Sapolio, or
whatever means to cleanliness we may employ, would hardly accomplish the
wonders in an hour's application to the human skin, which a few seconds
of the sulphuric solution accomplishes with the blank of the coin. They
emerge from their bath in every sense white as snow.

The blanks are, of course, wet, and before they can assume the full
honours of the complete coin they have to be dried. How is this done? By
blowing on them with a bellows? By wiping each blank separately with a
cloth? By placing them in front of a fire or even in the oven again? No.
They are simply emptied into a revolving box containing beech-wood
sawdust. A turn about in this, and they and the sawdust are emptied into
a sieve, from which the sawdust escapes with a little shaking. The
sawdust is dried on a hot slab or bench, and is used again; the blanks
are ready for the Press or Die room.

In the illustration of this room the man is standing with a handful of
blanks feeding a small tube or shoot, from which they drop on to a
sliding plate and are conveyed into a collar, as it is called. We see
the piece a blank for the last time. Once in the collar, if the
machinery is in motion, nothing can save that smooth-faced blank from
becoming, in appearance at least, a coin of the realm. The blank rests
on a die and beneath a die. The latter descends with precision and
force, and the blank finds itself for an instant in a grip more powerful
than miser ever gave his hoard. It would, if it could, spread itself out
to the thinnest possible substance. But as it seeks to escape under the
pressure its edge comes in contact with the sides of the collar. These
are milled or lettered, and whatever they contain appears on the coin.
It is not generally known that the object of this milling or lettering
is to prevent the clipping or debasement of the money. In Queen
Elizabeth's time, and on to the reign of William III.--during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--the operations of the clippers were
very serious. Men made fortunes by paring a small piece from every coin
in their possession, and even the death penalty failed to check the
evil. A year or two before the beginning of the eighteenth century a
mill, worked by horses, was started in the Tower of London to replace
the old system of making money by the hand-wielded hammer. The edge of
the coin was made to bear an inscription, and the operations of the
clipper were rendered practically impossible. Even to-day offences in
connection with the currency are numerous. In 1889 110 persons were
convicted out of 194 charged with issuing counterfeit coins, having them
in their possession, or actually making them. The more ingenious the
device on the coin produced by the Imperial mint, the less likely is a
counterfeit to pass muster for long.

[Illustration: DRYING BLANKS.]

The coin leaves the Press-room complete, and has to pass only one other
ordeal, that, namely, of the Weighing-room. Here it is placed on a
wonderful automatic balance. If it is too light it falls into a drawer
on one side, if correct into a drawer in the centre, if too heavy into a
drawer on the other side. The average of coins which are either too
heavy or too light, and consequently have to be returned to the melting
pot, is, owing to the smallness of the "remedy" or margin of weight
allowed, as much as 13 per cent.

There are thirty of these little machines employed, and their
workmanship may be judged by the fact that each one costs £300. Bronze
coins are not subjected to this severe test, but are weighed in bulk in
a huge scale. Every year there is what is called "The Trial of the
Pyx"--the pyx being the chest containing sample coins. A coin is taken,
without preference, from every "journey weight" of gold, a "journey
weight" being 15 lb. troy, or 701 sovereigns, or 1,402 half sovereigns.
The work of testing is performed by a jury, composed of freemen of the
Goldsmiths' Company in the presence of the Queen's Remembrancer, and the
report of the jury is laid before the Treasury. The yearly verdict shows
how wonderfully and uniformly accurate the standard of fineness has
remained, averaging, as it did in 1889, according to the Deputy Master's
Report, 916·657, the precise standard being 916·6. As regards silver,
the English standard of 925 is, with the exception of certain coins,
averaging 945 in the Netherlands, the highest in the world, the average
in France being 835, and in Germany and the United States, 900.

[Illustration: COINING PRESS.]

The Deputy Master's Report for 1889 was rendered especially interesting
from the fact that it was the twentieth issued under the present system
of Mint administration. It was only in 1870 that the Mastership of the
Mint ceased to be a separate office, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer
became _ex officio_ Master, with the Deputy Master as principal
executive officer. The Mint was removed to its present site from the
Tower of London in 1810. With the increase of its labours, the buildings
afforded quite insufficient accommodation, and from 1871 to 1881 several
Bills were introduced into the House of Commons with a view to acquiring
a new site on the Thames Embankment. The governor of the Bank of
England, however, having in 1881 declared that no inconvenience would
arise if all gold coinage were suspended for a year, it was determined
to improve the existing structure. The changes were commenced on
February 1, 1882, and ended early in the following December. The result
has been to place the department in a position to meet almost any
demands which may be made upon it. The machinery was nearly all renewed,
and the arrangements now admit of the simultaneous coinage of two
metals. During July, 1889, the producing capabilities of the Mint were
put to the test, and one million perfect sovereigns were struck and
issued in a week. The coinage in that year of £9,746,538, to which
previous reference has been made, was nearly four times the average of
the previous ten years. Even this enormous sum does not represent the
whole of the coinage operations of the country in 1889. A considerable
portion of the Colonial coins required were turned out by a firm
formerly known as Ralph Heaton & Sons, but now called "The Mint,
Birmingham, Limited."[A] Messrs. Heaton were for many years a sort of
Imperial Mint Auxiliary. The idea once got abroad that all bronze coins
stamped with the letter "H" were counterfeit, whereas the initial simply
denoted that their manufacture had been entrusted to Messrs. Heaton. The
Mint, Birmingham, does most of the coinage for small foreign States
which look to England to convert their ingots to money.

The Imperial Mint, in the words of so many company prospectuses, is a
going concern. It levies a seigniorage which brings in a handsome
revenue. This seigniorage was abolished by Charles II., but restored by
an Act of George III., which required every pound of silver to be coined
into 66 shillings instead of 62--the extra four shillings to go to
defray the expenses of the establishment. During five out of the 18
years, 1872 to 1889, the Mint was worked at a loss; but, taking the
whole 18 years, the average net profit was as much as £83,724. The
profit made in 1889 amounted to no less than £780,691 12s. 5d. What the
record for 1890 will be it is too early yet to know, but 1889 will, in
every respect, take a lot of beating.

The Mint does not confine itself to the production of coins, but strikes
thousands of medals every year for the War Office, the Board of Trade,
the University of London, the Royal and other Societies. It may be
remembered that Pope addressed some admirable lines to Addison _à
propos_ of one of his dialogues, on the historic virtues of the medal.
He pictures all the glories and triumphs of the Imperial ambition of
Rome shrunk into a coin. "A narrow orb each conquest keeps," he says,
and he demands when Britain shall "in living medals see her wars
enrolled," and "vanquished realms supply recording gold." The historian
must always bear grateful testimony to the assistance derivable from the
metallic tokens of a country, no matter whether they show "a small
Euphrates," or merely an inscription, and the head of the sovereign.
They are imperishable witnesses in the cause of accuracy and truth.

[Illustration: WEIGHING ROOM.]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The Imperial Mint supplies the whole Empire with coinage, except
Australasia, which is supplied largely by mints in Sydney and Melbourne,
and India, which has mints in Calcutta and Bombay.




_Slap-Bang._

FROM THE FRENCH OF JULES CLARETIE.

     [JULES CLARETIE was born at Limoges, in 1840, and is still a
     well-known figure in the literary world of Paris. No man is more
     prolific; histories, novels, articles, short stories, plays, pour
     without cessation from his pen. Jules Claretie is a man of the most
     varied gifts. His best known achievement is his "History of the
     Revolution," in five volumes--a monumental work. But there are
     those (and we confess ourselves among them) who would rather be the
     author of the lovely little story of child-life which we lay before
     our readers under the title of "Slap-Bang."]


I.

The little boy lay pale and listless in his small white cot, gazing,
with eyes enlarged by fever, straight before him, with the strange
fixity of illness which seems to see already more than is visible to
living eyes. His mother, sitting at the bottom of the bed, biting her
fingers to keep back a cry, noted how the symptoms deepened on the
ghostly little face; while his father, a strong workman, brushed away
his burning tears.

The day was breaking; a calm, clear, lovely day of June. The light began
to steal into the poor apartment where little Francis, the son of
Jacques and Madeline Legrand, lay very near death's door. He was seven
years old; three weeks ago, a fair-haired, rosy, little boy, as happy as
a bird. But one night, when he came home from school, his head was giddy
and his hands were burning. Ever since he had lain there in his cot.
To-night he did not wander in his mind; but for two days his strange
listlessness had alarmed the doctor. He lay there sad and quiet, as if
at seven years old he was already tired of life; rolling his head upon
the bolster, his thin lips never smiling, his eyes staring at one knew
not what. He would take nothing--neither medicine, syrup, nor beef-tea.

"Is there anything that you would like?" they asked him.

"No," he answered, "nothing."

"This must be remedied," the doctor said. "This torpor is alarming. You
are his parents, and you know him best. Try to discover what will
interest and amuse him." And the doctor went away.

[Illustration: "'THIS MUST BE REMEDIED,' THE DOCTOR SAID."]

To amuse him! True, they knew him well, their little Francis. They knew
how it delighted him, when he was well, to go into the fields, and to
come home, loaded with white hawthorn blossoms, riding on his father's
shoulders. Jacques had already bought him gilded soldiers, figures,
"Chinese shadows," to be shown upon a screen. He placed them on the sick
child's bed, made them dance before his eyes, and, scarcely able to keep
back his tears, strove to make him laugh.

"Look, there is the Broken Bridge. Tra-la-la! And there is a general.
You saw one once at Boulogne Wood, don't you remember? If you drink your
medicine like a good boy, I will buy you a real one, with a cloth tunic
and gold epaulettes. Would you like to have a general?"

"No," said the sick child, his voice dry with fever.

"Would you like a pistol and bullets, or a crossbow?"

"No," replied the little voice, decisively.

And so it was with everything--even with balloons and jumping-jacks.
Still, while the parents looked at each other in despair, the little
voice responded, "No! No! No!"

"But what is there you would like, then, darling?" said his mother.
"Come, whisper to me--to mamma." And she laid her cheek beside him on
the pillow.

The sick boy raised himself in bed, and, throwing out his eager hands
towards some unseen object, cried out, as in command and in entreaty, "I
want _Slap-bang_!"


II.

"Slap-bang!"

The poor mother looked at her husband with a frightened glance. What was
the little fellow saying? Was the terrible delirium coming back again?
"Slap-bang!" She knew not what that signified. She was frightened at the
strangeness of the words, which now the sick boy, with the perversity of
illness--as if, having screwed his courage up to put his dream in words,
he was resolved to speak of nothing else--repeated without ceasing:--

"Slap-bang! I want Slap-bang!"

"What does he mean?" she said, distractedly, grasping her husband's
hand. "Oh, he is lost!"

But Jacques' rough face wore a smile of wonder and relief, like that of
one condemned to death who sees a chance of liberty.

Slap-bang! He remembered well the morning of Whit-Monday, when he had
taken Francis to the circus. He could hear still the child's delighted
laughter, when the clown--the beautiful clown, all be-starred with
golden spangles, and with a huge many-coloured butterfly glittering on
the back of his black costume--skipped across the track, tripped up the
riding-master by the heels, took a walk upon his hands, or threw up to
the gas-light the soft felt caps, which he dexterously caught upon his
skull, where, one by one, they formed a pyramid; while at every trick
and every jest, his large droll face expanding with a smile, he uttered
the same catch-word, sometimes to a roll of music from the band,
"Slap-bang!" And every time he uttered it the audience roared and the
little fellow shouted with delight.

Slap-bang! It was this Slap-bang, the circus clown, he who kept half the
city laughing, whom little Francis wished to see, and whom, alas! he
could not see as he lay pale and feeble in his little bed.

That night Jacques brought the child a jointed clown, ablaze with
spangles, which he had bought at a high price. Four days' wages would
not pay for it; but he would willingly have given the price of a year's
labour, could he have brought a smile to the thin lips of the sick boy.

The child looked for a moment at the toy which sparkled on the
bed-quilt. Then he said, sadly, "That is not Slap-bang. I want to see
Slap-bang!"

If only Jacques could have wrapped him in the bed-clothes, borne him to
the circus, shown him the clown dancing under the blazing gas-lights,
and said, "Look there!"

But Jacques did better still. He went to the circus, obtained the
clown's address, and then, with legs tottering with nervousness and
agitation, climbed slowly up the stairs which led to the great man's
apartment. It was a bold task to undertake! Yet actors, after all, go
sometimes to recite or sing at rich men's houses. Who knew but that the
clown, at any price he liked, would consent to go to say good-day to
little Francis? If so, what matter his reception?

But was _this_ Slap-bang, this charming person, called Monsieur Moreno,
who received him in his study like a doctor, in the midst of books and
pictures, and all the luxury of art! Jacques looked at him, and could
not recognise the clown. He turned and twisted his felt hat between his
fingers. The other waited. At last the poor fellow began to stammer out
excuses: "It was unpardonable--a thing unheard of--that he had come to
ask; but the fact was, it was about his little boy--such a pretty little
boy, sir! and so clever! Always first in his class--except in
arithmetic, which he did not understand. A dreamy little chap--too
dreamy--as you may see"--Jacques stopped and stammered; then screwing up
his courage he continued with a rush--"as you may see by the fact that
he wants to see you, that he thinks of nothing else, that you are before
him always, like a star which he has set his mind on----"

Jacques stopped. Great beads stood on his forehead and his face was very
pale. He dared not look at the clown, whose eyes were fixed upon him.
What had he dared to ask the great Slap-bang? What if the latter took
him for a madman, and showed him to the door?

"Where do you live?" demanded Slap-bang.

"Oh! close by. The Rue des Abbesses!"

"Come!" said the other; "the little fellow wants to see Slap-bang--well,
he _shall_ see him."


CHAPTER III.

When the door opened before the clown, Jacques cried out joyfully,
"Cheer up, Francis! Here is Slap-bang."

The child's face beamed with expectation. He raised himself upon his
mother's arm, and turned his head towards the two men as they entered.
Who was the gentleman in an overcoat beside his father, who smiled
good-naturedly, but whom he did not know? "Slap-bang," they told him. It
was all in vain. His head fell slowly back upon the pillow, and his
great sad blue eyes seemed to look out again beyond the narrow chamber
walls, in search, unceasing search, of the spangles and the butterfly of
the Slap-bang of his dreams.

"No," he said, in a voice which sounded inconsolable; "no; _this_ is not
Slap-bang!"

The clown, standing by the little bed, looked gravely down upon the
child with a regard of infinite kind-heartedness. He shook his head, and
looking at the anxious father and the mother in her agony, said smiling,
"He is right. This is not Slap-bang." And he left the room.

"I shall not see him; I shall never him again," said the child, softly.

But all at once--half an hour had not elapsed since the clown had
disappeared--the door was sharply opened, and behold, in his black
spangled tunic, the yellow tuft upon his head, the golden butterfly upon
his breast and back, a large smile opening his mouth like a money-box,
his face white with flour, Slap-bang, the true Slap-bang, the Slap-bang
of the circus, burst into view. And in his little white cot, with the
joy of life in his eyes, laughing, crying, happy, saved, the little
fellow clapped his feeble hands, and, with the recovered gaiety of seven
years old, cried out:

[Illustration: "BRAVO, SLAP-BANG!"]

"Bravo! Bravo, Slap-bang! It is he this time! This is Slap-bang! Long
live Slap-bang! Bravo!"


CHAPTER IV.

When the doctor called that day, he found, sitting beside the little
patient's pillow, a white-faced clown, who kept him in a constant ripple
of laughter, and who was observing, as he stirred a lump of sugar at the
bottom of a glass of cooling drink:

"You know, Francis, if you do not drink your medicine, you will never
see Slap-bang again."

And the child drank up the draught.

"Is it not good?"

"Very good. Thank you, Slap-bang."

[Illustration: "THANK YOU, SLAP-BANG."]

"Doctor," said the clown to the physician, "do not be jealous, but it
seems to me that my tomfooleries have done more good than your
prescriptions."

The poor parents were both crying; but this time it was with joy.

From that time till little Francis was on foot again, a carriage pulled
up every day before the lodging of the workman in the Rue des Abbesses;
a man descended, wrapped in a greatcoat with the collar turned up to his
ears, and underneath arrayed as for the circus, with his gay visage
white with flour.

"What do I owe you, sir?" said Jacques to the good clown, on the day
when Francis left the house for the first time. "For I really owe you
everything!"

The clown extended to the parents his two hands, huge as those of
Hercules:

"A shake of the hand," he said. Then, kissing the little boy on both his
rosy cheeks, he added, laughing, "And permission to inscribe on my
visiting-cards, 'Slap-bang, doctor-acrobat, physician in ordinary to
little Francis!'"

[Illustration]




_Portraits of Celebrities at different times of their Lives._


[Illustration: AGE 4. _From a Miniature._]

[Illustration: AGE 36. _From a Painting by G. Richmond, R.A._]

[Illustration: AGE 81. _From a Photo by Messrs. Elliott & Fry._]

CARDINAL MANNING.

BORN 1808.

Henry Edward Manning, at the age of four, had his portrait taken by a
miniature-painter, who depicted him upon a cliff above the sea, absorbed
in listening to the murmur of a shell. This most interesting picture of
the future Cardinal, together with companion portraits of his little
brothers and sisters, long hung upon the wall of the library of his
father's house at Totteridge. But one night the house was broken into by
a gang of burglars, and, among other valuables, the miniatures were
carried off. The vexation of the family was extreme; but by a curious
freak of fortune the portraits were at length discovered in an old
curiosity shop in London, and, after years of absence, resumed their old
position on the library wall. The second of our portraits shows the
future Cardinal as Archdeacon of Chichester, at a time when he was
universally regarded as one of the strongest pillars of the English
Church. Alas for human foresight! Seven years later, on Passion Sunday,
1851, he felt himself compelled to make the great renunciation, and laid
before the footstool of the Pope the costly offering of such a character
as in its blend of saintly life, of strength of intellect, of eloquence
alike of tongue and pen, and of unrivalled knowledge of the world, has
rarely been bestowed on any of the sons of men.

For these portraits we are indebted to the courtesy of Cardinal Manning,
of Mr. Wilfred Meynell, and of Messrs. Henry Graves & Co., Pall Mall.


JOHN RUSKIN.

BORN 1819.

[Illustration: AGE 38.

_From a Drawing by G. Richmond, R.A._]

At the age of twenty, Mr. Ruskin, then at Christ Church, Oxford, had
just won the Newdigate prize poem. Two years later the first volume of
"Modern Painters" showed that a new poet had indeed arisen, though a
poet who was destined not to cast his thoughts in verse, but in "the
other harmony of prose." At eight-and-thirty "Stones of Venice" had
appeared. At eight-and-forty (as in our second portrait) he had recently
been elected Rede Lecturer at Cambridge, and was in the height of his
great combat with the world he lives in--a world which, in his eyes, is
given up almost beyond redemption to canters, money-grubbers, inventors
of improved machinery, and every kind of charlatan. In volume after
volume, he was putting forth--in the midst of much which reason found
fantastic--bursts of satire fierce as Juvenal's, and word-pictures more
gorgeous than the tints of Turner, conveyed in that inimitable style
which is as strong and sweet as Shelley's verse. In these latter days
(as our last portrait shows him) Mr. Ruskin, like a prophet in a
hermitage, has become more and more of a recluse, though now and then
his voice is still audible in a wrathful letter to the papers, like a
voice heard crying in the wilderness that all is lost.

[Illustration: AGE 48.

_From a Photo. by Messrs. Elliott & Fry._]

[Illustration: AGE 63. _From a Photo. by Messrs. Elliott & Fry._]


THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

BORN 1809.

[Illustration: _From an Engraving by W. Walker._

AGE 28.]

These portraits represent Mr. Gladstone at three important epochs in his
career. At twenty-eight he was the henchman of Sir Robert Peel, and it
was at this time that Macaulay described him as "the rising hope of the
stern, unbending Tories." He had just produced his work on "Church and
State," which attracted a great deal of attention. Our second portrait
shows what he was like at the time when, as Chancellor of the Exchequer,
he put forth the first of the long series of his famous Budgets. The
third picture is the one which is now so familiar, representing the
illustrious statesman as he is at the present time. It will be observed
that the high collars which are inseparable from every picture of Mr.
Gladstone, whether serious or comic, have been favourites with him all
his life. Like Peel, Palmerston, and Beaconsfield, he is a striking
instance of the fact that the toils and cares of responsible
statesmanship seem with some constitutions to tend to vigorous old age.

[Illustration: AGE 45.

_From Photo. by Cameron of a Painting by G. F. Watts, R.A._]

[Illustration: AGE 80. _From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]


MRS. LANGTRY.

[Illustration: AGE 18. _From a Photo. by Ouless, Jersey._]

[Illustration: AGE 23. _From a Photo. by Ouless, Jersey._]

[Illustration: AGE 23 (WITH MR. LANGTRY).

_From a Photo. by Ouless, Jersey._]

[Illustration: PRESENT DAY. _From a Photo. by Lafayette, Dublin._]

This page enables one to trace the blooming of the Jersey Lily from the
bud to the full flower; from the lovely Miss Le Breton, the daughter of
the Dean, to the newly-married bride, and from the belle of London
drawing-rooms to the charming actress who has won on both sides of the
world applause which is not gained by loveliness alone, even when, like
Mrs. Langtry's, it is of that rare kind, statuesque yet blooming, which
is adapted equally to represent the chiselled grace of Galatea, or the
burning beauty of the Queen of Egypt.


JOHN HARE.

BORN 1844.

[Illustration: AGE 28. _From a Photo. by Messrs. Elliott & Fry._]

[Illustration: AGE 40. _From a Photo. by Barraud._]

[Illustration: AGE 44. _From a Photo. by Messrs. Elliott & Fry._]

Mr. Hare, as most people have the pleasure of knowing from experience,
is the finest actor of old men at present on the stage--if not, indeed,
the finest ever seen. It seems strange, as we regard the strong young
face of our first portrait, that Mr. Hare was then, or very little
later, acting _Sir Peter Teazle_ to the very life. Mr. Hare as an old
man is old all over. Yet no two of his old men are like each other; no
characters bear less resemblance than _Lord Kilclare_ in "A Quiet
Rubber," and _Benjamin Goldfinch_ in "A Pair of Spectacles," but which
is the most life-like it is difficult to say. Mr. Hare, indeed, prefers
his present part to any of his _rôles_, as may be learnt, with other
facts of interest, by a reference to page 182 of this number; and
certainly a more delightful piece of character-acting it is impossible
to conceive than that which represents the dear old gentleman whose
faith in waiters, bootmakers, butlers, brothers, friends, and wives, is
so rudely shaken and so happily restored. At his present age, of which
our last portrait is a speaking likeness, Mr. Hare is a familiar figure,
not only on the stage, but on horseback in the Row, or, more delightful
still to his acquaintances, talking from an easy-chair as no one but
himself _can_ talk, or rising after dinner to make one of his inimitable
speeches.

For permission to reproduce these portraits we have to thank the
courtesy of Mr. Hare.


MR. AND MRS. BANCROFT.

By the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft we are able to present our
readers with their portraits at an age when they had not yet met each
other--when Marie Wilton was the life and soul of the burlesques at the
"Strand" Theatre, and when Mr. Bancroft was still studying in the
provinces the art with which he was to charm the audiences of the
"Prince of Wales's." In our second portraits Marie Wilton was still
Marie Wilton, but was on the eve of becoming Mrs. Bancroft; and finally,
in the centre, we have them both as at the present day.

[Illustration: AGE 23.

_From a Photograph by W. Keith, Liverpool._]

[Illustration: AGE 37.

_From a Photograph by Window & Grove._]

[Illustration: _From a Photograph by Window & Grove._

AGE 18.]

[Illustration: _From a Photograph by Barraud._]

[Illustration: _From a Photograph by Walker & Sons._

AGE 27.]


PROFESSOR HUXLEY.

BORN 1825.

[Illustration: AGE 31. _From a Photograph._]

It is, unfortunately, impossible to obtain a portrait of Professor
Huxley in the days when he was not yet a professor--when he was catching
sticklebacks and chasing butterflies at his father's school at
Ealing--for at thirty-one, the age at which his earliest photograph was
taken, he was already a professor of two sciences--of Natural History at
the Royal School of Mines, and of Physiology at the Royal Institute. As
assistant-surgeon to H.M.S. _Rattlesnake_ he had spent three years in
studying natural history off the Australian coasts, and had written out
the record of his observations in the earliest of his books. The
Admiralty refused to pay a penny of the publishing expenses; the young
assistant-surgeon's salary was seven-and-sixpence a day; and the volume
only saw the light some five years later, when it was issued by the Ray
Society. But, from the days of his first fight with fortune, Professor
Huxley's fame rose steadily, and by the time at which our second
portrait shows him he had been President of the British Association, and
had developed that limpidity of style and strength of logic which makes
him both the most redoubtable antagonist in the literary arena, and the
most popular exponent of the discoveries of science. Professor Huxley's
health, never of the very best, has latterly compelled him to withdraw
entirely from the active duties of the many posts which he has held; but
the magazine articles which he occasionally puts forth show all his
early faculties as strong as ever.

[Illustration: AGE 45. _From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry._]

[Illustration: AGE 64. _From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott & Fry._]

For the above interesting early photograph we are indebted to the
kindness of Professor and Mrs. Huxley.


ADELINA PATTI.

[Illustration: AGE 8. _From a Photograph, New York._]

If ever an artist was "cradled in song," that artist was Adelina Patti.
Before she could utter a word she could hum every air she had heard her
mother rehearsing for the opera. Her musical precocity was so
extraordinary that she could detect the least falsity of intonation in
any vocal performance, and on one occasion when she had been admitted
behind the scenes to the dress rehearsal of a new opera in New York, she
managed to startle the leading lady--a singer of some reputation--very
considerably, by running up to her and exclaiming, in her little shrill
Yankee accent, "I guess you don't know the proper way to trill, you rest
too long on the first note. Listen to me, and try to do it as I do!" And
from her baby lips issued a trill so long-sustained and so pure of
intonation, that the whole company of artists applauded with surprise
and rapture. The appearance of Adelina was much what would be
imagined--always tiny for her age, but lithe and straight, with her
thick, black locks braided on either side of her face, her eyes keen as
a hawk's, whilst her clear brow, mobile mouth, and determined chin each
in turn emphasised the expression with which she was animated at the
moment. The street arabs of New York nicknamed her "the little Chinee
girl," because of her big, black eyes and somewhat yellow skin, when she
used to run up and down Broadway bowling her hoop. Of her phenomenal
success, when she appeared as a prima-donna of seven summers at Niblo's
Garden in New York, it would be idle to repeat an oft-told tale. But we
are fortunately able to reproduce a photograph of the little
prima-donna; for which, as well as for the notes above, we are indebted
to the kindness of a friend of the great singer. The signature across
the photograph is Adelina Patti's own.

[Illustration: PRESENT DAY. _From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliot &
Fry._]




_Letters from Artists on Ladies' Dress._


Questions of Fashion are, perhaps, more open to debate and difference of
opinion than any others. But those who ridicule the commands of Fashion,
as well as those who worship them, must find an equal interest in the
views of the best judges of what is beautiful and what is ugly--that is
to say, of artists. In this belief, we have asked a number of our
leading painters to state their views upon the subject, in the form of a
reply to the succeeding questions:--

"What is your opinion of the present style of ladies' dress? What are
its chief defects, and what its merits, from an artist's point of view?
What is your ideal of a beautiful woman, beautifully dressed?"

Our invitation has been most cordially responded to, and we are now in a
position to publish the replies received.


     SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON.

Ladies, who are, of course, the keenest votaries of fashion, will be
delighted, and we think surprised, to find Sir Frederick Leighton on
their side.

                                                    Hôtel Royal, Rome.

DEAR SIR,--Whatever may be the criticisms to which the dress of a lady
in our day is open, there is a vast amount of nonsense talked about it.
Titian and Velasquez would probably have been very happy to paint
it.--Believe me, dear Sir, yours faithfully,

                                                    FREDERIC LEIGHTON.


     MR. G. F. WATTS, R.A.
          Little Holland House,
               Kensington, W.

DEAR SIR,--I don't know that the present style of "ladies' dress," when
not pushed to extremes and exaggerations, can be very much objected to.
Mr. du Maurier, in _Punch_, is able, without violating truth, to make it
look very graceful and charming. Such portions as are easily put on and
taken off need not be soberly, much less severely, criticised. It is
natural, and even right, that considerable elasticity should be claimed
by fashion--fancy and trade are encouraged. All, however, that is
calculated to effect permanent injury to health must be very severely
condemned. Tight lacing, pointed shoes, and high heels--these, unless
the fashion changes (which, being very ugly, it probably will not),
leave permanent disastrous results. No lady can be really well and
beautifully dressed if what she wears outrages Nature's intentions in
the structure of the human frame. Such outrages are: a waist like a
stove pipe, shoes that compress the toes into a crumpled mass of
deformity, and, it might even be added, gloves that confine the hand
till it looks little better than a fin--but as this inflicts no
permanent injury, it does not matter--but the foot is irredeemably
ruined, to the destruction of spring and grace in movement, and to no
inconsiderable injury to health. It is a very common thing to hear a
lady say, "The foot is an ugly thing!" Her shapeless shoe has told her
this; but it will be seen how untrue it is if one looks at a cast from
the foot of an Indian woman, or the drawing of a foot by Sir Frederic
Leighton. No doubt the crumpled clump of deformity common from wearing
modern abominations, is a thing an ancient Greek would have shuddered
at; and this is to be the more lamented as the modern young lady is
often of splendid growth and form, such as probably the ancient Greek
never saw.

Perhaps, the real test of the highest taste in dress would be, whether
it could be put into sculpture; but that would be too rigid a rule. One
may say, however, that no lady can be well dressed who, for the sake of
tasteless vanity, decks herself in the spoils of the most beautiful of
created creatures, cruelly indifferent to such destruction; or sticks
reptiles and repulsive insects about her.

To your question, "What is your ideal of a beautiful woman?" I would
answer, That form which, tall or short, or of light or dark colour, most
emphasises human characteristics furthest removed from suggestions of
the inferior creatures--a principle so well understood and acted upon by
the great Greek artists. How beautiful when, in the words of Ruskin,
"Fairest, because purest and thoughtfullest, trained in all high
knowledge, as in all courteous art--in dance, in song, in sweet wit, in
lofty learning, in loftier courage, in loftiest love--able alike to
cheer, to enchant, or save the souls of men."

This would, I think, do for an ideal.--Very truly yours,

                                                          G. F. WATTS.

In a second letter Mr. Watts adds:--

"It is impossible that we should be unaffected by the impressions the
mind receives through the medium of dress; we ought not to be so. The
indifference in modern times to grace and harmony in dress is a strong
reason for concluding that pleasure in what is beautiful--or, which may
sometimes be accepted as an equivalent, interesting--a sense so strong
in former ages, is extinct.

"I think I said that it was more easy to say what should not be, than
what should be. Good taste must be outraged when deformity is suggested,
but even that may be passed over when such things are perfectly
extraneous. When they tend to produce permanent deformity, it is a pity
they cannot be suppressed by law, as unquestionably the race suffers. No
healthy, well-made young girl ought to be allowed to wear stays
compressing the ribs; after thirty, there may be reasons; and by that
time nature would have asserted herself, and no great harm would be
done. But as long as men have the degraded taste to prefer a pipe to the
beautiful flexible line, which might always, with the greatest delicacy,
be evident, there can be no hope. Again, this thing is hardly short of
wicked. Put together, you have this--uncommonly like a cloven hoof. I
wish the ladies joy of it!"

[Illustration]


     MR. G. D. LESLIE, R.A.
          Riverside, Wallingford.

DEAR SIR,--I alluded to the subject of ladies' dress in an address I
delivered at Southampton on Art. It is a short allusion, but if you care
to publish it I have no objection, and could send you a copy.--I am,
dear Sir, yours faithfully,

                                                         G. D. LESLIE.

The passage runs as follows:--

"The results of female art education are not quite satisfactory in the
matter of dress, as here woman is so apt, by nature, to become the slave
of fashion; but still I think much can be done by right-minded girls, by
careful selection and wholesome reform in such things as tight-lacing
and high heels. I care not for the so-called high art school of
millinery. Dresses that look like bed-gowns of green serge, and little
girls smothered in Kate Greenaway flopperty hats, seem to me, however
picturesque intrinsically, in bad taste from their eccentricity. A young
lady of real taste can always find amidst the prevailing fashions some
that suit her individuality; and those that have this taste invariably
seem to do so."


     HON. JOHN COLLIER.
     4, Marlborough Place, N.W.

SIR,--I should hardly venture to express an opinion on the delicate
subject of modern female dress, were it not that in my double capacity
of husband and portrait-painter I have been obliged to devote a great
deal of attention to it.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.]

I think the outlook is, on the whole, encouraging. To begin with, there
is much greater variety of style and freedom of choice than has obtained
for a very long time. Indeed, it is probable that in no country or
period since dress was invented has there been such a wide scope for
individual taste as in England at the present day.

This is an enormous advantage, for women vary so much that a hard and
fast style, however good in itself, is certain to be unsuitable to at
least half the sex. It is true that this freedom of choice is not always
wisely exercised, but it is a subject to which women devote so much time
and thought that they are mostly good judges in the matter.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.]

Then, again, there is at present a happy absence of those monstrosities
that have first offended, and then corrupted, our ideal of feminine
form; the crinoline has long disappeared, and at length the
bustle--perhaps the most odious of all these misshapements--has followed
suit. Of course they may both re-appear, and probably will do so; but
freedom of choice is now so firmly established, that no one will be
considered eccentric or unwomanly for refusing to adopt them.

We may take it once for all that the extreme tyranny of fashion is
broken down--a glorious triumph that we mainly owe to the much-abused
æsthetic movement.

But although much has been achieved, much still remains to be done.
There are two deadly sins in modern female dress which seem to defy all
considerations of beauty and convenience. Tight waists and high heels
are still so common that the courageous protests of the emancipated pass
almost unnoticed.

My own opinion is that female dress will never be thoroughly
satisfactory until women have realised that they have no waists. Nature
has not endowed them with waists, which are artificial forms produced by
compressing the body.

This seeming paradox is easily proved by considering that the waist of
woman has been placed by fashion in every conceivable position, from
under the armpits to half-way down the hips. Obviously it cannot
correspond to any natural formation, or it could not wander about in
this extraordinary manner.

Of course, the Greek lady never supposed she had a waist. She often, for
the sake of convenience, tied a string round her body, but only just
tightly enough to keep her clothes in place, and then nearly always let
some folds of the drapery fall over and hide the unsightly line (Fig.
1). If there must be a waist, I distinctly prefer the one placed under
the armpits, in the fashion of the beginning of this century, for it is
physically impossible to tie it so tightly as to much alter the form,
and having the division high up tends to minimise the most common defect
of the English female figure, a want of length in the leg (Fig. 2).

[Illustration: FIG. 3.]

Of course, it is this very want of length that has led to the high
heels, but the remedy is worse than the disease. It does not really give
the impression of long-leggedness, and it does alter and spoil the whole
carriage of the body.

The high heels also help to deform the feet by pressing the toes forward
into the pointed ends of those terrible boots that are another disgrace
to our civilisation. Painters and sculptors have good cause to know that
the modern female foot is a hideous object--our vitiated taste has
become accustomed to it when clothed, but when seen in its naked
deformity it is a thing to shudder at.

It occurs to me that there are two fundamental rules of dress.

First, wherever the dress is tight it should show the true natural form
of the body beneath, and should not suggest, and still less produce,
some entirely unnatural and artificial form. (This rule, of course, only
applies to tolerably good figures.)

Secondly, where the dress is loose it should be allowed to fall in its
own natural folds, and should not be gathered up into the horrible
convolutions miscalled drapery by the milliners.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.]

The old Greek dress fulfilled these conditions in the highest degree,
and, I have no doubt, was the noblest form of clothing ever invented.
All other forms of dress have abounded in monstrosities of one kind or
another, but in looking over the history of costume one now and then
comes across some simple and artistic form which seems to have sprung up
by chance, as it were, or as a transition between two opposite
exaggerations. Here is a fine example from the early middle ages (Fig.
3). And here, again, is a good design from a much later period (Fig. 4).

[Illustration: FIG. 5.]

Just before the introduction of the enormous hoops in the early part of
the eighteenth century, which, perhaps, are the high-water mark of
monstrosity in dress, there was a brief period of comparative
simplicity, to which has been given a perhaps factitious charm by the
genius of Watteau (Fig. 5).

And then, again, we come to the costume of 1800 and the neighbouring
years, to which I have already alluded, and which was, perhaps, the
simplest and most graceful dress that European women have worn since the
classical period (Fig. 6), but which soon, alas! gave way to the
succession of nightmares from which, at last, we seem to have awakened.

But from many styles besides these there are hints to be gathered for
the benefit of modern dress, and, fortunately, the tolerance of the age
enables us to pick and choose from any source we like. I have great
hopes of the future of female costume (male costume seems, from the
artistic side, to be past praying for), but a great deal depends upon
the artists. The average man is as bad as the average woman; he likes
pretty little waists and neat little feet quite as much as the recipient
of his misplaced admiration. Indeed, as I think it is incontestable that
women dress more to please men than to please themselves, we men are
probably more to blame than the women for the vagaries of female
costume. But the artists have, or ought to have, a better taste in these
matters than the outside public. They all affect to admire the
masterpieces of classical art, and they are, few of them, entirely
ignorant of what the human form ought to be. It is to them that we must
look for protests against its disfigurement.--I am, Sir, yours
faithfully,

                                                         JOHN COLLIER.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.]


     MR. G. H. BOUGHTON, A.R.A.
          West House,
            Campden Hill-road, W.

DEAR SIR,--The questions you send me regarding my opinion of the present
style of ladies' dress cover too large and varied a field to be disposed
of in a moment--that is, if one _could_ dispose of them even after many
and many a month, let alone moments. The one virtue of the women's dress
of to-day is its variety and individuality. Those who are really
_dressed_ and not merely clothed, have their dresses "created" for them,
and they belong to each other. The fair and the dark, the lean and the
reverse, do not now bedeck themselves with the same all pervading tint
or cut, whether it suits them well or ill, just because it is "all the
go." Even the almost universal cut of to-day is most usually graceful
and of quiet tone. And somehow girls seem to be of taller growth, and of
better health and colour, and to walk better than ever before. The
adoption of _bits_ of bygone fashions is now and then deplorable. One
sees queer jumbles of Marie Stuart ruffs and "Empire" bonnets, or of any
other period except of the Marie Stuart head-gear. Suppose a poor simple
masher of the male kind should try some historical head-gear--say a
cocked hat or a Charles II. with a wreath of feathers and lace--and
mount a jewelled sword, as a new incident to his usual Piccadilly
attire? It would be in no worse taste than the various mixture of
"periods" that some of the dear creatures of to-day startle the student
of costume with now and then. My ideal of "a beautiful woman,
beautifully dressed," is not yet defined. I am not very narrow-minded
with regard to either point. From the Princess in gold and white samite,
to the nut-brown maid with her gown of hodden gray and her bare feet,
there are thousands that are good enough for _me_. The only bad ones are
the pretentious and vulgar (dirt and fine feathers). I saw a little
"æsthetic" creature the other day, with a sad, woe-begone costume in
flabby colours, a mop of tousled hair, a painted mask of a face, all in
keeping, except the boots--"side-spring," if you please (if anything so
squashy could have a spring). She was only a passing vision--but enough.
I could but repeat with Madame Roland under the guillotine (_was_ it
Roland?) "O Liberty (and Co.), what crimes are committed in thy name!"

The subject is a fascinating one; but there are limits.--Yours
faithfully,

                                              GEO. H. BOUGHTON, A.R.A.


     MR. G. A. STOREY, A.R.A.
          39, Broadhurst Gardens, N.W.

SIR,--It is difficult to pass an opinion upon "ladies' dress," because
its chief characteristic seems to be that it is ever changing. We no
sooner see a really pretty fashion than we hear ominous rumours--from
Paris (?)--that some abomination such as the crinoline is coming in
again, or the Gainsborough hat is to give place to the Pork-pie, or a
small copy of the Toriodero's head-gear. We are told that costume
indicates the phase or current of thought of the period and of the
country in which it is worn; that it becomes sumptuous in rich
communities and in prosperous times, but is sad and impoverished in
times of war and depression; that it marks the degree of civilisation,
of culture, of taste, and of wealth; and, like the other fine arts, has
its glorious periods as well as its decadence and restoration. Perhaps
it reached its lowest stage of ugliness, in this country, some thirty or
forty years ago, when corkscrew ringlets, high foreheads, flat bandeaus
plastered down the cheeks, evening dresses cut straight across the
collar bones, flounces and crinolines, and all the other horrors that
John Leech has so cleverly depicted in the early volumes of _Punch_ were
the fashions that set off our types of beauty. May we then conclude that
taste has improved since those days, and not only taste, but common
sense? At the present moment we see nothing outrageous to find fault
with, and much that is pretty to admire. It would take up too much space
to go into detail: to discourse on hats alone would require a separate
letter of some pages. I should have to show how some set off the face
and others do not, and how it often happens that the success of a hat
depends very much upon the face that looks out from under it. And so
with the way the hair is dressed, &c.; and I need scarcely say that a
pretty, graceful woman will make almost any costume look well if she
puts it on with taste, whereas there are certain other figures that
require special treatment.

There are some, whom I would not offend, but who nevertheless are
deficient in those graceful curves that Nature bestows upon her best
art, who require farthingales, hoops, improvers, and even flounces to
disguise the angularity of their structure, whilst others go the other
extreme of rotundity, such as a lady I knew, who was taller when she sat
down than when she stood up, and must baffle the most ingenious
contrivers of European costume, and whom nothing but a Chinese or loose
Japanese gown could make at all presentable.

I think female dress may be either very gorgeous, or very
simple--gorgeous as a Venetian lady when Titian and Paul Veronese
delighted to depict her in rich brocades and a wealth of pearls and
jewellery, or simple as in England a hundred years ago, when our
great-grandmothers wore muslin gowns with short waists and silk sashes,
the beauty and refinement of their faces making their chief attraction,
and the simplicity of the dress leaving full scope for the gracefulness
of the figure to display itself, as we see in the pictures of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Gainsborough, George Morland, Romney, and others.

But the great artists seldom adhere to the passing fashions; they
arrange the dress or reconstruct it so that it shall be most becoming to
their sitters and at the same time make a good composition of colour and
form for their pictures. This is also done by ladies of taste, who will
often turn some freak of fashion into a thing of beauty, and, regardless
of their milliner and dressmaker, will adopt some modification of the
passing style if it seems to them more suitable and becoming.

The sense of fitness in dress as in everything else, should, I think,
guide the fair sex of whatever degree--and I must say that there are
fewer costumes more suitable and, at the same time, much prettier than
those of some of our domestic servants, who, with their white caps, bibs
and aprons and black dresses make quite dainty little pictures, often
reminding us of that well-known print of "La Belle Chocolatière."

Whether this idea of fitness could be carried out in the cases of lady
Town Councillors, female clerks, &c., &c., I do not know. I must leave
that and many other matters connected with this subject to more
competent judges,--and remain, Yours obediently,

                                                         G. A. STOREY.


     MR. WYKE BAYLISS, P.R.B.A.

SIR,--You ask me to give you, in the form of a letter, my ideas on the
subject of ladies' dress.

It is not without considerable hesitation that I venture to approach so
sacred a mystery. I should indeed be disposed to decline your courteous
invitation to be "drawn" upon the question, on the ground that I am not
a figure painter, but for the consideration that although unhappily an
artist is obliged in his work to limit the range of his vision, yet the
beauty that exists in the world is the common heritage of us all, and
every artist is, or should be, equally appreciative of the loveliness of
our companions in life, and jealous of the safety and honour of the
shrine at which we all worship.

Replying to your letter, therefore, not as a specialist, but simply as
an artist, I would say:

The first essential in a woman's dress should be that _the beauty of it
must be a beauty that shall always be beautiful_. I do not deprecate
fashion--on the contrary, change is in itself pleasant to the eyes. But
it must be a change from one loveliness to another. To see a rose is
always an exquisite delight; so it is to see a lily. But we are not
called upon to decide once for all which we prefer, and if we choose the
rose to kill all the lilies. Thus it should be with dress: change is
desirable, but it must be on the understanding that no ugly thing shall
be tolerated for the sake of fashion.

That is, I think, the first great principle; and attention to it would
rid us for ever of the danger of the recurrence of those monstrosities
that have brought the very name of "fashion" into contempt. There have
been vagaries in dress to which our countrywomen have submitted, not
because they had an imperfect perception of what is really beautiful and
took the false for true, but because, in obedience to the inexorable
laws of fashion, they accepted regretfully what they knew to be ugly. I
hope the time will never come again when we may be tempted to lay a
finger on her ladyship's hoops, and ask, as the little maid did, "Pray,
madam, is that all yourself?" The leaders of fashion in Europe see
clearly enough that to mutilate a woman's foot, as the Chinese do, is a
barbarous custom; but they do not perceive that to make European ladies
walk painfully on stilts and tiptoe is barbarism of the same kind. But
the truth is that every attempt to modify the human form is an act of
savagery, and any form of dress that simulates a modification, whether
worn in Pekin or in Paris, or in London, is a savage dress, and carries
with it the additional shame of being a sham. Let us be content with
women as God made them. Let them be dressed, not altered. In a word, _no
dress can be really beautiful that suggests a personal deformity_.

Secondarily to this reverence for the human form should be fair
treatment of the fabric of which the dress is made. Velvet, silk,
linen,--each has its own natural way of falling into folds; and the
shape that a dress should take should be the natural result of the
folding of the material, and not the result of an artificial
construction. This principle may also be expressed in the simple form of
a negative. _No dress can be really beautiful that suggests the carrying
about of a machine._

Then as to colour. I think the present taste for soft, tertiary colours
is altogether favourable. Strong colours, in a mass, are destructive to
the delicacy of colour and expression in a woman's face. The vermilion
of her lips should not have to fight the red that is suitable enough for
pillar-posts. The blue of her eyes should not have to compete with that
of Reckitt. The missing colour, yellow, should not be flaunted against
her carnations and azure and pearly white. A woman is worth more than to
be subordinated to an aniline dye. _The primary or secondary colours
should be used (like brass instruments in a fine orchestra) very
sparingly._

These are, of course, very general principles. But I am not an expert in
millinery, and can only speak generally.

I think, however, that there is a tolerably safe test that might be
applied in carrying them out, viz., What will the dress look like in a
picture? Artists are every day finding their inspirations more and more
in the living men and women of their own time. Women are every day
making more history for men to paint. Let them dress so as to be
paintable. Dress how they will, they are always admired, and reverenced,
and loved. But I cannot say the same of their dress. The time has been
when, in order to paint a woman, the first necessity for the artist was
to get possession of her great-grandmother's gown. Under such
circumstances the painting of contemporary life must be limited to
portraiture; and everything that limits the range of art, limits its
splendour and the hold it should have on our affections.

There are only a few words that I care to add.

I think we lose something as a nation in not having a distinctive dress
for our peasantry and the _bourgeoises_ of our provincial
towns--nothing, I mean, to correspond with the square of linen folded on
the head, of which the Roman woman is so justly proud, or the white caps
of Normandy and Holland, varying in shape according to the township. The
picturesque way in which the shawl is used by our Lancashire lasses is,
indeed, some approach to it. But I recognise the impossibility of the
Continental system being established amongst us.

Would it, however, be too much to hope that the ladies of England may
see fit to adopt the beautiful custom of wearing a special garment for
church services? It would be in itself so seemly; it would add so much
to the grace and dignity of our worship; it would be so agreeable a
contrast to the parterre of bonnets in the lecture-room, and the pretty
grouping of black and brown and golden hair--yes, and of silver, too--in
the opera-house, that I believe the suggestion has only to be fairly
considered to be accepted.

I ask, "Will the ladies see fit to do this?" because, after all, it is a
woman's question. Men have a right to be considered, but _a woman's
dress, to be beautiful, must be the expression of a woman's mind, and
the work of a woman's hand_.--I am, Sir, yours faithfully,

                                                         WYKE BAYLISS.


     MR. JOHN ABSOLON, R.I.
          52, Chetwynd-road, N.W.

DEAR SIR,--_All_ padding, unless to hide a positive deformity, is a
mistake. Fashion must be constantly changing, or how would dressmakers
live? I remember taking my wife to a friend's in the country. Next
morning the young ladies were invisible, but appeared in the afternoon
_without_ crinolines. I never submitted to that abomination, and my
wife, to please me, never put one on. The young ladies thought Mrs.
Absolon brought the last London change!--Truly yours,

                                                    JOHN ABSOLON, R.I.

Lastly, let us hear the opinion of a lady artist. Madame Starr
Canziani--for years one of the best known lady exhibitors at the Royal
Academy, to whom we owe the following designs--writes as follows:--

[Illustration: DESIGN FOR A TENNIS DRESS.]


     MADAME STARR CANZIANI.
          3, Palace-green, W.

SIR,--I have been asked to give my opinion of modern dress, its merits
and demerits, from an artist's point of view. It seems to me that while
much at the present time is picturesque and quaint in the extreme, the
highest laws of beauty demand fitness as well, and while we have no
fixed principles to guide our fashions, however beautiful and sensible
they may happen to be at any given moment, there must always be the
danger that at the next moment they may relapse into the inconvenient
and ridiculous.

Considering how much has been done of late years to encourage all other
forms of art, I cannot help wondering why in the Art Schools now
existing all over the country, no classes have been instituted in which
the principles of hygiene and fitness, harmony of colour, proportion,
and beauty are taught. Architecture and decorative design are taught in
the schools, but dress, which has existed since the world began, has no
guiding laws, and sways from the severely ugly and matter-of-fact to the
wildest extravagance of form and colour in a manner truly grotesque,
were it not so sad to those who love ideal beauty, and whose eyes are
daily outraged by flagrant sins against the laws of beauty and common
sense.

There never was a time in which there was a greater abundance and
variety of materials, rich and simple, exquisite embroideries, and
lovely combinations of colour; but of what avail are all these beautiful
materials if they are erroneously employed? At the present moment--alas!
that we only dare speak for the absolute moment--some of the forms of
dress are, on the whole, simple and practical, and express the natural
figure fairly well; but who can say what wild vagaries the next caprice
of the fashion-giver may bring forth?

If the laws of health and beauty were more generally understood, would
it be possible that such enormities could exist as tight lacing, and
high heels, and pointed toes? I am far from holding in abhorrence all
corsets whatever. There are few figures which can do entirely without
some stay; but tidiness and a neat, well-fitting gown are very different
things from the walking hour-glass that seems as if it would snap in two
at a touch.

[Illustration: DESIGN FOR A BALL DRESS.]

But though the stay, when properly used, may be upheld, there is nothing
that can be said in excuse of the wicked fashion--wicked, because the
cause of much deformity and disease--of the high heel and pointed toe.
We all know the mischief done by the very high heel, and from an
artistic point of view it is to be condemned, making, as it does, the
prettiest foot look like a hoof and destroying all freedom and dignity
of gait. The pointed toe distorts the foot from its natural shape and
gives the idea of the front claw of a vulture protruding from the gown,
and while it miserably fails in making the foot look small, succeeds
only too well in making it hideous. If one sees the whole foot, its
width appears very much greater than it really is, by contrast with the
point, and the joint of the big toe is brought into most aggressive
prominence. If one sees only the end of the shoe peeping from under the
dress, in many cases the point with its rapidly diverging lines suggests
that the foot hidden by the gown _may_ continue to any width, however
enormous.

With the square-toed shoe, on the contrary, one has a fair idea of the
whole width of the foot at once. It cannot go much beyond that, and the
ideas of discomfort and pain are not constantly forced into one's mind.

Characteristic dresses of the period are the riding habit and
tailor-made gown. I humbly confess that I dislike them both, for while
they are simple, practical, plain, neat, warm, and on a slender
unexaggerated figure, modest--they fail in the quality of womanliness,
and therefore cannot be beautiful.

They are not womanly in sentiment. First because (a reason which has
little to do with the scope of this letter) a woman's clothes should be
made by a woman only, and all who are loyal to their own sex would
employ each other in an occupation so feminine.

Then they are unwomanly because they imitate men's dress, and I don't
know that I should make a sin of this, were it not that at the present
time men's dress is too truly hideous to be imitated even by a savage of
darkest Africa!

It is for this reason that I find the riding habit so ugly and
inartistic. Practical it is, but it apes the coat and the hat (!) of the
man, and now that his cardboard shirt and collar are often added, I have
no words strong enough that I may use to express the depths of my
dislike.

I do not agree with the general opinion that a good-looking woman never
looks so well as on her horse. If she do look well, I believe it to be
in spite of her habit and not because of it, and that all the charm
which a well-cut, appropriate, and simple garment can give to a graceful
figure could perfectly well be retained, and yet that slightly more
liberty might be allowed as to texture of material and colour (though
the colour should always be quiet and mellow) and appropriate
ornamentation by braiding the body and sleeves of the habit. By these
means its hard severity would be somewhat softened, and without
destroying the simple lines it would be rendered more feminine, and the
fitness of the garment for its purpose would by no means be interfered
with.

My objection to tailor-made gowns is that they give no scope for
graceful, natural movement. In these the figure is made to fit the
dress, and not the dress the figure, and if the wearer lift her arm
above her head she must burst--or one feels that, having originally
begun as a human being, well, she _ought_ to burst if she doesn't. I am
not fond of inventing sins, and think we already have enough for all our
needs, and I cannot see--to save my life I cannot see--the harm of
moving if one wants to do so. The whole costume is a failure so far as
beauty and picturesqueness are concerned, but it claims to be practical,
and if there were only a little more room in it for all the purposes of
life I should say it succeeded well.

It also succeeds in something else. It paints truly the character of the
women of the age. Matter-of-fact, sharp, full of common sense, with an
eye to the main chance they are, and their tailor-made gowns express
this most clearly. Not much room seemingly is there for romantic or
motherly love, for devotion and self-sacrifice, in those tightly-fitting
cases.

How different are the women of Sir Joshua Reynolds' time! Delicate,
ethereal creatures, with swaying, soft movements, not fit for this hard
every-day world. These exquisite beings went out in thinnest of evening
shoes into the wet grass. They never wore anything more practical than
soft white satin, even in a thunderstorm, and they _never_ saw the
thunderstorm coming. They knew not of homespun nor of heavy boots, and
when their true loves went to the wars, they did not wait until they
came back, but went into consumption and died. At least many of them
did, though some lived to be our great-grandmothers.

At any rate it was the proper thing to do in those days, and it is not
the proper thing now. No--our maidens no longer faint, and pine, and
die, nor do they wait either--they marry someone else!

I confess to a feeling of wonder when I look at Sir Joshua Reynolds and
Romney's beautiful women. I wonder how they are going to get away from
the pedestal or tree against which they are leaning without distressing
very much their soft draperies when they move. But--how tender, how
graceful, how refined, how fascinating, how pure and faithful and
womanly these gentle beings are! Their dresses were the outcome of the
character and customs of the period, but although very feminine and
beautiful were not practical, and would not be adapted to our present
needs.

And this brings me to what I want to ask. What constitutes fitness and
womanliness in dress? Do the dresses of the period possess these
qualities? I certainly think not always, and without fitness and
womanliness no dress can be artistically beautiful.

To be beautiful, it should be the expression of a beautiful mind, a
beautiful body, and of perfect health and ease, and of natural delight
in movement.

Also, it should have no association with pain.

No dress can be beautiful that is disfigured by an innocent animal
wantonly sacrificed to the vanity and egotism of the wearer.

What womanly woman would wear real astracan on her jacket (if she knows
_what_ real astracan is), or the corpses of gulls, doves,
humming-birds, swallows, &c., in her hair? No one with a heart could do
it, or, having a heart, the brain must be wanting which would enable her
to think of the unjustifiable cruelty to which she gives her sanction.

If I were a man, nothing would induce me to marry a girl who would wear
a bird in her hat. I should think: "Either she is selfish and cold, and
through life would sacrifice everything to her own vanity or interests,
or else she has so little mind and judgment that she would be ill able
to conduct the affairs of life with discretion."

I should say that never was a pretty face rendered one whit the prettier
by the body of a dead animal above it, but that on the contrary the
attention is distracted from the living beauty beneath, and the mind is
saddened and disgusted by the association of cruelty, and death, and
decay, with the tender and beautiful womanhood which should rightly only
call forth deepest feelings of admiration and respect.

From these examples it would appear that unless restrained by more
general knowledge of guiding principles, dress, as hitherto, will always
err by the want of some one necessary quality or another, be it that of
beauty or of utility, or by indulgence in the vulgar, masculine, or
grotesque.

How lately have we been subjected to the most illogical treatment of
fine materials. Magnificent velvets and brocades cut up into "panels" of
all sizes and all shapes, expressing nothing unless deformity. Tapering
"gores" put wide end up on the skirt, or crossways, or any way except
one in which they might help to express the shape--if the human form
could be expressed by patches! Add to these the folds gathered into the
aforesaid panels across, sideways, upside down, and the hump behind in
the wrong place, and the hats like a huge dish stuck on in front with
nothing behind, so that the wearer looks as if she must topple forward
for want of balance, and we wonder what the good of civilisation and
education can be if they only bring us to this. Truly, that savage in
Africa can have little to learn from us in the way of adornment.

[Illustration: DESIGN FOR A TEA GOWN.]

Still, we must thankfully acknowledge that at the present moment,
amongst the better classes, there is much that is ideal in dress. How
simple and how lovely are some of the afternoon gowns, how picturesque
the hats and cloaks, and what romances of colour and form may one not
find among tea and evening gowns? The tea gown especially lends itself
to grace of line and beauty of colour and material.

I should like, before concluding, to say a few words about the most
beautiful dress of all times and countries--the Greek. I cannot see why
it should not be adopted in England for evening dress, or at any time
when the wearer is not exposed to wind and weather. Then, I am fain to
confess, the clinging, voluminous draperies and the long skirts would be
sadly in the way, and be no longer practical nor beautiful. But I do
think that the _principles_ governing classical Greek dress should be
our guide in all costume. Our garments should be garments with a meaning
and a purpose. We should never contradict Nature's simple lines by false
protuberances or exaggerations. To be beautiful, clothes should, by
their shape, express the figure underneath; any cutting about of
material a manner as to contradict the natural lines of the shape must
be wrong. If the figure be ungainly, the lines of the dress should be
so discreetly managed as to apparently lessen its defects and suggest
better proportions to the eye.

The gown should also be in harmony with the character of the mind and
form of the wearer, and while quaintness of cut and even frippery (in a
sense) may be appropriate to a merely pretty woman, and, discreetly
used, may give interest to a plain one, only the very simplest and most
flowing forms are worthy of the noblest type of beauty. No one could
imagine the Venus of Milo in ribbons or frills, but wrap her in a sheet
and her beauty will still dominate the world.

Dress need not be Greek in form to be Greek in spirit. I think we only
need look, and we shall find the following noble qualities in Greek
dress:--Fitness and honesty, simplicity, modesty, and dignity.--I am,
Sir, your truly,

                                                LOUISA STARR CANZIANI.

It will be seen that, on the whole, the verdict of the artists on the
present style of ladies' dress is considerably more favourable than
might have been anticipated from the adverse criticism to which it is so
commonly exposed. Indeed, the consensus of opinion is one which cannot
fail to gratify our lady readers, since, in reality, it affirms not only
that they are themselves, as ever, the delight of painters, but
that--tomfooleries of tight-lacing and high heels apart--their everyday
attire may be so also.




_How the Redoubt was Taken._

FROM THE FRENCH OF PROSPER MÉRIMÉE.

     [PROSPER MÉRIMÉE was born in 1803 and died in 1870. His father was
     a painter--but Prosper started life upon a lawyer's stool. Before
     thirty he was made Inspector-General of Historic Monuments, and in
     the pleasant occupation of this office he travelled over most of
     Europe, and afterwards described his travels in a book. Then he
     began to write short stories--among them "Carmen," which the opera
     founded on its plot has made a household word. These little
     masterpieces--he never tried his hand at a long tale--exquisite in
     style, and full of life and action, gained his election to the
     French Academy. And he deserved his fame. He has the magic art
     which makes the things of fancy real as life itself, we know not
     how. "How the Redoubt was Taken" is in length a very little
     story--but to read it is to be present with the storming-party, in
     their mad rush to victory and death.]


A friend of mine, a soldier, who died in Greece of fever some years
since, described to me one day his first engagement. His story so
impressed me that I wrote it down from memory. It was as follows:--


I joined my regiment on September 4. It was evening. I found the colonel
in the camp. He received me rather brusquely, but having read the
general's introductory letter he changed his manner, and addressed me
courteously.

[Illustration: "I FOUND THE COLONEL IN THE CAMP."]

By him I was presented to my captain, who had just come in from
reconnoitring. This captain, whose acquaintance I had scarcely time to
make, was a tall, dark man, of harsh, repelling aspect. He had been a
private soldier, and had won his cross and epaulettes upon the field of
battle. His voice, which was hoarse and feeble, contrasted strangely
with his gigantic stature. This voice of his he owed, as I was told, to
a bullet which had passed completely through his body at the battle of
Jena.

On learning that I had just come from college at Fontainebleau, he
remarked, with a wry face, "My lieutenant died last night."

I understood what he implied--"It is for you to take his place, and you
are good for nothing."

A sharp retort was on my tongue, but I restrained it.

The moon was rising behind the redoubt of Cheverino, which stood two
cannon-shots from our encampment. The moon was large and red, as is
common at her rising; but that night she seemed to me of extraordinary
size. For an instant the redoubt stood out coal-black against the
glittering disk. It resembled the cone of a volcano at the moment of
eruption.

An old soldier, at whose side I found myself, observed the colour of the
moon.

"She is very red," he said. "It is a sign that it will cost us dear to
win this wonderful redoubt."

I was always superstitious, and this piece of augury, coming at that
moment, troubled me. I sought my couch, but could not sleep. I rose, and
walked about awhile, watching the long line of fires upon the heights
beyond the village of Cheverino.

When the sharp night air had thoroughly refreshed my blood I went back
to the fire. I rolled my mantle round me, and I shut my eyes, trusting
not to open them till daybreak. But sleep refused to visit me.
Insensibly my thoughts grew doleful. I told myself that I had not a
friend among the hundred thousand men who filled that plain. If I were
wounded, I should be placed in hospital, in the hands of ignorant and
careless surgeons. I called to mind what I had heard of operations. My
heart beat violently, and I mechanically arranged, as a kind of rude
cuirass, my handkerchief and pocket-book upon my breast. Then,
overpowered with weariness, my eyes closed drowsily, only to open the
next instant with a start at some new thought of horror.

Fatigue, however, at last gained the day. When the drums beat at
daybreak I was fast asleep. We were drawn up in rank. The roll was
called, then we stacked our arms, and everything announced that we
should pass another uneventful day.

But about three o'clock an aide-de-camp arrived with orders. We were
commanded to take arms.

Our sharp-shooters marched into the plain. We followed slowly, and in
twenty minutes we saw the outposts of the Russians falling back and
entering the redoubt. We had a battery of artillery on our right,
another on our left, but both some distance in advance of us. They
opened a sharp fire upon the enemy, who returned it briskly, and the
redoubt of Cheverino was soon concealed by volumes of thick smoke. Our
regiment was almost covered from the Russians' fire by a piece of rising
ground. Their bullets (which besides were rarely aimed at us, for they
preferred to fire upon our cannoneers) whistled over us, or at worst
knocked up a shower of earth and stones.

Just as the order to advance was given, the captain looked at me
intently. I stroked my sprouting moustache with an air of unconcern; in
truth, I was not frightened, and only dreaded lest I might be thought
so. These passing bullets aided my heroic coolness, while my
self-respect assured me that the danger was a real one, since I was
veritably under fire. I was delighted at my self-possession, and already
looked forward to the pleasure of describing in Parisian drawing-rooms
the capture of the redoubt of Cheverino.

[Illustration: "A SHELL KNOCKED OFF MY SHAKO."]

The colonel passed before our company. "Well," he said to me, "you are
going to see warm work in your first action."

I gave a martial smile, and brushed my cuff, on which a bullet, which
had struck the earth at thirty paces distant, had cast a little dust.

It appeared that the Russians had discovered that their bullets did no
harm, for they replaced them by a fire of shells, which began to reach
us in the hollows where we lay. One of these, in its explosion, knocked
off my shako and killed a man beside me.

"I congratulate you," said the captain, as I picked up my shako. "You
are safe now for the day."

I knew the military superstition which believes that the axiom _non bis
in idem_ is as applicable to the battlefield as to the courts of
justice. I replaced my shako with a swagger.

"That's a rude way to make one raise one's hat," I said, as lightly as I
could. And this wretched piece of wit was, in the circumstances,
received as excellent.

"I compliment you," said the captain. "You will command a company
to-night; for I shall not survive the day. Every time I have been
wounded the officer below me has been touched by some spent ball; and,"
he added, in a lower tone, "all their names began with P."

I laughed sceptically; most people would have done the same; but most
would also have been struck, as I was, by these prophetic words. But,
conscript though I was, I felt that I could trust my thoughts to no one,
and that it was my duty to seem always calm and bold.

At the end of half an hour the Russian fire had sensibly diminished. We
left our cover to advance on the redoubt.

Our regiment was composed of three battalions. The second had to take
the enemy in flank; the two others formed the storming party. I was in
the third.

On issuing from behind the cover, we were received by several volleys,
which did but little harm. The whistling of the balls amazed me. "But
after all," I thought, "a battle is less terrible than I expected."

[Illustration: "OUR SOLDIERS RUSHED ACROSS THE RUINS."]

We advanced at a smart run, our musketeers in front. All at once the
Russians uttered three hurras--three distinct hurras--and then stood
silent, without firing.

"I don't like that silence," said the captain. "It bodes no good."

I began to think our people were too eager. I could not help comparing,
mentally, their shouts and clamour with the striking silence of the
enemy.

We quickly reached the foot of the redoubt. The palisades were broken
and the earthworks shattered by our balls. With a roar of "Vive
l'Empereur!" our soldiers rushed across the ruins.

I raised my eyes. Never shall I forget the sight which met my view. The
smoke had mostly lifted, and remained suspended, like a canopy, at
twenty feet above the redoubt. Through a bluish mist could be perceived,
behind their shattered parapet, the Russian Grenadiers, with rifles
lifted, as motionless as statues. I can see them still--the left eye of
every soldier glaring at us, the right hidden by his lifted gun. In an
embrasure at a few feet distant, a man with a fusee stood by a cannon.

I shuddered. I believed that my last hour had come.

"Now for the dance to open!" cried the captain. These were the last
words I heard him speak.

There came from the redoubt a roll of drums. I saw the muzzles lowered.
I shut my eyes; I heard a most appalling crash of sound, to which
succeeded groans and cries. Then I looked up, amazed to find myself
still living. The redoubt was once more wrapped in smoke. I was
surrounded by the dead and wounded. The captain was extended at my feet;
a ball had carried off his head, and I was covered with his blood. Of
all the company, only six men, except myself, remained erect.

This carnage was succeeded by a kind of stupor. The next instant the
colonel, with his hat on his sword's point, had scaled the parapet with
a cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" The survivors followed him. All that
succeeded is to me a kind of dream. We rushed into the redoubt, I know
not how; we fought hand to hand in the midst of smoke so thick that no
man could perceive his enemy. I found my sabre dripping blood; I heard a
shout of "Victory"; and, in the clearing smoke, I saw the earthworks
piled with dead and dying. The cannons were covered with a heap of
corpses. About two hundred men in the French uniform were standing,
without order, loading their muskets or wiping their bayonets. Eleven
Russian prisoners were with them.

The colonel was lying, bathed in blood, upon a broken cannon. A group of
soldiers crowded round him. I approached them.

"Who is the oldest captain?" he was asking of a sergeant.

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders most expressively.

"Who is the oldest lieutenant?"

"This gentleman, who came last night," replied the sergeant, calmly.

The colonel smiled bitterly.

"Come, sir," he said to me, "you are now in chief command. Fortify the
gorge of the redoubt at once with waggons, for the enemy is out in
force. But General C---- is coming to support you."

[Illustration: "PISH, MY DEAR FELLOW! THE REDOUBT IS TAKEN!"]

"Colonel," I asked him, "are you badly wounded?"

"Pish, my dear fellow! The redoubt is taken!"




_Actors' Dressing Rooms._


The robing apartments of actors are pleasant retreats. Quaint old
prints, autographed portraits and pictures, highly-prized programmes,
letters from celebrities are as numerous as they are interesting, whilst
every actor bids "good luck" cross his threshold by exhibiting his own
particular horse-shoe in a conspicuous corner.

[Illustration: MR. IRVING'S DRESSING-ROOM.]

Where is a more picturesque room than that which Henry Irving enters
nightly? Scarcely a dozen square inches of wall paper is to be
seen--pictures are everywhere. The eminent tragedian has a private
entrance in Burleigh-street, and you may know when the actor is not far
away, for "Fussie," a pet fox-terrier, always heralds his approach.
"Fussie" has his own mat to sit on, and here he waits during the whole
of the performance until after the second act, when he regularly looks
up for his customary biscuit. It was "Fussie" who was lost at
Southampton when Mr. Irving was on his way to America. He turned up,
however, at the Lyceum stage door four days afterwards, and it remains a
mystery to this day as to whether "Fussie" came by road or rail.

Henry Irving's room is a comfortable apartment. The floor is covered
with oilcloth, and a huge rug imparts a cosy appearance. Irving always
uses the same chair to sit in when making up. It has broken down a score
of times, but has been patched up again and again. In fact, the actor
has almost a reverence for anything which is a connecting link with old
associations.

Look at the costumes, for instance, hanging behind a door which leads to
a very unpretentious-looking wash-basin. There hangs the clothing of
_The Master of Ravenswood_. The two Spanish hats with long feathers, the
velvet coat and waistcoat with innumerable buttons, a quaint old crimson
waistcoat, with elaborate silver work. Mr. Irving clings to an old coat
so long as it will cling to him. He makes his clothes old--wears them
during the day. That old beaver hat was worn in "Charles I." and "The
Dead Heart"--now it is the characteristic head-gear of _The Master of
Ravenswood_. The hat worn in the last act did duty ten years ago in "The
Corsican Brothers."

There, just by the long pier glass, is the old fashioned oak
dressing-table, of a pattern associated with the days of King Arthur--in
fact, the table has done duty in "Macbeth" in one of the banqueting
scenes. Handle some of the veritable curiosities on it. The very
looking-glass is tied up with string--it has reflected its owner's face
for fourteen years, and went across the Atlantic with him. The old
pincushion went as well. On a chair are the actor's eye-glasses, which
he always uses when making up. Scissors, nail parers, &c., are about,
whilst the paints lie in a little side cabinet by the looking-glass, and
four diminutive gallipots are conspicuous, filled with the colours
mostly used. A great tin box of crepe hair is also at hand, for Mr.
Irving makes all his own moustaches. He gums a little hair on where
needed and then works in colour to get the effect.

The wicker hand-basket is interesting. The dresser carries this to "the
wings" when the actor needs a rapid change of "make-up." It has three
compartments, holding a glass of water, powder puff, saucer containing
fuller's earth, cold cream, hare's foot, lip salve, rouge, and a
remarkably old comb and brush. Here is a striking collection of rings; a
great emerald--only a "stage" gem, alas!--is worn in "Louis XI." and
"Richelieu," whilst here is one worn as _Doricourt_ in the "Belle's
Stratagem," the space where the stone ought to be being ingeniously
filled up with blue sealing wax. These long pear-shaped pearl earrings
are worn as _Charles I._, such as all gay cavaliers were wont to wear.

You can handle the quaint old bull's-eye lantern which tradition says
Eugene Aram carried on the night of the murder--for it is on the table.
A piece of wick still remains and grease is visible--not as the morbid
Aram left it, but as last used. The lantern itself is of stamped metal.
The glass on either side is there, though that through which the light
was seen in the centre has long since left. It is a highly interesting
relic.

[Illustration: EUGENE ARAM'S LANTERN.]

Be careful not to step into a big flower-pot saucer just close by, where
"Fussie" drinks; mind not to overturn what looks like a magnified
pepper-box near the fireplace, but which, after all, only contains the
dust which is "peppered" on to the actor's long boots, to make them look
travel-stained and worn. Then walk round the room and admire the
treasures.

There is a little gift sent from Denmark. In a neat oak frame is a
picture of Elsinore, sprays of leaves from "Ophelia's brook," and a
number of tiny stones and pebbles from "Hamlet's Grave." Here again is
Kean, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, a small "Maclise," a sketch by Charles
Matthews, Fechter--who used to dress in this very room himself--as _The
Master of Ravenswood_, Ellen Terry as _Ophelia_, Sara Bernhardt, and
John L. Toole. Variety is found in a pair of horseshoes, one of which
Mr. Irving carried with him to America.

Over the crimson plush mantel-board is "Garrick in the Green-room," and
on either side a pair of ancient coloured prints of the one and only
Joey Grimaldi, one of which represents him "as he appeared when he took
his farewell benefit at Drury Lane Theatre on June 27, 1828," with pan
and soap in his lap, arrayed in highly coloured garments, wonderfully
made, and wearing a remarkably broad smile on his face. But to mention
every one of Mr. Irving's treasures would be impossible.

The play over, he is in walking costume, cigar alight, and away in less
than a quarter of an hour--"Fussie" with him, following faithfully in
his steps.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Toole's room is exactly what everybody imagines it to be--cosy and
homely, like its genial occupant. The casual passer-by over the iron
grating in King William-street little thinks that he is throwing a
momentary shadow over the very corner where Toole's washstand, soap and
towel find a convenient lodging.

How simple everything is! The little table in the centre where Toole
sits down and religiously "drops a line," during the time he is not
wanted in the piece, to all those unknown "young friends" who would
tempt good fortune on the stage; the sofa covered with flowered
cretonne; and in close proximity to the fireplace a ricketty arm-chair
in brown leather. The springs are broken, but what matter? That chair is
Toole's, sir, and Royalty has occupied it many a time. Yes, nothing
could be more simple than our own comedian's dressing-room. It is just a
cosy parlour, and with Toole in the chair by the fire-side one would be
loth to leave it.

[Illustration: MR. TOOLE'S DRESSING-ROOM.]

The mantel-board has a clock in the centre, an ornament or two, and a
bust of the occupant in his younger days. In a corner is the veritable
umbrella used in _Paul Pry_. What a priceless collection of theatrical
reminiscences meet the eye everywhere! There is a portrait group of a
company of young actors who appeared in the original production of
"Dearer than Life," at the New Queen's Theatre, Long-acre--Henry Irving,
Charles Wyndham, John Clayton, Lionel Brough, John L. Toole, and Miss
Henrietta Hodson, who afterwards became Mrs. Labouchere. A tolerably
good cast! And here are portraits of a few actors taken years ago at
Ryde, Isle of Wight, showing W. Creswick in a great Inverness cape,
Benjamin Webster, S. Phelps, Paul Bedford, and a rising young actor who
had only recently made his appearance--J. L. Toole by name.

Near a capital character sketch of Henry J. Byron, by Alfred Bryan, is
an old playbill in a black ebony frame. This was the programme for one
night:--

  THEATRE ROYAL, HAYMARKET.
  MERCHANT OF VENICE.

  The Drama in 3 Acts:
  MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

         *       *       *       *       *

  KEELEY WORRIED BY BUCKSTONE.

  _Mr. Keeley_         By himself.
  _Mr. Buckstone_      By himself.

         *       *       *       *       *

  To conclude with the laughable farce,
  THE SPITALFIELDS WEAVER.

  _Simmons_        Mr. John L. Toole.
  (_His first appearance on any stage_).

Many a white satin programme is about, and the tenant of the little
dressing-room of King William-street is represented in many parts. Just
by the door is Mr. Liston as _Paul Pry_, arrayed in bottle-green coat,
big beaver hat, and armed with the inevitable umbrella--"just called to
ask you how your tooth was."

An excellent portrait represents John Billington as _John Peerybingle_
in "Dot," underneath which are penned some noteworthy lines: "I don't
want anybody to tell me my fortune. I've got one of the best little
wives alive, a happy home over my head, a blessed baby, and a cricket on
my hearth."

       *       *       *       *       *

Certainly what Mr. W. S. Gilbert would term "a highly respectable"
entrance is that which leads to Mr. Beerbohm Tree's dressing-room. The
stage door is in Suffolk-street, and until Mr. Tree's tenancy of the
Haymarket Theatre, there was an old clause in the lease setting forth
that whenever Royalty visited the theatre they should have the right to
enter by that way. Buckstone lived here--his dressing-room still
remains. It is a quaint corner near the stage, now used by the actors as
a smoking-room. The walls are covered with red paper, relieved by one or
two decidedly ancient paintings. Buckstone's iron safe--wherein the
renowned comedian was wont to store his money--is still visible; but the
money-bags are there no longer; their place being occupied by sundry
jars of tobacco and a churchwarden or two. Only on one occasion has Mr.
Tree found it necessary to use this room. The corpulency of the bibulous
_Falstaff_ prevented the actor from conveniently coming down the stairs
which lead from his own room to the stage--hence _Falstaff_ was attired
in this apartment.

The sound of the overture is just beginning as we hurriedly follow Mr.
Tree in the direction of his room. Though he has been singled out as a
very master of the art of transferring the face into the presentment of
character, it is a fact that Mr. Tree never sits down to dress until the
overture has started, and attaches less importance to his make-up than
to any other portion of the actor's art.

[Illustration: MR. BEERBOHM TREE'S DRESSING-ROOM.]

He throws himself into a chair of a decided "office" pattern, in front
of a triple glass which reflects all positions of his face. The sticks
of paint are arranged on a small Japanese tray, and the various powders
in tin boxes. Everything about the room is quiet and unassuming--a
washstand near the window, a few odd wooden-back chairs. The room is
regarded rather as a workshop than a lounging-room, and it certainly
possesses that appearance, though not without a certain pleasant
cosiness.

The actor's fingers have evidently been recently at work on the lengthy
pier-glass. Young Mr. Irving has just been in. He wanted some idea of a
make-up for _King John_. Mr. Tree gave him one by taking a stick of
grease paint and sketching it in outline on the glass. A number of still
unanswered letters are lying about--some of them delightfully humorous
missives from "stage-struck" young people. One is positively from a
footman. It runs:--

"DEAR SIR,--I want to be an actor, so thought I would write to you. I am
tall and dark, and have been a footman for five years in a nobleman's
family. I have just had a hundred pounds left me, and if you will give
me a part in one of your pieces I will give you fifty pounds of it.
Write by return, as I have already given notice.--Your obedient servant,

                                                                 ----.

"P.S.--Mark the letter private."

[Illustration: MR. HARE'S DRESSING-ROOM.]

In a corner lies the peak cap worn as _Demetrius_ in "The Red Lamp";
here the cloth cap, gaily decorated with poppies, corn and feathers,
used in "The Ballad Monger." Over the door is a gigantic horseshoe,
measuring at least a couple of feet from top to bottom. This was placed
here by Mrs. Bancroft.

Just at this moment a magnificent bull-dog--whose appearance we had not
previously noticed--turns lazily on a mat under the dressing-table. This
is "Ned," rechristened "Bully Boy." The dog plays a prominent part in
the piece now running at the Haymarket.

A tap at the door. A voice cries, "Mr. Tree"--and hurriedly applying a
line here and there about the eyes, as we accompany the actor to the
stage, he has something interesting to say regarding "making-up." He
rather laughs at the idea, and is perplexed to understand the reason why
his facial paintings are so commented upon. He is always the last to
reach the theatre. "The less make-up, the better," he observes. "The art
of acting is not a matter of painting the face, for a very plain person
can in a few seconds become extremely good-looking and _vice versâ_; it
is what comes from within--what the player feels. It is his imagination
which really illuminates the face, and not what he has put on it with
hare's foot and pencil."

       *       *       *       *       *

A peculiar interest is attached to the visit which we made to Mr. John
Hare's room at the Garrick Theatre. Mr. Hare has been on the stage for
twenty-six years, and previous to our finding him seated in his great
arm-chair by the fireplace, had never been interviewed. Hence the few
words he said, as he played with a cigarette, become particularly
notable.

"I have been acting now for twenty-six years. I was for ten years with
Mrs. Bancroft at the Prince of Wales's, and have been some twelve or
thirteen years in management."

"What is your favourite part, Mr. Hare?"

"The present one in 'A Pair of Spectacles,'" is the reply. "I take about
a month to study up a character. I always wear the clothes I am going to
play in for some time previously, so as to get them to my figure. The
longest time I ever bestowed on a make-up was in 'The Profligate.' I
took half an hour over it."

Mr. Hare has really two rooms. The big one is used for an office as
much as possible, where the actor does all his correspondence. Note the
old-fashioned high wire fender, the heavy plush curtains, and elaborate
rosewood furniture. It is a most artistic apartment. Those
speaking-tubes communicate with the stage door, prompter, box office,
and acting manager.

The pictures which adorn the walls are as varied as they are valuable.
Here may be found Leslie Ward's caricature of Corney Grain and of George
Grossmith, together with an old engraving of Garrick, after R. E. Pine,
published in 1818. Just by the glass is one of the few photos of
Compton, in frock coat and plaid tie. Many a reminiscence of the Hare
and Kendal management is about, and on the mantel-board of ebony and
gold--over which rests the customary horse-shoe with the initials J. H.
in the centre--portraits in silver frames of members of Mr. Hare's
family are to be seen.

[Illustration: MR. HARE'S INNER ROOM.]

But by far the most attractive corner is a little room, scarcely large
enough for two people to stand in, which branches off from the more
spacious apartment. There, hanging up, is the light suit worn as
_Benjamin Goldfinch_, with the long black coat which flaps about so
marvellously--the actor finds plenty of "character" even in a coat--and
the shepherd's-plaid trousers.

The looking-glass is of walnut, with electric lights on either side
shaded with metal leaves. In front of this he sits, amidst a hundred
little oddments. Here are tiny bottles of medicine and quinine--for the
actor being is a firm believer in the properties of this traditional
strength-reviver. The little room is as comfortable as it well can be,
and has a thoroughly domesticated air about it.

       *       *       *       *       *

There are many things to notice as we pass through the passages on our
way toward Mr. Charles Wyndham's room at the Criterion; programmes and
play-bills in German and Russian of "David Garrick"--in fact the
passages are literally decorated with mementoes of the clever comedian's
admirable impersonation of this character. A bronze of the actor as
_Davy_ raising the glass on high, and a massive silver loving cup,
engraved "Garrick," is mounted on a pedestal bearing the inscription
"Charles Wyndham, Von Direktor Lautenberg, Residenz Theatre, Berlin,
December, 1887." Prints and pictures typical of Russian life are freely
displayed. And here is an exceptional curiosity, and one which is
doubtless highly treasured. In a modest oak frame is a piece of paper
which once served to settle a little dispute, which is historical among
things theatrical:--

"Mr. Bedford wages two gallons of claret with Mr. Williams, that Mr.
Garrick did not play upon ye stage in ye year 1732 or before."

Then follows the suggestive word "Paid," and below it are the words:--

"I acted upon Goodman's Fields Theatre for ye first time in ye year
1741.

                                                          "D. GARRICK.
  "Witness,
   "SOMERSET DRAPER."

Mr. Wyndham's room has one thing about it which distinguishes it from
all similar apartments in London. It is next to the stage, and by
pulling up a little red blind he can see through an aperture just what
is going on, and know exactly when his services are required.

The room is square, divided by a curtain. Strange to say, not a single
portrait of a brother actor is apparent; but, whilst the actor paints
his face, he can see many an invitation to dinner negligently thrust in
the edges of the gilt frame. The dressing-table which occupies nearly
the whole length of one end of the room is fully supplied with
countless colours, whilst a little tray is positively brimming over with
all patterns of collar studs. An egg is handy; it is intended for the
hair, as Mr. Wyndham and wigs have never agreed. There is a
writing-table and a chair or two, and an elaborate inlaid rosewood
escritoire is in a corner, against which Mr. Wyndham stands for his
portrait in the character of _Dazzle_, with his flowered waistcoat,
frilled front, and hanging fob.

Nor must the apartment in which Mr. Wyndham entertains his friends be
passed unnoticed. This is a room overlooking Piccadilly, and capable of
seating some twenty or twenty-five persons. It was dark when we entered,
but the next instant the electric light was switched on, and an
apartment was presented which may be singled out as the only one of its
kind ever built.

We were standing in the middle of a first-class cabin of a ship. Not a
solitary item was wanting to complete the illusion. The ceiling was
built low, and every article of furniture was made on sea-going
principles, even down to the table. The walls are of walnut, the panels
between being lined with exquisite sateen. Though one or two windows
look out on to Piccadilly Circus, there are many port-holes about, all
draped with old gold plush curtains. The upholstery consists principally
of a series of settees of light blue plush, which go round the sides of
the room.

The looking-glass over the mantelpiece is typical of a cabin. It is
surrounded, in the form of a framework, by a cable, the ends of which
are fastened off by diminutive anchors. Exactly in the centre, in an
elaborate frame, is the programme used on the occasion of the
performance of "David Garrick," which Mr. Wyndham and his brother actors
gave before the Prince and Princess of Wales at Sandringham some years
ago.

The very lamps suspended from the ceiling are made to sway to and fro in
case of rough and windy weather. The whole thing is an ingenious idea,
delightfully carried out, and to-night Mr. Wyndham's cabin is seen at
its best. There is to be a supper-party at the conclusion of the
performance downstairs, and the tables for the time being are burdened
down with every luxury. Fairy lamps are peeping out amongst the pines
and hot-house grapes, and the lamps hanging from the roof are surrounded
with flowers and ferns, whilst the electric light shines out brilliantly
from amongst the blossoms.

[Illustration: MR. WYNDHAM'S DRESSING-ROOM.]




_The Minister's Crime._

BY MACLAREN COBBAN.


I.

"There is really little use in my continuing to call," said the doctor;
"it will only be running you into useless expense. I may go on
prescribing and prescribing till I get through the whole pharmacopoeia,
but I can do him no good; what he needs is not drugs but air--a bracing
air. Get him away out of this, and let him run wild in the country,
or--if your engagements won't let you get to the country--remove to some
open suburb north or south."

[Illustration: THE DOCTOR'S VISIT.]

The doctor sat in a little parlour, in a shabby-genteel street of
close-packed middle London. Opposite him was the patient, a child of
three or four, on his mother's knee and clasped about with his mother's
arms, while his father, the Rev. James Murray, stood anxiously
listening. The boy--the first-born, and the only child of his
parents--had a month or two before been stricken down with an infant's
ailment, and though that had passed, he continued so weak that the
doctor had tested the soundness of heart and lungs, and the outcome of
his examination was that the only hope for the child was change of air.

"I only wish," said the father, "that I could take him away. I must try,
though I don't see at present how I am to do it."

He turned away to the window to hide the emotion that would rise to
choke him when he met the large, weary blue eyes of his boy bent on him,
as if in appeal that he might not be allowed to fade and wither and die,
like a flower before it has fairly bloomed.

"Can't you at least send the boy away with his mother?" asked the
doctor.

"I must try," said the father without turning round. "I must see what
can be done."

"In the meantime," said the doctor, rising, "go on with the cod-liver
oil and malt extract."

The doctor went, and still the Rev. James Murray stood by the window,
striving to keep down the emotion that demanded to have its way. The
wife rose with the child in her arms and went close to her husband.

"James, my dear," said she in a low voice (and she took his hand),
"don't, my dear!"

James turned with the impulse of all his passionate love for his wife
and child, and drew them together to his breast and bent his head over
them. And one great sob of anguish broke from him, and one tear of
bitter agony sprang in his eye, and fell hot upon his wife's hand.

"Oh, James, my darling!" she cried, clinging to him. "Don't! God _will_
be good to us!"

They stood thus for some seconds, while no sound was heard but the loud
ticking of the cheap lodging-house clock on the mantelpiece. The wife
sobbed a little in sympathy with her husband; not that she considered at
all how her own heart was wrung, but that she felt how his was. Seeing
and hearing her, he recovered himself.

"Come, my dear," said he, "this does no good. Let us sit down, and see
what can be arranged."

He led her back to her seat. He sat down beside her, transferred the boy
to his own lap, and held her hand.

"Come now, Jim," said he to his boy, "how am I going to get you and your
mammy to the country? Eh?"

"Daddy come, too," said the child, putting his arm about his father's
neck.

"I would, Jim, I would," said he, with the faintest suspicion of a
painful catch in his voice still; "but I have no money. And I don't know
how mammy and you are to go, unless some kind friend offers to take you
in."

"Oh, James dear!" exclaimed the wife, impulsively, catching her
husband's hand to her cheek. "It's I who have taken you from kind
friends! I am a burden to you, and nothing but a burden!"

"My dear wife," said he, bending to her, "you are the sweetest burden
that man could bear, and I'd rather have you than all else the world
could give."

"It's beautiful, my dear," said she, "to hear you say so. It's like
sweet music to me; but it's not true. If you had married another--if you
had married differently, and as you were expected to have married--you
would not be here now; and if you had a sick boy, like our dear, poor
Jim, there would have been no difficulty in getting to the country, or
in getting anything that was needed for him! But you married me, and--my
poor, dear love!--you bear the penalty!"

"Mary," said he, with a certain touch of solemnity in his voice, "I have
not for one instant regretted that we loved each other, and married each
other, and, whatever may come, I shall not regret it. The complete love
of a woman like you is more precious than rubies. Your love, my
darling,"--and he caressed the head crowned with a glory of bright
hair--"is the joy of my life--God forgive me!"

She drew again his hand to her cheek, and pressed it there, and said no
word more. And so they sat for a few seconds longer, while the vulgar,
intrusive clock, with a kind of limp in its noisy tick, seemed to say,
"_It's time! It's time!_"

Let us take the opportunity of this pause to explain how the Reverend
James Murray got into the anxious position in which we find him. He was
a minister of a well-known denomination of Nonconformists. When he left
college he had been reckoned a young man of great promise and of
considerable powers of persuasive eloquence, and he was expected to
become a famous preacher. He was invited to be the minister of a large
and wealthy congregation in a northern manufacturing town. He accepted
the invitation, and for two or three years he was a great favourite with
his people; never, they declared, had they heard so fine a preacher
(though he was sometimes so "fine" that they did not understand him),
and never had they known a better man. His praise was in everybody's
mouth; the men admired him and the women adored him. But he was a
bachelor, and there was not an unmarried lady in the congregation who
did not aspire to be his wife, which put him in the awkward and
invidious position of having to prefer one out of many. He astonished
and offended all the well-to-do ladies, by falling in love with and
marrying the pretty, shy governess of one of the wealthiest families--a
girl who had not been regarded as having the smallest chance of
occupying the proud position of minister's wife. His marriage alienated
the women, and through them cooled the ardour of the men. The situation
was strained; but it might have gradually returned to its former easy
condition, had not the minister soon after his marriage become what is
termed "broad" in his religious views and uncompromising in his
expression of them. His people grew alarmed, and his deacons
remonstrated--(with less friendliness of feeling, probably, than if he
had not offended them by his marriage)--but the minister declared he
could not do otherwise than preach what he believed to be the truth.
Then some people left him, and others would not speak to him, and his
position became so difficult and finally so unbearable that he could do
nothing but send in his resignation. He shook the dust and the grime of
that northern town off his feet, and with sore heart and slender purse
journeyed to London. He was resolved to labour among "the masses"; if
the arrogant and wealthy people of the north would not hear him, he was
sure the poor of London, bending beneath the weary burden of life, would
hear him gladly. He had not been in London long when he became minister
of a venerable, half-deserted chapel in one of those curiously quiet
corners made by the rushing currents and the swirling eddies of the life
of our huge metropolis. It was close to the heart of London, and yet no
one knew it was there but the handful of small shop-keepers and their
families and the few devout and destitute old women who made up its
congregation. These poor people were fluttered with pride when they got
so clever and beautiful a preacher for their own; they looked to see ere
long the old chapel crowded with an attentive congregation as it had
been in other days; and the chapel-keeper (who was also a painter) had
put all the magnificent hopes of himself and his friends in the fresh
inscription he made on the faded notice-board in the fore-court:
"MINISTER, THE REV. JAMES MURRAY, M.A.," in letters of gold.

[Illustration: "THE PRETTY GOVERNESS."]

A year had passed since then, and the minister's heart was sad. He had
spent himself for the benefit of the poor that sweltered round that old
chapel, and the poor did not seem to want him or his ministrations any
more than the wealthy: they would gather round him if he spread a tea
for them, but they would not come to hear him preach; so the chapel
remained as empty as when he first ascended its pulpit. Most harassing
and wearing anxiety of all, he was desperately poor. How he and his wife
and child had lived during the year it would be difficult to tell; from
the treasurer of the chapel funds he had received less than sixty
pounds, and he was in debt for his lodgings, in debt to the doctor, his
and his wife's clothes were become painfully shabby, and his child was
sick unto death.

What now was to be done?

"If I had only two or three pounds in hand," said he, "or if I could
raise them, I could send you and Jim away to some quiet seaside place;
but everything is gone--everything!"

"Don't be cast down, my dear," said his wife, raising her head, and
bravely smiling. "It is always darkest and coldest before the dawn.
Something may come to us just when we least expect it."

"I am angry with myself," said he, "for being so cast down; but I can't
help it. I care nothing for myself--nothing at all, you know, Mary: I
have good health, and I can live on little. It's seeing you, my dear,
and poor little Jim, going without things you ought to have, that goes
to my heart; and to know now that the boy's life would be saved if I
could do something which I have no hope of doing!--oh! it maddens me! I
ask myself over and over again if I've done wrong to anyone that we
should be at this desperate pass!"

"My dear, dear husband!" exclaimed his wife, again caressing his hand.
"You done wrong to anyone? You could not hurt a fly! We must be patient
and brave, my dear, and bear it. And Jim, poor boy, may really be
improving: doctors sometimes make mistakes."

But it needed only to look at the child's thin, limp figure, his
transparent skin, and his large, sad, lustreless eyes, to be convinced
that there the doctor had made no mistake. The boy would die unless he
could be taken into the fresh, stimulating air of the seaside or the
country. The parents glanced at the boy, and then looked involuntarily
each into the sad face of the other, and turned their heads away.

At that moment there came a loud, double "rat-tat" at the street door,
which made them both jump. Their sitting-room was on the ground-floor.
The minister rose, pale and expectant. He heard no one coming to answer
the summons.

"I wonder if it's for me?" he said.

"Go and see," said his wife.

He went into the passage and opened the door.

"Murray?" said the telegraph-boy, and, on being answered "Yes," handed a
reply-paid telegram.

The minister's fingers trembled so, he could scarcely tear the envelope
open. He took the telegram in to his wife and read it aloud:--

"_Can you supply Upton Chapel on Sunday next? Letter to follow._"

That was all, with the name and address of the sender appended. Both the
minister and his wife knew the Upton Chapel, and perceived at once that
that was the most hopeful thing that had happened to them for more than
a year.

"_Yes_," wrote the minister on the reply-form, which he handed to the
telegraph-boy.

"Thank God for that, Mary," said he, when he returned to her. "Now I can
send you and Jim away for at least a week! Thank God, my dear!"

He kissed her, and then set himself in his agitation to walk up and down
the little room.

"That will mean five pounds for us, I believe; I don't want to count the
fee I shall get, but I can't help it now. It's a rich congregation, and
I think I must get that. And, Mary," he went on, "what if they should
ask me to be their minister? You know they are without one. Perhaps the
'letter to follow' will say something. Upton is a beautiful, bracing
suburb, and Jim--our own little Jim!"--and he raised him in his
arms--"would get strong there!"

"Ah, my dear," said his wife, "it is too tempting. I am afraid to hope.
But I am sure when once they hear you they will like you. Now let us
think: what sermons will you take?"


II.

The "letter to follow" came by a late post, but it was only a fuller and
politer version of the telegram. It hoped that Mr. Murray would be able
to give the Upton congregation the pleasure of listening to him, it
apologised for the short notice (it was then Friday), and it invited the
minister to dine with the writer on Sunday. It thus gave no hint that
the eye of the Upton congregation might be on Mr. Murray, but at the
same time it did not completely dash the hope that it might be.

On Saturday the minister sat down and wrote one sermon expressly for the
occasion, and with that and another in his pocket he set off on Sunday
morning to fulfil his engagement with some trepidation.

The aspect of the Upton Chapel was itself cheerful and inspiriting. It
was nearly new, and it was large and handsome in a semi-Gothic,
open-raftered style; moreover, it was well filled, without being
crowded. It was a complete contrast to the place where Mr. Murray
usually ministered, where most of the high-backed musty pews were quite
empty, where a kind of fog hung perpetually, and where the minister,
perched aloft in the pulpit, was as "a voice crying in the wilderness."
Then in the Upton Chapel there was a fine organ, and good singing by a
well-trained choir. When the minister, therefore, rose to preach his
sermon, it was with a sense of exaltation and inspiration which he had
not felt for years. He delivered himself with effect, and he was
listened to with wakeful attention and apparent appreciation. When the
service was over, and one leader of the congregation after another came
to the vestry to shake him warmly by the hand and to thank him for his
"beautiful discourse," he thanked God and took courage, and wished that
his Mary were with him, instead of sitting lonely and anxious in their
little lodging with their sick boy.

He went in good spirits to the home of his host, who was a merchant in
the city, and he sat down with the family to the ample Sunday dinner. He
sat next his hostess, a gentle, motherly lady, who asked him if he was
married, and if he had any children; and he told her of Mary and the
child. His host was a shrewd man, of middle age, who had clearly read
much and thought a good deal, and all his family (three grown sons and
two daughters) were intelligent and cultivated, and took a modest, but
sufficient, share in the conversation of the table, and all listened to
such opinions as the minister uttered with attention and understanding.
Mr. Murray, therefore, felt he was in a sociable, frank, and refined
atmosphere, and he thought within himself: "What a place of brightness
and pleasant endeavour this would be after my rude and stormy experience
of the north and this terrible year in London! And, oh, what a haven of
rest and health for my darling wife and boy!"

So it was with unaffected joy, when he walked round the large garden
with his host after dinner, that he heard him say:--

"I think, Mr. Murray, absolute frankness in these matters is best. Let
me ask you, if you were invited to become our minister, would you be
willing? Would you like to come to us?"

"As frankly as you put the question," said Mr. Murray, "I answer that,
from all I know and have seen of the Upton congregation, I _should_ like
to be your minister. Of course, it would be pleasanter for me and for
all if the invitation were as nearly unanimous as may be."

[Illustration: "HE DELIVERED HIMSELF WITH EFFECT."]

"Quite so," said his host. "I ought to say that, though I am the
chairman, I have at present no authority to speak for any but myself and
my family. But we have heard a good report of you, Mr. Murray, and I
know that many of our people have been much impressed by you this
morning." Then, unconsciously, he went on to dash somewhat the
minister's lively hopes. "There is a young man--Mr. Lloyd: you may know
him. No? Well--some of our people are very much taken with him. He is a
brilliant, popular sort of young fellow; but he is young--he has only
been some two years or so a minister--and he is unmarried, and--and
well, I don't want to say anything against him--but he is just a
_little_ flighty, and we older folk doubt how we should get on with him.
I am glad, however, to have your assurance that you would come if you
were asked."

He put his arm within the minister's, and thus they returned into the
house. And--as if that had been a sign of consent agreed upon--all the
company (and there were now a good many guests assembled) beamed upon
them as they entered the drawing-room.

"I am _so_ glad," said the eldest daughter of the house, bringing Mr.
Murray a cup of tea and sitting down by him, "to know that you are
willing to be our minister!"

"How do you know I am?" he asked, with a smile.

"Oh," she answered with a blush and a light laugh, "we arranged for a
sign from my father, so that we should all know at once. You are
willing, are you not?"

"I am," he answered, "quite."

"And I hope--I _do_ hope--you will be asked."

Presently there came to him an unknown young man, and said: "I don't
often go to chapel or church, but if you often preach sermons like this
morning's, I should always go to hear you, I think."

That was a flattering tribute, and the minister showed his appreciation
of it.

"Well, I confess," he said, "it is at least pleasant to hear you say
so."

Thus the time passed till the hour came for evening service. The gas was
lit, and floor and galleries were crowded with people. The minister had
chosen a simple and pathetic theme for his evening discourse: "He took
little children in His arms and blessed them;" and he spoke out of the
fulness of experience and with the tender feeling of the father of a
sick child, insomuch that all were moved, many even to sobs and tears.
There was no doubt that he carried his audience with him; and, as in
the morning, he had to shake many hands and receive many thanks.

Last of all, his host of the day came and asked him to take also the
services of the next Sunday; and then he hastened home by train to his
wife with hopeful, grateful heart.

[Illustration: "ISN'T HE A JOLLY FELLOW?"]

"There, Mary, my dear," said he, giving her the £5 note in an envelope
as it had been slipped into his hand; "that's for you and Jim. I'll take
you both down to Margate to-morrow--the air of Margate is the most
bracing in England--and you can stay for two or three weeks at least,
and the boy will begin to grow strong."

For answer Mary threw herself into her husband's arms, and sobbed upon
his breast.

"Oh, how good God is, James! Let us be thankful, my dear! Oh, let us be
thankful!"

Next day the minister took his wife and child to Margate, and placed
them in lodgings on the breezy cliff-top. On Tuesday he returned to
town; for he had much to do to prepare for his second Sunday at Upton
and to fill the vacancy at the old, deserted chapel. In spite of his
occupation he began, before the week was out, to feel lonely and
depressed; for he and his wife had not separated before, save for a day
or two, since the hour of their marriage. In the solitude of his close
and dingy lodging he restlessly and morbidly meditated on his desire to
go to Upton, and his chances of going. Had he any right to go, with such
mercenary motives as moved him? But was the health of wife and child a
mercenary motive? Was the desire to see them free from a narrow and
blighting poverty a mercenary motive? And had he not other motives
also--motives of truth and duty? If it was wrong to seek to go to Upton
for these reasons, then God forgive him! for he could not help longing
to go!

It was in something of that depressed and troubled mood that he went to
fulfil his second Sunday. The congregation was larger than on the
previous Sunday morning, and the minister felt that many must have come
expressly to hear him; and, therefore, he had less brightness and
freedom of delivery than on the Sunday before. He felt, when the service
was over, that he had not acquitted himself well, and he began anew to
torture himself with the thoughts of what would become of Mary and Jim
if he should miss his chance of Upton.

To add discomfort to discomfort, and constraint to constraint, he was
introduced in the vestry to the Reverend Mr. Lloyd--his rival, as he
felt bound to consider him; and to his host for the day--a stout,
loud-spoken, rather vulgar-looking man, who dropped his h's.

When they reached the home of his host (who clearly was a wealthy man,
for the house was large and furnished with substantial splendour), he
discovered that his rival also was to be a guest. That did not serve to
put him more at his ease, the less that he perceived host and rival
seemed on very friendly, if not familiar, terms. They called one another
"Lloyd" and "Brown," and slapped each other on the back. "Brown" said
something, and "Lloyd" flatly and boisterously contradicted and
corrected him, and then "Brown" laughed loudly, and seemed to like it.
Thus dinner wore away, while Mr. Murray said little save to his
hostess--a pale, thin, and somewhat depressed woman, grievously
overburdened, it was clear, with a "jolly" husband, and a loud and
healthy young family. After dinner "Lloyd" romped and rollicked in and
out of the house with the troop of noisy children, while Mr. Murray kept
his hostess and her very youngest company, and the attention of his host
was divided between duty and inclination--the duty of sitting by his
wife and guest, and the inclination of "larking with 'Lloyd.'"

"Look at him!" he exclaimed once. "Isn't he a jolly fellow? I do think
he's a capital fellow! Oh, yes; and he has a nice mind."

It was all very depressing and saddening to Mr. Murray, though he
appeared only to be very quiet. For he thought: "A large congregation
like this of Upton must necessarily have more people like these Browns
than like my friends of last Sunday; and it must, therefore, needs be
that this Mr. Lloyd--who has no harm in him, I daresay, but who is
little more than a rough, noisy, presumptuous boy not long from
school--it must be that he should be preferred by the majority to me. I
may as well, then, give up all hope of coming here. But what then of
Mary and the boy--the boy?"

He was scarcely more satisfied with himself after the evening service
(though he held the attention again of a crowded congregation), and he
went back to his lonely lodging with a sore and doubting heart. He
wrote, however, cheerfully (he thought) to his wife; but next day she
replied to his letter and showed that his assumed cheerfulness had not
deceived the watchful sense of love.

"You are not in good spirits, my dear," she wrote; "don't pretend you
are. If you are not better to-day I shall come home to you, though
little Jim is beginning to show the benefit of the change."

"Poor little chap!" the father thought. "He is beginning to improve.
They must not come back, and I must not go down to them. My glum face
would frighten Mary, and I should have to tell her all my fears.
Besides, I cannot afford it. Oh, that it might be settled I'm to go to
Upton!"

That was the refrain of his thoughts all that day. "Oh, that I might go
to Upton!" It was a kind of prayer, and surely as worthy a prayer, and
springing from as pure and loving a desire as any prayer that is
uttered. He could do nothing more, however, to attain the desired end;
he could only wait. Monday passed, and Tuesday, and still no word from
Upton. On Wednesday came a letter from his first host--the Chairman of
Committee. It contained little, but that little was charged with meaning
and anxiety for the minister. Nothing, it declared, was yet absolutely
decided; but on Thursday evening there was to be held a certain debate
in the Lecture-room, in which it had been resolved that both Mr. Murray
and Mr. Lloyd should be asked to take part.

"I am not officially instructed," continued the writer, "to say this to
you, but I think I ought to tell you that there is a disposition among a
good many to form their final choice for you or for Mr. Lloyd, on the
conclusion of the debate."


III.

It was put gently and carefully, but the meaning of the communication to
the minister plainly was that it had come to a contest between him and
the young Mr. Lloyd, and that whichever should acquit himself in this
debate most to the satisfaction and admiration of the audience would
straightway be chosen as minister.

It was a terrible situation for the minister--how terrible none but
himself knew, and none, not even the wife of his bosom, could ever
sufficiently understand. He was a bad debater, and, worse than that, he
was the most nervous, hesitating, and involved extempore speaker in the
world. His sermons and discourses were always written, but he delivered
them so well that very few would have guessed that he had manuscript
before him. With his writing in his hand he was easy, vigorous, and
self-possessed; but when he had to speak extempore a panic of fear shook
him; he had neither ideas nor words, and he was completely lost.

It was simply a question of nerves with him, and whenever he knew
beforehand that he was expected to speak extempore the strain upon him
was crueller than man can tell. The strain imposed now upon a body
weakened by the past year's privations and anxiety could not have been
crueller if he had been under sentence of death; and, indeed, life or
death seemed to his overwrought nerves to hang upon the issue. If he
failed, and he feared he would fail, fail signally, for he did not doubt
but that the young and boisterous Mr. Lloyd was without nerves, and was
a glib and self-confident talker--then Upton was lost, and his wife was
condemned for Heaven alone knew how long to grievous poverty, and his
child to a lingering death. If he succeeded--but he had no reason to
hope he would--then Upton was won, and with it life and health and
happiness for those he loved.

It was Wednesday morning when he got the letter, and all that day he
considered, with a frequent feeling of panic at the heart, and a
constant fluttering of the nerves, what he could possibly do to ensure
success. He thought he would write down something on the subject of the
debate, and commit it to memory. He had sat down and written a little,
when he bethought him that he did not know when he would be called upon
to speak, nor whether he might not have to expressly answer someone. He
threw down the pen, and groaned in despair; there was nothing to be
done; he must trust to the inspiration and self-possession of the
moment.

When he went to bed his sleep was a succession of ghastly nightmares. He
dreamt his wife and child were struggling and choking in a dark and
slimy sea, that Mr. Lloyd stood aloof unconcernedly looking on, and that
he, the husband and father, lay unable to stir hand or foot or tongue!
Then he awoke with a sharp cry, trembling with dread and bathed in
perspiration, and found, lo! it was but a dream!

So the night passed and the day came with its constant wearing fear and
anxiety. He could not eat, he could not drink, he could not rest; and
thus the day passed and the hour came when he must set out for the fatal
meeting. As he passed along the street people paused to glance at him:
he appeared so pale and scared.

When he entered the Lecture-room at Upton he was met by his friend, the
Chairman of Committee, who looked at him and said:--

"Don't you feel well, Mr. Murray? You look very faint and pale. Let me
get you a glass of wine."

"No, thank you," said the minister. "I am really quite well."

"We shall have a good debate, I think," said his friend, then leading
the way forward.

"I hope so," said the minister, "though I am afraid I can do little; I
am the worst extempore speaker you can imagine."

"Is that so?" The friend turned quickly and considered him. "I should
not have thought so. Ah, well, never mind."

But the minister felt that his friend's hope of his success was
considerably shaken.

The chief persons of the assembly were gathered about a table at the
upper end of the room. The chairman introduced the matter for debate;
one man rose and spoke on the affirmative side, and another rose and
spoke on the negative. The minister listened, but he scarce knew what
was said; he drank great gulps of water to moisten his parched mouth
(which, for all the water, remained obstinately dry) and he felt his
hour was come. He glanced round him, but saw only shadows of men. One
only he saw--the man opposite him, the very young and boisterous Mr.
Lloyd, who clapped his hands and lustily said "Hear, hear!" when
anything was said of which he approved or which he wished to deride. The
minister's eyes burned upon him till he seemed to assume threatening,
demoniac proportions as the boastful and blatant Apollyon whom Christian
fought in the Valley.

[Illustration: THE DEBATE.]

At length young Mr. Lloyd rose, large and hairy, and then the minister
listened with all his ears. He missed nothing the young man
uttered--none of the foolish and ignorant opinions, none of the coarse
and awkward phrases--and as he listened amazement seized him, and then
anger, and he said to himself: "This is the man, this is the conceited
and ignorant smatterer, who would supplant _me_, and rob my wife and
child of health and happiness!" He rose at once in his anger to answer
him, to smash and pulverise him. What he said in his anger he did not
know; but when he had finished he sat down and buried his face in his
hands and was sure he had made an egregious ass of himself. He felt very
faint and drank more water, and it was all over. In a dazed and hurried
fashion he said his adieux and went away to the train, convinced he
should never see Upton more.

He had entered a carriage and sunk back with body exhausted, but with
brain on fire; the train was starting, when the door was flung open, and
Mr. Lloyd burst in and sat down opposite him.

[Illustration: "THE DOOR SWUNG OPEN."]

"Halloa!" he cried. "I did _not_ think to find you here. What a splendid
debate it was, wasn't it?" He did not wait for an answer, but hurried on
in his loquacity, "I think I woke them up. They need waking up, and I'll
do it when I'm their minister."

It clearly did not occur to him that his _vis-à-vis_ might be minister
instead; and Mr. Murray, in his exaggerated dread and humility, thought
that the question who was to be minister must really have been settled
before the young man left. Mr. Murray said nothing, but that did not
embarrass Mr. Lloyd.

"I shall soon settle," he continued, "the hash of some of those
frightened old fogies who want things to go on in the old, humdrum way.
It's a fine place, and a magnificent chapel, and can be made a popular
cause: and I'll make it, too, when I'm among them. Good, rousing,
popular stuff--that's the thing to make a success; don't you think so,
Murray?"

"No doubt," said Murray, scarce knowing or caring what he said in his
bitterness and despair; "only make noise enough."

Young Mr. Lloyd merely laughed boisterously, and Mr. Murray only kept
saying to himself: "This is the man who has robbed me of my chance, and
my wife and child of health and happiness! But for this ignorant,
conceited, and incompetent braggart I should be minister!"

And incontrollable dislike--and in his nervous, over-strained condition,
hatred even--rose in him against the young man.

As Lloyd went on with his ding-dong, maddening talk, Mr. Murray, who
could have cried aloud in his pain and despair of the loss he believed
he had endured, observed absently that the inner handle of the door
showed that the catch was open. The train slowed down, for some reason,
in the middle of a tunnel, and Lloyd rose in his lusty, boisterous way,
banged down the window, and looked out.

"These trains," quoth he, "are confoundedly slow."

Mr. Murray kept his eye on the brass handle of the door. It was a
dangerous position for Mr. Lloyd; if he leaned too heavily, or if the
train went on with a jerk, he was likely to be thrown out. Should he
warn him? Should he say, "Take care: you may fall in your rashness." Yet
why did not the foolish, unobservant young man see for himself the
condition of the door?

Still, the handle of the door fascinated the minister's eye, and he kept
silence. At that moment the train started off again with a jerk and a
screech; the door swung open, and Lloyd fell, and as the minister put
out his hands and head to catch him, with a horrified "Oh!" he saw the
fiery eye of a train rushing down upon him from the opposite direction.
It came on with thunderous roar and passed, and the minister sank back
in the carriage _alone_, and fainted!


IV.

He came to himself only outside the London terminus at which he had to
arrive, when the train drew up, and a man came along for the collection
of tickets. In a half-dazed condition (which the ticket-collector
probably considered intoxication), he surrendered his ticket without a
word, and then the train went on, and presently he was on the platform,
stumbling out of the station on his way home, but no more in touch with
the people and things he passed among than a man in a dream.

What had he done? What had he done? To what a depth of misery and infamy
had he cast himself? It was impossible to sound the black bottom of it.

"_I have slain a man to my wounding; a young man to my hurt._"

The old words rose in his mind unbidden--rose and sank, rose and sank
again. He felt that the young man must be lying crushed across those
rails. And it was his doing: he had not warned the young man of his
danger; he had consented to his death, and, therefore, he had killed
him! Oh, the horror! Oh, the pity of it!

When he reached his lonely lodging it was late, and he was dull and
tired. He was conscious of having walked a long way round, and to and
fro, but where he did not know. The strain was now off his nerves, and
dull, dead misery was upon him. He mechanically undressed, and went to
bed and sank to sleep at once; but his sleep was unrefreshing: it was
troubled all the night through with alarms and terrors, with screeching
and roaring trains, and falling bodies; and when in the morning he was
fully awake, his misery settled upon him like a dense fog of death.

The morning postman brought a letter from his wife. She was in good
spirits, and the boy was improving rapidly. Then tears--bitter, bitter
tears!--came to his relief, and he sobbed in agony. What had possessed
him? What fiend of anger and hate had entered into him to make him
commit that deed? He was aghast at the atrocious possibilities of his
own nature. He felt as if he could not look in the face of his wife
again, or again venture to take her in his arms. Would she not shrink
from him with horror when she knew? And would not his boy--his little
Jim!--when he grew up (if he ever grew up) be ashamed of the father who
had so dishonoured his name?

"Oh, my God!" he cried in his misery and grief. "Let me bear the utmost
punishment of my sin, but spare them! Punish not the innocent with the
guilty! Let my dear wife and child live in peace and honour before
Thee!"

He could not eat a morsel of breakfast--he had scarcely tasted food or
drink for two whole days--and he could not rest in the lodgings. He
wandered out with his load of misery upon him. He was a man who seldom
read the newspapers, and he did not think of buying one now, nor did it
even occur to him to scan the contents-bills set outside the
newsvendors' shops. He merely wandered on and round, revolving the
horrible business that had brought him so low, and then he wandered back
in the afternoon faint with exhaustion.

When he entered the sitting-room he saw a letter set for him on the
mantelpiece. It was from his friend at Upton, and it declared with
delight that, after the stirring debate on Thursday evening, he (Murray)
had been "unanimously elected" minister. That was the most unlooked-for
stroke of retribution! To think that he had committed his sin--nay, his
crime!--in headlong wantonness! To think that at the very moment when he
had committed it he was being elected to the place which he had believed
the young man had been chosen to fill! Bitter, bitter was his punishment
beginning to be; for, of course, he could not, with the stain of crime
on his soul if not on his hands, accept the place--not even to save his
wife and child from want!

The writer further said that it was desired he (Murray) should occupy
next Sunday the pulpit which was henceforward to be his. What was to be
done? Clearly but one thing: at all costs to occupy the pulpit on Sunday
morning, to lay bare his soul to the people who had "unanimously"
invited him, and to tell them he could never more be minister either
there or elsewhere.

He sat thus with the letter in his hand, when the door opened and his
wife came in with the boy asleep in her arms: he had omitted to write to
her since Wednesday. He rose to his feet, and stood back against the
fire-place.

"Oh, my poor dear!" she cried, when she saw him. "How terribly ill you
look! Why didn't you tell me? I felt there was something wrong with you
when I had no word." She carefully laid the sleeping child on the couch
and returned to embrace her husband.

"Don't, Mary!" said he, keeping her back.

"Oh, James dear!" she said, clasping her hands. "What has gone wrong?
You look worn to death!"

"Everything's gone wrong, Mary!" he answered. "My whole life's gone
wrong!"

"What do you mean?" she asked in breathless terror. "What have you in
your hand?"

He held out to her the letter, and sat down and covered his face.

"Oh, but this is good news, James!" she exclaimed. "You are elected
minister at Upton!"

"I can't go, Mary! I can no longer be minister there or anywhere!"

"James, my darling!" She knelt beside him, and put her arms about him.
"Something has happened to you! Tell me what it is!" But he held his
peace. "Remember, my dear, that we are all the world to each other;
remember that when we were married we said we should never have any
secret from each other! Tell me your trouble, my dear!"

He could not resist her appeal: he told her the whole story.

"My poor, dear love!" she cried. "How terribly tried you have been! And
I did not know it!"

[Illustration: "DON'T, MARY!"]

"And you don't shrink from me, Mary?" said he.

"Shrink from you, my dear husband?" she demanded. "How can you ask me?
Oh, my darling!"

She kissed his hands and his face, and covered him with her love and
wept over him.

They sat in silence for a while, and then he told her what he proposed
to do. She agreed with him that that was the proper thing.

"We must do the first thing that is right, whatever may happen to
ourselves. Write and say that you do not feel you can take more than the
morning service. I'll go with you, and you shall do as you say--and the
rest is with God."

Thus it was arranged. And on Sunday morning they set off together for
Upton, leaving the boy in the care of the landlady. They had no word to
say to each other in the train, but they held close each other's hand.
They avoided greetings, and introductions, and felicitations save from
one or two by keeping close in the vestry till the hour struck, and the
attendant came to usher the minister to the pulpit. He went out and up
the pulpit stairs with a firm step, but his face was very pale, his lips
were parched, and his heart was thumping hard, till he felt as if it
would burst. The first part of the service was gone through, and the
minister rose to deliver his sermon. He gave out his text, "_And Cain
said unto the Lord, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear!'_" and
glanced round upon the congregation, who sat up wondering what was to
come of that. He repeated it, and happening to look down, saw seated
immediately below the pulpit, looking as well and self-satisfied as
usual, the young man whom he had imagined crushed in the tunnel! The
revulsion of feeling was too great; the minister put up his hand to his
head, with a cry something between sob and sigh, tottered, and fell
back!

There was a flutter and a rustle of dismay throughout the congregation.
The minister's wife was up the pulpit stairs in an instant, and she was
followed by the chairman and the young Mr. Lloyd. Between them they
carried the minister down into the vestry, where a few others presently
assembled.

"Will you run for a doctor, Mr. Lloyd?" said the chairman.

Hearing the name "Lloyd," and seeing a man in minister's attire, Mrs.
Murray guessed the truth at once.

"I think," said she, "there is no need for a doctor, my husband has only
fainted. He has been terribly worried all the year, and the last week or
two especially has told on him."

"I thought the other night," said the chairman, "that he looked ill."

"He has not been well since," said she; and she continued, turning to
Mr. Lloyd, "I believe he was the more upset that he thought an accident
had happened to you in the train, Mr. Lloyd."

"Oh," said the young man, "it was nothing. It really served me right for
leaning against a door that was unlatched. I picked myself up all
right."

The chairman and the others stared; they clearly had heard nothing of
that.

"He is coming round," said the wife. "If someone will kindly get me a
cab, I'll take him home."

       *       *       *       *       *

That is the story of the unconfessed crime of the minister of Upton
Chapel, who is to-day known as a gentle, sweet, and somewhat shy man,
good to all, and especially tender and patient with all wrong-doers.

[Illustration]




_At the Children's Hospital._


[Illustration: CONVALESCENT HOME, HIGHGATE.]

"We want to move Johnny to a place where there are none but children; a
place set up on purpose for sick children; where the good doctors and
nurses pass their lives with children, talk to none but children, touch
none but children, comfort and cure none but children."

Who does not remember that chapter in "Our Mutual Friend" in which
Charles Dickens described Johnny's removal--with his Noah's Ark and his
noble wooden steed--from the care of poor old Betty to that of the
Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond-street? Johnny is dead--he
died after bequeathing all his dear possessions, the Noah's Ark, the
gallant horse, and the yellow bird, to his little sick neighbour--and
his large-hearted creator is dead too; but the Hospital in Great
Ormond-street still exists--in a finer form than Dickens knew it--and
still receives sick children to be comforted and cured by its gentle
nurses and good doctors.

And this is how the very first Hospital for Children came to be founded.
Some fifty years ago, Dr. Charles West, a physician extremely interested
in children and their ailments, was walking with a companion along Great
Ormond-street. He stopped opposite the stately old mansion known as No.
49, which was then "to let," and said, "There! That is the future
Children's Hospital. It can be had cheap, I believe, and it is in the
midst of a district teeming with poor." The house was known to the
Doctor as one with a history. It had been the residence of a great and
kindly man--the famous Dr. Richard Mead, Court Physician to Queen Anne
and George the First, and it is described by a chronicler of the time as
a "splendidly-fitted mansion, with spacious gardens looking out into the
fields" of St. Pancras. Another notable tenant of the mansion was the
Rev. Zachary Macaulay, father of Lord Macaulay, and a co-worker with
Clarkson and Wilberforce for the abolition of slavery.

Dr. Charles West pushed his project for turning the house into a
hospital for sick children with such effect that a Provisional Committee
was formed, which held its first recorded meeting on January 30, 1850,
under the presidency of the philanthropic banker Joseph Hoare. As a
practical outcome of these and other meetings, the mansion and grounds
were bought, and the necessary alterations were made to adapt them for
their purpose. A "constitution" also was drawn up--which obtains to this
day--and in that it was set down that the object of the Hospital was
threefold:--"(1) The Medical and Surgical Treatment of Poor Children;
(2) The Attainment and Diffusion of Knowledge regarding the Diseases of
Children; and (3) The Training of Nurses for Children." So, in the
February of 1852--exactly nine-and-thirty years ago--the Hospital for
Sick Children was opened, and visitors had displayed to them the curious
sight of ailing children lying contentedly in little cots in the
splendid apartments still decorated with flowing figures and scrolls of
beautiful blue on the ceiling, and bright shepherds and shepherdesses in
the panels of the walls--rooms where the beaux and belles of Queen Anne
and King George, in wigs and buckle-shoes, in frills and furbelows, had
been wont to assemble; where the kindly Dr. Mead had learnedly discussed
with his brethren, and where Zachary Macaulay had presided at many an
anti-slavery meeting. It was, indeed, a haunted house that the poor sick
children had been carried into--haunted, however, not by hideous spirits
of darkness and crime, but by gentle memories of Christian charity and
loving-kindness.

For some time poor people were shy of the new hospital. In the first
month only eight cots were occupied out of the ten provided, and only
twenty-four out-patients were treated. The treatment of these, however,
soon told upon the people, and by and by more little patients were
brought to the door of the Hospital than could be received. The place
steadily grew in usefulness and popularity, so that in five years 1,483
little people occupied its cots, and 39,300 passed through its
out-patient department. But by 1858 the hearts of the founders and
managers misgave them; for funds had fallen so low that it was feared
the doors of the Hospital must be closed. No doubt the anxious and
terrible events of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny had done much
to divert public attention from the claims of the little folk in 49,
Great Ormond-street, but the general tendency of even kindly people to
run after new things and then to neglect them had done more. It was then
that Charles Dickens stood the true and practical friend of the
Hospital. He was appealed to for the magic help of his pen and his
voice. He wrote about the sick children, and he spoke for them at the
annual dinner of 1858 in a speech so potent to move the heart and to
untie the purse-strings that the Hospital managers smiled again; the
number of cots was increased to 44, two additional physicians were
appointed, and No. 48 was added to No. 49, Great Ormond-street.

From that date the institution prospered and grew, till, in 1869,
Cromwell House, at the top of Highgate-hill (of which more anon) was
opened as a Convalescent Branch of the Hospital, and in 1872 the first
stone of the present building was laid by the Princess of Wales, in the
spacious garden of Number Forty-Nine. The funds, however, were
insufficient for the completion of the whole place, and until 1889 the
Hospital stood with but one wing. Extraordinary efforts were made to
collect money, with the result that last year the new wing was begun on
the site of the two "stately mansions" which had been for years the home
of the Hospital. With all this increase, and the temptation sometimes to
borrow rather than slacken in a good work, the managers have never
borrowed nor run into debt. They have steadily believed in the excellent
advice which Mr. Micawber made a present of to his young friend
Copperfield, "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen
nineteen six: result, happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual
expenditure twenty pounds ought and six: result, misery"; and, as a
consequence, they are annually dependent on the voluntary contributions
of kind-hearted people who are willing to aid them to rescue ailing
little children from "the two grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness."

But, in order to be interested in the work of the Hospital and its
little charges, there is nothing like a personal visit. One bitterly
cold afternoon a little while before Christmas, we kept an appointment
with the courteous Secretary, and were by him led past the uniformed
porter at the great door, and up the great staircase to the little
snuggery of Miss Hicks, the Lady Superintendent. On our way we had
glimpses through glass doors into clean, bright wards, which gave a
first impression at once cheerful and soothing, heightened by contrast
with the heavy black cold that oppressed all life out of doors. By the
Secretary we were transferred to the guidance of Miss Hicks, who has
done more than can here be told for the prosperity of the Hospital and
the completion of the building. She led us again downstairs, to begin
our tour of inspection at the very beginning--at the door of the
out-patients' department. That is opened at half-past eight every
week-day morning, and in troop crowds of poor mothers with children of
all ages up to twelve--babies in arms and toddlekins led by the hand.
They pass through a kind of turnstile and take their seats in the order
of their arrival on rows of benches in a large waiting-room, provided
with a stove, a lavatory, and a drinking-fountain, with an attendant
nurse and a woman to sell cheap, wholesome buns baked in the Hospital;
for they may have to wait all the morning before their turn arrives to
go in to the doctor, who sits from nine to twelve seeing and prescribing
for child after child; and, if the matter is very serious, sending the
poor thing on into the Hospital to occupy one of the cosy cots. All the
morning this stream of sad and ailing mothers and children trickles on
out of the waiting-room into the presence of the keen-eyed, kindly
doctor, out to the window of the great dispensary (which stretches the
whole length of the building) to take up the medicine ordered, on past a
little box on the wall, which requests the mothers to "please spare a
penny," and so out into the street again. There are two such out-patient
departments--one at either end of the great building--and there pass
through them in a year between eighteen and nineteen thousand cases,
which leave grateful casual pennies in the little wall-box to the
respectable amount of £100 a year. It does not need much arithmetic to
reckon that that means no less than 24,000 pence.

[Illustration: DAISY.]

Leaving that lower region (which is, of course, deserted when we view it
in the afternoon) we re-ascend to look at the little in-patients. From
the first ward we seek to enter we are admonished by our own senses to
turn back. We have barely looked in when the faint, sweet odour of
chloroform hanging in the air, the hiss of the antiseptic-spray machine,
and the screens placed round a cot inform us that one of the surgeons is
conducting an operation. The ward is all hushed in silence, for the
children are quick to learn that, when the big, kind-eyed doctor is
putting a little comrade to sleep in order to do some clever thing to
him to make him well, all must be as quiet as mice. There is no more
touching evidence of the trust and faith of childhood than the readiness
with which these children yield themselves to the influence of
chloroform, and surrender themselves without a pang of fear into the
careful hands of the doctor. Sometimes, when an examination or an
operation is over, there is a little flash of resentment, as in the case
of the poor boy who, after having submitted patiently to have his lungs
examined, exclaimed to the doctor, "I'll tell my mother you've been
a-squeezing of me!"

We cross to the other side and enter the ward called after Queen
Victoria. The ward is quiet, for it is one of those set apart for
medical cases. Here the poor mites of patients are almost all lying weak
and ill. On the left, not far from the door, we come upon a pretty and
piteous sight. In a cot roofed and curtained with white, save on one
side, lies a little flaxen-haired girl--a mere baby of between two and
three--named "Daisy." Her eyes are open, but she does not move when we
look at her; she only continues to cuddle to her bosom her brush and
comb, from which, the nurse tells us, she resolutely refuses to be
parted. She is ill of some kind of growths in the throat, and on the
other side of her cot stands a bronchial kettle over a spirit-lamp,
thrusting its long nozzle through the white curtain of the cot to
moisten and mollify the atmosphere breathed by the little patient. While
our artist prepares to make a sketch, we note that the baby's eyes are
fixed on the vapours from the kettle, which are curling and writhing,
and hovering and melting over her. What does she think of them? Do they
suggest to her at all, child though she is, the dimness and evanescence
of that human life which she is thus painfully beginning? Does she
wonder what it all means--her illness, the curling vapour, and the
people near her bed? Poor Daisy! There are scores of children like her
here, and tens of thousands out of doors, who suffer thus for the sins
of society and the sins of their parents. It is possible to pity her and
them without reserve, for they have done nothing to bring these
sufferings on themselves. Surely, then, their parents and society owe it
to them that all things possible should be done to set them in the way
of health.

And much is certainly done in this Hospital for Sick Children. We look
round the ward--and what we say of this ward may be understood to apply
to all--and note how architectural art and sanitary and medical skill
have done their utmost to make this as perfect a place as can be
contrived for the recovery of health. The ward is large and lofty, and
contains twenty-one cots, half of which are for boys and half for girls.
The walls have been built double, with an air space in the midst, for
the sake of warming and ventilation. The inner face of the walls is made
of glazed bricks of various colours, a pleasant shade of green being the
chief. That not only has an agreeable effect, but also ensures that no
infection or taint can be retained--and, to make that surety doubly
sure, the walls are once a month washed down with disinfectants. Every
ward has attached to it, but completely outside and isolated, a small
kitchen, a clothes-room, a bath-room, &c. These are against the several
corners of the ward, and combine to form the towers which run up in the
front and back of the building. Every ward also has a stove with double
open fireplace, which serves, not only to warm the room in the ordinary
way, but also to burn, so to say, and carry away the vitiated air, and,
moreover, to send off warm through the open iron-work surrounding it
fresh air which comes through openings in the floor from ventilating
shafts communicating with the outer atmosphere. That is what
architectural and sanitary art has done for children. And what does not
medical and nursing skill do for them? And tender human kindness, which
is as nourishing to the ailing little ones as mother's milk? It is small
reproach against poor parents to say that seldom do their children know
real childish happiness, and cleanliness, and comfort, till they are
brought into one of these wards. It is in itself an invigoration to be
gently waited upon and fed by sweet, comely young nurses, none of whom
is allowed to enter fully upon her duties till she has proved herself
fond of children and deft to manage them. And what a delight it must be
to have constantly on your bed wonderful picture-books, and on the tray
that slides along the top rails of your cot the whole animal creation
trooping out of Noah's Ark, armies of tin soldiers, and wonderful woolly
dogs with amazing barks concealed in their bowels, or--if you happen to
be a girl--dolls, dressed and undressed, of all sorts and sizes! And,
lastly, what a contrast is all this space, and light, and pure
air--which is never hot and never cold--to the low ceilings and narrow
walls, the stuffiness, and the impurity of the poor little homes from
which the children come. There, if they are unwell only, they cannot but
toss and cry and suffer on their bed, exasperate their hard-worked
mother, and drive their home-coming father forth to drown his sorrows in
the flowing bowl: here they are wrapped softly in a heavenly calm,
ministered to by skilful, tender hands, and spoken to by soft and kindly
voices: so that they wonder, and insensibly are soothed and cease to
suffer. Until he has been in a children's hospital, no one would guess
how thoughtful, and good-tempered, and contented a sick child can be
amid his strange surroundings.

But we linger too long in this ward. With a glance at the chubby,
convalescent boy, "Martin," asleep in his arm-chair before the
fire--whom we leave our artist companion to sketch--we pass upstairs to
another medical ward, which promises to be the liveliest of all; for, as
soon as we are ushered through the door, a cheery voice rings out from
somewhere near the stove:--

"Halloa, man! Ha, ha, ha!"

[Illustration: MARTIN.]

We are instantly led with a laugh to the owner of the voice, who
occupies a cot over against the fire. He is called "Freddy," and he is a
merry little chap, with dark hair, and bright twinkling eyes--so young
and yet so active that he is tethered by the waist to one of the bars at
the head of his bed lest he should fling himself out upon the floor--so
young, and yet afflicted with so old a couple of ailments. He is being
treated for "chronic asthma and bronchitis." He is a child of the slums;
he is by nature strong and merry, and--poor little chap!--he has been
brought to this pass merely by a cold steadily and ignorantly neglected.
Let us hope that "Freddy" will be cured, and that he will become a
sturdy and useful citizen, and keep ever bright the memory of his
childish experience of hospital care and tenderness.

Next to "Freddy" is another kind of boy altogether. He has evidently
been the pet of his mother at home, as he is the pet of the nurses here.
He is sitting up in his cot, playing in a serious, melancholy way with a
set of tea-things. He is very pretty. He has large eyes and a mass of
fair curls, and he looks up in a pensive way that makes the nurses call
him "Bubbles," after Sir John Millais' well-known picture-poster. He has
a knack of saying droll things with an unconscious seriousness which
makes them doubly amusing. He is shy, however, and it is difficult to
engage him in conversation. We try to wake his friendliness by
presenting him with a specimen of a common coin of the realm, but for
some time without effect. For several seconds he will bend his powerful
mind to nothing but the important matter of finding a receptacle for the
coin that will be safe, and that will at the same time constantly
exhibit it to his delighted eye. These conditions being at length
fulfilled, he condescends to listen to our questions.

Does he like being in the Hospital?

"Yes. But I'm goin' 'ome on Kismas Day. My mother's comin' for me."

We express our pleasure at the news. He looks at us with his large,
pensive eyes, and continues in the same low, slow, pensive tone:--

"Will the doctor let me? Eh? Will he let me? I've nearly finished my
medicine. Will I have to finish it all?"

We reluctantly utter the opinion that very likely he will have to
"finish it all" in order to get well enough to go home. And then after
another remark or two we turn away to look at other little patients; but
from afar we can see that the child is still deeply pondering the
question. Presently we hear the slow, pensive voice call:--

"I say!"

We go to him, and he inquires: "Is Kismas in the shops? Eh? Is there
toys and fings?"

We answer that the shops are simply overflowing with Christmas delights,
and again we retire; but by and by the slow, pensive voice again
calls:--

"I say!"

Again we return, and he says: "Will the doctor come to me on Kismas
morning and say, 'Cheer up, Tommy; you're goin' 'ome to-day?' Will he?
Eh?"

Poor little boy! Though the nurses love him, and though he loves his
nurses, he longs for his mother and the "Kismas" joys of home. And
though he looks so healthy, and has only turned three years, he has
incipient consumption, and his "Kismas" must be spent either here or in
the Convalescent Home on the top of Highgate-hill.

[Illustration: CHARLIE, ROBIN, AND CARRIE.]

It is impossible, and needless, to go round all the little beds; it is a
constant tale of children innocently and cheerfully bearing the
punishment of the neglect, the mistakes, or the sins of their parents,
or of society. Here is a mere baby suffering from tuberculosis because
it has been underfed; there, and there, and there are children, boys and
girls--girls more frequently--afflicted with chorea, or St. Vitus'
dance, because their weak nerves have been overwrought, either with
fright at home or in the streets, or with overwork or punishment at
school; and so on, and so on, runs the sad and weary tale. But, before
we leave the ward, let us note one bright and fanciful little picture,
crowning evidence of the kindness of the nurses to the children, and
even of their womanly delight in them. Near the cheerful glow of one of
the faces of the double-faced stove, in a fairy-like bassinette--a
special gift to the ward--sit "Robin" and "Carrie," two babies decked
out as an extraordinary treat in gala array of white frocks and ribbons.
These gala dresses, it must be chronicled, are bought by the nurses' own
money and made in the nurses' own time for the particular and Sunday
decoration of their little charges. On the other side of the stove sits
Charlie, a pretty little fellow, on his bed-sofa.

And so we pass on to the surgical wards; but it is much the same tale as
before. Only here the children are on the whole older, livelier, and
hungrier. We do not wish to harrow the feelings of our readers, so we
shall not take them round the cots to point out the strange and
wonderful operations the surgeons have performed. We shall but note that
the great proportion of these cases are scrofulous of some order or
other--caries, or strumous disease of the bones, or something similar;
and, finally, we shall point out one little fellow, helpless as a dry
twig, but bold as a lion, at least if his words are to be trusted. He
has caries, or decay, of the backbone. He has been operated upon, and he
is compelled to lie flat on his back always without stirring. He could
not have tackled a black-beetle, and yet one visitors' day the father of
his neighbour having somehow offended him he threatened to throw him
"out o' winder," and on another occasion he made his comrades quake by
declaring he would "fetch a big gun, and shoot every man-jack of 'em!"
But, for all his Bombastes vein, he is a patient and stoical little
chap.

[Illustration: EVA.]

There are here altogether 110 cases in five wards (there will be 200
cots when the new wing is finished), and a few infectious fever and
diphtheria cases in an isolated building in the grounds; and the cases
treated and nursed in the course of the year average 1,000. But the most
obstinate cases, we are told, are now sent to Highgate, to keep company
with the convalescents, because of the constant urgency of receiving new
patients into Great Ormond-street. To the top of Highgate-hill,
therefore, to Cromwell House, we make our way the following afternoon.

Frost and fog hang black and cold over densely-peopled London; but, as
we ascend towards Highgate, it brightens, till we reach the top of the
hill, where the air is clear, and crisp, and bracing. No finer spot than
this could have been chosen within the metropolitan boundary for a
convalescent branch of the Children's Hospital.

We are received by Miss Wilson, the Lady Superintendent of Cromwell
House, in her cosy little sitting-room; and, before we set out on our
round of the wards, we sit and hear her relate some of the legends
connected with the noble old house. It is no legend, however, but
historical fact, which connects it with the name of Oliver Cromwell. The
house was built by Cromwell for his daughter, whom he gave in marriage
to General Ireton, and it still bears evidence of the Ireton occupation.
About a house so old and associated with so formidable a name, it must
needs be there are strange stories. Miss Wilson tells us, for instance,
that immediately behind her where she sits is a panel in the wainscot
which was once movable, and which admitted to a secret staircase leading
down to an underground passage communicating with another old mansion
across the way--namely, Lauderdale House, built by an Earl of
Lauderdale, and once tenanted by the famous Nell Gwynne. Moreover,
Cromwell House contains a veritable skeleton closet, from which a
genuine skeleton was taken when the Hospital entered upon occupation. We
are promised that we shall see the outside of the closet, but no more;
because the door has been nailed up.

So we set out on our round of the Wards. It is Thursday, and therefore
there is considerable bustle; for on that day regularly come the
convalescents from Great Ormond-street. They come to stay for from three
to eight weeks, and to run wild in the large garden, and to grow fresh
roses on their cheeks, blown by the fresh air of Highgate-hill. The
average stay is six weeks, though one or two tedious cases of recovery
have been allowed to remain seven months. Difficult cases of scrofula,
however, frequently gain admittance to the Sea-Bathing Infirmary at
Margate.

The first little ward we enter (all the wards are little here: they
contain from ten to a dozen cots) is one of difficult and obstinate
cases. But here, by the fireplace, stands convalescent one of these with
her nurse--a child named "Eva," stout and ruddy, but with her head tied
up. She has had a wonderfully delicate operation performed upon her. She
had what the doctors term a "mastoid abscess" pressing upon her brain in
the neighbourhood of her ear. It was within her skull, that is to say,
but the surgeon cleverly got at it by piercing behind the ear, and so
draining it off through the ear. Some other obstinate "cases" that are
well on the way to recovery are sitting about the room in their little
arm-chairs, playing with toys or reading story picture-books. But
several obstinate ones are so obstinate that they must stay in bed. Here
is one boy who has endured excision of the hip-joint, but who is lively
enough to be still interested in the fortunes of the outside world. He
has a weight hung from his foot to keep him rigidly extended; but, as we
pass, he begs Miss Wilson to raise him for an instant that he may see
the great fire that a comrade by the window has told him is raging
across the way. She yields to his appeal, and carefully lifts him in her
arms. It is only a big fire of brushwood in Waterlow Park, but he
exclaims:--

"Oh! it's as big as a house, ain't it? They'd better get the firemen!"

And down he lies again to think how he should like to see the
fire-engine come dashing up, and to run helter-skelter after it. Poor
boy! There'll be no more running for him in this world!

Close by him is a very interesting personage, a kind of infant Achilles.
That we say, not because of his robust or warlike aspect, but because
disease has found him vulnerable only in the heel. He suffers from what
the doctors call "oscalsus."

Thus we might go round pointing out that this girl has paraplegia, and
that boy empyema; but these "blessed" words would neither instruct, nor
amuse, nor touch the heart. Let us note, however, before we pass on,
that here are two champions in their way: the champion stoic, who
absolutely enjoys being operated upon, and the champion sufferer--the
boy "Cyril"--who has endured almost as many ailments as he has lived
months, but who yet fights them all, with the help of doctor and nurse,
patiently and cheerfully.

[Illustration: CYRIL.]

And so we pass on into the other little wards, and then downstairs into
a sitting-room where the greater number of convalescents are assembled.
This room was probably the dining-room of the mansion in Cromwell's
days, and here, about the table and the fire where the children sit,
must have gathered grave and austere Puritans, and soldiers in clanking
jack-boots from among Cromwell's invincible Ironsides. Over the
fireplace is still to be seen in complete preservation General Ireton's
coat-of-arms, and between the windows are mirrors of the same date. But
we have little more than crossed the threshold when all thought of
Puritans and Ironsides is banished by a cry not unlike the laugh of a
hyena.

Our guide points out to us the utterer of the cry--a little boy sitting
up at the head of a couch against the fireplace. He is one of the very
few children who are afraid of a doctor, and he sees men there so seldom
that every man appears to him a doctor: hence his cry. We consider him
from afar off, so as not to distress him unduly; and we learn that he is
commonly known as "Dotty," partly because he is small and partly because
his wits are temporarily somewhat obscured. His chief affliction,
however, is that he has curiously crooked feet which the surgeon is
trying to set straight. Over against him, on the couch, sits a Boy of
Mystery. He is called "Harry" (there is nothing mysterious about that),
but some months ago he swallowed an old copper coin, which he still
keeps concealed somewhere in his interior. The doctors are puzzled, but
the Boy of Mystery sits unconcerned. With one final glance round and a
word to a girl who is reading "The Nursery Alice" to a younger girl, we
turn away, and the door closes upon the children.

[Illustration: DOTTY AND HARRY.]

But we cannot leave them without a final word to our readers. Of all
possible forms of charitable work there is surely none better or more
hopeful than that which is concerned with children, and especially that
which is anxious about the health of children. More than one-third of
the annual deaths in London are the unnatural deaths of innocent young
folk. "The two grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness," said Dickens in his
famous speech, "who bring these children before you, preside over their
births, rock their wretched cradles, nail down their little coffins,
pile up the earth above their graves." Have we no duty towards them as
fellow-citizens? If we pity their hard condition, and admire the
patience and fortitude with which they endure suffering, then let us
show our pity and our admiration in such practical ways as are open to
us.

[Illustration: THE GARDEN ENTRANCE: CROMWELL HOUSE.]




_Fac-simile of the Notes of a Speech by John Bright._

This month we present our readers with a curiosity--the fac-simile notes
of John Bright's famous speech on Women's Suffrage, in the House of
Commons, April 26, 1876. Mr. J. A. Bright, M.P., to whose kindness we
owe them, believes that no others by his father are extant, so that the
interest of the present is unique. To allow the reader to compare the
speech, as spoken, with the notes, we add an abstract of the _Times_
report next morning.


[Illustration]

Mr. Bright said it was with extreme reluctance that he took part in this
debate.... The Bill seemed to him based on a proposition which was
untenable, and which, he thought, was contradicted by universal
experience. (Cheers.) In fact, it was a Bill based on the assumed
hostility between the sexes. (Hear.) ... Men were represented as ruling
even to the length of tyranny, and women were represented as suffering
injustice even to the length of very degrading slavery. (Hear.) ... This
was not said of women in savage nations, but it was said of women in
general in this civilised and Christian country in which they lived. If
he looked at the population of this country, that which struck him more
than almost anything else was this--that at this moment there were
millions of men at work, sacrificing and giving up their leisure to a
life of sustained hardship, confronting peril in every shape, for the
sake of the sustenance, and the comfort and the happiness of women and
children. (Cheers.) ... The avowed object of this Bill was to enable the
women of this country to defend themselves against a Parliament of men.
(Hear.) ... There might be injustice with regard to the laws which
affected the property of married women; but was there no injustice in
the laws which affected the property of men? Had younger sons no right
to complain? (A laugh.) ... But there was another side to this question.
He would take the question of punishment. There could be no doubt
whatever that, as regards the question of punishment, there was much
greater moderation or mercy dealt out to women than to men. (Hear.) ...
In all cases of punishment judges and juries were always more lenient in
disposition to women than they were to men. He would point out to some
of those ladies who were so excited on this matter, that in cases of
breach of promise of marriage the advantage on their side seemed to be
enormous. (Laughter and cheers.) ... They almost always got a verdict,
and very often, he was satisfied, when they ought not to have got it.
(Laughter.) ... Women servants were not taxed, and men servants were
taxed.... There was an argument which told with many, and that was the
argument of equal rights.... He supposed the country had a right to
determine how it would be governed--whether by one, by few, or by many.
Honourable members told us that unless this Bill passed we should have a
class discontented.... But the great mistake was arguing that women were
a class. (Hear.) Nothing could be more monstrous or absurd than to
describe women as a class. They were not like the class of agricultural
labourers or factory workers. Who were so near the hearts of the
legislators of this country as the members of their own families?
(Cheers.) It was a scandalous and odious libel to say women were a
class, and were therefore excluded from our sympathy, and Parliament
could do no justice in regard to them. (Cheers.) ... Unfortunately for
those who argued about political wrongs, the measure excluded by far the
greatest proportion of women--viz., those who, if there were any special
qualification required for an elector, might be said to be specially
qualified. It excluded married women, though they were generally older,
more informed, and had greater interests at stake. Then it was said that
the Bill was an instalment, that it was one step in the emancipation of
women.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

If that were so, it was very odd that those most concerned in the Bill
did not appear to be aware of it, because last year there was a great
dispute on that matter.... Last year he saw a letter, signed "A Married
Claimant of the Franchise," in a newspaper, who said that a married
woman could not claim to vote as a householder, but why should she not
pay her husband a sum for her lodgings, so as to entitle her to claim
the lodger franchise? (Laughter.) ... If that Bill passed, how would
they contend against further claims? (Hear, hear.) ... And what were
they to say to those women who were to have votes until they married?
The moment the woman householder came out of church or chapel as a wife
her vote would vanish, and her husband would become the elector. (A
laugh.) It seemed to him that if they passed that Bill and went no
further, what Mr. Mill called "the subjection of women" was decreed by
the very measure intended to enfranchise them, and by the very women,
and the very party in that House, who were in favour of that Bill.
(Hear, hear.) Then again, if all men being householders had a right to
be elected, on what principle were women not also to have a right to be
elected? (Hear, hear.) Those who opposed that Bill had a right to ask
these questions, and to have an answer to them. If they were to travel
that path, let them know how far they were going, and to what it led....
If they granted that every woman, married or unmarried, was to have a
vote, the hon. member for Lincolnshire had referred to what would happen
in every house where there was a double vote. If the husband and wife
agreed, it would make no difference in the result of the election; but
if they disagreed, it would possibly introduce discord into every
family; and if there were discord between man and wife, there would
certainly be discord between the children.... In that House they had one
peculiar kind of knowledge--namely, of the penalties they paid for their
constitutional freedom.... Was it desirable to introduce their mothers,
wives, sisters, and daughters to the excitement, the turmoil, and, it
might be, the very humiliation which seemed in every country to attend a
system of Parliamentary representation? (Hear, hear.) Women were more
likely to be tainted in that way than men were. There had been some
instances of it, ever since the Municipal Act gave them votes. He knew a
place in his neighbourhood where scenes of the most shocking kind had
occurred.... In another borough in Lancashire, at an election, women--by
the hundred, he was told--but in great numbers--were seen drunk and
disgraced under the temptation offered them in the fierceness and
unscrupulousness of a political contest.... The hon. member for
Warwickshire had referred to priestly influence. On that he would only
say that the influence of the priest, the parson, and the minister would
be greatly raised if that Bill were passed. (Hear, hear.) ... Well, they
were asked to make that great change and to incur all those risks--for
what? To arm the women of this country against the men of this
country--to defend them against their husbands, their brothers, and
their sons. To him the idea had in it something strange and monstrous;
and he thought that a more baseless case had never been submitted to the
House of Commons. (Hear, hear.) If all men and women voted, the general
result must be the same; for, by an unalterable natural law, strength
was stronger than weakness, and in the end, by an absolute necessity,
men must prevail. He regretted that there should be any measure in
favour of extended suffrage to which he could not give his support; but
women would lose much of what was best in what they now possessed, and
they would gain no good of any sort, by mingling in the contests of the
polling-booths. He should vote for that measure if he were voting solely
in the interests of men; but he would vote against it with perfect
honesty, believing that in so doing he should most serve the interests
of women themselves. An honourable member who voted for the Bill last
year, in a conversation with him the next day, told him that he had very
great doubts in the matter, for he found wherever he went that all the
best women seemed to be against the measure. (Laughter and cheers.) If
the House believed that they could not legislate justly for their
mothers, their wives, their sisters, and their daughters, the House
might abdicate, and might pass that Bill. But he believed that
Parliament could not, unless it were in ignorance, be otherwise than
just to the women of this country, with whom they were so intimately
allied; and with that conviction, and having these doubts--which were
stronger even than he had been able to express--doubts also which had
only become strengthened the more he had considered the subject--he was
obliged--differing from many of those whom he cared for and loved--to
give his opposition to that Bill.

[Illustration]




_A Passion in the Desert._

FROM THE FRENCH OF BALZAC.

     [The greatest of French novelists hardly needs an introduction.
     Innumerable books of recent years have rendered him and his
     peculiarities familiar to the world--his ponderous figure and his
     face like Nero's, his early struggles as a Grub-street hack, his
     garret in the Rue Lesdiguières, his meals of bread and milk at
     twopence-halfpenny a day, his midnight draughts of coffee, his
     everlasting dressing-gown, his eighteen hours of work to five of
     sleep, his innumerable proof-sheets blackened with corrections, his
     debts, his duns, his quarrels with his publishers, his gradual rise
     to affluence and glory, his romantic passion for the Russian
     Countess, his marriage with her after sixteen years of waiting, and
     his death of heart disease just as the land of promise lay before
     him. Balzac, who took all human nature for his theme, and who
     pourtrayed above two thousand men and women, made but one study of
     an animal--a circumstance which gives "A Passion in the Desert" an
     interest all its own.]


"It is a terrible sight!" she exclaimed as we left the menagerie of
Monsieur Martin.

She had just been witnessing this daring showman "performing" in the
cage of his hyena.

"By what means," she went on, "can he have so tamed these animals as to
be secure of their affection?"

"What seems to you a problem," I responded, interrupting her, "is in
reality a fact of nature."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, with an incredulous smile.

"You think, then, that animals are devoid of passions?" I asked her.
"You must know that we can teach them all the qualities of civilised
existence."

She looked at me with an astonished air.

"But," I went on, "when I first saw Monsieur Martin, I confess that,
like yourself, I uttered an exclamation of surprise. I happened to be
standing by the side of an old soldier, whose right leg had been
amputated, and who had come in with me. I was struck by his appearance.
His was one of those intrepid heads, stamped with the seal of war, upon
whose brows are written the battles of Napoleon. About this old soldier
was a certain air of frankness and of gaiety which always gains my
favour. He was doubtless one of those old troopers whom nothing can
surprise; who find food for laughter in the dying spasms of a comrade,
who gaily bury and despoil him, who challenge bullets with
indifference--though their arguments are short enough--and who would
hob-nob with the devil. After keenly looking at the showman as he was
coming from the cage, my neighbour pursed his lips with that significant
expression of contempt which superior men assume to show their
difference from the dupes. At my exclamation of surprise at Monsieur
Martin's courage he smiled, and nodding with a knowing air, remarked, 'I
understand all that.'

"'How?' I answered. 'If you can explain this mystery to me you will
oblige me greatly.'

"In a few moments we had struck up an acquaintance, and went to dine at
the first restaurant at hand. At dessert a bottle of champagne
completely cleared the memory of this strange old soldier. He told his
story, and I saw he was right when he exclaimed, 'I understand all
that.'

[Illustration: "HE TOLD HIS STORY."]

When we got home, she teased me so, and yet so prettily, that I
consented to write out for her the soldier's reminiscences.

The next day she received this episode, from an epic that might be
called "The French in Egypt."

       *       *       *       *       *

During the expedition undertaken in Upper Egypt by General Desaix, a
Provençal soldier, who had fallen into the hands of the Maugrabins, was
taken by these Arabs into the desert beyond the cataracts of the Nile.
In order to put between them and the French army a distance to assure
their safety, the Maugrabins made a forced march, and did not halt till
night. They then camped by the side of a well, surrounded by a clump of
palm trees, where they had before buried some provisions. Never dreaming
that their prisoner would think of flight, they merely bound his hands,
and all of them, after eating a few dates, and giving barley to their
horses, went to sleep. When the bold Provençal saw his enemies incapable
of watching him, he picked up a scimitar with his teeth, and then with
the blade fixed between his knees, cut the cords that lashed his wrists,
and found himself at liberty. He at once seized a carbine and a dagger;
provided himself with some dry dates and a small bag of barley, powder
and balls; girded on the scimitar, sprang on a horse, and pressed
forward in the direction where he fancied the French army must be found.
Impatient to regain the bivouac, he so urged the weary horse, that the
poor beast fell dead, its sides torn with the spurs, leaving the
Frenchman alone in the midst of the desert.

[Illustration: "HE CUT THE CORDS."]

After wandering for some time amidst the sand with the desperate courage
of an escaping convict, the soldier was forced to stop. Night was
closing in. Despite the beauty of the Eastern night he had not strength
sufficient to go on. Fortunately he had reached a height on the top of
which were palm trees, whose leaves, for some time visible far off, had
awakened in his heart a hope of safety. He was so weary that he lay down
on a granite stone, oddly shaped like a camp bed, and went to sleep,
without taking the precaution to protect himself in his slumber. He had
sacrificed his life, and his last thought was a regret for having left
the Maugrabins, whose wandering life began to please him, now that he
was far from them and from all hope of succour.

He was awakened by the sun, whose pitiless rays falling vertically upon
the granite made it intolerably hot. For the Provençal had been so
careless as to cast himself upon the ground in the direction opposite to
that on which the green majestic palm-tops threw their shadow. He looked
at these solitary trees and shuddered! They reminded him of the graceful
shafts surmounted by long foils that distinguish the Saracenic columns
of the Cathedral of Arles. He counted the few palms; and then looked
about him. A terrible despair seized upon his soul. He saw a boundless
ocean. The melancholy sands spread round him, glittering like a blade of
steel in a bright light, as far as eye could see. He knew not whether he
was gazing on an ocean, or a chain of lakes as lustrous as a mirror. A
fiery mist shimmered, in little ripples, above the tremulous landscape.
The sky possessed an Oriental blaze, the brilliancy which brings
despair, seeing that it leaves the imagination nothing to desire. Heaven
and earth alike were all aflame. The silence was terrible in its wild
and awful majesty. Infinity, immensity, oppressed the soul on all sides;
not a cloud was in the sky, not a breath was in the air, not a movement
on the bosom of the sand, which undulated into tiny waves. Far away, the
horizon was marked off, as on a summer day at sea, by a line of light as
bright and narrow as a sabre's edge.

The Provençal clasped his arms about a palm tree as if it had been the
body of a friend; then, sheltered by the straight and meagre shadow, he
sat down weeping on the granite, and looking with deep dread upon the
lonely scene spread out before his eyes. He cried aloud as if to tempt
the solitude. His voice, lost in the hollows of the height, gave forth
far-off a feeble sound that woke no echo; the echo was within his heart!

The Provençal was twenty-two years old. He loaded his carbine.

"Time enough for that!" he muttered to himself, placing the weapon of
deliverance on the ground.

[Illustration: "THE POOR BEAST FELL DEAD."]

Looking by turns at the melancholy waste of sand and at the blue expanse
of sky, the soldier dreamed of France. With delight he fancied that he
smelt the Paris gutters, and recalled the towns through which he had
passed, the faces of his comrades, and the slightest incidents of his
life. Then, his Southern imagination made him fancy in the play of heat
quivering above the plain, the pebbles of his own dear Provence. But
fearing all the dangers of this cruel mirage, he went down in the
direction opposite to that which he had taken when he had climbed the
hill the night before. Great was his joy on discovering a kind of
grotto, naturally cut out of the enormous fragments of granite that
formed the bottom of the hill. The remnants of a mat showed that this
retreat had once been inhabited. Then, a few steps further, he saw palm
trees with a load of dates. Again the instinct which attaches man to
life awoke within his heart. He now hoped to live until the passing of
some Maugrabin; or perhaps he would soon hear the boom of cannon, for at
that time Buonaparte was overrunning Egypt. Revived by this reflection,
the Frenchman cut down a few bunches of ripe fruit, beneath whose weight
the date trees seemed to bend, and felt sure, on tasting this
unhoped-for manna, that the inhabitant of this grotto had cultivated the
palm trees. The fresh and luscious substance of the date bore witness to
his predecessor's care.

The Provençal passed suddenly from dark despair to well-nigh insane
delight. He climbed the hill again; and spent the remainder of the day
in cutting down a barren palm tree, which the night before had served
him for shelter.

A vague remembrance made him think of the wild desert beasts; and,
foreseeing that they might come to seek the spring which bubbled through
the sand among the rocks, he resolved to secure himself against their
visits by placing a barrier at the door of his hermitage. In spite of
his exertions, in spite of the strength with which the fear of being
eaten during sleep endued him, it was impossible for him to cut the palm
to pieces in one day; but he contrived to bring it down. When, towards
evening, the monarch of the desert fell, the thunder of its crash
resounded far, as if the mighty Solitude had given forth a moan. The
soldier shuddered as if he had heard a voice that prophesied misfortune.
But like an heir who does not long bewail the death of a relation, he
stripped the tree of the broad, long, green leaves, and used them to
repair the mat on which he was about to lie. At length, wearied by the
heat and by his labours, he fell asleep beneath the red roof of his
murky grotto.

In the middle of the night he was disturbed by a strange noise. He sat
up; in the profound silence he could hear a creature breathing--a savage
respiration which resembled nothing human. Terror, intensified by
darkness, silence, and the fancies of one suddenly awakened, froze his
blood. He felt the sharp contraction of his scalp, when, as the pupils
of his eyes dilated, he saw in the shadow two faint and yellow lights.
At first he thought these lights were some reflection of his eyeballs,
but soon, the clear brightness of the night helping him to distinguish
objects in the grotto, he saw lying at two paces from him an enormous
beast!

Was it a lion?--a tiger?--a crocodile? The Provençal was not
sufficiently educated to know the species of his enemy, but his terror
was all the greater; since his ignorance assisted his imagination. He
bore the cruel torture of listening, of marking the caprices of this
awful breathing, without losing a sound of it, or venturing to make the
slightest movement. A smell as pungent as a fox's, but more penetrating,
filled the grotto; and when it entered his nostrils his terror passed
all bounds; he could no longer doubt the presence of the terrible
companion whose royal den was serving him for bivouac. Presently the
moon, now sinking, lighted up the den, and in the moon-rays gradually
shone out a panther's spotted skin.

The lion of Egypt was sleeping, curled up like a great dog who is the
peaceable possessor of a sumptuous kennel at a mansion door; its eyes,
which had been opened for one moment, were now closed again. Its face
was turned towards the Frenchman.

[Illustration: "HE CLASPED HIS ARMS ABOUT A PALM TREE."]

A thousand troubled thoughts passed through the mind of the panther's
prisoner. At first he thought of shooting it; but there was not enough
room between them to adjust his gun; the barrel would have reached
beyond the animal. And what if he awoke it! This supposition made him
motionless. Listening in the silence to the beating of his heart, he
cursed the loud pulsations, fearing to disturb the sleep that gave him
time to seek some means of safety. Twice he placed his hand upon his
scimitar, with the intention of cutting off the head of his enemy; but
the difficulty of cutting through the short, strong fur compelled him to
abandon the idea. To fail was certain death. He preferred the odds of
conflict, and determined to await the daybreak. And daylight was not
long in coming. The Frenchman was able to examine the panther. Its
muzzle was stained with blood.

"It has eaten plenty," he reflected, without conjecturing that the feast
might have been composed of human flesh; "it will not be hungry when it
wakes."

It was a female. The fur upon her breast and thighs shone with
whiteness. A number of little spots like velvet looked like charming
bracelets around her paws. The muscular tail was also white, but tipped
with black rings. The upper part of her coat, yellow as old gold, but
very soft and smooth, bore those characteristic marks, shaded into the
form of roses, which serve to distinguish the panther from the other
species of the genus _Felis_. This fearful visitor was snoring
tranquilly in an attitude as graceful as that of a kitten lying on the
cushions of an ottoman. Her sinewy, blood-stained paws, with powerful
claws, were spread beyond her head, which rested on them, and from which
stood out the thin, straight whiskers with a gleam like silver wires.

[Illustration: "THE BEAST BEGAN TO MOVE TOWARDS HIM."]

If she had been imprisoned in a cage, the Provençal would assuredly have
admired the creature's grace, and the vivid contrasts of colour that
gave her garment an imperial lustre; but at this moment he felt his
sight grow dim at her sinister aspect. The presence of the panther, even
sleeping, made him experience the effect which the magnetic eyes of the
serpent are said to exercise upon the nightingale.

In the presence of this danger the courage of the soldier faltered,
although without doubt it would have risen at the cannon's mouth. A
desperate thought, however, filled his mind, and dried up at its source
the chilly moisture which was rolling down his forehead. Acting as men
do who, driven to extremities, at last defy their fate, and nerve
themselves to meet their doom, he saw a tragedy in this adventure, and
resolved to play his part in it with honour to the last.

"Two days ago," he argued with himself, "the Arabs might have killed
me."

Considering himself as good as dead, he waited bravely, yet with
restless curiosity, for the awaking of his enemy.

When the sun shone out, the panther opened her eyes suddenly; then she
spread out her paws forcibly, as if to stretch them and get rid of
cramp. Then she yawned, showing an alarming set of teeth and an
indented, rasp-like tongue. "She is like a dainty lady!" thought the
Frenchman, as he saw her rolling over with a gentle and coquettish
movement. She licked off the blood that stained her paws and mouth, and
rubbed her head with movements full of charm. "That's it! Just beautify
yourself a little!" the Frenchman said, his gaiety returning with his
courage. "Then we must say good-morning." And he took up the short
dagger of which he had relieved the Maugrabins.

At this moment the panther turned her head towards the Frenchman, and
looked at him fixedly, without advancing. The rigidity of those metallic
eyes, and their insupportable brightness, made the Provençal shudder.
The beast began to move towards him. He looked at her caressingly, and
fixing her eyes as if to magnetise her, he let her come close up to him;
then, with a soft and gentle gesture, he passed his hand along her body,
from head to tail, scratching with his nails the flexible vertebræ that
divide a panther's yellow back. The beast put up her tail with pleasure;
her eyes grew softer; and when for the third time the Frenchman
accomplished this self-interested piece of flattery, she broke into a
purring like a cat. But this purr proceeded from a throat so deep and
powerful that it re-echoed through the grotto like the peals of a
cathedral organ. The Provençal, realising the success of his caresses,
redoubled them, until the imperious beauty was completely soothed and
lulled.

When he felt sure that he had perfectly subdued the ferocity of his
capricious companion, whose hunger had been satisfied so cruelly the
night before, he got up to leave the grotto. The panther let him go; but
when he had climbed the hill, she came bounding after him with the
lightness of a sparrow hopping from branch to branch, and rubbed herself
against the soldier's leg, arching her back after the fashion of a cat.
Then looking at her guest with eyes whose brightness had grown less
inflexible, she uttered that savage cry which naturalists have compared
to the sound of a saw.

"What an exacting beauty!" cried the Frenchman, smiling. He set himself
to play with her ears, to caress her body, and to scratch her head hard
with his nails. Then, growing bolder with success, he tickled her skull
with the point of his dagger, watching for the spot to strike her. But
the hardness of the bones made him afraid of failing.

The sultana of the desert approved the action of her slave by raising
her head, stretching her neck, and showing her delight by the quietness
of her attitude. The Frenchman suddenly reflected that in order to
assassinate this fierce princess with one blow he need only stab her in
the neck. He had just raised his knife for the attempt, when the
panther, with a graceful action, threw herself upon the ground before
his feet, casting him from time to time a look in which, in spite of its
ferocity of nature, there was a gleam of tenderness.

The poor Provençal, with his back against a palm tree, ate his dates,
while he cast inquiring glances, now towards the desert for deliverers,
now upon his terrible companion, to keep an eye upon her dubious
clemency. Every time he threw away a date-stone, the panther fixed her
eyes upon the spot with inconceivable mistrust. She scrutinised the
Frenchman with a business-like attention; but the examination seemed
favourable, for when he finished his poor meal, she licked his boots,
and with her rough, strong tongue removed the dust incrusted in their
creases.

"But when she becomes hungry?" thought the Provençal.

Despite the shudder this idea caused him, the soldier began examining
with curiosity the proportions of the panther, certainly one of the most
beautiful specimens of her kind. She was three feet high and four feet
long, without the tail. This powerful weapon, as round as a club, was
nearly three feet long. The head--large as that of a lioness--was
distinguished by an expression of rare delicacy; true, the cold cruelty
of the tiger dominated, but there was also a resemblance to the features
of a wily woman. In a word, the countenance of the solitary queen wore
at this moment an expression of fierce gaiety, like that of Nero flushed
with wine; she had quenched her thirst in blood, and now desired to
play.

The soldier tried to come and go, and the panther let him, content to
follow him with her eyes, but less after the manner of a faithful dog
than of a great Angora cat, suspicious even of the movements of its
master. When he turned round he saw beside the fountain the carcase of
his horse; the panther had dragged the body all that distance. About
two-thirds had been devoured. This sight reassured the Frenchman. He was
thus easily able to explain the absence of the panther, and the respect
which she had shown for him while he was sleeping.

This first piece of luck emboldened him about the future. He conceived
the mad idea of setting up a pleasant household life, together with the
panther, neglecting no means of pacifying her and of conciliating her
good graces. He returned to her, and saw, to his delight, that she moved
her tail with an almost imperceptible motion. Then he sat down beside
her without fear, and began to play with her; he grasped her paws, her
muzzle, pulled her ears, threw her over on her back, and vigorously
scratched her warm and silky sides. She let him have his way, and when
the soldier tried to smooth the fur upon her paws she carefully drew in
her claws, which had the curve of a Damascus blade. The Frenchman, who
kept one hand upon his dagger, was still thinking of plunging it into
the body of the too-confiding panther; but he feared lest she should
strangle him in her last convulsions. And besides, within his heart
there was a movement of remorse that warned him to respect an
inoffensive creature. It seemed to him that he had found a friend in
this vast desert. Involuntarily he called to mind a woman whom he once
had loved, whom he sarcastically had nicknamed "Mignonne," from her
jealousy, which was so fierce that during the whole time of their
acquaintance he went in fear that she would stab him. This memory of his
youth suggested the idea of calling the young panther by this name,
whose lithe agility and grace he now admired with less terror.

Towards evening he had become so far accustomed to his perilous
position, that he almost liked the hazard of it. At last his companion
had got into the habit of looking at him when he called in a falsetto
voice "Mignonne."

At sun-down Mignonne uttered several times a deep and melancholy cry.

"She has been properly brought up," thought the light-hearted soldier;
"she says her prayers!" But it was, no doubt, her peaceful attitude
which brought the jest into his mind.

"All right, my little pet; I will let you get to sleep first," he said,
relying on his legs to get away as soon as she was sleeping, and to seek
some other shelter for the night.

The soldier waited with patience for the hour of flight, and when it
came, set out full speed in the direction of the Nile. But he had only
gone a quarter of a league across the sand when he heard the panther
bounding after him, uttering at intervals that saw-like cry, more
terrible even than the thudding of her leaps.

[Illustration: "HE BEGAN TO PLAY WITH HER."]

"Well!" he said to himself, "she must have taken a fancy to me. Perhaps
she has never yet met anyone. It is flattering to be her first love!" At
this moment the Frenchman fell into a shifting quicksand, so dangerous
to the traveller in the desert, escape from which is hopeless. He felt
that he was sinking; he gave a cry of terror. The panther seized him by
the collar with her teeth, and springing backwards with stupendous
vigour drew him from the gulf as if by magic.

"Ah! Mignonne!" cried the soldier, enthusiastically caressing her, "we
are friends now for life and death. But no tricks, eh?" and he retraced
his steps.

Henceforth the desert was as though it had been peopled. It contained a
being with whom he could converse, and whose ferocity had been softened
for him, without his being able to explain so strange a friendship.

[Illustration: "HE GAVE A CRY OF TERROR."]

However great was his desire to keep awake and on his guard, he fell
asleep. On awakening, Mignonne was no longer to be seen. He climbed the
hill, and then perceived her afar off, coming along by leaps and bounds,
according to the nature of these creatures, the extreme flexibility of
whose vertebræ prevents their running.

Mignonne came up, her jaws besmeared with blood. She received the
caresses of her companion with deep purrs of satisfaction. Her eyes, now
full of softness, were turned, with even greater tenderness than the
night before, to the Provençal, who spoke to her as to a pet.

"Ah! Beauty! you are a respectable young woman, are you not? You like
petting, don't you? Are you not ashamed of yourself? You have been
eating a Maugrabin! Well! they're animals, as you are. But don't you go
and gobble up a Frenchman. If you do, I shall not love you!"

She played as a young pup plays with its master, letting him roll her
over, beat and pet her; and sometimes she would coax him to caress her
with a movement of entreaty.

A few days passed thus. This companionship revealed to the Provençal the
sublime beauties of the desert. From the moment when he found within it
hours of fear and yet of calm, a sufficiency of food, and a living
creature who absorbed his thoughts, his soul was stirred by new
emotions. It was a life of contrasts. Solitude revealed to him her
secrets, and involved him in her charm. He discovered in the rising and
the setting of the sun a splendour hidden from the world of men. His
frame quivered when he heard above his head the soft whirr of a bird's
wings--rare wayfarer; or when he saw the clouds--those changeful,
many-coloured voyagers--mingle in the depth of heaven. In the dead of
night he studied the effects of the moon upon the sea of sand, which the
simoon drove in ever-changing undulations. He lived with the Oriental
day; he marvelled at its pomp and glory; and often, after having watched
the grandeur of a tempest in the plain, in which the sands were whirled
in dry red mists of deadly vapour, he beheld with ecstasy the coming on
of night, for then there fell upon him the benignant coolness of the
stars. He heard imaginary music in the sky. Solitude taught him all the
bliss of reverie. He spent whole hours in calling trifles to
remembrance, in comparing his past life with his strange present. To his
panther he grew passionately attached, for he required an object of
affection. Whether by a strong effort of his will he had really changed
the character of his companion, or whether, thanks to the constant
warfare of the deserts, she found sufficient food, she showed no
disposition to attack him, and at last, in her perfect tameness, he no
longer felt the slightest fear.

He spent a great part of his time in sleeping, but ever, like a spider
in its web, with mind alert, that he might not let deliverance escape
him, should any chance to pass within the sphere described by the
horizon. He had sacrificed his shirt to make a flag, which he had
hoisted to the summit of a palm-tree stripped of leaves. Taught by
necessity, he had found the means to keep it spread by stretching it
with sticks, lest the wind should fail to wave it at the moment when
the hoped-for traveller might be travelling the waste of sand.

It was during the long hours when hope abandoned him that he amused
himself with his companion. He had learnt to understand the different
inflexions of her voice, and the expression of her glances; he had
studied the varying changes of the spots that starred her robe of gold.
Mignonne no longer growled, even when he seized her by the tuft with
which her terrible tail ended, to count the black and white rings which
adorned it, and which glittered in the sun like precious gems. It
delighted him to watch the delicate soft lines of her snowy breast and
graceful head. But above all when she was gambolling in her play he
watched her with delight, for the agility, the youthfulness of all her
movements filled him with an ever-fresh surprise. He admired her
suppleness in leaping, climbing, gliding, pressing close against him,
swaying, rolling over, crouching for a bound. But however swift her
spring, however slippery the block of granite, she would stop short,
without motion, at the sound of the word "Mignonne!"

One day, in the most dazzling sunshine, an enormous bird was hovering in
the air. The Provençal left his panther to examine this new visitor; but
after waiting for a moment the deserted sultana uttered a hoarse growl.

"Blessed if I don't believe that she is jealous!" he exclaimed,
perceiving that her eyes were once more hard and rigid. "A woman's soul
has passed into her body, that is certain!"

The eagle disappeared in air, while he admired afresh the rounded back
and graceful outlines of the panther. She was as pretty as a woman. The
blonde fur blended in its delicate gradations into the dull white colour
of the thighs. The brilliant sunshine made this vivid gold, with spots
of brown, take on a lustre indescribable. The Provençal and the panther
looked at one another understandingly; the beauty of the desert quivered
when she felt the nails of her admirer on her skull. Her eyes gave forth
a flash like lightning, and then she closed them hard.

"She _has_ a soul," he cried, as he beheld the desert queen in her
repose, golden as the sands, white as their blinding lustre, and, like
them, fiery and alone.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Well?" she said to me, "I have read your pleading on behalf of animals.
But what was the end of these two persons so well made to understand
each other?"

[Illustration: "I PLUNGED MY DAGGER INTO HER NECK."]

"Ah! They ended as all great passions end--through a misunderstanding.
Each thinks the other guilty of a falsity, each is too proud for
explanation, and obstinacy brings about a rupture."

"And sometimes in the happiest moments," she said, "a look, an
exclamation, is enough! Well, what was the end of the story?"

"That is difficult to tell, but you will understand what the old fellow
had confided to me, when, finishing his bottle of champagne, he
exclaimed, 'I don't know how I hurt her, but she turned on me like mad,
and with her sharp teeth seized my thigh. The action was not savage; but
fancying that she meant to kill me I plunged my dagger into her neck.
She rolled over with a cry that froze my blood; she looked at me in her
last struggles without anger. I would have given everything on earth,
even my cross--which then I had not won--to bring her back to life. It
was as if I had slain a human being. And the soldiers who had seen my
flag, and who were hastening to my succour, found me bathed in tears.

"'Well, sir,' he went on, after a moment's silence, 'since then I have
been through the wars in Germany, Spain, Russia, France; I have dragged
my carcase round the world; but there is nothing like the desert in my
eyes! Ah! it is beautiful--superb.'

"'What did you feel there?' I inquired of him.

"'Oh! that I cannot tell you. Besides, I do not always regret my
panther, and my clump of palm-trees. I must be sad at heart for that.
But mark my words. In the desert, there is everything and there is
nothing.'

"'Explain yourself.'

"'Well!' he continued, with a gesture of impatience, 'it is God without
man.'"




BARAK HAGEB AND HIS WIVES

[Illustration: A STORY FOR CHILDREN, FROM THE HUNGARIAN OF MORITZ
JOKAÏ.]

     [Moritz Jokaï, the most popular of Hungarian writers living, was
     born at Kormorn, in 1825. His father, who was a lawyer, intended
     Moritz for the same profession, and at twelve years old the boy
     began to drive a quill. But his ambition was to be a painter and an
     author. Often, after office hours, he would write or paint in his
     own room till day was breaking. His pictures turned out
     failures--though he still makes dashing sketches, full of life and
     colour--but his writings met with a peculiar stroke of luck. One
     day his master lighted on a bundle of his papers, looked into them,
     and was amazed to find his clerk a man of genius. He took the
     papers to a printer, and had them printed at his own expense. The
     book caught the public fancy, and Moritz, who was now an orphan,
     took the counsel of his friendly master, and turned from his
     engrossing to write tales and plays. At the age of twenty-three he
     married Rosa Laborfabri, the greatest of Hungarian actresses--a
     step for which his family discarded him, but to which, a year
     afterwards, he owed his life. The Revolution broke upon the
     country; Moritz drew his sword to strike a blow for liberty, was
     present at the surrender of Villagos, was taken prisoner, and was
     sentenced to be shot. On the eve of the execution his wife arrived
     from Pesth; she had sold her jewels to raise money, with which she
     bribed the guards, and the pair escaped into the woods of Buk,
     where for some time, in danger of their lives, they lurked in caves
     and slept on heaps of leaves. Thence they stole to Pesth, where
     they have ever since resided--in summer, in a pretty house, half
     buried in its vines and looking from a rising ground across the
     roofs and steeples of the grand old city; in winter, in a house
     within the town, where Jokaï writes among his books and pictures in
     a room ablaze with flowers. His works amount to some two hundred
     volumes; indeed, the modern literature of Hungary is almost wholly
     his creation; and in everything he writes his original and striking
     gifts are visible, whether it be a novel in five volumes, or the
     slightest of amusing trifles, like "Barak Hageb and his Wives."]


Barak Hageb had no less than three hundred and sixty-five wives; one for
every day in the year. How he managed in leap year with one wife short,
remains for ever a mystery.

But you are not, therefore, to suppose that Barak was a Sultan; he was
only High Chamberlain--as the title Hageb shows--at the court of Sultan
Mahmoud.

Barak had come into the land in the first instance as ambassador from
the great empire of Mongolia, and the Regent, the widow of the late
Sultan, who was still a young woman, had entrusted everything to him.
Mahmoud was as yet no more than a child.

Barak governed as he thought fit. It was a very thrifty rule. He
introduced that reform in the army by which the soldier's pay was
reduced from four half-pennies to three; for he declared that three was
a sacred number, if only because there had been three Prophets.

One day the Grand Vizier Darfoor Ali came to visit the worthy Barak
Hageb, and while they sipped their coffee the guest spoke: "Verily,"
said he, "it is a piece of folly quite unworthy of you to keep so many
wives. If, indeed, it were the custom with us, as among the Franks, to
give wives for nothing, or even on occasion to pay a dowry to the
husband, I should have nothing to say to it, for you would be richer
than King Croesus. But among us the world is topsy-turvy; we buy our
wives, and generally pay money down. You have squandered vast sums in
this way. If it had been your own money it would have mattered nothing.
But it is the nation's money that you have spent to buy more and more
wives--that is where the mischief lies. A hundred warriors could be
placed in the field for the price of one of your wives."

"Very true; but would a hundred warriors afford me greater pleasure than
one beautiful woman?" replied Barak, with profound wisdom. And Ali was
obliged in his soul to admit that he was right.

However, he objected to the multiplicity of wives, saying: "Everyone may
gather as many flowers in the garden of the world as he possibly can.
This the Prophet allows, and you might have collected every variety:
fair and dark, pale and black, blue-eyed and green-eyed women, yellow
Chinese and tawny Malays, and, for aught I care, women who dye their
hair red and their teeth black; still, I think that one specimen of each
would have been enough. By Allah! Why, you could not even repeat the
names of all your wives, or the use they are to you."

[Illustration: "I WILL ENUMERATE THEM ALL."]

"You are quite mistaken," replied Barak Hageb. "I will enumerate them
all in order. First, there is Ildibah, who can prophesy, and is
indispensable to the fate of the country; then there is Hafitem, a
ghost-seer, who calls up the spirits of the dead; Nourmahal, who
understands the language of birds better than I understand yours;
Alpaida, who tells tales which would send even a Sultan to sleep; and
Mahaderi and Assinta, who dance a _pas de deux_ to perfection. As to
Mangora, she makes cakes fit for a King, and Sandabad prepares such a
miraculous sherbet that when you have drunk it, it makes you sad to wipe
your moustache. Via Hia, my Chinese wife, has a way of arranging
cock-fights which are more amusing than a battle; and Haka, the Hindoo,
can subjugate wild beasts, and tame even lions to harness to her
chariot. Roxana is an astrologer, and can tell you the day of your
death; Aysha understands the culture of flowers; Kaika to be sure is
hideous, but to this peculiarity she adds the power of rubbing the gout
out of my limbs. Jarko, my Tartar wife, is an accomplished horsewoman,
and teaches the others to ride. Abuzayda, who is highly educated, writes
the letters I dictate to her; Josa reads to me out of the Koran; Rachel
sings psalms, in which she is assisted by Kadigaval and Samuza, for a
man of any position at all must have a trio. Of Tukinna I need only say
that she is a rope-dancer, while Zibella can cast a knife with such
precision as to divide a human hair at twelve paces. Barossa is skilled
in medicine, Aliben embroiders in gold, Alaciel binds my turban
admirably, and Khatum of Bagdad interprets my most interesting dreams.
Mavola plays the harp, Zebra the tom-tom, and Hia the tambourine, a
quite celestial harmony. Ah, and then Sichem----"

The Grand Vizier had begun by counting the list of ladies on his
fingers, and then on his toes; but when the number already exceeded
thirty, he cried "Hold, enough!" for he began to fear that he should
remain all night, and still that his friend would not have done.

"Well, well," he broke in, "I have heard enough. No doubt you require
all the three hundred and sixty-five. Each of them has her admirable
side, but beware lest some day the bad side should be turned outwards."

And the Grand Vizier was right, as we shall see in the sequel.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sultan Sidi Ahmed, of Herman, the ruler of an adjacent State, had
received information that the people in Mahmoud's territory were
ill-content, and he determined to set the oppressed free. To cure the
diseases of his neighbour was in all ages a favourite undertaking with
every Oriental Sovereign.

Sidi Ahmed was master of a vast army. Some Persian writers affirm that
he had ten thousand soldiers, while other historians estimate them as at
least a hundred thousand. Something between the two is probably nearer
the truth. He had three hundred horsemen; that much is certain.

Before declaring war, the Sultan raised his soldiers' pay from four
halfpennies to five. This announcement fired the whole army with
enthusiasm. At the head of the troops was the Sultan himself. He and his
horse were a blaze of jewels, a sight which filled his bare-foot troops
with honest pride. The most costly delicacies were carried in his train,
and the thought that he alone would feast on these dainties brought
great consolation to the hungry warriors.

Mahmoud, too, fitted out a great army; of how many men history does not
tell, but at any rate they were twice as many as the enemy could put
into the field. The Grand Vizier Darfoor Ali led them in person.

[Illustration: ILDIBAH PROPHESIES.]

On the eve of the first battle one of Barak's wives, the above-named
Ildibah, foretold that the neighbouring realm would be brought to
nought; and the lady Roxana, who was also a soothsayer, solemnly
declared that on the morrow Sidi Ahmed must die. Barak Hageb had these
prophecies proclaimed in the capital, and the enthusiasm was soon
general. Barak himself was firmly convinced that both would be
fulfilled; he and all his wifely following took up a position next day
on a hill overlooking the field of battle, whence they could enjoy the
delightful prospect of the enemy's defeat.

The struggle began at daybreak, but it did not last long. The historians
before quoted, or rather alluded to, differ widely in their accounts.
Persian chroniclers assert that Mahmoud's army lost forty-five thousand
men, and that the enemy only left three for dead; another writer, on the
contrary, says that Mahmoud's troops lost not even a slipper, much less
the man belonging thereto, while the dead on the other side may be
reckoned in round numbers at thirty-three thousand. In this case,
again, perhaps the truth lies between the two. But by fairly trustworthy
accounts the worthy Mahmoud's army--the men whose pay had been so
liberally reduced--at the first onslaught took to their heels, seizing
the opportunity of showing that no one could catch them up. What wonder?
Who would care to sell his life for three halfpence? Sidi Ahmed's troops
thereupon announced that they were masters of the field, and their first
business was to plunder the villages in the neighbourhood, at that time
a favourite way of setting a people free.

[Illustration: "A TALL WARRIOR RODE FORTH."]

"By the beard of the Prophet!" cried Barak Hageb, as he saw his
countrymen take to flight, "I almost fancy that Ildibah's prophecy will
not be fulfilled; on the contrary, our side seems to be losing."

"Patience," said Ildibah, to comfort him, "the sun has not yet sunk in
the sea."

This observation was true, no doubt, yet did Barak Hageb tarry no longer
to philosophise, but set spurs into his horse and rode away. His wives
followed his example.

Sidi Ahmed, the conqueror, had heard many fine things about the fabulous
wealth of Barak Hageb, and more especially about his choice collection
of wives; and when he was told that Barak and his women had taken to
flight he thought he could not do better than start at once in pursuit.
Till late at night two clouds of dust might be discerned scudding along
one behind the other: the foremost raised by Barak and his wives, the
second by Sidi Ahmed's horsemen.

"By the apron of the Prophet's wife!" Barak growled, "Roxana's
prognostications have not proved true. It is I who shall be a dead man
this day, and not Sidi Ahmed."

"The stars are not yet risen," replied the sage Roxana, and she added:
"But there, by that tank, we will rest awhile. There you can perform
your evening ablutions. Leave the rest to us."

But never had Barak so little enjoyed his bath.

       *       *       *       *       *

The women meanwhile were plotting a stratagem. They cut off the horses'
tails and made themselves false beards, so that they looked quite
terrible. They cut bamboo canes in the neighbouring thicket, and
fastened their dainty little daggers to the end of them; thus they
contrived excellent lances. When Barak Hageb returned from his evening
devotions, instead of his troop of docile wives, he found an army of
bearded warriors! He started, for they really looked very dreadful.

Jarko the Tartar and Zibella the Indian commanded the light cavalry; and
on this occasion the wonder was wrought, that one woman would obey
another's orders. To be sure, the times were evil.

The little army formed in three divisions, and awaited the enemy's
onslaught. Sidi Ahmed came rushing on in hot haste. But when he saw this
force, with beards flowing down to their stirrup-irons, his heart sank
into the depths of his baggy pantaloons. Before he had quite recovered
from the shock, a tall warrior rode forth and called to him: "Sidi
Ahmed! if you are not a coward, come out and try your strength with me
in single combat."

This hero was Zibella, so greatly skilled in casting the knife. Nor did
her cunning betray her. She flung her javelin, and Sidi Ahmed was that
instant a dead man; he had not time to drop from his horse.

[Illustration: "HE HAD NOT TIME TO DROP FROM HIS HORSE."]

The rest of the Amazons, under the command of Jarko, now pressed on the
enemy. But Sidi Ahmed's followers did not like the look of things. Five
halfpence are indeed a handsome sum, but even for such a guerdon as this
a man will not give his skin to be punctured _ad libitum_. So each man
flung his shield over his back, which he turned on the adversary, and
the horsemen fled as fast as feet could carry them, shouting as they
went: "The Tartars are on us, the barbarians are at our heels! Ten
thousand--twenty thousand--a hundred thousand fighting men have risen up
to protect Barak Hageb! Ride for your lives--ride! The Tartars shoot
with lightnings!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Now you see that my prophecy is fulfilled!" said Roxana to Barak Hageb.
"Sidi Ahmed lies dead before you."

"And mine, too, will yet come true," said Ildibah. "Our enemy's realm
will perish. Let us hasten to Kerman!"

So they cut off the dead Sultan's head, and set it on a lance. With this
badge of victory they rode in triumph to Kerman, their followers
increasing from hour to hour. The soldiers who had ran away came out of
their hiding-places, and joined the array, so that it was a large force
by the time they crossed the frontier. The gates of the towns were flung
open joyfully, for every one was now ready to say that Sidi Ahmed had,
in truth, been a tyrant, and Barak Hageb was hailed as a deliverer, and
was finally proclaimed as Sultan.

This conclusion, which is so strange that no one will believe this
history, though it is the literal truth, happened in the year after the
flight of the Prophet 612.




Transcriber's Notes:


Italics are represented with _underscores_.

Added table of contents.

This text version represents oe ligatures as "oe." The HTML edition
contains proper ligature characters.

Some inconsistent punctuation (semi-colons sometimes inside, sometimes
outside quotes) retained from the original.

Some inconsistent spelling (practice vs. practise, etc.) retained from
the original.

Retained inconsistent hyphenation (river-side vs. riverside, etc.).

Rejoined split image captions (e.g. "_From a_] AGE 4. [_Miniature._"
becomes "AGE 4. _From a Miniature._")

Page 126, changed "culpit" to "culprit."

Page 130, added missing quotes around paragraph beginning "I could only
wait until his return."

Page 133, added missing quote after "I only made things worse."

Page 136, changed "con-dence" to "confidence."

Page 138, added missing close quote to image caption.

Page 140, added missing quote before "There is no danger."

Page 155, removed unnecessary quote after "At eight-and-thirty 'Stones
of Venice' had appeared."

Page 164, added missing period to "Fig. 2."

Page 174, changed apostrophe to comma after "brusquely;" added missing
close quote to image caption.

Page 177, changed "as a few feet distant" to "at a few feet distant."

Page 178, added missing quotes around Fussie in "whether Fussie came by
road or rail."

Page 179, changed "every body" to "everybody."

Page 183, changed "Residencz" to "Residenz."

Page 188, changed "walk up down" to "walk up and down."

Page 203, added missing period at end of page.

Page 212, changed "the the solitude" to "the solitude."

Page 223, added missing quote after "our side seems to be losing."





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